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Postcard from St. Catharines Library: Coffin Register

  The third in a series about discoveries made during my trip to western New York and Ontario, where I researched my Becker/Baker, Cassidy, Sheridan, Cailteux, and Schiltz families.    July 14, 2025 Dear Family,  Have you ever heard of a coffin register? I haven't. And just like you, I'm asking, "What's that?" I discovered a coffin register at the St. Catharines Public Library in Ontario on my trip. I was quite surprised to find an ancestor's name in it. This coffin register was a book used by the Thomas McIntyre company in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, to record coffin orders between 1863-1865. McIntyre had a cabinet and furniture making business and eventually branched out to build wooden coffins for his clients.  Early funerals in America were usually conducted by family and friends of the deceased, including preparing the body, providing a homemade shroud or coffin, and even carrying the coffin to the grave site. By the mid-late 18th cen...
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MARIA JANE DARAH


 

31 Days of Writing Family History Challenge

January 28, 2022:   Paternal Great, Great Grandmother #4 - Maria Jane Darah (1850-1903)


by Nancy Gilbride Casey

Of all the subjects of this challenge, Maria Jane Darah is perhaps one I know the least about. I have no photo and few records. I can only see her through the lens of others in her life. 

Maria Jane was the first wife of Charles Francis Cassidy, who together are another set of 2x great grandparents, the parents of Catherine Cassidy and grandparents to our Grandma Gilbride. Sadly, Grandma would never have met or known her grandmother Maria, as she died a full ten years prior to her birth.1

Maria's parents were John Darah and Dora Elliott, and she was born about 1850 near Owen Sound, Grey, Ontario—a long, narrow bay located on the southwestern end of Georgian Bay, a wing of Lake Huron. It is likely she was actually born in Sydenham or St. Vincent, the nearest settlements, which future research may confirm.2

Maria's birthplace of Owen Sound shown on this 1850 map of Canada. Note the "Indian Reserve" located on the peninsula to the west, occupied by the Chippewa.3

 

Following Maria's marriage to Charles Cassidy in 1883, the couple had four children: Catherine (our 2x great grandmother), Mary Jane (who later became Sister M. Magdalena), Phillip and James.

It appears that Maria became ill in her early 50s—she suffered from "acute mania," for five weeks prior to her death on 23 October 1903. We might recognize this condition as bipolar disease today, though the exact details of Maria's condition and death are unknown. At this time too, it is unknown where she is buried, though the family was living in St. Catharines at the time.4

1903 obituary of Mary Jane Darah Cassidy, wife of Charles Cassidy.5


BONUS: Lineage chart from Maria Jane Darah to me.


NOTES

1 St. Catharines, Lincoln County, Death Registrations, vol. "6", 1903, p. 433, Mary Jane Cassidy (53), 23 October 1903; database with images, "Canada, Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q93-C9YJ-GY81 : accessed 28 January 2022); Deaths > 1903 > no 13721-19304 > image 865 of 1730; citing Registrar General. Archives of Ontario, Toronto.

2 Ontario, Office of Registrar General, County of Lincoln, Division of St. Catharines, Marriage Registrations 1869-1911,  Unit "D," 1884, p. 537 (stamped), #25 (inked)/#6676 (stamped), marriage of Charles Cassady and Maria Jane Darah, 20 June 1883; database & images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9Q97-Y39T-XNJ : accessed 27 January 2022); citing Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. Also: William H. Smith, Smith's Canadian gazetteer : comprising statistical and general information respecting all parts of the upper province, or Canada West (Toronto: Henry Roswell, 1849), 156; image, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/smithscanadianga00smitrich/page/140/mode/2up : accessed 28 January 2022).

3  Henry Tallis, West Canada (London: J. & F. Tallis, abt. 1850); image, Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/1850_Tallis_Map_of_West_Canada_or_Ontario_%28_includes_Great_Lakes_%29_-_Geographicus_-_WestCanada-tallis-1850.jpg : accessed 28 January 2022). File provided to Wikimedia Commons by Geographicus Rare Antique Maps; this media file is in the public domain in the United States.

4 St. Catharines Death Registrations, Mary Jane Cassidy, 1903.

5 "To Charles Cassidy...", The St. Catharines Standard, 23 October 1903, np, regarding death of wife Maria Jane Cassidy. Image supplied by Niagara Peninsula Branch, Ontario Ancestors, Concord, Ontario.




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