Hi - Good to hear from you. As I am Martha's great-great nephew I suppose we are distant relatives. You may already know some of the following but here goes:
Martha was the daughter of Isaac Brant and Ann Rebecca Smith. She had 2 sisters Ann & Ruth and 4 brothers, Abraham, Saul, Michael and Solomon, who was my great-great grandfather. Solomon turns up in the Criminal Registers (1 month in chokey for assaulting a policeman - Naughty !)
Her father Isaac was one of four children brought to Kings Norton from Beaudesert in the early 1800's by their father William and his wife Ann. William and Ann's gravestone is one of the only 2 still extant in St. Nicholas' churchyard.
The Stratford canal had just been completed as far as Henley and William presumably used it to make the trip to Kings Norton where he became a coal dealer at the wharf in Wharf Lane, living at no.75 with Isaac who worked as a boatman. His other son George worked as a miller and shopkeeper and helped to run a beer garden by the canal. William's 2 daughters were both married in King Norton in 1830, 3 years after William was prosecuted for driving his coal cart without reins !
William was born in 1772 (not 1771) in Beaudesert, the son of Joseph Brant and Martha Johnson. Joseph (b.1743) was the son of William Brant who married Mary Hemming in 1736. The trail peters out there.
The Beaudesert Brants were simple folk, agricultural labourers and lime burners. One of them, Williams brother John, was the toll-gate keeper on the Stratford Rd in Shirley, less than a mile from where I now live. Apart from him William was the only Brant to achieve any sort of affluence, although while he was in Beaudesert he was at one time decribed as a pauper.
Martha therefore seems to have done well to pull Frederick Clulee, who looks to have become a successful builder ( I see that there is a Clulee Construction Co. still running ). One of the Clulee Clan, Benjamin, seems to have been briefly involved in the coal business down at the wharf after Martha's father Isaac died in 1865 and the lease on the coalyard expired.
I assume that you are descended from one of Fredericks siblings. There seem to have been no shortage of Clulees in Kings Norton judging by the list of monumental inscriptions for St Nicholas churchyard. I was interested by your reference to the moving of graves in 1988. I have been puzzled for some time that, although no less than 36 Brants have been interred there, only 2 graves are still avilable for inspection. I know that grave are being re-used these days, with the original occupant being re-installed lower down, and I assumed that this is what had happened. It seems that you know better.
Another matter which has had me scratching my head is the preponderance of Jewish given names in the Brant family. Everything from Abraham, Solomon Isaac, Saul, Benniah and Boaz to Reuben, Rebecca and Dinah. Although Brant is an Ashkenazi Jewish surname, common in Poland, I cannot imagine how Jewish immigrant Brants would end up in Beaudesert, although there are plenty of Brants down in Berkshire (Arborfield) with Jewish names. I notice a sprinkling of Isaacs and Benjamins amongst your forbears and wonder if you have any thoughts on this ...
Anyway, I hope I have shed some light on Martha's origins for you,( I can bore for England on this subject ). Nothing exciting, just a long line of straw-chewing yokels and horny-handed sons of the soil, like most people. I have come to realise. The Jewish question is intriguing though.
All of the details of the Beaudesert Brants were culled from a book by William Cooper called Records of Beaudesert. There is a copy in Henley-in-Arden library if you want to take a look. There are also offshoots of Brants in Wooten Wawen, Preston Bagot, Ullenhall, Aston Cantlow and many other places in Worcestershire and Warwickshire, but life is too short .....
Let me know about the grave relocation thing, plus any thoughts on possible Jewish heritage.
Cheers- G.B.
