Anne Jane Todd

1840s–1860s

Born in Ireland around 1840. Married James McConnell in County Down in 1864 and emigrated to Ontario.

1870s–1900s

Moved to a pioneer farm at Cheam, near Chilliwack, in 1873. Died in Chilliwack on 21 October 1904.

From County Down to Canada

Anne Jane Todd was born in Ireland around 1840. Her records disagree on the year, giving dates anywhere from 1840 to 1846, one of them February 4, 1841. She was the daughter of William Todd, came from a Presbyterian family of Scottish heritage, and is also recorded as Ellen Jane. On April 13, 1864, while living at Edenagarry in the parish of Drumballyroney, County Down, she married James McConnell, a linen weaver from Donaghmore. That same year the couple left Ireland for Canada and settled in South Monaghan Township near Peterborough, Ontario, where James worked as a laborer and their children began to arrive, among them Sarah Jane, born in 1867.

Pioneer Wife at Cheam

In the fall of 1873 the McConnells made the long trip to British Columbia, where a friend from Ontario, Donald Gillanders, had secured them a 160-acre farm in the Chilliwack Valley. They crossed the United States by train to San Francisco, took a steamship up the coast to Victoria, and went on by boat to New Westminster and then Chilliwack. Their first night in the valley was spent in the home of Isaac Kipp, whose son would later marry her daughter Sarah. The family's first home was a log cabin James built on land he had cleared himself, east of Mount Shannon in what became Cheam.

The farm at Cheam was her home for some thirty years, and it grew with the family. By the 1890s the cabin had been replaced by a two-story, nine-room farmhouse, and when the Fraser flooded in June 1894 the water stood six inches deep on the ground floor, so the family had to live upstairs for a time. Though she had been raised Presbyterian, from 1871 on she was recorded as a Wesleyan Methodist, like her husband.

Her Last Illness

Anne Jane died in Chilliwack on October 21, 1904, after an illness during which she was nursed by a Mrs. Reeves. Her funeral the next day was well attended, and she was buried in Chilliwack. Her husband was serving on the municipal council at the time, and the council sent the family a formal letter of condolence.