Biography contributed by Bernadette Siebert.
Mary Ann Rogers Spickman was born in 1839 in Kaeo, Northland, daughter of early settlers William Spickman, from Ireland and his London-born wife Mary Noonan. William had come to NZ with early missionaries. Mary Ann was the middle of three daughters, and her mother died when she was three years old.
On 20 November 1854 at the Court House, Mangonui, Mary Ann married Alexander Nisbet. He was ten years older than her and had been born in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Alexander had had a colourful life; followed farming pursuits till 1848, when he took to seafaring. He came to New Zealand on the ship ‘South Boston’ landing at Mongonui in 1850 and was for nearly two years engaged in the kauri timber trade. Then he joined the Australian gold rush on the Castlemaine, Ballarat, and Bendigo fields, he returned to New Zealand in 1853.
Mary Ann and Alexander had 11 children:
- Louis (1856 - 1938)
- Andrew (1858 -1859)
- Charles Frederick (1860 -1929)
- Albert Haywood (1862 -1930)
- Allen (1863 -1946)
- Janet Anne (1867 - 1937)
- William Arthur (1870 -1 946)
- Gertrude Mabel (1872 -1929)
- Mabel Emily (1874 - ?)
- George Alexander (1877 - 1969)
- Ida Marion (1885 -1920)
Alexander was a contractor that built numerous roads, bridges, etc around Whangaroa. He was on the Commission of the Peace for over thirty years and became the senior Justice in Whangaroa County. He was a trustee of the Wesleyan church, an Oddfellow, and a Mason, and a prominent Orangeman for many years. He served on the Kaeo School committee and was chairman of Kaeo Road Board. Alexander died aged 74 of kidney failure, in Kaeo and was buried in the Kaeo Cemetery.
After Alexander’s death Mary Ann stayed in Kaeo, possibly with sons who remained in the area until 1908. Then, before 1911 in Petone, Wellington where married daughter Ida lived. And in 1911 Mary Ann died of pneumonia, aged 72, at Linwood, Christchurch, the home of her married daughter Gertrude. She was taken north to be buried in Kaeo Cemetery with her husband.
Mary Ann is the mother of #375 Jennie Nisbet and #375 Gertude Nisbet and the mother-in-law of #375 Agnes Nisbet and #375 Lavinia Nisbet.
Sources
- Findagrave
- Early NZ History
- The Cyclopedia of New Zealand
- Electoral Rolls (ancestry.com)