David Cragg 1807-1816
Chapter III
“Wyresdale, 28th of the 2nd month 1807
To Friends of Lancaster monthly meeting
Dear Friends:
This is to certify that on our behalf that it is with our consent that our son David Cragg lays before you his intention of a marriage with Mary Pye.
Timothy Cragg Jennet Cragg
To Friends of Lancaster Monthly meeting
Dear Friends:
This is to certify that it is with my consent that my daughter, Mary Pye, lays her intentions of marriage with David Cragg, before you,
Ann Pye Witnesses: John Townley & Margaret Townley”
On the 7th of March David proposed “to go to Robert Jepson and get him to bring me a cartful of turf to my house at Heversomesyke for I want to have the house warmed before I go to live in it.”
“8th of the 3rd month 1807, 9:00 in the evening.
Who to be at the marriage as I think:
Thomas Cragg
Timothy Cragg
Betty Cragg
Agnes Parker
David Cragg
Alice Cragg
Josuah Kelsall
Dorothy Kelsall
Thomas Kelsall
Dorothy Kelsall
Lawrence Pye
Dorothy Kelsall
Edward Winder
Agnes Pye
Jackson Dilworth
Ellen Pye
Thomas Barrow
Molly Townley
David Cragg
Mary Pye
masters
(still about the wedding)
Two more in Lancaster and my brothers Richard and Titus making in all 24 to be there.”
“8th of 3rd month, 1807 - before noon -
Let me see what is absolutely necessary for beginning house and no more besides what we have and some other things may be got in a little while afterwards:
Bedstocks which want making, wood being ready
A cartful of truf which I think of getting this afternoon
Crane hooks
Poddish pan
Fry pan
Tea kettle
Table
Chairs
Knives and forks
Backstone
Backboard
Spittle
Kneading board
Tongs
Wisket
Ash trough
Spade
Pots and tea things
Bread
Baking skip
On the 9th at 6:00 in the evening David writes of his conversation with his mother. She said she would give them blankets and buy a new pair of sheets for them. Molly’s mother was giving them two beds, a quilt and a pair of sheets, two bolsters, six powder plates, four knives and forks, one barrel, one brewing nap, one chest, and looms.
On the 12th he said Molly had been ill for a few days. He was making bedstocks and Titus was talking of selling his house at Greenbank to Jack Slinger.
On the 15th of March, 1807 - “Yesterday I was at Lancaster as was my dear and we was together some time and bought a clock case for 2/12/6 and added a clock, an eight day piece which will be 4/4/6 making in all 7/7 for the clock. We also bought a water pan and a fry pan, a poddish pan and lid and a smooth iron. We left the pan to lead.” Mary and her mother both favoured that Mary and David should live in the old house at Greenbank belonging to his father but David said he was “quite contrary opinion”. On the 19th, David writes of meeting Mary at Ellen Kelsall’s and he walked home to the Top of Emmets with her. He also said he had made the bed stocks out and also made a round table for a tea table. On the 24th, he went to the meeting and the clerk, Thomas Kelsall “published that I and Mary Pye had laid our intentions of marriage before the meeting.”
They were married at the meeting on April 9, 1807.
The next entry I have is 15th of June, 1807. “It is now ten weeks since we was married and we have lived in utmost harmony and peace hitherto and I see no appearance of anything turning out to the contrary. My wife today is gone to help Ellen Kelsall’s folks to wash.” He goes on to say that poor old Ellen was so very ill that it seemed she must leave this world.” They were living in the house rented from Matthew Butler at Heversomesyke until the spring of 1808. Their first son, my grandfather was born there on May 15th. Then they moved to a house on the Thomas Richmond land which he worked for his father, Timothy which land he later bought himself. In 1809, a son, Timothy was born.
I do not have the diaries of 1809 and only extracts for 1810 and 1811. It seems he or someone else summarize them.
1810
Most of the entries have to do with the weather.
8th month 1810
“Dark and dull forenoon. Afternoon the sun got out and it was very hot and draughty. We broke out afternoon and got four cartfuls of hay. Some of it 8, 9 and 10 days old mown - good hay.” An excessive fine, hot day from morning till night and mostly clear and calm. I mowed 75 falls, strewed and cocked some and got 5 cartful of hay very dry.
”It rained and many were caught out in it. But it cleared and David “mowed 102 falls and strewed some”. It rained heavily all around them but very little at Greenbank. The was another thunder storm and “the shower of rain this moring at Forton was so great as to almost inundate the country. It appears that a cloud burst upon Harrow’s End.” The bridge below Cross hill school over Lordhouse brook was badly damaged. He goes on to describe the “deluge of rain and great flood”. Water was 4 and 5 feet deep in one house and their goods washed away; Some were found later along the banks but much was lost forever.
17th A sale at Marshaw. Joseph Bibby.
20th “I was stubbing whins in the brownfall brow this forenoon and in the afternoon walling the fold wall.”
The rest of August was spent in having and hauling lime from the kiln at Ratlif bridge in Forton.
September 5th “Hauling muck into the holme” On the 10th “begun to shear 15 hattocks… 5 thraves.”
October 1810 - David got up his potatoes and “they rise but poorly.”
On the 15th court was held at Marshaw and several persons were fined for not attending. Then there is a list of farms to let out. There was a lot of rain but he did some draining and mucking. There was frost on 29th.
November 1810 - Frost, rain and snow and hail. David was ploughing on Proctor Moss. When the weather turned fine he planted ash, sycamore, alder and birch trees between the rows of larches.
On the 18th - “Last week James Clarkson died of Wyrehouse in Over Wyredale, tailor aged 65. William Jackson of Spouthouse in nether Wyresdale died the 17th of this month aged 73 years. The rest of the month he planted trees. The December entries are just the weather.
1811
First month - just the weather - a flood on the 31st.
February Violent showers and some snow. On the 14th - “I went to Lonehead in Hashaw, Thomas Richmond’s to pay him the interest on the 600 pounds, the purchase price of my estate and paid him 27 ponds”. The estate was at Greenbank.
He lists the deaths of Edmund Lucas of Nuhurst in Ellel, hatter aged 75 years and Jonathan Gibson of Golgate, tanner, aged 45.
On March 1st he “ploughed all day at my father’s at Catonwife”. By some notes it appears that his father and mother had moved into a cottage at Catonwife and David and family were living in the old house at Greenbank.
April 23, 1811 - He was setting potatoes in the brownfall top, “a place totally overgrown with whins, borers and brackens.” “I set in the hinterland was and little is to be got without hacking, the roots are so strong and so plentiful as not to be roused with a spade. I can, however set two fall a day. The soil is good but so fast grown together for lack of husbandry.”
On April 27th - he “heard a cuckoo for the first time this year”. “The peepers of oak bark are at work, bease let out and grass growing.”
On May 3rd - he got Richard Lambert to help set potatoes. The rest of the month records weather and chores.
1811-1816
There are only a few notes and letters on this period. From these it appears they were still living at Greenbank and doing quite well. They had two daughters: Ann born in 1812 and Margaret born in 1814.
There is mention about a great deal of controversy over the meeting house at Wyresdale, about leasing the old meeting house for 21 years, or building a new one. Also the roads to the meeting house were under discussion as some people had stopped the way through their farms.
There is some mention of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s exile to Elba. Taxes were very high because of the war and David and Molly decided to lease out the estate at Greenbank and in November, 1816 they signed an agreement with John Albright to undertake the management of Newland house farm for two years to start the next spring and at wages of 20s per week to keep a cow and board the servants at a fair price.
Another daughter, Mary was born in 1816.
David said, “My situation on a small estate of land, the whole purchase money of which I borrowed, the interest amounting to 30 pounds per year. With a wife and five children and the farming business much depressed, I found that myself I could not make ends meet at the end of the year by much.” In the Lancaster newspaper on the 11th month, 2n he saw the advertisement that a person was wanted for the management of a milk and cheese farm near Lancaster. He went twice to Mr. Albright and the bargain was made. “I am to have a house and fire and a cow kept summer and winter and 2s a week wages for myself and my wife. Making altogether 70 pounds per year or better which we think will be sufficient maintenance for myself and family. I have made a sale to sell my stock of cattle and some husbandry of young wood upon my estate that will some time be worth much money so I shall have 10 pounds of my estate besides paying the interest on the purchase money, so that we shall be situated at only the distance of one mile from Lancaster meeting and a very good road to travel upon which is much more eligible than either of the roads or the meeting house in Wyresdale and also as I have been one that has been much entangled in the dispute about the old and the new meeting house at Wyresdale for the last five years I shall be removed therefrom.”