07.15.08
The mystery surrounding the death of Isaac Houghton
For years I have been looking for the death of Isaac Houghton, the father of David Houghton. I found a burial on an index for an Isaac Houghton, who was about the correct age for our Isaac. However, the location was some distance from Wolverhampton where ours spent most of his adult life. So I decided to follow up on it. First I got the burial record for him that said: “08 Apr 1867. Isaac HOUGHTON age 61 of The Asylum, Burntwood. Minister - D.S. McClean.”
Hmmm, the asylum. So I checked out the Staffordshire Record Office and they were kind enough to transcribe the admission papers for him, as follows:
“Date of admission: 14 January 1865: name: Isaac Houghton aged 59, previous occupation: labourer; previous place of abode: Wolverhampton; Union chargeable: Wolverhampton Union; admitted on the authority of the justices for the county of Stafford; bodily condition: good; name of bodily disorder (if any): paralysis; form of mental disorder: chronic mania; supposed cause of insanity: hereditary; duration of existing attacks: 8 years; date of discharge or death: 5 April 1867.”
This really sounds like our Isaac Houghton, as he was from Wolverhampton. However, his occupation surprised me, since most of the time on other records, he is listed as a clerk. I don’t know much about mental disorders, but I was reading some cases on the Internet from the 1880s in the USA and it seems that all that were diagnosed with paralysis, were not paralysed, but often had the term “softening of the brain” or stroke-like symptoms associated with paralysis. Those with chronic mania, not only would have the current manic symptoms, but often would have symptoms like some stroke victims’ speech problems where their words are garble or not on the same topic as the person they were conversing with.
Here is the mystery. Isaac Houghton married a second time on 22 March 1857, to a woman 20 years his junior. If he had his attacks for 8 years, then it would be about when this marriage took place. Why then did she marry him? Perhaps she got tired of waiting for him to die off and was trying to get rid of him. Maybe he went crazy married to her.
More to come, once I access the other records at the Record Office.