Vol. 2 (53), Nov 2 1850 pg 373
Old Dan Tucker. -- In a little book entitled "A Thousand Facts in the Histories of Devon and Cornwall, p 50, occurs the following passage:
"The first governor (of Bermuda) was a Mr Moore who was succeeded by Captain Daniel Tucker."
Does this throw any light on the popular negro song -- "Out o' de way, old Dan Tucker" & c.?

Vol. 7 (178), Mar 26 1853, pg 318
The Rev. Joshua Marsden (Vol vii, p 181). This gentleman was born at Warrington in the year 1777. In the year 1800 he offered himself and was accepted by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference as a missionary to British North America, where he laboured for several years. He removed thence to Bermuda. In 1814 he returned to England with a constitution greatly impaired but continued to occupy regular stations under the direction of the Conference until 1836 when, worn out by affliction, he became a supernumary, and resided in London, where he occasionally preached as his health permitted. He died August 11 1837 aged sixty. A Memoir and portrait of the Rev. Joshua Marsden will be found in the Imperial Magazine July 1830.

Vol. 1, 3rd S. (25), June 21 1862, pg 492.
Durnford Family. (3rd S., i 420) My information of this family only extends to its engineer members...
The first of the family that I have been able to trace is Thomas Durnford, baptized at Andover June 14 1684; married Mary Lane, May 16 1719; buried at Ringwood December 21 1737; from whom came...
Elias Durnford, born at Ringwood, March 11 1720; married Martha Gannaway, April 15 1738.At Norwood, in Surrey, he resided, and was buried at Streatham in May 1774.
Elias Durnford, their eldest son, born at Ringwood June 13 1739; entered the corps of Engineers in 1759, attaining the rank of Colonel in 1793. With distinction, he served at the seiges of Bellisle and Havannah. many years he was a Lieutenant governor of west Florida and commanded the little nondescript garrison of Mobile when beseiged in 1781 by a crushing force under Don Galvez to whom he was at length compelled to surrender himself and his force prisoners of war. In 1794 he was chief engineer of the siege of Martinique; was also at the reduction of St Lucia and Guadeloupe and died at Tobago June 21 1794. He married Rebecca Walker of Lowestaft August 25 1769.
Elias Walter Durnford (a son of the preceding) received his commission in the Engineers October 17 1793. In an expedition to the West Indies under Sir Charles Grey, he served at the siege of Martinique and capture of St Lucia and Guadeloupe and in the subsequent actions occasioned by the landing of the French under Victor Hughes until taken prisoner in 1794, at Point a Pitre. A paper by him, entitled "Scenes in an officer's early life", describing the hard services in which he shared on that expedition, is in the United Service Journal for August, 1850, p 605-614. Speaking of his ancestors, he states that he has "traced them from 1590 in regular succession to the present time", 1850. This pedigree unfortunately, if ever committed to writing, does not seem to be forthcoming. His subsequent services were passed in conducting engineering work at Chatham, Woolrich, Portsmouth, and in Ireland; then for many years he was chief engineer at Newfoundland, later at Quebec, and lastly at Portsmouth. Ultimately he was advanced to the rank of Lieut.-General, and died at Tunbridge Wells, March 8 1850. I have no note of his marriage.
Elias Durnford, eldest son of the Lieut.-General, was commissioned into the corps in 1832 and died on his passage to Ceylon, February 6 1835.
Viney Durnford, sixth and youngest son of Lieut.-General, entered the corps as 2nd lieutenant in 1830, and died at Portsmouth November 5 1836.
With Viney ends one branch of the engineer Durnfords; another springing from the same root follows.
Andrew Durnford, third son of Elias and Martha Galloway above, born 1744 at Fordingbridge, Hants, in the "Hundred-windowed house" was commissioned into the engineers July 28 1769, and was next year appointed Assistant-Commissary to superintend the demolition of the fortifications and canal of Dunkirk according to the terms of the treaty of 1763. He was selected for this office from his well known talents as a draftsman and engineer, having been employed for some years at the Tower under Colonel Desmaretz. Quitting Dunkirk in 1744, he passed two years at the defences of Plymouth and in 1776 sailing for America, served through the war, holding the staff post of Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General in Georgia and West Florida from May 26 1780 to June 4 1783. From 1785 to 1787, he was chief engineer of the works at Chatham. When he returned from America in 1783, he visited Bermuda, making, during his short stay, a survey and report of the islands. A few years later, Bermuda was ordered to be fortified and Captain Andrew Durnford was chosen for the duty. He was the first British engineer sent to the station. On July 18 1788 he sailed for his destination and remained there until his death in September 10 1798, when he held the rank of Major. He married Jemima Margaret Isaacson, 2nd daughter and co-heiress of Anthony Isaacson Esq. She was born at Newcastle Jul 24 1741 ob. August 29 1798 and buried in the Isaacson family vault at St Anne's church, Soho.
...

Vol. 4, 3rd S. (98), Nov 14 1863, pg 397
(As no work is known to us which treats expressly on the climate of the Bermudas, we may as well give some of the conflicting opinions advanced by different writers respecting it: --
"The Summer Islands are situated near the latitude of 33 degrees: no part of the world enjoys a purer air, or a more temperate climate - the great ocean which environs them at once moderating the heat of the south winds, and the severity of the north-west. Such a latitude on the continent might be thought too hot; but the air in Bermuda is perpetually fanned and kept cool by sea-breezes (as is affirmed by persons who have long lived there) of one equal tenor, almost throughout the whole year, like the latter end of a fine May; insomuch that it is resorted to as the Montpelier of America" -- Bp. Berkeley's Works, 1837, p390.
Wm. Frith Williams, in his "Historical and Satirical Account of the Bermudas", 1848, pg 159, is of the opinion that Berkeley's account is a little exaggerated. he says: ""The south winds in Bermuda are moist and very oppressive. The official returns of the deaths among the prisoners, confined as they are to the unwholesome atmosphere of the hulks, and the troops, prove the place to be remarkably unhealthy".
"The climate of the Bermudas is mild, genial, and salubrious, though somewhat humid during a south wind" -- Knight's English Cyclopedia, "Geography", i 1049.
"The climate of the Bermudas is by no means healthy, and only a short residence is necessary to foster the germs of constitutional disease. The yellow fever and typhus are often destructive. In 1853 the former of these diseases made dreadful ravages." -- Encyc. Britannica, 8th ed. iv 668.
"The climate is delightful, a perpetual spring clothing the fields and trees in perpetual verdue" -- Blackie's Gazeteer 1856 i 390.

Vol 6, 3rd S. (145), Oct. 8 1864, pg 286
Family of Goodrich --
John Goodrich, a native of Virginia, m. 1747, Margaret, dau. of Joseph and Agatha Bridger, lived later at Topsham, Devon, and died there in 1785, leaving a numerous family, who, and whose descendants, are known. Many of his family settled in England. Joh Goodrich was son of John and mary Goodrich; and beginning with John of Topsham, it is as to these, and the family antecedently to them, that the querist who appeared in "N & Q", 3rd S, v240, now chiefly seeks information. Probably it is to be sought, in part, in colonial family history, for John of Topsham was of nansemond Plantation, in Virginia, was born in that province, probably married there, and it is to be presumed he and his father were settled there. What is known of his wife "Margaret, daughter of Joseph and Agatha Bridger", sounds somehow as if her family had belonged to the Society of Friends. The family, as is known of many of the issue of John of Topsham, if not of himself, were extensively engaged in colonial commerce. In connection some of them, with their relations the Sheddens, and the latter's relations, the Patricks, members of it, were established in business in Virgiunia, New York and Bermuda in which the latter place Goodriches were living in recent times. They were driven from Virginia by the war, taking the royalist side. Mr Robert Shedden, a native of Beith, NB, who was connected wtih them by business and by amrriage, was of Norfolk, Virginia, afterwards of Bermuda and New York, and became well known as an eminent merchant in London...

Vol. 11, 3rd S. (286), June 22 1867, pg 497.
The Somerset Family -- It is recorded in the family history of her Majesty's ancient colony of Bermudas or Somer's Islands, commonly called "Bermuda", that John Jennings Esq who died in 1733, married Mary Seymour, who died December 1765, aged ninety three years. I have seen an apparently authentic MS in which it is stated that "the Seymour family was descended from the Duke of Somerset and the first of the family, after visiting these islands (the Bermudas) returned to England. Who was "the first of the family" here alluded to?