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CHARLES FILMER SHRUBSOLE
26 Jun 1820 -
Baptised: 14 JUL 1820 Lenham, Kent. St Mary
Death: 3 FEB 1906 Lakeside, Ontario, Canada
Burial: Lakeside, Ontario, Canada. Christ Church Anglican
Here is a copy of some of his life story that I took from the website of www.kevyoung.com for my records & thought it would be nice to share it again here.
Charles and Eliza Elizabeth emigrated to North America in 1846 and settled in Buffalo, New York, where they are shown in the 1850 census, with their first three children. By the 1855 census they had five children and Charles' brothers, Thomas and Stedman, were living with them. Thomas was the first of the Shrubsoles to emigrate, having arrived in 1834. Stedman came over in 1846, possibly on the same boat as Charles and Eliza Elizabeth. Charles and Eliza Elizabeth stayed in Buffalo for eleven years, where he was a member of the fire department. In March 1857 the family moved to Ingersoll, Ontario. They stayed for two years during which time their son James was born. Charles worked in the Long brickyard. Colonel James Ingersoll then asked them to move to the village of Lakeside, Ontario and set up a brickyard. They travelled from Ingersoll to Medina in one day with their household goods on two wagons. The party consisted of Charles and Eliza Elizabeth and their eight children, and Charles' brothers, Thomas and Stedman. They stayed overnight in Medina at the home of John Brazier. On reaching Lakeside they settled in a log dwelling and began to set up kilns for the brickyard. The first kiln of brick was used for a 50 foot chimney for a sawmill erected in the summer of 1859 for a John Morrison. Charles' parents, Filmer and Susan(nah), had emigrated to the US in 1852 at the ages of 62 and 61, and they also moved to Lakeside. The 1861 census for Lakeside shows Charles and Eliza Elizabeth living in a one storey log house with their eight children. Next door, in a frame house, lived brother Thomas and parents Filmer and Susan(nah). The brickyard was under the name of Thomas Shrubsole and Brother. In 1861 they produced 200,000 bricks. One source says they donated an acre of land and timber for floors for the erection of the Anglican Church at Lakeside. Another source says that Colonel Ingersoll donated land and timber. As the Shrubsole family homestead was some distance from the church, it would seem that it was Colonel Ingersoll who donated the land and timber. They did, however, donate 15,000 bricks for the church in 1863. To make the bricks, wet clay was packed into rough wooden boxes and set out to dry before being fired in the homemade kiln. Shrubsole bricks were used for several buildings in St. Mary's including the Windsor Hotel and for the store and a house in Lakeside and to build the Duke of York Hotel at the corner of York and King Streets in Toronto. This is where the Commerce Court now stands. These bricks may have been shipped by rail from Lakeside, as nearby St. Mary's was a busy railway depot i n the 1860's and 1870's. One family member says that the Shrubsoles, at one time, had a brickyard on the banks of the Don River in Toronto. If this is so, the bricks for the Duke of York were undoubtedly made there.
The brickyard was given up and Charles moved to a 100 acre farm (W1/2 Lot 31, Concession XIII, East Nissouri Township) and settled down to farm. Their fourteenth child was born 13th October, 1868 and the fifteenth, known to be the only one born on the farm, on 2nd May, 1871. The move must have been made between these two dates. They must have rented the farm at first, until they could save the money to buy it. On 15th June, 1881 Charles bought the farm for $6,000 from Robert and Cornelia Armstrong. Their fifteenth and last child, Robert, inherited this farm and it is still being worked by his daughter, Evelyn King and her family. The 1871 census showed Charles and Eliza Elizabeth installed on the farm with 10 children, aged 23 to 3, still living at home. This census is the most complete one made. It gives full details of the production of the farm. brother Thomas and parents, Filmer and Susan(nah), are not shown on the 1871 census. It appears that Filmer and Susan(nah) had gone to Buffalo to live with their son, Stedman. Thomas, who was something of a wanderer, may have been in Buffalo also. The 1881 census shows 8 children still living at home, aged 25 to 10. Charles and Eliza Elizabeth would have been 61 and 53 by then, but their workload must have eased somewhat as the children were becoming adults. Child No. 8, Harriet Sophia, had married in 1879, and she and her husband, Joseph Naylor Harrison, moved into a small house on the corner of the farm. Child No. 5, was married to Joseph's sister, Mary Ann Harrison, about this time and he later moved into this house when Sophia was widowed and moved to Toronto.
It appears that they were a large, happy family surrounded by children and grandchildren. The entire family was very musical. Both Jane and Henry sang in the church choir. Henry and James both played the violin. They had many evening singsongs. Descendants say that, on summer evenings, you could step outside and hear singing and music coming from all the farms in the area where the Shrubsoles lived. Charles died on the farm in Lakeside on 3rd February, 1906, aged 86, and i s buried in Christ Church Anglican Cemetery, Lakeside, beside the church he helped to build. Eliza Elizabeth lived on, surrounded and cared for by her children and grandchildren. She had a long, full, work-
