Code History – Brian Bailey¶

The following are selected excerpts from Brian Baileys website.

In search of my McCreary-Magee-McGee Codd/Code Ancestors¶

in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada

SUMMARY: My name is Brian Bailey. I grew up in Lanark County, Ontario, Canada, where my Irish ancestors landed and took root in the 1820's. I am now 65 years old and counting. My search for my Irish roots began when I was seven years old and came home from school asking my mother if there was anyone famous in our family. She too had been curious about this as a young person and had asked the same question to her mother - who told her that the McCreary side of our family were directly related to Thomas D’Arcy McGee. My mother's aunt, Laura (McCreary) Ferrill who had grown up in rural Lanark in the 1880s was the self-appointed family record keeper. When I was growing up, the family held picnics at Boyd's Settlement where the family had landed and stayed on. This study adds to my Aunt Laura's collection of names in the 1940s. Like my mother, I am a story teller and was more interested in the story than the names and dates. This is the story (or rather part of the story) as I know it.

This web site shares information of the settlers from two regions of Ireland who made up the majority of Irish emigrants in the Boyd's Settlement region of Lanark County, Ontario. With the large amount of information which has surfaced, I have decided, to make things flow better, to divide up the site into the families from County Armagh and the families from County Wicklow.

The CODDs of Aghold Parish in Wicklow (revised May 2012)

CODD Family Background¶

The CODD family of Aghold Parish, Wicklow (and beyond) sent many family members to Canada (and perhaps elsewhere) - between 1816 and 1823 mainly - with dribbles of emigration afterwards. Most family members did not retain the CODD spelling - and became CODEs and COADs. Some of the latter have become confused with the COAD families from England - but most CODEs in Canada and the United States are likely to be descendants of this wave of emigration from Ireland - by a family who was on the winning side of the Rebellion of 1798 - but who found themselves infected with the hope of a new life in a new land. In North America, they often became community leaders, Members of Parliament, pioneers of the formation of new communities.

Perhaps this was because both in Ireland and before they came to Ireland with Strongbow (Richard de Clare) in 1170, the Anglo-Norman Flemish Codds had been "landed gentry." These families remained clustered with the other Anglo-Norman families in the Bargy and Forth region of County Wexford. About 1725 one family of Codds, originally Roman Catholics, who had converted to Protestantism, JAMES CODD (1705-1763), whether married at the time or single, moved to Wicklow County - establishing the CODD family at Boley Townland and later at Croneleagh or Crownalay Townland (Aghold Parish) now spelled Cronelea - and at Munahullen Townland (many alternative spellings have emerged Mullahullen, Mungacullin, Monaghullen etc.) near Shillelagh.

In Wicklow (which was a part of County Carlow when they arrived) they were simple tenant farmers and craftsmen who helped found St. Michael's Church of Ireland. By 1817 many of the family had committed themselves to emigrate. Others remained, some joining a second migration to Canada around 1850, while others are still found in the area, and remain adherents of St. Michael's Church of Ireland at Aghold.

Irish Records of Births, Marriages and Deaths for Aghold and nearby Parishes¶

The difficulty in locating Codd records and those families with whom they intermarried is compounded by the fact that the families were sufficiently distributed that their records appear in the Registers of at

least six Churches of Ireland, all of which are only a few miles apart - but which exist in different Counties. Tullow and St. Fiaac's of Clonegal are in County Carlow, St. Mary's Church at Bunclody is in Wexford County, while Carnew, Shillelagh and St. Michael's Church at Coolkenna are in Wicklow County. Yet emigrants to Canada more often than not indicated only the County where they lived.

The Codd / Code Connection¶

My ancestral Codd family had come out in 1820 at the same time as Samuel Boyd - and later became Codes and Coads. While detailed suggestions of a community's origins are often lost to "official" records, my great aunt, Laura (McCreary) Ferrill (who 's buried at Boyd's) as an amateur historian put together much of the ancient Codd family tree data before such practices were common. She records the histories of the Codds who also arrived in 1820 and who later married into the McCreery family. The Codd (or Code) family came to Wicklow County from the "Barony of Forth" County Wexford (17th century). Their origin was English - and ultimately Anglo-Norman - coming over from Normandy with William the Conqueror and arriving in Ireland at Castletown in Wexford with Strongbow in 1190 as landed gentry.

There is reference to Lake of Lady's Island as "once in four or five years opened evacuating itself into the sea - a passage cut by Squire Codde of Castletown (on the east coast of Ireland in Wexford) ."Squire John Codde is mentioned in the parish register of Wexford. Anne Codde of Castletown married a Reverend Thomas Bunbury of Balesker in 1668. Jane Codde married Thos. Richards Esq. of "The Park" and later Rathaspec. Loftus Codde of Castletown deposited a will in 1696 at Emiscarthy (Enniscorthy). These Norman Coddes were Roman Catholic - and only later families became Protestant.

Castletown, Balesker, Enniscorthy, Rathaspec, the Barony of Forth, and Lake of Lady's Island are all near each other in the area around Wexford - most of them being north of Wexford, near the borders of Carlow and Wicklow Counties. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Corwick Lowhelem - but I imagine that by a different spelling it is in this area. Of course, this was the area where Thomas D'arcy McGee grew up as well.

In fact, there were (at least) three closely related Codd emigrant families who settled Lanark Twp., in Lanark and Kitley Twp. in Leeds County and two others who settled Drummond Township - and who were probably more distantly related. I will speak first of the one I know best - and to whom I am more closely related. The established facts are that - Thomas Codd (Coad)(1773-1852) came to Canada in 1820 with his wife LADY Elizabeth (nee Twamley (1774 or 1778 -1839) from Corwick Lowhelem. Their offspring - the 2nd generation Codes who came to Boyd's Settlement* were George, Richard, Thomas, Abraham, Rachel and James. Abraham later moved to North Dakota and James to Saginaw, Michigan. The others remained in the Boyd's Settlement community and latterly at Kitley Twp. until the late 1840's to early 1850's when George and Richard moved their families to Trowbidge in Huron County and East Wawanosh in Western Ontario respectively. The elder Thomas Codd and his son Richard changed their name to Coad in the late 1840s, and moved to Kitley Twp. to be with their Coad** kin. The reason for the name change has remained a well-kept secret.

George Code (b. 1800 at Croneleagh Hill, Wicklow - granted Lanark Con. XII- Lot 4E) married Pearl Boyd (daughter of Samuel Boyd - the original settler who was granted Con. XII Lot 2W.)

Thomas was known (by family sources) to have married "the boss's daughter” in 1800 - which suggests that Lady Elizabeth was from a higher stratum of Irish protestant society. The lower stratum simply rented and sublet property, while the next level above were subletters and entrepreneurs who had business - like grain-processing mills - which were supported by the landed gentry financially. Our Codd family had long lost their landed gentry status - which went back to the time of Stongbow's invasion in 1170, at least 100 year previously, when they were pushed out of Wexford (probably the Enniscorthy areas - where Roman Catholic Codds live to this day,) westward to Wicklow. Lady Elizabeth was from a Twamley family which has not yet been identified and was likely a widow when Thomas Codd married her. There is a record of Elizabeth Twamley marrying Peter Twamley in 1792, with a daughter Allice baptized in 1795 - and further record of Peter being killed during the Rebellion. Was Peter's wife Lady Elizabeth? We'll probably never know.

Suffice it to say that Thomas and Elizabeth married in 1800 - and became part of the Church of Ireland faction who embraced John Wesley's Methodism. By 1817 they had applied to emigrate (Elly List), quite evidently by now, unwelcome or insecure in Wicklow, with the Anglican hegemony on the verge of collapse. When they left in 1820, Thomas' brothers, for the most part, stayed behind, but his older sister (maybe probable sister is more accurate) Jane Codd had married William Dagg about 1791 and they had paved the way, setting down at Kitley in 1817.

Thomas Sr. received Con. XII Lot 4W. Daughter Rachel Code married Thomas Jackson*** (Lanark Township Con XII Lot 2E) who came with Lancelot Jackson (Con. XII Lot 1E) in 1820.

Thomas Code b. 1807 stayed on the homestead Con. XII Lot. 4W (of which I painted a picture when I was 16) and married Mary Jane James and had 7 children by his first marriage - William, James, Rachel, Ann, Eliza Mary and Letitia.

After Mary Jane died, Thomas Code remarried Mary (Price or Pryce) with whom he had 10 more children - Harriet (m. an Agnew) Thomas (m. Mary Willows - the Willows owned the property to the south of Thomas' farm - Lanark XII Lot 3) Alicia (who married William James McCreery) John, Margaret ( who married John McCreery), Sarah, Albert and Abraham - 17 children in all. Margaret Code McCreary was my great grandmother.

** Thomas Code, b. 1773, Munahullen, Aghowle Parish, Shillelagh Barony, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, d. July 23, 1852, Lanark Twp., Lanark Co., Ontario, Canada, m. Elizabeth Twamley in Ireland before 1800.

*** Thomas Jackson, b. 1798, Tullow, Co. Carlow., Ireland, d. August 13, 1881 Lanark Twp., Lanark Co., Ontario, Canada, m. Rachel Code January 1, 1821 in St. James Church, Perth, Lanark Co., Ontario, Canada.? Children are: Elizabeth, Ellen (Eleanor), John, Abraham, Thomas, Leticia and Mary.

The CODE-CHAMNEY-TWAMLEY Connection¶

Next to George Code at Beckwith Con. XI, Lot 3 was (perhaps some time later) Edward Chamney Jr., whose father was Edward Chamney of Munahullen and whose grandparents were Edward Chamney Sr. and Jane Twamley (married at St. Michael's Church in 1762 - see church records below).

Edward Chamney Sr.'s family did not all emigrate (son James Chamney and daughter Rebecca Chamney stayed behind) and, by reports, the Chamney family still operate the same farm in Munahullen today.

Edward Chamney Jr. (1812-1869) married George Code's daughter Ann Code (b. 1828). At about the same time as George Code (m. Jane Morris) emigrated (c. 1820) John Chamney (b. 1763 - see excerpt from St. Michael's Church records above) Edward Chamney Jr.'s uncle, received Lanark Township Con. 12 Lot 3. and his son-in-law William James (m. to Elizabeth Chamney) received Lanark Twp. Con. 10 Lot 11E. The Chamney and Code families became the forebears of famous Canadian novelist Alice Munro - who wrote extensively about her settler ancestors, and their trials and tribulations in her novels. A well-worked-out genealogy exists which connects Alice to Codd, Twamley and Chamney ancestors in Aghold Parish as far back as the early 1700s.

The large James family - John, William Jr., Thomas H., Mary Jane, Elizabeth, Leticia, Anne, Nathaniel, Rebecca, Sarah, Benjamin and Edward, intermarried with the Codes (Leticia James married Abraham Code b.1839) Mary Jane James (as indicated above) married Thomas Code Jr. and the Chamneys (Thomas James married Mary Chamney in 1838.)

Summary: Two or more Code families, a Hopkins family, two Jackson families, two Chamney families, a number of Halpenny families, the Dowdall family and several James families, and possibly several more not listed here - arrived at or near Boyd's Settlement around the same time, from the same small Aghold neighborhood in Wicklow - and had a rather high rate of intermarriage. But this was hardly uncommon among the Irish - and particularly among Irish Methodists. Yet many of the families remained Church of Ireland (Anglican) on coming to Canada.

Why did some of these CODD families become CODE and some COAD? And why didn't they just remain CODD? Speculation is rife. Was it because the pronunciation of CODD sounded like CODE or COAD and recording officials spelled their names phonetically? This was undoubtedly the case for some. Was it because the CODDs got teased for their name - which was derived from a generic word for the male member - or was it because they developed religious schisms over the years. Surely someone has written down the story - something that happened around 1850 - spreading from family to family.