Babes in the Wood: Jane and Margaret Meagher

Woodlawn Cemetery erected this raised slab marker in 1931 to commerate the sisters.

Arms Around Each Other – the enduring sorrow of Dartmouth’s Babes in the Wood

In her 1893 book ‘History of Dartmouth, Preston and Lawrencetown’ local historian and author, Mary Jane Katzmann (Mrs. Lawson) recounts this heart-breaking and well-known story. This story has been told and retold for close to 200 years. Mary Jane Katzmann was writing about it 50 years after the girls went missing. Almost 90 years after that, they were again commemorated when the cemetery erected a new marker in 1931. And now, almost 200 years later they are still being remembered.

She tells the story of two little girls, Jane Elizabeth, age 6 and Margaret, age 4. They lived with their parents, John and Jane Meagher, in the area between Topsail Lake and Lake Loon. Their father was often employed as a day labourer in the forest or at the tanyard or local tannery. One morning in early April, 1842, the two little girls wandered away from home, perhaps in search of berries, wearing nothing but their normal house dresses. Their mother was ill and was unable to get about, while their older sister did not notice they had wandered away. Later that day, when the father returned from work, he found the mother frantic with worry and immediately organized a search. They had left home on Monday, April 11 and for a week friends and family, as well as complete strangers searched desperately for the girls and found nothing except for a few tracks at one place, the print of a small hand and a piece of rag at another. Snow had fallen during the week and hope was beginning to run low. On Sunday, April 17 searchers were again checking the swamps and dense forest and at 11am in the morning the sisters were discovered by search dogs that had been brought in. The searchers found the girls leaning against a large boulder with their arms around each other. Jane Elizabeth had taken off part of her own dress in an attempt to keep her younger sister warm.

The sisters became known as ‘Babes in the Wood’ and were buried in one coffin in Woodlawn Cemetery where a memorial stone with the following inscription was erected.

It is apparent from this original inscription that the parents had also lost two other children, Martha and George. At that time child morbidity was much higher and it was not uncommon for children to die at birth or in early childhood.

This is such a haunting and tender story that it will probably still be told in another 200 years.

Sketch of the search area that was produced at the time the girls went missing. Produced by J.G. MacKenzie, it is amazing in it’s details. Image courtesy of the Nova Scotia Archives.

SKETCH

by

J. G. MacKenzie

Of

The place where the Two Daughters of John Meagher,

Jane Elizabeth, 7 Years and Margaret, 5 Years

Were Lost in the Woods

Near Dartmouth, N.S. April 1842

They left Home about 10 o’clock A.M. Monday the 11th their Parents being confined to their House by Sickness. On report of their being Lost such a deep interest was Excited in their Fate that several Hundreds voluntarily turned out for Day in search of them.

They were at last Found Dead clasped in each others Arms, on the following Sunday at 11 o’clock A.M. Lacerated and evidently Spent with extreme Exertion before they Died.