Catherine Latta: Starting Points

We have a little bit of information about Catherine Latta that has been passed down the generations. Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton (wife of John Murray Wighton, and therefore Catherine's daughter-in-law) wrote a letter to her grandchildren in which she told what she knew about Catherine. I used the following comments from ALHW as starting points in my research for this biography.

• When stationed in Halifax, John Baxter Wighton met Catherine Latta, an orphan who was living with her uncle, a custom officer in Halifax. John Wighton married her in Fredericton, New Brunswick. She was just a child when she lost first her mother (age 7 years) and then later on her father.
• Catherine had a brother and sister - John Latta, adopted by his uncle, and a sister adopted by her aunt but I do not remember her name or the aunt's married name. The uncle was a customs officer in Halifax.
• Latta is not an uncommon name in Ayrshire and I remember my mother telling me that Mrs. Wighton said she had been told that her father came from the west of Scotland.

Catherine Latta's Birth Date

Since we know that Catherine was 16 when she married in 1853 (March 28), this would mean that she was born sometime between March 29, 1836 and March 28, 1837. Unfortunately, we have other conflicting information and after looking at all of the data, all I can say is that Catherine was born sometime between 1833 and 1837. If you're interested in the dirty details, you can read the essay, Catherine Latta's birth date.

Catherine Latta's Family

If we're uncertain about Catherine's birth, we are even less sure of every other aspect to her early life. The fact that Catherine's two siblings were adopted while she was allowed to be on her own suggests that Catherine was the oldest. When her father died, Catherine may have been deemed old enough to remain on her own (in Mrs. Stirling's home?) while the two younger children had to be adopted and presumably both shipped off to Halifax. That presumes that the Latta family was living in New Brunswick at the time, which we don't actually know for sure.

I tried searching for records of the death of her parents in New Brunswick. The NB Vital Statistics website gave me 0 hits on a search for any Latta who died between 1835 and 1853. I also tried getting microfiche of New Brunswick papers on the assumption that deaths might be recorded there as they are today. That was a bad assumption. Although the papers did have an occasional obituary, they were almost exclusively obits of famous people. I did find one exception in The Loyalist, a Fredericton paper. There was a brief note that Margaret Lata, wife of Andrew Lata, died April 1845 leaving five children. The 1845 death date would fit with what we know (Mom died when Catherine was 7) if Catherine had been born in 1838 - one of our possible years. However, the 5 children left behind doesn't jive with what ALHW told us. Still, I checked out the couple further. There was one Andrew Latta (born, 1813, in Lochwinnoch, Renfrew) who was the right age to be Catherine's father. Renfrew is in western Scotland, so that fits. But there is no record of an Andrew Latta marrying a Margaret in Scotland during the appropriate time period. The most telling discrepancy is the 3 children vs. 5 children in Margaret's family. I'm inclined to ignore this obituary.

The New Brunswick archives has a link to an online resource of newspaper entries compiled by Daniel Johnson. A search through that website (for Latta as well as Lata) produced the same obituary as above; however, there was no other useful information. I found no other useful information in New Brunswick's archives and a query to staff in the Archives was similarly unsuccessful.

Some research in Halifax might produce some information since we don't know if the Latta family first arrived in Halifax and then moved to Fredericton. The presence of two relatives in Halifax is interesting but we don't know if they are on the paternal or maternal side. A search for a possible marriage in Nova Scotia of Catherine's brother, John Latta, might be useful but I struck out on their online database. I tried searching on a Latta genealogy website (http://www.latta.org/) but without success.

I had relatively more success in trying to track down Catherine's roots in Scotland. I found nothing definite, but for some interesting speculations, you can read Catherine Latta's Scottish roots. Afterwards, you can read a History of Dumbarton - one of the more promising options for her home town.

Catherine and John, sitting in a tree...

If you've read John Baxter Wighton's biography, then you know that John and Catherine met presumably in Halifax. John's regiment was relocated to Fredericton which we know was where Catherine was residing in 1851. The two were married March 28th, 1853 in Saint Anne's Chapel in Fredericton. The news of Catherine’s marriage was reported in the New Brunswick Courier on April 2, 1853, as follows: m. St. Anne's Chapel, Fredericton (York Co.) 28th ult., by Rev. W.Q. Ketchum, John WIGHTON, Colour Sgt. 72nd Regt. / Miss Catherine LATTA both of that city. ALHW affirms that Catherine was 16 when she was wed, but as you've read, she could have been up to 3 years older.

We can assume that members of the 72nd Regiment were present at the wedding, but the presence of members of Catherine's family is doubtful. Not only was it a fair distance from Halifax to Fredericton, but we also know from ALHW that Catherine's aunt objected to the wedding because John was a soldier. In a 1978 letter, Ella Peterson reported that Catherine was disowned for marrying a soldier, and so lost touch with her family for all time. However, ALHW does not speak of disowning, just objecting. It's possible that Ella exaggerated that comment. Fortunately for us, the disapproving Aunt wasn't John's commanding officer. John's commanding officer approved the wedding and perhaps even promoted John to Colour Sergeant so that Catherine would be able to accompany the regiment when they left Canada in October(?) 1854. Wives frequently accompanied soldiers even into battle zones, as you can read in the essay army wives.

Catherine's children

It's likely that Catherine's first child, Ann, was born in February, 1854, in Fredericton. Five or six months later, Catherine accompanied John and his regiment to Ireland where they were stationed in preparation for traveling to Malta. Catherine must have traveled from Limerick, Ireland to Dundee, Scotland where she arrived in December, 1854. Ann died February 16th, 1855 at Overgate, the address of Catherine's in-laws. Her father-in-law, John, provided the entry for the death certificate. Little Ann died of consumption, the name that was being used at the time for Tuberculosis. It was called consumption because it seemed to consume people from within, with a bloody cough, fever, pallor, and long relentless wasting. Tuberculosis is infectious, so Ann must have come into contact with someone with TB, probably some time after arriving in Ireland. Ann was buried in Old Howff Cemetery, Dundee.

John Murray Wighton, was born in Dundee on November 13, 1857, at the home of JBW's sister, Barbara Baxter Lees. Apparently, Catherine had spent some time with JBW while he was stationed in Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands, after his return from the Crimea War. John Murray was still 2 months away from his birthday when JBW left the safety of England for service in India. There's a story behind why the young infant was given a middle name of Murray, but you'll have to read John Murray's biography to learn about that.

Harry Wighton, John and Catherine's third child, died in Simla, India of unknown causes. Simla was the British army base in Northern India and, at the time, it would have been a reasonably comfortable and safe environment for Catherine, especially since John was the regiment's sergeant-major. We do not know the exact date of Harry's death, but it would have been between 1861 and 1864.

Fanny Wighton, was born in Shorncliffe, England in March of 1865. John and Catherine had returned from India and were staying at the army base in Shorncliffe where he was being demobilized (May, 1865).

Catherine in Scotland

After John's retirement from the regular army, he and Catherine lived in Montrose, Scotland where they were recorded in the 1871 and 1881 census records. They most likely spent that entire time in the Panmure Barracks (see above) along with John Murray and Fanny. John Murray began to live on his own some time between 1871 and 1881 (he was not in the 1881 census) and was married to Amy Louisa Hutcheon June 3, 1885 in Dalkeith, near Edinburgh. Fanny appeared in both the 1871 and 1881 census records with John and Catherine. She had a marriage date in 1885 as well - just 12 days earlier than her brother on June 3, 1885 in Arbroath. It looks like June was a busy month for the Wighton family.

With John Murray and Fanny marrying in 1885, grandchildren soon followed: Harry (1886) and Ella (1887) from John and Amy Louisa; Alice Vera Boath (1885) and William Wighton Boath in 1887. John Baxter died March 10, 1890 and Catherine followed him less than two years later, dying in the home at 12 Abbey Street, Arbroath at 2:30 p.m. on October 9th, 1891. She had had a cardiac weakness for 8 months along with a cerebral congestion for two days. John Wighton, her son, signed the death certificate. Both Catherine and John are buried in Compartment E, #28, Arbroath Cemetery.

Sources

Copy of marriage record from the New Brunswick Provincial Archives

Letter from Town House, Arbroath, Angus, Scotland giving details of the burial plots of John Baxter Wighton and Catherine Latta or Wighton along with a Registry Certificate

Letter by Amy Louisa Wighton (John Baxter's daughter-in law and John Murray Wighton's widow) to either her son Harry Latta Wighton and/or to her grandchildren (John Latta Wighton and Ella Wighton) around about 1939.

The Loyalist: Fredericton paper, April 24, 1845. Fiche obtained through Interlibrary loan.

Serzans, Margaret (generation 9)

Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics: http://archives.gnb.ca/APPS/NewspaperVitalStats/?culture=en-CA

New Brunswick Provincial Archives: http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/Default.aspx?culture=en-CA

Victoria Public Library, 1851 census, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Fiche page #112.

Various letters from Ella Peterson (Wighton) to her brother John Latta Wighton

Various websites, including:

Family Search, The LDS Genealogical Website: (http://www.familysearch.org/)

Howff Cemetery Records: http://www.fdca.org.uk/HowffInitW.pdf

ScotlandsPeople Database (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/72nd_Regiment_of_Foot

Where to now? To read more about Generation 5 John Baxter's immediate family, just click top to make a selection from Generation 5's genealogical table at the top of this page. The navigation buttons just below will give you quick access to biographies in other generations.