Jonathan Wait
ID # 3904, (1774-1859)
| Birth | Jonathan Wait was born on 25 October 1774. |
| Marriage | He married Martha Smith. |
| Death | He died on 27 January 1859 at age 84. |
| Burial | He was buried at St. George Cemetery, South Dumfries Twp.. |
| Note | For the present, sources such as we have for the Wait family are limited, but useful. We begin with A History of the People of Troy, September 1947, The Women's Institute of Troy, Ontario, page 31, The Wait Tree, the first paragraph of which reads: Jonathan Wait of New York State served in the American Army in the War of 1812-14 and had a son killed in that war. He came to S. Dumfries in 1821 and settled on Lot 1, Con. 3. He had nine children - 1. Samuel. 2. Jeremiah. 3. Jonathan (Jr). 4. Harvey. 5. Smith. 6. Lucy. 7. Polly. 8 Hannah. 9. Huldah. (Unquote) (We have yet to identify Polly and Hannah.) The remainder of the 1947 history deals with Jeremiah Wait and his family and will be referred to. It does mention, however, that he, Jeremiah, settled on Lot C of the 3rd concession. This is in what is known as the Gore of Beverly. The 1947 history does mainly deal with settlers in Beverly, but Troy in Beverly and St. George in South Dumfries are linked by present day King's Highway nbr. 5. This is also the 3rd concession. The concessions of Dumfries and Beverly are contiguous, the lots in Dumfries being numbered east to west and the lots of Beverly numbered west to east. This is interposed by a thin wedge of land, wider to the north end of Beverly Township and narrowing to a point at concession 1. This is the Gore of Beverly. We will note that lot C of Beverly Gore, which is the 3rd concession, will be adjacent to lot 1 of the 3rd concession of Dumfries Township - or present day South Dumfries of Brant County. At no point is the Beverly Gore particularly wide and even at the north end may not contain a 200 acre township lot. Jonathan Wait's presence in Dumfries in 1821 is questionable, but it may be said that Jeremiah and Jonathan (almost certainly junior) are shown in the 1828 list of members of the 4th Regiment of the Gore Militia which drew upon men between the ages of 19 and 39 residing in Beverly and Dumfries (as well as Waterloo and Woolwich Townships.) For this see Men of Upper Canada, Militia nominal Rolls, 1828-1829, Elliott, Walker and Stratford-Devai, 1995, Toronto Genealogical Society. That said, no Waits appear in the 1832 census of the township of Dumfries east of the Grand River. (See MS700 reel 1.) Jonathan Wait does appear, however, in the 1834 Township of Dumfries Assessment Roll. The available image of this is taken from Our Todays and Yesterdays by Andrew W. Taylor, 1970. No concession or lot numbers are shown. A look at earlier assessments as well as abstract indexes has yet to be done. What is to hand is the abstract index for lot C of the 3rd concession of Beverly Township. This appears on microfilm GSU 161100. This shows a Thomas B. Anderson et al selling portions of this lot to Samuel Wait, pt. 50 acres, on 11 March, 1840; Harvey Wait, Spt (south part?) acreage not specified, on 20 November, 1840; and Jeremiah Wait, 72 acres, on 22 Nov. 1838. (These are transaction dates. The registration dates for these three transactions are 29 January, 1842; 26 May, 1842; and 11 August, 1842. The registration dates govern the order of entry.) The only further Wait transactions on this 1st page of the AI for this lot are the sales of Samuel's 50 acres to his son Levi Wait on 31st December, 1850, and Levi's sale of the 50 acres to 'Solomon & Smith' in 1856. It is believed that Levi moved to Blenheim Township at some point, whether before or after the sale of this 50 acres. We may mention here that if the Waits do not appear in the 1832 East Dumfries census, they do appear in the 1842 Dumfries census. Jonathan (we must believe senior) is shown on lot 1 of the 3rd concession; Samuel is shown as being on lot 1 of the 4th concession. Smith Wait is on lot 10 of the 6th concession. The Niagara Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society transcribed early censuses for Beverly Township. The 1842 census does include the names of Harvey and Jeremiah Wait. This does not tell us where in Beverly they were located. At some point, Harvey Wait went to Blenheim Township for he is present there at the time of the 1861 census. I am beholden to Thomas V. Cornell's The Cornells of Ontario, Michigan & Ohio, 4th edition for the information that Martha's maiden name was Smith. Considering the naming of children in the next and later generations, this does have logic. Beyond the above, a very useful source for the Wait Family is the transcription of the cemetery at St. George done by the Brant County Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. My own copy is a 2007 update, but this is based on an earlier transcription done in the 1980s or '90s. There appears to be one Wait stone that was, as of 2007, unreadable. The transcription of the stone for Jonathan Wait reads as follows: Jonathan Wait died Jan 27, 1859 aged 84 yrs 3 mos 2 dys; a Christian body rests beneath his love in life his hope in death was God our savior hope divne also they soul leader is it thine (The verse as transcribed may suffer somewhat from wearing of the stone.) Jonathan's date of birth is calculated from this transcription. It may well be an approximation of his actual date of birth. Certainly, as of the 1851 census in South Dumfries, Jonathan and Martha were living with Jonathan Jr. |
Children of Jonathan Wait and Martha Smith |
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| Last Edited | 6 Apr 2024 |