# Pontefract, Yorkshire, England For three generations, the Swallow and Spence families made their home in and around Pontefract, a market town in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Their story here runs from the marriage of Christopher Swallow and Elizabeth Fetherston in 1784 through the middle of the nineteenth century, when the younger Spences left England for good. ## The Swallow Family The family's roots in Pontefract reach back to the wedding of **Christopher Swallow** and **Elizabeth Fetherston** on 11 September 1784. Over the years that followed, they raised a family in the town, including their children **James** (born 7 August 1785), **John**, **Elizabeth**, **William** (born 14 September 1800), and **Margaret** (born 13 March 1805). Christopher was still living in Pontefract in 1798, and it was here that his life closed. He died in December 1836 and was buried on 29 December of that year. Elizabeth outlived him by several years, dying in April 1843 and buried on 24 April. **James Swallow** married **Mary Featherstone Swallow** (born 20 April 1788) and died in 1835. His younger brother **William Swallow** remained in the area longer than most, appearing in the town across the census years of 1841, 1851, and 1861 — a steady, rooted presence while the next generation prepared to scatter. ## The Spence Family The Spence household in Pontefract centered on **John Mathew Spence**, who married on 28 July 1830, and his sister-in-line connections to the Swallow family. The 1841 and 1851 censuses place John Mathew in the town, alongside a growing family of children born through the 1830s and 1840s: - **Matthew Spence**, born 2 August 1831 - **Thomas Spence**, born 18 May 1833 - **John W Spence**, born 18 December 1835 - **James C "Doc" Spence**, born 7 April 1838 - **Joseph Spence**, born 16 June 1841 - **Dorothy Spence**, born 16 December 1845 - **Edward Spence**, born 23 February 1849 **William E Spence** also lived in the household through the 1841 and 1851 censuses. His later obituary in Orland, California, records that he was "a native of England, coming to this country when but a child, and crossed the plains with his parents in 1849, coming from Ohio to California." That single line marks the turning point for this family: the Pontefract they knew was a place to be left behind for the American West. The town in these decades was a Yorkshire market center, and the Spence and Swallow families lived through the years of tightening rural fortunes that pushed so many English families toward emigration. The Spence children born in Pontefract in the 1830s and 1840s would carry the town's name with them across an ocean and a continent. ## From Pontefract to the West The departure of the Spence family in 1849 draws a clear line between the two worlds this narrative touches. **John W Spence**, born in Pontefract in 1835, would spend his adult life ranging across Ohio, Indiana, Nevada, North Dakota, California, Oregon, and Washington as a teamster, guiding others westward and often gone for months at a time. **William E Spence** settled in Orland, California, dying there in 1911 after a long life as a respected citizen and Odd Fellow of forty years' standing. The children who left Pontefract were young enough that the town would have been a childhood memory rather than a lifelong home. But it was where they were born, baptized into their family lines, and counted in the censuses of 1841 and 1851 before the great crossing. ## The Women of the Household Several women appear in the Pontefract records of these years without full detail, yet they belong to the picture of the family's life here. **Mary Ann Spence** (born 1798) was living in the town in 1851. **Mary Milner**, **Jane Palmer**, **Priscilla Cawthorn**, and **Ann Downing** all appear in the 1841 census, with Jane Palmer continuing through 1851 and 1861. Priscilla Cawthorn married on 29 December 1831, the same day **George Spence** married. A woman recorded simply as **Mary** remained in the area across the 1851, 1861, and 1871 censuses — among the last of this family group to be found in Pontefract. **Margaret Swallow**, born in the town in 1805, was still resident in 1851, one of the family members who stayed while others sailed. --- Pontefract was, for these families, both a beginning and a parting place. The Swallows lie buried in its ground; the younger Spences were born within its bounds before crossing the plains. Between the 1784 marriage that opens this account and the last census sighting in 1871, the town held nearly a century of one family's ordinary life — until the pull of the American West emptied a Yorkshire household and sent its children a world away.