Stewart and Sarah McComb’s second child was a daughter named Mary Ann.  Mary Ann was born about 1833 or 1834 in County Down, Ireland, and on December 27, 1860 she married Bernard Rook (sometimes spelled Rooke) in Blackburn, Lancashire, England.  Bernard was also born in County Down, Ireland.

Mary Ann and Bernard had four children.  Sarah Rook, the firstborn, was christened in Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire on May 3, 1863.  Her sister Mary Jane was also christened there, but two years later on September 3, 1865.  Mary Jane died a month before her second birthday in Dalton on August 7, 1867.    John Rook was the third child, born on August 3, 1870 in Dalton-in-Furness.  I can find no record of the fourth child’s existence, other than in the 1910 census, where Mary Ann is said to have had 4 children, with 2 still living.

In the 1881 census Mary Ann and her family are living in Burnley, and Sarah McComb (her mother) is living with them.  When Sarah McComb died later that spring, it was Mary Ann who was listed as the informant on the death certificate.   The 1891 census shows Bernard and his son John living at No. 14, Marsden Road in Little Marsden, Lancashire and Mary Ann and her daughter Sarah living at No. 3, Randal Street in Burnley, Lancashire.  These two villages are in close enough proximity that one wonders why they were living apart.  Neither is living with other family.  The following year, however, all four emigrate to the United States, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts on board the CATALONIA out of Liverpool on March 22, 1892.  Bernard died in Fall River, Massachusetts on March 22, 1907.  The death certificate gives his age as 73 years, 8 months which made it possible to determine his birth as August, 1833.  Mary Ann followed him in death before the 1920 census in Fall River.  John and Sarah Rooke continued to share a household after their mother’s death, and neither ever married.  In the 1930 census they were living in Freetown, Bristol County, Massachusetts.  Interestingly enough, this census record lists John and Sarah’s father as being born in the “English Army” – so perhaps Bernard’s father was stationed in Northern Ireland at the time of Bernard’s birth.  I have no death information for John or Sarah Rooke.

William McComb was Stewart and Sarah’s third child.  He was born in July 1836 in County Down, Ireland.  On May 21, 1866 he married Mary Leeming in Selby, Yorkshire, England.  Mary was born in the summer of 1838 in Ripon, Yorkshire, England.  Mary’s parents were given as George and Elizabeth on her death record, but the 1851 census shows her being raised by her widowed grandfather Martin Leeming in Ripon.  William and Mary were the first of the McComb family to emigrate to the United States, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts on board the OLYMPUS out of Liverpool, Lancashire on May 27, 1873.  The manifest lists them as being from Scotland, which they were not, but I have to wonder if perhaps Stewart was of Scots descent and they considered themselves more Scot than Irish.  William and Mary first settled in Fall River, Massachusetts working in the cotton mills, but later moved to Rehoboth, Massachusetts, where William became a farmer.  I have no record of children born to them, and Mary died in Rehoboth on January 24, 1900.  William then moved to Providence, Rhode Island where in 1910 he is living with his younger brother James’ daughter Ella and her family.  William died on December 12, 1912 in Rhode Island.

I have already covered Sarah, the fourth child, and so move on to Stewart and Sarah’s fifth and last child James with the next post.

© Deborah Ray and archivecookie.com, 2010.