EXTER
 Simeon Exter I & Mary Elizabeth James
Son of Edward Exter & Ann Jenkin, daughter of James James & Betsy Richards.

The Exter boarding house in Kelly, New Mexico
Simeon Exter
  • Born  Oct 15, 1861, St. Allen, Cornwall, England to Edward Exter, farm labourer, and Ann Jenkin of St. Agnes, Cornwall. 
  • Christened  Jan 22, 1864 at 2 years and 3 months of age by Vicar G. Morris.  There is no birth record listed in St. Catherine's index.
  • Married   Oct 26, 1882 in Perranzabuloe, Cornwall at age 21.  I have a xerox of the parish record.  OCT-DEC 1882 TRURO  5e.273
  • Physical appearance:  1 picture.  Listed as Me (medium complexion?).  Supposedly quite strong (Mom said this).  He was a devout Catholic.  (see obit)
  • History:  Simeon grew up in Zelah Lane, Cornwall.  He was the youngest child of 10 children born to a farm labourer/ miner and his wife.  His mother died when he was 2 years old - his father when he was 5 years old. At age 9 he was a scholar in Perranzabuloe (1871 census) and a boarder along with his older siblings William, Ellen, John, and Edward.  William (age 24) and Edward (age 22)  were lead miners.   Ellen (age 20) and John (age 15) were labourers.  Simeon's other surviving sibling, Ann Jane, was a live-in servant to a  St. Erme household.  In 1872 she married John Thomas Dean of St. George, Truro.

    •      By age 19 (1881 census) Simeon was living and working as a lead miner with his oldest brother William (Wm now had a  wife Elizabeth Trenarry and had been married 9 years).  John died that March in St. Austell.   Edward was marrying Jane Tippett, and was moving to St. Blazey, Cornwall. 
        Simeon married Mary Elizabeth James on Oct 26, 1882 in Perranzabuloe.  They lost their firstborn in Truro, and maybe another.  I do not know what happened to Ellen, but she may have married in 1883 to someone in Cookham.
        The mines were running out in England, and life was very poor.  Around 1883 Simeon and Mary immigrated to the states.  They were naturalized in Pa (1884).  They may have went to Michigan to start, but soon found themselves in New Mexico.  They purchased a good amount of land in San Marcial and Kelly, and at least three mines in Socorro.  There is a village of Exter in Union County, NM they may have owned as well.  Between 1883 and 1886 they may have lived in San Marcial, NM.  We are working on this angle now.  The railroad connected San Marcial and Kelly, and geographically they are quite close.  This area was the true "Wild West". Simeon would have been 23 years old in 1884.
          By 1900 they were known as residents of the lead/zinc mining town of Kelly, NM and had a well-established family.  Simeon was a forman in Kelly for the Trillium Company which owned one of the mines. Albert and Joseph Henry James, two of Mary's brothers, immigrated to NM in the 1890's. Simeon was now 38. (see 1900 Kelly, N.M. census).
  • Death   Died May 4, 1906 in Kelly, New Mexico at age 44 of  "diabetes".  He is buried beside his brother-in-law Albert James and 2 of his children in the Kelly graveyard.  Obituary follows, taken from the Socorro Chieftan, May 5, 1906:

    • (Lauren has the obituary notice) 
    His tombstone is a 4 sided, 3 foot tall obelisk in a large, fenced plot.  Ponderoso pine grow among the graves on the hillside. 

    SIMEON EXTER DIED MAY 4 - 1906
    AGE 44 YRS
    HIS END WAS PEACE

 
 Mary Elizabeth James
  • Born    Nov 9, 1863, Perranzabuloe, Cornwall to James James, a farm labourer, later lead & blend miner and finally farmer;  and Betsy Richards of Perranzabuloe.
  • Christened
  • History:  Lived all her youth in Perranzabuloe in the family of a Lead miner.  The dimensions of her family are confusing.  It appears her father remarried, maybe twice.  It is also possible that her mother was not Betsy Richards but Elizabeth Warne (see 1871 census, Perranzabuloe). 

    •     By age 17 (1881 census) she is still living at home as a Home Domestic.   In 1882 she married Simeon Exter I, and immigrated to the States with him in 1884.  She would have been 20.  Her brother Albert (age 22) may have come at this time.  There is a picture we have of Simeon and Mary that was questionable because it was taken in Truro in the 1890's, but it occurs to me that Mary's father remarried in the early 1890's to a Grace, and they may have returned at that time or soon after to visit him and to bring Mary's brothers back with them. 
        By 1900 (age 36) Mary had had five children, four living. 
        She stayed in New Mexico when Simeon died in 1906 (she was 42). 
    During WWI:  She built the Exter Hotel in Kelly in the late 1910's at the lake where their cabins were.  The MMMail Dec 1918 says the Exter House is in operation.  She is listed on the 3rd Liberty Loan Subscriber's "Roll of Honor" (MMMail, 1918) Unfortunately the hotel burnt down again around 1923.  Luckily Mary was out-of-town visiting her son Simeon II in San Fransisco. 
    CHARACTER:  Grandma Betty says that Mary used to look at only 2 books:  the Bible, and the Macleans Catalogue, her "wish" book.  Grandma has her recipe for apple pie which is scrumptious.  Dad said she spoke with a strong Cornish accent.  She was a penny-pincher (very good with her money).  She financed the Exter House, and her son's Mortuary business in  Albuquerque. 
    We have pictures of her pending. A MMMail view:    Nov 28, 1929:  "Mrs. Exter of Kelly is the guest of her daughter, Mrs. H. Hall, this week." 
  • Death    She died on Nov 3, 1944 in her son Albert's home at 2132 E. Silver, Alburquerque, New Mexico of a stroke.   She would have bee 81 years old.
    • Obituary follows, taken from the Alberquerque Journal, 4 Nov 1944:"Mrs. Mary Exter, Pioneer, Is Dead Came to Kelly, Mining Town, 57 years ago 
        Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Exter, a resident of New Mexico for 57 years, died Friday afternoon at the home of her son, A. J. Exter, 2132 East Silver. 
        Mrs. Exter, who was born in Cornwall, England, November 9, 1863, came to Kelly, New Mexico in February 1887 direct from England and resided there until 1930.  Kelly, a pioneer mining town is south-west of Magdalena.  Since 1930 she has resided in Alberquerque and Magdalena. 
        She is a lifetime member of the Methodist church.  Surviving are two sons and a daughter, eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.  The sons are A. J. Exter, who operates the Exter Mortuary here, and Simeon Exter, Cinncinnati;  the daughter is Mrs. Hezekiah Hall, Magdalena.  A brother, J. H. James, resides in Austin, Texas.  A sister in England preceeded Mrs. Exter in death last July.

    Ghost Town, Mine & Cemetery: Kelly, New Mexico

    Kelly Mine, NM (another version)     PART 1       PART 2   

    Kelly, New Mexico  (and another version)

Click on Mary for a view of Kelly, NM.
  
Services will be held from the Exter Morturary at 2:30pm Monday afternoon.  The Rev. Austin Dillon will officiate.  Interment will be in Fairview Memorial Park."(a recent cutup picture of Mrs. Exter is on pg 11, Nov 5, 1944, Alberq. Journal) 
She is buried in Fairview Memorial Park, Alberquerque, next to her brother Joseph Henry James. 
MARY E. EXTER
1863      FAITH     1944


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Church of Saint Pirans` Perranzabuloe
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