Mary Caroline Rosebrugh
ID # 346, (1832-1896)
| Father | Thomas Rosebrugh |
| Mother | Joanna Sands Mulholland |
| Birth | Mary Caroline Rosebrugh was born on 28 December 1832. |
| Marriage | She married Melvin C. Moe, son of Henry Moe and Teressa M. Coleman, on 14 August 1850 at Dumfries Township. The Ontario Register Vol. 5, 1981, p194: Marriage Notices from the Christian Register, 14 Aug. 1850, On 25 July, Melvin Moe and Mary Caroline Rosebrugh, both of Dumfries (Rev. H. Biggar). By this date, North and South Dumfries would have come into existance. The marriage could have been in either. Branchton is a possibility. |
| Death | She died on 30 August 1896 at Portland, Oregon, at age 63. |
| Note | The Rosebrughs were prominent and fairly early settlers in what was later South Dumfries Township. Mary's father was Thomas Rosebrugh. Mary's mother Joanna Sands Mulholland married a second time to a Joseph Lyons of East Flamborough on 27 October 1844. From the time of the 1870 U.S. census, Mary was living in Rochester, Minnesota, with her mother Joanna Lyons and her half sister Emily Lyons. Mary and Emily were residing together in Rochester as late as the 1885 Minnesota State Census. At the time of the 1861 census in Ontario, Melvin is with his sister Minerva Jane and her husband Israel Evans in Chatham. There, he is shown as a stone cutter and single. This latter piece of information could well have been an enumerator's error. Mary is shown as living in Preston with A.M. Rosbrugh, doctor of medicine. He was Mary's brother. He is shown as age 25 and she as age 28. She is also shown as married. Why Melvin was in Chatham at this time and Mary in Preston isn't known. He may simply have been working in Chatham at the time or they may have been separated. The 1861 census at Chatham is the last record found for Melvin to date and his place of death or burial is not known. Mary appears in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. censuses living in Rochester, Minnesota. She is in the same household as her mother Johanna Lyons. Mary was one of the younger children of a large family. Her father was Thomas Rosebrugh (Oct. 8, 1795 - March 4, 1842). He married Joanna Sands Mulholland on 27 March 1820. Joanna remarried on October 27, 1844, to Joseph Lyons of East Flamborough by licence, by Rev. Kerr. The witnesses were Oliver P. Knox and William Rosebrugh. William was likely the William that was Joanna's eldest son and brother of Mary. Emily Lyons, a half sister to Mary, was born in Canada in 1848. We do not find the Lyons family in the 1851 or 1861 census in Canada, nor in the U.S. 1850 and 1860 census. They are in Rochester, Minnesota, by the time of the U.S. 1870 census. Emily is present at Rochester with her mother and sister in the 1880 census. She is believed to be the Emily Lyons, music teacher, in Portland, Oregon, in the 1910 census. In 1920 she is in Riverdale, Oregon, and retired and the information indicates that she came to the U.S. in 1870. There is some evidence that Emily Lyons died 24 March 1923 in Portland. It would seem that in the 1870 and 1880 U.S. censuses, Mary gave her age as being considerably younger than she really was. A note regarding Mary Rosebrugh Moe's presence in Preston in the 1861 census: She is shown with A.M. Rosebrugh. This is her brother, full name Abner Mulholland Rosebrugh. He married Ellen Reeve in Toronto in 1865 and died there in 1914. His obituaries, appearing in the 27 November 1914 editions of the Toronto Globe and Star, are interesting. He was a noted eye surgeon, prison reformer, and inventor. Vol. 12, Obituaries From the Christian Guardian, 1896-1900, by Donald A. McKenzie, Global Heritage Press, 2013, has on page 285 an obituary for Mary from the October 21, 1896 issue of the Christian Guardian. It states that her husband 'Dr.' Melvin Moe died many years previously (our best information is that Melvin was a stone cutter.) It states that after Melvin's death she lived for a time on Toronto and was active in the Richmond Street Methodist Church. In later years, she lived in Rochester, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon, dying there on August 30, 1896. |
| Last Edited | 20 Apr 2018 |