We like occasionally to upload items that might be of use to readers in search of their ancestors. To this end, glancing through a certain ‘roots’ website, we found someone seeking evidence of the marriage in Newry in 1847 of one Henry Martin.
The fact that this one page has three consecutive marriages, separated by all of twenty-five years, testifies to the tiny extent of this particular religious community in Newry of the time. They were referred to as ‘Ebenezer Chapel’. I confess to knowing very little about this denomination. A glance through the internet indicates they were Baptists.
There is a
The first entry, the marriage in Newry of the Rev Henry Martin to Miss Eliza Newell, took place on 7 July 1847 – during the Great Hunger – and incidentally while Crozier was stranded in the Arctic. Henry Martin was then Minister at Clonmel and clearly got married in his wife’s home parish.
It is noted that each of these three marriages was performed by a different minister. In February 1863 J E Jordan, minister, married Mr Holmes of Newry to Miss Margaret Kidd, also of Newry ‘in my own Church, Trevor Hill’.
A third minister, George Wright, married William John Watson, Draper of Rathfriland to Jemima Wilkes of Newry in ‘Ebenezer Chapel’ on 8 October 1872.
We have more photocopied entries of births and marriages in Newry Ebenezer Chapel during that century – which we will upload if people so request from time to time.