Smoke and Mirrors

     There are only a few family members remaining who can say they remember the man named Henry Zebedee Dell.  Most of us doing research on the Dell Family have only old pictures and some stories that have been passed down through subsequent generations.  The one thing everyone knew for sure was that Henry was born in Southampton, England in the mid-1850's.

     One of those stories, which was widely held as gospel in the absence of real evidence to the contrary, was one that was passed down by one of Henry's daughters, Amy Dell DeGeer.  The story begins that he was born Henry Zebedee on February 4, 1854 and his parents had many children.  One day, when Henry was about 10, his parents set him off on his own because they could no longer support all their children.  Henry was left to the streets of Southampton and was found one day sleeping on the doorstep of a teacher named Fanny Dell and her husband John.  The Dells took him in and adopted him, most likely informally, as their own son.  Sometime around 1870 they emigrated from England to Canada.

The Truth Revealed

     However, evidence has surfaced recently due to research by Pat Morrison, great granddaughter of Amy Dell DeGeer and William Zebedee, a descendant of James Zebedee.  James was the son of Fanny Dale Zebedee and John Zebedee.  It seems that Henry was born Henry John Dale on March 25, 1855 in Southampton, England to Fanny Dale, who was 19 years old at the time.  No father was given in the Fordingbridge Baptism Registry.  Not knowing your father was not something that is talked about any more now that it was in Henry's day.  So it could be that the story about being set off on his own at age ten was invented to save the embarrassment or perhaps out of respect to his mother.  This is purely speculative.  However, about a year after he was born Fanny Dale was married to John Zebedee.  All known official documents give Henry's surname as either Dale or Dell, thus there is no evidence that Henry ever took the surname of Zebedee at any time in his life.  This being the case, he must have known about his beginnings.

     After the marriage, James and Fanny lived with Fanny's parents, James and Hannah Dale, in Fordingbridge.  James worked as a bricklayer and Hannah as a cotton spinner according to census documents.  When Henry was four years old, Fanny gave birth to a second son, James Zebedee.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

     Life in Victorian England was tough for the working class.  The Industrial Revolution was in full steam when Henry and James were born.  As England's population was moving from an agrarian society to an industrial one, living conditions were getting worse for the working class.  Health conditions for the poor weren't any better  In 1868, the mortality rate for smallpox cases in England and Wales was about 10 in every 100,000 people₁ despite the development of a vaccine in 1796₂ and the Compulsory Vaccination Act legislating mandatory vaccinations in England in 1853₃.  This was the fate Fanny's parents along with two of her sisters.  They all succumbed to smallpox early in the year 1868.  Fanny's husband, John, died this same year as a result of falling from a scaffold.  Fanny was now 31 years old with little family, no husband and no means to provide for herself and her two sons.  Fanny died from erysipelas in the Southampton Poor House several months later on September 28, 1868.  This tragedy left Henry and James orphans and they became wards of Southampton Board of Guardians.

Home Children

     From 1869 through the 1930's, over 100,000 children were sent to Canada, Australia and the United States as part of The British Child Emigration Scheme.  This was the British solution to a "surplus of children" found on English streets.  Not all were orphans like James and Henry.  In fact, most were not₄.  Over the years from 1869 to 1914, over 80,000 children were sent to Canada alone.  Many of these children felt a disconnect from their former lives that they had to live with for the rest of their lives.  Many never saw their families again.  In 1871 almost 2000 children were sent to Canada.  This is the year that James and Henry were brought to Canada by Scottish born evangelist, Miss Annie MacPherson.  Miss MacPherson ran several distribution homes used to place young boys and girls as indentured farm laborers or domestic servants throughout Ontario and Quebec.  The legality of this is definitely questionable; a kind of grey area at best.  But people like MacPherson and her contemporaries such as Dr. Thomas Barnardo believed they were performing a moral service to these children who would not otherwise have much of a chance in life.  In 1891, legislation was passed in Britain called The Custody of Children Act or "Barnardo’s Act" that legalized the work of these private emigration societies.  One of the homes ran by Miss MacPherson was the Marchmont Home located in the town of Belleville, Hastings County, Ontario.  This was going to be the brothers' new home.

A Long Way from Home

     James, age 12, was the first of the two brothers to be brought to Marchmont Home under the care of Miss MacPherson; departing Liverpool, England on May 4, 1871 via the SS Prussian and arriving at the Port of Quebec on May 15, 1871₅.  James was one of 150 children brought to Belleville on that particular trip₆.  Why was James separated from his brother Henry?  It is believed that Henry frequently ran away from his "Guardians" and subsequently he wasn't aware when his brother James had left England.   But a couple months later, on July 27, 1871, he also departed Liverpool aboard the same ship under Miss MacPherson's care and arrived at the Port of Quebec on August 7, 1871₇.  Although the records indicate Henry's ultimate destination was Niagara, Ontario, he was reunited with his brother at the Marchmont Home in Belleville.  During his 11 day journey across the Atlantic, Miss MacPherson taught Henry how to sign his name. She may have misunderstood his pronunciation as she inadvertently taught him to sign it as Dell rather than Dale.
     Henry stayed at Marchmont Home until he came of age and then moved to Glamorgan Township in Peterborough County (later Haliburton County in 1874), Ontario.  He met Mary Elizabeth Hadley and they married on October 21, 1878 at Pine Lake Schoolhouse in Glamorgan Township.  The marriage document is the first known record of Henry using the name "Henry Zebedee Dell".  Mary was born on Scugog Island, near Port Perry, Ontario on February 13, 1862, the daughter of Sylvester Joseph Hadley and Mary Frälick.  Their first child, tragically was stillborn in 1879, but in 1880 they celebrated the arrival of their first son, Hiram.  Three more children were born to them while still in Canada; a boy, Reginald and two girls, Amy and Adelaide.   His half brother, James stayed in the Belleville area and married Margaret Burton in 1878.  They had seven children between 1879 and 1896.  Margaret died in 1897 and James married two more times in 1900 and 1920.

A New Beginning

     In 1888 Henry, Mary and the four children packed up and crossed the border into Michigan and eventually came to stay on a piece of land in Surrey Township in Clare County.  It was there that Henry cleared and farmed the land and he and Mary raised their family that included 8 more children between 1889 and 1906: Ethel, Willard, Jennie, Jean, Dewey, Nellie, Hazel, and Olga.  Before his death, he had 49 grandchildren, lost his wife, Mary in 1930 and one daughter, Adelaide in 1934.  Four years later, just shy of his 83rd birthday he joined his wife and daughter beyond.  He was laid to rest in the Surrey Township Cemetery in Clare County.

Henry John Dale (Henry Zebedee Dell) Timeline

Born March 25, 1855 (birth certificate states February 4, 1854) to Fanny Dale and unknown father.

Age 1 - gets new step-father with his mother's marriage to James Zebedee.

Age 4 - half brother James Zebedee is born.

Age 13 - orphaned when his mother dies in the Poor House on September 28 1868; step-father died earlier that year from a fall.

Age 16 - brought to Belleville, Ontario, Canada to the Marchmont Home by Miss MacPherson; arrives at Port of Quebec on July 28, 1871.

Age 23 - marries Mary Elizabeth Hadley from Scugog, Ontario, Canada; she is 16 years old.

Age 24 - first child, a daughter, is stillborn.

Age 25 - second child is born; a boy named Hiram.

Age 27 - third child is born; a boy named Reginald.

Age 29 - fourth child is born; a girl named Amy.

Age 31 - fifth child is born; a girl named Adelaide.

Age 33 - Emigrates from Ontario, Canada to Michigan, USA and settles on 80 acres in Farwell, Clare County.

Age 34 - sixth child is born; a girl named Ethel.

Age 35 - seventh child is born; a boy named Willard.

Age 39 - eighth child is born; a girl named Jennie.

Age 40 - ninth child is born; a girl named Laura Jean.

Age 43 - tenth child is born; a boy named Ernest Dewey.

Age 45 - eleventh child is born; a girl named Nellie Viola.

Age 48 - twelfth child is born; a girl named Hazel Fedora.

Age 51 - thirteenth child is born; a girl named Beatrice Olga.

Age 75 - wife Mary dies on November 15, 1930.

Age 79 - daughter Adelaide dies on March 22, 1934.

Age 82 - Dies 35 days short of his 83rd birthday.

Henry's Family Tree

Sources:

1   England mortality rate 1838-1978  at http://www.healthsentinel.com

2   Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death  at http://www.annals.org

3   Anti-vaccinationists Past and Present  by Robert M. Wolfe and Lisa K. Sharp at http://www.bmj.com

4   Home Children Background Information - Why were they sent here?  at http://www.orphantrainriders.com

5   Library and Archives of Canada: Home Children  at http://www.collectionscanada.ca

6   Young Immigrants to Canada - Excerpts from Canadian newspapers  at http://ist.uwaterloo.ca

7   Library and Archives of Canada: Home Children  at http://www.collectionscanada.ca