The Daniel Dailey Family

Daniel Dailey (1803-1889) was the first Cramahe Dailey. He was born in New York City to Daniel Dailey (1775-?) and Lydia Butts (1778-?). He married Elizabeth Benson (1805-1877) in 1823 in Picton, Upper Canada. He was a resident of Prince Edward County at least until 1847 but by 1851 he was living in Percy Township and was still living there in 1861. In 1851 and 1861 he worked as a farmer. The 1871 Colborne census lists him as a grocer. No record of him in an 1881 census has been seen, but he died of a fractured hip in Colborne in 1889.

Daniel and Elizabeth Dailey had nine children, all born in Prince Edward County. There is no evidence that the first four (Jane Ann 1825-1915, Mary Eliza 1830-1876, Allen William 1834-1860, and Adelaide 1836-1850) were ever residents of Cramahe Township.
The other five were:

  1. Elizabeth Emily Dailey (1838-1887). No information has been found. She appears in the 1871 Colborne census with her parents and in the 1881 census with her sister Mahala and Mahala’s family (see below).
  2. Joseph Nelson Dailey (1840-1928, often referred to as “Nelson”) appeared in Cramahe censuses from 1871 through 1921. He married Hannah Maria Merriman (1843-1894) in Colborne in 1878. She had previously been married to Samuel Alonzo Miller (1840-1871). Joseph and Hannah don’t appear to have had any children, although she had one, Frederick (1865-?), from her first marriage. Dailey’s occupation was listed in censuses as labourer in 1861; labourer and farmer in 1871 (the Daileys appear twice in that census); farmer in 1881 and 1891; and retired farmer in 1911. No occupation was listed for 1921, when he was 81 years old. Land Office records also refer to him as a trader (1874), merchant (1875), and manufacturer (1877). He died of influenza in 1928.
  3. Mahala Melissa Dailey (1842-1926) married carpenter Willet Dorland Insley (1839-1910) in Picton in 1861. They were still living in Prince Edward County in 1871 but had moved to Cramahe Township by 1881 by which time Willet Insley was working as an insurance agent (he went back to farming by 1891). They remained there for the rest of their lives. Mahala died of influenza in 1926. The Insleys had seven children: Allen Locklin (1864-1942), Nelson Stanley (1870-1928), Maude C. 1875-1875), Fred (1876-1877), Alberta Mae (1880-1932), Martin Peterson (1883-1889), and Herbert Finlay (1885-?).
  4. Napoleon Bonaparte Nelson (1845-1877) never married. He died of typhoid in 1877. He was listed as a labourer in the 1861 Percy Township and in the 1871 Colborne census. His death record referred to him as a machinist. Land Office records also list trader (1874) and manufacturer (1877).
  5. John E. Dailey (1847-?) was listed as a student in the 1871 census. He married Maggie Nelson (1852-?) in Cobourg in 1874. No other information has been found.

In the mid to late 1870s Nelson and Napoleon Dailey purchased Reid Lots 255-259 along North Street and Lots 268-172 south of Creek Street from the Merchants Bank of Canada and soon after sold them off to various people. Napoleon died in 1877. In 1881 Nelson purchased Reid Lots 54-56 and Reid Block E along Percy Street just north of Victoria Park. He sold bits and pieces of this off between 1886 and 1897.

Between 1881 and 1898 Mahala Dailey Insley owned the southeastern quarter of Concession 1, Lot 27.