Not forgotten

I have previously written of my 3GGF William "George" Beck, who sailed the seas from England to Tasmania to California, all for family. As a young man, he accompanied his parents (Becks) and aunts and uncles (Knights and Webbs) to Van Dieman's Land; as a young father, he packed up his family to try their fortune in California in the Gold Rush.

But the family with three children that boarded the Barque Spartan in 1850 headed to California was not complete. Yes, they had already buried three children (including twin boys that did not survive), but George's 12 year old daughter Sarah from his first marriage--who had lost her mother while George was at sea--is not on the passenger manifest. 

And it does not appear to be an oversight by the purser: there is no record of Sarah in any records once they arrive. In the years after their arrival, the family expands by two more daughters. George makes a good living selling real estate and building houses for miners returning from the mother lode with pockets full of placer gold. He lives a prosperous life, dying at the age of 69, with a sizeable portfolio of real estate and a passel of grandchildren. He outlived his second wife by 25 years.

So whatever happened to Sarah? When I asked my mother, she said she had always heard that she died along with her mother, or perhaps she came to California at a later date. Great Aunt Marjorie assumed she had died, since it was inconceivable to her that a parent would abandon a child.

However, digging through the Tasmanian archives (a researcher's dream: clearly scanned, indexed, and online), Launceston reveals itself as a very small town: in the 1843 census, there is an unidentified young girl of Sarah's age living at Carr Villa, her great uncle John Knight's estate. In 1851, the census names her as living with her grandmother Beck. But we hit pay dirt in the 1856 Assessment Book for Launceston, where she is not only living with her grandmother, but her aunt and uncle Webb have also moved in. Also in the list of residents is Thomas Hughes, her new husband. She is 18 and pregnant with the first of 12 children. 

When George died in California in 1882, his will appointed his youngest daughter Lizzie as administratix. His will splits the estate evenly between his four surviving children, identified by name. But the 1885 probate settlement tells another story: Lizzie and her siblings make sure that their half-sister Sarah Hughes finally gets her due: she receives 1/5 of the estate, with the remainder going to her unmarried half-sister Grace. 

The father and his four children circa 1859:
Mary, Tom, Lizzie (Elizabeth), William George, and Grace

Once Upon a Time: Honolulu

by Marjory Cutting Hulting

     On December 13, 1899, on my seventh birthday, we sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu. It was a foggy, bleak day when we left Marmee’s house and went to the wharf, the last part of the trip over large noisy cobblestones. Our trunks and our cat Billie, a huge part Persian, in a crate, were taken to the ship, R.P. Rithet, by a neighbor, Esther Hayes the expressman.

     By the time we reached the dock, I was thoroughly frightened at the strangeness of it all and the confusion, smells, fussing relations and my mother’s determined good-natured impatience. Billie had escaped from his slatted box, made by my young uncle Howard; so with this excuse, I cried. Everyone asked what was the matter, and knowing grown-ups always must have a reason, Billie’s loss was the simplest. I can look back and realize that Billie was not the main reason, but merely my excuse. Loving relations were my grandfather and grandmother Cutting, my Aunt Evelyn, Papa’s Auntie Grace [Beck] and Howard, then about 18. We love them all dearly and, on their part we were going to a very faraway place.

     Papa had gone to Honolulu some months before as a salesman for Waterhouse & Lester, a carriage supply firm in San Francisco where he was a bookkeeper, and a firm in Honolulu called Honolulu Carriage Co. had offered him the position as manager. He came home, made the necessary arrangements and returned to Honolulu, leaving my mother to sell the furniture (except the piano), put the house up for rent and take four children by sailing vessel to make a new home.

Our captain was Capt. MacPhail, a young, slight Scotsman with a decided accent. The first mate was Dr. Mr. (afterward Capt.) George Weston Gove, and a close friend of the family for many years thereafter. The second mate was another Scott named Mr. Burns, the delight of us children because he sang sea shanty type songs for us and had ridiculous things to say about the passengers, especially one old man who used to go to a barrel of seawater every morning and put it on his eyes saying, “nothing is so good for the eyes is good saltwater.” The mate took him off perfectly. We had Christmas at sea, and a passenger, Capt. Frieze, dressed a Santa Claus, came down through the cabin skylight with presents for everyone.

The Cutting's 1902 voyage aboard the R.P. Rithet