Yankee Harbour | Part 2

We have not spoken yet of Moses Munroe who appears on the A.F.Church map. Moses’ grandfather John had come to the Whitehead area from Shelburne County NS around 1813-1818, bringing with him two sons, John and Thomas Perry Munroe. Thomas Perry Munroe married Ann “Nancy” Spears and together they populated the mainland Whitehead side of Whitehead Harbour, and John Munroe (who died c. 1827) married Sophia Spears and one of their three sons, Moses, settled in Yankee Harbour. I cannot pinpoint exactly when Moses moved to Yankee Harbour. The “Place Names” book does not mention him at Yankee Harbour in the mid 1800s. The 1861 census seems to indicate that he was not in the Yankee Harbour polling district with John Edward Feltmate. And again in the 1871 census, Moses is living next door to his sister-in-law Nancy and several of his brother Thomas’s children. It is not until the 1881 census that we see Moses and his
wife Margaret and their grown children living next to the Feltmates, Peitzsches and Selffs of Yankee Harbour. Still, the Munroe generations of today consider themselves to be two distinct families: “the Yankee Harbour Munroes” and “the Whitehead Munroes”, but they are indeed all cousins although quite distant by now. 

           In 1877, James W. Feltmate formally received a grant of 6 acres in Yankee Harbour. (NS Land Grants Index A-G, Reel #1: year 1877, #12559, Whitehaven, book 51, page 95). The Grant Index Maps show the land on the shore abutting Francis Selff’s 200 acre grant.
            In the 1881 Census, we find at least 7 dwellings and a total of 41 people: 6 are older adults, 15 are younger adults, 4 are teenagers, 2 are new babies, and 14 are children aged 12 or younger, so not too much had changed in the nature of the village in the past 10 years. The households were as follows: (1) Moses and Margaret Munro share their dwelling with 3 grown sons plus their daughter Hannah Conrod and her husband Edward Conrod and also with them lives Bellah Sheals age 2, and Charlotte E Sheals age 3 months. I do not know who the Sheals children were, but the name could be Sceles. (I note that Moses’ son George David Munroe does not appear in the 1881 census for Guysborough County – might he have been away at sea? George David married the next year 1882 and settled in Yankee Harbour); (2) James W and Charlotte Feltmate
and 7 children (5 more plus a foster son would come in later years); (3) Cyruss (sic) and Harriet Feltmate with three small children, plus cousin Allie who had not yet married, and Cyruss’s mother Elizabeth who had been widowed 6 years before; (4) John Henry and Matilda Feltmate and their two small daughters; (5) Francis Selff who was now 68 and in his household is living Ann Feltmate and Anthony Rhynold (perhaps a son of Francis’s daughter Mary [Selff] Rhynold?); (6) Joseph and Sophia Peitzsch sharing their home with Joe’s brother James and their mother Catherine Peitzsch who was 76 and now a widow; (7) Next door to them is their brother William Peitzsch and his wife Lydia (Feltmate) and their 3 sons (they had lost several children 5 years earlier in a diptheria epidemic). In addition to these 7 homes, there is also listed close to them a Haley household (might they have been living on Haley’s Island that Clara has marked on her sketch?) and a dwelling shared by two Pelrine households. (I note that Francis Selff’s wife Delide was a Pelrine, and that the 1861 census also had a Paul Pelrine living near the known Yankee Harbour families; might there be a connection?)

            Siras and Harriet lost two babies, Clarence E and John Edmond, in infancy. They were born 1878 and 1879 and appeared on the 1881 census. Also a daughter Carrie Adela was born in Yankee Cove to them in 1883 and baptized there in summer 1884, but we know nothing more of her. By 1891 the three little ones were gone. Two new little boys born in 1886 and 1888 were named after the lost brothers, but no little daughter came along to take Carrie’s name. Whether these losses were due to an epidemic, perhaps the diptheria epidemic that Arthur Peitzsch writes of, I do not know. Sadly, the second Clarence died at age 17 in 1903 and is buried in Yankee Cove. The second John Edmond (called Vincent) grew up to marry George and Emmeline Munroe’s daughter Maggie in 1913, and their daughter Lola Adela Feltmate was born in 1914. But Vincent succumbed to tuberculosis a year later in December 1915 at age 27. Maggie only lasted until 1917 and then she too died. Their daughter Lola Adela Feltmate was raised by Vincent’s brother Walter and his wife Hazel. Lola lost Walter too to tuberculosis when she was just a teenager, but she went on, and married Bob Cameron and raised a healthy clan of 11 Camerons over in Eight Island Lake/Goshen. She died in April 2006 at age 92.

            As mentioned at the beginning of this article, 1883 was the year that Allie Feltmate married Agnes Margaret Rhynold, daughter of William and Mary (Selff) Rhynold. Allie’s mother Ann did not marry Agnes’s grandfather Francis until three years later, 1886. Allie and Agnes had both lived in Yankee Harbour all their lives. Together they had two sons: James Francis Feltmate b early in 1884 and William Alexander “Billy Al” Feltmate born May 1885. Little James Francis (clearly named for his great grandfather) lived to be baptized at St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Port Felix on July 11, 1884, but he died in infancy and was buried in the Yankee Harbour graveyard. Billy Al was also baptized at St Joseph’s on 6 Sep 1886, and although in the 1891 census his religion was given as Church of England, he was a Roman Catholic throughout his life. He was a fisherman and was aboard the “Louise Ellen” with Daniel Casey when the Blizzard of 1910 hit. He married Martha Boudreau, daughter of Jeremiah Boudreau and Josephine Berry, and they had two daughters Agnes and Helen. Sadly Martha died in Yankee Harbour of tuberculosis at the young age of 26. Billy Al in making out the death certificate stated that Martha had moved to Yankee Harbour in 1933. After her death, Billy Al moved to Little Dover where his two daughters were living. He fished until a few days before his death in 1945 at age 59. 

            In 1886 Ann Feltmate married Francis Selff. She was a convert to Roman Catholicism the records say. Arthur Peitzsch’s local history contains an anecdote about Ann and Yankee Harbour: “Mrs Annie Self said she saw a light between 2 rocks at the end of Anchor Island. She saw these lights before a storm. She said she thought the lights meant money was being buried there. “
            In 1887 William and Lydia (Feltmate) Peitzsch’ son George A. married at Yankee Harbour to Mary Catherine Conrad. She may have been somehow related to Edward Conrad/Conrod who lived in Yankee Cove but she herself had been born in Gabarus, Cape Breton and was a resident of Pope’s Harbour. She was a daughter of Michael and Mary Ann Conrad, and as mentioned earlier her sister Letitia was married to Alex Munroe in Yankee Harbour. 

            Also in 1887, as mentioned earlier, Billy Al’s mother Agnes [Rhynold] Feltmate died when Billy Al was only two. She was buried in Port Felix. Billy Al’s father Allie remarried on Christmas Eve 1888 in Whitehead to Maggie Greencorn of Halfway Cove. Maggie died in 1932 of stomach cancer and Allie died in June 1939. Allie was buried in the Spears Hill Burying Ground on the mainland as was his son Billy Al and Billy Al’s wife Martha. Presumably Maggie (Greencorn) Feltmate was also buried in Spears Hill.  In the 1891 census Allie and Maggie and little Billy are sharing the home of Allie’s mother and stepfather Ann and Francis Selff. 

            Arthur Peitzsch tells us that around 1889 the villagers built a school house, partly from the fish store of William Peitzsch, only fitting as William Sr. had been the school teacher for so long. This indicates that the make up of the village had changed, and the 1891 census bears this out. The population was now at least 54 people, and a full 23 of them were 12 years old or less. There were 9 households in 8 dwellings. (Also see my notes in next paragraph).  There were 5 older adults, 18 younger adults, 6 teenagers, 2 new babies and 23 children. The households were as follows: (1) Francis and Ann Selff shared their home with Allie and his wife Margaret and young William (Billy Al); (2) Cyrus and  Harriet Feltmate and their 5 children; (3) James W and Charlotte Feltmate and their 10 children ranging in age from 1 year to 20 years old, plus James’s mother Elizabeth; They had lost two young children (Herman and Hattie) since the last census; (4) George and Emeline Munroe and their young family of 3; (5) Alex and Lettie Munroe and their young son James and new baby Eliza; (6) George and Mary Peitzsch and their two small children; (7) Joe and Sophia Peitzsch living with Joe’s mother Catherine and his brother James Henry (“Jimmy”), plus 6 children including newborn Stanley; (8) William and Lydia Peitzsch and 4 children ranging from age 7 to 20.  

            The two new households in this list are Alex and Lettie Munroe who had married on Christmas Eve 1884, and George and Mary Peitzsch who had married in mid June 1887. But strangely, we are also missing two households. Neither John Henry and Matilda Feltmate’s household nor Edward and Hannah Conrod’s household appear alongside these Yankee Harbour residents. Whether this is a quirk of how the census was taken, or whether they actually moved temporarily to another part of the Harbour, I do not know. They are on the census for the area, just not alongside the Yankee Harbour people. Also absent in Yankee Harbour is the patriarch Moses Munroe and his wife Margaret. They are staying with their son Daniel and his wife in the Cape Canso polling district, for this census. 

             In the land records of 1891, Maggie Feltmate the 14 year old daughter of James W and Charlotte Feltmate, purchased a piece of land in Yankee Harbour from Francis Selff. Presumably this was purchased in her name by her father. (Deed Book 5, p 143). Or perhaps this was in the way of an estate settlement. Francis was 80 in 1891 and died sometime between 1891 and 1901. In 1903, Maggie married Ernest Baker in Halifax and eventually moved to Prince Edward Island. 

            By the time of the 1901 census, Yankee Harbour still had its 8 dwellings but now they contained 11 households. The population had exploded to 74. Ten were older adults over 50, twenty-one were younger adults aged 20 to 49, and there were 14 teenagers and 25 younger children plus 4 new babies. The households were as follows: (1) Joe and Sophia Peitzsch with Joe’s brother James and also 10 children ages 7 months to age 20; (2) Allie and Maggie Feltmate with 15 year old son William, 9 year old Mary Feltmate (their fostered or adopted daughter), and Allie’s mother Annie age 65, whose husband Francis Selff had died; (3) Cyrus and Harriet Feltmate with 5 children; (4) James and Charlotte Feltmate with 9 children ranging from 7 to 26, as well as their son Alonzo and his new wife Mary Jane (Murphy) of Cape Breton (married June 1899) and an 8 month old baby, and their daughter Elizabeth with her husband Charles (whom she had married in Indian Point in 1897) and a 10 month old baby. A busy and very full household!  (5) John Henry and Matilda Feltmate, back where they belong on the Yankee Harbour list with 3 children (6) Edward and “Charlotte” Conrad (it is clear from her age that this should read Hannah) and 4 children (Their eldest daughter Charlotte is not on the list as she had married in 1899 to Harvey Stanley Munroe), and sharing their home is Hannah’s brother Edward “Ned” Perry Munroe and his new wife Mary (Day) of Spry Bay and their little daughter Laura; (7) Alex and Lettie Munroe with 6 children and Alex’s father Moses age 81; (8) George and Emmeline Munroe and 6 children; (George and Emmeline had lost two boys, Edward and Thurlo. One drowned and one was shot. Both were buried in the Yankee Harbour cemetery).

            A quirk of the 1901 census is that the widowed parents (Ann Feltmate Selff in Allie’s household, and Moses Munroe in Alex’s household) are listed as “servants”!

            Missing is the household of George A. and Mary Peitzcsh and that of William and Lydia Peitzsch. Nor do they appear in the 1911 census. In 1915, according to her brother’s obituary Lydia is living in New Glasgow. I do not have a death date for her but her husband William Peitzsch died in 1922. 

            Moving along another 10 years brings us to the 1911 census. Yankee Harbour now has 9 dwellings housing 13 households. The population totals 61. Twelve are over 50, 26 are young adults age 20 to 49, 12 are teenagers, there is one new baby, and only 10 children age 12 or younger. The households were as follows: (1) Joe Peitzche age 60 living with his 9 children ages 6 to 30, and his brother James. Joe’s wife Sophia had died between 1901 and 1911. I am not absolutely sure but she may have died in childbirth with her last child Clayton, c. 1909, or it may have been diptheria which apparently hit Whitehead Harbour once again c. 1909; (2) George and Emmeline Munroe and their 5 children; (3) Alex and Letisha Munroe and their 4 children; (4) Hannah Conrod age 50 with her three children Stella, Robert and Joseph, and Stella’s husband Lohnes Feltmate and their boy Lohnes; (5) newlyweds Joe and Martha (Creamer) Peitzsch, in their own dwelling. (Somewhat unusual). Joe was a son of Joe and  Sophia Peitzsch; (6) John and Matilda Feltmate on their own; (7) Jim and Charlotte Feltmate with three grown children as well as their daughter Cordie and her husband Captain Robert Mosher of Mahone and their two young children. (They had married in 1908 in Canso); (8) Cyrus and Hattie (Harriet) Feltmate and 3 grown children plus their daughter Elizabeth and her husband William Sturmy and their family of 5 children aged 1 to 16. Elizabeth and William had lived in Halifax where their children were born. The Guysborough Times for 18 May 1911 says under “Yankee Cove”: “Mr and Mrs Wm Sturmy and family arrived home from Halifax with Captain Mathew Munroe.” Elizabeth’s cousin Minnie was married to Captain Mathew Munroe. Elizabeth and William Sturmy went on to have 5 more children, all of whom were born in Halifax.; (9)  Allie and Maggie Feltmate with son William age 26 and Jane age 8, and sharing their home is their foster daughter Mary and her husband Norman Rhynold, baby Stella and grandmother Annie “Rhynold”. Since Norman did not have a grandmother Annie, but Mary Rhynold would consider Annie Feltmate Selff to be her grandmother, I can only assume this must be Annie Feltmate Selff, given the name “Rhynold” in error by the census taker. Annie Selff does not appear elsewhere in the 1911 census and she should — she did not pass away until January 1912. (It is generally thought that Mary was a Rhynold from Little Dover before her adoption into Allie Feltmate’s home, and perhaps this added to the confusion).

            I have not found a death date for Moses Munroe but he must have passed away between 1901 and 1911.

            Not long after the 1911 census, John Henry Feltmate died at his daughter Florence’s in Halifax. John Henry was a man who captured my imagination, who in keeping with his name was a man of miraculous strength. Many have told me of the kindness of John Henry. He and his French Canadian wife Matilda fostered Johnny Munroe and later William Feltmate. When Johnny’s father remarried and was able to take Johnny back again, it was very hard on both John Henry and young Johnny. John Henry had only one leg, so all his strength was in his arms. Harry Feltmate explained that John Henry had fished until he lost his leg, had chafed his heel and gangrene set in and he lost his leg below the knee, and after it healed he made his own wooden leg. My father told me that John Henry could beat in the head of a barrel with one punch of a fist. My aunt
Marion (Feltmate) Pike in writing about the Feltmates, said: 

            “Last but not least were those sons of John who muddled their English and wielded their strength. One day when a vessel laden with salt lay at the wharf, John Henry wished to trade his cod-fish for an amount of salt.  Mr. Harris, the owner of the wharf proceeded to get ready a tackle but John-Henry would not hear of it.  Reaching down, he lifted one of the barrels up and over the rail of the ship. This barrel weighed over 300 pounds!  In opening barrels of pickled fish, most fishermen break in the head of the barrell with a small axe.  John-Henry snapped it open by pressing down hard with his two thumbs.  It is told that in actually trying out their strength, he could lift 350 pounds of rock in each hand. This John-Henry and his brothers Cy and Jim lived on the east side of Whitehead Harbour (at Yankee Harbour).”  

            Regarding the muddling of their English mentioned by Aunt Marion, my father Jamie Feltmate used to say the same about this family. He could imitate their manner of speech and it consisted of a very broad A. I can’t help but wonder if it was due to some connection with the Bostonian accent.  But the family also seemed to have their own “pet” names for things – the two I remember Dad telling are “ear ropes” for the rim of the ear, and “ear lugs” for ear lobes.  This came up in a recounting of some kind of fight where the brothers were encouraging the fighters with: “Grab him by the ear-lugs!”  (However, a grandson of John Henry, George Heasman in the USA, has pointed out to me that “lugs” is the Gaelic word for “ears”!)  

            Sometimes they had their own grammar, too, such as, “Pa am going to Canso….” I wish I could remember more. Although my father and aunt could mimic them, this was never done unkindly because the family was very well-liked by all. Dad said “it almost seemed like a speech impediment”, but if all of the three boys and Lydia as well (dad said) talked that way it seems to me it must have been just a personal speech style or mannerism that was unique to their family. 

            John Henry’s grandson George Heasman shared some stories with me, too:
            “Grandfather Feltmate (John Henry) never smoked, drank, or played cards. He was slow to anger but when he did become angry, look out. John Henry had very large hands, and he did not wear gloves or mittens in the winter time. He always washed his hands and face in cold water. Grandfather Feltmate was a very charitable man and at times would row across the harbor to take food to poor people on the other side. He was struck in the chest by a boat, which was a factor in his eventual death. John Henry Feltmate was a sailmaker by trade. I asked my mother once, where her father was born, and she said, ‘In Lordways’ “.

            John Henry was actually born in Yankee Harbour. It was his wife Matilda who was born in Lordways or as Harry Feltmate said, in “Laudways, Cape Breton”. This was L’Ardoise, as Matilda said on her marriage license. Matilda went home to L’Ardoise to have her first baby, Florence. George continues:

            “I have an old photograph of Grandfather John H. Feltmate taken just before his death in 1912. My mother told me that they had painstakingly dressed him to have his picture taken, knowing this would probably be the last photograph. John Henry Feltmate died in Halifax, NS in 1912. At the time he and his wife Matilda were living with their daughter Florence (Mrs. J Arthur) at 21 Bilby Street in Halifax…Grandfather Feltmate was buried in the St. John’s Cemetery in Halifax…My mother Eunice (Feltmate) Heasman was of medium height but had great strength and had powerful arms and shoulders and large powerful, strong hands. This would seem definitely of hereditary importance – a direct connection to the strength of John Henry as so well remembered in the stories passed on about him. Also my older brother  Harry [Henry D Heasman] had the same evident endowment of the strong powerful shoulders and arms and hands as my mother Eunice Feltmate.  All the legendary stories you have passed on to me re John Henry Feltmate are similar  to many stories my mother earlier told me, of this unusual strength of her father, of his power and strength, as she also remembered him, from earlier Nova Scotia days of her girlhood in Whitehead area, N.S.”

            As mentioned earlier, Arthur Peitzsch’s local history says that the Cemetery at Yankee Harbour has graves for 4 children of Mr and Mrs John Feltmate who died of diptheria, and also “a Spears girl who burned to death while hired at the home of Mr and Mrs John Feltmate”, (whether John Edward or John Henry, we do not know).  He says that diptheria in  the winter of about 1875 took the lives of about 4 or 5 of the family of John Henry Feltmate and 4 or 5 children of Wm Peitzsch. After the diptheria,  the home of Mr and Mrs John Feltmate was burned down and a new one built. George Heasman says the story in their family is that a flu epidemic killed a number of John Henry’s children.

            In 1915 another old-timer of Yankee Harbour died. James William “Jim” Feltmate died of throat cancer. He was John Henry’s younger brother, and was called “an esteemed Citizen of [Yankee Harbour].” Hugh Ross was the presiding doctor, and his son Angus Feltmate was the informant for the death registration (1915, book 38, p 227, number 457). The obituary ran in the Halifax Herald on Saturday November 27, 1915:

“JAMES W. FELTMATE,          WHITEHEAD –
November 20, There passed away at Yankee Harbor, James W. Feltmate, aged 69 years and three months, an esteemed Citizen of that place. After 3 months painful suffering from cancer in the throat.  The funeral which was largely attended took place on Tuesday, November 9th.  The remains were interred in the Whitehead Burying ground.  He leaves behind to mourn his loss his wife, six daughters, four sons, one brother and two sisters.  The daughters are; Mrs. Charles Moser, Canso; Mrs. Robert Moser, Canso; Mrs. Matthew Munroe, Souris; Mrs. Ernest Baker, St. Peter’s; Mrs. Alf T. Munroe, Whitehead; the sons: Alonzo Feltmate, Canso; Angus Feltmate, Whitehead; Patrick Feltmate, Yankee Harbor; Joseph Feltmate, Yankee Harbor.  The sisters: Mrs. William Peitzsch, New Glasgow; Mrs. Mary J. Meyers, Charlottetown; Brother Cyrus Feltmate, Yankee Harbor.”

            We have already looked with amazement at the number of people that shared Jim and Charlotte (Munroe) Feltmate’s house! It should not be a surprise to discover that Charlotte was a midwife, having had 12 children of her own. She brought my father into the world and his sister Marion, and many many others. She was a daughter of Moses Munroe. She died in 1922 so my father could remember her, as he was ten at the time she died. Jim and Charlotte were on the Methodist membership list for Yankee Cove in 1901, 1904, the year ending 31 May 1910, 31 May 1911, and 31 May 1912. On the 1914 membership list for Yankee Cove, James W. Feltmate is listed as dead and his wife is still on the list (the 1914 list probably covers to 31 May 1915). She is still on the Yankee Cove Membership List for 1916-17 and ’17-’18 and ’18-’19. In 1915, Jim sold land in Yankee Cove to Edward W Peitzsche (Book 23 p 442) who was a son of Joe and Sophia Peitzsch. (Edward died unmarried in 1955, “A well known business man of White Head. He had also operated a fish market at New Glasgow for 26 years, before coming to White Head.”)

            Jim had made his will on 14 October. Like his father before him, Jim left $1 to each of his children. The will says: “I appoint my son Joseph Feltmate as executor depending on him to take a good care of and pay his attention and sustain his mother my beloved wife till her death. Done and executed at his home in Yankee Harbour 14 Oct 1915 in pres. of Joseph Feltmate and Alfred Feltmate.” Jim’s son Joe (whose home is in Clara’s sketch), was bequeathed “half of the real estate at Yankee Harbour including half the house, half the store, half the barn, and to Patrick W Feltmate my son the same. My wife Charlotte Feltmate to retain possession of the house until her death.” Charlotte died in 1922. In January 1915, Pat Feltmate had married a Canso girl and remained in Canso to raise his family. Thus, Joe stayed on in the family home in Yankee Harbour.

            The year before Charlotte died, Siras Feltmate died. Siras’s wife Harriet (McPhee) Feltmate died in 1924. Siras and Harriet were on the Methodist List of Members 1898-99 for the Whitehead Mission under Yankee Cove and on the minister’s “visiting list” for Yankee Cove along with Allie. Also on this list under Yankee Cove is Mrs Elizabeth Feltmate, marked “dead”. This would be Elizabeth, wife of John Edward Feltmate. She died sometime after the 1891 census when she was close to 80. Siras and Harriet continue on the membership list for the Methodist Circuit, Yankee Cove, in 1901, 1904, year ending 31 May 1910, right through until 1918-19. Siras died of “consumption” (tuberculosis) and was buried in Yankee Harbour. Harriet died 3 years later at age 72, also of Tuberculosis, and was also buried at Yankee Harbour. All of their children are listed as having been born at Yankee Harbour. 

            Under Burials for Yankee Harbour, Mrs George (Emiline) Munroe is listed as “Died October 8, 1934. (Last burial in this cemetery).”  Arthur Peitzsch tells us that the school house was closed in June of 1946 and was torn down in 1958.

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