The widowed Rodrick married Isabella McDonald, the daughter of Alexander and Grace (McAskill) McDonald of Black River, on 17 July 1848. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dempster Wallace.
The entire MacKenzie family, with the exception of their daughter Isabella, is laid to rest in the Black River Bridge Community Cemetery. The oldest MacKenzie headstone reads as follows: McKenzie; Roderick 1808-1893; his wife Isabella McDonald 1810-1893; Hector McKenzie 1806-1877; Annie McKenzie 1844-1918; Murdock McKenzie 1851-1889; Alex K. McKenzie 1850-1920. John's name is etched on a different stone in the same corner of the cemetery. No stone exists to the memory of Katherine MacKenzie. I expect she was laid to rest in Tabusintac.
Hector is buried in Black River, although his family resided in Ontario. In the late 1860s, he left Black River with his two sons and younger daughter (the elder daughter having married John A. Godfrey of Black River) and moved to Oxford County, Ontario. He had returned home to Black River just before his death in 1877.
Rodrick's Immigration & Settlement
Rodrick MacKenzie emigrated to this country from Assynt, Sutherland, Scotland to Tabusintac, N.B., with several family members in June 1840. He petitioned for a grant of land in Tabusintac, Parish of Alnwick, on 24 February 1845. Rodrick's petition is as follows: "That he is a British subject, and desirous of purchasing, for actual Settlement, one hundred Acres of Crown Land, situated as follows:-On the West side of Tabisuntac in the fourth tier of lots in rear of the church land and adjoining on the south side of a lot applied for by Alexander McKenzie." The land was vacant, and "not surveyed. The applicant has been settled thereon for the last 18 months and has erected a small house and barn and cleared about four acres. [Signed] Jas Davidson. Deputy Surveyor."In an 1854 land petition applied for by William MacKenzie in Tabisuntac, the applicant states the following: "....desirous of purchasing a lot of Crown Land containing one hundred Acres, and situate as follows:- on the south side of Tabisuntac River and in the second tier of lots south of the Indian Reserve being the lots formerly surveyed for Rodrick McKenzie Bounded Easterly by a lot surveyed for Alexander McKenzie and northerly by a lot surveyed for Hector McKenzie. That there is about twenty acres cleared on the said lot which improvement was made by the Abovementioned Rodrick McKenzie who has left the place and gone to reside in Black River in that your government paid him twenty pounds for the said improvements and is now building a home and barn thereon and has for the last twelve months been further improving the same." This William MacKenzie is the son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Johnstone) MacKenzie of Tabusintac, who emigrated to the colony in May of 1840. These MacKenzies are most likely related to Rodrick MacKenzie of the Black River Bridge settlement. However, the actual relationship is uncertain.
The MacKenzie Settlement
Prior to 1854, Rodrick moved to Black River Bridge, N.B., to join Hector in what is now referred to as "the Hardwoods" or the "MacKenzie Settlement." He petitioned for land there in 1854. That same year, his eldest son John, his brother Hector, and a George MacKenzie applied for land in what later became the Settlement. As for this George, he is almost certainly a relation, but for now, how is uncertain. The best theory I have been able to come up with is that he was Hector's son George, who would have been nine or ten years of age at the time. As the government had no way of knowing the age of the applicant, unless it had to be specified on the petition - as in the aforementioned William's case - then this is possible. George and Hector's petitions were dated the same day, 23rd August 1854, at Chatham.Each of the petitions states that the applicant is desirous of having land granted to them in the rear of Anderson's lot, near the "Little Black River," now referred to as Little Branch. Hectors petition states under "If Improvement, &c.," that he was living there and had "5 or 6 acres under crop." The application of John, Rodrick's eldest son, states "No improvement," and although I have been unable to locate the 1854 land petition of Rodrick MacKenzie, one would assume that in those three or more years, some improvement had been made to his property. William MacKenzie, aforementioned, did state that same year that Rodrick had been making improvements and erecting a dwelling and barn on his lot at Black River. George MacKenzie's lot also had "No Improvement." All the said lots were listed as "Vacant."
On the 21st of August 1871, the Province of New Brunswick granted unto John MacKenzie a grant of Crown land "One hundred acres more or less and distinguished as lot number one hundred and sixty-eight west of Little Black River," the lot for which he applied in 1854. Two years later, on April 3rd, 1873, Rodrick MacKenzie was also granted "One hundred acres more or less." It was bounded as follows: "Beginning at a black birch tree which is distant north twenty degrees west one chain from the north westerly angle of lot number one hundred and eight granted to John McKenzie west of Little Black River thence by the abovementioned course north twenty degrees west forty chains to a cedar tree and thence north seventy degrees east twenty five chains to another cedar tree and thence south twenty degrees east forty chains to another cedar tree and thence south seventy degrees west twenty five chains to the place of beginning..." This was the land for which he petitioned in 1854.
The MacKenzie Settlement in Little Branch, Black River Bridge, developed along the MacKenzie Road which was at the time the main road between the highway to Richibuctou and the settlement at Little Branch. The land in the Settlement was owned by Rodrick, John, and John K. MacKenzie (Cape Breton), who married Margaret MacKnight (John MacKenzie's sister-in-law). John K. MacKenzie was granted his land in 1907, five years after his wife's death. He later married the widow Mrs. Christina Adams, a daughter of Jubal and Grace (MacDonald) Watling of Little Branch.
As well, Horatio Smith and Patrick A. Cook each occupied 100 acres in the Settlement, and Angus Ward had 100 acres surveyed as of 1907. Angus Ward's death occurred in 1947, at the age of 100 years. He was married to Grace MacKnight, yet another sister-in-law of John MacKenzie.
Rodrick's children
b. 1837. Christened 29 May 1837. m. 10 June 1874. d. 17 September 1886. John was the eldest son of Rodrick and Katherine MacKenzie. He was born in Scotland, raised on the MacKenzie Settlement and was a farmer like his father, Rodrick. Neither he nor his half brother, Alexander, were not listed in the 1871 Northumberland Census. I believe that he may have been traveling in the U.S.A., or in another part of the Dominion.John fell through the loft of his barn and broke his back in either November or December of 1880. Having sustained a spinal injury, he never recovered and died in bed in 1886, leaving his wife with three young children.
m. Elizabeth MacKnight. b. 3 June 1842. m. 10 June 1874. d. 9 September 1922. Elizabeth was one of twin daughters of William and Annie (MacDonald) MacKnight, of Napan, and was lovingly referred to later in life as Auntie Betsy. After the death of her husband in 1886, Elizabeth raised her three children, Catherine, William, and Janie, on the Settlement. As early as 1901, she was keeping house for James (Chubb) and Hedley Cameron in Black River Bridge, while her daughter, Janie, was living with Alexander MacKenzie in Little Branch . She lived with her son, William, in Napan following his return from the Klondike in 1906, and most likely for a period with her brother-in-law, Alexander, as well. She died of cholera at the home of her youngest brother, James, in Napan.
2. Isabella MacKenzie
b. September 1842. m. 30 October 1873. d. 13 September 1932. Isabella was the eldest daughter and second child of Rodrick and Katherine MacKenzie. She was born in 1842, and her mother died when she was about three years of age. She was raised from the age of six on by her step-mother, Isabella. She married Alexander James MacKay of Black River Bridge in 1873. They raised their children in the Settlement before moving to Boston in the early 1890s. After Sandy died in 1898, Isabella stayed in Massachusetts for a few years before moving to Calgary to live with some of her children.
m. Alexander James MacKay
b. 2 October 1846. m. 30 October 1873. d. 2 June 1898. Alexander J. MacKay was a child of John and Marjorie ([Cameron] MacNaughton) MacKay of Black River Bridge. He died following a multi-story fall from a building on which he was working. When Sandy died in 1898, he was originally buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts, on 5 June 1898, but was later moved to the Black River Bridge Community Cemetery.
3. Ann K. MacKenzie b. 1 October 1844. Not married. d. 21 February 1918. Ann Katherine MacKenzie was the third and last child born to Rodrick MacKenzie and his first wife, Katherine. Annie remained at home in the Settlement all of her adult life.
4. Alexander K. MacKenzie b. 17 July 1850. Not married. d. 25 May 1920. Alexander Kenneth MacKenzie was the eldest son of Rodrick MacKenzie and Isabella MacDonald. He was missing from both the 1871 and 1881 Northumberland County Census. His half-brother John was not listed in the 1871 Census either, which leads me to believe that they may have went to the United States, another county, or another province. Alex had returned to Little Branch by 1891. He was living in the same household as Janie MacKenzie in 1901. After most of his family moved to Napan when William A. MacKenzie purchased the MacKnight/Fenton farm, Alexander moved out of the settlement and lived in a home near Fowlies in Little Branch. He made an arrangement with this family to provide him with care in return for his farm property.
5. Murdoch MacKenzie b. 20 or 30 August 1851. Not married. 9 November 1889. Murdoch was the youngest child of Rodrick MacKenzie and Isabella MacDonald. He was a trustee of St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church in the 1880s. All that remains of one of the houses in the MacKenzie Settlement is a hole where the well was, and near it, a large stone, which was supposedly carried up from the ground by Murdoch while the well was being dug. Oral family history states that Murdoch was a very strong man, as he would have had to be to perform such a feat. It is probably more legend than truth. I am not certain of his cause of death at such a young age.