Horace Salmon Childhood – 1888-1906
Antigua, British West Indies
Horace Salmon was born at Richmond Estate in St. Paul’s Parrish, Antigua in the British West Indies on April 28, 1888. His father owned Richmond and Barron’s, another sugar estate to the northwest. After the home at Richmond’s burned two years later, his dad, known as “Frank Salmon,” took a job as Caretaker of Nelson’s Dockyard at English Harbour, where the family lived for a decade. Click here to read a nine-page History of the Dockyard by historian Desmond Nicholson.
James Frances Nelson Salmon (1842- 1909) and Deborah Alice Lake (1854-1940) were married April 21, 1885 at St. James Church. Frank was 43 years old and had previously been married when 27 years old to Mary Maria Nelson who died a decade later without producing any children. Alice produced five children: Ella in 1886 and Horace in 1888 at Richmonds Estate; Leslie in 1892 (who only lived 15 months), Hilda in 1893, and Charles in 1894 at English Harbour.
Frank moved the family into the capitol city of St. John’s about 1902 and 14 year old Horace went to work for a mercantile store to help support the family.
In 1906, when 18, Horace and his friend George Pilkington set sail on a steamship for New York City, hoping to settle in Chicago. The story continues in the next chapter.