Martha Pray and Joseph Wilkinson (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 38 theme: "Animals")

My 7X great grandparents Joseph and Martha (Pray) Wilkinson were born in Providence, Rhode Island in the latter part of the 17th century. They were married in Smithfield, Providence, RI in 1713 and  went on to have a large family of 15 children. 

Joseph Wilkinson had come to the northwest part of Scituate in 1703 and spent 10 years establishing himself there prior to their marriage.  He erected the first barn there to house the first cow brought to town.  His home, on the most northern turnpike, was considered to be a good farm. It was said that Martha had planted apple trees on their farm during the first year of their marriage. Both were doing their parts to establish a good home for their family in the new community.

Locations of Providence and Scituate, R.I. - Google Earth

Joseph was known to have used the hunting lodge that was built for the convenience of sportsmen from Providence and surrounding places. But sometimes the tables were turned and it was the wildlife doing the hunting.  

One often repeated story tells how Joseph and Martha in their early married years had to keep guard on their sheep at night to protect them from bears and wolves.  The sheep were kept in log enclosures near the house.  One night Joseph and Martha were awakened by the sound of a bear rolling the logs away; they had to get up quickly to rescue their sheep.  

Another frequently told animal story relates to Martha being visited by a bear when she was home alone. Martha had an apple tree full of ripe fruit that the bear was shaking from the tree. In desperation, Martha took her husband's loaded gun kept on a peg on the wall for just such emergencies. She took one shot.  This so frightened her that she dropped the gun, ran back into the house and fastened the door.  When her husband returned home and was told what she had done, he went out to investigate and found the bear dead near the apple tree. Not only had Martha saved their apples but also provided some fresh bear meat for the family.

In fairness to the bears, black bears were believed to have been common throughout Rhode Island when the first Europeans arrived. Colonists soon cleared about 2/3 of the forest lands, drastically reducing bear habitat. It isn't surprising that the bears were doing what they could to find food amid depleting resources. Bears had essentially disappeared from the area by the 18th century.

Joseph died at the age of 58 and is buried in the Westcott-Wilkinson Lot (also known as R.I. Historical Cemetery #14); Martha lived to the age of 91 and probably told her bear story many times to her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Westcott-Wilkinson Lot  burial site for Joseph Wilkinson (and possibly Martha Pray Wilkinson)

photo courtesy Gene Kuechmann of Findagrave.com

Some Resources: 

• A History of Scituate, R.I., Being an account of its Early Settlement & Events to the Present, Compiled by the American Studies Class, Scituate Jr./Sr. High School, N. Scituate, Rhode Island, Project Heritage 1977
• Beaman, C.C.,  An Historical Sketch of the Town of Scituate, RI,  published by Order of the Town Council, Delivered in Scituate July 4, 1876 at the Request of the Town Authorities, Phoenix Capron & Campbell, Steam Books and Job Printers 1877
• Roberts, Gary Boyd, "Genealogies of Rhode Island Families volume 1", New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1989
• Kuffner, Alex, Providence Journal 11 June 2019, "Bears, too, Finding R.I. A Good Place to Settle Down" article accessed online 25 August 2025 from The Herald News at https://www.heraldnews.com/story/news/2019/06/11/bears-too-finding-r-i/4938185007/

Douglas Paul Barnard, Master Brainteaser (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 34 theme: "Playtime")

Douglas Barnard from his obituary in the London Daily Telegraph 18 May 1994 p.25 accessed on Newsapapers.com 

Douglas Paul Barnard (aka Douglas St. Paul Barnard) was my husband's first cousin once removed. Born 27 January 1924 in Pakefield, Suffolk, England to Arthur and Laura (Parry) Barnard, his idea of playtime might not be everyone's idea of fun. As a cruciverbalist, his work was his play. (To save you the trouble since I had to look it up anyway -- a cruciverbalist is a compiler or aficionado of crossword-puzzles. And -- full disclosure: I have been a lifelong cryptic crossword puzzle junkie, a hobby shared with my mother and her brother Bob. I am in awe of the work of Douglas Barnard.)

Douglas Barnard's father Arthur was the younger brother to my husband's grandfather John Mathias Barnard. (Whereas John Mathias was a large man standing over 6 feet tall, brother Arthur's service records from when he signed up for the army at age 18 show him to be less than 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing just 124 pounds. Perhaps he was still growing?) After serving with the British army during the Boer War and in India from 1896-1908, Arthur committed to service in the Christian ministry. To this end, Arthur moved his family to Australia in the 1920s. 

Young Douglas grew up in Australia and obtained his education at the Brisbane Boys'  College. He compiled his first crossword at age 15.

He started work as a bank clerk, but soon enlisted in the Australian army at Launceston, Tasmania on 10 March 1942 shortly after turning 18. His capabilities were soon recognized and he was sent on a Junior Leaders Course followed by selection for the Royal Military College. Records indicate he was a Bombardier. His casualty forms list frequent illnesses and problems with his eyes and with his right ear after a gun blast near it. It is difficult to follow his military records with any real idea of what he was doing; there is a very mysterious reference to his having "m/in from Queensland LofC area  GDD" and embarked from Cairns for "Mexico" (yes, with the quotation marks) on 19-02-45 and then having disembarked at Aitape (surely this is in New Guinea?) on 3-1-45.  He was promoted to Sergeant on 8 November 1945 before his discharge from service in 1946. 

Perhaps he was actually an intelligence officer during the War as reported by a couple of sources (see Gilbert article and Best for Puzzles website in Resources below). If his talents were not taken advantage of in this way, a great opportunity was missed. No official source has been found, but his was exactly the sort of mind required at Bletchley Park or its Australian counterpart Central Bureau. 

At the end of the War, Douglas transferred to the Army Psychology Corps. Then in 1946 he entered Tasmania University to study political science. He was expelled for publishing a pamphlet calling one of his professors a Communist. Later vindicated when that professor was discharged, it nevertheless cost Douglas the Rhodes Scholarship he had won to study at Oxford. 

When paralyzed from polio at age 25, he was told he would never walk again. With characteristic determination and ability, he designed his own leg clamp and got himself back on his feet.  

In 1954, Douglas moved his wife and children to England where he found free-lance work, including as an occasional crossword compiler for the London Daily Telegraph. By the time his obituary was published in that newspaper on 18 May 1994, they reported that he had compiled 2,956 puzzles for them over a course of 40 years. They added that "recently his crosswords had appeared on Mondays because their clarity and cryptic elegance were considered a refreshing challenge after a relaxed weekend."

His book Anatomy of The Crossword is a classic for demystifying the cryptic crossword (which is unlike the more straight-forward encyclopedic version more common in North America). Having figured out on my own how the cryptic clues can follow a number of different formats, it delighted me to read this book and learn that the patterns all had names and explanations. He expounds on the use of puns (based on homonyms and homophones), drollery, allusion, dialectic clues, dilemmatic clues, paragrams, anagrams, disjunctive clues, parabolic clues, and finally the all-encompassing cryptic licence that may be taken by the cruciverbalist. Oh, my! 

Barnard's Anatomy of the Crossword, 1963

According to his obituary:

A true polymath, he quickly grasped the arcane details of any discipline. Science, mathematics, computers, religion and philosophy were of particular interest to him, but he was also a talented handyman who rewired, replumbed and restored his large Georgian house almost single-handed. 

He designed and built a large Adam-style mantelpiece, restored a Bechstein grand piano and collected and restored Oriental antiques.  

His interest in politics led him to run as a Conservative candidate in the 1964 election; he did not win a seat. 

Over the years, he set many other brain-teaser puzzles and wrote many articles as a freelance journalist, often under various pseudonyms. It takes a special mind to turn mathematics into playtime.

The Rochdale Observer 24 April 1965 accessed on Newspapers.com

In addition to his Adventures in Mathematics (1967), he also wrote The Puffin Book of Car Games (1977), It's All Done by Numbers (1968), 50 Daily Telegraph Brain-Twisters (1985), Figure it Out (1973), One Hundred Brain Twisters (1966), A Book of Mathematical and Reasoning Puzzles (1962) and 50 Observer Brain-Twisters (1963). So much playtime created by him for so many puzzle enthusiasts!

Here is an example of one of his regular Brain-twisters (and, no, I haven't tried to solve it, before you ask!):

The Observer 10 January 1965 p.39 from Newspapers.com

As to why he added the "St." to change his name from Douglas Paul Barnard to Douglas St. Paul Barnard or D. St. P. Barnard, no explanation has been found. Probably there is some sort of cryptic or mathematical clue. Perhaps the "s" and "t" are needed to create an anagram: absurd lapdogs rant? about grandads plural? Sorry, Douglas, some of us need a more fulsome clue to solve this one!

Some Resources:

• Australia, World War II Military Service Records, 1939-1945 for Douglas Paul Barnard, accessed on Fold3
• Barnard, D. St. P., Anatomy of the Crossword, London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. 1963
• Barnard, D. St. P., 50 Daily Telegraph Brain-Twisters: a book of mathematical puzzles and reasoning problems, Javelin, 1985, accessed on 25 July 2025 on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/50dailytelegraph0000doug/page/12/mode/2up
• Best for Puzzles Website, Crossword Who's Who for Douglas Barnard accessed online 25 July 2025 at https://bestforpuzzles.com/people/b.html
• Gilbert, Val, "The Telegraph Crossword is 80 and Still Going Strong", 30 July 2005 from the Narkive Newsgroup Archive  accessed online 25 July 2025 at https://rec.puzzles.crosswords.narkive.com/5ALuWsOd/the-telegraph-crossword-is-80-down-and-still-going-strong
• Obituary for Douglas Barnard, The Daily Telegraph, London, England, 18 May 1994, p.25.