Notes by John Overholt: ÒI don't think he (John Charles Cutcliffe), ever did a tap of work in his life and have not been able as yet, to find what and where, he was educated. Eloped with Susan Maria Bluett and travelled in France and Germany for a couple of years and came back to her sisterÕs in Swansea to give birth to her first child in 1870. Very shortly thereafter they moved to Canada. They bought 90 acres and farmed. He was a drinker and apparently a very strict disciplinarian. John hired and ex-Sgt. Major to drill all the children on the front lawn every day. John was evil tempered frittered away his wifeÕs money. Susan came to visit her sister in Paignton (we think she knew she was dying) and came with her two young daughters and a baby. When apparent she was dying, her husband and the boys came to England. Her sole surviving grandchild (then about 85) told me about 1995, that my grandfather and the two girls were the only children that had thier mother's sweet nature. She said all the others were foul-tempered. John Charles died intestate and my grandfather was granted Administration--- and didn't cause ructions about 25 years later. Ida Elizabeth Cutcliffe moved to Canada to help her brother look after his family after his wife died. She did not stay long as she couldn't cope with his bad nature. John Charles mother, Emma, also came to Canada and died in Mt. Pleasant. Mumerous monuments exist in the lovely wooden churches graveyard. The village is located about 5 miles outside Brantford and borders the Six Nations Indian Reservation consisting of Mohawk, Iroquois, Cayuga, Tuscarora, Oneida and Seneca Tribes. The original house is still standing. Why on earth they ever went to virtual wilderness nobody knows. Initially they went to a minute settlement in the middle of nowhere called Ilfracombe, now a thriving metropolis of about 200 people and in a snow belt. What did they make of the climate I wonder.
"In 1870 my great grandparents John Charles Cutcliffe, his wife Susan Maria nee Bluett and an infant son emigrated to Canada. J.C. was from the Barnstaple/Ilfracombe area and his wife was from Hocombe Rogus. Family tradition has it that they disembarked at Montreal where they accidentally met John Tooze, also from Holcombe Rogus and who had worked for her father. They apparently asked Tooze where he was going to settle and he replied a small town in Southern Ontario named Brantford. That town was named after a famous Red Indian chief Joseph Brant who was given a vast tract of land by the King in return for Brant's tribes loyalty to the Crown during and after the American Revolution. In 1870 the town was still virtually surrounded by the Indians' reservation. Cutcliffe therefore decided to also settle in Brantford- at least was always the story. I was in Canada a few weeks ago and was looking at the 1871 Census simply to see who thier neighbours were. No Cutcliffe was to be found which was most peculiar. Accidently I found John Tooze.... A week later I was talking to an elderly (88) cousin who solved the mystery of the Cutcliffe absence from the 1871 census. Rather than have gone straight to Brantford they went to a totally undevleped area about 150 miles due north of Toronto which in 1870 was just being "opened up" i.e. settled. That new settlement, which still exists, was named Ilfracombe. In those days it really was in the middle of nowhere and now is a thriving metropolis of about 40 souls. It is located on the fringes a highly popular summer resort area called Muskaka. I would be most interested in any of the readers culd tell me anything about the history of Ilfracombe, Ontario, the early settlers (presumably from N. Devon) and anything at all about the hamlet. What Mr. Cutcliffe intended doing in a wilderness is beyond me as he never did a tap of work in his life. The winter in that part of Ontario is quite severe and he cetrainly wasn't cut out to be a "pioneer" as he later c1872 did move to Brantford where he died in 1898, aged 70. Those of your readers who enjoy country pursuits might be interested to learn that he also took a pact of 35 hounds with him when he emmigrated!!! Some pioneer he was."