Gravestone inscription:
SACRED
To the memory of
MIRIAM HOWARD, daughter of
William and Margaret Vallance.
Who died - 1842 aged 6 years.
Also EILEEN MARGARET,
their daughter who died 1846
Aged 4 years.
Also MARGARET MAGILL,
wife of William Vallance,
Who died 1851 Aged 38 years.
Also RHODA ELLEN, daughter
Of the above
Who died - 1857. Aged 18 years
Also WILLIAM VALLANCE
Son of the above
Who died 1866. Aged 51 years.
Asleep in Jesus
Also MARGARET VAN ANTWERP
Wife of the above WILLIAM H VALLANCE
Who died at South Bergen N.J. US.
The below paragraphs are taken from a 2019 e-mail from Ed Dunscombe to Lindsay McLean addressing some apparent discrepancies on the Dunscombe-Vallance gravestone at St. Mary Edgehill churchyard in Liverpool. The stone in question accompanies that of John and Elizabeth (Magill) Dunscombe:
Since it’s below zero here I thought it a good day to spend some time trying to resolve some of the questions occasioned by the inscription on the Vallance stone at the St. Mary’s Edge Hill cemetery.
I’ll start at the top and work my way down the stone:
Miriam Howard Vallance: This girl did indeed exist. The stone shows she died 1842 at age 6 years. Her burial record shows she was buried in the St. Mary’s Edge Hill cemetery on December 7, 1846, aged 19 months.
Eileen Margaret Vallance: I cannot find any record that this person ever existed. The stone says she died in 1846 at four years of age. The Vallance’s had other children born 1840, 1841, 1842 and 1843. The earliest year before 1846 I see no child being born to them was 1839. I’ve found some record - baptism or burial, documenting all of the other Vallance children, so I’m not sure what to make of her. If she was born in 1839 and survived through 1841 she would most likely have appeared in the 1841 census, but does not. I wonder if she’s been confused with another daughter, Margaret Ellen? Margaret Ellen was born 1840 and died 1841, and there is a record for her being buried at St. Mary’s Edge Hill. This would seem logical, as the couple had three children die young (Miriam Howard, Margaret Ellen, and Rhoda Ellen). Miriam Howard and Rhoda Ellen are both memorialized on the stone. If one of the purposes of the stone was to memorialize the young ones, why was Margaret left off? I think it most likely whoever ordered the stone confused Eileen Margaret with Margaret Ellen. I found burial records validating that all three of these children were indeed buried at St. Mary’s Edge Hill.
Margaret Magill: This is Margaret Magill (Dunscomb) Vallance, William’s wife and mother of the listed children. The stone states she died in 1851 at age 38, meaning a birth year of ca. 1813. The 1841 and 1851 census’s both point to 1810 or 1811. The burial register for Edge Hill sure looks like she was buried in 1857, but everything else I’ve seen has her dying in 1851. The burial register says she was 41 years old - meaning a birth year of 1810 (or 1816 if she died in 1857 - but that would also mean she was 14 or 15 when she married in 1830). The tombstone says she died in 1851 at age 38, meaning a birth year of ca. 1813. I have not found a burial record for her. Nor for her husband, who, curiously, is not listed on the stone other than referenced as Margaret’s husband. I did find a burial record proving William Sr. was buried at St. Mary Edge Hill in 1863 at age 66. The 1841 census has a birth year of ca. 1801; the 1851 census 1797, and the 1861 census also 1797.
Rhoda Ellen: The stone says she died in 1857 and 18 years of age, supposing a birth year of ca. 1839, which could be as I see no other child born to the couple that year. But her birth record and the 1851 census both say she was born in 1850. Her burial record shows she was buried in 1853 at age 3, so I’d think a 1850 birth is correct.
William H. Vallance “son of the above.” This is William Henry Vallance, the son of William Vallance and Margaret Magill Dunscombe. The stone is really whacky here, claiming he died in 1866 at age 51. The burial record for St. Mary Edge Hill show he was indeed buried in 1866, but that he was age 34 at death, implying a birth year of ca. 1832. The 1841 census says he is six years old, meaning a ca. 1835 birth.
Margaret Van Antwerp, wife of the above William H. Vallance. This is William Jr.’s wife, not a very young second wife of William Sr. I did not find a burial record for her, so I’m not sure she was brought back to England for burial following her death in New Jersey, USA. The stone says she died June 6, 1868 at age 27. I found two newspaper clippings citing their marriage on Dec. 2, 1857 in New York City. I found her will online via Ancestry.com. It is dated May 3, 1868 and her signature looks like that of an old woman. Not sure what was wrong with her at age 27. What an unlucky couple. The wedding news clippings confirm that her full name was Margaret Van Antwerp Lindsley, and indeed her name shows as “Margaret VAL Vallance" in her will. Her death place should be “South Bergen” not “South Berger.” Probably a misread by Chris Turner.
The will is an interesting read. They had children, which she unfortunately does not name, but she entrusts them to her sister-in-law Margaret Jane Vallance, and indicates she wants them to be schooled at a private school in London. I’ve search high and low, but I have not been able to find the children listed anywhere. I thought I could find Margaret Jane in a census and the children might be listed with her, but I don’t see any further record of her until a 1915 death record, perhaps hers. The will seems to authorize a kind of joint guardianship between Margaret Jane and Margaret Van Antwerp’s cousin, one D.B. Lester. But I can’t find anything on him either.
Interesting to speculate - how does a 22 year-old man from Liverpool wind up marrying a 16-year old (assuming the dating on the stone is correct) woman in New York City? And they die at ages 31 and 27.
We must wonder too about the nature of the stone. Usually a gravestone is for a single person, or perhaps a couple. This one lists six people with death dates twenty-six years apart, albeit in chronological order. I’m thinking someone at some time after the last death date (1868) decided to memorialize the family retrospectively on the one marker. No idea if the buried also have individual markers as well. Whoever ordered the stone certainly made his/her share of errors, although it’s possible Chris Turner misread a digit here or there