Category: Philadelphia

Great-Aunt Amelia’s Christmas Goblet

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Every year at Christmas dinner, my husband toasts our guests with a small antique goblet. His gesture has become a new family tradition. Before he came across this goblet in our kitchen cupboard, it had sat unused at my parents’ Montreal home for decades. I had no idea what it was or how it came into the family.

A pattern of flowers and leaves encircles the metal goblet and the initials and date “MJM to AJB Dec. 25 1852” are inscribed. I realized it must have originally been a Christmas gift, but from whom and to whom?

Research revealed that MJM was MacGregor Joseph Mitcheson (1828-1886), and AJB was his 10-month-old niece Amelia Josephine Bagg (1852-1943). This must have been a gift MacGregor sent Amelia for her first Christmas. A fancy goblet seems like a rather strange present for a young man to give a baby, so perhaps it was a tradition, or his parents’ idea.

Amelia was the second surviving daughter of Montreal notary and landowner Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) and his wife, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg (1822-1914). Catharine’s family lived in Philadelphia and McGregor J. Mitcheson was the youngest of her three brothers. In 1852, he was age 24 and a law graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who had recently been admitted to the bar of Philadelphia. 

Despite the distance between the two cities, Catherine Mitcheson Bagg and her brother seem to have been quite close, so perhaps McGregor and Amelia eventually got to know each other. Amelia was 21 when her father died in 1873, and McGregor was one of the executors of Stanley Clark Bagg’s will, so he may have travelled to Montreal to advise his sister on family matters. 


MacGregor J. Mitcheson

MacGregor must have been an unforgettable house guest. His blue-grey eyes and long brown beard give him a rather wild appearance.1 He also had a forceful personality. In a book on Philadelphia lawyers, written some 30 years after MacGregor’s death, a former colleague recalled, “There never was an advocate who fought harder, or who merged his excessively egotistic personality more completely in that of his client. In another important sense was he entitled to great praise. He had a ready and instinctive perception of every essential fact in a case, in all its bearings, and a fine gift of memory for retaining them …..”2

Professionally, he specialized in real estate law. In the community, he was involved in the charity work of the United States Sanitary Commission at the time of the U.S. Civil War, he was president of the Northern Home for Friendless Children and Soldiers’ Orphans for many years, and he was an active member of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.3

MacGregor married at age 41 to Ellen Brander Alexander Bond, a widow, and together they had three children. One died as a child, one did not marry and one married but had no children.

As for MacGregor’s niece Amelia, she also married relatively late at life. She married her first husband, real estate agent Joseph Mulholland, in 1890 and he died seven years later. Her second husband, Rev. John George Norton, Anglican Archdeacon and Rector of Montreal, was a widower.

Amelia had no children of her own, but she was quite close to her niece Gwendolyn Bagg (1887-1963) and Gwen’s husband, Fred Murray Smith — my future grandparents. They probably inherited the goblet when Aunt Amelia died, age 86, in 1938. For them, it would have been a precious reminder of a favourite aunt and a link to a great-uncle who died the year before Gwen was born. 

Photo of MacGregor J. Mitcheson by Wm. Notman & Son, Montreal; Bagg family collection. 

This article is also posted on https://genealogyensemble.com

Notes and Sources

I have described the goblet as metal because I do not know whether it is silver or pewter. There is no hallmark on it. 

MacGregor J. Mitcheson was born Joseph MacGregor Mitcheson on Nov. 26, 1828 and died at age 57 on June 29, 1886. These dates are according to the cemetery records of St. James the Less Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. The records of St. John’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, say he was baptized on April 17, 1829. 

MacGregor eventually lived on Locust Street in downtown Philadelphia in a house designed by architect Frank Furness. See http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMG1GH_MacGregor_Mitcheson_House_Philadelphia_Pennsylvania

  1. “U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925,” Ancestry.ca[database on-line] entry for MacGregor J. Mitcheson, 1865; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC. ARC Identifier 56612/MLR Number A1 508, NARA Series M1372; Roll # 127.  
  2. Robert D. Coxe, Legal Philadelphia: Comments and Memories, Philadelphia: W.J. Campbell, 1908, p. 140, accessed March 3, 2013.
  3. An Historical Catalogue of the St. Andrews Society of Philadelphia with Biographical Sketches of Deceased Members, 1749-1907, printed for the Society, 1907; Google Books, accessed July 19, 2013.

My First World War Ancestors: Mitcheson

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In this year that marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, I would like to pay tribute to some members of my extended family who served in that horrific conflict. This is the second in a series of four profiles. There may be others in my family who served, but these are the ones I know about.

courtesy University of Pennsylvania

A Philadelphia lawyer, Joseph M. Mitcheson was in active service on the USS Von Steuben during the First World War, serving in every line of duty from senior watch to executive officer. 

Joseph McGregor Mitcheson was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 11, 1870, the son of lawyer McGregor J. Mitcheson and Ellen Brander Alexander Bond. His grandparents, Robert Mitcheson and Fanny (MacGregor) Mitcheson, were my three-times great-grandparents. Joseph had a brother, Robert Stanley, who died as a child, and his sister, Mary Frances, married Arthur L. Nunns. 

Joseph was active in student athletics at the University of Pennsylvania.  He graduated with an arts degree in 1890 and got his law degree in 1895.  

He volunteered in the United States Navy during the Spanish American War, entering as a Lieutenant in June 1898, and being honorably discharged two months later. 

The Mitcheson family monument, St. James the Less Cemetery; photo by Janice Hamilton 

He was in command of the Naval Militia of Pennsylvania at the outbreak of the First World War, but resigned to enter active service. According to his obituary in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 27, 1926, “his interest in the Naval Reserve of Pennsylvania was said to have been the most important factor in preparing that organization to enter the First World War at full strength.” 

Joseph enrolled in the Fleet Reserve with the rank of Lieutenant in March,1917, and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in December. He made nine round trips across the Atlantic aboard the USS Von Steuben, which was used as a troop transport ship, during the war and made nine more crossings after the armistice. Joseph was second in command of the vessel from July to October, 1919, when the ship was taken out of commission. In November of that year, he was promoted to Commander in the Naval Reserve.

 He had a varied legal career, working as an assistant solicitor for the City of Philadelphia before the First World War, and for many years represented the Union Traction Company.  He did not marry. He died of cirrhosis of the liver at his home at 1608 Locust Street – the house he inherited from his parents – on March 26, 1926, age 55, and was buried in the family plot at St James the Less Church in Philadelphia. 

Research notes:

I obtained the basic information about Joseph’s First World War service from newspaper clippings and other background provided to me several years ago by the alumni office of the University of Pennsylvania.

A quick search of various databases on Ancestry brought up additional information. The Pennsylvania and New Jersey Church and Town Records, 1708-1985 revealed his baptismal and burial records. U.S. School Catalogues, 1765-1935 brought up an alumni publication from the University of Pennsylvania that told me he played football and enjoyed photography. Records of Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Spanish-American War, 1898 documented his service in that conflict. The 1910 U.S. Census showed he was living at home that year with his mother and half-sister. Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1963 revealed that he died of cirrhosis of the liver, a discovery that cast a new light on his life since it raised the possibility of alcohol abuse.

The USS Von Steuben, built in Germany as the passenger liner Kronprinz Wilhelm. It was seized bythe Allies and used as a troop transport ship. The ship’s history, including links to photos of the ship and its crew, can be found at http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-v/id3017.htm. A Wikipedia article has additional details.