Constantine Moore: A Brief Biography Of My Great Grandfather:

Constantine Moore in Front of House at #1 Church Street Aspull


Although Constantine Moore was my great grandfather, I really don’t know all that much about him. I do know from his birth registration he was born to Richard and Faith (Cunliffe) Moore on 06 Aug 1846 in Blackrod, England. (His mother was a widower when she married Richard Moore. Her first Husband was an Eccles.) Constantine had several brothers and sisters: Elizabeth (born about 1842), Margaret (born about 1844), Ellen (born about 1851), William (born about 1853) and Charity Mary (born about 1862). They were all born in Blackrod. Constantine married a Mary Watmaugh on 03 Jun 1869 Our Lady’s Church in Wigan (possibly Aspull in that is the name of the church in Aspull). His family was Roman Catholic. Her family was probably Roman Catholic or Mary converted). Throughout his life Constantine was a coal miner. He moved to the nearby village of Haigh around 1861. By 1871 the family was living in the village next to Blackrod and Haigh named Aspull. In Aspull, he was a grocer as well as a coal miner. He and Mary had several children: Frederick (born in About 1873 and died about 1948 in Michigan), Mary Elizabeth (born about 1878) Constantine Norman (born about 1875) Francis (my grandfather, born 23 Nov 1880 and died in Whittier CA on 02 May 1941), and Wilfred (born 11 Oct 1882 and died in Whittier CA on 25 Sep 1970)). They were all born in Aspull. In 1907 he was involved in a migration to Nova Scotia, Canada along with some of his sons Francis and Wilfred. (The ship they took from Liverpool to Nova Scotia was named the Tunisia. It may have been charted to take immigrants to Canada.) They came to Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia with a second family, the Blinkhorns’. Two of the Moores married two of the Blinkhorns. In Canada he continued to be a coal miner until he died in 13 Dec 1913. Mary died in Sydney Mines on 25 Jan 1922. Mary was buried in the St Mary’s Church Cemetery in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. That is probably where Constantine was buried as well.
I have one picture of Constantine that I know is him. In the picture Constantine is sitting in front of his house on #1 Church Street (It is right across the street from Our Lady’s Roman Catholic Church. It is also diagonally across from the Spencer grocery that was once owned by Constantine’s father, Richard.)
I know even less about Constantine’s wife Mary Watmaugh who is my great grandmother. There is a family story that said she had only one leg. Apparently one of her legs got infected after an injury that happened while she swept the porch at the house at #1 Church Street in Aspull. I have no proof of this. However, it should be true in that why would anyone make a story like that?
On my last trip To Aspull England I stood where the front room of the house on Church Street was located. To be precise, I parked my rental car there. It is now a parking lot of a popular restaurant. We had dinner there several times. I told the owner, a nice lady, that our rental car is parked in what once the front room on my great grandfather’s house. She seemed to be interested.