Yes, this is going to get confusing very quickly.
We’ve already sort of met Thomas Fielden before, via his brother James and their parents Joshua (aka “Old Jossy”) and Betty (Haslam) Fielden of Platts House. Thomas was the second to last child of Joshua and Betty, with Betty dying after the birth of their son William in 1809. But more of that later. Joshua was a spirits merchant and owned a great deal of property beyond Platts House and so Thomas grew up well off.
Thomas became a bobbin turner and moved to Cornholme, and in 1833 the first Sarah Fielden in this story appears as his wife. She was born Sarah Chaffer in Burnley in 1806, the daughter of James and Alice Chaffer of New Hey Farm. The couple wed in October and set about starting a family, with poor luck. In April 1836 they had a daughter, the infant daughter mentioned on the stone, who died when she only two days old. There’s no baptism or burial record for her so her name is lost to time. Sarah fared badly during labour and on May 11th she died and joined her little girl here.
Thomas grieved and did his year’s mourning, and then in late 1837 the second Sarah Fielden in this story appears. She – this one – was born Sarah Lord in 1811 so was a few years younger than Thomas. Her origins are completely obscured; their marriage took place at the registry office so there’s no parish or chapel record to give us an idea of where she lived or who any of her family were. Again, the couple tried to start a family, and again, it ended in two deaths. Their son Samuel was born in December 1838, and in February 1839 Sarah died. She was buried here with her predecessor.
What to do? Thomas was grieving again and, quite reasonably, needed to do something about it. But what do you do? As if to underline the point that Todmorden had little to offer him, in January 1840 little Samuel died. One more person Thomas loved in the ground, in this grave. Thomas had now had enough. That same year he emigrated to the United States and within a few years had married New Hampshire lass Mary Hanson. The “curse” was broken – he and Mary had six children together and lived happily ever after so far as we can tell.
His third child and second daughter was named Sarah.
Back now to the third Sarah in this grave – Sarah, the wife of Joshua Fielden. Because Betty had died in 1809, remember, Old Jossy was left without a wife, and he was lonely. In 1811 he married Sarah Hirst of Langfield, the daughter of James and Mary (Haigh) Hirst. She was five years younger than Joshua and was a spinster when they married, aged 40. There seem to have been no late children on the cards for the couple but there were plenty of young children to help raise – Thomas included – so Sarah had her hands full for some time. Even if you take a cynical view of the marriage as a means of raising Joshua’s half-orphaned children they still made for good companions as far as we can tell and spent the rest of their lives together. Joshua eventually sold Platts House and they moved to a smaller home at Mount Pleasant, by Doghouse, overlooking the town and later the railway. When Joshua died in 1855 he was buried with Betty at St. Mary’s, and so when Sarah died she joined his two daughters in law and two grandchildren here in this grave.
Now what about the other two women in this grave – how did they get here? Well, Ann Sutcliffe was the daughter of William and Susan (Fielden) Sutcliffe of Flailcroft; Susan being Old Jossy’s sister. She had a sister, Mary, who was three years younger than her. She also had a sister named Susan who was eight years younger who ended up marrying James Fielden, her first cousin – well, things were different back then…anyway, that makes the links between the families that much clearer, so no surprise now that these two are here too. But what were their lives like? Unfortunately we have little information beyond a small piece on William and Susan’s descendants in the Todmorden and District News in December 1888:
From this we learn that these two sisters were mantle (cloak) and dressmakers, and that between this and any money they might have inherited that they were able to make a go of things together and not need to get married. They did split from each other at some point prior to 1841 since at that point Ann was living with James and Susan Fielden and assisting James in the grocery business; but that makes sense in a way, as both sisters were getting older and perhaps the dressmaking was becoming difficult on their hands. Mary’s whereabouts in 1841 aren’t known but we know where she was by 1843 because that’s the year she married Solomon Coates.
Solomon was a shopkeeper, apparently, although by the time we meet him he is a self-described “gentleman” or “proprietor of houses”. He was originally from Richmond and had started out as a weaver living somewhere on the Hebden Bridge side of Stansfield parish. In 1810 he married Ann Crabtree and the couple had several children together. By 1824 he owned the house he lived in and by 1832 owned several freehold properties on Bridge Lanes. In late December 1842 Ann died though, and he was left alone. Did he already know Mary? Who knows, but the two were married in May 1843.
Neither were spring chickens and Solomon died in 1854. He was buried with his first wife at Heptonstall and Mary and Ann moved back in together to one of their houses opposite Patmos. Ann died there in October 1859 and Mary in April 1860.
Thanks to West Yorkshire Archives, we can include a little photo here that takes us beyond mere public records: a black-edged funeral card for Mary.
“Our life is a dream; our time, as a stream, Glides swiftly away;
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.
O that each in the day of His coming may say, I have fought my way through;
I have finished the work thou didst give me to do.“