Penfold, John (Birthday: 90)

John Penfold, senior, Tapleytown's oldest resident, was 90 years of age on Friday, Nov. 10th. He came to Wentworth County from England about 70 years ago and has resided in this vicinity ever since. He was 20 years of age when he came here, after spending a month and 12 days in crossing from England on an old sailing ship. Liners were scarce in those days, and the Great Eastern, the father of the modern ocean liner, was undergoing construction. Arriving in New York he proceeded to Albany, where he took a train to Niagara Falls, walked the bridge and took the Canadian train to Hamilton. Railway trains did not cross the bridge in those days, and if they did they would have been unable to run on each other's lines, owing to the difference of gauge in Canadian and American tracks. He got a job at $90 a year working for a farmer on the mountain, but later became his own master. He married the daughter of James Lee, Mountain twp. She died in 1904. Of the union were born seven sons and two daughters. Stephen, the eldest son, died in 1911, the eldest daughter, Catharine, died in 1905. Those living are: Joseph and John, of Penfold Bros. feed store, John street south, Hamilton; Arthur, of Strabane; Enoch, of Hamilton; James, who lives on the homestead at Tapleytown; Awrey, of Grimsby, and Mrs. Rebecca Hildreth, of Tapleytown.