William Saltmarsh & Mary Phillips
First Fleet · Norfolk Island · Two Family Lines
William Saltmarsh and Mary Phillips were two of my five First Fleet ancestors. They both travelled halfway around the world as convicts and both eventually found themselves on Norfolk Island.
But unlike Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne, William and Mary were not a couple. Their family lines followed separate paths on Norfolk Island before coming together a generation later in Van Diemen’s Land.
Their descendants would then connect with the Lucas and Gascoigne family, bringing four of my First Fleet ancestral lines into the same Tasmanian family.
Two First Fleeters
William Saltmarsh arrived at Sydney Cove aboard Alexander with the First Fleet in January 1788. A cooper by trade, he was later sent to Norfolk Island, arriving there in 1790.
On Norfolk Island he formed a relationship with Mary Butler, a convict who had arrived in Australia with the Second Fleet aboard Lady Juliana. Their son, William Butler Saltmarsh, was born on Norfolk Island on 13 August 1792.
William Saltmarsh had already left Norfolk Island by the time his son was born. In May 1792 he sailed aboard Pitt for Bengal and disappears from the Australian historical record.
Mary Phillips, meanwhile, had also arrived in Australia with the First Fleet. She reached Norfolk Island in 1790 and eventually formed a lasting relationship with Thomas Stevens.
Their daughter Elizabeth Riley Stevens was born on Norfolk Island around 1796.
Born on Norfolk Island
William Butler Saltmarsh and Elizabeth Riley Stevens grew up as children of the extraordinary little society that developed on Norfolk Island.
Their parents had arrived separately—William’s father with the First Fleet and his mother with the Second Fleet; Elizabeth’s mother with the First Fleet and her father as another transported convict.
Both families eventually made the journey from Norfolk Island to Van Diemen’s Land.
William Butler Saltmarsh arrived there in 1813 and established himself around Norfolk Plains, the district that would later become closely associated with Longford.
And there the two Norfolk Island lines finally came together.
Two Lines Become One
On 19 January 1819, William Butler Saltmarsh married Elizabeth Riley Stevens at Launceston.
Their marriage united the descendants of two of my First Fleet ancestors:
William Saltmarsh → William Butler Saltmarsh
and
Mary Phillips → Elizabeth Riley Stevens
Their son John Saltmarsh, born in Launceston in 1821, would eventually create an even more remarkable family connection.
In 1844 John married Elizabeth Letitia Hodgetts—a granddaughter of Olivia Lucas and therefore a descendant of Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne.
With that marriage, four of my five First Fleet ancestral lines had converged into one family.
Four Lines Converge
By the time John Saltmarsh married Elizabeth Letitia Hodgetts in 1844, four separate First Fleet journeys had become part of the same family.
William Saltmarsh and Mary Phillips reached the family through John. Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne reached it through Elizabeth.
Their descendants would continue through Emma Saltmarsh, Clara Saltmarsh and later generations of my Tasmanian family.
Four First Fleet stories, beginning on different ships and following different paths, had finally become one.