The Watergate at Enniskillen Castle
Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland
Image © Copyright Raymond Millar and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
"Built in 1611 by Sir William Cole. Described at the time as a ‘fair and strong wall’ twenty-six feet high, ‘newly erected’ with flankers, parapet and wall walk. An impressive building with twin cor belled turrets projecting so as to give protection to the wall on two sides."My maternal grandfather, George Albert JOHNSON/JOHNSTON, was Irish. Both his mother's and his father's families emigrated from Ireland in the mid 1800's.
The 1851/1852 Census Canada record shows that George's paternal grandparents, John JOHNSTON and Catherine RUTLEDGE, emigrated between the birth of two children, born 1836 and 1838.
A small family book written and self-published in 1951, indicated that his mother's parents sailed from Ireland in the Spring of 1850, a 28 day voyage.
"It was on a day in Spring, April 14th, 1850, that William ACHESON, accompanied by his brother-in-law John RUTHERFORD, bid a last farewell to old Ireland, and set forth to seek his fortune in Canada, the great new land of promise."Later in 1850, Christina (FALLIS) ACHESON and her sister, Mary (FALLIS) RUTHERFORD, sailed from Ireland to Canada to join their husbands in Canada.
According to this family book, George's grandparents, William ACHESON and Christina FALLIS, were born near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
A family committee was struck to begin the research in 1940, after an uncle's death bed request for someone in the family to begin their history while it was still possible to gather information from the elder members of the family.
Although it took ten years to complete, the book was published in 1951, just shortly after the 100th anniversary of the arrival of one of two brothers who left Ireland for the land of promise ~ Canada. (The elder brother, George ACHESON, had arrived a year or so earlier, in about 1849.)
