Orangefield House stood two miles ESE of the city of Belfast, almost next door to Bloomfield which belonged to Arthur CRAWFORD.
Its history is as follows:
1705-1791 Thomas BATESON
1752-1811 Thomas BATESON (son of above)
pre 1814 Property sold to Hugh CRAWFORD
1821 After Hugh's death in 1819 mortgaged upon trust* to Allen BARKLIE and John CUNNINGHAM
1824 Re-conveyed to Hugh CRAWFORD's younger sons
1837 Now the property of John HOLMES HOUSTON, formerly of Glenville Co Down, a partner in the Gordon and Company Bank
Eventually inherited and rebuilt by his daughter Mary Isabella and Richard Bayley BLACKISTON-HOUSTON (Also involved in Banking)
It is interesting to note that this mortgage also encompassed lands which had belonged to, and were mentioned in the will of Hugh Johnston (20th November 1737) which were presumably now owned by the family, hence one of the reasons for Dr Michael CRAWFORD's supposition in his "Working Pedigree of the Crawford's of Crawfordsburn and its Cadets" that Hugh CRAWFORD of Orangefield was one of James and Mabel's children; another being of course the coincidence of the name Hugh. If the supposition was correct, Hugh JOHNSTON would have been Hugh CRAWFORD's Grandfather.
The author would like to add the following to this discussion:
James and Mabel were married in 1740 and had the listed family of four boys and three girls are as follows:
John b1745,
Arthur b1748,
Jane b1751,
Anne b1753,
James b1755,
William b1757,
and Mary.
Mary was the youngest girl and therefore, given the closeness of the birth dates of her siblings, probably born circa 59-61 and John the eldest boy, so if Hugh was their child, following this logic, he too was born 59-61 or so. This is a slight variation on Dr Michael's theory, since I have documented evidence, not previously available to Dr Michael, (handwritten by his son William the Younger of Cork, that William of Cork was born in 1757)
James and Mabel's children show a marked desire to replicate Mabel's own family. With the exception of John, presumably named after his paternal Grandfather, and James (after his Father) we have all her siblings honoured except one (*)
Arthur
William
Mary
*Elizabeth
Jane
Anne
..so it would not be stretching the imagination too far if one of her children was named after her Father.
Against, this very attractive argument, I have some information which would give us a 'Hugh CRAWFORD of Orangefield' possibly too old to be the one which fits this scenario. This links one Hugh CRAWFORD of Orangefield with Emily MACAULEY who married William SHARMAN-CRAWFORD (The MACAULEYs and this William were also closely involved in the Belfast Banking circles). Indeed it will be seen that this requires a regression of some 80 years, even if we only allow 20 yrs per generation, and we must note that it involves a third child and a fourth child, even with the information given here, which may not be complete, placing this Hugh CRAWFORD of Orangefield's birth at circa 1747. Even though one might 'squeeze him in' as an earlier sibling, there is no daughter Martha in Dr Michael's listing for his Hugh, only Eliza Martha, who married someone else!
This is Emily's Pedigree:
Hugh CRAWFORD of Orangefield