Where is Metrican?

Jules,

The townland where Knox Hutchinson lived is probably Mettican (sometimes known as Mettican Glebe). I see 2 Hutchinson farms there in Griffiths Valuation c1860,, one owned by a William and the other by Hugh. Those farms today are on the modern Mettican Rd, which is a couple of miles north from Garvagh. One Hutchinson still there in 1901 (who appears to be William’s widow):

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Garvagh/Mettican_Glebe/1519886/

There was a Knox Hutchinson who ran a pub in Garvagh when he got married. His father was William, a farmer. Knox married Margaret Forgrave in 1879:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1879/11079/8054415.pdf

This looks to be Knox and family in the 1901 census, by then working in Belfast. He died in Belfast in 1912.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Antrim/Duncairn_Ward/Lilliput_Street/958687/

Hutchinson is a fairly common name in Co. Londonderry. There are about 350 in the 1901 census of the county.

Knox Hutchinson was Presbyterian though what looks to be his mother was Church of Ireland so if searching church records, I would check both denominations.

Jules,

I think the Sarah in Griffiths in 1859 is a different Sarah to the lady in the 1901 census. Women mostly only appear in Griffiths if they were widows. The Valuation revision records (on the PRONI site) show the Sarah in plot 17b (a house & small garden) being replaced by William Hutchinson in 1880. He in turn was replaced by Sarah. So I’d guess that the first Sarah was a relative of his (his own widowed mother perhaps) and that after her death he moved into her cottage with his wife Sarah, whose name then later appears after his death.

There’s a Sarah Hutchinson death regd in Coleraine in 1874, aged 75. You might want to look at that to see if it’s the Mettican lady.

All ages in censuses, marriage or death documentation in Ireland need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Errors of up to 10 years are very common.  Many were just guesses. In general, people in Ireland in the 1800s didn’t celebrate birthdays, didn’t have birth certificates or passports (though they might sometimes have had a baptismal cert) and often had little accurate idea of their ages. Most ages on official documents were just a guess. Either the Sarah in the 1901 census was older than the census indicates or alternatively her son Knox was younger.

Alexander Irvine was born in 1863 in Antrim town and became a Minister living in the US. This extract from his book “The Chimney Corner revisited” perhaps explains why people often had to guess their ages:

“My mother kept a mental record of the twelve births. None of us ever knew, or cared to know, when we were born. When I heard of anybody in the more fortunate class celebrating a birthday I considered it a foolish imitation of the Queen’s birthday, which rankled in our little minds with 25th December or 12th July. In manhood there were times when I had to prove I was born somewhere, somewhen, and then it was that I discovered that I also had a birthday. The clerk of the parish informed me.”

 

Jules,

I looked for possible marriages for the Mettican Hutchinsons. I found one for William H to Catherine Hagan on 17.5.1853.  William’s father was Hugh Hutchinson.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/marriage_returns/marriages_1853/09447/5422677.pdf

Catherine looks to have died on 12.5.1895, aged 63, widow of a farmer. Her sister Jane Hagan was the informant.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Slaght/Farrentemple_Glebe/1520433/

There was an unmarried William H who lived in Mettican and who died 13.7.1886 aged 70, from drowning. So we know now there were at least 2 Williams in the townland. One married and one single.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1886/06243/4787570.pdf

So I am not sure who the widowed Sarah H was in the 1901 census. I can’t see who her husband was. But you might get some more information from the 1874 death. (It’s not on-line free. You need to pay GRONI to view it). Likewise there was a William H death in 1872 aged 60, and Hugh H 1871 aged 75.  You might want to look at those. 

For births pre 1864 and marriages pre 1845 you will need church records. They are not on-line. A visit to PRONI will be required. Errigal Church of Ireland has no records before 1873 (the earlier records were lost in the 1922 fire in Dublin). 1st Garvagh Presbyterian has records from 1795 & 2nd Garvagh from 1830.  3rd Garvagh has baptisms from 1872 and marriages from 1864. (I suspect it was only established in the 1860s).

The naming that you have mentioned does suggest  there was a marriage into the McNeary family. And that wouldn’t be unusual in farming circles, and it wa scommon for Presbyterians to use some relative's maiden name as a middle name. I looked for marriages involving McNeary of Mettican but didn’t find any in the statutory records.

Have you checked the local graveyards for gravestones? There might be some clues there.

 

A little more information for you. The Coleraine Chronicle of 3.8.1878 has a notice from Isabella Hutchinson advertising the sale of a farm (11 acres 2 roods) in Mettican.

I searched that name and found a death in Garvagh on 1st Dec 1881 for Isabella Hutchinson, farmer’s widow, aged 72. The informant was her son Knox Hutchinson.

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1881/06424/4845714.pdf

Coleraine Chronicle for 17.7.1886 has an article detailing the inquest on William Hutchinson of Mettican who drowned there. The inquest heard that he was an epileptic and the doctor’s opinion was that he had had a fit and fallen into water in a ditch on the bog where he was cutting turf, and drowned. A witness was his sister Sarah who had found his body when he failed to come home for his lunch. 

Jules,

There’s no need to e-mail GRONI to see their certificates. You can view them all on-line. Just buy some credits and view the certificate, straight away. (I don’t think they are working so you probably won’t get a reply from them. Not for a while anyway).

The section you need is search for deaths. You don’t need to order a copy of the certificate.

  

Jules,

I suspect the Catherine Lagan who was the informant for Hugh Hutchinson’s death was this lady here who lived in Garvagh:

https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1891/06065/4729397.pdf

She was a single lady and might have just been a friend of the family. Or she might have been related. Hard to know.

Going back a bit to the tithe applotment records for 1825 there were 2 farms in Mettican that had the name Hutchinson (or similar). Both headed by a William. William Hutchen and William Hutchinson.

http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/derry/tithe-applotments/errigal-parish.php

Where you get people of the same or similar name living beside each other then they can often be related, but in this case the connection is probably back in the 1700s and there are really no records to consult that would help with that. (William & Hugh’s farms in Mettican face each other, either side of Mettican Rd. I’d expect there to have been a family connection at one time. Indeed it might once have been one farm, and was perhaps split between 2 sons).

1831 census of Mettican has William Hutchenson with 3 males and 1 female in his house, all Presbyterian.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Coleraine/Errigal/Mittican/8/

Hugh Hutchenson had 4 males and 2 females, again all Presbyterian.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1831/Londonderry/Coleraine/Errigal/Mittican/12/

Hutchinson is a common name in that part of Ireland.  Thousands of Scots settled in that area in the 1600s and they weren’t all related. So the families in Caheny and elsewhere may be unconnected.

Jules,

Isabella was fortunate that the Church Commissioners were happy to sell the freehold to her. There was much grievance about this in Ireland during the 1700s and 1800s because few landowners would sell. They wanted the rental income, rather than the capital. It was rather galling for farmers to spend 30 years improving a farm to find at lease renewal time that the improved value, generated by their own efforts, had led to a rent increase.  Inability to purchase your freehold was one of the factors that led to many farmers emigrating. It was resolved slowly during the 1800s by various bits of legislation which made piecemeal changes (for example limiting landlords from raising farm rents save in specified circumstances, and granting an almost permanent right to reside provided the rent was paid. Thereby preventing them from being evicted or getting a rent hike.). Finally Wyndham’s Land Act in about 1903 brought in a right to buy scheme with Government funded mortgages. At that point most people who wanted to purchase their freehold could finally do so. 

Looking at the Valuation Revision records, it appears that most of the tenants in Mettican bought their freehold around the same time that Isabella did ie 1876.  So that fits with the Church encouraging them all to buy. (The year is marked in red in the right hand column. The term “in fee” is used to indicate that the occupant owned the freehold). The changes of tenant/occupant on Isabella’s farm are interesting. William’s name appears to have been deleted and replaced by Robert McCaulay in 1873, he was replaced by Thomas Paul in 1876 and then Alex McAnary acquired it in 1879 around the time Isabella sold up.  I think that she must have stopped farming it herself around 1873 and sublet to the others till 1878. The wording of the sale advert seems to indicate the mortgage was only acquired in 1876 when she bought the freehold. Not many farmers would have had £160 sitting about so superficially the mortgage appears to have been to finance the purchase rather than to aid a friend in financial difficulties.

It looks as though Isabella had decided to retire. After she sold the farm I think she went to live with Knox in Garvagh. She died there 3 years later, and the cause of death was “Natural decay. Years.” So I’d say she was already in poor health when she sold the farm.

It would not be common for a woman to buy a farm. A married woman couldn’t buy land until the Married Womans’s Property Act in 1870. All her assets were deemed her husband’s and so he would have made any purchase.  So it would only be a single woman or a widow who could have purchased a farm. How many single female farmers were there in Ireland? I interrogated the 1901 Irish census, searching under “female” and “farmer” & “Widow/single”. To my slight surprise there were 141,908 single or widowed women who were farmers. (Total population then was 4.4 million).  I haven’t come across many women buying their freehold but I haven’t specially looked for it either.  It sounds as though her sale was timed along with all the others and must have been part of a bulk deal, which may have encouraged her to buy.

In terms of the family’s wealth, all I can say is that it wasn’t the biggest farm. The total land on plot 11 was 9 acres and 5 perches. Plus William had a one seventh share of plot 13, which was just over 5 and a quarter acres. 9 acres or so was not a big farm.  You could make a living from that but I wouldn’t have expected there to have been huge profits.

There does appear to have been a major downward change in Knox’s financial circumstances over the years.  He could presumably have inherited William & Isabella’s farm if he had wanted but decided instead to run a pub. Presumably Isabella had some capital after the farm was sold, and you would expect him to have inherited that when she died. So on the face of it he was comfortably off.  However he has to sell the pub and take work as a labourer. That does suggest some sort of financial problem. So perhaps there is some truth in the story of him lending money to a friend who absconded.

There’s no suggestion in the farm sale notice that there were any arrears on the mortgage nor that Isabella was being forced to sell by the bank. Her affairs look to have been in order. Knox’s difficulties appear to have arisen 16 years later when he sold the pub. So perhaps he took out a loan against the pub, to help someone who then defaulted?

Jules,

Farmers often married locally. The nature of farming meant you were needed on the farm a lot of the time and you couldn’t easily court someone who lived 40 miles away, when for most people the normal method of travel was on foot.  So they often married the girl next door.  Literally in many cases. That also meant they could keep land in the family more easily. They did not like to see land going out of the family. (Indeed they still don’t). Neighbours would help each other, and work together on each other’s farms, and you often see two brothers marrying 2 sisters. It was all quite convenient and mutually helpful. A local farmer once said to me that his grandfather had said that when he was young  "You usually married someone who lived within an asses bark." An ass barking can probably be heard half a mile or so.

The bicycle arrived in rural Ireland in about the 1860s and that made a bit of a change to courting. You could cast your net a bit wider after that. There’s a potentially fascinating thesis waiting to be written on the influence of the bicycle on courtship in Ireland from the 1860s onwards.

Anecdotally I have heard that the number of village idiots declined after the 1860s, and some say this was due to the gene pool widening a bit as people stopped marrying their cousins in such great numbers.

Jules,

Your best bet is to go through Garvagh 1st & 2nd Presbyterian churches records in PRONI (or get a researcher to do it for you, if you aren’t coming to Ireland for a year or so). The families you are interested in all appear to have been Presbyterian so that’s very likely where they married and attended church. You may hopefully find William and Isabella’s marriage and/or the baptisms of their children, from which you should get Isabella’s maiden name.

PRONI remains closed at present due to Covid, but some museums are re-opening next month, so I expect PRONI will likely re-open by August anyway. Researchers in the PRONI area: http://sgni.net

Here's details of the Garvagh 1st records. Note that there were 2 censuses in 1796 & 1840 which may help you too:

Baptisms, 1795-1816, 1822-49 and 1859-1945;
marriages, 1795-1802, 1807-14 and 1822-89;
census of congregation, 1796 and 1840.

Garvagh 2nds:

Baptisms, 1830-1921; marriages, 1830-1934; burials, 1853-96;
session and committee minutes, 1827-76;
communicants’ roll, 1832-6, 1854-5 and 1887-1918.

Burial records are fairly unusual for a Presbyterian church. They don't usually bother keeping them so that's a bonus for you if any family used that church.

 

Jules,

Delighted to hear that. Sounds like good progress.