Biography of Ruth Priscilla Traveller (1816-1904)
Ruth Traveller McGregor
Photos property of James McGregor
Ruth Priscilla Traveller was born in London on 2 July 1816 and baptized at the Parish Church of St. Marylebone on 18 August the same year.[1] When she was four, according to her obituary, she moved with her family first to Philadelphia, and then, in 1825, on to Upper Canada, to what was then known as Bytown (Ottawa).
At the age of 20 she married John McLaren of Trois Rivières (Three Rivers) [2], who drowned in a log run (according to the family story) only a year later, when she was still pregnant with their son, John Reuben. She continued to live in Ottawa, probably with her father (the 1851 census shows her and young John R., then 15, living with Reuben, a 64-year-year-old notary public, his young (35) wife Emily, and their three-year-old daughter, "Georgia").[3] On 15 July 1853, however, she married John McGregor of Beckwith Township, Lanark County, the son of her sister Fortune's second husband, Peter McGregor.[4] They lived and farmed in Beckwith Township until 1861, when they moved to Douglas in Renfrew County, the place where they would spend the rest of their lives.[5]
John died at the age of 81, in March, 1903, and is buried in the family plot in the Public (Protestant) Cemetery.[6] Ruth died 27 November, 1904, at her home in Douglas, after suffering from paralysis for nearly three years.[7]
Children of Ruth Traveller and John McLaren
- John Reuben, born about 1837 in Ottawa, Carleton Co., Ontario.
On 11 April 1860 John married Catherine Needham, an Irish immigrant and the daughter of Samuel and Annie (McDonald) Needham of Pakenham, Lanark County, Ontario. The marriage took place in St. Andrew's Church in Ottawa.
John passed away on 5 June 1918 in Victoria, British Columbia. His wife, Catherine, died 20 January 1930, at the age of 92.
John McGregor
Children of Ruth Traveller and John McGregor
- Catherine Caroline, born about 1854 in Beckwith Twp., Lanark Co., Ontario.
- Peter McGregor, born 5 December 1855 in Beckwith Twp.
- Charles Traveller, born 1858 in Beckwith Twp.
- Sarah Priscilla was born April 1860 in Beckwith and died at the age of nine on 3 May 1869. She is buried in the McGregor plot in the Douglas Public Cemetery.
[1] Ruth Traveller entry, Church of England, Parish Church of St. Marylebone (Middlesex, England), Baptism Registers (1816-1819), 1816: p. 201, No. 1606. Originals held at London Metropolitan Archives, Clerkenwell, London, England. Viewed on microfilm FHL 0580909 (Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah).
[2] "Mrs. John McGregor, of Douglas" [obituary], unidentified newspaper clipping [1904]. In possession of James McGregor, [email protected].
[3] Reuben Traveller household, 1851 Ontario, Canada, Census, Carleton Co., Nepean Twp., p. 301, enumeration district 46, Sub-District West #443 National Archives of Canada, microfilm roll C-11716. Digitized image retrieved from Ancestry.com.
[4] First Generation: The Family of Peter McGregor and Catherine Ferguson, accessed 23 April 2008 from http://www3.sympatico.ca/james.macgregor/firstgen.htm. This website, managed by James McGregor, a descendant of John and Ruth, is an excellent source of information about the McGregor family.
[5] "Mrs. John McGregor, of Douglas" [obituary].
[6] First Generation: The Family of Peter McGregor and Catherine Ferguson.
[7] "Mrs. John McGregor, of Douglas" [obituary].
