William McNabb 1815 : Short Biography

William McNabb was the son of George McNabb and Jane Purcell, christened on April  6, 1815 in the Church of Ireland parish of Oughaval, Co. Mayo*. It appears that his mother (Jane McNabb) died in 1820*. There was a large extended McNabb family in the parish just outside Westport, Mayo, where they worked as linen weavers.

In the 1830's William came to Canada with his (uncle?) Henry McNabb's family (wife Elizabeth Livingstone and sons Robert, John and Thomas (known as Henry) and was brought up as a son within that family**. In Canada, the McNabb family prospered, soon homesteading five large farms in what is now the county of Dufferin, near the junction of Highway 89 and Hurontario Street, at the crossroads just outside the town of Mono. Henry McNabb, the patriarch, was a Napoleonic war veteran, having served in the 83rd Irish Regiment from 1808 to1816, and earned his right to a veterans' land grant, but once in Canada kept a very modest profile, always referring to his former occupation as that of a weaver. Anecdotally, he was to have said that his goal was to see "McNabb land as far as the eye could see" and this was certainly achieved within his lifetime.

William married the daughter of another Irish immigrant family, Jane Cotton, whose family came from Northern Ireland, and the couple raised a family of nine children, Maria, Eliza, George, Thomas, Henry, John, Jane, Elizabeth and Mary Ann. Several of their children travelled to western Canada, where their descendents live today, while others remained in Ontario.

Both William and Jane lived to a good age, William died at the age of 95, (although his gravestone gives his age as 92) while living wth his son George in Swan River, Manitoba, and was was buried in the Bowsman Old Cemetery, and Jane, who suffered from severe arthritis, lived to age 87, living with her daughter in Keldon, Ontario.

*records from RootsIreland.

** records from Canadian census, vital statistics, land records