THE CLAXTON FAMILY

George Claxton, the father of Eva, was the second of three sons born to John Claxton and Ruth Toland. John was the son of Thomas and Eliza (Waldron) Claxton. They, along with his father, Langley, settled in the Inverary area of Storrington Township in Frontenac County, Ontario, just north of the city of Kingston.

THE ORIGIN OF THE CLAXTON FAMILY

THE BARONY OF CLUGSTON

Although most family trees only extend to the late 1700’s, the surname can be traced deep into the Middle Ages. The most tangible relic from our ancient ancestors is this unnatural hill, in the Barony of Clugston.

This hill is all that remains of a primitive wooden castle next to the Bladnoch River, at Bordland of Clugistoun. In 1846 it was described as “a beautiful circular moat from 20 to 30 feet high”. It seems far too small to have been a proper Motte-and-Bailey castle, but it had a motte with a ditch around it 6 metres wide and at least two metres deep. There was a wooden tower or house at the top. Depressions from the house were still visible in 1930. The “Moit of Clugston” was mentioned in 1580, where it was used as a meeting place (Moot Hill). There are about 30 such mottes in Galloway, almost all near the coast or at the furthermost navigable point of rivers. The men who built them evidently expected attackers to come from the sea. It is believed they were built around 1200, as Galloway adopted the feudal system. If this is correct, it would have been built by John de Clugestoun, the very first man to bear the surname.

The Barony of Clugston or Clugiston was an area of about ten square kilometres. In 1684, there were 98 adults living there, constituting about 1% of the population of Wigtownshire. The centre of the barony is a small lake called “Clugston Loch”. The barony was bounded on the eastern side by the River Bladnoch, which flows into the bay at Wigtown, about five kilometres away, and on the north by Tarf Water, a tributary of the Bladnoch. The soil is rocky and not very fertile, so the greatest asset of the barony was its location on a trade route. By the mid 1500’s the Clugstons were a merchant family, but they had probably been trading for centuries earlier.
As the region became more civilized, the fort was abandoned. By 1500, Castle Mindork had been built on the western side of the Barony of Clugston. Ruins of this castle were still visible 200 years ago, but now no trace of it remains. In 1508 it was occupied by the MacDowalls, who have been shown by DNA testing to have a common ancestor with the Clugstons.

The surname is one of the oldest recorded in Scotland, and it is one of very few Scottish surnames which derives from a place name. “Clugstoun” as a place name is apparently much older than the surname. The early records consistently end the name with “toun”, not “ton”. This is Old English in origin, and definitely means “estate” or “enclosure”; it gave us the word “town”. The “Clugs”, “Clougs” or “Cloges” part is less clear. Even the original pronunciation is unclear. It originated in a Gaelic environment, which does not have a letter K or X, so the G may just be an approximation of the sound. DNA testing has shown that Irish Claxtons are Clugstons, whereas English Claxtons are not. For a very detailed history of the Clugstons/Claxtons, see Clugston One Name Study

CLAXTONS NEAR CORBALLY, QUEEN’S COUNTY, IRELAND

Our Claxtons ancestors hailed from the Corbally region of Queen’s County (now County Laois), about 65 km west of Dublin. They appear to have arrived in Canada in 1842. The family can easily be identified by the generations of Claxtons bearing the first names of either Forbes or Langley, which makes it difficult to do genealogical research. As seen above, Eva’s great-great grandfather was Langley.

There is an interesting story about a Langley Claxton that took place in October, 1829. On the 29th of that month, five of King George’s policemen heard a shot fired at Rathleague, a mile from Maryborough. Upon investigating, they came upon a numerous and well-armed body of O’Connell’s police who were in the process of being provided with arms by a Protestant famer named Claxton. In March of 1830, a man named John Raker was put on trial for being a part of a party that attacked the house of Langley Claxton on the 22 of October, 1829.

Daniel O’Connell was an Irish patriot who came to exert enormous influence on the relationship between Ireland and its British rulers during the first half of the 19th century. O’Connell, a gifted orator, and charismatic figure rallied the Irish people and helped secure some degree of civil rights for the long-oppressed Catholic population. He was known as “The Liberator”.

THOMAS AND ELIZA CLAXTON

TIMELINE

1769: Langley is born in Ireland. He was a member of the Church of England. His occupation is listed as an s maker.

1817: Thomas is born in Ireland to Langley and his wife

1824: Eliza Waldron is born in Ireland, parents unknown

1840-41: Thomas and Eliza are married. They emigrated to Ontario likely in 1842, along with his father, Langley, who continued to live with them. They settled in Storrington Township, Frontenac County. By the 1861 Census, Eliza was widowed. She died in 1885. Their burial place is not known.

They had four children:

• John, who was born on 27th November, 1842 in Canada West (now Ontario). He died on 15th February, 1910. He was married to Ruth Toland. (They were Eva’s paternal grandparents.)
• William, born about 1844
• Jane, born about 1846
• George, a school teacher, who married Victoria Franklin

JOHN AND RUTH CLAXTON

John Claxton and Ruth Toland had three sons:

• Rev. John Alexander Claxton, who married Fannie M. H. Featherstone on October 5, 1897 at Nelson, Halton County, Ontario.
• George Claxton, who married Mary Agnes Coulthart on July 5, 1901, at Inverary. He worked the family farm. They were Eva’s parents.
• Rev. Edwin H. Claxton, who married Eva M. Graham on December 27, 1899.

1880: Ruth died on July 7. She was 34 years and 2 months old. She passed from consumption (tuberculosis), from which she suffered 3 or 4 years. John & Ruth are buried in Latimer Cemetery in Frontenac County.

The 1851and 1861 Census has some of the family with the surname “Clarkson”. In 1871, the surname is also transcribed as “Clayton”.

JOHN ALEXANDER CLAXTON

John Alexander, the oldest son of John and Ruth Claxton, was born 27th March, 1869. He and his wife, Fannie, had three children:

• Ruth
• John Featherstone McCleyne
• Barbara

John Alexander was a Presbyterian minister and missionary. He came to the Cochrane, Alberta, area about 1894. He later served churches at Bassano and Medicine Hat, Alberta. He was ordained by the United Church of Canada.

John and his wife, Fannie, are buried at Hillside Cemetery, Medicine Hat.

Editor’s note: To date, I have not been able to find out much about their three children. The son, John, was a school teacher and, possibly, later a pharmacist. He lived in Alberta and was married in 1939 to Minnie Taylor McNaughton, who was born in Manitoba on April 28, 1897 and died in 1988. They do not appear to have had any children.

GEORGE WILLIAM CLAXTON

George and his wife, Mary Agnes “Aggie”, had four children, all of whom where born at Inverary, Ontario.

• Herbert,
• Eva Alice, born July 1, 1903,
• Ruth Annie, born November 12, 1904,
• Ralph Edwin, born August 17, 1910.

Mary Agnes died on July 3, 1915 and George on April 1, 1917. Following his death, the four children went to live with Mary Agnes’ brother George Coulthart and his wife, Lillian (Hutchinson) in Calgary, Alberta.

EDWIN H. CLAXTON

Edwin was the third son of John and Ruth Claxton. He was born 1877 and died in 1936. He and his wife, Eva Nina Graham had four children:

• John Wilbert born 1901,
• Edwin Garfield born 1903,
• Ruth Edwina born 1908,
• Elaine Margaret born 1919.

JOHN WILBERT CLAXTON

John Wilbert was born on June 30, 1901 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the first child of Edwin and Eva Nina (Graham) Claxton. He died October 3, 1976.

He married Elizabeth Field Laughton on June 6, 1933 . They had twin sons: Edwin John and George Laughton in 1944. Following the death of Elizabeth, he married Francealia Heuhs East on July 1, 1970. In 2020, his sons live in Bloomfield Hills, MI.

Education

Bachelor of Arts, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 1923. Master of Arts, McGill University, Montreal, 1927. Bachelor of Divinity, United Theological College, Montreal, 1927.

Fellow Union Theological Seminary, New York City, 1927-1928.

Doctor of Divinity, Defiance College, 1940.

Career

John was ordained to ministry by the United Church of Canada.
He served churches in Watertown, NY, Detroit,MI, Manistee, MI, Green Bay, WI, Lansing, MI, Los Angeles, CA, and Mackinac Island, MI.

He was the president of Defiance College, Defiance, OH from 1936-1943. He was the executive secretary for the Congressional Foundation for Theological Studies from 1962-1970. He also served in other capacities within the Congressional denomination.

DR. EDWIN GARFIELD CLAXTON

Garfield was married to Ruth Young. They adopted a son, John, who died tragically in his 15th year. Garfield was an obstetrician from 1935 until his retirement in 1964.

The first hospital in St. Lawrence County, NY, the Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center opened in 1885 as the Ogdensburg City Hospital and Orphan Asylum. Although always a community-owned organization, it was managed by the Grey Nuns, Sisters of Charity, until 1976. The hospital’s name changed twice: first in 1918 to A. Barton Hepburn Hospital to honor the local banker and donor, and again in 2000 to Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in recognition of an exceptional gift from its own Dr. E. Garfield Claxton. The hospital was the home of a nursing school, with its first graduating class in 1905 and its last in 1968. With an innovative group of caregivers and community members, Claxton-Hepburn was the first to bring many new services to the region, including an artificial kidney machine in the late 1960s, long before many urban hospitals had one. In the 1990s and 2000s, the county’s first dialysis center and comprehensive cancer center were constructed. Today, Claxton-Hepburn serves as a regional referral center for dialysis, radiation and medical oncology, psychiatry, and wound healing.

Garfield’s Obituary

Dr. Edwin Garfield Claxton, 99, Johnson Boulevard, Seminole, Florida and formerly of Ogdensburg, NY, died Monday, November 18, 2002 at the Freedom Square Nursing Home in Seminole, Florida where he had been a patient for the past few months. Funeral services will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Ogdensburg with Rev. Thomas Patterson and Rev. Robert Spratt, officiating. Burial will be in Ogdensburg Cemetery. Arrangements are with the Lawrence Funeral Home in Canton. Friends may call at the “Ruth Room” of the First Presbyterian Church on Franklin Street in Ogdensburg from 10 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. on Friday. This room was made possible through the generosity of Dr. Claxton in memory of his first wife. If friends so desire, contributions maybe made to the Charity of one’s choice. Surviving are his wife, Helena Louise (Laidlaw-Livermore) and a sister, Mrs. John (Elaine) Pidgeon, Sun City Center, Florida and one niece. Predeceasing Dr. Claxton are his first wife, Ruth E. Young, who died in 1984; a son, John E. Claxton in 1968; brother, Rev. John W. Claxton and a sister Ruth. Born near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, March 31, 1903, a son of Eva Nina (Graham) and the Rev. Edwin Claxton, a Wesleyan Methodist minister. He grew up in Winchester, Ontario. As a teen, his leg was crushed by a stone crusher while on a summer highway construction project. He went through extensive rehabilitation before attending Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, where he received his medical degree in 1929. During the summers, while attending college, he worked as a porter at the resorts in Alexandria Bay. Dr. Claxton did his internship at St. John’s General, St. Giles Orthopedic Hospital, Children’s Hospital and completed his residency at Kings County Hospital, all in Brooklyn. He completed his post-graduate in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal as well as at Polyclinic Hospital in New York City. In 1932, he moved to Ogdensburg, where he began his practice of medicine at Hepburn Hospital. He married Ruth E. Young of Montreal in 1935. On December 6, 1985, Dr. Claxton married Helena Louis Laidlaw-Livermore in St. Petersburg, Florida. The couple resided in Seminole, Florida. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, rising to the rank of Major. He entered the army in 1942, serving with the field artillery at Camp Livingston. He later served with the 136th Evacuation Hospital at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He studied tropical disease medicine at Walter Reed Medical School in Washington, D.C. He transferred to Rhoads General Hospital in Utica working as an orthopedist and as an internist until he was discharged from the Army. In 1946, he returned to Ogdensburg and was Hepburn Hospital’s first Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He was also a founding member of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1971, he funded the construction of the emergency department and outpatient services at Hepburn Hospital.. In 1996, he helped fund the new wing at the Folts Home in Herkimer, New York. In 2000, the Board of Directors of Hepburn Medical Center renamed the hospital Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in his honor after he donated $7.5 million to the hospital to fund its recent renovation projects. Dr. Claxton established the Ruth Claxton fund for Medical Ethics at Queens University and he had a chapel built in memory of his first wife at the Pasadena Community Church near St. Petersburg. Over the years, he was also a major supporter of United Helpers, the First Presbyterian Church, The Ogdensburg Boys and Girls Club; the Frederic Remington Art Museum and helped start the Connection for Women at Hepburn Medical Center. While living in Ogdensburg, Dr. Claxton was a consultant at the St. Lawrence State Hospital. Dr. Claxton was involved with many organizations throughout his life. He was a life member of the American Medical Association and New York State Medical Society; past President of the Bahia Shores Community Association in St. Pete Beach; a Past President and Board Member of the Friends of St. Pete Beach Library; an Elder of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and a past president and member of the Kiwanis Club in Ogdensburg.

RUTH EDWINA CLAXTON

Ruth was born on March 13, 1908 at Athens in Leeds & Grenville County, Ontario. She was married to Edward Kraus, and appears to have had two daughters, Barbara and Patricia.  

ELAINE MARGARET CLAXTON