Ancestry Route 2 Pre 1700

Route 2: Hester Sweet
6X GGP

I know very little about Hester Sweet (1700) other than she is listed as daughter of an Adam Sweet and Hester.  Hester, was born in 1700 in St Neot and had an illegitimate son, Richard, born in St Breock in 1724.  Intriguingly, my Route 1 candidate, as Richard 1723/4’s father, Richard 1684, also had a daughter who died in infancy who was baptised as Hester.  It may have been a common name at the time (I don’t think so) or he may have named her in honor of his cousin or neice, which would then help us to understand Hester 1700’s parentage.  St Breock is also the parish where Richard 1723/4’s wife, Elizabeth Derry, came from.

As it is, there is no Adam Sweet born in any of the parishes which the Sweets were associated with, certainly not legitimately anyway.  There are a couple of possibilities in relation to Adam: 1) he was born overseas when a Sweet ancestor was temporarily working elsewhere; 2) he was illegitimate; 3) he came from a brand of Sweets from further afield, possibly a branch from Somerset which had property in North Tamerton.  More research is needed.  The only Adam Sweet with local records has his official wife listed as Sara Crapp, born to a local family of Meinheniot, however Hester 1700’s baptism record lists Adam with a woman called Hester.  An Adam Sweet married Sara Crapp in St Cleer in 1689.  She died after 1700, possibly in Lanteglos (‘Shutt’).  The only burial record for an Adam Sweet is in St Neot in 1720. 

Hester (1700) was the youngest of 4 children from Adam and Hester in St Neot – Elizabeth b1690 (d 1695), William b1691, Grace b1696 (d1698).

There are a couple of candidates who were old enough to have fathered Richard 1724 with Hester, and would have access to her through Sweet family connections.  One is Richard Craddock of St Teath.  Or Richard Keast of St Cleer, Richard Siblym Richard Cole, Richard Jane or Richard Jeffery.  We’ll never know!!  So if Hester is our 6X GGM, our 6X GGF will never be known and tracing further back to Adam’s ancestry may take some time and forensic digging.

Richard & Elizabeth Derry
5X GGP

Richard b1723 married Elizabeth Derry on 30th October 1750, in St Breock.  Her parents were William and Elizabeth Derry, and her siblings were John, Mary, Ann and Diana.  Although baptisms of their family are recorded as within the Withiel parish, the Derry family may have been connected to the Fowey Moor Sweets through St Neot –  Thomas and Henry Derry’s lease of Trekieve where Stephen Sweet, son of Bennet, inherited the 3 lives lease through his marriage and co-leased with his brother in law, Nicholas Sibly (who married Jone).  Stephen had no male heirs to continue the 3 lives lease through.  

Richard and Elizabeth bore children in Withiel but they died in St Neot, Richard in 1789,  Elizabeth in 1785 (Warleggan record).  Their son Joseph (b1758), my direct ancestor, is the first Sweet with a concrete link to Lampen Farm, Trenant, Diddylake and Lord’s Park Farm, which heralds a return to the St Neot parish.  Richard and Elizabeth may have moved to live close to their offspring in their sixties to St Cleer or St Neot.  

Records show in 1851 that an Elizabeth Sweet, baptised in 1766, was an inmate of an institution in St Columb Major.  This could be Richard’s daughter. 

In 1796, we also discover that St Teath appealed against an order awarded to Tintagel to evict William Sweet and wife Ann and their 2 children, William (3), Elizabeth (1) and force them back to St Teath.  William is listed as having worked with Blanch Sweet’s husband, Thomas Kellow and his brother Joseph Kellow at Delabole Quarry, whilst renting a home in Tintagel where the Kellows lived.  Whilst the story relates to Blanch Sweet, the William Sweet mentioned is not Richard (b1723)’s son baptised in 1755.  It is likely, however, that her son, Thomas Sweet is one indicted in 1850 for causing riot and assault in St Teath, and having to pay a fine (1 shilling) or otherwise face prison.

Joseph & Elizabeth Jane
4X GGP Lords Park and Diddylake

The 1700’s saw the Fowey Moor Sweets either marrying into property and re-establishing themselves in farmsteads around St Neot OR suffering great misfortunes.

John (b1751) was a labourer on a farmstead near Egloshayle.  He and his wife Rebecca had 9 children. 

Richard (b1753) married Martha, the widow of a gent and sea captain, whose sister Mary had also married a Sweet from another branch.  Richard raised Martha’s children as his own, and gained property in Whitehay, near Nastallion and Ruthernbridge as a result.  He remarried in 1794.  He may have gone by an alias, AKA Scott, taking the surname of his 1st wife’s husband to make it easier for her and the children in society, and in return for the property he now lived in.  

William (b1755) married Elizabeth Lucas in 1786.  She was born in Bodmin/Tywardreath and they lived and raised children there, however they died in the Bodmin Workhouse, paupers at the ages of 80 and 87 respectively, in 1828 and 1831, possibly the harshest place one could ever imagine ending up in old age.  What could have gone wrong for William (b1755) and Elizabeth Lucas that they ended up in the workshouse?  William Sweet (b1755) may have been a scoundrel or he may have been unlucky in health, incapacitated for the only work he was capable of – physical labour.  Without land to farm, his choices were very limited indeed.  The discontinuation of 3 life leases, whittled down to just 7 year leases, may have forced him into poverty.  However, there are convictions for a William Sweet littered everywhere (!) including: 1772-1773 sentence to inprisonment in Bridewell for want of sureties to pay Ursual James for a bastard son (he would have been 17 when he fathered the child); in 1776 a William and Richard pleaded guilty to charges of assault; 1784 William Thomas alias Sweet was  sentenced to 1 month’s hard labour in Bridewell for stealing 2 corn sacks.  
William and Elizabeth Lucas’ son, William, married Mary Ede of the Ede family of Menheniot in 1809 and thereafter their children adopted the surname Ede + Sweet. Henry Ede Sweet (b1812) married Mary Ann Doney. Joseph Ede Sweet lived in Treverbyn. Daniel Ede Sweet (b1826) died of consussion at just 30 years of age as a result of a freak accident. Despite their marriages, William and Elizabeth’s children were unwilling or unable to rescue their parents from destitution.

Elizabeth Sweet (b1766) married a scoundrel, Charles Higgs, who was convicted of larceny and spent time in Bodmin goal.   She, like William, also ended up destitute.  Their son, Richard Sweet Higgs was a criminal like his father and was sentenced to death for stealing a mare.  His sentence was commuted to life and he was transported as a covict on the York ship to Van Diemen’s Land, on 30th April 1829.  He died just 2 years later in 1831 at the age of 33. He left behind a wife, Harriet, whom he’d married in 1816, and records suggest that he also had at least 3 children.  One of his children, Jane Higgs b 1821, died in Bodmin Lunatic Asylum in 1896, having been admitted at the age of 74 in 1883. 

Joseph (1758), my ancestor, 4X GGF married a landowner in her own right, called Elizabeth Jane.  Their marriage in St Cleer parish was witnessed by his brother Richard (b1753), who was by this time already married to Martha but soon to find himself widowed. 

In 1837 voter registers Joseph is listed as occupying Lord’s Park Farm, freehold.  His son William (b1793) is listed in Lampen and Trenant.  By the 1841 census, Joseph, aged 85 and his wife Elizabeth (80) are now living in Diddylake, with their son William (b1793, aged 45 he’s a miner) with his wife Elizabeth, his other son Richard (b1803, aged 35, also a miner) and his wife Jane.  My 3XGGF Joseph Sweet (b 1796) occupies Lords Park Farm with his wife Ann Carpenter and their children.

Elizabeth Jane had a small holding in 1793 and 11 acres at Treverbyn leased to Robert Keast of Higher Trenant. In 1815 William Lord took Higher Trenant after Jonathan Keast was forced to give it up, alongside Diddylake farm/tenements.  William Lord (b 1766, alias Broad) may be same who married Ann Stephens in 1793, becoming Joseph’s daughter Ann’s brother in law when she married Humphrey Stephens in 1824.  The web of families grew!  So Joseph (b1758) may have used Elizabeth Jane’s small holding as leverage to obtain 3 properties for himself and his son (or sons) – Diddylake, Lords Park Farm and Lampen.  Joseph died in 1844 just as a potato blight famine and unemployment for miners hit Cornwall.  The secure set up he creates for his family with leases on farmsteads in very close proximity to each other in St Neot means that, when they weren’t mining or quarrying, they had land to live off.  His oldest son, William, pre-deceased him.  His daughter Elizabeth died just 3 years after him.  

William Lord 1793-1823 – his death may have been the turning point to obtain Lords Park. His mother was Mary Henwood (d 1814). She outlived her husband and may have remarried William Keast who could be related to Jonathan Keast who originally had the lease on Diddylake before it went to James Carpenter. 

1841 Joseph, 85, is living in Diddylake with his wife Elizabeth, 80, and next to his family, sons William (1793), miner, & Richard (1803), miner. Joseph’s occupation, despite his age, is ‘miner’.  His other son Joseph (1796) is in Lords Park, listed as a farmer. Joseph’s son Richard (1803) also has a Susan Common, 13, living as a servant whilst an Elizabeth Sweet, age 65, b1776, is living with William Common (HH) in Roche. There are Stephens and Higman family members in the same place. William (1793) has Samson Wilton, a 20yo miner, living in his HH and he will eventually marry Joseph (1796)’s daughter Elizabeth.

Joseph and Ann Carpenter
3X GGP Lords Park

The family, under Joseph (b1796) goes through a period of welcome stability.  His marriage to Ann Carpenter strengthens his position in the Diddylake-Lords Park-Lampen group of farms. 

In 1826, Joseph is listed as a labourer living in Diddylake.  By 1836 Joseph is listed in voter records as a freehold farmer at Lords Park Farm.  He has progressed from labourer to farmer AND he gets to live in Lords Park, not the ramshackle Diddylake.  

In 1841, his brother William (b1793) is in Diddylake, and sharing the space with his elderly parents, Joseph andElizabethand his brother, Richard, his wife and child.  

In 1841 Joseph (1796) aged 40-ish, farmer, is in Lords Park with Ann (Carpenter) his wife, and Elizabeth, Richard William, John and Joseph (10).
In 1861 Joseph (64) Lords Park, farmer of 64 acres with tin stream, plus w Ann (51), Son John (21) farmer’s son, Elizabeth Wilton – granddaughter (15) and Joseph Carpenter (55), boarder, agric. labourer and poss. Ann Carpenter’s brother. 
In 1871 Lords Park, Joseph aged 75, farmer of 147 acres, lives with his wife Ann 62, her brother Joseph Carpenter, 67.  Joseph is clearely thriving, having increased his acreage from 10 to 147.  He has ensured that his family consolidate their fortunes through marriage, and probably taking advantage of the exodus of Cornish men in search of mining and quarrying work overseas, after a period of famine.

In Joseph’s 1874 will he leaves £100 to Ann Sweet is his executrix. She died in 1875, aged 66, registered to Diddylake, whereas Joseph was registered at Lords Park at his time of death. 
Joseph’s brother William (b1793) died of consumption at just 49 years old in 1843.  Their father, Joseph who died a year later, may have suffered the same fate.  William and his Johanna did not have any children.
When Joseph’s daughter Elizabeth (b1825) marries Sampson Wilton they continue to live in Diddylake.  

Joseph’s sister Ann marries Humphrey Stephens, 1824, in St Cleer
In the 1841 census she is sleeping in a barn at Winsor, aged 40, with husband Stephen 45, an agricultural labourer, children Elizabeth 15 and James Doney 15.  

By 1851 Humphrey and Ann Stephens are still in St Cleer – Humphrey is an agricultural labourer, and their daughter Elizabeth (now 26) is a dressmaker with her illegitimate son, William, aged 4.  She’d made a marriage allegation in 1846 against Henry Chapman, a farmer, Braddock when she was just 20.  In 1853 Humphrey is in prison.  1861 census shows Ann Stephens is a housekeeper. Elizabeth is still a dressmaker, now aged 36, and her son has been given her new husband’s name, John Henry Pearce (m1854).  Sadly William (alias Pearce) has to work in a copper mine at just 14 years old. A John Pearce was sentenced to 6y in servitude in 1857 and by 1865 Elizabeth has moved on and is now ‘E Richards’ with a 6yo son, Samuel.In 1869 Ann was acquitted of larceny and in 1871 she is listed as ‘wife of labourer’. She dies aged 72 in St Cleer.  Humphrey is admitted to a lunatic asylum 1872 where he dies in 1873.  We come full circle back to Winsor, from the Winsor barn to Winsor cottage when in 1891 Elizabeth is listed as a widow, 66, living on her own means in St Cleer.

Joseph’s youngest sibling, Richard marries Jane Landrey (from St Ive) in 1839.  He may have had a 1st marriage to Elizabeth Pearse in 1830, but Elizabeth died in 1835/36, aged just 24, due to ‘decline’.  Richard and Jane have a son, Caleb, and in 1841 he appears in the census. Richard’s occupation is described as “streamer”.  The 1861 census states that they now live in Lower Langdon Farm.  He’s aged 58, she’s 56 and they have other children, Elizabeth 16 and Ann 12 living with them. Richard’s daughter Elizabeth (Lower Langdon), marries Joseph’s son, Richard (Higher Langdon), in 1856, when they are 24 and 27 – they’re 1st cousins.  Richard & Elizabeth have: Elizabeth 1832 and Richard 1836. Elizabeth probably died giving birth to Richard.  With Jane he has William 1840, Caleb 1841, Susanna 1844, Eliza Jane 1845, Anne 1848. Elizabeth Pearse was a minor when Richard (b1803) married her, and may have only been 18. Richard (b1803) died a pauper in 1878, and was in Lunatic Asylum in 1875

Great Great Grandparents
Children of Joseph (b1796) and Ann Carpenter

My Great Great Grandfather was Joseph Sweet, and my Great Great Grandmother was Betsey Ann Doney.  They lived in Lords Park Farm.  Elizabeth (b1825) lived in Diddylake, John (b1840) lived in Parsons Park, a short distance away. Richard married his first cousin, Elizabeth, with whom he had grown up through childhood.  William (b1835) is the only known ancestor who voluntarily emigrated.  He moved to the USA in 1888, hot on the heals of his in-laws (the Keast family).  He died in Iowa having gained social and professional status there. 
Many Cornish families emigrated in the 1840’s as Cornwall suffered its own famine as a result of corn prices.
The Cornish diaspora spreads to Australia, New Zealand, America, even India to find work or escape famine. 
The generations who remained in Cornwall did eventually improve their prospects, capitalising on the growing demand for quarried granite to support the industrial revolution, the railways and the trend for gravestones and ornate monuments.  Many of the “new” gravestones can be found in St Neot and St Cleer graveyards, carved by Sweets and even for Sweets themselves.  That new living led the Sweets to move to Moorswater and Liskeard.

Great Grandparents
Children of Joseph (b1832) and Betsey Ann Doney

My Great Grandfather was Herbert Lewis Sweet, baptised 1871, and my Great Grandmother was Emily Ada Marchant.  This is the first generation of our line of Sweets which freely moved away from the parish, St Neot, and even from the county, Cornwall.  Almost all of these Sweet ancestors are linked to Lords Park Farm and its neighbouring farms.  Most of this generation lived through two world wars.  Some lost sons or saw their sons return from war profoundly changed.  Others fought in a war themselves.

My Grandparents
Children of Herbert Lewis and Emily Ada.

My Grandfather, Leslie Joseph (aka Joe) and his siblings grew up in relative comfort in White Lodge, Yiewsley, Middlesex.  Victoria, the eldest, aka Queenie, moved to South Africa as soon as she married.  Lewis Charles was old enough to fight in WW1.  Lily lived the longest and ended her days in Cornwall, near Plymouth.  Herbert, aka Jack, suffered permanent injury as a result of a motorbike accident as a young man, and spent most of his adult life in a sanatorium in Wandsworth.  Clifford married Constance Surridge, and it was through her that Joe met his own wife, Doris.  Vera’s first husband, Henry Roy (aka Roy) was a prisoner of war in Burma.  The harsh experience permanently damaged his health.  Vera also died in Plymouth.  Doris spent much of her married life in South Africa.  Her son (living) is a renowned artist with paintings depicting life in Africa.