Jane Beardwood

Jane Beardwood was born in Lancashire, England in 1838. Her father had been a weaver, but by 1851, his wife had died and the census lists him as a laborer at a paint works. He still had 7 children living at home. The family ended up emigrating to Philadelphia on the ship Tuscarora in 1856.

Jane’s brothers were soon employed in Philadelphia cotton mills. Her father Thomas died just two years after the family arrived in America of typhoid pneumonia. Jane somehow ended up in Kankakee County, Illinois where she married James Thomas Peasgood in 1859. I wonder if she ran away with James, a widower 10 years older with two children in tow, or if she had travelled to Illinois looking for work. As a lone female, travelling alone would have been unlikely, and James, another English immigrant, had previously lived in nearby New Jersey. Some of Jane’s brothers had moved from Philadelphia to New Jersey as well. A photograph of James taken a few years after their marriage shows a rather flashy dresser sporting a shiny gold ring on his little finger. In about 1859, James was in legal trouble. He and some friends had broken in to a grocery store and stolen goods, including 10 pounds of candy. James fled the county to avoid prosecution. These few facts known about him would not indicate a good candidate for marriage, which is why I speculate that they may have eloped together. Jane’s older brothers managed to purchase a fabric finishing company in Philadelphia. Her younger brother worked for a time in New Jersey, somehow saved up enough to return to England,where he started a pie baking business that remained in the family for four or five generations. I can’t imagine how they were able to do this as new immigrants, and I doubt they were in support of Jane marrying a ne’r do well.

By 1868, Jane was a widow. I have never found a cause of death for James, but his death notice states that the death was sudden, and other deaths at the time in the county were due to typhoid.

Jane’s stepson William had died in 1865. Jane Beardwood Peasgood was made administrator of her husband’s estate and was supposed to divide the estate amongst his five remaining minor children– four of her own and one step-child. She filed the original papers but did not submit an inventory to the Kankakee County Court, probably because she moved to Philadelphia. Jane is listed in the US Federal Census there with her four children. Her step-daughter Mary Ann was in the household of one of Jane’s brothers and is listed as a “domestic servant.” Jane and her ten year-old eldest child were working in a cotton mill. Only the three youngest children were attending school.

In the 1880 census, we see Jane is now able to stay at home and keep house. Her three sons are working in cloth mills. Her daughter, Lucy, is lucky enough to be still attending school at age 13.

Mary Ann had joined an Episcopal Church in 1876 and was confirmed in 1877, on the same day and in the same church as her half brother James, indicating that the family retained close ties. By 1880, she was a weaver in a woolen mill. She married a year later. She was the mother of three children and died in Philadelphia at age 80.

John, George and Lucy were all baptized on 19 February 1875, also at an Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. . I have found no record of them being confirmed.

James and John appear to have gone to Cuba to work as carpenters in the early 1890s. I am not sure how they managed to learn their trade. I have found no close relations who could have mentored them in this work, but all three brothers were occupied with carpentry by 1890.

Between 1900 and 1910, all four of Jane’s children moved to southern California. James, John and George were contractors and built kiosks on the piers in Santa Monica, as well as numerous Craftsman style bungalows in Santa Monica, Venice, and Ocean Park. Although she visited California at least once (photos of her there are dated 1907) Jane lived with her daughter Lucy and Lucy’s husband in Philadelphia until around 1910. Lucy and George Hughes moved to California in about 1913. Jane moved from Philadelphia as well, intending to make her home with Lucy, George, and their children, but she caught pneumonia and was dead within three weeks.

I have a few photographs of Jane, passed down from my great-grandmother, via my great aunt. I also have her plum pudding recipe, passed down from my grandma. We change the recipe and put brandy in the sauce so we can light it and make a big spectacle for the holidays.