r
THE MAKERS OF CANADA
THE PIONEERS
OF
OLD ONTARIO
KY W. L. SMITH
ILLUSTRATED It/77/ KKHITY-FIVE ORIGINAL Dh'A }\'I.\GS
By M. McGILLlVRAY
LOG CABIN OF THE EARLY SETTLER
"Formal history and standard biography play an important part in fostering a national spirit. Canada has an ample supply of such works; but the history of the Beginners of the Nation, the men and women who carved out homes for themselves in the dense forests, on the wide, lonely prairies, and in the stern mountain valleys — their story can be gleaned only from almost inaccessible nooks * * * * ' ' There can be no real history of this land unless full justice is done to the memory and service of the men and women who, while suffering unbelievable privations, enduring a loneliness almost too great to be borne, and with hearts aching because of ties broken with home and kindred, laid the foundations of the civilization which it is our privilege to enjoy. ' ;
TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG PUBLISHER
THE MAKERS OF CANADA
NEW SERIES THE P10XKKKS OF OLD ONTARIO
CHARLES FREDERICK DOHERTY
A pioneer who refused to accept as a farm, land now situated in the centre o£ Toronto, because it was too low and wet i'or agri- cultural purposes. — (See page 274)
THE MAKERS OF CANADA
THE PIONEERS
OF
OLD ONTARIO
BY W. L. SMITH
ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN BY M. McGILLIVRAY
r
TORONTO
GEORGE X. MORANG 1923
8672
•Oillk YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY MAIN
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1923 BY GEORGE N. MORANG, TORONTO.
PRINTED IN CANADA
' 'Every side-line in Ontario is rich in memories of the joys and sorrows of the pioneers. In some of them may be gathered stories of tragedies rivalling in interest any- thing told of the lands of chivalry and romance."
J. Ross Robertson.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
Formal history and standard biography play an important part in fostering a national spirit. Canada has an ample supply of such works ; but the history of the Beginners of the Nation, the men and women who carved out homes for them- selves in the dense forests, on the wide, lonely prairies, and in the stern mountain valleys. Their story can be gleaned only from almost inaccessible nooks, where lies ' * a veritable store- house of information" on pioneer days.
At a dinner given in November, 1908, to mark the completion of the first Series of the " Makers of Canada," Mr. John Lewis, the author of ''George Brown" in the Series, said:
"There is just one other work supplementary to this which I would like to see undertaken by Mr. Morang, or some other equally enterprising publisher, and that is a history of the unknown Makers of Canada; the tens of thousands of pioneers who many years ago struck out into the wilderness and converted that wilderness into the Canada which we enjoy to-day."
Almost a decade ago we had the publication of such a series under consideration, but the World War and the consequent unsettling of business halted our plans. We now launch this volume, the first of a series that will show by what suffering, heroism, and dogged determin- ation the foundations of the Canadian provinces
were laid.
G.N.M.
FOREWORD
In the Spring of 1897 I began a series of trips a-wheel through rural Ontario. These trips were undertaken with the object of obtaining first-hand information, for publication in the columns of The W'eekly Sun regarding actual conditions on the farms of the province.
While engaged in that task, and purely by ac- cident, I stumbled on a veritable storehouse of information of another kind altogether. This information was carried in the memories of men and women then still living — memories that went back to the days of the virgin forest, of log cabins surrounded by blackened stumps in the midst of scanty clearings, of bush trails and corduroy roads over which settlers toiled with their grists to distant mills, of old-time logging bees, and of the circuit riders who carried the Gospel message to those real heroes, who at such infinite cost in toil and privation were effecting a conquest in which there was none of the brute triumph of the conqueror or the bit- terness of defeat in the conquered.
On the memories of those met with I drew for the material given in a series of pioneer sketches which appeared from time to time in the col- umns of the press during the period from 1897 to 1914. These sketches, with some further in-
XI
xii FOREWORD
formation gathered at a later date, form the basis of what is contained in this volume.
It was Gold win Smith who first suggested the idea of putting into permanent form the fragmentary accounts of pioneer life which are here offered. The suggestion was made shortly after the sketches began to appear in print. Partly for that reason, but still more because the judgments and ideals which have governed my more mature years are mainly the result of the teaching and example of Goldwin Smith, whose character and aspirations were expressed in the inspired phrase, " above all nations is humanity," this volume is reverently dedicated to his memory.
It is not pretended that what is given even ap- proaches the standard of a complete history of the period dealt with in the life of Ontario. It is hoped, however, that the facts collected may in some measure make easier the task of one, with wider knowledge and greater literary skill, who will some day write a real history of the land in which we live. And there can be no real history of this land unless full justice is done to the memory and service of the men and women who, while suffering unbelievable priv- ations, enduring a loneliness almost too great to be borne, and with hearts aching because of ties broken with home and kindred, laid the founda- tions of the civilization which it is our privilege
to enjoy.
W. L. S.
CONTENTS
PUBLISHER 'S NOTE ........................ . ............................................................................... IX
FOREWORD .................................................................................................................................... xi
INTRODUCTION
THE COMING OF THE PIONEERS .............................................................................. I
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES
OX THE SHORES OF THE BAY OF QUINTE ..................................................... 5
FOLLOWING THE BLAZED TRAIL .............................................................................. 13
THE LONELY GRAVE BY THE WAYSIDE ................. . ......................................... 18
INLAND SETTLEMENTS ...................................................................................................... L'3
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE
GRINDING CORN IN A HOLLOW STUMP ............................................................... 29
SUING FOR TRADE ............................................................................. . ................................... 39
ACTIVE AT NINETY-TWO ................................... . .............................................................. 45
PUTTING HIMSELF ON RATIONS ................................................................................. 52
CHILDREN AND SHEEP IN THE CELLAR ............................................................ 55
PIONEERS OF GANANOQUE AND VICINITY ......................................................... 63
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
MAKING A PREMIER ................................................................................... ........................ 73
VILLAGES THAT ARE NO MORE ............................. _ ............................................... 80
RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE ...................................................... 86
A WAYSIDE INN'S FAMOUS GUESTS ....................... . .......... _ ............................. 90
A LONG WAY TO THE MILL ............................................... . ......................................... 96
HARDSHIPS OF THE NOTTAWASAQA PIONEERS ............................................. 99
THE RUGBY SETTLEMENT ............................................................................................. 104
THE EARLY DAYS OF INNISFIL ............................................... ........ 106
REMINISCENCES OF A SUNNIDALE PIONEER ................. 114
XIII
xiv CONTENTS
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET Page
WHEN YONGE STREET WAS AN INDIAN TRAIL 127
THE QUEEN'S BUSH 132
A STURDY YOUNG TRAVELLER 136
TEAMING GRAIN AND PROVISIONS 146
BUILDING IN A HURRY 156
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT AND TOWNSHIP MEETINGS 159
WHEN OAKVILLE RIVALLED TORONTO
THE SUMMERLESS YEAR .*.... 171
A CHINGACOUSY VILLAGE 178
WHEN THE FROST CAME - 185
PUSHING THE WAGON UPHILL 190
THE SCOTCH BLOCK 191
WORKING INTO THE FLAT COUNTRY
AN OLD TIME DIARY 195
MISFORTUNE OUTLIVED 202
CONTENDING WITH MUD 204
SMALLPOX AND FEVER 208
NEIGHBOURS IN NEED AND IN PLENTY 216
WILD TURKEYS, PIGEONS, AND RACCOONS 220
UP BRUCE AND HURON WAY
KINGSTON ROAD A SEA OF MUD 227
PAYING TAXES WITH HAY 234
PACKING GOODS AT SEVEN - 243
IS IT WORTH WHILE? 247
COW-CABBAGE FOR FOOD - 251
"A LITTLE PIT SORE APOOT THE BACK" - 255
A BOAT BUILT AT KINCARDINE _ 260
FROM FATHER TO SON
FIFTH GENERATION ON THE SAME HOMESTEAD 269
SELECTING LANDS IN PEEL AND WELLINGTON 274
THREE RACES BLENDING IN ONE 279
TREED BY WOLVES BUT YESTERDAY _ 286
CONTENTS STRONG DRINK, RELIGION AND LAW
A HEAVY HANDICAP ......................................
EARLY TEMPERANCE WORKERS .................... - .....
A TEMPERANCE TOWNSHIP ............................................
VIRTUES AND FAILINGS .............................................
PIONEER CAMP MEETINGS .............................
EXCITING SERVICE IN A MILL .................................
EARLY RELIGIOUS REVIVALS ................................
THE CAVAN BLAZERS .........................................................
HEROES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
THE BLACK FLAG OF DEATH .........................................
WHEKE HEROES LIE ...................................
INDEX ..... ................................................ 337
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
CHARLES FREDERICK DOHERTY Frontispiece
LOG CABIN OF THE EARLY SETTLERS
A PlONEEK
GRANDMOTHER TRULL'S IRON POT -
BLAZED TREE — PRIMITIVE LANTERN
WINTERING THE Cow
SPINNING FLAX
DURHAM BOAT
A ONE BOOM SCHOOL IN THE EARLY DAYS 33
WOODEN HARROWS IN THE SHAPE OF A V 34
SELF-RAKING REAPER 35
LOADING THE POWER
REVOLVING RAKE
HUSKING BEE
IMPROVED SLED — WASHING SHEEP 41
SINGLE HANDLED PLOW WITH CROSSBAR — PLOW WITH WOODEN
BEAM 43
A CABIN OF THE SECOND GENERATION 46
SICKLE — HARVESTING WITH CRADLE 48
OLD FAMILY PLOT 51
PIONEER COURTSHIPS: FATHER PREPARES FOR BED 56
EARLY WEAPONS — CANDLE MOULD 59
CIDER PRESS 64
A DAUNTLESS RIDER 67
PLAY ACTORS 71
T HE Loo SCHOOL HOUSE - 77
XVII
XV1« ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
INDIAN BASKET *
THE OLD SAWMILL
RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE 87
A DRUNKEN DRIVER
sy
A RURAL BELLE OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 94
TAKING HOME THE GRIST 100
SOAP-MAKING IN THE EARLY DAYS 101
SKIDDING LOGS
IUo
PIONEER TOOLS— CANDLESTICK 109
DEPARTURE OF SIMPSON 118
A BUSH TAVERN 120
MARY 's LAST TREE 121
AWAITING THEIR TURN TO UNLOAD 134
THE WHOLE DISTANCE BY WAGGON 138
SAVING THE BRIDGE TOLL „ 140
A PIONEER CHURCH SERVICE 150
A LOGGING BEE ,KO
lO£»
CRADLE ... 1C_
157
TOWNSHIP MEETING 160
SHEARING SHEEP 16g
A FIDDLER'S PLIGHT 167
BARN-RAISING BEE j 76
GOING TO MARKET — RETURN FROM MARKET 189
"THE DRIVER FARED BEST OF ALL" 197
SPINNING WOOLLEN YARN 198
Ox YOKE — PRIMITIVE LATCH 205
PEDDLER — ASSESSOR 214
A PIONEER DANCE 219
CARRYING WATER — RACCOONS 221
WEDDING PARTY:— A PIPER ENLIVENS THE SCENE 226
CALL TO DINNER — DINNER GONG 231
SECURELY ANCHORED— CHURN, CROCK, BUTTER BOWL AND LADLE 240
CLEANING GRAIN 254
WHIP-SAW 263
ILLUSTRATIONS xix
Page
WAX SEALS OF CROWNLANU DEEDS -''7
WASHING THE BLANKETS DOHERTY HOMESTEAD — BUILT ix 1844 MAKING TOOLS
SUNBONNET — CEDAR BROOM
OLD OAKEN BUCKET— ASH-LEECH RAISING A LOG BARN- MAKING MAPLE SYRUP
A PIONEER CAMP MEETING
AN UNUSUAL SIGHT
AN ONTARIO FARM OF THE PRESENT DAY
THE FATHER OF MERCY
THE RESTING PLACE OF TAVO DIFFERENT MEN 332
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
INTRODUCTION
THE COMING OF THE PIONEERS
In August, 1535, Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence and cast anchor at the Indian village of Stadacoiia. In 1608, Champlain, fol- lowing in the wake of Cartier, landed at Stada- cona with men and materials to lay the founda- tions of Quebec city. Around this centre grew up a small community, destined to spread its influ- ence until a prosperous colony was built up on the banks of the lower St. Lawrence.
Fur-traders and adventurers penetrated far inland setting up trading-posts by lake and river. French missionaries lived and laboured amongst the Indians, winning converts by their devoted service. Explorers mapped out the courses of streams and noted the natural resources of the country. Military leaders built forts at strategic points. But for years, scarcely anyone seems to have thought seriously of mak- ing a living by the cultivation of the soil. Governor after governor complained to the home authorities that in contrast with the Eng- lish settlers in the New England colonies, who began at once to follow agriculture, the French
i
2 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
settlers preferred to engage in the adventurous and more lucrative occupation of trading in furs.
But with the passing of Canada to the English in 1763 and the subsequent revolt of the Amer- ican colonies, all this was changed. Many col- onists who had remained true to England had either been ruined during the revolt or subse- quently found their old surroundings uncongen- ial and looked to Canada as a place of escape. The home government promised assistance, and thousands responded to the invitation to settle in Canada.
In the matter of location, the new-comers seem to have been allowed a wide range of choice. Lands, in what are now designated the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and Ontario, were offered for settlement. Coming from New York and other agricultural states, many of the im- migrants chose Ontario, settling for the most part within easy distance of the Great Lakes waterway.
With their coming, the pioneer period of agri- culture in Ontario may be said to have begun. Nearly all of those who came at first were of humble origin, of honest purpose, and almost destitute of means. For two or three years, owing to crop failures and lack of equipment, they received some aid from the Government. A considerable proportion of these first settlers were Loyalists, and mingling with them were discharged soldiers, many of them Hessians, who took up land in preference to returning to Europe.
In addition to the Loyalists and subsequent American immigrants there were thousands who
INTRODUCTION 3
came direct from the Old World to settle in Canada. Those of American origin arrived mainly between 1780 and 1812, while the principal movement from overseas commenced a few years later. The first-comers from what is now the United States followed three main routes, one along the line of the St. Lawrence from Lower Canada, another from Oswego in New York State to Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, and still another by way of the Niagara frontier. Those arriving at Niagara divided in- to three sections on reaching the border. One section moved westward to lay the foundations of Haldimand and Waterloo counties ; the second, passing around the head of Lake Ontario, settled in Markham, Scarboro, and adjoining townships; while the third followed the shores of the lake farther eastward for some fifty miles to a point where they almost joined with those coming up the St. Lawrence.
The later, and greater wave of pioneer im- migration, originating from beyond the Atlan- tic, on- arriving in Canada followed a route in- land lying along the St. Lawrence and the Ot- tawa rivers by way of Bytown, as Ottawa was then called. From there the immigrants spread all over Eastern Ontario.
It is with these strangers in a new land, com- ing from widely separated sources, that we are concerned in these pages. Let us hear their story as they or their immediate descendants told it a quarter of a century ago.
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES ON THE SHORES OF THE BAY OF QUINTE
It was no mere accident that the first place chosen for settlement is what is now Ontario, was the country in the vicinity of Kingston. Over a hundred years before, in 1673, Fron- tenac, the most illustrious of the governors of New France, visited the spot in state, and established a fort on the site of Kingston. But no attempt at settlement was made. The fort was intended merely as a link in the great fur- trading enterprise and as a barrier against the incursion of the Jroquois, the uncompromising enemies of the French.
A short time before Colonel Bradstreet cap- tured Fort Frontenac in 1758, one Michael Grass had been a prisoner in the fort, After his release he returned to the colony of New York and settled on a farm about thirty miles from New York City. When the Revolution was in full swing, Grass was offered a commission in the Revolutionary army, but he was a staunch upholder of British authority and rejected the offer. As a result of his action his life was in danger and he sought shelter in New York City. Sir Guy Carleton (afterwards Lord Dorchester) was in command of the British forces. When in 1783 the Revolutionists emerged successful from the struggle, there was wholesale confiscation of
5
6 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
Loyalist property and it was necessary to find homes on British territory for many of those who had remained faithful to the Crown. Carleton viewed with favour the Great Lakes regions as a place for settlement, and knowing that Michael Grass was familiar with the coun- try about old Fort Frontenac, consulted with him regarding the character of the climate and soil. Grass gave a favourable report, and Carle- ton decided to send a considerable body of Loyalists to the region lying at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. Grass was given a captain's commission and placed in charge of a large party that sailed from New York for the St. Lawrence in seven ships escorted by a man-of-war. The voyage was a tedious and dangerous one, and the emigrants did not reach Sorel, at the mouth of the Richelieu, until it was too late in the year to proceed westward.
Here they spent the winter; but their story is best told in the language of men who came into contact with their descendants, and who had access to their records.
In the first week of August, 1899, I sat chat- ting with T. W. Casey, a faithful custodian of early records in Lennox county; Rev. R. S. Forneri, one of those instrumental in the erec- tion of memorials to the creators of first things in Ontario; and Parker Allen, a grandson of one of the first settlers in Adolphustown, and at the time one of the two survivors of Sir John A. Macdonald's first schoolmates. The hot rays of the afternoon sun were beating down upon the fields of yellow grain, before us glistened the rippling waters of the Bay of Quinte, while
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 7
beyond them rose the bush-studded shores of Prince Edward. Behind the trees under which we were seated stood a commodious farm home with extensive outbuildings, while across the road the eye fell upon the beautiful farmstead of the nearest neighbour. Everything breathed of prosperity and comfort.
"One can scarcely believe," said Mr. Casey, "that a century ago the land for miles in all di- rections from where we now sit was nothing but unbroken bush. Yet it is little more than a cen- tury since the forest in this neighbourhood was first attacked by the axe of the pioneer. The earliest settlers along the front of Frontenac and Lennox came from New York State, leaving there in the fall of 1783. The British Govern- ment furnished vessels to carry them to Sorel, on the Richelieu, where the winter of 1783 was spent. There they made their first acquaintance with the discomforts of a new country. Their winter habitations were huts of log cut from the surrounding forest. As the long winter months dragged on the men busied themselves in felling trees from which to construct boats to take them further inland. With the coming of spring, an advance party journeyed westward in these rude craft, and reached Little Cataraqui Creek, three miles west of Fort Frontenac, in June.
"Surveyor-General Holland had sent Deputy Surveyor Collins with the settlers, and under his direction townships were laid out. This was no easy task, and it was not completed until late in the summer. The advance guard then returned to Sorel, where another trying winter was spent. In the spring of 1785, the whole
8
party moved forward and were soon carving out homes for themselves in the wilderness.
"Cut off from civilization by the rapids of the St. Lawrence they were very much isolated. Nor was their condition improved by their ar- rival in the middle of summer, too late to sow grain for that year or to make clearances for sowing fall wheat. Without money, for the Government refused to issue specie, without crops, and away from sources of supply their condition became desperate. To add to their troubles the year 1788 was one of complete crop failure. Of the following season when fam- ine stalked in the land I have heard some pitiful tales. Many actually died of starvation while others were saved only by the game and wild pigeons which they were able to capture.
"These pioneers were grouped in five com- panies under the leadership of Captain Grass, Sir John Johnson, Colonel Rogers, Major Van Alstine, and Colonel Macdonell, and to each company was allotted a township. Four of these companies were composed mainly of soldiers and people who belonged to the mercantile classes in the Old Thirteen Colonies. Knowing nothing of bush life and little more of farming they were ill-prepared for the rugged life of agricul- tural pioneers.
"The Adolphustown settlers, under Major Van Alstine, on the other hand were mostly far- mers and were able to turn their past training to good account. The first landing took place at a little cove about a stone's throw from where D. W. Allison, at one time member for the Com- mons, afterwards built a fine residence, and on
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 9
the farm of which Nicholas Hagerman was the first owner This llagerniau was the father of Chief Justice Hagerman and three members of parliament. A granddaughter married the Hon- ourable John Beverley Robinson at one time the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario.
' ' Scarcely had the pilgrims settled in their new home when a final resting-place had to be found for a child which had succumbed to the hardships sustained during the journey. The site selected for burial was on a slight eminence a little way back from the water's edge, and the grave prepared for the little one formed the beginning of the first cemetery laid out by those now peopling Ontario. Within the en- closure so formed the body of Nicholas Hager- man, one of the first practising lawyers in Can- ada, was laid later on; but the location of this grave is unknown to-day."
"You see," saidtheRev.Mr.Forneri, who took up the story, "stones could not be procured at the time the first burials took place and the wooden slabs that were put up decayed in a few years. But before long tombstones could be procured, and if you visit a nearby graveyard you will find monuments marking the resting- places of Caseys, Ingersolls, Hoovers, Rich- monds, Allisons, and Huffriails of that gener- ation, while overshadowing all is a splendid granite shaft, bearing the inscription: 'U. E. Loyalist Burying Ground, In Memory of the Loyalists who landed here June 16th, 1784.' '
"But the extreme hardships of the very early days," broke in Mr. Allen, "before many years became a thing of the past, Probably no house-
10 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
holds at any time were more self-contained than the homes of these pioneers. Both men and women worked hard, the land was fruitful, and, since there was little sale for any produce, food and the raw materials for clothing and shelter were in abundance. Good houses, all of wood, took the place of log cabins, and barns that of rude hovels. Orchards had early been planted, and these provided plenty of domestic fruit to supplement what was gathered from the bush. Every matron prided herself on putting away quantities of it for home use. A long narrow strip of territory bordering on the waterfront thus within a few years became a place of com- fortable living, and to many it seemed as though the sum of all they could expect or even desire in this life had been attained."
From this our conversation drifted to the coming of later immigrants, and Mr. Forneri recalled an incident associated with a cemetery within the city of Kingston. Here lie the bodies of some four hundred Irish immigrants who per- ished of cholera in 1847. A monument erected on August 6th, 1894, marks the spot, and it was at the base of this monument that Arch- bishop Cleary and Principal Grant, doughty champions of opposing ideals in a conflict of the passing generation, forgot their antagonisms as their tears mingled in memory of those who per- ished almost as soon as they set foot in a land wherein they had hoped to find a happier home than the one left beyond the sea.
The stories surviving in Lennox at the time of my visit were chiefly of a sombre nature, but I also gathered some facts of quite another char-
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES
11
A. PIONEER
12
acter. To Adolphustown, the front township of Lennox, belongs the honour of having formed the first municipal government in Ontario. "The record of that government still exists," said Mr. Casey. "Although written by men engaged in the rough work inseparable from pioneer life, it is a model of neatness. Indeed, I question if there is in the province to-day a better kept record of the kind."
Some of the fiercest political battles Ontario has ever known were also staged in the historic county of Lennox. In one of these contests Sir Henry Smith and James Morton, a rich distiller, were the principals, with Sir John A. Macdonald backing Morton. The latter won and the whole county, at least the Morton part of it, assembled to celebrate the victory. "There were," in the picturesque language of one who heard the story from his father, "ten acres of teams; oxen were roasted whole, and feasting was kept up for two days and two nights."
The story of Ontario begins with the pioneers of Lennox and Frontenac. It was along the front of these counties that the first settle- ment was formed by the advance refugees who came to this province after the American Revolu- tion. Here the system of municipal govern- ment which we have in Ontario had its origin. In fact the first township government in Len- nox, mentioned above, was formed in advance of provincial sanction and was taken as a model for the system afterwards created by provincial authority. Here, too, were first founded the On- tario branches of families whose deeds have since been written into the history of the prov-
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 13
ince and of the Dominion. These families include the Cartwrights, Hagermans, Bethunes, Wall- bridges, Inglis', and Caseys. In Lennox, too, Sir John A. Macdonald spent his boyhood days, and in the beautiful cemetery of Cataraqui, in the neighbouring county of Front enac, his body rests under a plain stone bearing the simple in- scription,— "John Alexander Macdonald 1815-1895 at rest."
FOLLOWING THE BLAZED TRAIL
While the pioneers on the shores of the Bay of Quinte were making homes for themselves, other settlers were coming in by way of Niag- ara and the head of Lake Ontario. Of these the Trulls, Burkes, and Conants penetrated farthest east and located in what is now Durham county. On the second day of October, 1794, these families began the first settlement in the township of Darlington.
"There were no roads on either side of the head of the lake at that time," said Jesse Trull, a quarter of a century ago the head of the Trull family, as he told the story of the migration at a family picnic held on the old homestead in 1898. "On a journey that can now be made in a few hours we spent a month and one day. Leaving the old home in New York State on the first of September, we skirted the south shore of Lake Ontario in open boats to Niagara. From Niagara we followed the shore lino all the way to Barber's Creek, and, on the second of October, camped in front of where the settle- ment was formed.
14 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
"The journey was tedious, toilsome, and not devoid of danger. It was the month of storms on the lake, and when one of the frequent gales came up we had to pull our boats ashore for shelter. When night fell we also went ashore and camped in the woods that then covered the whole country from the lake front to the far- thest north. As matches were still an invention of the future we had to depend on a flint, or the rubbing together of two sticks, to start a fire, a difficult operation at best and almost impossible of accomplishment when rain was falling. Our cooking utensils were pots hung on stakes over an open fire, and our food consisted of fish caught in the lake, game obtained from the for- est, and bread hastily cooked from the flour we carried with us. Sleep was frequently broken by the howling of wolves, and some of the party had to remain on guard all night."
Nor were hardships at an end when the final stopping place was reached. Rather had they but begun.
"It was not then a drive of a few miles to town, over gravelled roads, when groceries were needed," said the patriarch. "Kingston and Toronto were our nearest markets and the jour- ney, made in 'dug-outs' (boats fashioned from hollow logs), was a matter of days. Even when schooners appeared on the lake, transportation was no easy matter. In the absence of wharves the vessels had to lie out in the lake while farm produce was transported to them in open boats. One of the tragedies of the early days of settle- ment happened when Jesse Trull, my uncle, was drowned while transferring grain from a row-
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 15
boat to a schooner that was engaged in gather- ing farm produce along the shore."
One of the heirlooms in the Trull family is a small iron pot; and connected with the pot is a story that throws much light on the difficul- ties of the pioneer period in Darlington and the resource with which the difficulties were met.
"In that pot my Grandmother mixed the herbs which served all the medicinal requirements of the first settlers. ' '
"In that pot," Jesse said, "my grandmother mixed the herbs which served all the medicinal requirements of the first settlers. My grand- mother had rare skill in the preparation of these herbs and she was further fortified by a book of directions in midwifery and the heal- ing of the sick. Her services were frequently called on over a wide stretch of country, and, as there were at that time no bridges across the numerous streams flowing towards the lake, she many times had to swim her horse through them when on her missions of mercy. On one occasion the grandfather of S. Caldwell, of Hamilton township, near Cobourg, called upon her to visit a member of his family who was dangerously ill.
16
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
The two set out together and arrived at the river at Port Hope just as night was falling. Mr. Caldwell had nearly lost his life in cross- ing the stream in daylight and he feared to make a fresh venture in the gathering dark- ness. Not so Mrs. Trull. She boldly drove her
BLAZED TREE
PRIMITIVE LANTERN
horse headlong into the water, breasted the swelling flood, and on arriving at the other side lit a pine torch with the flint she carried. By the fitful flame of the pitch pine, she followed the blazed trail in the woods for the rest of the
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 17
journey all alone and arrived in time to save the life of her patient."
Frequent reference is made in these sketches to "blazed trails." A "blaze" was made with an axe or draw-knife, and consisted in cutting a small piece of bark from a green tree. Marks so made on tree after tree served to show the way from place to place through the forests.
A most interesting document connected with the beginning of the Trull settlement is the record of the early marriage of Luke Burke to Nancy McBane in the "leafy month" of 1805. In April, 1807, John Carr was married to Betsy Woodruff "with the written consent of the bride's father." In December of the same year John Burke of Darlington was married to Jane Brisbin, of Whitby, "with the consent of the latter 's sister and brother-in-law," these prob- ably being the legal guardians owing to the death of the bride's parents. Another curious light is thrown on the legal requirements con- nected with the marriage ceremony in the record of the solemnization of the marriage of Joseph Gerow to Pamela Trull by Alex. Fletcher, a magistrate of that day. The record sets forth that there was not an Anglican min- ister within eighteen miles, and this fact was the sanction for the performance of the ceremony by a Justice of the Peace.
Death as well as Cupid hovered near by. On a gentle slope on the Trull homestead, many of the first settlers in Darlington sleep their last sleep, while the winds sing a nightly requiem in the tops of the murmuring pines that stand like sleepless sentinels guarding the hallowed
18 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
ground. Near the centre of the plot is a marble headstone bearing the inscription: "John Trull, died Feb. 19, 1830, aged 84 years." This marks the grave of the first of the Trulls of Darling- ton. Close at hand is the resting-place of " John Casey Trull, Captain in H. M. S., born Sept. 2, 1795, died May 13, 1880." That is the grave of the first Trull bom in the township and the father of Jesse.
And Jesse himself, full of years and rich in the memory of a long life well spent, has since been gathered to his fathers. In fact, nearly all of those who supplied the material for this book have since died. Although dead they still speak, not only in the record here given but also by the work of their hands.
THE LONELY GRAVE BY THE WAYSIDE
We turn now to the movement westward from the Niagara frontier — a movement which occurred at the same time as the movement east- ward along the north shore of Lake Ontario, led by the Trulls, Burkes, and Conants. This westward migration was composed largely of Pennsylvania Dutch, and the first settlements were formed in what is now the county of Haldi- mand. Among the Haldimand pioneers were the Culps, Hoovers, and Hipwells, and it was from their descendants that most of the facts given in the following story were obtained.
Tilman Gulp, his wife, and two children ar- rived in the township of Rainham in 1794, and Mrs. Dedrick Hoover, a daughter of one of these children, told part of the story of the journey
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 19
from Pennsylvania as she had learned it from her mother.
"I have heard my mother say," said Mi's. Hoover, "that all their belongings on arriving at the new home, in what was then an unbroken forest, consisted of a horse, a cow, and half a bag of flour. The flour, the milk produced by the cow from the herbage of the forest, and such game and fish as they were able to secure furnished their sole means of subsistence until the first crop was gathered a year later. During the summer the cow foraged for her- self in the woods, in the winter the children broke sprouts from young trees, and these were fed to the cow as she stood tied to a stump. In early spring, when provisions were almost ex- hausted and the new crop was not yet ready for harvest, grandfather gathered beech leaves, and these were boiled to make a stew for the children. The memory of that dish — and it seemed sweeter than honey to the well-nigh famished children — lingered with my mother until the end of her life. Shortly before her death she murmured, 'Oh, I wish things would but taste to me as they once did/
"Even at this our people were better off than some. A couple of boys from a neighbour's house came over one morning and put on a fire for grandmother, begging her to cook food for them. But she had nothing to cook and the lads had to return as hungry as they came.
"On another occasion, when my mother had a few loaves of bread in the house, she saw a party of Indians approaching. She knew that there would be no food left for her children if the
20
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
Indians once got sight of the loaves, so she has- tily dropped them into a barrel, put a slab on top, and placed one of the babies on the slab. The Indians did not think of disturbing the child and so the bread was saved."
Mrs. Hoover 's husband, eighty years of age when this story was told, was also a grandchild of one of the first settlers. "My grandfather
WINTERING THE COW
"In the winter the children broke sprouts from young trees, and these were fed to the cow as she stood tied to a stump. ' '
came in 1798 to spy out the land," said Mr. Hoover, "and settled here four years later. His party travelled in covered wagons from York, in Pennsylvania, and were six weeks on the way, camping at night in the woods while on the journey. Many of the rivers crossed on the pil-
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 21
grimagc were without bridges, and in such cases it was necessary to cut down trees and form rafts on which the belongings of the party could be floated across.
"When our people settled here the nearest mill was at Bridgewater, within sound of Niagara Falls, and to that mill grists had to be carried in open boats, the distance equalling about a third the length of Lake Erie. Land was the only cheap article in the new settle- ment. My grandfather traded a horse, saddle, and bridle for the lot on which he settled."
There was no one in the new settlement with the medical skill of Grandmother Trull, and, in answer to a question as to what happened when people took ill, Mr. Hoover made the grim answer: " We let them die and then buried them." Provisions, too, frequently grew scarce, and on one such occasion Mr. Hoover's uncle heard splashing in a nearby creek (there is no creek there now), and he knew that the noise indicated fish. Two or three of the settlers promptly went to where the splashing was heard, caught eleven mullet by hand and soon relieved the pangs of hunger. "When the first crop of potatoes and wheat was harvested the people thought that they were rich," Mr. Hoo- ver concluded.
One of the first of these Pennsylvania emigrants was Mother Hipwell. According to Uriah Rittenhouse, another of the early settlers : "Her party was eleven weeks in making the journey by wagon from Pennsylvania to where they settled on 'The Twenty' in Lincoln. A par- ticularly sad incident took place during that
22 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
.journey. A baby was taken ill by the way, and one night while the party camped in the woods, miles from any human habitation, the little one died. Next morning, after a simple ceremony, the small body was buried at the foot of a mighty oak and the dreary journey was resumed. But every feature of the surroundings of the lonely grave was stamped on the mother's memory, and she declared, to the day of her death, that if she ever again came near the spot she would be able to remember the tree beneath the wide-spread- ing branches of which her child was sheltered in its last sleep."
But the great oak and its neighbours long since have fallen beneath the woodman's axe. Even the stumps have disappeared. Where the giants of the forest once stood there now may be orchards of cherry and plum from which other children gather fruit knowing nothing of the frail body which lies mingled with the dust beneath their feet.
There were dangers as well as privations in the new home amid the primeval forest. Bears and wolves were everywhere and Mrs. Hoover's grandmother once put a blanket over the open doorway to serve as protection against a pack of wolves. But the privations and dangers of the early days are now only a rapidly fading memory. The narrow clearings, which yielded a scanty subsistence, have been widened to broad acres of fruitful soil and the doorless cabins have given place to comfortable brick homes. One thing yet remains, however, a her- itage of good neighbourhood, thrift, and honesty. In the Rainham of to-day, as in the Rainham
PROM SOUTHERN HOMES 23
of the pioneers, the word is the bond, and the latch string of hospitality ever hangs outside the door.
INLAND SETTLEMENTS
While the Hipwells and their fellow-travellers journeyed to Haldimand, another section moved towards the townships of Markham, Scarboro, and Pickering. The leader in this movement was Christian Reesor. In 1801, Christian, ac- companied by his son Peter, travelled on horse- back from Franklin county, Pennsylvania, to examine the country and to bring back inform- ation. Very soon they traded their horses for land on the tenth concession, Christian selecting lot four as the site of his future home. Since they had parted with their horses, the two had to return to Pennsylvania on foot. On reach- ing their old home they set about making ar- rangements for their final journey to the wilder- ness of the north. Owing to delays in selling their Pennsylvania holdings and packing up, it was not until 1804 that the journey to Canada was begun. Accompanying Christian on this occasion were four sons — Peter, John, Abraham, and Christian, Jr. From these the Canadian Reesor connection of to-day is descended. John, one of the four, had fifteen children and three of these children had in turn families of nine, ten, and fourteen respectively.
From Noah Reesor, a son of Peter, I obtained some particulars of the Reesor migrations from Pennsylvania to Markham. "I believe," this descendant of the pioneers stated, "that our people spent six weeks on the journey. The
24
party travelled in wagons and camped wher- ever night overtook them. They drove their cows with them, the animals feeding by the wayside and being milked night and morning. The butter was churned in the wagons, the vibra- tion of the rude vehicles assisting in the work of churning. After the family had fairly settled down in Markham, and the first crop was har- vested, the grain was carried on horseback over bush trails to Toronto to be ground into flour. In the 'summerless year,' the awful year of 1816, almost all the grain was frozen and what little was saved was gathered by men wearing overcoats as a protection against the cold."
Josephus Reesor, a son of Peter, in telling of how the original settlers obtained their first food, said that they followed the cattle to the woods. Any plants the tops of which were eaten by the cows the settlers concluded were safe for human food and the roots were dug up to make a stew for the table. Thus, by trusting to the instinct of the dumb brutes, they avoided poison- ous herbs. "There was," he said, "only one store in Toronto at that early period and my father rode there and back to purchase supplies. Obtaining a water supply was another problem. Wells were to be found on only a few farms and in some instances water was obtained from pools formed by falling rain. Of at least one kind of food there was an ample supply. Large salmon could then be caught in the River Rouge at Cedar Grove."
The father of William Armstrong, a connec- tion of the Reesors by marriage, planted the first orchard in the settlement. The trees were
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 25
seedlings and their fruit furnished a welcome addition to table supplies over a large part of Scarboro and Markham.
The first stone house in the township of Mark- ham was erected on lot four of the ninth in the 'thirties, and a bank barn was put up on the same place about the same time. The timbers for the barn were cut from pine that yielded logs fourteen inches in diameter and forty feet in length, and they were all hewed by one of the Reesors with a broad-axe.
One of the relics of the early days is a trunk covered with deer-skin. Connected with that trunk is a sad story, paralleling that of the child buried beneath the wide-spreading oak by the party of Haldimand pioneers. This trunk belonged to the third Christian, a grand- son of the founder of the Reesor settlement in York. This third Christian accompanied his father to the old home in Pennsylvania in 1826. The young man was seized with fever on the return journey and died at Lewiston. The father could not leave his dead to rest among strangers and so made a rude coffin of boards, and, with his dead son as companion, made the rest of the journey to the now desolate home in the forest. There the body lies among his own kindred in the little cemetery on the hillside at Cedar Grove. In that cemetery beneath sweet- smelling locusts, twenty years ago I counted ten graves in a group, all Reesors with the excep- tion of one Wheeler, a connection by marriage.
But the descendants of those who are gone are as the sands of the seashore. At Locust Hill Creamery, when the present century was young,
26 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
a third of the patrons were Reesors; two-thirds of those who patronized the local smithy at the same time were also Reesors; within a day's travel were five hundred of the same name, and with their connections in the Hoovers, the James', the Armstrongs and others, they ran into the thousands in the county of York alone. There are still more in the old home in Pennsyl- vania; and men of the name are found almost all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay, and from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Wherever in Canada the Reesor name is known it is held in honour and respect.
For some further particulars of the Mennon- ite settlements in Markham and adjoining town- ships I am indebted to what was told me in 1898 by John Koch, another descendant of those who made the great trek from Pennsylvania in the beginning of the last century.
"Delegates were first sent to select land for the new settlement," Mr. Koch said, "and after these preliminary arrangements had been com- pleted, stock was gathered together, goods and chattels were piled in wagons, and then the pil- grimage to the northland began. In that part of the United States which our ancestors trav- ersed, the roads were not bad, but once the fron- tier was passed real hardship commenced. Roads had to be cut through the bush; livers forded by the plunging horses; and, in going down some of the steep hills, logs had to be hitched to the wagons to prevent them from run- ning over the animals.
"Nor did hardships end when our people reached their new home. Rather were these
FROM SOUTHERN HOMES 27
increased. Toronto, twenty miles distant, was the nearest point at which groceries could be ob- tained and a trip there occupied three days, the nights being spent in such shelter as the forest afforded. In Toronto itself you could almost have drowned a horse in the mud holes on some of the streets. ' '
Mr. Sherk, one of the early settlers, teamed cordwood to Toronto, which he sold at one dol- lar and a half per cord. He hauled a cord and a half at a time, starting long before daylight and not getting home until late at night. The women worked quite as hard as the men. They rose at four in the morning to spin flax before breakfast, and after supper, spinning was resumed and continued until nine or ten at night. From the flax was made all the clothing many of the first settlers had to wear both winter and summer. In order to save shoe leather people went barefooted while in the house in winter and barefooted everywhere in summer. The first shoes worn in summer by one of the pion- eers were a pair loaned him by his grandmother.
Shortly after the settlement was formed, death came to a little child in the Sherk home- stead. There did not seem to be, anywhere in the forest, an opening large enough to make room even for the body of a child. A small clearing on a hillside belonging to a neighbour on the fourth of Markham was at last discovered and the privilege was requested of using part of this as a resting-place for the dead. The request was granted, and this, the first burial, took place on the fourth of Markham in what is believed to be the oldest cemetery in the township.
28 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
SPINNING FLAX
' ' The women worked quite as hard as the men. They rose at four in the morning to spin, and after supper, continued until nine or ten."
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE
GRINDING CORN IN A HOLLOW STUMP
While the last century was still young, im- migrants from beyond the seas were attracted to Canada. For many interesting stories of the immigrants of that period I am indebted to Wal- ter Riddell, father of Judge Riddell of Toronto. Not only had he a fund of information furnished him by his neighbours, but his own memory went back to the early days of Central Ontario.
When Mr. Riddell came to Canada from Dum- fries in 1823, he crossed the Atlantic on a two hundred ton sailing ship, the Whitekaven, and was seven weeks and two days in making the voyage to Quebec. From Quebec to Montreal the journey was continued by steamer and from Montreal to Prescott in a ''Durham boat."1 Passengers who had a few shillings to spare could obtain sleeping quarters in the cubby holes forward or aft, while those who could not pay slept in the open space in the centre. When the wind favoured and there was no current, such boats were driven by sails; over shallows they were " poled" along by the voyageurs; and up the Long Sault they were hauled by thirteen yoke of oxen and a team of horses walking on
1A Durham boat was about thirty feet long with an enclosed space at each end.
20
30 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
i
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 31
the bank. From Prescott to Cobourg the jour- ney was made by steamer.
"At that time," said Mr. Riddell, "William Weller ran a stage line from Kingston to Toronto. During the summer, while boats were running, there was little business for the stage, and the horses were turned out to pasture, but in winter the owners of horse transport did a ca- pacity business.
"The first considerable influx from the old land began about 1820. Among the earliest arrivals from that quarter were the Coverts, Jeffreys, Wades, Plews, Spears, Dales, McCor- micks, Powells, and Rowes. When this migra- tion was at its height in the thirties, Rice Lake Road was a stirring highway. Immigrants landed at Cobourg and were carried over the road to Sully on Rice Lake and from there by open boats to the country further north. Before the railway was built to Harwood on Rice Lake, large quantities of flour, lumber, and other sup- plies were hauled over the same road to Cobourg for shipment across Lake Ontario to the American market.
"The first store in Cobourg was built by Elias Jones in 1802. Mr. Jones later on built the first grist-mill in the township of Haldimand. The first wagon in the township was made by Elijah Buck about 1808. Oliver Stanton, born about the first year of the last century, is said to have been the first white child to see the light of day in Haldimand township.
"The first settlers in the township ground their corn by pounding it in a hollow stump or log, and such as had wheat were obliged to take
32 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
it by boat to Kingston to be made into flour. On one occasion boats carrying grain were driven into Presqu'isle by a storm and frozen up there for the winter. During the winter season it was a common thing for a settler to have to carry flour on his back for twenty or thirty miles through the woods.
"The year 1816 was a particularly trying one on the young settlement as there was frost every month in the year. None of the corn ripened and the whole community was on short rations. Even at a much later date serious hardships were suffered, the springs of 1836 and 1843 being particularly trying. At that time most of the farm animals, save horses, were sheltered in the lee of strawstacks, and, as shel- ter and feed were both scarce, cattle died by the hundreds.
"As soon as a young man had erected his shack in the woods he was considered ready for marriage, and the bridal tour was made from the parental home of the bride over a blazed trail to the new abode. In the home the Bible was read by the flickering blaze of a pine knot, as even candles were unknown to the first set- tlers. Preachers travelled on horseback and carried their belongings in a saddle-bag. Some- times, when night overtook them in the woods, they slept in the shelter of an overhanging pine. When a preacher arrived in a settlement, mes- sengers were sent far and wide to announce that service would be held in a certain home.
"It was difficult to obtain teachers of any kind, and those chosen were generally men who were unable or unwilling to do any other kind
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 33
of work. Payment for teaching was made by the parents, the charge never being less than two dollars per quarter for each child sent to school.
" Municipal taxation in 1826 was at the rate of a penny in the pound for district purposes and a fourth of a penny for the services of the district's representative in the Legislature. The assessment varied according to the charac- ter of the house, whether it was built of squared
A ONE ROOM SCHOOL IN THE EARLY DATS
"Unless the teacher was a man of nerve and resolution he had little chance of maintaining order in the schoolroom."
log, frame, brick, or stone. The highest tax paid by one person in that year was fifteen dol- lars and thirty-seven cents and the lowest, three cents. Twenty-eight ratepayers paid eight cents or less.
"Everything in the way of clothing was man- ufactured at home. Linen clothing was made from flax grown on the farm, and home-grown
34
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
wool was transformed into woolen clothing; all the operations from sheep-shearing and flax- pulling to spinning and weaving being carried out on the farm. Tools and implements used in cultivating the land and harvesting the crops were made, for the most part, either by the farmers themselves or by local blacksmiths. Wooden harrows were fashioned in the shape of
WOODEN HARROWS IN THE SHAPE OF A "v"
a V so that they would more readily pass between stumps, and the teeth were slanted backwards to facilitate passing over roots. Iron forks and hoes were made by local blacksmiths, and plows of the same mater- ial were also the product of township smiths.
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 35
These plows had single handles with cross- bars to hold them by. The first plow of the form now in use was called the 'Dutcher' and was made in Toronto, the 'Norton' plow follow- ing soon afterwards. The 'Dutcher' cost from six to eight dollars and was made of cast metal. Nearly all the local blacksmiths tried their hand at making the new kind of plow, but the best was made by John Newton of Cobourg. It cost twenty dollars as compared with fifty dollars for one imported from Scotland. The 'Lapfurrow,' which sold for seven dollars, was the first
SELF-RAKING REAPER
American plow imported. The first reaper in the neighbourhood, and I believe the first in the province, was imported from Rochester by Dan- iel McKeyes in 1843. The horses used in oper- ating it were driven tandem and a man stood on the platform to throw off the sheaves. This reaper would cut twelve acres in a day and did as good work, so far as cutting was concerned, as the self-binders of to-dav. The McCormack
36
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
reaper, which appeared in 1847, was too light. Helm & Son of Cobourg began making reapers about 1848 and secured first prize for their machine at the Provincial Exhibition. In 1860, I was judge at Dundas in a competition between self-raking reapers, but these did not prove suc- cessful. The Marsh harvester, first used in 1868, worked well in light grain, but in a heavy crop the two men who stood on the platform to bind could not keep up with the cutting. The first self-binder I saw was at a show at Roches-
LOADING THE POWER
"When moved from one farm to another the horse power was loaded on the front wheels of the wagon first and the thresher on top of that. ' '
ter in 1868. The mowing-machine did not ap- pear until 1850 or 1852. The first I saw was made by Ketchum of Buffalo and cost one hun- dred dollars. It was heavy on horses and hard to manage. 'Ball's Ohio,' which was put on the market soon afterwards, was long a favourite.
"The revolving wooden horse-rake was intro- duced about 1840 or 1841, the first one in our sec-
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 37
tion being used on Angus Crawford's place. It sold at seven or eight dollars, and I doubt if a greater labour-saver was ever produced at less cost.
"The first threshing-machine in our neigh- bourhood made its appearance in 1832. When moved from one farm to another the horse pow- er was loaded on the front wheels of the wagon first and the thresher on top of that. Then the reach and front wheels of the wagon were con- nected up with the rear wheels and the outfit
REVOLVING RAKE
was ready to move. When the thresher was in operation the grain was threshed by the cylin- der beating the heads against the bottom of the machine. Grain and straw came out together, and one hundred bushels was a day's run, and the work was wonderfully well done. The own- er of the outfit received every fifteenth bushel for his toll. John Livingstone introduced the Pitt separator in 1842, and all threshing-
38
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
machines that came later were simply improved Pitts.
'There were no stoves in the early days and most of the fireplaces were built of a mixture of clay and straw. In the chimney was placed a cross-bar of wood or iron, and from this were hung the pots and kettles used in cooking. The pots were for cooking potatoes or pork and the kettles for baking bread. These kettles were usually about two feet in diameter, with an iron lid, and coals were placed above and below for
HUSKING BEE
' ' If one of the lads found a big red ear of corn he had the privilege of kissing the lass next to him, and it is sur- prising how many big red ears were found. ' '
baking. In some places brick or clay ovens were built outside the house.
'But/' continued Mr. Riddell, "despite all the hardships of those days, and even if the lar- der was not always too well filled, they were the happiest period in our lives. Neighbours were always welcome in each other's homes to what- ever the board could provide. We had our sim-
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 39
pie pleasures, too, oue of these being found in the 'husking bee'. At these bees lads and lassies occupied alternate seats. If one of the lads found a big red ear of corn he had the privilege of kissing the lass next to him, and it is sur- prising how many big red ears were found. The husking bee, held in the evening, was usually preceded by a quilting bee in the afternoon, which was attended by women only, the men coming later for the husking. The latter was fol- lowed still later by a dance at which home made cheese, cake, and punch were served. (Whiskey was then only twenty-five cents a gallon.) How late did we keep it up I That depended on the company and the state of the roads, but the boys generally managed to get to bed by midnight after first seeing the girls home. John Grieves ' place, lot twenty-seven on the second of Haldi- mand, was a favourite place for these old-time social gatherings."
SUING FOR TRADE
Henry Elliott, long known as "The Father of Hampton " was one of numerous Devonshire folk who settled in Durham county in the first half of the past century.
Born shortly after Trafalgar, Mr. Elliott sailed for Canada on the Boline, in 1831. The size of the ship can be imagined from Mr. Elliott's statement that her sixty-one passengers crowded her to the limit. Among the passengers were Rev. J. Whitlock, at one time stationed at Port Perry; Richard Foley, whose descendants for years lived west of Bowmanville; and Thomas
40 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
Courtice, whose family name was taken for a roadside hamlet east oi' Oshawa, where many of the connection still reside.
Leaving England on the fourth of May, the Boline reached Prince Edward Island on the fifth of June, and after spending ten days there in discharging part of her passengers and freight, she arrived at Quebec ten or twelve days later. From Quebec, Mr. Elliott was car- ried by the usual mode of conveyance at the time as far as Kingston, and from Kingston to Port Hope the passage was made by steamer. As there was then no dock at Port Hope, the passengers for that point were landed in a barge known as the Red Rover. This barge was own- ed by an uncle of Dr. Mitchell who afterwards practised medicine at Enniskillen.
While at Port Hope, Mr. Elliott worked for a time in a mill owned by John Brown. "Mr. Brown," said Mr. Elliott, " owned a store as well as a mill and he adopted a novel method of bringing business to the store. When he heard of anyone in the back country of Clarke, Cart- wright, or Manvers who was not buying at his store, and whose business was worth having, he promptly entered suit against the prospect for an imaginary bill. The next stage, of course, was a call at the store, in a state of indignation, by the party sued.
" 'What do mean by suing me?' the indig- nant one would ask. 'I don't owe you any money. '
" 'Of course you don't. I only sued so as to bring you out where I could see you!'
"The caller as a rule saw the humour in the
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 41
situation. In any case he enjoyed the royal entertainment offered him, and the usual result was that he became a friend of Brown and a customer at his store."
In 1840, Mr. Elliott decided to establish a mill- ing business of his own at Hampton. There was not a house in the place at the time, merely the frame for a mill. Mr. Elliott purchased this, at the same time erecting a shanty for his own residence, thus giving the place its first name,
IMPROVISED SLED
WASHING SHEEP
" Shanty town." The capacity of the mill, when it was completed, was only from forty to fifty bushels per day.
"Customers for the new mill came not only from the neighbourhood but from Cartwright and Manvers," said Mr. Elliott when telling his story in May, 1899. "There was then hardly a
42 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
horse in the whole surrounding country and oxen were used to haul the grain. Some did not have even a wagon, and in that case a sapling cut from the bush was made use of. The butt was fastened to the yoke and the crotched end allowed to trail on the ground. On this crotch a board platform was nailed and the grain placed on that. With such primitive convey- ances the settlers often drove fifteen or twenty miles, spending two days going and coming, and sleeping in the mill at night while waiting for their grists.
" About the time I established the mill John Farley obtained eight hundred acres, with fifty cleared, in exchange for a frame tavern six miles west of Port Hope. Dr. Ormiston, the well- known Presbyterian divine of his day, 'logged his way through college' by helping to clear his uncle's farm. Later on a boom struck Hampton and quarter-acre village lots sold for as much as three hundred and fifty dollars; but the boom collapsed in the crash of the 'fifties, and forty years later these same lots could have been bought for thirty-five dollars."
Hampton is still, however, a beautiful little village and Hampton people have honoured themselves by creating one of the most attrac- tive parks to be found in rural Ontario as a memorial to the founder of the village, one who served well his day and generation.
Durham County has been not inaptly describ- ed by some enthusiastic Durhamites as "the mother of factories." Nor is the claim without basis. The McLaughlin motor plant in Oshawa owes its origin to a little shop erected by the
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 43
first of the McLaughlins at the cross-roads vil- lage of Enniskillen, a shop for making wagons and sleighs, one such as might be found in al- most any little hamlet in Ontario at that time.
Mr. Allin, to whose memory I am indebted for the story of the Millerites, given in a subse- quent chapter,1 told me, too, that he remembered
SINGLE-HANDED PLOW WITH CROSSBAR
PLOW WITH WOODEN BEAM
when the shop of Hart A Massey's father, in Newcastle, gave employment to just three per- sons. That was the period when owners of lit- tle smithies all over the province were turning
1. See page 318 et seq.
44 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
their minds to the development of new forms of labour-saving implements for the farm. After these inventions had begun to take shape, field contests between rival builders of reapers pro- vided excitement almost equalling that caused by the Millerites.
As the Massey factory forged ahead, New- castle, a peaceful enough village to-day, began to assume metropolitan airs, at one time boast- ing no fewer than three papers. "One of the Newcastle journals of that time/' Mr. Allin said, "was published by Calvin H. Powers. Mr. Powers was a gifted speaker as well as a con- vincing writer. He was a leading figure in elec- toral contests waged by Munro, who represented West Durham before the time of Edward Blake. Powers afterwards removed to the Western States and became a still more prominent figure in politics there. He gave Abraham Lincoln able assistance in his first Presidential cam- paign and was afterwards elected Governor of Minnesota. ' '
The numerous branches of West Durham fam- ilies were then as now widely scattered in America and frequently distant relatives met in unexpected ways. Concerning the Allin connec- tion, Reeve Frank Allin of Clark told me: "A brother of mine moved to California and some time after his arrival there, simply because of his name, he was invited to an Allin family picnic in that State. In the course of conversa- tion it was discovered that the California Allins were a branch of our common connection in England and that they were descended from an Allin who had moved to California about the
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 45
same time that the first of the Allins migrated from England to Canada."
ACTIVE AT NINETY-TWO
The most remarkable feature connected with the following story is that, although told me so recently as 1920, the narrator remembered when the howling of the wolves could still be heard in the swamp between Lake Ontario and where the Kingston Road cuts through the little village of Newtonville, in the county of Durham.
Samuel Jones, from whom the story was ob- tained, was only eight years short of the cen- tury mark at the time of telling it. But time had dealt lightly with this veteran. He was at work in his garden, in the afternoon of a hot August day, when the interview began. As we walked towards the house his step was as firm as that of a well-preserved man of fifty, and I found him able to read fine print without the aid of glasses. Of all those whose stories are told in these pages none had a clearer recollec- tion of the events, not only of recent occurrence, but of the remote past. Add to this the fact that Mr. Jones was born on the farm on which I met him and the interest of the information is still more enhanced.
"Even within my recollection," Mr. Jones in- formed me, " Kingston Road was little more than a path through the bush. I can remember when our grists had to be carried to Port Hope, and in the time of my father, settlers about New- tonville, and from as far back as Omemee, went all the way to Kingston to have their grain made
46
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
>. .-
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 47
into flour. As a lad, when going after our cows, 1 have heard wolves howling in the swamp at the lower end of our place near the lake front. One night, on a farm owned by a man named Charters on the fifth concession of Clarke, wolves tried to tear a hole in the roof of a shed in which sheep were sheltered. I have speared salmon in Drury Creek, which crosses the farm of John Barrie; a creek that is now little more than a succession of puddles. It was a common thing for settlers then to take a couple of barrels of salmon from the lake in a night.
"I have seen the sky darkened by the flight of wild pigeons, and, when these alighted in myriads on the ground to feed, it seemed as if the surface of the earth was heaving as they moved about. Indians came regularly in spring to make baskets in the adjoining woods, baskets that were traded to the settlers for provisions.
"I have seen the sickle give place to the cradle, the cradle to the reaper, and the reaper to the self-binder. Intermediate between the sickle and the cradle was a scythe with a hole bored in the centre of the blade and connected with the snath by a wire 'hauled taut.' With that tool an expert could lay a swath as neatly as swaths were afterwards laid by a cradle.
"Our first cradle, called the 'Grape Vine,' was made by Asa Davis, at Newcastle. It was a clumsy implement, but Joseph Moulton once cut six acres of rye with it in a day. Our first reaper was 'The Woods,' invented by a man of that name, and made at Newcastle by the first of the Masseys. That was, in my opinion, the best reaper ever made.
48
"Quite early in my time a wooden horse-rake was developed. When the rake was full, it could be revolved on its axle and the rakings dumped. The same implement was used in pulling peas. One man thought he would improve on this and
built a steel rake of the same pattern ; but, when this was used in pea har- vesting, almost as much
,'•'• '•s-i*Z'r-.T tmX/i t/i,:mx\ <<• I.IMIJ " i^-'-J^^^-^ './;,™
SICKLE
HARVESTING WITH CRADLE
grain was threshed out as was gathered in the pods.
* * The first threshing-machine in the neighbour- hood consisted of little more than a cylinder, and the threshed straw had to be raked away by
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 49
hand. I spent one winter operating this threshing outfit. Our practice, on arriving at a farm at night, was to break the crust on the sno'iv where the horse-power was to be placed, and then to let the power down to solid ground. Snow was next packed around the machine and water poured on the snow. By morning the horse-power would be frozen solidly in place and the necessity of staking avoided.
" Before we bought our first fanning-mill my father cleaned his grain by laying a sheet on the ground and pouring out the grain from a pail held at an elevation, the wind being relied on to blow away the chaff.
"As grain production increased. Port Granby became an important shipping point, and I have seen as much as ten thousand bushels of barley loaded into waiting schooners in a single day. To-day the Port is not even a remains. The piers rotted away years ago and stone-hookers carried off the stone used in filling the cribs.
"Other ' industries' came with increased pro- duction. Distilleries were in my youth about as numerous as schoolhouses are now. There was a distillery in Newtonville, another between Bowmanville and Newcastle, and a third at Port Granby. With so many stills in operation, drunkenness was rife. The first counter influ- ence was that exercised by Methodist missionar- ies who covered the country on horseback. The missionaries I best remember were Douse and Van Dusen.
"There was great excitement, and something more than excitement, in connection with early elections. Newtonville had the one poll for the
50 THE PIONEERS1 OF OLD ONTARIO
riding and voting was continued for several days. On one occasion rival factions, each led by banners and fife and drum bands, met inuthe middle of the road. What might have been an- ticipated happened; banners were torn to rib- bons, drums smashed, and some heads were cracked as well. Something worse occurred on one occasion, when one man voted, as another thought, the wrong way. The offender was struck on the neck with a club and dropped dead, and the 'Cavan Blazers'1 prevented the immediate arrest of the offender."
The story of Mr. Jones' father's selection of a lot is as interesting in its way as is a story told by the Honourable Manning Doherty of the refusal of his great grandfather to accept a farm located at the corner of Queen and Yonge Streets, Toronto. The first of the Jones family had secured the location on which the town of Ornemee stands; but when he found this could be reached only by travelling over several miles of blazed trail, he traded the lot for four- teen bushels of wheat and bought lot eight, on the first of Clarke, which was then part of the Clergy Reserves. Years afterwards he was offered two hundred acres near by for one hun- dred dollars, but, although having ample funds, lie refused to accept the offer. The property afterwards sold for one hundred dollars an acre. Dame Fortune, fickle jade though she is, and although her offers had been twice spurned— once at Omemee and again later on — would not be wholly denied. Part of the Jones homestead forms a section of the site of the village of
I See Page 320 et »eq.
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 51
Newtonville, and there has, therefore, been some unearned increment in that case.
The first house on the Jones homestead was of log, but this was soon replaced by a stone structure. Even that was grey with age when this story was told, although the narrator of over fourscore and ten, born before the stone house was erected, was still vigorous in mind and body. On the same homestead the first orchard in the neighbourhood was planted, and
OLD FAMILY PLOT
"In the centre are three trees, a pine, a basswood, and a walnut. Here lie buried eight members of the family of William Cornell."
one of the trees, a Pumpkin Sweet, over one hundred years old, was bearing fruit when I was there.
In company with one of the third generation of the family I mounted the hill on which the village cemetery is located, and there I saw, what I had observed in countless other cemeteries, where the pioneers of the settlement lie. On the
52 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
stones above the graves were the words "native of— ' ' with the name of the English village, Scot- tish glen, or Irish valley, in which those who have passed away were born. On returning to the Jones home, the man whose memory covered well nigh a century of time told me that fully two-thirds of the names I had seen are no longer heard in the township of Clarke. The first of those bearing the names have passed beyond the line dividing time from eternity. The de- scendants are more widely scattered than "The Graves of a Household." Why is it that the place of birth, so fondly remembered by the first generation, as evidenced by the inscriptions on the headstones in the old cemetery, has failed to hold the children born here beneath the shade of majestic pines and amid the autumn glories of broad-leaved maples?
PUTTING HIMSELF ON RATIONS
Samuel Billings, living north of Orono at the time of my visit, also told of the early days in Clarke.
"Our first farm," he said, "a mile south of Orono, was purchased about 1831, from the Hon- ourable Peter Jackson of Toronto at three dol- lars per acre. Ten years later we moved to our present farm, four miles north of Orono. This we purchased from Jeremiah Orser, Port Perry, for eight hundred and fifty dollars. Even at that comparatively late date we had to cut a road for half a mile through the bush to reach the place. When we first came to Clarke there was only one house, Dr. Herriman's, in the
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 53
neighbourhood. Charles Bowman, after whom the town was named, owned a grist-mill at Bowmanville. The late Honourable John Simp- son was an adopted son of Bowman. Abraham Butterfield, Charles and John Bellwoods, John Middleton, R. W. Robson, and E. Gifford were among those who settled along the front of the township about the time we came in.
" Just south of Orono was a little prairie that had apparently formed over an old beaver dam. I have seen a dozen deer sunning themselves there at one time. Indians came here from as far away as the Credit to hunt them, and one halfbreed in a party killed ten deer in one day."
Thomas Thornton, father of C. J. Thornton, ex.-M.P., and one of the Thornton-Powers con- nection, also contributed to these Clarke remin- iscences. Mr. Thornton, born in Yorkshire, as a boy of six came to Canada with his father in the 'twenties of the last century. He was thir- teen weeks and three days in crossing the Atlan- tic, and three weeks more were spent on the journey by Durham boats between Quebec and Montreal. "And," Mr. Thornton told me, as we sat on his porch in Orono, twenty-three years ago, "it rained on every one of those twenty-one days, save three." That certainly was no pleasure trip for a boy of six. In 1835, while still a lad, Mr. Thornton went to live with Thomas Best on the eighth of Clarke. "On one occasion," he said, "when we required to have some wheat ground, and having no horse of our own, it was necessary to pack the grain to a neighbour's place. We divided it into four bags, and Best and I carried two bags for a distance
54 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
and then went back for the other two, and so on, each carrying two bags alternately until we had covered the two miles between our place and Bill Livingstone's. Then Bill teamed the grain to Bowmanville to be ground for us. At that time there were only three horses in the town- ship north of the sixth concession.
"When Mr. Best first moved to his farm, his worldly possessions consisted of three pigs, an axe, and what he considered sufficient pork, flour, and potatoes to see him through until next harvest. During the following May he began to fear that pork and potatoes were going to run short and he decided to apportion what remain- ed to make sure of having at least some for each day until a new supply came in. He weighed a pound of pork, cut it into slices, counted the slices and from this calculated how many slices per day his remaining stock would allow him. Next he filled a half-bushel measure with pota- toes and counted the number of potatoes per day he could afford for each meal. In this way he managed to keep up a daily supply until new sources were available. In order to hasten the fattening of the pigs I had to go to the bush and hunt cow cabbage to feed them. And I assure you fattening the kind of pigs we had then, by the means described, was no picnic. The pigs were of the kind that required a knot in their tails to prevent them from slipping through a hole in the fence.
"In the summer of 'thirty-seven, bears were almost as thick as blackberries, and the tracks left by wolves were as common as sheep tracks are now. One morning when I was trying to
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 55
kindle a fire under a sugar kettle in the bush on lot twenty-seven on the eighth concession I look- ed up and saw a wolf eight feet away. He moved off, and you may be sure I made no effort to interfere with his going. One evening, again, when I was sitting up with a girl (we were all boys once) I heard wolves howling in the bush and suggested to the girl's father that the sheep had better be brought in. He said I might go after them if I liked, and I did so. Meantime the owner of the sheep remained com- fortably in bed. "
CHILDREN AND SHEEP IN THE CELLAR
When I spent a few days along the St. Law- rence, between Prescott and Cornwall, in the fall of 1899, there was still living a man who as an in- fant was present when the battle of Chrysler's Farm was fought in November, 1813. There were a number in the neighbourhood who had heard stories of the battle from parents or grandparents and almost every home held mementos of the War of 1812-15.
Elias Cook, a brother of H. H. Cook, the political rival of D 'Alton McCarthy in North Simcoe in the 'eighties, was a year old when the American army landed on the north shore of the river and seized for headquarters the tavern kept by his parents. A mile and a half west- ward the Chrysler homestead served as head- quarters for the British, and midway between was the Casselman House, that was still stand- ing when I was there.
"The whole thing came upon us so quickly,"
56
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 57
Mr. Cook told me, "that 110 time was allowed for the women and children to escape, and my mother hustled me into the cellar for protection from the cannon balls that British gunboats in the river began throwing at the American head- quarters. "
Nelson Casselman, a grandson of the Cassel- man who held the homestead in 1813, showed me the cellar in which his grandmother hid the sheep and the little Casselmans together. "The Americans/' said Mr. Casselman, "took the family's horses for transport, killed the cows for beef, and made soup for the officers' mess from the chickens."
But the loss of horses was not all one-sided. After the battle, a couple of American horsemen on rearguard duty were suddenly confronted by a man named Adams and ordered to surrender. The Americans, believing the musket which Adams held could carry further than their pis- tols and that his bayonet was more dangerous than their swords, promptly complied. Adams then marched his prisoners back to the British commander, who was so pleased with the exploit that he told Adams to keep the horses, and for years afterwards the animals were used in his farm work. The joke was on the Amer- icans ; Adams had not so much as a single charge for his gun when he captured his two prisoners.
After the battle a number of American wounded were carried into the Casselman home, one of these an old man. Mr. Casselman told me the story of his death as he had heard it from his parents. "He was an old man whose sands of life were nearly run out in any case. As the
58 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
setting sun changed the St. Lawrence into a rib- bon of gold his eyes turned toward the south and he said lie would die in peace if he could but see the children and grandchildren who once played about his knee. But death came with the night and next morning his body was laid, with those of other American dead, in a trench east of the house, where our orchard was afterwards planted."
Mr. Cook was able to point out the exact pos- ition of an American four-gun battery, as the log and earth breastworks still remained until he himself removed them in the 'seventies to place the ground under cultivation. At the base of the Casselman barn, which was standing when the battle was fought, I was shown a round hole in a board. The hole, ac- cording to tradition, was made by a British round-shot that killed three Americans. The Casselman of 1813 afterwards dug up the ball from where it had buried itself in the ground and it was still preserved hi the Casselman home at the time of my visit. In the Cook home I saw what looked like a carpet ball (painted red, white, and blue) but which, Mr. Cook told me, was a cannon-shot fired at the house by one of the British gunboats in the river. Mr. Casselman had a musket his grandfather found hidden in a strawstack after the battle. He thought it had been left there by an American, but as the piece bore the Tower mark this was hardly possible unless the weapon had been cap- tured from the British in a previous engage- ment. Bullets were dug up by the hundred in the years following the battle, a few being found
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE r>9
at times right up to the close of the last century. Another relic of the past was a small box that- had been left by Lieutenant Ingalls of the British forces, who was on guard at the Cook place for some time after the battle.
EARLY WEAPONS
CANDLE MOULD
The most interesting of all the reminders of the past was the Casselman home itself. The heavy beams supporting the floor had been hewn out of solid logs with a broad-axe one hundred years before my visit. The lumber forming the floor had been whipsawed by the grandfathei-
60
of Nelson Casselman and his neighbours. At one end of the main room was a stone fireplace, nine feet wide by four feet deep, and five feet high; but this had been bricked up and was no longer visible. "I can remember, though, when all our cooking was done in that fireplace, " said Mr. Casselman.
The Cook tavern of 1813 was displaced in the 'twenties by an imposing brick structure, which at one time served as the half-way house be- tween Montreal and Kingston. Even the inter- ior walls were of brick. "The mortar used in laying those bricks," Mr. Cook told me, "was made from lime burned on the premises. The stones from which the lime was burned were broken by dropping on them twenty-four-pound cannon balls that had been picked up from the field of battle.
"In the old staging days the tavern was a lively place. I have seen in the yard at one time four stage coaches with horses ready to move. Priests and bishops, lawyers and mer- chants were among the guests, and beds were set as close together as that," said Mr. Cook placing his outstretched palms side by side. "But it was when the lumbermen dropped off on their way up or down the river that things really did liven up. As many as two hundred of these were about the house at one time with enough fiddles to furnish music for the whole party. British officers and soldiers stopped there, too, on the way to or from Kingston. On one occasion a couple of officers had ten thou- sand dollars in coin with which to pay the troops at Kingston and other posts. The officers, when
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 61
going to bed, put the coin on the window-sill as they were afraid the weight would break through the floor. They did not even lock the windows, but a sentry stood outside the door and other soldiers slept in the yard."
The country about Prescott was the scene of stirring events at a later date. I visited "The Windmill," with its memories of 'Thirty-Seven. This structure, built of stone, one hundred feet in circumference, sixty feet high, and with walls three feet thick was no mean fortress at the time of the Rebellion of 1837.
"My father was engaged in the attack on the raiders who had seized the windmill," David Reid told me. "He said that even the big guns brought from Kingston were incapable of dam- aging the building. The stones had been set in wedge-shape and the pounding of the artillery seemed but to drive them more firmly into place."
George Heck, who was on service at the time of the attack, said that some of the buildings near the windmill were set on fire. One of these was a bakery, and a couple of the enemy had taken shelter in the oven. Their bodies, burned to a crisp, were found after the action."
The man who told of this incident was a grandson of Barbara Heck, the Mother of Can- adian Methodism; and that opens up a more pleasing tale of the days of old. "All the preachers that passed this way in the early days of Methodism," said Mr. Heck, "stopped at our place. Rev. Dr. Bangs was one of the first of these. He was stationed at Montreal in 1806, but
62 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO
frequently travelled as far as Toronto, going all the way on horseback. Dr. Green was Chair- man of a district that took in Bytown, Gatineau, and Rideau. He often spent four or five weeks in covering his mission. There were some stir- ring revivals in those days. Forty were con- verted at one meeting held in Augusta. Rev. Erastus Hurlbut and I were converted together at the revival held there in 1835. During every summer camp-meetings were held north and west of Prescott. The music was all vocal, the Whitney family being among the most noted singers of the time. Henry Hodge and Thomas Coates were among the other singing leaders. All the old-time hymns were used, 'On, FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES TO SING' being a prime favourite."
"The Little Blue Church" is a standing mem- orial of these early days of Methodism. In the cemetery alongside rests the body of Barbara Heck in company not only with other early lead- ers in Methodism, but with those of other de- nominations as well. "The Johnston cemetery was, I believe, the first in the neighbourhood," said Mr. Heck, "but the Little Blue Church cemetery was laid out shortly afterwards. Six people, amongst them my father, undertook the clearing of the ground."
The cemetery is beautifully situated by the roadside with a gentle slope to the south where the majestic St. Lawrence, emblematic of eter- nity's flow, sings a nightly lullaby over those whose labours are ended.
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 63
PIONEERS OF GANANOQUE AND ViciNiTT1
Immediately after the American Revolution some ten thousand United Empire Loyalists settled along the north shore of the St. Law- rence. The region was without roads, the only means of communication with their nearest point of supply being by water. The British Government furnished these first settlers with farming implements, grain and potatoes for seed, and some clothing, sufficient to tide them over the first three years of their sojourn in the wilderness. On the heels of this first ten thou- sand came other refugees, but for these no such provision was made, and for them, from the beginning, bush-life was most trying.
The chief necessity of the pioneers was a shel- ter for their families. The rudest of log cabins were the first abodes, and these were built by the joint labour of the settlers. Sometimes the cabin would be built around a stump, which could be used as a hand-mill, or, by placing some basswood slabs on top, would serve as a table For these homes glass was not always obtainable and in many cases light was admitted through oiled paper stretched over holes in the walls. The household utensils were of wood — wooden plates, wooden platters, wooden forks, and
xThe material for this section was obtained through the generosity of Miss Edith M. McCammon, of Gananoque, who loaned the editor the manuscript of a book she has in course of preparation, "The Story of Gananoque." Miss McCammon is a descendant of Charlotte Macdonald, a sister of the Charles Macdonald, who married Mary, Colonel Stone's only surviving child.
64 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO
wooden spoons. In some households forks and knives were unknown and home-made spoons were used instead.
Wild fruit abounded, and this was gathered and either preserved by using maple sugar or dried for future use. Walnuts, hickory-nuts, butter-nuts, chestnuts, and beechnuts were stored up for winter. Honey was obtained from
-~^=~:' * - — >l — • * ^==*- • •tf.l*\&.
CIDER PRESS
wild bees and maple sugar was made in large quantities every spring. Game was plentiful and each settler had a store of venison and squirrel salted down in barrels made of the hol- low trunks of trees. Tea was scarce, a luxury to be used only on state occasions. These first
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 65
settlers used, as substitutes, sage, sassafras, thyme, spicewood, hemlock, and a wild herb called the tea-plant. "Coffee" was made from peas, barley, acorns, and roots of the dandelion. Physicians were almost unknown, and these pioneers collected and dried medicinal herbs and stored them for time of need.
But they were far from being in a land of plenty. Three years after the arrival of the first group of settlers, the crops, owing to frost, were almost a total failure. The British Govern- ment was no longer doling out aid and famine stalked through the land. This period of scar- city reached its height in 1788. In that year money was sent to Montreal and Quebec for flour; but the answer came back : " We have none to spare." In some places along the lower St. Lawrence " corn-meal was meted out by the spoonful, wheat flour was unknown, and millet seed was ground as a substitute. Here and there in sheltered spots the wheat crop escaped the frost and ripened early. The starving inhab- itants flocked to these fields, even before the wheat ripened, plucked the milk-heads, and boiled them into a kind of gruel. Half-starved children haunted the banks of the river, begging sea-biscuits from the passing boatmen .... Families existed for months on oat porridge: beef bones were boiled again and again; boiled bran was a luxury; ground-nuts and even the young buds of trees were eagerly devoured. Fortunately rabbits and pigeons were plentiful, and these saved many settlers from actual starvation."
Col. Burritt, the first settler north of the
66 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
Rideau, was one of the first-comers. Shortly after he made his home at Burritt's Rapids, he and his wife were attacked with fever and ague. Having no neighbours, they were forced to rely on themselves. So severe was their illness, that they were at length confined to bed and helpless. For three days and three nights they were with- out fire or food, and had made up their minds that they must die At this juncture a band of Indians appeared on the scene The squaws tenderly nursed " their white brother and sister, supplied them with food, and admin- istered simple but effective remedies. Mean- while the braves cut the corn in a small field the colonel had succeeded in clearing, and stored it in a log shack. The colonel and his wife made a speedy recovery, and ever after kept open house for the red men. It was a common thing to wake in the morning and discover a score of aborigines reclining in the hall and other parts of the house. When proceeding up the river in the spring they frequently left many articles with the colonel for safe-keeping, not forgetting, on their return, in the fall, to pre- sent him with a rich present of furs."
The Indians in this part of Canada were Mis- sissaguas. They seem to have acted with equal generosity towards the settlers generally, and on October 19th, 1787, they received a special grant of two thousand pounds in goods as a reward for the aid they had given the United Empire Loyal- ists. From the Indians the settlers learned the art of making maple sugar, of spearing fish by torchlight, and of making clothes from deer- skins. From the Indians, too, they got moc-
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 67
casins, splint or Indian brooms, and baskets- of all kinds.
One of the most annoying things the pioneers had to contend against was the prevalence of bears, wolves, and foxes. It was almost impos- sible to keep sheep, pigs, or fowl from these rapacious nocturnal prowlers. How common were wild beasts can be gathered from the fact that Joseph Slack, an early settler near Parmersville (Athens) killed on his farm 192 deer, 34 bears, and 46 wolves. As a bounty of four dollars was paid for wolves' heads and two for those of bear, a skilful hunter could profit by the presence of these pests. But sometimes they men- aced the lives of the settlers. On one occa- sion a girl of sixteen
Was SPnt on horseback A DAUNTLESS RIDER
With a bag Of COrn to '.' At tui'cs ^c wolves were so close
she could see their eyes gleaming have it ground at the through the darkness."
mill in Yonge. It was
midnight before the corn was ground, but this dauntless lass began her retimi journey along the blazed path to her home. As slio cantered along under the spreading trees she was startled by distant yelps and barks, which grew ever
68 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
nearer and nearer. She urged her horse to its utmost speed, but at times so close were the wolves that on looking back she could see their baleful eyes gleaming through the pitchy dark- ness. Nothing daunted she kept on her way, her steed urged to its utmost speed by the men- acing death at its heels At last, almost exhausted, she reached the door of her home, her bag of precious food intact.
These early settlers were not without their simple enjoyments. One of the first things they did was to set out orchards. "When the trees began to bear, the best apples were kept for winter use, and the rest made into cider. The apple-bees were much enjoyed by young and old. The boys, with their home-made apple machines, peeled the apples, then tossed them to the girls, who, with their knives, would quarter and core them, while older women would string them with needle and thread and tie them so they could be hung up to dry. Then followed a supper and after that a dance .... A wandering fiddler, usually an old soldier, would be called in. If there was no fiddler the boys whistled, or the girls sang dance music through combs covered with paper."
Gananoque, or Cadanoryhqua, as the name seems to have been spelled at the time of the coming of the U. E. Loyalists, although not founded until nearly a decade after the first set- tlers took up homes along the St. Lawrence, became the commercial centre of the region between Brockville and Kingston. This was due to the business foresight and energy of its founder, Captain Joel Stone. Captain Stone had
WITHIN BEACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 69
paid a heavy price for his loyalty to the Crown. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War his fine estate was plundered and he was forced to save his life by flight to New York, where until the close of the war he was active in the British interests, fighting both by land and sea.
In 1776, he was ordered to take up arms against the British Government, but he refused.
At the close of the war, he visited England, where business kept him until 1786. In that year he sailed for Canada, having been enrol- led as a military pensioner with the rank of captain and granted forty pounds a year. In 1787, he started out in search of a location, and in a birch canoe with an Indian guide journeyed westward until the Gananoque river was reached. The spot attracted him. He decided to apply for a grant of the land on both sides of the river and had the land surveyed. But, when he sent in his application, he found he had a rival in no less a person than Sir John Johnson, who was industriously acquiring grants for specula- tive purposes. However, the difficulty was over- come by assigning the land on the eastern side of the river to Johnson and that on the west— 700 acres in all — to Stone.
In the summer of 1791, Captain Stone took possession of his grant, landing at a point just west of the present railway station. The only white person in the vicinity was a Frenchman named Care, who, with a few Indians, was liv- ing on Tidd's Island (Tremont Park). Stone got in touch with Care who came to the main- land and built a shanty on the point at the end of what is known as Water Street. Here he
70 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
kept a house of public entertainment for all who passed on the river, the only highway of travel at this time.
Stone went energetically to work in his new home and before long had a well-built house, a grist-mill and saw-mill in operation, and a gen- eral store. He had attracted settlers and brought in workmen, and a thriving community was soon in being. It is worthy of note that, as early as 1793, he built a substantial schooner of forty tons burden, the Leeds Trader, which for many years was in use on the river and on Lake Ontario.
Under the able leadership of Joel Stone, now known as "Colonel," Gananoque grew rapidly. When war broke out in 1812, it wa;- in a flourishing condition and attracted the attention of the American force at Ogdensburg. Colonel Stone took charge of the military defences of his district, and when the Americans, under Major Forsyth, landed on the Canadian shore they encountered vigorous opposition. Forsyth 's great desire was to capture Stone, and for this purpose attacked his house. But the colonel had made his escape, and his wife, as valiant as himself, defended their home. She was shot in the thigh, but held on till help came. At the time there was a considerable sum of money in gold in her possession. This she threw into a barrel of soft soap, — an effective safety- deposit vault, — and it was overlooked by the invaders when at length they succeeded in gaining entrance.
In his later years Colonel Stone was greatly aided in his work by the Macdonald brothers,
WITHIN REACH OF THE ST. LAWRENCE 71
Charles and John, the former of whom married Stone's only daughter, Mary. But to the end of his long life he was the moving spirit in the community he had founded, with a keen eye to its material and moral welfare. As a Justice of the Peace he at times played the part of a little autocrat. " Play-actors" were a forbidden thing in his little kingdom. He classed them with " vagrants and vagabonds." In March, 1816, three " actors" appeared in Gananoque and ad- vertised a perform- ance to take place at the Brownson House, then recently built. The irate colonel waited on them and ordered them to "pass on from this House quietly and not to per- form the riotous feats of tumbling, etc."
Eleven years later, in September, 1827, another band of " play-actors" had the temerity to visit Gan- anoque. But the lead- er of the company, James R. Millor, did not move on promptly when ordered and the colonel issued this intensely interesting warrant, indic- ative of the times and the man:
PLAY ACTORS
"The irate colonel waited on them and ordered them not to perform the riotous feats of tumbling, etc. ' '
72
"Whereas James E. Millor, Master and Direc- tor of several vain persons, calling- themselves Playactors, Tumblers, etc., did refuse to obey the Orders officially Delivered to him by Joel Stone, Esq., one of His Majesty's Justices assigned to keep the Peace, etc., in the said Dis- trict, Requiring him, the said James R. Millor to desist from Playacting, Tumbling, etc., in the village of Gananoque as so doing would be con- sidered a Great Insult offered to the Legal Authority, and in that way of obtaining money from the vain and thoughtless part of the Human family, is against the Peace of His Majesty's Liege subjects in General."
If Millor did not obey he was to be confined in Brockville gaol for "the space of Ten Hours." Millor may have weakened, as there is no record of his having been conveyed to the gaol at Brockville.
But Colonel Stone was a benevolent despot, and the prosperity of the village he founded and the permanent strength it has as a manufactur- ing community are due mainly to the start he gave it.
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
Quite a settlement had been formed along the Penetang' Eoad north of Barrie ten years before settlement began even at the southern end of Innisfil, the township forming the west shore of the lower end of Lake Simcoe. There were two reasons for this. The first was due to compar- ative ease of communication; the second, to mar- ket facilities. The old military highway be- tween Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay followed the line of Yonge Street to Holland Landing, thence up Lake Simcoe to Kempenfeldt Bay and then again overland to Penetanguishene. Hence it was a comparatively easy matter to reach the country about Crown Hill, Dalston, and Craig- hurst several years before the opening of the lower section of the Penetang' Road between Holland Landing and Barrie provided for the settlement of Innisfil.
The principal reason for the earlier settlement in the more northerly section was based on mar- ket considerations. The naval and military post, first established at Nottawasaga, was transferred from that point to Penetanguishene in 1818 and somewhat later the post at Drummond Island was added. The presence of a military and naval station thus made this northern port a centre of commercial activity. It was a centre of In-
73
74 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
dian trade as well, "and there was," as a grand- son of one of the Crown Hill pioneers expressed it, "a general belief that Penetang' was destined to be the metropolis of Upper Canada."
The Penetang' dream of the pioneers has not come true, but Crown Hill, which owes its origin to the existence of the old naval station on Georgian Bay, has to its credit some- thing that cannot be claimed for any other rural section of Ontario. It gave to the province the first head of the provincial Department of Agri- culture and in the son of that head the first far- mer premier of the province. The Drurys, Partridges, and Hicklings were among the first to come in along the upper end of the Penetang ' Road, settling in 1819 near where Crown Hill now is; the Lucks, another large connection, coming in a year later. The Drurys came from England; the Lucks and Partridges, from Albany, N.Y.
"When Grandfather Partridge moved in, he brought his wife and two children with him as far as Holland Landing," one of the third gen- eration told me. "Prom Holland Landing he walked alone all the way to Penetang, ' his route around the west side of Lake Simcoe to Kem- penfeldt Bay being over a blazed trail. After satisfying himself as to the future of Penetang' he started to walk back, digging into the soil at intervals by the way in order to leam its quality. He walked twenty-five miles before finding what suited him, and finally located near Crown Hill, taking up four hundred acres in all, half on the Oro and half on the Vespra side. Having built a log cabin he went back to Hoi-
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 75
land Landing for his wife and children and be- gan family life in the new home in the bush in October. Afterwards, when the road was fully opened out, he found that his cabin was almost in the middle of the King's highway. Hard- ships? You can judge of general conditions at that time when I relate one fact told me by my grandfather. He packed his first grist on his back from Crown Hill to the east end of what is now Barrie and then paddled it in a dug- out the rest of the way, twenty miles, to the old Red Mill at Holland Landing."
One hundred years ago Penetang' Road was an Indian highway, as well as a military road, the Indians traversing it on their way to Toronto for the annual distribution of presents by the Government. On one occasion, as narrated by Hunter in his " History of Simcoe County," a number of drunken red men called at the home of James White, while his wife was alone in the house, and were promptly chased out again by Mrs. White, who had armed herself with a pair of tongs.
Adventures with bears there were, too, one of these being narrated by Hunter. Gideon Rich- ardson, to protect his pigs against the black marauders, built a pen opposite the door of his cabin and kept a log fire burning at night beyond the pen. One night, after a rain, the fire could not be lighted and bruin took advantage of the situation to raid the pen. In the course of the attack one pig was hurled through the door of the cabin into the midst of the sleeping inmates. There was no more sleep for the fam- ily that night.
One of the first cares of the settlement about Crown Hill was to make provision for the edu- cation of the children, and some time before 1837 a voluntary school was established, with William Crae as the first teacher. Crown Hill pioneers were also among the first to take advantage of the Education Acts of 1841-43, under which an annual provincial appropriation of twenty thou- sand pounds was made to assist in the work of primary education. In fact, a school was estab- lished on the Vespra side as early as 1842 with Edward Luck as the first teacher, a position he filled for twenty-two years. The selection of Mr. Luck was peculiarly fitting in at least one respect as, from first to last, no fewer than fifteen of his own children passed under the rod in that same school.
"The building was, of course, of log," said a grandson of one of the pioneers, "and the ben- ches were of plank with home-made legs sup- porting them. In the beginning the building was used for a church as well as a school, and there was a pulpit in one corner for the church ser- vices. Pastor Ardagh and Canon Morgan were the first to officiate. Marriage services were per- formed there, and on such occasions the benches were moved back and boys and girls lined up in front of the pulpit as witnesses."
The old minute book of the section, dating back to 1844, is still in existence. This records that Thomas Ambler, George Caldwell, and Jon- athan Sissons, the latter grandfather of Pro- fessor Sissons of Victoria College, were the trus- tees in 1845. The record further shows that the salary paid Mr. Luck in that year was twenty-
ON THE PENBTANG TRAIL
77
THE LOO SCHOOL HOUSE
' ' The building was used for a church as well as a school and there cvas a pulpit iu one corner for church services."
78 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
five pounds currency "over and above Govern- ment allowance and taxes." In order to make up the amount required to keep the school going, sixteen of the settlers agreed to pay one pound for each child sent to school by them, the largest single contributor being William Larkin, who paid four pounds. Among the other contribu- tors were Jonathan Sissons, Thomas Mairs (one of the first importers of "Durham" cattle), Charles Partridge, Charles Hickling, Thomas Drury, and Richard Drury, the latter being the grandfather of Premier E. C. Drury.
The amounts contributed by these enlightened pioneers for the education of their children may seem small to those of the present gener- ation, but they were in reality relatively larger than similar contributions to-day. Incomes were small. By that time local production had exceeded the requirements of the local market at Penetang' and an outlet had to be found at Toronto, seventy miles away over rough roads. The prices obtained for farm produce in general at the provincial capital may be gauged by the fact that oats teamed there, reaped with a cradle and threshed with a flail, sold for twenty-five cents per bushel.
Among the first purchases in the way of sup- plies for the new school, as an ancient record further informs us, were "two grammars, cost- ing four shillings, two and one-half pence" and "three dictionaries costing five shillings, seven and one-half pence." In 1852, eleven families raised sixteen pounds, fifteen shillings and nine- pence for the school, the largest contributor in that year being Richard Drury, who gave two
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 79
pounds, nineteen shillings and three-pence. At the annual school meeting held on January 31st, 1853, with Jonathan Sissons in the chair, it was decided, on motion of G. Hickling and E. Luck, that there " shall be a free school." This resolution does not seem to have gone into effect at once as nine of those present voluntarily bound themselves to "raise any amount needed in excess of the legislative grant and mun- icipal levy. Among the nine guarantors were J. Sissons, Charles Hickling, Charles Part- ridge, Thomas Drury, and Richard Drury. In 1855, a further forward step was taken when the trustees were empowered to buy maps of the world and of America as well as books to be dis- tributed as prizes at the next examination of pupils.
I remember once hearing one of the faculty of Cornell University say that he could have made a much better man of a certain student had he been given the selection of that individual's grandparents. The present Premier of Ontario was fortunate in the selection of his ancestors. In the arduous work of the pioneer days his grandfather and great-grandfather had their full share. In the midst of blackened stumps, and with the primeval forest still unconquered, as the old school record quoted from shows, they bore the heavy end of the burden in providing for the education of the children of the pioneer settlement. In establishing municipal govern- ment the Drury family also took part; Thomas Drury having been a member of one of the early councils of Oro, while Richard Drury served as Reeve on different occasions, and Charles Drury,
80 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
father of the Premier, beginning as reeve of Oro ended his political career as Minister of Agriculture for the province. It is not by one of fortune's freaks that E. C. Drury to-day holds the position of first citizen of the wealthiest and most populous province of Canada.
VILLAGES THAT ARE NO MORE
Few men had a wider or more varied know- ledge of early days in Simcoe County than Wil- liam Hewson, who told me his story in Barrie in the summer of 1900. Mr. Hewson had seen Canadian voyageurs on their way to Montreal with pelts, when Lake Simcoe was a link in one of the chief highways between the Upper Lakes and the Gulf; he had seen the annual movement of Indians back and forth between Toronto and Georgian Bay; his father's home was one of the halting points for British soldiers on their way to and from Penetang', and he was eye-witness of the beginning of the white migration to the country surrounding the lake which bears the name of Upper Canada's first governor.
Mr. Hewson was located at a particularly favourable place for viewing these movements, having settled with his father on Big Bay Point in 1820. From that date until after the last century ended he lived almost continuously in Simcoe County.
"When I was a lad," said Mr. Hewson, "one of the great receiving depots in the days of the fur trade Avas maintained by Alfred Thompson, of Penetang'. Mr. Thompson's winter receipts of pelts had an aggregate value of from thirty
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 81
thousand to forty thousand dollars. When ready to sell he advertised in England and Germany, and representatives of European firms came out to submit tenders, the highest being accepted. Our home at 'The Point' was on the highway connecting Toronto and Georgian Bay. Past our door Canadian voyageurs, employed by a Montreal firm, paddled their canoes loaded to the limit with rich furs taken in the hunting grounds of the great north country. It was a day's journey by canoe from Lake Couchiching to 'The Point,' and when the Indians were on their return journey from Toronto after receiv- ing their annuity money, I have seen seven hundred camped on our farm at one time. Soldiers on their way to and from the fort at Penetang' also made our home a resting place. Later on, when the tide of white immigra- tion began to flow into the country about Lake Simcoe a good deal of that tide swept around our farm. At that time two or three bateaux, carry- ing settlers and their effects, made regular trips between Holland Landing and Barrie, and we could see these as they rounded 'The Point'.
"The most picturesque scenes and exciting times were furnished by the Indians. In sum- mer the clothing of the men was limited to breech cloths and that of the women to petti- coats, the body being left bare from the waist up. On the whole journey from Toronto north- ward rascally traders plied the Indians with whiskey, obtaining in exchange the guns, blan- kets, and tomahawks which the Indians had re- ceived from the Government. By the time Big Bay Point was reached the Indians, soaked with
82 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
whiskey, were ready to quarrel on slight prov- ocation. When a general scrimmage began, the squaws grabbed the papooses and ran for: the bush. Strange to say, all this fighting was done with fists ; I never once saw guns or knives used. The Indians were usually chaste in their domestic relations, but one old chief, John Essence, had three wives. When converted to Methodism he was told he would have to put away two of these, and the old polygamist sought a way out. On being told that he could retain all three wives if he became a Catholic, he promptly abjured Methodism for what seemed to him a more liberal faith."
INDIAN BASKET
This talk led up to tales of early marriages among the whites. Mr. Hewson's father was a magistrate and as such was authorized to per- form the marriage ceremony. His field covered the whole country from Holland Landing to Penetang'. "One of the first marriage cere- monies performed by my father was when he declared his neighbour David Soules legally wedded. Soules had gone to Pickering for his
83
bride, a Miss Yeomans, and the trip across Lake Simcoe was made in a boat rowed by the pros- pective groom.
"The law required the posting of notices of intention to marry in three prominent places for three weeks before marriage. A widower, a Quaker about to remarry, put up one of his notices in the cleft of a tree, hoping thereby to comply with the law while at the same time avoiding publicity. It happened, however, that a search party, while hunting for a man who had been lost in the bush, came across this notice and soon made it public enough to comply with the most rigid of legal requirements. One day, when father was away from home, a negro came to our place to be married. When this man found father was away he wanted my mother to act, on the ground that the Bible pronounced man and wife one. He contended, therefore, that what one could do the other could surely do as well. However, the colored man was told he would not only have to wait until father returned but until notice could be given also. Three weeks later, after legal notice had been given, when father went to perform the cere- mony, he found the couple already living together as man and wife. One couple, far from either minister or magistrate, did not have the ceremony performed in their case until one of their sons was grown up.
"The first Methodist minister in Innisfil town- ship was Hardy by name, and he was hardy by nature. His field was from Penetang' to 'The Landing'; he covered that distance twice a week on foot and held nine services in the seven days.
84 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
''There were few better stands of pine in On- tario than that of Innisfil when the first settlers came in. Near the site of the Twelfth Line Church a man named Pratt had a partic- ularly good lot of pine trees and he offered these, as they stood, at one cent per log to Robert Thompson, who then had a mill at Painswick. But pine was worth so little at the time that the offer was refused. When the old Northern Rail- way was built, pine did begin to have a value, and quite an active lumbering industry sprang
THE OLD SAWMILL
up in the township. Sage and Grant, who intro- duced bob-sleighs into Innisfil, had a mill at Belle Ewart that at one time employed seventy men. Mills were also established at 'The Point', Tollendale, Craigvale, the Seventh Line, Gilford and Lakeland. At Lakeland, in addition to the mill, there was a dock, hotel, store, and a really attractive group of homes with locusts orna- menting the front yards,"
85
But all these mills have disappeared long since, and Lakeland and Belle Ewart would be mere sand beaches to-day had it not been for the development of the Lake Simcoe ice trade in winter and tourist traffic in summer.
At the time that Mr. Hewson related to me his stories of the days when Lake Simcoe was an important link in a great highway between north and south I obtained from Dr. 11 Paterson, then of Barrie, some further particu- lars regarding the beginning of the Toronto- Penetang' route. According to Dr. Paterson the journey between these two places was at times made by an entirely overland route as early as 1814.
"At that time," Dr. Paterson said, "my father had a contract for transporting supplies from Toronto for the garrison of two hundred men at Penetang'. The entire journey was made by an overland route, passing to the west- ward of the bay at Barrie. Over part of that route, however, axes had to be carried to cut trees out of the way, and the trip occupied two weeks. Holland River was crossed on a floating bridge, and frequently, on returning to the river, it would be found that the bridge had been carried away, and it was then necessary to build a new one. The only house between Penetang' and 'The Landing' at that time was a hewed log affair at Crown Hill. '
By Andrew Wallace, one of the pioneers of Innisfil, T was given some further particulars about the Lakeland milling enterprise. "A man named Vance invested thirty thousand dollars in that venture," Mr. Wallace said. "The mill
86 THE PIONEERS OP OLD ONTARIO
did not run very long and some years later, when the property had fallen into decay, \7ance vis- ited the scene of desolation. As lie was standing on the wreck of the wharf looking into the water below some one asked him what was interesting him. "I am trying to discover where my thirty thousand dollars went," was the reply.
RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
The family history of Mr. Henry Smith of Barrie, another descendant of the Simcoe pion- eers, is remarkable for its variety of colour. The name was originally Schmidt, and the first of the name in America was Heinrich Schmidt, an officer in the Hessian troops sent over by George III at the time of the American Revo- lutionary War. This Heinrich was the grand- father of Henry Smith, whose story follows :
"The troop-ship, on which my grandfather sailed to America, was eighteen weeks in cross- ing from Germany," said Mr. Smith. "So long was the voyage, that the officer in command of the troops asked the admiral of the fleet if he was quite sure that he had not passed America in the night. When my maternal grandmother, who was also with the troops, caught sight of a field of corn after landing, she exclaimed: 'America must, indeed, be a rich country when there are so many ribbons here.' She mistook the leaves of the ripening corn, glistening in the evening sun, for ribbons hung out to dry.
"After the Revolution my grandfather re- ceived a grant of land in the township of Marys- burg, Prince Edward County, and that is how
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
87
Smith's Bay obtained its na^ne. A man called Snider, who had a rather notable nose, settled on a prominent point in the same township and hence the name, locally applied, of Snider 's Nose."
Mr. Smith's own life was about as varied and full of adventure as that of his grandfather. As a lad of fourteen he assisted in rafting timber down the St. Lawrence. "More than once, in going through the big chute at the
RAFTING TIMBER ON THE ST. LAWRENCE
"More than once in going through the big chute at the Cedars, raft and raftsmen were submerged."
Cedars, raft and raftsmen were submerged in the waves, and it was then a case of sit tight or stay under," said Mr. Smith. "Some of the timber forming the rafts came from Prince Ed- ward County, but more of it came down the Trent. Oak and pine logs were rafted together, the latter helping to keep the former afloat. A good deal of the timber was for spars. You
88 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
can judge the length of some of this spar timber, when I tell you that I liave seen five, six, and even seven saw-logs cut from one tree. The record spar, which was one hundred and twenty feet long, came from Big Bay Point on Lake Simcoe. Eight or ten teams were used in haul- ing such timbers from the bush to the water's edge. When the rafts arrived at Montreal they were broken up and loaded into sailing vessels for shipment to England. Those timber vessels had large port-holes in their bows, and the tim- ber was hauled to these holes by horses operating a windlass and then shot into the hold. When the timber fleet was in Montreal harbour the masts appeared like a great forest from which the limbs had been stripped. As I went down the river on rafts I often met immigrants coming up in bateaux or Durham boats. These vessels were much alike save that the bateaux were open while the Durhams were partially decked over. Men, women, and children were huddled together in these craft by day and camped on shore at night.
"All the lakes and rivers were then full of fish. I helped haul in a net near Willard's Beach in Prince Edward County that contained fourteen thousand fish, and I have seen salmon near there that were eight inches through the body. In one case a salmon actually broke the handle of the spear and got away, but was afterwards caught with the fragment still in its body."
In 1847, Mr. Smith moved to Vespra, north of Barrie. The journey from Toronto to Holland Landing wras by stage. "Near the end of the
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
89
journey," said Mrs. Smith, "the driver, who was drunk, lost control of the horses on the down grade of one of the hills. The body of the stage pitched from side to side, forward and back, the passengers meantime holding on to anything within reach. It is a wonder our necks were not broken.
"From the * Landing' to Barrie passage was taken by the steamer Beaver the remains of which are now buried beneath the foundation of the local Grand Trunk Station. From Barrie we followed the old Sunnidale or Nine Mile Portage Road to Willow Creek."
I am indebted to Mr. A. F. Hunter for the his- tory of this old highway, which dates back to 1814, and was built in the first place as a mil- itary highway. Early in the War of 1812-15 a British force had cap- tured the fort on Mack-
inac Island. Later on the Americans prepared for its recapture. In order to reinforce the Brit- ish garrison a force was despatched from King- ston in February, 1814. This force marched overland via Toronto to Holland Landing and thence over the ice of Lake Simcoe to Barrie.
A DRUNKEN DRIVER
"The body of the stage pitched from side to side, for- ward and back, the passengers meantime holding on to any- thing within reach. ' '
90 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
From Barrie the Nine Mile Portage Road was cut tlirough to Willow Creek. There, trees, cut from the surrounding forest, were fashioned into bateaux, and in these improvised craft, when spring came, the relieving force floated down Willow Creek to the Nottawasaga River, along that river to Georgian Bay, and thence to Mackinac. Block-houses as bases of supply were built at Holland Landing, Barrie, and Willow Creek; the Barrie block-house being located where the music hall now stands. Willow Creek was quite an important centre of settle- ment for years afterwards, but to-day not one stone remains upon another. Only a few holes mark the site, these holes having been dug in search of gold which tradition said had been buried there.
A WAYSIDE INN'S FAMOUS GUESTS
There is possibly no other Ontario farm with the exception of farms along the lake frontier, which is so prominently connected with local history as is the old Warnica homestead, — lot thirteen on the twelfth of Innisfil, — opposite the beautiful avenue of pines on the Penetang' Road, two miles south of Barrie.
The farm was given to John Stamm for his services with Button's Cavalry in the War of 1812-15, and settlement duties on the place were begun by Stamm. Once, when on his way to the place from Markham township, Stamm narrow- ly escaped drowning in Lake Simcoe. That was enough of that location for him, and he sold his place to the first of the Canadian Warnicas for
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 91
ten dollars. The Warnicas took possession in 1825. Shortly afterwards, because of the grow- ing traffic between north and south, the house on the place became an inn; and, although there were only two rooms and a loft available for travellers, some distinguished guests were en- tertained there. It is said that Sir John Frank- lin spent a night at the inn on his overland trip to the Arctic regions, and a voyageur sent back by Sir John sought shelter at the same place on the return journey. Bishop Strachan, on jour- neys north and south, made this a stopping place; and Sir John Colborne, when Gov- ernor of Upper Canada, was provided with food and lodging there when on his tour of inspection of the military post at Penetang'. So well pleased was Sir John with the accommodation provided that he offered each of the Warnica boys a free grant bush lot. How little such lots were valued at the time is evidenced by the fact that the boys did not think it worth while to go to Toronto to secure the deeds of the property tendered them.
When the Warnicas first settled in Innisfil, Lake Simcoe was still a connecting link on the Toronto-Penetang' highway, and Big Bay point was located right on that highway. David Soules, one of the first settlers on 'The Point', told Warnica he was a fool to settle so far to the west. "You will be away off the main road," said Soules, "and the blackbirds will eat all your crops." To-day, however, it is 'The Point' that is isolated while the old Warnica farm fronts on one of the principal provincial high- ways.
92 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
At the beginning the Warnicas endured many privations. Clothing was largely made of home- grown flax, and one of the Warnica boys of that day had to stay in bed while his one linen shirt was being washed.
The first grist from the Warnica farm had to be hauled to the old "Red Mill" at Holland Landing. Once when a grist was being taken it was intended to make the round trip in a day, but the men were storm-stayed at Grassi Point on the return journey. The night, however, was spent in comparative comfort, as Indians who were camping there at the time supplied the Warnica boys with blankets.
Running all through these old-time sketches incidents are related in which the first settlers were indebted to the Indians for kindness such as that shown the Warnicas. The conduct of the aborigines stands all the more to their credit when the manner in which they were being plundered and brutalized by white traders is borne in mind.
Slowly but surely times changed for the bet- ter. The settlement along the Penetang' Road north of Barrie, producing beyond local needs, demanded a route all the way to Toronto, and money was raised, apparently by public sub- scription, to build around Barrie Bay a link to connect the old Penetang' Road north of Bar- rie with the line north from Holland Landing. Two of the Warnica boys were given the con- tract of cutting out the bush from Tollendale to Churchill, a distance of eleven miles, at five dol- lars per mile. That would seem very small pay to road-builders of to-day, but five dollars went
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 93
a long way when Innisfil was young. The hard- est part of the Warnicas' task was at Stroud, which, although dry enough now, was a dif-' ficult swamp at that time.
Previous to this the Warnicas had made con- siderable money in teaming military supplies intended for the Penetang' garrison over the Nine Mile Portage Road between Barrie and Willow Creek. Then, when settlement began to move into the Sunnidale and Beaver valleys, they obtained remunerative employment in teaming the effects of the more northern set- tlers to their destination.
The first of the Warnicas, besides being a pioneer in the matter of settlement, was a par- ticipant in the inauguration of municipal govern- ment in Innisfil. He, with Charles Wilson and John Henry, formed the equivalent of the first local council when Innisfil was municipally or- ganized in 1841. He was also a member of the Home District Council, which then met in Tor- onto. The manner of election for a place in the latter body is an illustration of the free and easy way in which elections were carried on in the early days. Warnica and David Soules were contestants for the office and the election was held at the old Myers tavern at Stroud. To decide the matter it was arranged that one of the con- testants should lead his supporters south along the road from the tavern while the followers of the other should be led north. The one that had the largest following, and this was Warnica, was declared elected.
Some of the family history of the Warnicas is as interesting as it that of the farm with which
94
THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
the family name has been identified for a cen- tury. The first of the family was a Dane, whose name was spelled Werneck. As a young man Werneck possessed considerable means, which he spent largely in seeing the world. On his return to Denmark, while telling of some of his adventures, his word was questioned, where- upon Werneck promptly struck down the
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fgJL«ifaJA; All'" ••
i oTicir uTri.T.w nv i nnMnRir.n vir.Ans inn
A RURAL BELLE OF A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
"Doubting Thomas." For this he was fined forty kronen by a Danish magistrate. On paying the fine Werneck asked if a second offence would cost the same, and was assured it would. Another forty kronen pile was promptly counted out with the" first, and then Werneck knocked
ON THE PENETANG TEAIL 95
down the magistrate. At a much later date, while playing the fiddle for a party in his Innis- fil farm, this fiery Dane had the misfortune to fall, and, when one of the party asked if the fiddle had been broken, the fiddle was hurled at the head of the questioner for making the first enquiry about the instrument instead of for the life that might have been lost in the fall.
Some time after the forty kronen incident Werneck sailed for New York, and there the family name was changed to Warnick. On coming to Canada, at a still later date, the "k" was changed to "a", and for three generations Warnica has been one of the best known family names in the township of Innisfil.
While in New York State Warnica married a German widow named Myers. Mrs. Myers' parents, and all of her grandparents with the exception of one grandmother, had been killed and scalped during an Indian raid in the Mohawk Valley at the time of the American Revolutionary War. The surviving grand- mother had been scalped and left for dead, but survived for years afterwards. Mrs. Myers herself escaped the massacre because, as a babe, she was asleep and was overlooked.
A combination of Danish and German blood in the first of the family with subsequent inter- marriage amongst descendants of the English, Irish, and Scotch pioneers of Innisfil, the War- nicas, like the old Hessian soldiers and the de- scendants of the palatinates of Sunderland, furnish a striking illustration of the varied nature of the strains entering into the making of the Canadian commonwealth.
96 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
A LONG WAY TO THE MILL
When I listened to the story which follows, near the close of the last century, the country between Barrie and Penetanguishene had long played its part in Canadian history. Penetang' itself, like Toronto, figured in the War of 1812-15, and the settlements between Barrie and Penetang' began almost as early as settlements near Toronto. The Drury farm at Crown Hill, for example, was taken up by the grandfather of the Honourable E. C. Drury in 1819, and the Methodist Church at Dalston bears the dates 1827-97. At the same time, not far from the road leading to Penetang/ pioneer conditions still existed twenty-five years ago.
What is here related is based mainly on what I was told by Thomas Craig, of Craighurst, who was then living on the north half of lot forty- two on the first concession of Medonte. Of that farm something could then be said that prob- ably could not be said of any other farm in Ontario. The lot was taken up as a grant from the Crown by Mr. Craig's grandfather in 1821, and from that time, until 1899, there was never a mortgage against the property, the only records standing in connection therewith in the Registry Office at Barrie being in the form of transfers from father to son.
" There were," said Mr. Craig, "two reasons why grandfather located so far north. One was that the land about Kempenfeldt Bay was all in the hands of military pensioners and that about Dalston in the hands of a company; the
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 97
other was that the British garrison at Penetang' provided a convenient market.
"Penetang' garrison was maintained until about the middle of the century and was made up in part of some of Wellington's veterans. One of these, Charles Collins, was in the 52nd Regiment at Waterloo. John Hamilton was another Waterloo man. Private McGinnis served in the Peninsular War and received his discharge at Penetang.' He left a number of descendants in the country west of Craighurst.
"As a boy," continued Mr. Craig, "I saw par- ties of soldiers passing along the road on their way to and from Penetang.' They travelled in small parties so as not to crowd stopping places between Toronto and Georgian Bay. Once, when a party was on the way north, the officer in charge swore that he would march his men from Newmarket to Penetang' in a day. He did it, but two of the men died by the way- side. One of these was literally done to death by mosquitos and was buried near where Wye- bridge now stands.
"I have seen Indians, hundreds and hundreds of them at a time, going along the same road on their way to and from Toronto. In late fall they went south to make baskets in the woods, then standing near Toronto, and to sell them in the city. In early spring they returned to the Christian Islands to make sugar, to fish, and later on to engage in the fall hunt. Although drunkenness frequently occurred among the Indians, wo did not fear them as they uover offered to molost the settlers."
Speaking of early experiences Mr. Craig went
98 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
ou: "Grists had to be carried all the way to Newmarket, but the Government mill at Cold- water later on relieved us of the necessity of making that journey. About 1830, Government and settlers joined in erecting another mill at Midhurst. For our groceries we were still com- pelled to go to Newmarket, where the first of the Cawthras then had a store. The road be- tween here and Barrie was nothing but a trail; from Barrie to Holland Landing we travelled on the ice in winter and by boat in summer, and from Holland Landing to Newmarket by Yonge Street. The round trip occupied three or four days. In the beginning supplies were packed on the back, but later on two or three joined in the use of an ox-team and jumper. Event- ually E. C. Drury's grandfather and my father joined in building a road around the bay at Barrie, and then the entire journey could be made without crossing Lake Simcoe.
"The first post-office north of Newmarket was at Penetang'. There was a regular mail ser- vice from Toronto to Newmarket, but mail for points further north was given for delivery to the first reliable settler who happened to come along. This volunteer carrier, the beginning of rural mail delivery, distributed his letters as he passed up Yonge Street and the Penetang' Road, and handed in the regular mail-bag for Pene- tang' when he reached that point. Sometimes there were letters still in this bag for settlers along the way, and these had to be sent back as chance offered."
The first wagon that passed over this road was made in 1826 or 1827 by a man named
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 99
White, of Newmarket. It was built largely of Swedish iron and was still in existence at the close of the last century.
HARDSHIPS OF THE NOTTAWASAGA PIONEERS
As the country about Creemore, in Nottawa- saga, was settled at an earlier date than was Flos, the hardships of the Nottawasaga pioneers were greater than those sustained by the Flos pioneers.
One of the early settlers in Nottawasaga was Joseph Galloway, who located near Creemore in 1852. Some twenty years before that time, Mr. Galloway's father, who was then living near Bradford, teamed flour into the northern town- ship with oxen. "That flour," said Mr. Joseph Galloway, "was sold to the settlers at eight or ten dollars per barrel ; but it was worth the cost as a week was taken on the round trip, and over a great part of the way the country was solid bush. It was dear flour to the settlers all the same, as some of those who purchased it had earned the necessary money by working in the harvest fields at 'the front' at fifty cents per day. Some were unable to pay the price and, on one occasion, one man went without bread for nearly two weeks.
"Even when I moved into the township one- third of the lots for the last fourteen miles of the way had not a tree cut on them, and the others had but small clearings. Doer were more plenti- ful then than sheep are now. On the Currie farm, just outside of Creemore, were 'licks' to which deer came in droves. In a nearby creek, now a
100 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
TAKINO HOME THE GRIST
1 ' Kingston Road was little more than a path through the bush. 1 can remember when our Arista had to be carried to Port Hope."
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
101
mere dribble, one could catch a pailful of speck- led trout in an hour. In one night wolves killed fourteen sheep.
"We had the choice of four markets — Barrie, Bradford, Holland Landing, and Newmarket. To reach Barrie, the nearest of the four, in- volved a journey covering two whole days and part of the nights. Our usual practice was to leave before three in the morning, and if we got back at midnight of the second day we consid- ered ourselves lucky. Twenty-five to , thirty
SOAP-MAKING IN THE EARLY DAYS
bushels made a load of wheat. The price was fifty cents per bushel, and half trade at that. A yoke of oxen, weighing over a ton each, sold in Toronto for sixty-five dollars. A change came with the extension of the old Northern Railway to Collingwood and with the Crimean War. In the fall of 1854 I sold wheat for fifty cents at Bradford; the next year I got one dollar and a half at Stayner.
102 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
"It was plain living in the early days. Our log house was eighteen feet wide by twenty-four feet deep, and eleven logs high. There was a stone fireplace and chimney at one end, and to reach the upper rooms a ladder was used instead of stairs. Bread was baked in a pot that would hold half a pail of dough and the baking was done by putting the pot in a pail of ashes on the hearth. We had a frying-pan with a long handle in which we cooked venison and trout, the pan being placed on the coals in the fireplace. There were wild plum trees about a mile away, and from these we gathered two or three pails in
a season.'
The parents of Archie Currie, formerly M.P.P. for West Simcoe, were also among the early settlers in Nottawasaga, coming there from Mariposa. In moving they crossed Lake Simcoe on the ice, and proceeded thence by way of Orillia and Barrie to the sixth of Not- tawasaga. "The clearing on the place to which we moved was barely large enough to enable us to see the blue sky above," Mr. Currie 's mother told me. "There was no floor in the house when we arrived, only a few boards to set the stove on; and, the doors not being in place, we hung blankets over the openings to keep out the winter wind. What is now Creemore was a network of tangled trees."
It was the practice of the first settlers to go in parties when teaming their produce to Barrie with ox-teams. There were no taverns by the roadside, and at dinner or supper time a halt was made at a clearing. While the oxen ate their hay, the men smoked their pipes and gos-
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 103
siped, an occasional drink of whiskey causing the gossip to flow more freely. Sometimes a party would be storm-bound in Barrie, and in that case a good deal of the scanty receipts from the produce sold would be used up in paying for lodging. In one instance a man was forced to send home for money to pay his way back. In another case a settler, who had packed his load on his shoulders, lost Ins way in the dark- ness on the road home. After vainly groping about for some time he lay down with a pine knot for a pillow and when he woke in the morn- ing he found himself within a few rods of his own door.
Nottawasaga was not, like Flos, a pro- hibition township. In the former whiskey was as free as water. It was a common practice at stores to keep a barrel on tap at which custom- ers were free to help themselves at will. One store at Stayner continued this practice as late as the 'sixties and in connection with that par- ticular store and barrel a story is told of a hoax perpetrated by a practical joker of the day. While the barrel was free to all who came in, it was assumed that only such as were customers would take advantage of the hospitality offered. There was one old chap who seldom bought anything over the counter although he fre- quently drank there and a young fellow de- cided to cure the old toper of the habit. So when the thirsty one came in one day, and as usual began edging his way to the open barrel, his attention was purposely diverted for a mo- ment and meantime the tin cup attached to the whiskey barrel was filled with coal oil. The
104 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
oil was taken at a gulp before the taste -was noticed, but it is probable that the weakness for free drinks was cured there and then.
Tragedy was closely linked with comedy in the drinking habits of pioneer days. A young -man of eighteen, with Indian blood in his veins, was noted for his strength and courage even in a community where these qualities were a com- monplace. He could lift a stone that a team of horses found it difficult to move, and one of his feats was to stand on his head at the pinnacle of a newly raised barn. He could, too, hold his own with the hardest drinkers in carrying his load of liquor. But one day he overdid it. He accepted a wager that he could drink a pailful at one sitting. He swallowed the lot in three gulps, staggered to a fence corner and died.
THE RUGBY SETTLEMENT
Hardships quite as great as those borne by most of the pioneers were endured by the first settlers between Hawkstone and Rugby, on the west side of Lake Simcoe.
"When our people came here in the early thirties," said John Robertson, a son of one of the Rugby pioneers, "they had to bring their flour all the way from Hog's Hollow. The flour was teamed as far as Holland Landing and then carried by boats, manned by Indians, to Hawk- stone. From Hawkstone the settlers packed it on their backs to Rugby, a distance of six miles, and even to Medonte, six miles further on. The flour was usually carried in bags, but on one occasion Grandfather George Robertson car-
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 105
ried home almost a barrel of flour on his shoulders.
"In 1833, the Government built a grist-mill at Coldwater. This was intended for the use of the Indians, but it served settlers about Rugby as well. Being only fourteen miles distant, it proved a great convenience. Even at that, how- ever, two days were spent going and coming with grist. At times it took longer, as not infre- quently fifty teams would arrive at the mill in one day, and then people had to wait their turn. While waiting, the men cooked 'chokedog', a mixture of flour and water, for their food. It was as hard as a brick on the outside and soft as blubber in the middle."
Real comfort came, though, when, in 1855, a man named Dallas built a mill between Orillia and where the Hospital for Feeble-Minded now stands. The stone foundation for this mill was laid by the father of Duncan Anderson.1 While engaged in this foundation work Mr. Anderson Sr., lived at home, three miles away. Still he was always at work at the mill at seven, remained until six, and after returning home he frequently worked in the logging field until ten at night. The old Dallas mill disappeared long ago, but part of the foundation still standing shows that the stones were well and truly laid.
In the first year of the Rugby settlement, be- fore there was enough cleared ground on which to grow potatoes, George Tudhope, formerly clerk of Oro Township, planted some potatoes
1Duncan was for years a popular Farmers' Institute lecturer and later served three terms as mayor of Orillia.
106 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
on shares at Holland Landing. He pitted his share when dug, and next spring moved them to Hawkstone by boat and from Hawkstone car- ried them to Rugby on his back. One spring when potatoes were exceptionally scarce, peo- ple actually dug up the tubers they had planted for seed in order to secure food.
THE EARLY DAYS OP INNISFIL
"I have been here in Innisfil longer than any man now living in the township. My memory
SKIDDING LOGS
goes back to the time long before the railway, when the forests, which then covered the land, were filled with game and when Indians were as numerous around Lake Simcoe as they still are about the north shore of Georgian Bay." It was J. L. Warnica, then in his eightieth year, but who would have passed for less than seventy, who made this statement. The story that followed fully warranted the expecta-
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 107
tioiis aroused by the introduction. When Mr. Warnica was a young man, all the merchandise received in Barrie was teamed there from Toronto, and much of the teaming was done by Mr. Warnica himself. "When passing over 'The Ridges' I have, from an elevation, seen teams as far north and south as the eye could reach," said Mr. Warnica. "It was like one huge funeral procession, and it was made up of wagons from as far away as Medford and Penetang' on the north, as well as wagons that had drifted in from intervening side roads.
"The Innisfil teamsters had two favourite stopping places in Toronto. One was the Full- james House, at the corner of Queen and Yonge streets, and the other was the old Post tavern nearly opposite the St. Lawrence market. The Fulijames place stood well back from the cor- ner and covered practically the site now occu- pied by the Eaton store. Great sheds for the accommodation of teamsters filled the yards. The corner at that time marked the northern limits of the city. The buildings in Toronto were scattered like those of a village. The Queen Street asylum was two miles out of town. The father of my first wife bought ten acres and an old tavern opposite the main gate of the asylum for one thousand dollars.
"Yes, there were plenty of taverns in those days," continued Mr. Warnica. "Between the head of Kempenfeldt Bay at Barrie and Yonge Street wharf in Toronto, there were sixty-eight licensed houses — one for each mile of the road and three to spare, besides eight or ten un- licensed places. Distilleries were also numer-
108 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
ous. There was one at Tollendale, opposite Barrie, and another on the creek that runs through Allandale. These were, however, soon snuffed out and the bulk of the business in this line passed to the Gooderhams. Most of my freight, when I was teaming, consisted of Gooderham whiskey. Six barrels made a load and, after being hauled all the way to Barrie, it retailed at twenty-five cents per gallon.
"But then the freight bill was not very high," Mr. Warnica went on. "The regular charge for teaming a load of whiskey to Barrie was eight dollars. Out of that the teamster had to pay for the feed of his horses, board for himself, and the fee at seven toll gates. I remember once, when another teamster and myself had a miscellaneous lot of merchandise for a Barrie merchant, we were charged with the loss of a box of ribbons. I do not believe we ever received the box, but we had to pay for it all the same. On that occasion, when expenses had been deducted, there was just seventy-five cents to divide between us for the round trip. After that we preferred to haul whiskey as there was no chance of loss on that.
"If freights were not high, expenses incurred by freighters were not extravagant either. Supper and bed for a man and hay for his team cost fifty cents at a wayside tavern. It is true that it was not exactly royal fare. There were three beds in each room and two people slept in each bed. There were no stationary wash-stands, in fact, not so much as a wash- stand of any kind. A basin stood in the bar and each man took his turn in going out to the pump for a clean up.
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
109
"Some of these stopping places were not too warm. I well remember one night spent at McLeod's tavern, a little north of Aurora, The building was of frame and not plastered at that. There were two thin cotton sheets and one quilt, and a very thin one it was, on the bed. I had
PIONEER TOOLS
CANDLE STICK
to rub my toes to keep them from freezing in the night.
"The accommodation north of Barrie was poorer still. Once, early in March, father and I
110 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
undertook to move a camp of Indians from Tollendale to Rama. There was at that time a tavern, known as The Half Way House, about midway between Barrie and Orillia. We pro- posed to stop there for dinner, but the Highland landlord informed us that he had no flour. 'I have plenty of good whiskey, though,' he said, evidently wondering what a man wanted to eat for so long as he could get plenty to drink. Unable to get dinner we decided to push on to Orillia. There we ordered dinner and supper in one and took our Indian charges over to Rama while the meal was being prepared. When we returned to the tavern I found, after unhitching, that I could not get my horses into the only stable in the place as the door was too low for the animals to pass in. The landlord proposed that I should let them stand in the shed all night, but I was afraid that they would perish with cold after the hard drive. So when supper was over I started for home, where I arrived at five next morning, after having been nearly twenty-four hours on the road.
"The roads, south as well as north of our place, were as poor as the tavern accommoda- tion. The low places on Yonge Street and the Penetang' Road were covered with corduroy, and as the logs were of uneven size you can imagine what it was like driving over them. A little before my time a party of traders on their way north to trade with the Indians reached Grass! Point toward evening. On their arrival one of the traders was taken ill, but next day they went on to where the old Sixth Line Church now stands. The man's condition became
Ill
worse and that night he died. His body was buried at the foot of a giant maple, which then stood just inside the present cemetery grounds. From the tragic nature of the trader's death there arose a story that the place was haunted, and a half-breed who then carried the mail between Penetang' and Toronto quit his job because he had to pass the place at night.
"I once had a bad fright there myself. I was on my way from Toronto, accompanied by my uncle in another wagon, with a load of freight. We had been held up at Bradford by a thunder- storm and when we reached the sixth line it was pitch dark. A fire had been started by some men engaged during the day in improving the road and this fire spread to the hollow stub, all that remained of the big maple marking the grave of the trader. As I came near the spot I beheld what seemed to be a light moving slow- ly up and down. I at once thought of the spook story and my hair stood on end with fear. What I really did see was a succession of fitful flames showing first at one hole in the maple stub and then at another higher up or lower down. It was all right when the explanation came but exceedingly uncomfortable before learning the cause of the light.
"No, I was not born in Innisfil," said Mr. Warnica as the conversation drifted off in another direction. "I was born near Thornhill. My grandfather (Lyon) on my mother's side established a grist-mill there before the time of Thome, after whom the place was named. A Pennsylvania Dutchman, Kover by name, took a couple of stones from the creek and dressed
112
them for grinding. Before that we did our grinding in a coffee-mill we had brought with us. Before that again people crushed wheat with the head of an axe in a hole made in the top of an oak stump. This stump was on the third of Markham, near Buttonville, and I remember quite well seeing the hole in it and hearing the story. To my Grandfather Lyon was issued one of the first two Crown deeds granted in Markham."
Turning once more to the early days near Barrie, Mr. Warnica had something to say of Indian life and the abundance of game that then filled the woods. "I have seen," he said, "as many as one hundred Indian tepees in the woods about Tollendale on the south side of Kempenfeldt Bay. It was an interesting sight to watch the making of an Indian home in winter. The head of the family, carrying bow and arrow, tomahawk and knife, strode ahead. The mother, carrying one or two papooses on her back, as well as the household belongings, followed. When the site selected for the camp was reached, the Indian chopped down a few saplings with crotched tops. The squaw meantime, with a cedar shovel, formed a circular hole in the snow. The crotched sticks were set up around this and covered with bark or evergreens; a fire was started in the middle of the tent, evergreen boughs were spread on the ground and covered with fur, and, in half an hour, the house was ready for occupation. While the work of preparation was going on the papooses, strapped to flat boards, were lumg up on trees bv hooks at the heads of the boards.
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 113
If one cried the mother would stop work for a moment and soothe the child with a gentle rock- ing accompanied by a lullaby.
"Game — bear, deer, partridge, and pigeons- was more than abundant. I have killed partridges with a club. I once struck down a pigeon with an ox-goad; another time, with two shots — one fired into a flock of pigeons as they were feeding on the ground and the other as they rose — I secured twenty-nine birds; I have fre- quently brought down ten or a dozen at a single shot.
"As a boy, I have heard the wolves howling in the woods at night, and in the morning the sweat would pour from me with fear as I went into these same woods to hunt for the cows. On one occasion I helped capture two young bears on the Penetang' road opposite our place, a little south of Barrie. We cut down the trees in which the animals had taken refuge and then killed them with clubs.
"What became of the pigeons? I do not know, but I have a theory. My theory is that all this game was placed here for the use of man when no other form of food was available and that it disappeared when the need for it no longer existed.
"I have witnessed almost all the changes that have taken place in Innisfil," said Mr. Warnica as he concluded his story. "I was here at the beginning of the settlement, and I was already a young man when the railway came. I bought my first overcoat with money earned in making pick- and axe-handles, and cart shafts, for use in the work of construction. I came here as
114 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
an infant, and the longest time I have spent away from home was when I put in twenty- eight days at the World's Fair at Chicago. I was always interested in fairs; I attended twenty-two out of twenty-four of the old Pro- vincials in the days when the fair was held alternately at London, Kingston, and other places."
Mr. Warniea's first wife was a niece of John Montgomery of Montgomery's Tavern and his second, a niece by marriage of Samuel Lount, one of the martyrs of 'Thirty-Seven. But Mr. Warnica himself was a mere child in the troubled times of the 'thirties and all he knew of the period before the rebellion was a mere matter of hearsay. He told of one incident, however, that throws some light on the con- ditions that helped to fan the flames of revolt.
"My uncle William," he said, "was one of the first advocates of free schools and he once broached the subject at a meeting at Barrie. 'What do you need such schools for?' stuttered one of the Family Compact champions. 'There will always be enough well educated Old Coun- trymen to transact all public business, and we can leave Canadians to clean up the bush.'
The sentiment thus expressed is not wholly dead yet, although it exists in a somewhat differ- ent form. There are still those who think they were made to ride while others were made to be ridden.
REMINISCENCES or A SUNNIDALE PIONEER
One of the most interesting and instructive accounts of pioneer life of Upper Canada dur-
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 115
ing the early part of the last century is contained in Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer, by Samuel Thompson. Thompson was a man of some education, having served a seven years' apprenticeship in London, England, at the print- ing trade. He was a writer of ability and no mean poet, and during his later years in Canada was an editor and publisher. He remained but a short time in the bush, but the account of his experiences throw much light on pioneer conditions.
A settler to reach Canada from the British Isles had in nearly every case trying exper- iences. Little thought was given to the com- fort of the emigrants by the transportation companies of those days, and the journey across the Atlantic was not the least of the trials the early settlers had to endure. Thompson's case was no exception. He and his two brothers, Thomas and Isaac, sailed from London in the spring of 1833 in the Asia of 500 tons, a large ship for those days. Buffeted by head winds, the Asia spent a fortnight in the English Chan- nel, but, a favourable breeze springing up, they made an excellent run until the banks of New- foundland was reached, when it seemed that their voyage was about ended. Here they en- countered a furious storm, against which the Asia could make no progrss. To make matters worse, the vessel sprang a leak, the ballast shifted, and, lying at an angle of fifteen degrees, she wallowed in the tumbling waves. Crew and passengers manned the pumps continuously, but still the water gained on them. The captain discovered that the leak was in such a position
that when running before the wind it would be out of water, and so to save his ship he turned about and made for the Irish coast and succeeded in reaching Galway Bay. Here the damage was repaired, and with the addition of some wild Irish, Roman Catholics and Orangemen, to her list of passengers the Asia once more headed Canadawards. On the passage the vessel was almost wrecked, when passing through a field of icebergs, "by the sudden break-down of a huge mass as big as a cathedral/'
When Quebec was reached, the passengers of the Asia were transferred to a fine steamer for Montreal. At Lachine, bateaux were provided to carry them up the St. Lawrence. While at Lachine they had a picturesque reminder of the vastness of the land in which they were about to make their homes.
" While loading up," says Thompson, "we were favoured with one of those accidental 'bits' —as a painter would say — which occur so rarely in a life-time. The then despot of the North- West, Sir George Simpson, was just starting for the seat of his government via the Ottawa River. With him were some half-dozen officers, civil and military, and the party was escorted by six or eight Nor '-West canoes — each thirty or forty feet long, manned by some twenty-four Indians, in the full glory of war-paint, feathers, and most dazzling costumes. To see these stately boats, with their no less stately crews, gliding with measured stroke, in gallant procession, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, was a sight never to be forgotten."
117
It is unnecessary to detail the Thompsons' westward voyage, similar to that of other set- tlers already described in this book. Sufficient to say that they reached Little York on the steamer Cnited Kingdom during the first week in September, 1833, four months after leaving London. "Muddy Little York," as it was not undeservedly called, had then a population of about 8,500. According to Thompson, "in addition to King street the principal thorough- fares were Lot, Hospital, and Newgate Streets, now more euphoniously styled Queen, Rich- mond, and Adelaide Streets respectively." Where the Prince George Hotel now stands was "a wheat-field." "So well," writes Thompson, "did the town merit its muddy soubriquet, that in crossing Church Street near St. James' church, boots were drawn off the feet by the tough clay soil; and to reach our tavern on Market Lane (now Colborne Street), we had to hop from stone to stone placed loosely along the roadside. There was rude flagged pavement here and there, but not a solitary planked foot- path throughout the town."
The Thompsons purchased a location ticket for twenty pounds sterling, and set out for the Lake Simcoe district "in an open wagon without springs, loaded with the bedding and cooking utensils of intending settlers." After a day's journey, they reached Holland Landing and from there crossed to Barrie in a small steamer. Barrie, at that time, consisted of "a log bakery, two log taverns, — one of them also a store, — and a farm-house, likewise log. Other farm-houses there were at some little distance hidden by
118 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
DEPARTURE OF SIMPSON
"To see these stately boats, on their way to the vasty wilderness of the Hudson's Bay territory, with the British flag displayed at each prow, w^s a sight never to be for- gotten. ' '
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 119
trees." So desolate was the prospect that some members of the party turned back, but the Thompsons pressed on "for the unknown forest, then reaching, unbroken, from Lake Simcoe to Lake Huron." To the Nottawasaga river, eleven miles, "a road had been chopped and logged sixty-six feet wide; beyond the river nothing but a bush path existed."
They toiled on until nightfall, covering a distance of eight miles and at a clearing in the forest came on a bush tavern, * l a log building of a single apartment." "The floor," writes Thompson, "was of loose split logs, hewn into some approach to evenness with an adze; the walls of logs entire, filled in the interstices with chips of pine, which, however, did not prevent an occasional glimpse of the objects visible out- side, and had the advantage, moreover, of ren- dering a window unnecessary; the hearth was the bare soil, the ceiling slabs of pine wood, the chimney a square hole in the roof; the fire was literally an entire tree, branches and all, cut into four-feet lengths, and heaped up to the height of as many feet." As the dancing flames lit up the apartment, they revealed "a log bedstead in the darkest corner, a small red-framed look- ing-glass, a clumsy comb suspended from a nail by a string, . . . stools of various sizes and heights, on three legs or on four, or mere pieces of log sawn short off. ' ' The tavern was kept by a Vermonter, named Dudley Root, and his wife, "a smart, plump, good-looking little Irish woman. ' ' The pair evidently knew how to cater for the occasional guests, as the breakfast pro- vided for the Thompsons proved, — "fine dry
J20 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
potatoes, roast wild pigeon, fried pork, cakes, butter, eggs, milk, 'China tea,' and chocolate— which last (declined by the Thompsons) was a brown-coloured extract of cherry-tree bark, sassafras root, and wild sarsaparilla. "
On through the forest they trudged looking about for a favourable location, and finally selected a hard- wood lot in the centre of the township of Sunnidale. Here, with the help of a hired, expert axe-man, they soon had half an acre cleared of its "splendid maples and beeches
A BUSH TAVERN
"As the dancing flames lit up the room, they revealed a log bedstead in the darkest corner, . . . stools or mere pieces of log sawn short off.' "
which it seemed almost a profanation to destroy." In quick order they erected a log shanty, twenty-five feet long and eighteen wide, "roofed with wooden troughs and 'chinked' with slats and moss .... At one end an open fire-placej at the other sumptuous beds laid on flatted logs, cushioned with soft hemlock twigs, redolent of turpentine and health."
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL
121
Thompson gives an interesting account of the method of clearing the land, and in this connec- tion points out that in the Sunnidale district some of the young women were almost as expert with the axe as the men. One of these, Mary — , " daughter of an emigrant from the county of Galway . . . became in time a 'firstrate' chopper, and would yield to none of the new settlers in the dexterity with which she would fell, brush, and cut up maple or beech." She and her elder sister, " neither of them older than eigh- teen, would start before day-break to the nearest store, seventeen miles off, and return the same evening laden each with a full sack flung across the shoulder, containing about a bushel and a half, or ninety pounds weight of potatoes." One of Mary's neighbours a young lad, Johnny, a son of one of the early Scotch settlers in the Newcastle district, who
was about her own age, was a famous axe-man. Mary was anxious to try her skill with the young Scot and got her brother, Patsy, who was Johnny's working-mate, to vacate his place for her. She proved herself quite as skillful as
MARY'S LAST TREE "She miscalculated her final cut and the side nearest to Mary springing suddenly out, struck" her a blow so severe as to destroy life instantaneous ly."
122
Johnny, and, it would seem, lost her heart to him. The sequel shows to what perils the women of Ontario were subjected in pioneer days. One day Mary was felling a huge yellow birch. As she neared the end of her work, her mind seemed to wander from her task and "she miscalculated her final cut and the birch, over- balancing, split upwards, and the side nearest to Mary, springing suddenly out, struck her a blow so severe as to destroy life instantaneously .... In a decent coffin, contrived after many unsuccessful attempts by Johnny and Patsy, the unfortunate girl was earned to her grave, in the same field which she had assisted to clear." Thompson adds: "Many years have rolled away since I stood by Mary's fresh-made grave, and it may be that Johnny has forgotten his first love; but I was told, that no other has yet taken the place of her, whom he once hoped to make his 'bonny bride/
The Thompsons had some heart-breaking experiences. "We had," writes Thompson, "with infinite labour managed to clear off a small patch of ground, which we sowed with spring wheat, and watched its growth with most intense anxiety until it attained a height of ten inches, and began to put forth tender ears .... But one day in August, occurred a hailstorm such as is seldom experienced in half a century. A perfect cataract of ice fell upon our hapless wheat crop. Flattened hailstones, measuring two and a half inches in diameter and seven and a half in circumference, covered the ground several inches deep. Every blade of wheat was
ON THE PKNETANG TRAIL 123
utterly destroyed, and with it all our hopes of plenty for that year.''
One of the worst pests the early settlers had to contend with was the wild pigeons, a bird that, so far as is known, is now extinct. These swept down on the land in myriads and grain and pea fields were stripped clean by them. In several other cases in this book these birds have been referred to, but Thompson's account of them is most interesting. There was a pigeon- roost a few miles distant from where he and his brothers had settled. To this roost at the proper season "men, women, and children went by the hundred, some with guns, but the majority with baskets, to pick up the countless birds that had been disabled by the fall of great branches broken off by the weight of their roosting com- rades overhead. The women skinned the birds, cut off the plump breasts, throwing the remain- der away, and packed them in barrels with salt, for keeping."
Thompson points out that these pigeons were an important factor in connection with the vegetation of these early days. He noticed that when land had been burnt over it was almost immediately followed by "a spontaneous growth, first of fireweed or wild lettuce, and secondly by a crop of young cherry trees, so thick as to choke one another. At other spots, where pine trees had stood for a century, the outcome of their destruction by fire was invariably a thick growth of raspberries, with poplars of the aspen variety." Thompson was not content with merely observing this seemingly miraculous growth of new vegetation, he investigated the
]24 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
matter. "I scooped up," he writes, "a panful of black soil from our clearing, washed it, and got a small tea-cupful of cherry stones, exactly similar to those growing in the forest." He naturally concluded that the pigeons were responsible for the strange growth of cherry and raspberry in the burnt lands.
Becoming dissatisfied with their Sunnidale lot, the Thompsons exchanged it for one in Nottaw- asaga in the settlement called the Scotch line, where dwelt Campbells, McGillivrays, McDiar- mids, etc., very few of whom were able to speak a word of English. Their life here was similar to that of other settlers whose stories have already been told. One incident is worthy of record as it shows the primitive condition of things in a community only thirty-four miles from Barrie. Flora McAlmon, the wife of Mal- colm McAlmon, the most popular woman in the Scotch line settlement, died in childbirth, largely due to the fact that no skilled physician or experienced midwife was at hand. Her brother came to the Thompsons to borrow pine boards to make a coffin. Excepting for some pine they had cut down and sawn up, "there was not," says Thompson, "a foot of sawn lumber in the settlement, and scarcely a hammer or a nail either, but what we possessed ourselves. So, being very sorry for their affliction, I told them they should have the coffin by next morning; and I set to work myself, made a tolerably hand- some bo% stained in black, of the right shape and dimensions, and gave it to them at the appointed hour." And in this rude coffin the weeping bearers bore the remains of fair Flora
ON THE PENETANG TRAIL 125
McAlmon " through tangled brushwood and round upturned roots and cradle-holes ... to the chosen grave in the wilderness where now, I hear, stands a small Presbyterian Church in the village of Duntroon."
On several occasions Samuel Thompson had walked to Toronto, a distance of ninety miles. In 1834, before leaving Sunnidale, he made his first trip, " equipped only with an umbrella and a blue bag, . . . containing some articles of clothing." The first part of his way was over a road strewn with logs over which he had to jump every few feet. Rain came on, and as night approached he found himself far from any human habitation. He returned to "a newly- chopped and partially-logged clearing" he had passed on the way. Here he found a small log hut in which the axe-men, who had been at work, had left some fire. He " collected the half -con- sumed brands from the still blazing log-heaps, to keep some warmth during the night, and then lay down on the round logs in the hope of wooing sleep."
"But," he adds, "this was not to be. At about nine o'clock there arose in the woods, first a sharp snapping bark, answered by a sin- gle yelp; then two or three at intervals. Again a silence, lasting perhaps five minutes. This kept on, the noise increasing in frequency, and coming nearer and again nearer, until it became impossible to mistake it for aught but the howl- ing of wolves. The clearing might be five or six acres. Scattered ovor it were partially or wholly burnt log-heaps. I knew that wolves would not be likely to venture among the fires,
126 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
and that I was practically safe I, however,
kept up my fire very assiduously, and the evil brutes continued their concert of fiendish dis- cords . . . for many, many long hours, until the glad beams of morning peeped through the trees; when the wolves ceased their serenade, and I fell fast asleep, with my damp umbrella for a pillow."
When he awoke, he continued his journey to Bradford, where he was hospitably entertained by Mr. Thomas Drury, and given a letter of introduction to a man of whom he "had occasion- ally heard in the bush, one William Lyon Mac- kenzie." The remainder of his journey was "accomplished by stage — an old-fashioned con- veyance enough, swung on leather straps, and subject to tremendous jerks from loose stones on the rough road, innocent of Macadam, and full of the deepest ruts."
When the Thompsons left London for Canada, they were sanguine "of returning in the course of six or seven years, with plenty of money to enrich," and perhaps bring back with them, their mother and unmarried sisters. In the meantime the sisters came to Canada and found life on the bush farm totally unsuited to their tastes. The brothers, too, were far from satis- fied. Their holding promised them only years of unremitting toil, with but a small return. They saw other opportunities and so disposed of their property, Thomas and Isaac moving with their sisters to a rented farm at Bradford and Samuel going to Toronto, where he was long to play an active part in the business and intel- lectual life of the community.
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET
WHEN YONGE STREET WAS AN INDIAN TRAIL
"When I first knew Toronto there were not more than two or three brick buildings between the market and Yonge Street. There was not a building of any kind on the west side of Yonge between Queen and Bloor. Yonge Street north of Toronto was not then the straight highway it is now, but twisted and turned in all direc- tions to avoid the hills. About Unionville the country was covered with magnificent pine. People wondered how they would ever get rid of it all, and trees, as straight as a ruler and as free from blemish as a race horse, were cut down and the logs burned in heaps. Ropes and harness were made from home-grown flax, and almost every home had its wheel and loom where clothing for the family was made. The first cooking stove seen in Markham, brought in by a Yankee peddler named Fish, did not have an oven attachment but only holes in which pots could be placed. Bread was baked in pans set in coals. A black-ash swamp near Unionville was full of wolves. In the evenings bears came into the oat fields, and, gathering the heads together in their fore paws, feasted in peace on the ripening grain."
All this was given from the personal recol- lections of Simon Miller, who was living in
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128 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
Unionville in 1898. Through his immediate ancestors Mr. Miller was connected with the very earliest stages in the history of what is now the metropolitan district of which Toronto is the centre. One of his most prized possessions was a document dated "Navy Hall, 29th of April, 1793," signed by J. G. Simcoe, the first governor of Upper Canada, and addressed to the officer commanding at Niagara. This docu- ment was a command to the officer in question "to permit Nicholas Miller, Asa Johnson, Jacob Phillips, Abraham and Isaac Devins, and Jacob Schooner" to bring in free of duty from the United States "such goods and effects as house- hold furniture, chairs, tables, chests of cloth- ing," etc. The Nicholas Miller mentioned in this document was the grandfather of Simon, and Isaac Devins was the grandfather of Simon's wife.
The original home of the Millers was lot thirty-four on the first of Markham, the Yonge Street farm later on occupied by David James. This and the old John Lyon farm were the first two for which patents were issued in Markham. The log cabin built on the Miller lot was prob- ably the first house erected in Markham, and the body of Grandfather Miller, who died in 1810, is believed to have been the first buried in the old cemetery at Richmond Hill.
Three of Simon Miller's uncles on his mother's side took part in the War of 1812-15. These were Kennedys, after whose family the old "Kennedy Road" was named. One lost a leg at Queens- ton while charging with Brock in an effort to recapture the gun taken earlier in the morning
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 129
by the Americans and then turned against the British. A Major, of the well known family of that name in Pickering, had a piece of flesh flicked from his leg by the same discharge. Mr. Miller's mother heard the explosion when the old fort at York was blown up as the Americans entered the town after capturing it, and Mr. Miller himself as a lad heard the boom of the first gun fired in the skirmish at Montgomery's Tavern in 'thirty-seven.
''After school had been hastily dismissed on the latter occasion and 1 was on my way home," said Mr. Miller, "I met a company of High- landers headed by skirling bagpipes coming out of Vaughan, on their way to join Mackenzie, but as the latter was already in retreat they were too late for the affair. For weeks afterwards loads of prisoners passed our door on Yonge Street on the way to Toronto to stand trial for high treason. Many of those in charge of the prisoners had themselves been implicated in the rising and took this means of turning aside sus- picion from themselves. The worst of the direct effects of the rebellion was not the tearing of men from their families. It was the feuds, lasting for years, which originated at that time. Years afterwards, 'you are a rebel' or 'the son of a rebel' was the signal for a fight. When men gathered at grist-mill or for the annual 'training day' the whiskey hardly started flowing before a fight commenced in some cor- ner, and in a short time the row became general.
"One of the worst consequences of the free- dom with which liquor was to be obtained at this period," continued Mr. Miller, "was seen
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in the case of the Indians. All the Indians of that day from the Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay country came to Toronto once a year to receive money and goods, which the Govern- ment gave them in return for the surrender of their lands. I have seen them coming down Yonge Street in twos and threes, magnificent specimens of manhood, their head-dresses decor- ated with eagle feathers, and carrying war spears in their hands. Too often they went back in a very different condition. The white man knew the Indian's fondness for whiskey, and whites waylaid these children of the forest and supplied them freely with firewater in exchange for the goods the Indians had received from the Government. Frequently, by the time the red men reached Thornhill on their way home, they had neither goods, blankets, nor money, and had to beg food for maintenance on the rest of the journey northward. Notwithstanding the man- ner in whicli they had been robbed, and the fact that they were armed, I never heard of a white man being killed by them. Eventually, however, the scandal became so great that the Govern- ment adopted the plan of carrying the annuities for the Indians to their reserves and paying them there.
"In 1822, and again in 1823, grandfather and father found it necessary to go to Philadelphia to look after some property interests that had not been disposed of when the family left Pennsylvania. Both journeys were made on horseback. Three years later a third journey was made to the Quaker city, but this time in comparative comfort. From Buffalo to New
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 131
York passage was taken by Erie Canal boats, and from New York to Philadelphia by ocean vessel. When I went to the States in 'forty- seven, I took boat from Toronto to Lewiston, from Lewiston to the Falls by horse-car with the horses driven tandem, and from the Falls to Buffalo by a train which ran on wooden rails covered with strips of iron."
Henry Home, for many years postmaster at Langstaff, in a pamphlet published in the last century, gave some particulars of the difficulties encountered in travel at a still later date than that mentioned by Mr. Miller. Mr. Home made a trip to Toronto in the fall of 'fifty-two by the section of the old Northern Railway then open. There were no passenger cars on the line. Pas- sengers had to stand up, and when the engine required water the train was held up while the crew dipped the necessary water from open ditches beside the track.
When the Millers and Devins first settled in Markham there was no grist-mill anywhere within reach and all the flour used in the neigh- bourhood was ground in a coffee-mill Grand- father Miller had brought with him from Phil- adelphia. At a later stage a man named Thorne established a hundred-barrel mill and general store at the place which bears his name. Big as his mill was, it was unable to cope with the trade that came to it. "I have seen," said Mr. Miller, "a procession of wagons loaded with wheat that kept the mill running until ten at night. Thome was a kind-hearted man, and many poor settlers in Ad jala and Tecumseh were indebted to him for the flour necessary to carry them through
132 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
until the following harvest. His end was an unhappy one, though. Embarrassed by unfor- tunate speculations in wheat he committed suicide.
Burials were simple affairs among the pion- eers. In one case the body of a man who had no relatives in the country, wras enclosed in a coffin made of slabs split from a basswood tree and buried on his own farm. In fact a number of the first settlers were interred on the lots taken up by them. When the lots afterwards changed hands the bodies were in some cases removed. In others, agreements were made for the main- tenance of the burial plots. But who is to enforce such agreements when even the descen- dants of the original owners of the property are far away? Inevitably the ground made sacred by the dust below will come under the plow, and some day, when a ditch is being dug or a foundation laid, men of a new generation will wonder what tragedy was hidden with the bones then brought to light."
THE QUEEN'S BUSH
When I was a boy "The Queen's Bush" was frequently mentioned in conversation in much the same way as "The Peace River Country" is now. The term was then applied to the Huron tract, a territory stretching from about Goderich to Georgian Bay, and in which set- tlements were just beginning to be formed. The territorial description was a moving one, however, and was applied generally to any lands which were still largely in possession of the
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 133
Crown; and, as lands passed from the Crown into the hands of settlers moving west, and still further west, the description moved with the tide of settlement.
The story that follows was told to me in 1906 by John Claughton, who remembered when the name of Queen's Bush covered territory as far east as the township of Uxbridge. The con- ditions under which I fell in with Mr. Claughton were in themselves a striking illustration of the marvellous change wrought in Ontario in the course of one lifetime. I was on my way from Barrie to Whitby, driving on that occasion, when night found me with a very tired horse, near Epsom, in the township of Beach. There was not a house of public accommodation within miles, and yet Mr. Claughton, who proved the Good Samaritan in a time of need, remembered when Epsom had two hotels; Prince Albert, three; and Utica and Manchester, two each — all the places named being within a few miles of each other.
"At that time," said Mr. Claughton, " farmers from Georgina, Brock, Uxbridge, and Scott all teamed their wheat to Whitby or Oshawa. When this traffiic was at its height there would be a string of teams stretching as far as the eye could reach and all moving south. It was almost impossible to drive north then because of the traffic moving in the opposite direction. That was when the old plank road extended from Manchester to Whitby. Much of the plank for that road was cut in the Paxton mill at Port Perry. There were five toll gates on the high- way, and the toll for the round trip was three
134 THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
York shillings.1 The wheat taken over it to Whitby was shipped to Oswego and thence to England. The wheat taken to Oshawa was ground in the Gibb's mill."
Mr. Claughton's memory, and what he had heard from his parents, covered a period ante- dating even the time of the old plank road. He told how the Paxton's, when they first settled near the site of the Dryden farm, had to drive thirty miles to Toronto for household supplies.
AWAITING THEIR TURN TO UNLOAD
"When this traffic was at its height there would be a string of teams stretching as far as the eye could reach and all moving south. ' '
"I can remember," he said, "when what was practically a solid bush extended all the way from Epsom to Port Perry. I have seen mast timber, seventy to eighty feet long, taken out of Reach, four or five teams being required for the hauling. I have seen the best hardwood
JA York shilling, equivalent to twelve and one half cents, was a common unit of calculation in early days.
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 135
sold in Whitby at a dollar a cord. I have seen ten acres covered by great bonfires in which the best of pine, elm, and maple were burning. When, after such prodigal waste, timber began to grow scarce in the neighbourhood, people went to 'The Queen's Bush' in Uxbridge town- ship and helped themselves, there being no one there to say them nay.
''One night, after having left Uxbridge at eight o'clock, I heard a pack of wolves howling in the Black River swamp. There were many wolves in the swamp on the thirteenth of Reach and sheep had to be penned up at night for pro- tection. A man named Shaw was on his way home carrying a heavy Bible he had borrowed from a neighbour when he met a bear. He drop- ped the Bible and ran, the sacred volume being recovered unharmed next day. One Sunday, when I was out walking near Epsom, three deer suddenly rose up in a small clearing almost in front of me.
"The first threshing-machine used in the neighbourhood was one of the old ' pepper-mills.' One man raked the straw as it came from the cylinder, a second raked it a little further, and a third pitched it to one side. If there were more than one day's threshing, the grain on the floor had to be cleaned up before threshing could go on."
" Where are the pioneers and their descen- dants'?" I asked.
The answer came in something like a wail: "Gone, gone — gone almost to the last man and the last woman. The bodies of the pioneers lie in neglected or forgotten cemeteries. Their
J36
descendants have been scattered as if by the four winds of heaven. In many cases even the names are forgotten. Of the families living between Whitby and Oshawa in the 'forties I do not believe one remains to-day. Between Man- chester and Whitby it is much the same. Only two or three remain between Epsom and Manchester."
Still, although so few of the children or grandchildren remain where their families first settled, there is occasional evidence of a tie yet connecting them with the place where the light of day was first seen. One such evidence I found near Gamebridge while on this same journey. There a school library had been provided by the late Andrew Gunn, one of the founders of Gunns Limited, in memory of boyhood days spent in the bush when his father settled on the east side of Lake Simcoe. At Utica, again, I had seen " Memory Hall," which had been erected by T. W. Home, one of the contractors for the building of the King Edward Hotel, Toronto, this being Mr. Home's contribution to the community life of the section his parents had helped to create.
A STURDY YOUNG TRAVELLER
This story has its beginning in Scotland; it touches North Carolina, and has its closing scenes in the township of Eldon. It begins with the eighteenth year of the past century, and almost the whole period is covered by a life that had not, when the story was told in 1910, run its course. Colin McFadyen, believed to be the
BY WAY OP YONGE STREET 137
oldest resident then in Eldon, at that time in his ninetieth year, but still bright of eye and with none of the ashen hue of age, gave the particulars.
Shortly after the end of the Napoleonic wars times were desperately hard in the old land and men began to turn their eyes in the direction of the New World, where people were fewer and opportunities greater. Among those who looked abroad were Mr. McFadyen's father and some of his friends. They finally determined to start for Wilmington, Delaware, where an acquain- tance was already engaged in the woollen industry.
"It was no palace steamer in which father and his friends arranged to make the journey/' said Mr. McPadyen. "It was an old sailing ship that had years before been condemned as unfit for the carrying of passengers. Our people did not know this at the time, and gladly paid the seven or eight pounds per head demanded for their passage to America. The vessel, although very old, was a fairly good sailer. Once during the voyage another craft was seen to be follow- ing. Fearing that she might be a pirate, the captain put on full sail and the possible enemy was left 'hull down/ The old vessel proved more seaworthy than was expected, as she was able shortly afterwards to ride in safety through a West Indian hurricane.
"At length Wilmington was reached, but the place did not suit the people, and they deter- mined to go on to North Carolina, and it was there that I was born. Eventually they tired of Carolina. Although my uncle held slaves, my
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father objected strongly to the system, and he objected also to taking the oath of allegiance to the United States, as he was being constantly urged to do. Attention was thus naturally directed towards Canada and one of the party was sent to spy out the land. The investigation proved satisfactory and, in 1828, a party consist- ing of my father (Archie McFadyen), Archie McMillan, Colin Campbell, and their families determined to set out for the north.
THE WHOLE DISTANCE BY WAGON
"The journey from Carolina to Hogg's Hollow, where we first located, occupied seven weeks, and on only two nights did we have the shelter of a roof. ' '
"It was a genuine trek. The whole distance was covered in wagons, the men and boys walk- ing alongside the rude vehicles. I walked every foot of the way myself, although then only nine years old. The journey from Carolina to Hogg's Hollow, where we first located, occupied seven weeks, and on only two nights did we have the shelter of a roof. One of these two nights we spent in a vacant house. Where did we
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 139
sleep the other nights? On the ground, with a blanket beneath and the blue sky above. If it looked like rain we crawled under the wagons, which were covered with canvas. One of my brothers was born on the way — that occurred in Virginia — but this was allowed to delay us for only one day.
"Yes, the road was none too smooth," Mr. McFadyen went on. "We climbed mountains, up the face of which the horses could barely haul their loads. In going down the other side the men had to apply brakes to prevent the wagons from running on top of the animals. We crossed rivers, sometimes over bridges, but fre- quently at fords. In many cases bridge tolls were levied not only on teams, but on pedes- trians as well. In order to reduce the charges we sent the wagons over the bridges, while the men and women in the party crossed on the backs of horses as these swam the streams.
"We crossed the Niagara River at Black Rock, the crossing being made in a ferry worked by horses with treadmill power. When we reached the Humber River, six miles out from Little York, as Toronto was then called, we found the bridge gone, and we had to wade the stream. While crossing the water came into the boxes of the wagons, and in going up the opposite bank it seemed at times as if the horses would fall back on top of the vehicles."
The party finally reached Hogg's Hollow and settled there for a year. Then they set out for their permanent home in the township of Eldon. This was the worst of the whole journey. Once, when they struck a cedar swamp, the wagons
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THE PIONEERS OF OLD ONTARIO
sank to the axles and a whole day was spent in going four miles. The horses were barely able to pull the wagons through the slime, and the men had to carry the luggage on their shoulders. The wagons could not be taken beyond Uxbridge, the rest of the way to lot seven on the first of Eldon being a blazed trail. All told, five days were spent in making a journey that an auto- mobile would cover now in less than two hours of a summer afternoon.
" There was not a tree cut on the place when we arrived," said Mr. McFadyen as he pro-
SAVING THE BRIDGE TOLL
Deeded to tell of conditions in the new home, "but in three days we had a cabin built. It was of course made of logs, with the spaces between the logs filled with moss and the roof made of split basswood. As we had no feed left we had to get rid of the horses, and father traded one for a steer and twelve bushels of wheat. He borrowed a yoke of oxen to bring the wheat home. This was ground into flour between two
BY WAY OF YONGE STREET 141
grindstones that were