Cortis

The Brothers Cortis

Six sons of Richard CORTIS and Jane SMITHSON reached adulthood. Five crossed the Atlantic and ended their days in the United States after experiencing mixed fortunes. From information received and uncovered thus far, it appears that the first young man to Go West was Richard John in 1856. He had married Jane Hannah MAPLES in Hull in 1850 and they sailed from Liverpool with two infant boys. When they were caught by the 1860 US census they had been joined by Harold Graeme (aged 6 months) – and RJ’s brother Samuel Smithson. I don’t know for sure if the other three brothers had made the crossing by this time but eight years ago I was offered a reason for them all leaving home.

Here is a post from Looking at Filey, 6 May 2012 – in full, errors included but footnoted. (The archived Looking at Filey has still not been made available again at The British Library. The web links should still “work”.)

Distant Relations

Photographer unknown, no date1, courtesy Elizabeth Kennard

Richard John2 CORTIS senior, born about 1788, was a master mariner and later a shipping agent. He also owned the Minerva public house hard by the River Humber. (Recent photos here, here, and here.) With Jane SMITHSON he had at least ten children. I had found eight of them on FamilySearch but Elizabeth supplied two more – Henrietta, who died in infancy, and Joseph who was killed in Tennessee during the American Civil War. Seven Hull born children made it to adulthood but none breathed their last by the Humber. Six3 died in the United States and one in Australia. Elizabeth asked me what happened in Hull around the 1850s that prompted a whole brood to fly a long way from the nest. Despite being a Hull lad, I didn’t have a clue and so asked a man I hoped would know. Peter Church explained that 1849 was a cholera epidemic year and some of the city’s water came from Spring Head in Anlaby along an open channel which passed Spring Bank cemetery where 700 cholera victims were buried. Minerva opened in 1851 and Richard John CORTIS senior was responsible for “masterminding the trans-migrants passing through Hull from mainland Europe to America”.  I reckon he was therefore in a good position to advise his children to seek a healthier life across the Atlantic and to facilitate their journeys.

The odd one out was William Smithson CORTIS who was enumerated in Queen Street Filey in 1851 with a wife, three children and three servants.  Ten years later he was a widower in a mixed  John Street household containing three of his children, a widowed sister in law and nephew (on his wife’s side), a pupil  in his medical practice, four servants – and his old dad, 74 year old “Richard,  formerly Master Mariner.”

The Cortis presence in Filey comes to an end at some time during the next ten years, before 1869 probably because the old master mariner dies in Hull that year, his age given as 83. Two of his Filey born grandsons made their way to Australia and William Smithson went out there too, dying in Manly in 1906.

I wonder if any letters passed between Filey and the United States. Was the man on the horse (above) aware of his older brother’s passing in Australia, four years before his own death?

Elizabeth has told me that Richard John Junior worked as a shipping agent for the White Star Line and did well enough for himself to have four servants and a coachman in the house. The photograph was taken in Brooklyn, New York City, which is not, as Elizabeth writes, “a noted pastoral green, horse riding area any longer”.  (William GEDNEY pictured Brooklyn as I imagine it.)

Notes:

  1. Date about 1895.
  2. I do not think Richard senior had a middle name.
  3. Five brothers and, perhaps, sister Jane.

Elizabeth’s photograph came with the following information attached.

Richard J Cortis 1823-1910, an Englishman who with his wife Jane (Maples) came to NY City permanently about the middle of the 1850s. He was the father of Jessie V. Cortis (1865-1937) who married Wm. Kennard in 1889. The maternal grandfather of Wm. Cortis Kennard (1893-1975) and the great grandfather of Richard Cortis Kennard (1920- 2001.

R J Cortis always kept a horse or two in Flatbush, Brooklyn, NY and this picture taken about 1895 shows him on his horse “Rex” at the Cortis home, 66 Lennox Road, Flatbush, which the Kennard family and R J Cortis left in 1908 for 1722 Albemarle Rd, a home built by Wm M Kennard.

Find Richard John on the FamilySearch Shared Tree.

Path 105 Long Lane

Boris & the Tent

Dr. Cortis Speaks

On this day in 1857, at possibly his first meeting in the Town Hall after being elected Mayor of Scarborough, Henry SPURR introduced William Smithson CORTIS to the gathering. The good doctor of Filey read a paper about the recent finds of Roman artifacts on Carr Naze, following a landslip caused by heavy rain. I haven’t yet found a transcript online – and accounts of the more recent excavations of the Signal Station are not freely available either. Some of the brief online references to the discovery say Dr. Cortis led the excavation and gave his talk to Filey antiquaries. Neither “fact” seems to be true.

Dr. Cortis credits “a painter belonging to Filey, named Wilson” as the finder of the revealed objects. Filey Genealogy & Connections identifies Jeffrey WILSON as the man of that moment. He was about 65 years old at the time but still working in 1861 so could have been sprightly enough to descend “at some risk…down the falling cliff” to retrieve what he initially thought were pieces of jet. He died aged 76 in October 1872.

Carr Naze was then the property of the Reverend Richard BROOKE  of Gateforth and it was he who organized the excavation. It is not clear from the talk if Filey’s doctor got his hands dirty or was merely an interested observer at the dig.

You will see from Today’s Image how narrow the spine of Carr Naze is now. The Information Board at the site gives an indication of how much of the promontory has been eroded since the Romans left Britain.

RomanSignalStation

The five stone blocks found at the base of the tower can be seen now in Crescent Gardens, and the “hunting scene” of the Information Board is described by Dr. Cortis as “a dog chasing a stag”. Over the years I have looked for the animals a number of times. I think they may still be visible if the light is favourable, but perhaps not as clearly as in this old photograph of poor quality and unknown provenance. (There is a more recently taken image here.)

Dog&Stag

William Smithson CORTIS is on the FamilySearch tree.

Henry SPURR, born Doncaster in 1795, died 30th May 1865 at Westfield House, Scarborough after a short illness. He has at least two nascent pedigrees on FST, both generated by “the system”. One gives his parents and the other his son, James Frederick, by first wife Eleanor WHITE. Eleanor died age 48 in 1844 and Henry married Louisa Amelia BLIGHT almost four years later, in East Stonehouse, Devonshire.

“Jeffry” WILSON is also unmarried on FST. His granddaughter, Mary WILSON, married the grandson of the William PASHBY who died suddenly in Friday’s post – but you will have to go to Kath’s Filey Genealogy to see that Connection.

One Spring in Wintringham

The letter from Maria Green to the Vicar of Holy Trinity (Sunday’s post) was an unexpected “find” and it prompted me to look further into her family.

In 1841 Maria, husband William and three children were living in Marine Row, Hull. I haven’t been able to locate the place with certainty but it must surely have been close to the River Humber, the Old Town Docks – and to Minerva Terrace where the CORTIS family lived.  Opportunity, then, for the elder Green girl to hook up with the oldest Cortis boy.

But what’s this? In 1844 Mary Jane and William Smithson married in Wintringham, 35 miles from the bustling port town. Why?

While semi-retired master mariner Richard Cortis was running the Minerva Tavern, William Green was a silk mercer (census), and before that, at the christenings of his three children, a haberdasher. Sometime in the 1840s he decided on a career change and took over the 520-acre Rookdale Farm – in Wintringham. In 1847 his other daughter, Isabella Maria, married Richard BOWES in the village church. I’m still not sure when and where William and Maria’s son, Thomas Rae Green, married but at the 1851 census the young man is on the farm with his wife Mary, the sister of Richard Bowes.

Richard and Mary’s father, William Bowes, was a miller and he also made a significant move during his lifetime, from one of the Yorkshire Bromptons to Monkwearmouth Shore in County Durham. Some sources link the family to Brompton by Northallerton and others to Brompton by Sawdon. I suspect the latter is more likely because of its proximity to Wintringham. (It seems a stretch for them to have lived in both.)

So far, so romantic and rurally idyllic.

At the 1861 census, Thomas is farming Rookdale. His widowed mother, Maria, is in residence and so are his five daughters and a son, William. (Their mother had died the previous year, aged 31.)

1862 was Thomas Green’s annus horribilis. On the 15th April, he buried his second child, Mary Margaret, 9. Four days later his mother was laid to rest, aged 68.  Emily, 5, joined her grandmother in the cold earth two days later, and her younger sister, four-year-old Alice, died a month later.

1862_GREEN_Wintringham_Burials.

Source accessed at Find my Past.

What illness could have ravaged the family so? And it was even more awful because  Harriet Isabella, Maria’s granddaughter, and the fourth child of Isabella Maria Bowes,  was buried with her cousin Mary on the 15th of April.(Isabella Maria’s husband, Richard, had died in 1854, aged 31. Yes, the same age as his sister Mary.)

1862_BOWESHannah_Wintringham_Burials.

The Greens/Bowes did not flee from their sadness. The next census finds some of the survivors in Wintringham still. Thomas, his 19-year-old daughter Ann Maria and son William, now ten; his sister Isabella Maria with her daughter, also Ann Maria (and also 19).

I have looked for them in 1881 without success. Perhaps they emigrated to join their kinfolk in Australia or the United States.

You can find the pedigrees of Thomas Rae and Isabella Maria on the FamilySearch tree.

Minna, Lost

GE_Nordeney_Minna

On this day 1827, on the island of Nordeney, Master Mariner Richard CORTIS penned a letter to his sister Jane. He had just endured a terrifying experience and wanted to share his story. Jane, by accident or design, was instrumental in ensuring it went viral, in an early 19th century sort of way – the letter was reproduced in local newspapers throughout the land.

Nordenay, East Friesland, Nov. 4. – My dear Jane, – It is a most painful duty to inform you of the loss of the Minna on this island, and at the same time I have infinite pleasure to say we have all been miraculously preserved from a watery grave, and are now comfortably lodged, and most kindly treated, in a manner I shall hereafter mention. I shall now give you the particulars of our misfortune, at the same time reminding you how much you are indebted to the ALMIGHTY; be not then cast down, but rather rejoice, and be thankful that we are all safe, and in good health. After remaining in the Humber on Sunday [28th October], with a heavy gale from the N.E., on Monday we proceeded with a N.N.W. wind. When out I did not like the appearance and endeavoured to put back, but could not get in for the tide; we then went forward, and had fine weather until Wednesday the 31st, when the gale commenced with fury. We were at that time in a good offing from the land, and had the wind remained we should have had a long drift; the gale, or rather hurricane, increased with a tremendous high sea; we lay to all night, not a sail would stand but our try sail, and two o’clock in the morning of Nov. 1, our decks, with the bulwark, were clean swept away; the boats, however, were safe. I soon found we were coming near the shore, and prayed for day-light, yet dreaded the consequence; at day-light we found the land close on our lee, the wind and sea dead on, not the slightest hope could be indulged, the sight was truly awful, and a few minutes would determine our fate. A brig which left the Humber with us was close-to, with her anchors gone; we let go ours, but to no effect, for they both broke. We then ran right on the shore (every man clinging to something)’ fortunately it was high water, and a very high tide. We struck about seven a.m. the sea for a few minutes over us, but we held fast. I found the waves had lifted the vessel so high upon the sand, that if she did not upset or break to pieces we might be saved. We prepared our boat, and after cutting the lashings, a sea launched her with little assistance; we then all got in and committed ourselves to Him who suffereth not a sparrow to fall to the ground without his permission; in a moment we were in smooth water, ourselves as wet as if taken out of the sea, our boat half full – that we soon bailed out with our hats. We then had about five miles to go to the nearest house on the main land, as we did not see one on the island; this was unfortunate, as people are placed there on purpose to protect wrecks and give every assistance. We got on shore about half-past nine, and went to a very large farm-house, but to our sorrow it was kept by a hind and a housekeeper – shall I call her a woman, or rather a monster in human shape! Though we were wet to the skin and perishing with cold, they stood like brutes gazing on us, never offering us any dry clothes, and it was with difficulty we could get a fire; over a very slow one we had to sit all naked to dry first our shirts and then the remainder; as for my flannels they dried on my back; all the time experiencing black looks and growls from the housekeeper; then came dinner, bad enough, which I will not now describe. My people had to sleep in the barn; myself and passenger were indulged with a bed, and the next morning we rose with only some slight colds. During the day, to our great satisfaction, we were visited by Lloyd’s agent, who informed us that if we had gone on the island our reception would have been the reverse; to our comfort we arrived there the next day, and found the crew of the brig Sylph, of Leith, in ballast from Hull to Hambro’, safe. There we found another wreck, a galliot called the Vrow Maria, Capt. Jan Caspers Uil, with timber from Norway to Groningen; the captain and crew, his three sons (the youngest not more than eight years of age), presented a scene too shocking to describe: they were all killed in the cabin by the vessel turning bottom up. This morning the whole of the inhabitants, with ourselves, have attended the funeral, and a more solemn one I never witnessed; the minister prayed beautifully, and, assisted by the schoolmaster and a great number of little boys, a hymn was sung over the grave with great order. My mind was awfully roused, when I reflected it might have been our own lot; may the impression long remain, and have a happy effect!

I must now give an account of the Minna; she is so high on the strand, that the tide at high water scarcely reaches her; today the whole of her cargo will be safe on shore, the better half in tolerable condition; we shall then save all her stores for the benefit of the underwriters. Two more vessels are stranded to the east of us, and one to the west, making six vessels within about 20 miles; and I greatly fear all from the Texel to the Island of Heligoland must be lost, as we were ourselves in the latitude of the island when the gale came on; and, after we were on shore, it continued with equal fury the following night; indeed I never knew it to blow harder. We have saved since the gale all our clothes, and such is the honesty of the people and attention to wrecks, that not the smallest articles were touched. Would to God it was so everywhere! In gratitude to the people on this island, too much praise cannot be given. – Thirty-two sovereigns and some small money were found in the Dutch vessel, and in my drawer there were nearly two pounds in silver, and all faithfully delivered to the Governor! This circumstance, as well as their kind attention at the funeral, reflects the greatest credit upon them, and deserves the widest circulation.

Under this visitation we must look up to the Almighty with gratitude, and trust that something will turn out on land. Oh! To describe my feelings at the time of trial, I dare not attempt. My wife and children were, if possible, dearer than life itself; give me with them a cottage rather than the sea. Give my kind regards to all friends; to you my dear Jane, and the children, my feelings will not permit me to say more than every affection, love &c – From your

RICHARD CORTIS.

1829_CORTISr_Hamburg

The Lloyds underwriters must have obliged. Richard forsook the cottage in the country and invested in the SS London. Less than six months after Minna was lost Richard was advertising a passenger and freight service between Hull and Hamburg. It would take him almost a year to set up the venture.

Five guineas for the best cabin equates to about £400 today – more than enough to ferry a car and four occupants from Hull to Rotterdam.

 

 

In June 1834 the Hull papers reported the death of Jane Cortis née SMITHSON.

On Saturday last [7th June], highly respected, aged 43, Jane, wife of Mr. Richard Cortis of the Minerva Hotel, leaving a husband and ten children, two of whom are only six weeks old, to mourn her loss.

In 1861 the Census caught Richard in Filey, in the household of one of his sons, William Smithson CORTIS, the town’s doctor. The property was the first to be built in John Street and today the ground floor is for the most part occupied by the St Catherine’s Hospice shop. Would William approve?

JohnSt1_1m

Richard’s family is well represented on the FamilySearch Tree, though I see there is an impostor wife who has yet to be dealt with! (Anne Barnby HILL, K2J9-17B.)

A Marriage Made in Cyberspace

William Smithson CORTIS practiced medicine in Filey for over ten years. In that time his wife, Mary Jane née GREEN, gave birth to five children.  Two of three sons survived into adulthood and both qualified as doctors. The elder, William Richard,  blazed an adventurous trail to Australia and father, stepmother, brother, and two sisters duly followed him there. You may find a fourth son recorded in a British Census but “Albert” is a mistranscription of Herbert who, when not treating people for ailments, was thrilling those who turned up at cycle racing tracks in the early 1880s. Herbert Liddell CORTIS became widely recognized as the greatest cyclist of his generation and was still being remembered as such forty years after his death.

William Richard had a longer life, dying at 61 in Perth, Western Australia, at the beginning of 1909. He packed a great deal into his span – a shipwreck, fighting in a war, owning racehorses, becoming an MP, giving evidence in murder trials and being charged with an unlawful killing himself. He married three times and none of his brides were Anne Barnby HILL.

CORTIS_WmRichd_Screenshot

Link to pedigree

Blame “the system”!   Humans make mistakes like this too, of course. When I happened upon this marriage a couple of days ago I was quite prepared to accept it. The Australia connection fooled me initially but I went back to old notes and recently donated information and began to find more credible pieces of the Cortis Family jigsaw.

Titanic was not the first White Star Line vessel to hit an iceberg. In 1864 one of the company’s first steam-powered sailing ships, Royal Standard, got into a scrape in the South Atlantic. The people onboard lived to tell the tale, the ship making her way to Rio de Janeiro for repairs and then returning to Liverpool, her home port. The ship’s luck ran out in October 1869 when she was wrecked on the coast of Brazil. William Richard Cortis, on his way to Australia, was among the survivors.

William returned home rather than continue his journey to the antipodes and within a year had married Mary Julia MOORE in Camberwell. The newlyweds almost immediately sailed for the Australian Colonies but Mary Julia soon died in Tambaroora of tuberculosis, aged 23.

On 15th January 1873, William married Florence FYANS, daughter of the late Captain FYANS (4th King’s Own Regiment and formerly Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Western District, Victoria), at Christ Church, St Kilda, Melbourne. By the time William is reckoned to have married Anne Barnby Hill, Florence had borne one son and was pregnant with another. They would go on to have nine children together – and then divorce about 1905.

I haven’t found any evidence that William took up with a younger woman while still married to Florence but, as he approached sixty, Edith (family name not yet found) became the doctor’s third wife. On the 5th October 1908, The West Australian was reporting her funeral “in the Anglican portion of the Karrakatta Cemetery”. The screen image of the death notice is too heavily printed to be sure but, aged 23 or 28, Edith died well before her time.

1908_CORTISedith_DEATH

(Family Notice via Trove.)

Within three months, William Richard Cortis was also dead. On the 6th January 1909, The Geraldton Express reflected on “A Varied Career”.

Dr. William Richard Cortis died suddenly yesterday at the W. A. Club. He was over 60 years of age, and during his career had been a prominent surgeon, legislator, soldier, and magistrate. During the past six or eight months he acted as Resident Medical Officer at Kookynie. He came to the city about a month ago, having obtained leave. For two or three years he held the position of Resident Magistrate and Medical Officer at Derby. The post-mortem examination revealed the fact that the cause of death was angina pecoris (sic), and although the deceased had taken a quantity of morphia to alleviate the pain, this had nothing whatever to do with his end. Deceased was a man of fine physique, but during the last year he was overtaken by a trouble which no doubt undermined his health, and this was accelerated by the recent death of his wife, which preyed on his mind. Last year, while Resident Magistrate and Medical Officer at Derby, he was called upon to stand his trial on three separate occasions for the alleged unlawful killing of a man named Gerald Ascione.

William Richard’s short-term in Government is officially recognized here.

My thanks to Elizabeth Kennard (USA) and Peter Donkin (Australia) for kindly offering information on the Cortis Family that might otherwise have remained hidden from me. I have several more leads to follow and hope soon to make the necessary corrections to the pedigree on FamilySearch. I won’t be at all surprised to discover that the William who married Anne Barnby HILL and William Richard are cousins with a recent common ancestor just three generations back in north Lincolnshire. CORTIS isn’t a common name.