Silas COLE [7959]

  General Notes:

This child's name appears on mother's death cerotic as deceased. I have not found a birth or death for this person.

There is a death of a Silas Cole in 1912, aged 54 at Ararat. Parents names are given as unknown. This would have made this Silas born about 1858. There is a Silas Cole of Ararat who spent time in prison for vagrancy in the 1880's. Could this be the Silas Cole child of Aaron and Elizabeth, although no matching birth has been found, perhaps he was described as deceased on Elizabeth's death certificate as he was no longer in the family.

The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924) Wed 8 Sep 1886 Page 2 No title
At the City Police Court yesterday morn a woman named Mary Banks was fined Silas Cole, charged with vagrancy was sent to gaol for three months. Messrs Claxton-and Hickman, J's.P., were the presiding magistrates.

The Ballarat Star (Vic. : 1865 - 1924) Wed 29 Dec 1886 Page 2 No title
A little excitement was created in Lydiard street yesterday afternoon by a short chase after an escaped prisoner from the Ballarat Gaol. It appears that just about a quarter to 4 o'clock a batch of prisoners were being marched from the wood-yard into the court yard of the gaol. One of them, a middle aged man named Silas Cole, who is serving a sentence for vagrancy, suddenly made off up Lydiard street. Warder Carroll, who was in charge, at once gave chase to the run away, who turned round the corner at Messrs Cuthbert and Wynne's office. He was, however, captured in front of Mr A. G. Corbett's machinery establishment, and brought back to durance vile. Cole has on several previous occasions been an inmate of the gaol, and received his present sentence of six months at Ararat on the 17th inst. He is, it seems, a little weak minded, and probably the temptation, when he saw liberty apparently within his grasp, was too much for him to withstand.