In the meanwhile, William Tuck and Hannah Barwick had more children of their own: Sarah Ayton (named as was customary in such circumstances after the deceased first wife, Sarah Ives Baxter), Betsey, Joseph, Dorcas, Robert, Charles, born in 1840, John, born in 1842, Benjamin, born in 1845, and Elizabeth, born in 1849. Sarah left home at about 14 to become a house servant in the home of farmer John Spursell at Caistor St. Edmund, south of Norwich. William's daughter Mary by Sarah Baxter bore a daughter, Martha, out of wedlock in 1850; she is probably the 21 year old dairy maid Martha Tuck listed as employed by farmer James C. Ebbetts at Hanworth in the 1871 census. Mary seems to have later married a man named Laxon (or perhaps Sexton). Martha seems to have married Henry Potter of Edgefield, and was living with him and Charles in that village in 1881. Charles died in 1868, and is buried in Little Barningham churchyard next to his grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth Tuck - who also died in the same year. Dorcas married Charles Lambert and bore him eight children, the first four born in Little Barningham (Hannah, 1880, Charles, 1882, Ethel Rose, 1883, and Ernest William, 1886, and the last four in the nearby village of Plumstead, Laura, 1891, Jessie, 1896, and two others.)

Four of the younger brothers of William, the first-born son of Joseph and Elizabeth - Charles, Benjamin and John and Robert - with their wives and children - emigrated to Ontario, where they had many more children, beginning in 1836 - when 52 indigent inhabitants of Little Barningham emigrated, financed by a 200 pound grant from the government to the local Council. Benjamin, John and Charles went first in 1836, and Robert after 1852. They prospered, John owning a 236 acre farm on the Guelph township line, and Charles 140 acres near Mosborough.

Their nephew, John Tuck (son of William Tuck and Hannah Barwick) emigrated to Canada in 1864 at 22 years of age to live with his Uncle Charles Tuck in Nelson Township. From 1864 to 1872 he lived on the Charles Tuck farm and fell in love with his daughter Harriet. Harriet and John married in 1872 (see the photo of them above, and the house they lived in at Nelson, right). After Charles' death in 1877, they moved to land willed to Harriet by her father. John farmed the land until his death in 1910. Harriet died four years later, leaving the small farm to her only surviving child, Charles Wesley Tuck. She also left him the gold watch she received from her mother Mary Ann Payne Tuck.

Charles Wesley Tuck (shown above left, second from the left, on an early farm tractor) was born on August 21, l881, in Nelson Township, Ontario , Canada and in 1909 married Edith Emma Anderson of Hamilton. They had three daughters, Edith (born 1910), Dorothy (born 1913) and Margaret (born 1915). In 1919 Charles sold the farm and followed his cousin Charles Featherstone to Pasadena, California to start a new life with his wife, three daughters and adopted sister, Lilly M. Ellingham. Lilly helped care for Edith's daughters and helped around the house. Charles had to learn a new trade and became a concrete contractor in the Pasadena/Altadena area of South California. Lilly moved back to Canada in the middle 1920s and Charles's three daughters grew up and married and all three had children who are now married and living in Southern California.

Charles (1808 - 1877) married Mary Ann Payne (1804 - 1902). They had 10 daughters and 2 sons: Martha (1832 - 1903); Elizabeth, Mrs. Alexander Thompson (1833 - 1915); Mary (1834 - 1915); Susan, Mrs. Thompson (1837 - ? ); Charlotte, Mrs. John Fothergill (1841 - 1905); Sarah, Mrs. John Hackware Featherstone (1844 - 1901); Ann, Mrs. Alexander Gerrie (1845 - ? ); William (1846 - 1932), married (1) Elizabeth Featherstone (1849 - 1882) (2) Clara Cecilia Wilkins (1862 - 1919); Emily, Mrs. William Corner (1848 - 1906); Harriet, Mrs. John Tuck (see photo) (1850 - 1914); James (1852 - 1855); Rachel (1855 - 1857).

Robert and Christianna Hannah Pegg (left) - a native of the village of Calthorpe, where she was baptized on December 25, 1817 - were married in the parish church of Our Lady and St. Margaret at Calthorpe on October 27, 1844. They had several children in England, five of whom survived. They were Benjamin, Robert, Elizabeth (grandmother of John Edward Dea), William, and John. In 1852, Robert and Hannah and their five children worked and lived at Cromer Hall on the north shores of Norfolk, a large country house built in Regency Gothic Style 1827-9. Robert was the head gardener, and the estate staff and their families ate in a communal dining room near a courtyard where the unmarried male servants lived on one side and the unmarried female servants on another. Robert's brother Benjamin's first wife was Elizabeth Matthews, whom he married in Little Barningham Parish Church in 1832. Their daughter, Martha, was born in 1833. After their immigration in 1836 they had two more children, Joseph born in 1837 and Elizabeth, born in 1838. The children were baptised at St. Luke's Church, Burlington, Ontario, by the Reverend Canon Richard Greene - whose great grand-daughter, Catherine Greene, in 1959 became the wife of the Reverend Robert Tuck, the great great grandson of Benjamin's brother William Tuck. Elizabeth appears to have died after 1838, perhaps in childbirth, and In 1848 Benjamin was remarried, to Susan Swackhammer, in Acton, Ontario. They also had 10 children, 5 boys and 5 girls: Sarah, William, Robert, Mary, Caroline, John, Augusta, Elinor, Albert and Charles.

The fourth of the Tuck brothers to emigrate to Canada West, John, was like the others already married when he emigrated. His wife was Susannah Newstead, also a Norfolk girl. Theirs also was a large family - 10 children, all of them sons: Joseph, George, Benjamin, James, Abraham, Charles, Augustus, John, William and Henry.

Above, left to right: (1) Charles Tuck, 1811 - 91, who with his brothers John and Benjamin and their wives and children emigrated from Norfolk in 1836 to Canada West (as Ontario was known at that time).(2)Elizabeth Tuck, born in 1845 in Thwaite, Norfolk, the daughter of Robert Tuck (1819 - 1891) and Christianna Hannah Pegg, and grand-daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Thirtle) Tuck, stands by her husband, Edward Dea. Elizabeth emigrated from Norfolk to Canada with her family, and married Edward Dea in Ontario in 1870. (2) Elizabeth (Tuck) Dea, 20 years later, in 1890. (3) Mary Tuck and her husband, Tom Bowen, on their wedding day. They had 11 children. (4) Four male Tucks of the second, third and fourth generations in Canada: John (left) and William (right) - sons of John Tuck and Sarah Newstead - and William's son and grandson in the centre.

Changes in English laws and the mechanization of farm labor greatly affected poor farmers, or what we would call sharecroppers, including the Tuck families. They were faced with two choices, emigration or moving to large cities such as London, where they had to live in small houses with little sanitation and consequent risk of disease. Children were put to work in factories, mines, and other manual labor enterprises, often up to 12 hours a day, six days a week. They chose emigration.

According to Fr. Bell, who was serving in Holt parish in 1999, 2,500 peasants emigrated in the 1830s at their own expense. Another 1,500 received paid passage from the British government.

In 1836 Charles and John emigrated to Canada and settled in the Burlington, Ontario, area. On the emigration voyage each passenger had to take enough food with them to last the duration of the crossing. Sometimes the food supplies ran out and all had to share scant rations. After a voyage of six weeks, they landed at Toronto, with little money. They slept overnight in a warehouse on some bales of sheep wool, which turned out to be infested with sheep ticks. The next day, they took a small boat and landed at Wellington Square, now known as Burlington.

Charles and John crossed the plains on foot, the plains being the land between the lake shore and the escarpment at Highway 5 (Dundas Street). The ground was of a sandy nature, similar to that of their native Norfolk, and Charles figured it would lose its fertility quickly. He therefore moved further inland, looking for higher ground, which he found on top of the escarpment about one-half mile above the cut on Highway 5, near Waterdown Village. There he settled in a small log cabin, the family's first home, near the road.

Charles went to work for a farmer nearby and earned ten dollars a week. Mary Anne was a good manager and they saved their earnings towards buying their land and looking to the future to build a large house. She supplemented their income by washing and ironing family shirts for a gentleman and also by making and selling butter, eggs, and applesauce from their surplus apples at the Hamilton Market along with other farm produce.

One day when she went to the spring behind the cabin to get some water, she discovered a bear on the same quest. Pail in hand, she quickly withdrew to her cabin until the intruder left. Bears were common in the vicinity at that time.

The area was full of pine trees that had been cleared before the land could be worked. Consequently, much logging was done and many saw mills were scattered throughout the countryside.

Charles Tuck had not been in Canada too long when the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion broke out. The Tuck family were very devout Methodists and always attended prayer meetings one night each week. One evening during a prayer meeting, the doors opened and all eligible men were taken off to the war. Many never even had a chance to say good-bye to their wives and other loved ones. Charles was not trained in any way for soldiering, so he was made an army cook. Mrs. Tuck related how, when Charles came back from the war, she did not know the fully-bearded man until she heard his voice.

After a few years, Charles Tuck built a church and a schoolhouse. Charles gave each daughter when she married a thousand dollars in cash, plus three cows and one sheep. Charles died in 1877 and is buried in Waterdown cemetery. Charles left his only son, William, the house and 100 acres of land on Tuck Hill, now known as The Cut, overlooking Burlington. The progression from British peasant to Canadian property owner was complete.

Unfortunately, William heavily mortgaged the farm and it was lost to foreclosure. Today the house and barns are gone and there is little trace on the property of the life Charles and Mary Ann Tuck made for themselves on Tuck Hill.

The brothers sent for Robert and his family, including seven-year-old Elizabeth, to come to Canada to farm soil similar to that found in Norfolk. Robert and his family boarded a sailing vessel from London, England, bound for America. The crossing of the Atlantic lasted nine weeks. A Tuck baby on board, only a few months old, did not survive the trip and was buried at sea. The family, with five children aged four through ten, landed in New York, travelled up the Hudson River, moved through the Erie Canal in mule-pulled boats to Rochester, New York, and then sailed across Lake Ontario to Burlington.

For a while, they lived at Vinegar Hill in Waterdown, Ontario. Once they had established themselves, Robert purchased a farm about three miles north of Burlington, where from the field, one could see boats on Hamilton Harbor Bay. Their first farm home was a log cabin made from wood felled and hewn by hand. Their beds were built with ropes. Robert and Hannah had four more children after they arrived in Canada.

The farm grew prize wheat, and it was picked by hand. The wheat was sold to Hamilton merchants including the Hamilton Seed Firm. This company sent the wheat to Philadelphia where it was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and won first prize, along with a bronze medal. The wheat also took first premium prize at Toronto and Hamilton.

A sample of the wheat was sent to the London Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in London, England, in 1886, where it won a scroll designed by Thomas Riley Art Studios, London. In addition, a silver tea service was presented to Robert Tuck by the Hamilton merchants for having raised prize wheat. The scroll and the coffepot are shown in the picture (above right). These items are now in the nearby Joseph Brant museum. Robert and Hannah's tombstone in the Greenwood Cemetery in Burlington, Ontario, is shown (left).

Thus, from humble beginnings their children prospered, and their descendants, now scattered across North America, are today mostly in comfortable circumstances. They can, if they wish, board an aircraft and in a few hours be back in Norfolk, visiting the old home places their forebears left for ever, never to see again. Some of the descendants are conscious of an irony in this, and are grateful to their forebears who endured the hardships of travel and pioneer life so that they and their children might escape the class lockstep of an old world society that 150 years ago still retained traces of its feudal origins. The Norfolk Tucks were country folk, skilled in the arts of agriculture and rural life. Layton Tuck was fond of likening English society to a glass of British beer: froth at the top and dregs at the bottom, with the good rich ale in between. In the old country the Tucks possessed no land of their own, but they had skills and character, so that when they acquired land as immigrant settlers in Canada West they knew what to do with it, and prospered.

(Thanks to Ann Dea Hogan of Tennessee for this account of the Tuck History, which is undergoing ongoing development as time passes; also thanks to cousins Doug Hines, Timothy Tuck Smith, Bruce Atkins, Ann Denton and Dr. Nancy Vivian for their input, and to Karen Alton, for the Charles Tuck story. Much of the genealogical material was collected originally by Ruth Vivian of Burlington. See also Burlington: Memories of Pioneer Days by Dorothy Turcotte, and published The Boston Mills Press. Any corrections and additions may be communicated to Bob Tuck rctuck@maplewoodmall.ca)