Agnes Mary Ann Jerkins Courtoy

Married:

Born: 1838, christened 4.11.1838 Trinity Church, Adelaide

Born: 1832 New Norfolk, Tasmania

Died: Adelaide, 10th October, 1921

Died: 29.11.1898, Adelaide

Father: George or William Courtoy

Father: Charles Dix

Mother: Eliza Sewell Flitt

Mother: Mary Ann Browning

Agnes Mary Ann Courtoy Jerkins, the lady in this photograph, was my great grandfather's older half sister.  She was the daughter of Eliza Sewell Flitt and most likely George Courtoy, a qualified shipwright from Middlesex London.  Eliza and George were free settlers who came as assisted immigrants on the 'South Australian" in 1837. George returned to England shortly afterwards.  The Baptism recorded for Agnes at the Trinity Church, South Australia, was signed by William Courtoy, George's younger brother. 

Eliza the abandoned wife and her brother in law William Courtoy lived as man and wife, and called themselves Jerkins. Agnes is recorded as Jerkins in the 1841 census of South Australia.

Agnes's mother, Eliza died in 1851 and Willy disappeared.   Agnes Mary Ann Jerkins Courtoy married into the HAYNES family, part of the 'most irreligious lot' , a term used to describe the publicans in early Port Adelaide. 

Her husband was Charles Dix Haynes, who was in fact the son of Charles Dix, convict, and Mary Ann Browning, convict of New Norfolk, Tasmania.  Charles was born 7 months after the marriage of Mary Ann and Charles in 1833, and he came with his mother to South Australia in 1837, onboard the 'Lady Emma".  His mother was then referred to as being the wife of John Thomas Haynes, sealer, mariner, and investor. 

John Thomas Haynes became a publican in Port Adelaide as early as 1841 and owned and operated sealing and whaling stations on Kangaroo Island and Cape Jervois.  J.T. Haynes perished in a shipwreck, 1844, off the Coorong, not long after suspicious were raised by the Governor and the Police Commissioner that he was a smuggler.  After his death Mary Ann remarried and her new husband E.J. Grey, paid off her debts.  She was however faced with a lifetime of legal wrangling with J.T. Haynes' family in England who refused to believe he was married to her and who wanted their share of his 'fortune'.  Mary Ann raised the orphan Jerkins (Courtoy) children and was a very capable business woman in her own right.

Mary Ann Grey, formerly Haynes and Dix, nee Browning owned the Halfway House Hotel on the Port Road Woodville, (Kilkenny/Beverley) area but in 1859 she signed it over to her son Charles and Emily Curtoy, youngest sister of Agnes, to protect it from being seized by the court to pay off her legal fees.  Agnes and Charles Haynes and their descendants had an involvement in the hotel until 1910 when it was sold to the brewery. 

The photo submitted also contains 4 of the 6 children born to Agnes and Charles Dix Haynes.  I think the photo was most likely taken in 1869.  It was in a cardboard box along with many others, kept in tact by the doctor who inherited the estate of the last known Haynes descendant in Australia.  I treasure it because nobody else in Australia knew about this family, and their only living descendants live in USA and are not interested.

Charles John, the eldest child in the photo became a journalist.  He was the Editor of the short lived 'Labour Advocate', a newspaper of Adelaide, before moving to Victoria to marry and have his own children. He and my great grandfather were friends as well as being related.  He died aged 53 of a generic kidney problem, leaving 2 sons and a daughter behind.  One of his sons, John Osborne Kirk Haynes (aka John Scott Haynes) married and had 2 daughters in Sydney in the 1920s, but I cannot discover their names.  Neither of his other children, Pearl or Bob had family and they all lived in Sydney and are buried near to each other.

Emiline Edith Haynes is the oldest daughter in the photo.  She married in 1894 to Walter William Squire, but their whereabouts remain a mystery.

Annie Vera, the daughter with her initials above her head had an exciting life.  She married two extremely wealthy men and travelled the globe.  She lived as the wife of the squire, John Scott Osborne, a horse breeder and keen rose collector, in Kyneton Victoria, and her second marriage was to Thomas Brinkerhoff Trumbull, an American woolbuyer from Boston.  His great great grandfather was the first Governor of Connecticut, and a personal friend of George Washington, first President of America.  Tommy died in South Africa and Vera travelled to and from America and Australia many times during her life, often taking with her, her neice Rita May, daughter of her brother Matthew.  Vera did not have children, but she took a lover, Augustus Frederich BEKER.  Vera was an investor and a money lender.  She died in St. Kilda, Melbourne Victoria, aged 73 and provided generously for her 2 neices in America and her neice Rita.

Cecilia Jane Haynes, the youngest daughter shown married in 1894 and also went to America.  She lived an affluent lifestyle and produced 3 children, 2 of whom grew up in the States and forgot their Australian ancestry.  Both of Cecilia's husbands were named Davis. Cecilia lived in Pennsylvania and later 17th Avenue, San Francisco.  She held elegant soirees at her home and her daughters moved in society circles.  Cecilia died in San Francisco.  Her descendants are not interested in the family story and the man I found, her great great grandson Mark T. is employed at N.A.S.A.

Not shown in the photo, but part of the story, is Matthew Courtoy Haynes the youngest son of Agnes and Charles.  He grew up in South Australia, fought in France during WW1 and died of TB aged 38.  His only daughter Rita May lived to be 91 and kept all the family photographs in tact for me to find.  She married Les Walkington but they did not have children. She must have hoped her collection of memories would be found as they were labelled and in some instances there were her own handwritten comments.

Children