Be of Stout Heart

Origins of the Stoddart Name

The surname, Stoddart (and its variants Stoddard, Stodart, Stodhard, Stothart, and Stothert), have both Scottish and Northumbrian origins. “The Scottish name of Stoddart is supposed to have been derived from the word Standard and has origins in Selkirkshire before 1600. Some historians have speculated that the name was originally Stout heart and was later anglified to Stothert. [1][2]

There is also evidence that the name had its beginnings in the Old English word stod, followed by herd or ward and that the original Stoddart was in charge of a stud of horses. [3]

However, the Dictionary of American Family Names questions this theory:

Stoddard
English (Northumbria): occupational name for a breeder or keeper of horses, from Old English stod, stud or stott ‘inferior kind of horse’ + hierde ‘herdsman’, ‘keeper’. There is a difficulty in deriving this name from Old English stod in that stud is not recorded in the sense ‘collection of horses bred by one person’ until the 17th century; before that it denoted a place where horses were kept for breeding, but that sense does not combine naturally with ‘herdsman.’[4]

It is interesting to note that the earliest mention of this surname in Scotland is in 1376 when David Stothirde, John Studehird, and William Studfirde are recorded as tenants of Douglas in barony of Buittle (RHM,1,p. 1x, 1xxi). [2] Another source places these same individuals in Dumfriessire in the 16th century. [3] I have theorized (but have no proof) that my third great grandfather, John Stoddart was born in Douglas in 1792. According to family lore, Stoddart’s wife, Margaret Lindsay, was the daughter of Margaret Douglas, who in turn, was the daughter if Lord John Douglas. Unfortunately, no one has been able to prove or disprove this story.

Today, this surname is found mostly in Glasgow and Edinburgh. [3] Margaret Stoddart, another descendant of John Stoddart by marriage and an insightful family historian, concluded that the most common spelling of name today was Stoddart. In her study of the John Stoddart family, she states that, in Canada, “Stoddart is not a common name. In the 1998 Toronto telephone directory it appears 51 times, in the Montreal directory 7 times, in the Vancouver directory 30 times, and in Victoria it appears 9 times. Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton together list the name 42 times.” She concludes that “in the western world there were probably no more than 3400 households bearing the name Stoddart in the 1990s.” [5]

The 1990 U.S. Census figures ranks the Stoddart surname as 19,949 most common! In 1850, the few Americans with the surname resided in Connecticut. By 1880, the most common place of residence of Stoddarts was New York. In 1920 most Stodddarts lived in Idaho, followed by Utah and Nevada, yet it has never been a common name in the United States. [6]

Sources:
[1] Scots-Irish: The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland and North America, Vol. 2.
[2] The Surnames of Scotland, pages 750-1
[3] David Dorward , Scottish Surnames, Mercat Press, 2003.
[4] Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
[5] Margaret Stoddart, The John Stoddart Family 1790 – 1998, North Saanich, British Columbia, September 1998, Self-published manuscript.
[6] Hamrick Software Surname Distribution, http://hamrick.com/names/.

Ancestors in the Attic

An award winning, Toronto-based production company, Primitive Entertainment, is producing a new television series called Ancestors in the Attic to be broadcast this fall on the History Television. Last year, they made a call to Canadian family researchers requesting submissions of genealogical stories that explore the multi-cultural foundations of Canada for consideration for a feature on their program.

Primitive Entertainment has started production of a "13 x 30 minute program that will take viewers on a road trip across Canada and on a worldwide search for their ancestors. Part personal drama, part forensic investigation and part historical revelation, Ancestors in the Attic will reveal....in an intimate and dramatic [manner a new approach to learning more about your Canadian] roots."

To learn more, go to http://www.history.ca/microsites/AncestorsSearch/.

I submitted the following essay that apparently sparked their interest. Look for a segment about Ontario pioneer cemeteries later this year.

Public Works Misplaces My Ancestor’s Gravestones

In 1974, the Board of Public Works of Brampton removed all the gravestones from a small abandoned cemetery in the former township of Chinguacousy, Peel, Ontario. At that time, they placed the nine markers in the City of Brampton Public Works yard. In 1981, a local historian reported that the stones were still stored in the works yard. That same year a cairn was erected and a historical plaque was placed at the site.

Old Grahamsville Cemetery
A Heritage Cemetery in the City of Brampton

The history of this burial ground is very obscure, seemingly in use during the mid 1800s. This was once described as the "Old Grahamsville Cemetery." A Wesleyan Methodist Church, which was dismantled about 1869, and Chinguacousy School House No. 24 have both stood on this site.

The family names of the people who are resting here are:

Burgess Lindsay Stoddart
Burkholder Mercer Willcox
Cunnington Ramage
Ewing Sinclair

This cairn in memory of the pioneers of this area was erected in 1981.
A research report on the history of this cemetery is available at the Region of Peel Archives.

Unfortunately, no one seems to know where the original gravestones are stored.

Considering the years that have passed since my fourth great grandfather, John Stoddart was born in Scotland in 1792 and buried in this cemetery in 1854, his descendants have learned quite a bit about him. We know when he was born, where he married, the year he immigrated, and when he died, but his gravestone has been mislaid. As my family’s designated historian, I have made contact with many other Stoddart descendants, the author of the cemetery research report, and the City of Brampton, attempting to locate my ancestors’ gravestones. No one knows what has happened to the markers from this rural cemetery, but they all believe they still exist.

In 1933, Dr. Warren O. Stoddart described the old disused cemetery in a letter to his father. "There are a few tomb stones and a little wood that used to make fences about the plots, but not much else.... The place...is very small, and second growth bushes has almost covered it up...The stone I spoke about is a white one, square and about four feet high, by a foot each way. [One inscription reads:]

Doct. John Stoddart
Native of Scotland
Born
Feb. 14, 1792
Emigrated to the Township
of Toronto 1819
Died July 9, 1854

In this letter, he also transcribed the other entries on the marker including Margaret Lindsay’s and their children’s, James, Phillip, William, and Robert.

Also in 1933, the noted Peel County historian, William Perkins Bull, mentioned the condition of this cemetery and indicated that a transcription of the surviving tombstones and a history of the burial ground had been prepared. Unfortunately, the history of this particular cemetery is missing from the collection at The Archives of Ontario.

In 1974, a genealogist from nearby Mississauga visited the property and transcribed the tombstones from nine tombstones. Soon after, the tombstones were removed by the city. In 1981, a local historian published a report describing the history of the cemetery, but many questions remained after his study. The gravestones were apparently forgotten after this.
Although he wasn’t a person whose story has been documented in history books, John Stoddart was a man whose life experiences paralleled many early immigrants who settled in the wilderness area north of Muddy York (the town that later became the metropolis of Toronto) in the early 19th century.

John Stoddart, a sawyer from Pleasance, Edinburgh married Margaret Lindsay, the daughter of a laborer at St. Cuthbert’s Church in Edinburgh in 1811. Before immigrating from Scotland in 1819, John and Margaret had four sons, two of which lived beyond infancy. John settled briefly in York and later that year, 100 acres of wooded land north of York were assigned to him by the Crown. Stoddart built his family a log home on this property in the Township of Toronto and two years later, he purchased the title to the land which he and his family had been farming. John and Margaret had eight more children, each of whose names was carefully annotated in the preserved family bible. Typical of farmers of his day, John was a very strong man. Years after his death, locals spoke of him carrying two barrels of flour – one in each arm -- across a room and later carrying the contents of a barrel divided into two bags to his home. Stoddart later became a doctor and was certified in midwifery. Margaret Lindsay was buried at the later abandoned Grahamsville Cemetery in 1852 . Her husband, John Stoddart joined her two years later.

John Stoddart’s descendants are left with many questions:

• Where are the gravestones from this cemetery stored?
• Can the William Perkins Bull manuscript which discusses the history of this cemetery be located?
• What was the origin of this cemetery?
• Why did these families choose to be buried in this small cemetery even through there were other burial grounds established which were more convenient?
• How were the people buried in this small cemetery related?

Blogger Note: I would like to thank Jarvis Stoddart, both of the Margaret Stoddarts (!), Bill and Sally Stoddart, Lucinda Moss Brown, Neil Gilliat, and Patty Morse for generously sharing their Stoddart research with me. Some professional historians who have also assisted me greatly include: Gary Sumpter, Matthew Wilkinson, Bill McKinnie, Karen L. Wagner, Paul Webster, and Sheila Davidson. Without their efforts, this article and perhaps the television segment may never have been possible.