BFH: Horatio Boultbee (1801-1849)

     Horatio was the son of William Boultbee and Frances Ann Appleyard. He was born on August 15, 1801 when the family was living at Norwood, in Surrey, England. There is no record of his education or first occupation, but five letters have survived, written between 1847 and 1849. The handwriting, spelling, and sentence structure is that of a person who has absorbed these elements of an education. The five letters represent all that we know of Horatio, and are the basis of this brief biography.
    The first letter is dated November 13, 1847 with an address of Saltillo in Mexico. It is addressed to William Boultbee, Horatio's father, at Ancaster, Upper Canada. Horatio writes:- I have wound up all my Business here, except speculations I have been making in Corn. As I am led to suppose that the American Army will not remain here much longer, I have ceased to purchase some time since, and am only realizing what I have left of the Corn I bought last year, and which the circumstances of the Country prevented me from receiving from some of the growers.
    As well as speculating, Horatio operated a large farm named Hacienda of San Juan de Salinas near Santa Rosa, Mexico. He explains to his father, that he plans to hold this farm, but move to one of the southern States of the United States, and visit the farm once each year. The last paragraph of this letter describes the war between Mexico and the U.S. as being in a state of stagnation, and that the Americans are in quiet possession of all the road and Towns, from here to the Coast.
    In this first letter, Horatio writes that he plans to visit his father and family in Ancaster, arriving about May 1848. From the remaining letters, it is evident that the visit did take place and lasted through the summer of that year.
    The second letter is dated December 1, 1848 from New Orleans to his sister Frances at Ancaster, Upper Canada. Frances had emigrated from England with her father the previous year. Horatio was sending her money to pay for the private education of their nephews, the orphaned children of Felix and Mary Boultbee. He had remitted $300 to a Mr. Range in New York City, who would send it on to Ancaster.
    Horatio mentions a second sum he is willing to pay his other sister Rosalind who had returned to England from Ancaster. While in Ancaster, she owned a farm across the road from Washington's farm, and Washington wished to purchase it, but had not agreed to a price. The farm was described as the south half, 100 acres, of Lot 37 in the first Concession of Ancaster Township. Rosalind had purchased the farm in 1842 for £675, and Horatio was willing to pay her the money on behalf of Washington, in order to complete the sale for Rosalind. It may sound complicated, but it indicates that Horatio, with no wife or children of his own, was considerate of the needs of his brothers and sisters and their children.
    The third letter is dated March 15, 1849 from Hacienda of San Juan de Salinas again to his sister Frances in Ancaster. Horatio had visited his relations in Ancaster during the previous year, leaving his Mexican farm in the hands of agents. He laments the poor care taken of his money, produce and sheep, and feels that it will take him two years to recover his losses. He asks his sister to have the four young boys for whom he is paying the costs of their education, write letters to him.
    The fourth letter is dated May 11, 1849 from the Hacienda to his sister Frances. The most interesting two paragraphs concern the epidemic of cholera spreading through Mexico:

The Colera Morbus entered this Country in January but hitherto its progress has been slow, and more mild than in the year 1833. In Matamoros, and Monterrey, the deaths have been more than in any other places, in the former place about seven hundred people died, among them my friend Mrs. Devine, and her only child, a nice girl of about twelve years old, leaving poor Devine alone in the World.
By the last mail I hear that the Colera was within two leagues of Saltillo, and it will no doubt attack that place, and yesterday I hear that it has appeared at Santa Rosa, and that two cases proved fatal, but I am in hopes to escape here, as Santa Rosa lays west of this place, and the wind allmost allways blows from the east here, and we have strong winds allmost every day, and this place stands on the top of a rising ground in the center of a large Plain, and escaped the Colera, when it swept this Country in 1833, however I am provided with the Medicines, and have given orders not to allow any communication with Santa Rosa, and having taken these precautions I shall abide the result, I feel no anxiety, neither did I when in the middle of the Colera before, to which in a great measure I attribute my escape, as I observed that those who were agitated were the first to be attacked and generally died. I keep my men at their regular work, and do not allow the Colera to be mentioned, my object being to keep the People, calm, and quiet, as I am convinced that alarm, and anxiety, acelerates the attacks of the Colera.

The last letter is also dated May 11, 1849, and is addressed to Washington Boultbee, Esquire, Dundas, Upper Canada. Horatio wrote on two subjects -- 1 his offer to pay his sister Rosalind for her farm in Ancaster, and - 2 his losses because of his absence during 1848:

Rosalind valued her farm at $5,000 including the stock and crops, while Washington valued it at $3,200 not including the stock and crops. Horatio offered Rosalind $4,000 for the farm stock and crops, and to remain on Mortgage on the Farm at five per cent interest, until I can pay the principal. He requested Washington to prepare the documents, and send them for the respective signatures. The document was not registered at the local Record Office, perhaps due to Horatio's death in 1849, presumably due to the cholera epidemic that was approaching his area. However, there is a document dated September 7, 1849 at the Record Office, for Richard Moore Boultbee and wife selling the farm to a William Reed Watts. The document was registered January 5, 1850.
In describing his losses, Horatio writes about the extent of his operations. It was a very large farm with many labourers, as noted in these three paragraphs:

    When I wrote to Fanny [Frances] I was not aware of the extent of my loss which has been most ruinous, and it will require three, or four, fortunate years to get over the losses since the beginning of last year, and I have allready had to call in all the money I had at interest.
    The money etc. that I left to carry on this Farm, about four thousand Dollars, has all been misapplied and nothing produced, nine thousand head of sheep died during my absence, and about three thousand more have died since I have returned, but heavy as this loss is, it is not the extent, as out of about twenty thousand Ewes that should have lambed in April, and May, not quite six thousand have turned out in lamb, and the remainder barren.
    Heavy as my losses have been three or four, fortunate years will set me right again, as my expenses do not exceed eighteen thousand Dollars a year, and I have still twenty four thousand head of breeding ewes and here they lamb three times in two years, and my Plantation of Sugar Cane is now coming to yield a profit and this year I expect to get about two thousand Dollars worth of sugar, and next year it should yield six thousand Dollars, so that I believe I shall be able to sett all right again.

Horatio's last request is Don't forget to send me a couple of Stillton Cheeses.

    The place of his burial is not known, but during the cholera epidemics that swept the world at this time, the tendency was to bury the body as soon as possible to control the spread of the disease, so perhaps he is buried on his own Hacienda of San Juan de Salinas.
    His sister Frances, to whom he wrote, also died in 1849 of cholera, at Ancaster.
    We owe a debt of gratitude to Horatio for the financial aid he gave his orphaned nephews. The nephews became the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of today's Ontario Boultbees.