Joshua Clarence Eldredge and Clara Burgess (son of 19, daughter of 20)

[Scott's father's maternal Grandparents]
[Gordon Pratt > Eldredge > Eldredge/Burgess]

Joshua Clarence Eldredge
BIRTH: 25 Apr 1862, Chatham,Barnstable,Massachusetts
DEATH: Dec 1949, Chatham, Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States

Clara Burgess
BIRTH: 24 Jun 1868, Chatham,Barnstable,Massachusetts
DEATH: 07 Mar 1941

"China Josh" Joshua Clarence Eldredge

Clara Burgess Eldredge, with grandsons Herb and Gordon.

“At some point during her life, it had to be when she was younger, Louise worked as a waitress at Hawes House, down by the Lighthouse.  In fact, she and her mother [Clara] rented a room in that Hawes house, and Louise had pneumonia.  It was summer time, and there was obviously no air conditioning.  And they were upstairs in their room that they rented, and she was so terribly, terribly, terribly sick, so much that her mother didn’t even know if she was going to live.”  

Louise (1905-1997) had an older sister Christine Williams Eldredge, lived 6 years (11 July 1900- 9 March 1906), and she died of pneumonia.  Her brother Joshua Allen Eldredge (5 April 1897—11 April 1897) died at 6 days old.  For the most part, she was raised as an only child.

According to Gordon Pratt: "Joshua Clarence was a cabin boy on his father’s vessel at the young age of something like 12, I think it was, and made several trips to China with his father… I’ve tried to research [the name of the vessel] many times and couldn’t come up with the name of the merchant vessel, whether it was a 2-masted, 3-masted, or 4-masted schooner.   I can say that they carried quite a bit of china-ware that they painted, because Clara had some.” 

Later in his life, he was a captain of a sea-going tug called “Sequoia,” mostly used to haul barges.

China Josh at the Fish Pier

For years, China Josh would go and come, sailing his vessel around the world.  They were separated in later years, and Clara left a note for her only living child, "Louise, I want to be buried in the family cemetery located off Milestone Lane, as it was in life, so it shall be in death."  China Josh is buried over in Seaside Cemetery, Clara on Milestone Lane (now Mousehole Lane).

He went and stayed with her when she lived up on main street.  “They were separated.  He didn’t help her out very much financially.  She took in the washing.  She rented out the apartment, which is now the children’s shop on Main Street Chatham.  She took in washing and washed with a wooden washboard and a tub.  She hung out the clothes to dry in the back yard down there on Main Street and inside the house…  My mother and father helped her out financially by paying her to take care of me [during the late 30s]. ”

Gordon Pratt recalls that his mother and father lived down on Sousa Circle, but they "shipped [him] out to stay with [his] Grandmother down at the Children's shop."  He says of his grandmother: "She set me up with a card table and fudge, that I sold there in front of Main Street there… I was given one of those dime banks, you know those dime banks they used to have where you put the dime in and pull the lever.  I used to go up and down Main Street and ask people if they wanted to put a dime in my bank.  I must have made $5.00.   Hey look at my new bank, do you want to put a dime in it!?”

“I do remember she used to make my lunch. I used to go home for lunch from school.  She always put a stack of about 5 slices of bread, and she would cut each slice, cut the crust off of it, then cut each in 3 pieces, and lay them criss-crossed like logs in a tower…  They were just bread and butter.  I walked all the way up to the high school (the community building), from right across from the Wayside Inn (where the Children’s Shop is)”