RESEARCH OF THE MICH/DAB (Micks/Doupe) families by ALBERTA CALLENDER 1709/2000.
PETER was the Founder of the Canadian and American MICK/s family. He was born in Ireland in November l780 and married ELIZABETH SHOEMAKER (SCHUMACHER in German) on 29-l2-l807. I have the original Record of their marriage taken from the Mansion House Records in Dublin. Elizabeth was born in l787-90 and died c l86l-7l in Ontario.as she had disappeared from the Census. Peter died on l6-l-l885 in Micksburg, Ontario, at the great age of l04 and 2 months, being pre-decreased by his wife. (Their great-grand-daughter ANNIE MICK/BARKER died on 20-l0-l998 aged l05 and 8 months.)
They emigrated to Canada together with his five sons (and a daughter – Mary Anne – who later joined them and her Miller husband, landing at Quebec on 5th July l86l with her children (per Senator Lorna Milne) and settled in a place which came to be known as Micksburg (one of his sons, George, kept the Postoffice – hence the name).
JOHN was one of the five sons of Peter Mick & Elizabeth Schumacher who emigrated to Canada, travelling by sailboat and walking the rest of their journey. Land could be purchased at 50 cents an acre and a bonus acreage would be given free. It was covered by treestumps which had to be grubbed out – most probably using horses and chains – to clear the land, and their first crops would have been set around these tree-stumps.
Life was hard. No Doctors, No Church, No Ministers – but they did not neglect their worship and Services were held in houses and the Schoolhouse which they built, until such time as Micksburg Church was erected in l879. And Electricity (Hydro) did not arrive there until l948!
The winter before JOHN and ANNE went to Canada, l846/7, was the worst in living memory in Ireland and at the height of the GREAT FAMINE. In the preceding years emigration had been in the region of 200,000 but in l85l it peaked at a quarter of a million souls.
The women of Micksburg spun cloth and made clothes for their families and it was not until l948 – nearly a century after the Micks arrival there, that Electricity came to Micksburg and made life easier – by then 4 or 5 generations of Micks had lived there. The pine log house which John had built was then still standing.
MICK FAMILY RE -UNIONS
Every year since l96l the Mick descendants have been holding a RE-UNION. August. l998.was special in that it was l50 years since they first settled in Canada. A report was featured in the Cobden Sun written by Marie Zettler, and their descendant, Florence Mick then 95 years of age told of her memories and stories told to her by her older relatives. (At the Reunion of 2002 it was decided that Reunions would only be held every two years – the next one in 2004.)
There were, she said, great epidemics of diphtheria and smallpox and almost every family was affected – father’s siblings, Mary l3 and Sam 7, had died within a few days of each other. Bears took livestock and deer damaged the precious wheat. Her father thought nothing of putting a bag of wheat on his shoulder and carrying it to Pembroke (then Miramichi) a distance of l4 miles, to be ground into flour and then carrying it home. Schooling was in the winter when there was less farm work to do. Cows were not expected to give milk during the winter as there was never enough feed. And meat was reserved for the hard-working men of the house., – cutting trees to clear the land. Boys and girls, she said, were dressed alike until about 4 years of age (a similar practice to parts of Ireland) Nightcaps were worn to keep both men and women warm in bed, and they both also smoked pipes. The MICH family had left the Pfalz (Rhineland Palatinate) in l709 to escape the disastrous winters – which killed the Vines and cattle,- and the advancing French armies. . The River Rhine froze over and stayed so for five weeks and even Wine froze. Snowshoes had to be worn to travel about.