Origins of George

According to THE HISTORY OF TORONTO AND THE COUNTY OF YORK Volume 2, my great-grandfather, George Cudmore was born in Devonshire, England, in 1806. This was confirmed by Bill and Sandy Cudmore of Bronte when they made the pilgrimage to Devonshire in 1974 in search of our roots. They found the name CUDMORE FARM chiselled in foot-high letters on stone at the entrance to a property two miles east of Brampton fifteen miles south of Mimehead on the Bristol Channel, twenty five miles north of Exeter, principality of Devonshire, The Cudmores were thought to have been tenant pig farmers on a two hundred acre portion of the two thousand acre Huntsham Estate. There had been different families on this property over the years, little was known of the Cudmores, and the present locals wondered why the name was displayed so prominently. They said that a large group had left in 1854 and gone in several directions, some as merchants to Barnstaple, where Bill was startled to see the name E. J. Cudmore (his father's) on a grocery store.

George Moves to Canada

We next pick up Great-grandfather George emigrating to Canada in 1842 and taking up residence in the Township of East York, where he carried on a market garden on Lot #11, Concession #3 till his death in 1830. In England, in 1835, he had married Eleanor Rudd by whom he had twelve children. Of these, the second was my Grandfather John, born in 1839 and brought to Canada in the immigration of 1842 at the age of three.