more tidbits from Cus

i have just found some old notes, including some of her stories told to me years before her death in the latter part of the 1990s.

Her birth name was Rhoda. She was raised with five siblings by their father, Daggy Isaacs, their mother having died in childbirth when Rhoda was two years old. She was born at Queensbury where her father sometimes worked, when not travelling around the area on his donkey or his white stallion named 'True Blue', in order to treat sick people and animals as he was a 'bush doctor' of renown. Rhoda and her siblings were his 'guinea pigs' from an early age, having to sample the bush concoctions which he brewed.

Daggy fathered many children throughout the Leeward side of the island, leaving his current mistress, Lena for extensive periods, to take care of his children, then numbering eight. Cus recollected the bad treatment they received. Her only possession from her mother was a string of beads and an empty trunk. She briefly attended school before running away to live with an older sister in a nearby village, where she stayed for about three years!

Her adolescence seems to have been no happier. She vividly recalled her father hitting her on the head with a cutlass upon hearing she was working on the Estate. She felt that this lash was the cause of her bad eyesight! Her first job was in the cocoa fields where she picked out the pods eaten by rats. When she was about eighteen years old, she bought a sow from her sister, paying her a little each month. Unfortunately, her sister took back the pig as Cus missed a couple payments. This did not deter her, and soon she was able to buy another. From that day until not long before her death, she was never without a pig!

The overseer of Queensbury was named Mr Lockhart, and she became pregnant by him. Upon hearing about this, Cus's sister put her out of the house, in disgrace. A woman in the village gave her shelter until Mr Lockhart designated a plot of land on the Estate, on which she could put a tiny stick house! Unfortunately, the baby was stillborn. She lived for two years in the stick house, before meeting Willie who was a carpenter. She obtained breadfruit wood with which Willie built her a stronger house. Her sister became very ill so Rhoda looked after her five children while continuing her work on the estate. Her tasks were varied - picking cotton, weeding arrowroot, driving a small gang of workers, and 'throwing out' manure. After four years of life with Willie, she had enough of his laziness and womanizing. "one day", she said, "as she was sharing out his lunch'" she said to him, "Willie, you ain't decide to marry me?" He replied, "Rhoda, you really expect me to marry you?" Her reply was, "thank you." Thus, the romance ended, despite her father asking to give him another chance. Soon after this, a new overseer arrived, named Samuel, who soon started showing interest in her. She did not encourage him, she said. Cus turned down Samuel's marriage proposal at that time, and so he then married someone called Ruth with whom he had 6 children. i think that they formed a relationship during his time with Ruth! As previously written,Cus continued in a relationship with Samuel for many years until his death.

This has been lengthy! Until next time.
brenda

the family that blogs together...

Hello family and friends,

A further request to you all to please add to our blog when time permits.  No matter how insignificant your offering may seem,  it will be of interest to someone of a different generation!   We know the joy we would receive in finding someone's journal from a long time ago, even from our own parents!

Remember that your contribution can be a short piece!

Love and blessings
brenda

Elizabeth Punnett Mackenzie (1772 - 1795) and Alexander Kenneth Mackenzie 1769 – 1838

Some time ago, Brenda shared with me an issue of a newsletter for the Clan MacKenzie Society in the Americas which included a contribution by a Bill Davidson on the adventures of an Alexander Kenneth Mackenzie, and his 1792 marriage to Elizabeth Punnett in St.Vincent.  It looks like we have a match for Elizabeth on the family tree...

CHRISTOPHER PUNNETT (CHRISTOPHER, CHRISTOPHER, ROGER) was born 1739 in St. Michael, Barbados, and died April 1786 in St Vincent.  He married a Nanton.

Children of CHRISTOPHER PUNNETT and Ms. Nanton are: 

  i.         ELIZA FRANCES PUNNETT, Christening: January 14, 1772, St Andrews parish
  ii.        ELIZABETH PUNNETT. Christening: November 28, 1772, St Andrews Parish
  iii.       MARY PUNNETT, b. 1778. Christening: September 21, 1782
  iv.       FRANCES PUNNETT, b. 1780; Christening: Sept 21, 1782; d. May 15, 1795, St. Vincent.
  v.        CHRISTOPHER PUNNETT, b. Sept 21, 1782; d. June 4, 1844, Mustique,  St. Vincent.  He married ELIZABETH DAVIDSON November 27, 1803, daughter of DR. DAVIDSON and HANNAH ELMES.
  vi.       JAMES PUNNETT, b. April 9, 1786.

However, the entry for Elizabeth on Davidson's website states:

b. 21 Nov 1772, Santa Cruz, West Indies   d. Feb 1795, Port L’Orient, France

Assuming that Santa Cruz is Saint Croix, I looked for a Punnett connection, and see that there is a Punnett Bay there... anyone know anything else that might add some clarity?

Below are relevant excerpts, but the whole piece is well worth reading.  http://www.electricscotland.com/mackenzie/images/march2007.pdf  

As Brenda pointed out, it should make a marvellous film!  

Curiously, by Alexander Mackenzie's account, he also had a niece (daughter of his sister Margaret) named Eliza Punnett, but there is nothing further about her... could she have been named for his wife?  Again, any thoughts?

Extract from the Memoirs of Alexander Kenneth Mackenzie Esq, Dochcairn, Bathurst, N.S.W. Written by himself from memory at the age of 68

…My sister Margaret married a Mr. Clunes, a merchant in Aberdeen by whom she had 3 children, John, a Major in the Company’s service at Bombay, and married to a daughter of General Prole. William Henry, a surgeon, in the Navy, who has been dead for some years, and Eliza Punnett, lately the widow of Major Snodgrass, in the Company’s service [Presumably, the East India Company] in Bombay, and last year married again to a Mr. Smythe, a man of property and the member for Westmeath in Ireland…

…On 30 June, 1792, I was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Punnett, the ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr. Findenter at the house of our friend Mrs. St. Lawrence, from which we adjourned to the residence of another friend (with whom we were to spend our honeymoon) a Mrs. Wiston, from thence we paid a visit to Mrs. Davidson, before we settled ourselves in our own happy home. Miss Punnett’s father was a man of good family and had been dead some years, leaving a widow, 3 daughters and 1 son, to inherit his property. I obtained a good fortune with Miss Punnett and it was a most desirable match in every point of view - I trust she is now reaping the reward in Heaven, of a well spent life on Earth, for her pilgrimage on this earth was of very short duration.

She was a girl of elegant figure and most graceful manner, a beautiful expressive countenance, she possessed a mind highly cultivated and attractive, very amiable disposition, and above all, her adoration of that being who gave her life was sublime and striking to a degree; we were most fondly attached to each other, but a good Providence thought proper to take this dear Angel to himself, when we had enjoyed a few brief years of each other’s society; her mother’s residence was at Nova Zembla, about 50 miles from St. Vincent, she was on a visit to a cousin of her own when I first met her, a Miss Nanton, who resided about 10 miles from town. When I commenced paying my addresses to her, I used regularly for a length of time to ride that distance every evening after 6 o’clock and home again (36 miles) in toto; for I felt too anxious with such a heavy responsibility on my shoulders to be even absent for one night, but so long a ride every evening nearly killed me.

I was very happy when it was proposed she should come into St. Vincent to remain until our marriage with her friends, Mrs. St. Lawrence and Mrs. Davidson.  About this time I had a serious illness, from which it was thought I could not recover, and well do I remember, though so many years have elapsed since that period, how constantly that dear Angel visited (as was then supposed my dying bed) in company with another young friend, bringing 2 or 3 times a day cordials made with her own hands.

…Mrs. Mackenzie was confined with her first child, a sweet little girl, on 25 Aug. 1793…

 ...we made up our minds to visit England. In July 1794, Mrs. Mackenzie, myself, a free woman and a negro boy of my own embarked on board the “Sarah Rebecca” for London, leaving our sweet little girl under the care of good old Mrs. Punnett (Mrs. M.’s mother) with the intention of returning in less than 12 months.  Some considerable time before we left the West Indies a war had broken out, and martial law being proclaimed, I, like the other young men of the island, was obliged to do military duty day and night till such time as reinforcements of the military should arrive from headquarters, it was hard duty and made me the more hurry my departure from the island....

Mr. Mackenzie says that Christopher's heirs were his widow, three daughters and a son.  According to the family tree, Elizabeth had 3 sisters (Eliza, Mary, and Frances), one of whom (Frances) died in May 1795, and two brothers - Christopher (died in Mustique in 1884) and James.  We have no date of birth for James, so perhaps he died prior to Mr. Mackenzie coming on the scene?

Presumably, the conflict referred to would have been the French Revolutionary wars (1793 -1892)?

Any ideas about Nova Zembla, about 50 miles from St. Vincent?  Could this have been a house on Mustique?

No more is heard of the free woman or Mackenzie's "negro boy", and we don't know if he perished in captivity, was abandoned, or continued on with his father.

The account, courtesy of Bill Davidson, continues…

Memorandum: The remaining portion was destroyed by cockroaches. It only continued on until the time of his arrival in England after his escape from the captivity of the French prison.

The trip to Europe to which the young couple looked forward with so much pleasure, had a most disastrous termination. Their ship (The “Sarah Rebecca”) was captured by a French man-of-war and all the passengers and crew taken prisoners to Port L’Orient in France. Here they remained for several months, over-crowded and badly provisioned, and suffering so much from the cold that they were compelled to break up their boxes for firewood. These hardships were especially trying no doubt to the delicate West Indian constitution of Mrs. Mackenzie, and she did not long survive the birth of her second child, which took place while she was a prisoner.

We find this entry in Mr. Mackenzie's writing in the old family Bible: -

“Elizabeth Mackenzie, wife of A. K .Mackenzie, died in child-bed at Port L’Orient in France (where she was taken prisoner with her husband on a voyage from St. Vincent to London) Feb. 1795. Child died Bristol Mar 7, 95.”

Thus was Mr. Mackenzie left a very youthful widower. After committing to the grave the remains of his beloved wife, he was fortunate enough to regain his liberty, and escaped to his native land. It appears that he persuaded an English or Irish captain to have him smuggled on board ship in a “cask”.  The ship was bound for Cork, where in due time she arrived.

There he was joined by the nurse with the poor little motherless babe, and from thence they all crossed to Bristol, where the infant died… the little girl left in the West Indies with the grandmother, and  named after his own mother, Mary Price, likewise died…

"...the delicate West Indian constitution of Mrs. Mackenzie..."!!!!!!!

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

One love!
Lisbie