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Title: Upper Canada Sketches
Author: Conant, Thomas
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Upper Canada Sketches" ***
[Illustration: MILL IN DEVON, ENG., IN 1897. USED AND OWNED BY ROGER
CONANT PREVIOUS TO SAILING TO AMERICA WITH THE PILGRIMS IN 1623.]
Upper Canada Sketches
BY
THOMAS CONANT
With Illustrations, Portraits and Map
TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
29-33 RICHMOND ST. WEST
1898
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight, by THOMAS CONANT, at
the Department of Agriculture.
To Thomas G. Milsted
_Of Chicago, Ill., U.S._
A LARGE-HEARTED, FAITHFUL FRIEND AND PLEASANT
COMPANION, UNDER EVEN THE MOST TRYING
CIRCUMSTANCES;
WHO SWAM IN THE DEAD SEA, ASCENDED THE NILE TO
THE MAHDI’S CONFINES, AND LIKEWISE WITH ME
KICKED PARIAH DOGS FROM OUR PATHS
IN CONSTANTINOPLE,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,
WITH FULL RELIANCE IN THE HOPE THAT EXPATRIATED
CANADIANS, WHO ARE SO VERY NUMEROUS IN THE
UNITED STATES, MAY ENJOY WITH HIMSELF
(LIKEWISE ONE OF THEM)
THESE RANDOM CANADIAN SKETCHES.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Prefatory Note vii
CHAPTER I.
Normandy--William the Conqueror--Origin of the name Conant--Devon,
England--Sir Walter Raleigh’s home--Richard the Mill-owner--Roger
the Pilgrim--The first Governor of Massachusetts--Salem,
Massachusetts--Mill-owners 9
CHAPTER II.
The American Revolution--Personal Rule of King George III.--Washington’s
politeness--Valley Forge--Washington’s prayer--Raw New England
levies--John Hancock--Other leaders and generals--Colonel
Butler--Murder, not war--Roger Conant removes to Canada--An old
deed--Governor Simcoe--York (Toronto) 21
CHAPTER III.
A home in the wilderness--Salmon fishing--An idyllic life--Logging--Fur
trade--Durham boats--Rapids of the St. Lawrence--Trading with the
Indians--The Hudson’s Bay Company--_Coureurs du bois_--Maple sugar
making--Friendly Indians 32
CHAPTER IV.
Waubakosh--Making potash--Prosperous settlers--Outbreak of war of
1812--Transporting military supplies--Moode Farewell’s hotel--“Here’s to
a long and moderate war”--A lieutenant’s misfortune--“Open in the King’s
name”--Humors of the time--Ingenious foragers--Hidden specie--Hardships
of the U. E. Loyalists 40
CHAPTER V.
Capture of York--Immigration increasing--David
Annis--Niagara--Prosperous lumber business--Ship-building--High freight
rates--Salmon spearing--Meteoric showers--An affrighted clergyman--Cold
winters--A tragedy of the clearings 51
CHAPTER VI.
Discontent in Upper Canada--Election riots--Shillelahs as
persuaders--William Lyon Mackenzie--Rioting in York--Rebellion--Patriots
and sympathizers--A relentless chase--Crossing Lake Ontario in
midwinter--A perilous passage--A sailor hero--A critical moment--Safe on
shore--“Rebellion Losses Bill”--Transported to Botany Bay--Murder of my
grandfather--Canadian legends--A mysterious guest 65
CHAPTER VII.
Religious movements--Itinerant preachers--$50 a
year--Camp-meetings--Weird scenes at night--Millerites--World
coming to an end--Dissenters attempt to fly--Affrighted by a
“sun-dog”--Destruction fails to materialize--The Mormons--An improvised
Gabriel--Raising the dead--Converts--Salt Lake--An Irish refugee and his
poem 89
CHAPTER VIII.
Canadian laws--Cases of justifiable homicide--Ineffectual attempt to
discipline a church member--Major Wilmot--Asa Wallbridge--“Uncle
Ned”--Cows and matrimony--A humorous dialogue--A witty retort--An
amusing duel 102
CHAPTER IX.
Paring bees--Mirth and jollity--Dancing and games--Playing
“forfeits”--Anti-Slavery Act--Canada’s proud distinction--Refugee
slaves--“Uncle Tom”--Old Jeff--Story of a slave 120
CHAPTER X.
Civil war in the United States--Large bounties paid Canadian
recruits--Prices of products go up--More than two million men under
arms--I make a trip to Washington--Visiting the military hospitals--I am
offered $800 to enlist--Brief interview with President Lincoln--A pass
secured--I visit the Army of the Potomac--90,000 men under
canvas--Washington threatened by the Confederates--Military
prison at Elmira, N.Y.--Cheap greenbacks--A chance to become a
multi-millionaire 137
CHAPTER XI.
The “_Trent_ affair”--Excitement in Canada--Bombastic
“fire-eaters”--Thriving banks--High rates of interest--Railway
building--The bonus system--A sequestered hamlet--A “psychologist” and
his entertainment--A mock duel--A tragic page of family history 153
CHAPTER XII.
Fenianism--A claimant for my father’s farm--A scare at Port
Oshawa--Guns, forks and clubs for fighting--Awkward squad--Guard catch
a young man out courting--The Fenian raid of 1866--A Catholic
priest taken prisoner--United States Government at last cries
“Stop!”--Adventure in high life--A youth runs away from home--Tragic
death of the mother of the runaway--Marries the serving-maid--Wedding
and funeral journey in one 171
CHAPTER XIII.
The French in Upper Canada--Sir Wilfrid Laurier--Voyageurs and their
songs--“A la Claire Fontaine”--Money-lenders--Educational
matters--Expatriated Canadians--Successful railway speculation--A shrewd
banker 181
CHAPTER XIV.
Poor-tax--Poor-houses undesirable--The tramp nuisance--A tramp’s
story--Mistaken charity--Office seekers--Election incidents 193
CHAPTER XV.
Upper Canada’s favored situation--Our Great Lakes--Cases of apparent
tides on Lake Ontario--Canadians as givers--Oshawa’s generous support to
churches and charities--Life insurance--Amusing incidents of a railway
journey--A “talking machine” 209
CHAPTER XVI.
Drinking habits in the early days--Distilleries and mills--Treating
prevalent--Drinking carousals--Delirium tremens--“One-Thousand-and-One”
Society--Two gallon limit--Bibulous landlords--Whiskey fights--Typical
Canadian pioneers--Clearing the farm--Sons and daughters
married--Peaceful old age--Asleep in death--Conclusion 228
ILLUSTRATIONS AND PORTRAITS.
PAGE
Roger Conant’s Mill, Devon, England _Frontispiece_
Thomas Conant 6
Mrs. Thomas Conant 7
Map of Upper Canada (Ontario) 9
Roger Conant’s house, Salem, Mass. 18
Roger Conant’s first settlement in Upper Canada 33
Typical Logging Scene 40
Durham boats ascending River St. Lawrence 48
David Annis 52
Indian trading scene 65
Maple sugar making 78
Indian wigwams of birch bark 84
Potash making--the “melting” 97
Hauling cannon in the war of 1812 104
Moode Farewell’s tavern 122
Daniel Conant’s lumber mill 135
Meteoric shower (1833) 144
Daniel Conant 152
Mary Eliza Conant 153
Loading lumber on schooners, Lake Ontario 160
Refugees escaping over the ice at Oswego, N.Y. (1837) 172
Crossing Lake Ontario in a canoe 186
Assassination of Thomas Conant (1838) 193
Camp-meeting scene 209
A Millerite’s attempt to fly 220
Mormon attempt to raise the dead 228
Awkward squad--Fenian raid, 1865 236
[Illustration: THOMAS CONANT.]
[Illustration: MRS. THOMAS CONANT.]
PREFATORY NOTE.
In presenting to the public these random sketches I crave the reader’s
indulgence. I do not pretend to elegance of style in my writing, and
if--as is doubtless the case--the canons of literary form are
occasionally offended against in these pages, I ask the kindly
consideration of the critics.
If asked my reasons for publishing the volume, I would state: First, the
many communications received by me from time to time, from various
sources, commenting favorably on my letters to the press, have given me
to believe that the Canadian public appreciate and value the relation of
old settlers’ stories and the legends and traditions of the past; again,
as a son of this noble Province, a descendant of one of its pioneer
families, having witnessed much of the marvellous development of the
country, I feel constrained to thus preserve records which I believe are
historically valuable. I have sought to present glimpses of the rude,
free life that obtained in the earlier years of settlement, while at
the same time depicting some phases of life in Canada as seen at the
present day. Though since Confederation (1867) our Province has been
known as Ontario, I have preferred to use the old name of Upper Canada,
which seems not improper in view of the fact that much of the matter
herein given relates to pre-Confederation times.
It has been my endeavor, in compiling these sketches, to avoid wounding
the feelings of others in my references to the living or their friends
who have passed away. If, unfortunately, I have done so, I ask the
pardon of such persons, and assure them that wherever I have used names
or made personal references, I have done so only where I considered it
necessary to render the events chronicled historically correct.
For the insertion of some family portraits it is unnecessary to ask the
reader’s indulgence, as they are portraits of those who have helped
materially in the upbuilding of the Province.
THOMAS CONANT.
OSHAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA,
September 28th, 1898.
[Illustration: MAP OF UPPER CANADA
1898]
UPPER CANADA SKETCHES.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
Normandy--William the Conqueror--Origin of the name Conant--Devon,
England--Sir Walter Raleigh’s home--Richard the Mill-owner--Roger
the Pilgrim--The first Governor of Massachusetts--Salem,
Massachusetts--Mill-owners.
Though of the past from no carved shrines,
Canvas or deathless lyres we learn,
Yet arbored streams and shadowy pines
Are hung with legends wild and stern;
In deep dark glen, on mountain side,
Are graves whence stately pines have sprung,
Naught telling how our fathers died
Save faint Tradition’s faltering tongue.
--_Adapted._
There is no reason to doubt that the progenitor of the Conant family in
England and America came originally from Normandy, in 1066, as one of
the followers of William the Conqueror. Frederick Odell Conant, of
Portland, Maine, whose exhaustive work, “History and Genealogy of the
Conant Family,” entitles him to be quoted as an authority, has arrived
at this conclusion.
Edward Nathaniel Conant, of Oakham, Rutland County, England, a member of
the English branch, told the author, when visiting Lyndon Hall, in 1894,
that he had seen the name Conan--from which Conant has been evolved--on
a castle archway in Normandy. In 1896 the author met a Frenchman of the
same name in Melbourne, Australia, who was, no doubt, a descendant of
the branch of the family that remained in Normandy when the others came
over with William to the conquest of England. There are several
derivations given of the name Conant, many of which would establish it
as of Celtic origin; and though a Conant came over to England with
William, it would appear his ancestors had come originally from Cornwall
and Devon to Brittany. The meaning of the name is almost as variously
given as its origin, but it appears that the conclusion arrived at by
the family historian and genealogist is that it is equivalent to the
word in the Welsh, Irish, Saxon, Dutch, German and Swedish tongue, and
also the Oriental, signifying chief or leader.
Although the Conants probably returned to Normandy during the reigns of
William and his sons, they finally settled at East Budleigh, in
Devonshire. It is unnecessary here to trace the succeeding generations
of the family, as we have to do only with the immediate connections of
Roger Conant, known as the Pilgrim, who emigrated to the English
Colonies in America in 1623, and from whom all the Conants in the United
States and Canada are descended.
The picture which forms the frontispiece to this volume is a faithful
one of the mill yet standing on the Conant lands at East Budleigh. This
mill was owned and occupied by Richard Conant, father of Roger the
Pilgrim. It will be observed that the part of the stone building at the
end farthest from the water-wheel is now used as a residence. Whether it
was so occupied by Richard Conant the author has been unable to
ascertain. There are indications that a residence had been located back
from the mill and on rising ground farther from the road. The mill is a
long stone structure. In front of the part used as a dwelling is a yard,
and at one side farm buildings. Mr. Green, the present Rector of East
Budleigh, assured the author that there is no doubt of its being the
identical building and mill occupied and used by Richard Conant. The
family records (parish register) are in Mr. Green’s care. There are
entries of the birth of John Conant in 1520 and of his son Richard, born
in Devon in 1548. These are on parchment, the latter yellow, covered
with leather, wood-bound and worm-eaten.
Back of the house and mill a small spring creek runs. It has been turned
from its bed by the rising ground, so that no artificial dam is needed,
and to-day, as in 1560, it runs over the wheel and pours from the flume.
In volume it is four inches deep and twenty wide, and is about six feet
above the wheel. The latter, of course, has been renewed, being an
overshoot about fourteen feet in diameter, but its foundations are now
just as Richard Conant originally laid them. The lands owned by Richard
Conant probably amounted to about two hundred acres. The glebe land,
extending nearly to the mill, which is about five hundred yards from the
church, and the Conant lands extending to the farm of Sir Walter
Raleigh, we may conclude to be the probable extent of the property.
Roger’s father, Richard, inherited the mill from his father. He
graduated at Emanuel College, and was also Rector of East Budleigh. The
book of his charities accounts is still extant. On the fly-leaf are the
words, “This book was bought in 1600, to mark the amounts of charities,”
etc. It is in Richard’s handwriting. Every few pages are signed by him,
and the entries are neatly made, not a blot, erasure or scratch upon the
well inscribed pages. The amounts vary from one penny to sixpence. All
this is evidence of the careful upbringing and piety practised in the
home of Roger Conant, the man destined later to exert so beneficent an
influence for the well-being of the Massachusetts Colony in America.
Ascending for three-quarters of a mile the little burn whose waters
turned Richard’s mill-wheel, one finds it running by the door of the
Raleigh homestead, Hays Barton House.
His living near the man who drew so much attention to the New World
would suggest that Roger Conant’s ambitions to seek a new home in the
wilds had been fired by the tales told by the adventurous knight; and
hearing of its wonders and possibilities possibly made the lad restless,
and later on willing to sail away to America.
The Raleigh pew in East Budleigh church is at a right-angle from the
Conant pew, and not ten feet away. They both face the pulpit, and as
these were possessions as hereditary as their lands and homes, there is
nothing improbable in the idea that the families were well known to each
other.
On the Raleigh pew-ends are carved the armorial bearings of the family,
the lower part cut off. This was done when Sir Walter was attainted for
treason, and may be a curious instance of the penalties exacted from the
families whose head suffered such attainder at the hands of the
sovereign. On the Conant pew is the head of a North American Indian. It
is well done. The Indian features, high cheek-bones and large nose, are
faithfully depicted. On the other pews are negroes, ships’ paddles,
tropical trees and foliage. Sir Walter’s father was Rector of East
Budleigh when Richard Conant ran his little grist-mill and attended the
church.
Roger could not, in the natural order of succession, inherit the mill
from his father, so he went early to London. No doubt the seeds sown by
the study, as a child, of the quaint carvings in his parish church had
an influence in directing his manhood’s steps.
The church is a small stone leaded roofed building. It is dedicated to
All Saints, and was consecrated by Bishop Lacy about A.D. 1430. It
consists of a nave and chancels, and north and south aisles. It is
eighty feet long and forty-eight and a half feet wide. The tower, which
contains five bells, is seventy-two feet high. It is a Norman
embattlemented tower with a chimney-shaped buttress. (_Vide_ “History
and Genealogy of the Conant Family.”) About the church is the graveyard,
walled in and the earth dug away, leaving the church and graveyard
isolated, and above the level of the surrounding roads and lands.
Although the Conants are buried here, no stone or monument has been
found to mark the spot where they lie. The Rector told the author that
all the Conants had moved away, leaving none to care for the graves of
their ancestors. This was probably the cause of the absence of any
information by which the place of burial could be ascertained.
A brother of Roger’s--John, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford--was
made a full Fellow, 10th July, 1612; B.D., 2 Dec., 1619, or 28 June,
1620. He resigned his fellowship, and was instituted Rector of
Lymington, a country parish near Ilchester, Somersetshire, on the
presentation of Sir Henry Rosewell, and on the 20th of January, 1620,
compounded for the firstfruits of the living--the sureties of his bond
being his brothers Christopher and Roger. The name of Rosewell or
Rowswell, is well known to students of the history of Massachusetts. Sir
Henry’s name stands first among the grantees in the Patent from the
Council of Plymouth--a fact which bears some significance to the
emigration of Roger and Christopher to the New World, and also indicates
that Conant had already espoused the cause of the Puritans.
The above is taken from the “History and Genealogy of the Conant
Family,” and is necessary to connect Roger’s early life with the period
of his emigration to the New World.
Roger was baptized at All Saints’ Church, East Budleigh, on the 9th
April, 1592. He was the youngest of eight children. His after life
showed that the integrity and piety which characterized his parents and
elder brothers had been instilled into his mind in childhood. Like his
brothers, he evidently received as good an education as the times would
afford. He was employed to lay out boundaries, survey lands and transact
other public business. The records of the Salters’ Company, to which he
belonged, have been burned, so that no more authentic proof of his
having been a freedman of the company can be adduced than the
presumptive evidence given by the fact of his signing his brother John’s
bonds as “Salter of London.” He married in London in November, 1618, and
emigrated with the Pilgrims to New England in 1623.
Members of the Drysalters’ Guild of London (the ninth of the twelve
great livery companies, and chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1558) have
certain privileges and perquisites. To illustrate this more fully, the
author during a visit to London, at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee,
1887, learned upon enquiry that by the laws of primogeniture (only
abolished in Upper Canada in 1841) the direct descendant of Roger Conant
was entitled to two meals a day and a bed to sleep on. The perquisite is
not retroactive and an application for any commutation could not be
regarded, but he was told that the two meals a day and a bed would be
given to the direct heir of Roger Conant, the Drysalter, whenever he
chose to claim them.
It is not certain what was the name of the vessel in which Roger Conant
sailed, but from the fact that his brother Christopher was a passenger
in the _Ann_, which arrived at Plymouth about 1623, it may be inferred
that Roger accompanied him. In a petition to the general court, dated
May 28th, 1671, he states that he had been “a planter in New England
forty-eight years and upwards.” This would fix the date of his arrival
early in 1623. Roger did not remain long in Plymouth. There were
differences between him and the Pilgrim Fathers, he being a Puritan and
they Separatists, and although these differences were not sufficiently
marked to subject him to the treatment meted out to Allan and John
Lyford, he left Plymouth for Nantucket, where they had settled soon
after their expulsion from the former place. While here he appears to
have made use of the island in Boston harbor, now called Governor’s
Island, but then and for some time afterward known as Conant’s Island.
The Dorchester Company was formed in 1622-3, and in 1624-5 Roger
Conant’s reputation as “a pious, sober and prudent gentleman” reaching
its associates, they chose him to manage or govern their affairs at
Cape Ann. While here a proof of the truth of the report was given them
in the magnanimity and justness, as well as prudence, exercised by him
in settling a dispute over the possession of a fishing stage between
Miles Standish, “the captain of Plymouth,” and a captain Hewet, who had
been sent out by the opposite party. This scene has been made the
subject of a window in the Conant Memorial Congregational Church,
recently erected at Dudley, Mass., by Hezekiah Conant.
Cape Ann was not a suitable place for settlement; the land was poor and
the merchandise brought from England unproductive of lucrative returns.
Roger selected a site “on the other side of a creek called Naumkeag (now
Salem),” and shortly after removed there.
During his stay at Cape Ann Roger occupied the great frame house which
had been built by the old planters in 1624. The frames, it is said, and
probably with truth, were brought from England. The timbers are oak, yet
sound, and in existence still as a part of a stable. The house, as given
in the accompanying illustration, is taken from a drawing made in 1775.
It is similar to many of the old houses of the same date, and still the
most picturesque features of the villages in Surrey and Devon.
This house was occupied by Endicott when
[Illustration: ROGER CONANT’S HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., 1628, FIRST GOVERNOR
OF MASS. BAY COLONY.]
appointed Governor, it being taken down and removed to Salem. The exact
site of Roger’s house, the first built in Salem, cannot be ascertained.
Subsequent records go to show that the stability, the permanency and
good government of the colony were largely dependent upon the influence
of Conant, although after the appointment of Endicott as Governor, under
the new patent, he was no longer the head. During the rivalry between
the members of the old and the new company his self-denial and upright
character won him friends on both sides and secured that harmony which
resulted in the public good; he “quietly composed that the _meum_ and
_tuum_ which divide the world should not disturb the peace of good
Christians.”
There has been some controversy among the antiquarians on Roger Conant’s
claim to the title of first Governor of Massachusetts. He is, however,
entitled to the honor, for the colony of which he was the recognized
head for three years was the first permanent settlement in the
territory, and from it the other colonies sprung. There are many
documents extant, besides entries in the records of the Governor and
Company of Massachusetts Bay, which go to prove how frequently Roger
Conant was called upon to fill offices and do his share in the numerous
works inseparable from the building up of a country, the knowledge and
experience as well as the influence of the “prudent Christian gentleman”
being invaluable to his fellow-townsmen and settlers.
In 1668 that part of Salem known as Bass River, on the Cape Ann side,
was incorporated under the name of Beverley, and one of the most
interesting incidents of his long and active life is Roger Conant’s
effort to change this name for that of Budleigh. The original petition,
which however was not granted, is among the Massachusetts archives. It
is interesting as showing how the memory of his birth-place still
remained fresh in his affections. He died November 19th, 1678, in the
eighty-eighth year of his age. From this date until that of the
Revolution the succeeding generations of Conants have left individual
records of worth, as landed proprietors in the State of Massachusetts;
but it is unnecessary here to enter into their history. Several of them
were graduates of Harvard University, and many of them mill-owners, thus
carrying on the calling and talents of their ancestor, as we shall see,
to the seventh, eighth and ninth generation; Hezekiah Conant, of
Pawtucket, being a large owner of the great thread works of J. P.
Coates, employing five thousand hands; and Daniel Conant, the author’s
father, also a mill-owner in Upper Canada, a property which contributed
largely to his success.
CHAPTER II.
The American Revolution--Personal rule of King George
III.--Washington’s politeness--Valley Forge--Washington’s
prayer--Raw New England levies--John Hancock--Other leaders and
generals--Colonel Butler--Murder, not war--Roger Conant removes to
Canada--An old deed--Governor Simcoe--York (Toronto).
“There are moments, bright moments, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves;
When the folds of the heart in a moment unclose,
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of the rose;
And thus when the rainbow had passed from the sky,
The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by;
It left my full soul like the wings of a dove,
All flutt’ring with pleasure, and flutt’ring with love.”
Upon the outbreak of the American Revolution there were three brothers,
Conants, of the sixth generation from Roger the Pilgrim, in
Massachusetts. Two of these took sides at once with the patriots and
joined Washington’s army when that General came from Virginia and took
command at Cambridge. One of them, Daniel Conant, was wounded at
Lexington, April 19th, 1775.
The third, Roger, and the author’s immediate ancestor, believed that the
wrongs of the colonists would be righted in time by petition, and while
expressing his sense of these wrongs, refused to join the patriot army.
Copy of statement in “Conant Genealogy,” page 252: “The name of Roger
Conant of Ealton appears on the muster-roll of Capt. Abiah Mitchell’s
Company, which was down at the Alarm” (“Mass. Arch. Lexington Alarm
Lists,” Vol. XIII., p. 16) and Roger Conant served one month and twelve
days as corporal in Scott’s Company of Ashley’s Regiment, “which marched
from Westmoreland, Chesterfield and Hinsdale to Ticonderoga on the alarm
of May 8th, 1777” (N. H. State Papers, Vol. XV., p. 6). To-day, however,
we all rejoice at the success of the colonies, and that the personal
rule of King George III. was terminated.
The brothers met frequently and talked over current events. Among the
reminiscences of these conversations the following anecdotes have been
handed down from father to son, and although they have no direct
relation with Upper Canada, they may be worth repeating, as showing a
little of the personal character of some of the actors in the life of
that time.
Washington, when at Cambridge, was riding one day to a distant part of
the field, attended by several of his aides and gentlemen of the New
England Colonies. On the way he met a mounted negro, who took off his
hat and bowed very profoundly, showing his teeth and the whites of his
eyes as he smiled and exclaimed, “How are you, General, how are you?”
General Washington quickly lifted his hat, and though not halting his
horse, replied courteously to the salutation.
One of the New England gentlemen who accompanied him remarked to
Washington, “I wonder you take the trouble to salute that negro!”
Washington replied, “It would, indeed, be a hard matter if I had not as
good manners as a negro.”
The fortunes of war in 1777-80 brought the struggle to Valley Forge,
just north of Philadelphia. Here the patriot army wintered in log cabins
in the forest. Daniel Conant returned to his place in the ranks, and
during the long winter met most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
Among these was a fatherly Tory Quaker who one day met Washington on
foot, walking within the lines, looking sad and dejected. “The British
will hang thee, George,” said the Quaker. In a twinkling the great man
revived, pulled down the collar of his coat, and saying, “This neck
never was made for a halter,” walked briskly away.
A few days after the Quaker was walking alone in the forest. While
making his way he heard a voice being lifted up in prayer. Pushing the
bushes aside in the direction of the sound, he saw Washington,
bare-headed and kneeling in the snow, with upturned face and closed
eyes, asking the God of battles to preserve his little army and himself,
and to favor the right.
Reverently the Quaker waited until the General had ended his prayer,
then he stepped to his side as he rose, and said, “George, thee will
succeed and conquer the British.”
As to the character of Washington, there never were two opinions; he
seemed always to tower above all and every one. At first when he came to
New England, they said, he was disposed to find fault and look with
doubt upon the New England levies. Time, however, corrected that, and
not a few of the Revolutionary generals and leaders among them became
known as genuine men.
John Hancock the Conant brothers did not care for, saying that he went
into the war mainly to avoid the heavy suits then pending against him
for customs dues. Among the leading civilians they admired and revered
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, although they did say of Adams that he
was always finding fault with the British Government, and that he was
offered lucrative offices in order to keep him quiet; but he was not to
be held.
General Knox, who was a Boston bookseller, they always spoke well of.
Greene and Schuyler they thought were men who possessed real military
ability and were high-minded gentlemen. Ethan Allen and General Putnam
they thought brave men, but not in possession of military abilities.
Roger Conant said of Sir William Johnson, that “he was the cleverest man
he had ever met. He could manage both Indians and white men.” He had met
Brant also, and always spoke of him as “one of nature’s noblemen with a
tawny skin.”
Colonel Butler, of Butler’s Rangers, and his acts were most frequently
recalled; words failed to express the abhorrence of this marauder and
his acts. Roger Conant had tarried in New York State when on his way to
Canada, and knew something of the horrors of the civil war. He had met
Butler and readily listened to tales told him in later years by a man
who had been one of Butler’s Rangers. This man lived with Roger Conant
as his hired servant. He told him that he and others, with Butler in
command, had many times entered defenceless houses and murdered at the
first instance the man and wife. Next the children were brought before
the great gaping open wood fireplaces of those days and bayoneted, the
bayonet passing quite through their little bodies, and were held over
the flames that the soldiers might “watch them squirm,” as he expressed
it. The man would also frequently call out in his troubled dreams when
asleep, such words as, “There they are! Don’t you see them squirm?
Bayonet that big boy!” acting over again the murderous scenes. These
stories were told the author by his ancestors many times as no fanciful
picture.
On another occasion Butler captured a small garrison of Continentals in
New York State, who marched out and surrendered their arms. One among
them, a former neighbor of Butler’s, came to the gate and bade the major
“Good day.” During the early period of the war this man had been
enrolled among King George’s levies, but had never served. “Stand out by
that tree,” said Butler, and the man obeyed. On the last man emerging
from the garrison and surrendering his arms, Butler ordered half a dozen
of his Rangers to “Right about face--present arms--fire!” and his
neighbor never breathed again.
During the early months of the war and its continuance the brothers
Conant met of an evening behind blinded windows and closed doors. On
canvassing matters thoroughly they came to the conclusion that the
colonies would never succeed, and that Great Britain would in the end
wreak terrible vengeance on those in rebellion. Britain’s name carried
with it a sense of power and unlimited resources, and Roger Conant could
not make himself believe that she would ever let the colonies go. As
time went on, too, his position in Massachusetts became a difficult one,
so he resolved to leave all and flee to Canada.
He had been educated for the law, and had attended Harvard University.
He owned several thousands of acres of land, both in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire. Money was a scarce commodity then, as every one knows who
has read attentively the history of that struggle, and for his large
property Roger Conant could only get together $5,000. This, with the aid
of his brothers, he obtained in gold, and in 1777 he set out from the
vicinity of Boston with his family. Their conveyance was a covered
waggon drawn by two horses, and following was an ox-team drawing a cart
laden with household goods and farm implements. His first stop was about
the Hudson River. When there the commandant of that point asked him to
look for a deserter from the American army. A photographic reproduction
of the captain’s order is herewith given. Strange to say, it is not
dated; but it was given in the year 1777.
From the records extant Roger appears to have made some stay here--some
authorities say on land of his own, which he sold later. A quit-claim
deed is reproduced in fac-simile (page 29), conveying a valuable island
on the New England coast. Reserving
[Illustration: REWARD FOR A DESERTER, 1776, AT WEST POINT.]
[Illustration: DEED OF ISLAND IN BOSTON HARBOR.]
wood in a deed is peculiar, and it is set forth in a singular way. The
Charles Annis mentioned in this deed was a relative of Roger Conant’s,
and came to Canada from Massachusetts soon after him. From him most of
the Annises in Canada are descended.
Leaving his family at Geneva, New York State, Roger Conant came on to
Canada, arriving at the locality afterward called Darlington, County
Durham, Ontario, in October, 1778. The first Crown grant of land to
Roger Conant was made December 31st, 1778. It consisted of lots 28, 29,
30 and 31, in the Broken Front, Darlington; also south halves of lots
28, 29, 30 and 31, 1st concession Darlington, County Durham--in all
about 1,200 acres. After building a house on his land, and probably
clearing some portion of it, he returned to Geneva.
What he did between this date and 1794, when he brought his family to
Canada, is not known. It is said that during these intermediate years he
went to and from Massachusetts several times, in order to collect the
proceeds of the sale of his property there. It was during these years
that, it is said, he lived among Butler’s Rangers, and from their deeds
of violence learned to execrate their memory.
In 1794 he set out again, stopping at Genesee Falls, where Rochester,
N.Y., now is. Once the author asked why they did not remain there, and
was told that “it was only a black ash swamp, and they did not want
it.”
Governor Simcoe’s proclamation, offering grants of land in Upper Canada
to those who would come and occupy them, hurried Roger Conant’s journey.
Arriving at the mouth of the Niagara River, and hiring a flat scow in
which to ferry himself, his family and effects over, he landed at
Newark, then the capital of Upper Canada. While there he met Governor
Simcoe, who tried to induce him to go up Yonge Street to lands on Lake
Simcoe; but not relishing the idea of leaving the shores of Lake Ontario
for the wilderness, he refused. The Governor then asked him if he would
fight against Canada if trouble came. Roger’s reply was, “No, sir, I
will fight for the country which protects me.” And, as we shall
presently see, he made good his promise by aiding the British cause in
the subsequent war of 1812.
Following the lake shore, camping at night, and fording the streams
where they debouch, they at last reached the site of York, then a
cluster of Indian wigwams with a few houses in process of erection. The
river Don being too deep to ford, they hired Indians to convey them over
in their canoes. The waggons were taken apart and so ferried across,
when they were put together again, and the emigrants proceeded along the
broken shores of the lake.
CHAPTER III.
A home in the wilderness--Salmon fishing--An idyllic
life--Logging--Fur trade--Durham boats--Rapids of the St.
Lawrence--Trading with the Indians--The Hudson’s Bay
Company--_Coureurs du bois_--Maple sugar making--Friendly Indians.
“Our young, wild land, the free, the proud!
Uncrush’d by power, unawed by fear,
Her knee to none but God is bow’d,
For nature teaches freedom here;
From gloom and sorrow, to light and flowers
Expands this heritage of ours:
Life, with its myriad hopes, pursuits,
Spreads sails, rears roofs, and gathers fruits.
But pass two fleeting centuries back,
This land, a torpid giant, slept,
Wrapp’d in a mantle, thick and black,
That o’er its mighty frame had crept,
Since stars and angels sang, as earth
Shot from its Maker into birth.”
Golden autumn days were those when the emigrants’ long journey was
nearing its end. Provision must first be made for the cattle and horses.
October was upon them and winter near.
[Illustration: ROGER CONANT’S FIRST SETTLEMENT IN DARLINGTON, CO.
DURHAM, UPPER CANADA, 1778.]
At Arnall’s Creek--then known as Barber’s Creek--they found a flat of
marsh-grass quite free from the forest trees which then were universal
above the water’s edge of Lake Ontario.
Here they pitched their tents, the creek and lake forming two sides of a
triangle for defence from wolves, leaving one side only to be protected.
Salmon would run in November, and the winter’s supply of fish could be
secured from the creek, and the marsh-grass gathered for the stock from
the flat at its mouth.
The illustration opposite is of the first house built by Roger Conant in
Upper Canada. The foundation of it yet remains close by the waters of
Lake Ontario. The man in the foreground of the picture is pounding or
crushing grain with a burnt-out stump as a mortar, using as a pestle a
billet of wood which is attached to a spring pole, thus raising it
easily. There was no mill nearer than Kingston where the corn could be
ground. At Port Hope (then called Smith’s Creek), in 1806, Elias Smith
erected a grist-mill. Previous to that date the settlers took their
grist by boat to Kingston, at the foot of Lake Ontario, 110 miles
distant. The journey occupied several days, necessitating their camping
on the shores at night.
At the home by the broad waters of Lake Ontario the settlers led a
truly idyllic life. The unerring rifle supplied them with meat, the
waters with fish, and the distant mill with flour until a crop could be
grown from the cleared land next season. They spent the days “logging”
(felling the trees) and the nights burning. The bright flames among the
trees and against the dark background of the dense forest made a
picturesque scene. A singular fact about “logging” is that the log-heaps
burn better at night than by day; therefore the logging was done in the
day-time and the burning by night. (See illustration, page 40.) But to
make money in this new country, where there were no neighbors nor any
travellers to buy, nor any money to buy with, was a more difficult feat
than making a home.
Furs and furs only would bring money. Possessing some capital (about
$5,000, as already stated), Roger Conant made his way to Montreal by
canoe, and there about 1799 had Durham boats built--broad-beamed open
flat boats, strongly built for rowing and towing. These he filled with
blankets, traps, knives, guns, flints, ammunition, beads and tomahawks,
bought in the Montreal stores, to trade with the Indians for furs.
On page 48 is an illustration of three Durham boats ascending the rapids
of the great St. Lawrence River, each towed by three men. They were
launched above the greater rapids near Montreal, and hugged the shores
while passing the others. An axe was always ready to the hand of the man
who sat in the boat and steered, for should the rapid be too strong and
get the mastery of the three men who were towing from the shore, the
rope was quickly cut, and the Durham, freed, shot like a catapult down
stream, until it was lodged in the first cul-de-sac below. It was
manifestly a most tediously slow and weary mode of progress. There were
no canals built then as now, to form an easy highway past the rapids.
Once attaining Lake Ontario they paddled and rowed, still keeping close
along shore and camping at some convenient landing-place at night.
In the illustration on page 65 we have a fair representation of an
Indian trading scene. The goods brought from Montreal in the Durham
boats have been carried back to a spot a few miles from the lake shore,
in charge of the trader and his assistants. Three guns were fired in
quick succession upon reaching camp the previous night, as a signal for
all Indians within hearing to come with their furs to trade on the
morrow. A beaver skin is lying upon the ground, an Indian is negotiating
for a blanket, while another is looking at a gun, and others are coming
in with their furs on their backs.
A few days’ trading exhausts the goods brought by the trader. He
returns home with the furs received in exchange, deposits them,
replenishes his pack, and sets out on other trips in different
directions, until all the goods are exchanged, and the following summer
the furs are taken to Montreal in the same Durham boats, where gold and
silver, as well as a further supply of goods, are obtained for them.
There is no record of Roger Conant having shipped his furs direct to
London, England. As good prices were paid for furs in Montreal, it is
most probable he disposed of them there. Year after year the trade was
continued without interruption. It brought wealth to the author’s
grandsire, honestly and fairly obtained.
The great Hudson’s Bay Company maintained a regular chain of trading
stations upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, as they did in the far
west and the Arctic north. The trading stations on Lake Ontario being
near to Quebec and Montreal, and close together, were easily supplied
with trading goods.
At the period of which we are now writing, when my forefather became an
opponent to the great Hudson’s Bay Company in the fur trade (1798), that
Company had a trading station very near his home--only some three miles
to the west, and on what is now known as Bluff Point, a promontory two
miles east of Port Oshawa. This trading station was not fortified, but
consisted of a well-built, commodious log-house, with flat roof, and the
corners of the house squared and neatly joined. Standing upon the
promontory, it was easily accessible to the boats passing up or down the
lake. In the spring the boats would come up from Montreal, generally
gaily painted, and rowed quite close to shore, with song and laughter.
After making the round of the trading stations of Lake Ontario, they
came back in the same manner in the fall, laden with furs and
Montreal-ward bound. “Here come the Hudson Bay boats!” was the word on
the day of their arrival. During their first years in the wilderness the
visit of these boats was an event in the lives of the settlers.
Halcyon days were these for the _coureurs du bois_ (as the Frenchmen
were called who manned these boats), who were often traders themselves.
However, the influx of settlers and fur traders, such as my forefathers
were, presented such a strong opposition to the Company, that it
gradually gave up Upper Canada as an exploiting ground, and maintained
its hold of regions more inaccessible. A princely heritage, forsooth!
All of fertile Upper Canada to roam over--mastery of the Indians--and a
steady stream of gold coming in from the trade in furs.
This Hudson’s Bay Company is one of the marvels of the world. Its
charter was granted by Charles II. in 1670 to some favorites, and from
this inception it rapidly went on to growth and prosperity, acquiring
almost despotic rule over its territories. Its servants never have
plundered it. Its factors, having charge over stores and furs of immense
values, away off from white men or the eyes of any who could take an
interest in watching them, have always been faithful to their trust.
There is no record extant of a dishonest factor. No government, priest
or king ever had servants more faithful than have been the directors of
this Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company of Fur Traders for the two hundred
and twenty-eight years of its existence.
Sugar-making was another pursuit which, if it did not add great wealth
to the settler’s pocket, at any rate increased his home comforts. The
illustration on page 78 is a good representation of a sugar-making camp
in the bush. The troughs at the foot of the trees receive the sap, which
drips from a transverse slit in the bark, made by two blows of a
hatchet, at some few feet above the ground. This trough was then no more
than a hollowed-out half log, the ends left closed. The sap runs best
during the day, as the warmth of the sun draws it up to the branches. It
is carried in pails to the great caldrons, set over the fire on a cross
limb, and poured into the one on the right side. When it has boiled, it
is then transferred in rude ladles to the caldron on the left, where it
is further reduced by boiling, and becomes sugared sufficiently to
ensure its hardening when poured into the pans and other receptacles.
When hard, these are turned out and set upon cross-sticks in tiers to
dry. The earliest sap which rises makes the lightest colored sugar.
The Indians are about and assisting in the work. They were always
friendly, never stole or deceived, and were ever the white man’s friend
in Upper Canada. Those in the neighborhood of my grandfather’s
settlement were chiefly Mississaugaus. Every summer they went away to
the small lakes north of Ontario, and came back in the fall for the
salmon and sturgeon fishing, living in lodges or wigwams. These are
covered with birch bark. The illustration, given on page 84, is not
overdrawn as a representation of an Indian camp.
CHAPTER IV.
Waubakosh--Making potash--Prosperous settlers--Outbreak of war of
1812--Transporting military supplies--Moode Farewell’s
hotel--“Here’s to a long and moderate war”--A lieutenant’s
misfortune--“Open in the King’s name”--Humors of the
time--Ingenious foragers--Hidden specie--Hardships of the U. E.
Loyalists.
“Now push the mug, my jolly boys,
And live while we can,
To-morrow’s sun may end our joys,
For brief’s the hour of man,
And he who bravely meets the foe
His lease of life can never know.”
Waubakosh was an Indian chief of the Mississaugaus. Every fall, from the
year 1808 to 1847, he came with his tribe (or at least 150 of them) to
the shore of Lake Ontario, that he and they might fish.
Their lodges were almost invariably constructed on the bank of a creek,
near its mouth, that they might take the salmon ascending the stream in
November to spawn, and fish in the lake from their boats, with
light-jack and spear, for sturgeon.
[Illustration: LOGGING SCENE. ROGER CONANT IN DARLINGTON, CO. DURHAM,
UPPER CANADA, 1778.]
First he came as a young Indian brave, before he became chief, and, on
attaining the chieftainship and a wife, the only difference which the
few white settlers here at that time could discover in his attire was
that his deerskin leggings were more beautifully fringed at the seams,
and his moccasins likewise were more elaborately wrought with porcupine
quills.
Waubakosh was never known to commit a mean act. He was always friendly,
and every succeeding fall his coming back was looked for with certainty
by the white settlers, who got their living in the clearings and from
the waters, as much hunters and fishermen as farmers.
On bidding his white friends good-bye, about December, 1847, as he set
out for the Indian encampment about Nottawasaga, in the thick woods, the
Indian chief expressed the fear that he might never come back again. His
fears were only too well founded, for he never did return. Old residents
who knew him have been heard many times to wonder what was his ultimate
fate. More strange still to say, not one of his tribe ever came back
again to lodge any length of time. A noble-looking red man, he has been
described as tall and straight, with a good face and a pleasant eye--in
very truth, one of Nature’s noblemen.
Many of his companions who predeceased him were buried near his
camping-place on Lake Ontario. Their tomahawks, beads, flints, spears,
ornaments, and buttons, and their skulls as well, have been found in
recent years by those seeking for traces of the aboriginal red man.
* * * * *
As a means of money making, next to the fur trading in Upper Canada came
the making of potash. Ashes were about in plenty, and were easily
gathered from the burnt heaps of logs.
In the illustration facing page 97 the artist has endeavored to show the
intense heat required. The fire about the kettle is blazing furiously.
This is the “melting scene,” and the last firing before the potash will
be done. The driest and most inflammable wood was needed to secure the
great heat that was necessary.
Potash, from 1800 to about 1840, brought some $40 per barrel in Upper
Canada, and with the fur trading helped to make wealth for my grandsire
and others.
On the breaking out of the war of 1812, between Britain and the United
States, the settlers in Upper Canada were generally on the high road to
prosperity, cultivating a land as fertile as any under heaven outside
the valley of the Nile, and with less waste land than in any country of
like extent. Such was and is Upper Canada. It is blessed, too, with a
mild, salubrious climate, where the four seasons are distinctly marked.
We have seen that husbandry, begun about 1812, gradually became a
national industry. Wheat at that time could only be sold for one-half
cash and one-half store-pay. The usual price was two shillings (Halifax)
per bushel, or about 48 cents, and it was almost invariably fall wheat.
The author’s ancestors did considerable at farming, but were mainly fur
traders and producers of potash up to the time of the war. Clothing was
almost invariably hand-spun and woven. Deer-skin, however, was largely
used for men’s leggings, moccasins, and even women’s dresses.
A story is told of a young girl having one dress only, which was made of
deer-skin. By many weeks’ constant wear it had become soiled. One day,
while all were away, she embraced the opportunity to wash this precious
deer-skin garment, and dry it before the fire. When the family returned
they found the girl in bed weeping because she had no dress. It had
shrunken so much as to be too small to wear again.
When the war of 1812 was declared, the British Government was anxious to
send cannon and military supplies into Upper Canada from Montreal. At
first these were sent by water (see page 104), but later on the fear of
capture by the enemy caused them to be sent by land. A main highway,
leading from York to Kingston, had been surveyed by the Government and
chopped out of the forest. In many places, however, the settlers being
so few, it had from disuse become overgrown again with young forest,
making it impassable for laden waggons. It was known generally as the
“Kingston Road.” At some places it lay quite close to the lake, and at
others receded two or three miles inland; consequently only some
sections were used for traffic in 1812. One of these sections was at
Harmony, a small village one mile east from Oshawa.
Here a large frame hotel had been built, kept by one Moode Farewell.
This was one of the stopping places or houses of entertainment for the
military men who passed to and from Montreal and York during the war.
The illustration given at page 122 is from a water-color drawing made
from a photograph of this hotel. Joviality and good cheer were
characteristic of it, and many a merry night was spent there by the
British officers. Many times my grandfather saw them call for liquors in
the bar-room on arrival, each grasp his glass, touch his companion’s and
drink to the usual toast of “Here’s to a long and moderate war.” Could
those old walls speak to-day they would recall the many, many times this
toast was given.
Fun, too, was always in order. One evening a young lieutenant, a recent
arrival from Britain, came in. The heavy rain had soaked his thin
buckskins and leggings. On leaving the bar-room for supper he hung them
to dry on a chair back before the fire-place--a great cavernous
fire-place, large enough to take in a four-foot back log two feet in
diameter.
My mischievous grandsire watched the leggings and helped them on with
their drying by placing them squarely before the fire. When the young
lieutenant came out from supper his consternation was amusing. His
property had become a shrivelled, hard piece of buckskin, shapeless and
useless.
“Why did you not mind my leggings?” he cried wrathfully. “Oh, I did mind
them well--just see how dry they are,” was the reply. General laughter
followed, and the “long and moderate war” toast was again drunk.
Moode Farewell, the owner and keeper of this hotel, was the father of a
numerous family, many of whom and of their descendants have risen to
high places both in Canada and the United States. He was a man of
boundless energy, pluck and endurance, and amassed a considerable
fortune.
About eight miles westerly from Farewell’s was Lynde’s tavern, on the
Kingston Road. Between these two points, on the way from York to
Montreal, the Government had frequent occasion to have despatches
passed during the war. As he had promised Governor Simcoe on coming into
Upper Canada in 1794, Roger Conant aided the Government, even if he did
not fight for it, by carrying despatches between these two points
whenever he was called on so to do. His house stood very near the shore
of the lake, a new and larger one having been constructed near the
first. Along the lake shore, past this house, the heavy freight and
military supplies were drawn.
Frequently during the continuance of the war of 1812 a midnight summons
came to him, first a knock at the door, and then the demand, “Open in
the King’s name!”
“In a moment, gentlemen,” was the answer, and as soon as ordinary garb
could be assumed the officers were admitted.
“Get your oxen, sir, and draw a gun to York” came the command.
“Certainly, gentlemen, but can’t you wait a moment, that I may feed the
oxen before setting out?”
By placing food and good cheer before the officers and men sufficient
time usually was gained, but after once starting out no stop would be
permitted until the fort at York was reached, about thirty-five miles
westerly along the beach, the intervening streams being crossed by
wading. Sometimes the freight to be hauled consisted of other military
supplies.
Rough and formal as the soldiers were, my grandfather said the officers
were invariably fine men, and he was always well paid in coin when he
reached the fort at York. On one occasion, on arrival with a gun, the
commissary officer came to him and asked if he would sell a yoke of his
oxen. Nothing loth, he consented £14 (Halifax) were handed him, and the
oxen became beef for the garrison. This was a very lucrative trip, with
the pay for hauling and for the oxen, and the country served at the same
time.
The records of the time are not without the humorous side. The following
recount some of the tricks of the soldiers, always ready to add variety
to their bill-of-fare:
Skirting along the shore, and pulling up their boats at night, came some
troops on their way to Toronto, who were billeted to lodge with a
settler for a night. Now, this settler had a number of hogs, and on
arising next morning he missed one from the lot. Supposing the soldiers
had stolen it, he at once complained to the captain in command, who
instituted a thorough search among all the boats, but all to no
purpose--the hog was not to be found, and the command set off. Upon
landing the following night after the day’s row the missing hog came to
light. The captain, puzzled to know how it could be so successfully
concealed, offered pardon to the offenders if they would only tell how
they concealed it. Taken at his word, they showed the captain how they
had opened the hog down the front its whole length, and placed it like a
sheath on the keel of the boat, so that the water thoroughly hid it, and
nailed it there. Of course, no one thought of looking into the water
under the boat for the hog. It would be superfluous to add that the
captain had fresh pork for supper that night.
At another time, as the troops were marching past a settler’s house they
came upon a flock of geese. After the men had passed one of the geese
was discovered missing, and the owner came to the camp that night and
demanded a search for it. A most thorough search was instituted among
the camp baggage, but no bird was found. Next day, however, while on the
march, the captain had a part of this goose brought to him at his meal.
After partaking of the toothsome dish his wrath was no doubt much
mollified, and he asked how they had brought the goose along, seeing no
visible way of doing it. His surprise was great to learn that the
drummer of the troop had unheaded his drum and placed the bird inside.
Well, these poor fellows deserved well of this country for the hardships
which they encountered in its protection, and they were right royally
welcome to both hog and goose, and should be freely forgiven.
[Illustration: DURHAM BOATS ASCENDING RIVER ST. LAWRENCE, WITH GOODS FOR
INDIAN FUR TRADING.]
Sometimes oxen were impressed to draw specie to Toronto, and the old men
used to say that they would far rather draw the cannon than the specie.
While drawing the latter, which was in boxes about a foot square, the
guards were very strict, and would not allow much rest for the driver or
the oxen. Like the story of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure, there have
been stories told of a box of this specie being hidden while on the way
by the officer in command. It has been a rumor current among old 1812
men that a box of specie was placed in one of the gullies near the lake
shore on the Scarboro’ Heights. From all that can be gathered, it would
appear true that some specie was deposited there. Persons armed with
various amalgams on the ends of sticks, others with witch-hazel twigs,
have searched for this specie. It is more than probable, however, that
the officer who hid it came back for it after the war was over.
The lot of the U. E. Loyalists who came here was one hard enough to
deter the most resolute among us to-day from willingly entering upon its
like. Those of us who would voluntarily for patriotism, or even for
money, enter upon such a wild heroic life of toil are few, very few
indeed. Think of going from Oshawa to Kingston to mill as one of the
hardships they had to contend with. Yet they laid the foundation of
fortunes for their successors, and those who held on to their inherited
lands are to-day among the richest families in Ontario. They, at least,
have particular cause to be loyal and faithful for the good they have
received at their country’s hands. But those holding on to these royal
grants are very few indeed as compared with the number who originally
inherited them. I do not think I can count more than a dozen families
to-day, between Toronto and Kingston, who own these grants in direct
descent by inheritance.
CHAPTER V.
Capture of York--Immigration increasing--David
Annis--Niagara--Prosperous lumber business--Ship-building--High
freight rates--Salmon spearing--Meteoric showers--An affrighted
clergyman--Cold winters--A tragedy of the clearings.
“Peculiar both!
Our soil’s strong growth,
And our bold native’s hardy mind;
Sure heaven bespoke
Our hearts of oak
To give a master to mankind.”
On April 27th, 1813, upon the taking of York by Chauncey and his fleet,
orders were given by the officer left in command of the British militia
when General Sheaffe retreated to blow up the fort. The boom of the
explosion was distinctly heard by my grandsire, Thomas Conant, at his
home thirty-five miles distant. With the exception of this incident no
records connected with the events from that time until the close of the
war in 1814 have been preserved among the reminiscences of the family.
The supplies needed for the soldiers had encouraged agriculture in the
back townships and brought money into circulation in the country. At the
close of the war immigration increased, sturdy settlers coming into the
country both from the British Isles and the United States. The
settlement of the wild lands, the clearing of the forests and the
building of roads went on apace; an era of prosperity and wealth
succeeded as peace became assured.
The most thriving industry was that of the lumberman, awaiting whose axe
lay the magnificent forests of timber which covered so large a portion
of Upper Canada. My father embarked in this trade. His mother’s decease
induced his relative, David Annis, a bachelor, to ask for and adopt him
as his heir.
David Annis was a descendant of the Charles Annis mentioned in the
quit-rent deed given on page 29. Though unlettered and untaught, even
unable to write his own name, David was possessed of excellent business
ability and an untiring body; a man of fine heart, a friend to the poor,
and hospitable to all. It is said of him that no Indian or white ever
went from his door hungry. Together he and Daniel Conant built what was
probably the first lumber mill erected in the Home District. Its
capacity was seven thousand feet of lumber per day only. At page 135 a
picture of this mill is given.
All that lumber (generally pine) would have been
[Illustration: DAVID ANNIS.
THE AUTHOR’S UNCLE.]
valueless when manufactured unless means had been provided to take it to
market by schooner. Niagara, at the mouth of the Niagara River, was,
even as late as 1835, one of the largest towns in Upper Canada. Thither
the lumber must be taken to find a market. No wharves had then been
built upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and lumber must be floated
down the stream from the mill in rafts to the lake, and so placed on
board the waiting schooners. Three vessels were built by ship carpenters
(many of whom came from the United States) of the lumber sawn at the
mill. They were built on fine lines and had excellent sailing
properties, their owners boasting they could sail them “as close to the
wind’s eye as any craft that ever floated.”
Pine lumber brought at that day (1835) $7 per thousand feet in cash at
Niagara; therefore the lumber mill paid $49 per day of twenty-four hours
during the season of sawing. To supply the demands of this trade vessel
after vessel was built, and soon return freights began to be offered,
such as salt from Sodus, N.Y., and flour in barrels, to be carried to
Kingston, until the business of lumber manufacturing and vessel
freighting was, at that early period in the history of Upper Canada, as
productive as the output of a paying gold mine. The author’s father
served on many of his schooners as captain and supercargo as well, and
never lost his love of the water and its attendant adventure.
One of the most important occurrences of the time, and one from which
many reckoned their local history, was a remarkable display of falling
meteors. The following account is taken from memoranda left by my
mother, and as told by my father:
On the night of the 12th of November, 1833, my father, then a young man,
was salmon-spearing in a boat in the creek, at its outlet into Lake
Ontario, now Port Oshawa. One of his hired men sat in the stern and
paddled, while he stood close beside the light-jack of blazing pine
knots, in order to see the salmon in the water. He, in common with the
inhabitants generally, was laying in a stock of salmon to be salted down
for the year’s use, until the salmon “run” again the following fall.
At or about ten o’clock of this evening, as nearly as he could judge,
from out of an intensely dark November night, globes of fire as big as
goose eggs began falling all around his boat. These balls continued to
fall until my father, becoming frightened, went home,--not forgetting,
he quaintly added, to bring with him the salmon already caught. On
reaching home, Lot 6, B. F. East Whitby, the whole household was
aroused, and frightened too; but the fires ceasing they went to bed, to
pass a restless night after the awe-inspiring scene they had witnessed.
Getting up before daybreak next morning, my father raked over the embers
of the buried back log of the big fire-place and quickly had a blaze.
Happening to glance out of the window, to his intense amazement he saw,
as he said, “the whole sky filled with shooting stars.” Quickly he
called to the men, his hired help in the lumbering business, to come
down stairs. They needed not a second invitation, and among them was one
Shields, who, on reaching the door, dropped in a twinkling upon his
knees and began to pray. The balls of fire continuing, his prayers grew
more earnest, if vigor of voice could be any index to his religious
fervor. Of the grandeur of the unparalleled scene my father said almost
nothing, for I am led to think they were all too thoroughly frightened
to think of beauty, that being a side issue entirely. The fiery shower
growing more dense, my father went out of doors and found the fire-balls
did not burn or hurt. Then he went to a neighbor’s--a preacher of renown
in the locality--having to pass through woods, and even in the darkness,
he affirms, the fire-balls lighted his way quite distinctly. The
preacher, already awake, was seated at the table beside a tallow dip
reading his Bible, with two other neighbors listening and too
frightened, he said, to even bid him good morning. He sat and listened
to verse after verse, and still the stars fell. The preacher gave no
explanation or sign, but read on. Looking eastward, at last my father
saw a faint glimmer of breaking day. Once more he came out into the fire
and made his way homeward. Before he reached there daylight broke.
Gradually the fire-balls grew less and less, and, with the day, ceased
altogether. To find a sign of them he hunted closely upon the ground,
but not a trace was left of anything. Nor was any damage done. What
became of the stars that fell he could not conjecture.
Realize that in 1833 astronomers had not taught Upper Canadians in
regard to meteoric showers, as we know to-day, and we do not marvel at
their consternation and fright. Such was the greatest meteoric shower
the world probably has ever known. Its greatest density was said to be
attained in this section of the continent.
A bit of doggerel went the rounds at that time. It was made, I believe,
by one Horace Hutchinson, a sailor whom my father had on one of his
schooners. Here is the first verse:
“I well remembered what I see
In eighteen hundred and thirty-three,
When from the affrighted place I stood
The stars forsook their fixed abode.”
A better sailor he was than a poet, and yet, bad as the verses were,
they were very popular in the thirties in a large section of the Home
District, of which this is a part.
E. S. Shrapnel, the artist, paints the picture (page 144) from an actual
photograph of the house, he obviously supplying the kneeling man.
Shields, who made so great a fuss, was employed by one of my father’s
foremen at the lumbering, and the picture and its story are true in
every essential particular.
Upper and Lower Canada were thought by many to have extremely severe
winters. It is probable the belief was well founded, but the climate of
Upper Canada has undergone a very material change since that period
(1835). To-day Upper Canada is pre-eminently a fruit-growing country.
Apples, pears, peaches and grapes are staples in this favored land.
COLD WINTERS OF YORE.
Old men tell us that our winters are less severe now than they were
fifty or sixty years ago. The long unbroken spells of extreme cold which
they used to experience in the early days of our history, are not known
now. It is true we do get a cold spell during the winter, now and again,
and sometimes deep snow; but these cold spells soon break, and the deep
snows do not remain all winter. Not long since I was talking with one of
the Grand Trunk Railway conductors, who had been on the line for over
twenty years. He said that when he first came on the line it was not at
all unusual to have the snow even with the car steps for miles. At other
places, he said, they would for long distances pass through tunnels of
snow piled or drifted as high as the car tops, whereas now the railway
company seldom send out their snow-plough at all, nor does the snow
seriously hinder the running of the trains.
It may be that the snow does not now lie as deep as it did before the
land was cleared, but is more drifted. This no doubt is true, in a
measure, but then if we got as much snow as our fathers used to, and
this drifted, the consequences would be most disastrous, and would be an
effectual bar to locomotion.
The winter’s cold of former years can be best illustrated by the
relation of an anecdote. An old gentleman, still alive and approaching
his fourscore years says he was one day driving through a seventeen-mile
belt of woods, in this province, with one horse drawing a jumper. The
jumpers of those days were made by using two green saplings for runners,
bending them up for the crooks. Beams and uprights were made of green
saplings, like the runners. An axe and an auger were the only tools used
in their construction, and generally there was not a particle of iron
in any shape. Rude as they were, they served their purpose admirably,
and lasted well enough through one winter. The day was intensely cold,
so cold that it was dangerous to leave any part of the body exposed for
a moment. He saw a man sitting bolt upright in the snow on the path
before him. His first thought was “What will this man be doing here
alone, sitting down in this awful cold.” Coming up to him, he reined up
his horse, and called to the man; receiving no answer, he tapped him
with his whip, and, to his astonishment, the blow resounded as if he
were striking a piece of marble. The poor fellow was frozen solid
through and through. He was a settler, who lived some thirty miles
farther on, and who had set out to go to some settlement, but becoming
exhausted by the long weary tramp in the snow, sat down for a few
moments’ rest, became drowsy from the soporific effects of the cold, and
froze as he sat.
To convey to the younger generation of Upper Canadians an idea of some
of the difficulties which our forefathers encountered in subduing the
dense forests of our Province, I will relate a true instance of an
occurrence about sixty years ago:
A man and his wife, with two children, moved into the Township of Ops,
into a dense forest, eight miles from the nearest settler. For months
he chopped away at the forest trees, all alone, and succeeded at length
in making a clearing in the forest, and erecting a log-house for himself
and his family. The logs were peeled and notched at the ends, and laid
up squarely, each tier making the house the diameter of a log higher. A
hole was cut through for a doorway, and another for a window. To form a
door he split some thin slabs from a straight-grained cedar, and pinned
them with wooden pins to cross slats. The most ingenious parts of the
construction, however, were the hinges. Iron hinges he had not, and
could not get. With the auger he bored a hole through the end of a
square piece of wood, and, sharpening the other end with his axe, he
then bored a hole into one of the logs of the house, constituting in
part a door-jamb, and drove the piece of wood into this hole. This
formed the top part of the hinge, and the bottom part was fashioned in
exactly the same way. Now to the door, in like manner, he fastened two
pegs of wood with holes bored through their ends. Placing the ends of
the hinges above one another they presented the four ends with holes
leading through them, the one above the other. Next he made a long pin
with his handy jacknife, leaving a run at one end of it, and making it
long enough to reach from the top to the lower hinge. Through the holes
at the ends of the hinge this long pin was placed, and thus the door was
hung.
The roof of the log-house was perhaps the greatest curiosity. Hollow
basswood (linden) trees were generally used. These were first cut the
length required, then split through the centre, each half forming a
trough. A layer of these troughs was laid lengthwise from the ridge-pole
to the eaves, all over the house-top, upon their backs, the bark side
down. Over these was laid a second layer, reversed, or bark side up, and
the edges of the upper layer fitted into the hollows of the lower one.
In this way the settler made a roof for his house quickly and easily.
Such a roof shed water tolerably well, too, until the logs began to rot.
This primitive house built, the settler put in a small crop in the tiny
clearing. At this period in the country’s history the virgin soil
produced bountifully, and the crops once put in were almost sure to give
fair returns. When autumn came with its gorgeous colors--the leaves of
the forest in the north temperate zone rivalling in beauty anything the
tropics can show us--the settler’s crop was a good one.
Unfortunately, however, he was confined to his rude bed, too ill to
gather in his harvest. Eight miles away his nearest neighbors followed
the “blazes”[A] on the trees through the woods and came and secured the
settler’s crop for him, then departed, leaving him and his household all
alone in the deep, silent forest. Days and weeks rolled along and no one
came again, while the poor man got perceptibly worse. Winter at last set
in with the severe cold of those days. Snow, deep and lasting, soon
fell, and covered all things animate and inanimate with a pure white
mantle. To have a huge pile of logs at the door was the custom of those
days, to supply the winter fire in the great capacious open fire-place.
Our settler had not neglected to secure the traditional and useful pile
of logs before his illness. Many dreary days passed over this little
snowed-in household, the husband and mainstay still sick, and gradually
growing weaker. Wolves howled around the door nightly. Seeing no one out
of doors, they gradually became bolder and would approach to the very
door of the cabin.
[A] Marks on the trees made by the axe to indicate a path or way from
one spot to another in the woods.
To the poor disconsolate wife’s inexpressible grief, the husband died
and left her alone in her solitary loneliness with her two children, the
eldest of whom was only eight years of age, and the second one just able
to walk. What dreadful isolation this, with no one nearer than eight
miles to help her perform the sacred rites of sepulture! Among the
tools in the house was an old mattock, used in grubbing up the forest
roots in the clearing. With this she attempted to dig a grave.
Unfortunately for her, however, the snow had fallen later than usual in
the autumn, after the ground had become frozen quite hard. All her
efforts failed to penetrate through the deeply frozen crust, and she
almost feared she could not bury her husband at all. To place the body
out of doors she dare not, for it would only become food for the
prowling wolves, and the idea was so revolting to her that she could not
entertain it. Some solution, however, must be sought for the difficult
problem, and this clever, self-reliant woman finally solved it.
Remembering that the pile of logs at the door beside the house had been
put there before the frost came, with the aid of a hand-spike she rolled
one back away from the side of the house. It was a large log from which
one above it had been removed for the daily burning on the hearth. To
her joy, under this log the ground was scarcely frozen, being under the
pile and sheltered by the side of the log cabin. There with the mattock
she dug a grave, dragged her husband’s body to it, rolled it gently in,
and covered it over with the soil she had taken out. Then back again
over the grave she rolled the log, to protect it and prevent the wolves
disinterring the body. She then went to the settlement, leading her
youngest child by the hand, the other following in the track made in the
deep snow.
A harrowing tale is this, but it is a true one. It was by just such
people that the Province of Upper Canada was made what it is, and by
their sufferings, buffetings and privations we enjoy the privileges
which we have to-day. Let us drop a kindly tear to the memory of this
brave woman, and look back with fond remembrance to our pioneer
ancestors who, although often unlettered and uncultured, did so much for
us.
[Illustration: ROGER CONANT TRADING WITH THE INDIANS FOR FURS.]
CHAPTER VI.
Discontent in Upper Canada--Election riots--Shillelahs as
persuaders--William Lyon Mackenzie--Rioting in
York--Rebellion--Patriots and sympathizers--A relentless
chase--Crossing Lake Ontario in midwinter--A perilous passage--A
sailor hero--A critical moment--Safe on shore--“Rebellion Losses
Bill”--Transported to Botany Bay--Murder of my
grandfather--Canadian legends--A mysterious guest.
Land of the forest and the rock,
Of dark blue lake and mighty river,
Of mountains reared aloft to mock
The storm’s career, the lightning’s shock;
My own green land for ever.
--_Adapted._
Voices of discontent had been heard for many months previous to the
actual outbreak of the rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada. Meetings were
held, at which the wrongs inflicted on the country by the Family Compact
were discussed. Responsible government had not then been granted to
Canada by the Imperial Government; prior to the rebellion the country
was under the rule and the heel of an oligarchy who had foisted
themselves upon the people.
It would be impossible and it is indeed unnecessary for me to refer to
the causes of the outbreak in Upper Canada. Most persons’ minds have
already been fully made up _pro_ and _con_ on the subject. It is not my
purpose to do more than relate such incidents as came within the notice
of my father and grandfather, or had an influence on their lives or
surroundings.
The elections of candidates for the Legislature were conducted
differently from what they now are under responsible government, a
change hastened by the rebellion, and finally secured by the able Report
of Lord Durham.
At Newcastle, Durham County, an election was being held, ostensibly to
elect a member of the Parliament. For one whole week electors were asked
to ascend a flight of steps to a booth erected in the open air, and
there verbally announce the name of the candidate for whom they would
vote. The Family Compact took good care that all timorous ones voted for
them, or did not vote at all, if an opposition candidate was nominated.
A participant in that election told of a waggon-load of green shillelahs
brought to the grounds for the purpose of gently (?) persuading the
electors to vote for the Government nominee. Whiskey could be had for
the asking, without money and without price, and _ab libitum_. The
ordinary price of whiskey at that date and for many years later was
tenpence per gallon. Fights were of hourly occurrence during the
election, and for six days a pandemonium of riot reigned. It is
superfluous to add that the Government candidate won the contested seat,
as he did very generally in other constituencies throughout the
Province.
William Lyon Mackenzie, the hard-headed little Scotch reformer, who was
several times elected and expelled the House, exposed these acts in his
paper and some of the sons of the Compact threw his type into York
(Toronto) bay. The destruction of his type and the consequent revulsion
of feeling secured justice, and damages assessed for the loss being paid
to Mackenzie from the fines exacted of the lads who committed the
depredation enabled him to continue the publication of his paper, and
through it rouse his sympathizers into open rebellion. No government
over English-speaking subjects has yet succeeded long in curtailing the
liberty of the press. In Canada this remark was as true as elsewhere.
My father at this time was captain of one of his fleet of ships, and was
not on shore to participate in the excitement. Freights that fall (1837)
were exceedingly high on Lake Ontario. Salt, for instance was one dollar
a barrel from Sodus, New York, to Whitby, Upper Canada, that being the
nearest port to Oshawa, his home, four miles away. Flour was one dollar
a barrel from Oshawa and Whitby to Kingston. It was an exceedingly mild
winter, and succeeding so well, he did not put his ship into winter
quarters in November, as is the custom on the Great Lakes, but continued
his trips until the day after Christmas, when he reached Whitby, unbent
his sails and stowed everything for the winter.
A PERILOUS VOYAGE.
Many persons who occupied good positions in Upper Canada, even if not in
actual rebellion, were mistrusted as sympathizers with the patriots;
they were hunted by the Compact’s forces, and driven from their homes,
being forced to find shelter in the forests and in barns. Life to them
finally became unbearable, and they sought some means of leaving the
Province. A small schooner, the _Industry_, happened to be laid up for
the winter in one of the ports on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The
owner was besought to bend his sails to the masts and take the patriots
across the lake to Oswego, N.Y. Such a trip as crossing Lake Ontario in
midwinter by a sailing craft is a most perilous thing to do, and
naturally the owner of the vessel hesitated to take the great risk to
his vessel, and to his own life as well. It was thought that the vessel
might make the outlet of the Oswego River at Oswego, N.Y., and therefore
effect a landing. Recollect that there were no tugs in those days to
tow a vessel as soon as she hove in sight, but the wind alone must be
depended upon. However, the owner, besought by the tears and entreaties
of the wives and friends of the patriots in hiding, finally concluded to
make the attempt. On the night of the 27th day of December, 1837, the
little vessel of 100 feet in length quietly slipped from her moorings,
and sailed close along the shore of Lake Ontario. It was a bright
moonlight night, still, but very cold. Every mile or so she would back
her mainsail, and lay to at a signal of a light upon shore, that a canoe
might put off to the vessel, bearing a patriot from his hiding in the
forest to the side of the boat. As yet no storm had come on to form the
ice-banks since the cold set in, but there was no knowing what a day
might produce in the way of a storm and the formation of ice-banks. Some
forty stops, however, and forty different canoes were paddled out to the
vessel, and forty patriots transferred, panting for the land of liberty
across Lake Ontario, to the south of them sixty miles or so. A fine
sailing breeze blew off shore, and hoisting sail and winging out
mainsail and foresail, nothing could bid fairer for a quick and
prosperous voyage; and the land of liberty seemed almost gained. Lying
upon blankets in the bottom of the vessel were the patriots, with the
hatches closed down tight on account of the intense cold. Quickly and
gaily the little vessel sped on, with anxious hearts beating below.
Morning revealed to their gaze the mouth of the river at Oswego, and the
Stars and Stripes floating from the old fort near the river’s outlet.
And a glorious sight indeed it was to the heavy-hearted patriots,
liberty at hand just before them, where no one dare pursue. Then “Get
up, boys, and let’s get into port!” But the north wind, which bore them
so gaily and swiftly over the broad lake, had driven all the floating,
drifting ice before it, and wedged it firmly along the south shore. For
three miles between them and the land was this mass of floating ice, and
the little vessel refused to be driven through it.
Backwards and forwards, along its outer edge, they tacked, ever seeking
an opening but finding none. Every means possible at their command they
tried to force a passage, but all failed. The hearts of the patriots,
which a few hours before beat so joyously, now sank within them. “Oh!
must we put back again to Canada, and to prison? Never; we will die
first!” As the day wore on, finally an athletic sailor declared he could
and would force a passage. And how was he to do it? He boldly got out on
the bowsprit, climbed down on the cut-water chain, and hung by his hands
to the over-haul above the bowsprit. A heavy sea at this time was
running, and ever and anon the sailor and bowsprit would be raised on
the top of a wave many feet above the surrounding level of the water. As
the vessel would fall and bring the sailor down again to the water he
would shove with all his might with his feet on the blocks of ice around
him, to force them to one side that the vessel could enter between the
loose cakes. Perilous, doubly perilous, as this attempt was, this
undaunted water-dog stuck to his post until darkness set in and made any
further effort in that direction an impossibility. Bitterly cold as it
was, with every wave freezing as it washed over the decks, this hardy
fellow did not feel the cold from the intense effort, but perspired
freely and hung on to the rope barehanded. His almost superhuman task
only resulted in effecting a passage through the ice about a quarter of
a mile. All night they lay there among the ice, and, strange as it may
seem, slept soundly in their dreadful peril. During the night the wind
fell, and the intensity of the cold increased. At the first rays of the
morning they were astir, and found their little vessel firmly frozen in,
with a clear sheet of ice, transparent and smooth, two inches thick, all
around them. Over the vessel’s side jumped our sailor of the previous
night’s adventure, and found a firm footing all about the vessel.
Quickly they realized that their only chance for life and safety lay in
hurrying over the ice with all speed for the shore before a wind might
arise and break up the ice frozen the night before. The bulwarks of the
vessel were torn off and split so as to form poles, each man taking one.
But our sailor took instead a piece of board about ten feet long and
eight inches wide. Away they started, spreading out, every man for
himself, carrying his pole in front of his breast. “Step on the clear
ice and keep off the hummocks,” sang out our sailor. Soon one
disregarded the advice, and down he went, plump into the icy water
beneath. His pole, however, would catch the firm ice at the sides, and
kept his head above water. Then his nearest companion took hold of the
submerged man’s pole and pulled him out upon firm ice again. Immediately
on getting out he was incrusted in a sheet of ice. Overoats began to be
thrown aside, and also the grip-sacks containing all the patriots’
valuables, until the path was strewn with their effects. Every moment
someone would break through the ice. Out of that devoted band of
patriots all had gone down and been rescued; and all of the crew, too,
except one sailor, who, being lighter than the rest and more cautious
where he stepped, alone remained dry. Now the patriots, one after
another began to lose all heart and give up. “O God! and must I die
here, with the shore and liberty just in sight.” “Get up!” shouted John
our sailor, swearing at them the while, and threatening to put them
square under unless they got up and went on. On the shore were some
hundreds of persons watching the efforts of that devoted band,
gesticulating to them, and trying to move them to take heart and gain
the shore.
Other help they could not afford, much as they desired to do so, for the
wind is so treacherous on these waters in midwinter that in a moment the
ice might be broken and all lost. John, our hero, however, at last
threatening to brain with his piece of board those who had given up,
finally got them on their feet again, and a little nearer shore. About
three o’clock in the afternoon saw them within twenty rods of the shore,
and now the cheers and shouts of the crowd of sympathizers could be
heard. “At last! oh, at last our troubles will be over, and we shall get
ashore,” and their hopes arose once more. “But no, oh, dear, no! has God
brought us through all these perils and hardships to die so near the
shore?” Anguish almost as great as death itself was stamped on the face
of the most intrepid of that band.
All at once the wind had risen from the south, and the ice began
drifting into the lake. Already it had parted from the shore streak of
ice and left a space of open water now seven feet wide. Jump it they
could not, because their clothes were frozen so hard that they could
not spring, and, besides, the ice on the other side of the open space
was not thick enough to hold one alighting after the jump. Their last
hope sank within them. Death stared them in the face; their wives and
friends in Canada would see them no more. Every minute added to the
width of the gulf of water between them and the shore ice, when up came
the sailor with the last laggard, and in an instant threw his board over
the open water, and “Now run for your lives,” said he, and they ran
across the board, every man feeling this to be his last chance and his
last effort. On shore at last! Tears, hot and blinding, ran down their
cheeks, while the crowd gathered around them and cheered lustily. The
sympathizers on shore conducted them to the bar-room of a hotel, in
which was a huge fire-place, with an immense fire of logs blazing for
their especial benefit. It seems this bar-room was sunken below the
surface of the earth a step, and was floored with bricks. Quickly their
icy clothes began to thaw, and in a little time, it is said, the water
melted from their clothes actually stood three inches deep over the
bar-room floor.
We have to add that the little vessel was lost and became a wreck. Well
it was that it was lost, for a battery of artillery was stationed at the
port whence it sailed, with orders to fire on the vessel and take every
man a prisoner when she came back. Had they been taken, without a doubt
they would all have been sent to Botany Bay as convicts, for twenty or
thirty years each, as many others were, who went away as young men and
came back grey-haired, broken-down old men, scarcely knowing their own
country after so long an absence. As to the patriots, they were all
pardoned and invited to come home, as we all know, which they did, many
of them rising to high positions in Canada in after years. That this
rebellion did great good to Canada neither Tories nor Reformers now
deny, but it does seem hard that so many good and true men men had to
suffer so much to have the wrongs righted. To-day Canada is as free as
any country under the sun. I leave it to you, reader, to say if there
could be a more joyful Christmas at any place in America than the
portion of it remaining to those patriots after they got on shore.
The _Industry_ is first in line represented in the illustration of the
lumber loading, on page 172. The illustration on page 186 will give some
idea of the scene of the adventure of the escaping patriots, and the
landing at Oswego, N.Y.
The ill-fated _Industry_ drifted about upon the inclement lake, and was
at last driven into a cove about Oak Orchard, N.Y. There a land pirate
cut the ship up, and stole cables, anchors and shrouds. The following
spring (1838), John Pickel and William Annis, at my father’s instance,
went and found this freebooter, a worthless fellow, but married to a
wealthy man’s daughter. Upon the claim being made, he was advised by
legal men to settle it and thus avoid the penalty. Piracy in New York
State is punishable by ten years’ State imprisonment. His father-in-law
paid $1,100 for the man’s act, and that is all my father ever got for a
ship valued at quite $8,000 at that day.
Some years afterwards, when in Upper Canada a “Rebellion Losses’ Bill”
was passed and became law, it was thought that the loss of this ship
would come under the meaning of this Act. As a very young man I urged my
father to put in his claim. “No, my son,” he said, “if I was fool enough
to risk my ship and my life in the business of the rebellion in
midwinter, I deserved to lose it.” No claim was ever put in for the lost
ship. And even now, after the lapse of sixty-one years, I do not think
it prudent to give the names of the passengers it carried on that
eventful trip. All of them came back to Canada. Many were in high
government positions afterwards. Had the Government of the day in Upper
Canada then captured that ship and its precious cargo, it may be the map
of Canada would be different to-day.
I was in Botany Bay, Australia, and in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1896, when,
fresh from reading the tales of Marcus Clark and Balderwood, I could
not help thinking what untimely fate would have befallen the entire
ship’s company had they been captured and transported.
Many persons were so hard pressed by the military during the rebellion,
even if not participants, that they fled in every way possible. One man,
on November 15th, 1837, stole a dug-out pine canoe from my father, and
deliberately paddled alone across Lake Ontario, fully sixty-five miles
(see page 186). Leaving Port Oshawa at 10 p.m., and having a fine north
breeze, he made Oak Orchard, due south, at 4 p.m. the next day. The prow
of the canoe he had taken was rotted off, but the paddler, sitting in
the stern with a stone between his feet, by his own and the stone’s
combined weight succeeded in keeping the open end raised above the
water. This necessarily added much to the perils of the voyage, it being
perilous enough in the best of weather to paddle across the lake in an
open boat.
John D. Smith, before referred to as the owner of the mill at Smith’s
Creek (now Port Hope), was a man of means, and being very stirring, was
influential at the time of the rebellion. All the able-bodied men in the
neighborhood were enrolled _en masse_ at Smith’s Creek. The company was
drawn up, answering to their names as they were called. The Colonel
stood at the head of the line listening to the names and responses as
the word passed down the line. These men were to march to York very
shortly, to be ready for any emergency. John D. Smith happened along
somehow, whether designedly or not I cannot discover. Waiting, he heard
the name “Ephraim Gifford” called. Smith knew Gifford well--knew him to
be a hard-working, stay-at-home man, a good chopper, engaged in clearing
the forest. Stepping up to the Colonel, Smith said, “There, Colonel,
take out Gifford and put in Smadgers there. Smadgers is no good anyway,
he won’t work, and Gifford will chop a place for fall wheat and raise a
crop. Put in Smadgers.” And Smadgers was put in the ranks accordingly,
while Gifford went away home to his chopping.
The times of the outbreak also brought tragedies home to the lives of
many of the settlers--losses which no money indemnity could replace or
the bereaved ones forget.
Thomas Conant, the author’s grandfather, happened on or about February
15th, 1838, to be walking alone on the Kingston Road, about midway
between Oshawa and Bowmanville. It was quite common in those days for
persons to walk or go on horseback, the roads being usually very bad for
wheeled vehicles. He was an old man, unarmed, and proceeding about his
ordinary business. Coming in his walk eastward
[Illustration: MAPLE SUGAR MAKING.]
towards Bowmanville, he saw a man named Cummings sitting on his horse
before the tavern door, then situated on the south side of the Kingston
Road, on lot twenty-six, in the second concession of Darlington. Conant
had not quite reached the hotel, but clearly saw Cummings, as he sat on
his horse, partake of two stirrup cups, when he started to ride on
westward towards Oshawa. Accosting him, Conant (who knew him well) said:
“Good day, Cummings; drunk again, as usual!”
Cummings, who was a dragoon and a despatch bearer, dreaded, above all
things, to be reported drunk when carrying despatches, and fired up in
an instant. Putting spurs to his steed he attempted to ride Conant down;
but Conant was too quick for him, and caught the horse by the bridle as
he approached, whereupon Cummings raised his sword, and, without a word
of warning, struck the old man on the head, fracturing his skull (see
page 193). Death followed a few hours after. Coroner Scott held an
informal inquest, but because the three witnesses of the murder were
looking out of the tavern window, _through the glass of the window_, the
evidence was not admitted, and Cummings went unpunished. But the
proverbial “sword of Damocles” hung over him all the remainder of his
days. Living about Port Hope he became a confirmed drunkard, and at
last fell under the wheels of a loaded waggon and was crushed to death.
Such is the tragic story of the murder of the author’s grandfather. Not
a friend of his dared to utter a protest against the murderous deed or
perversion of justice. He was buried on the Kingston Road, about four
miles easterly from the murder scene, on lot No. 6, in the second
concession of the township of East Whitby. Do I blame the authorities of
that day? Indeed I certainly do, and with good reason. But the fact is,
that a few persons who exercised the supreme authority, as the rebellion
waned, used it most arbitrarily. Good came in the end, and to-day Upper
Canada is the peer of all self-governing countries, and one which I love
for its own sake. Why shouldn’t I? Does it not enshrine the bones of my
grandfather, who fell a victim to Family Compact misrule?
Although our country is almost too young to possess a stock of legends,
there are some tales and many local incidents that have been handed down
from father to son as fireside tales.
At the beginning of this century the Province was almost a vast
wilderness, with open spaces here and there, cleared by the settler’s
axe. Even as late as 1812, at the time of the American war, we had only
just begun to emerge, as it were, from the dark towering forests that
were intersected by only the Indian footpaths. It is almost astounding
when one stops to consider that even within the memory of those now
living our Province has been made. Our cities have been built, our
canals dug, our forests subdued and Ontario made a garden, all well nigh
within the compass of a man’s lifetime. When Governor Clinton, of New
York State, first made the assertion that he would bring the waters of
Lake Erie to Albany, and float a boat on their surface by means of the
Erie canal, there are persons now living who said they would be willing
to die when that was done. But it has been done, and these old persons
in our midst, so slow to believe, seem not anxious to be hurried to
abide by their wish even at this late day. Many a farm in Ontario was
paid for by money earned by Canadians while working on that Erie Canal.
Low as the wages were at the time, it was cash, and gained at a time
when our resolute workers could not earn cash at home. They brought it
back to Canada, and laid the foundation of the prosperity which many
Canadian families now enjoy.
Among the stories of my boyhood days is one of an Episcopal Church
minister who came out from England to this Province at a very early day,
and settled upon a farm a couple of miles from the church. He neither
was nor could be much of a farmer, and never at any time let himself
down to any abandon, nor did he ever cast off his long clerical coat,
even when about his home or when tossing the fly in his trout-stream. A
man of cultivated tastes, he seemed literally to love the ease and quiet
of a country life. For him it was just one long holiday.
He had erected a substantial stone house on the bank of a trout-stream
which meandered through his farm. In those days trout were plentiful,
and with his well filled library, and an ample income from England, it
is not to be wondered at that to him life was worth living. He had
married above him in England, it appeared, but on both sides it had been
a genuine love-match. The irate father had banished his daughter from
his presence, which was the real cause of their domiciling in Canada.
During the father’s lifetime the annual stipend of three hundred pounds
sterling came as regularly as the seasons went by, and I leave each
individual reader to judge for himself or herself if he could fancy a
pleasanter position, or a place in which life could be more fully
enjoyed, than fell to the lot of this parson and his family.
The evil day came at length, when the wife sickened and died, and our
parson scanned his father-in-law’s will most closely. There was some
such ambiguous clause in it as that his daughter or her husband should
receive the annuity of three hundred pounds sterling per year “as long
as she remained above ground.” Here was the parson’s opportunity. He
procured a leaden coffin for the remains, and outside of this wood was
placed; then with a double love, one for his wife naturally, and the
other for her annuity, he placed the casket leaning against the wall in
an upstair room. All went on as before her death, for he could annually
swear that his wife was “above ground.”
Another evil day came after the lapse of a few years, when the parsonage
was found to be in flames. Neighbors gathered, as they will, of course,
at such times, and were anxious to render any assistance possible.
During the progress of the fire the parson walked to and fro among the
persons gathered, with his clerical coat still upon him, beseeching all
and everybody to “save his wife.” His whole soul seemed so wrapt in the
saving of his wife’s remains that he heeded and cared not for any other
loss.
Importunity, however, could not stay the elements in their mad career,
and as the fire progressed it caught the corpse in its embrace, and with
a dull thud the leaden casket burst, and all was exposed to the fury of
the element. Persons who as boys were at the fire say to this day, and
stoutly aver it to be true, that when the coffin burst the blue flames
shot up into the air in a straight jet for forty feet, as if mocking
the parson for his solicitude, and as a judgment upon him for
desecrating his wife’s remains by leaving them so long uninterred. Be
that as it may, I am not in a position to form an opinion, and will not
attempt to judge, but I do know from indisputable testimony that when
the next year rolled around, and the time came for the yearly income to
be received, it did not come, nor did it ever come again, for the parson
was unable to swear that his wife was still “above ground.”
* * * * *
There came to Upper Canada about the year 1803 a young American, strong
of muscle and cunning of skill as a blacksmith. For a few years he
followed his trade and prospered well, for blacksmiths in those days
were few and far between, and he, being skilful, soon amassed quite a
little property. Just as the war broke out he established a little log
hotel on the travelled highway between Kingston and Toronto, where all
the military must necessarily pass in those days. As the war went on
with its preparations this American did a roaring trade, and became
quite a personage in the land. Drafted persons, while on their way to
Toronto, invariably stopped at his log hostelry, and to some of those of
American origin like himself he became communicative over his cups and
explained that he had learned his trade in one
[Illustration: INDIAN WIGWAMS OF BIRCH BARK.]
of the States prisons, and that as soon as he was at liberty he came to
Canada. Among those who passed and repassed during those stirring days
in our country’s history, his place became noted for its good cheer. A
stage occasionally essayed to make its way along this highway and, one
day during the war it left at this man’s log hostelry a strange
passenger. He was a man past middle age, dressed in clothing plain but
of excellent quality, and was from the time of his landing at once
installed as a guest at the log hotel. A couple of strongly bound trunks
were the man’s only baggage.
As the days and nights flew by this strange guest was never averse to
gather in the general bar-room and join in the ordinary gossip of the
neighborhood with the assembled neighbors. He was, in fact, genial, well
disposed, evidently well read, possessed a rich and inexhaustible fund
of anecdote, and was ever the life of the bar-room gathering. Let the
least allusion to politics, however, be made, and the stranger would
shut his mouth as quickly as if his jaws were those of a trap when
sprung by the tread of its intended victim upon its “trenches.” Then he
would seek the solitude of his room and be seen no more for the evening.
His days were spent with his gun or rod among the forests or along the
streams, and many savory additions to the hotel fare were made by his
voluntary contributions to it as a result of his sport. Gradually and
almost imperceptibly he came to be kindly regarded by those who knew or
supposed they knew him. The English tongue he spoke fairly well, but now
and again a little foreign accent would crop out. This he always
instantly corrected when he bethought himself of his error. All attempts
to discover who he was were unavailing. Whether he was a Frenchman, a
German or a Russian was always conjectured, but never transpired. Our
transient guest did not in any way change his ordinary mode of life.
During every fine day he followed his dog with his gun, and if he felt
any uneasiness at his quiet life, or endured the least chagrin at his
expatriation, he was exceedingly careful not in anywise to let it be
known.
To all that part of Upper Canada he became at length an enigma and a
general theme of conjecture as to who he was. Bets were wagered as to
his origin, but owing to the sphinx-like lips of this strange man such
bets had always to be withdrawn again, for there was no possibility of
verifying any decision either way. He paid his bills to the landlord
regularly, and left no cause of complaint against him.
One day, after he had been at the hostelry upwards of five years, the
stage deposited at this log hotel an officer from the army of old
France. He was every inch a soldier in dress, in looks and action.
Having partaken of his dinner, he called the landlord to his side and
asked if he had ever met a man of such and such a description. Now, to
the landlord’s infinite surprise, the description this officer gave
minutely corresponded with the mysterious stranger, but well knowing
that the man had ever studiously avoided being recognized, he repudiated
any knowledge of any such person. In the evening when the man returned
he told him of the French officer and the enquiries he had made. He
answered not a word, but ate his supper and retired to his room.
On the following morning, when the stage came along, going in the
direction whence the French officer came, and in the opposite way to
which he was bound, our strange guest came out of his room and asked to
have his trunks strapped on the stage. With as few words as possible he
paid all his reckonings with the landlord, quietly bade him and his
household good-bye, climbed into the seat, and was gone forever. Nothing
was ever heard of him again. He vanished from that part of Upper Canada
as suddenly as he came into it. Where he came from or where he went to
it is probable no one will ever know.
It was supposed by some that this person had been one of Napoleon the
Great’s generals, and that after the defeat of Waterloo he had seized
all he could find in his division military chest; when Napoleon had
given himself up on board the _Bellerophon_ he got on board another
vessel and sailed for America, and had come away from the seaboard to
this remote place to avoid the probability of anyone meeting and
recognizing him; and that this French officer whose arrival and
enquiries had caused his departure was upon his track to wreak some
vengeance upon him either for the public wrong he had committed, or, it
might be, a private one of so delicate a nature as to be without the
cognizance of the law. Be that as it may, the man went as he came and
left no sign, an unsolved enigma to all with whom he had come in contact
while in the wilds of Canada.
CHAPTER VII.
Religious movements--Itinerant preachers--$50 a
year--Camp-meetings--Weird scenes at night--Millerites--World
coming to an end--Dissenters attempt to fly--Affrighted by a
“sun-dog”--Destruction fails to materialize--The Mormons--An
improvised Gabriel--Raising the dead--Converts--Salt Lake--An Irish
refugee and his poem.
“On some fond breast the ’parting soul relies,
Some pious tears the closing eye requires,
E’en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”
Before churches were built in the early settlements services were held
by itinerant preachers at the houses of the people, or else in the
school-houses, if accessible. Most of these itinerant preachers were
earnest, zealous men, and labored honestly for what they considered to
be right and their duty. Subsisting upon the cosmopolitan (to them)
parishioners, their real need of money was not excessive. It is related
of many of them that they did not receive in money more than $50 to $100
per year during their whole stay in the vicinity. Donations in kind
being frequent, and usually abundant, the need of money was not felt.
Money, indeed, to the pioneer was too precious to be lightly paid out,
or even talked over, except of necessity. Most of the settlers in the
neighboring townships who had not received Royal grants, had bought
their lands from the Crown, the Canada Company, or the Bursar of Toronto
University.
Although the price was usually about $4 per acre, with long terms
allowed for payment, and the vendors were very lenient, yet pay-day
inevitably came around, and every Halifax pound obtained must be hoarded
against it.
My earliest recollection of an itinerant preacher is of one particular
man whose visits were made quarterly, and who always sang at night:
“How happy is the man
Who has chosen wisdom’s ways,
And has measured out his span,
To his God in prayer and praise.”
He was as happy and light-hearted as the birds of the air. His hands
were not hardened by incessant chopping of forest trees, nor was his
face blackened by burning log-heaps. Just how it was I never quite knew,
but one day he borrowed a saddle and $40 from my father, and forgot to
come back again. My father did not, so far as I can remember,
participate in the ideal joys of this itinerant, nor did he seem to be
disturbed or unhappy from deprivation of them.
The genuine camp-meeting was every summer the great feature, and was
looked upon as the special means of grace. Tents and shanties were put
up in a grove, and furnished with rude tables and beds, with seats
arranged outside, and a rostrum for the minister. Four crotched sticks
were stuck in the ground, with beams across, and sticks upon the beams.
On these earth was laid to make a hearth, and a fire built on it. Such
elevated fires shed weird lurid gleams over the scene at night. So far
as I can recollect I have never seen (and I have seen a little of all
lands) anything more picturesque. The shouting preacher, the groaning
penitents, the managers or elders flitting about among the hearers,
while mischievous, unsympathizing boys perched on the trees, ready for
any prank which might present itself; each separate platform of fire
casting its dancing shadows, showing up each detail distinctly--all
combining to make a scene never to be forgotten. (See page 209.)
The camp-meeting generally lasted a week, and I would not for a single
moment wish to convey the idea that much good was not accomplished by
these gatherings, although they certainly were not without some traces
of fanaticism.
The “Millerite scare,” as it might be called, was another instance of
the extent to which religious fanatics could influence their hearers and
affect their lives. From some manuscript left by my mother, and the
account given me by my father, and by my uncle, David Annis, I have
gleaned the following anecdotes of this curious event in our country:
During the winter of 1842-3 the Second Adventists, or Millerites, were
preaching that the world would be all burnt up in February, 1843.
Nightly meetings were held, generally in the school-houses. One E--H--,
about Prince Albert, Ont., owned a farm of one hundred acres and
upwards, stocked with cattle and farm produce, as well as having
implements of agriculture. So strongly did he embrace the Second Advent
doctrines of the Millerites that he had not a doubt of the fire to come
in February and burn all up, and in confirmation of his faith gave away
his stock, implements and farm. Sarah Terwilligar, who lived about a
mile east of Oshawa “corners,” on the Kingston Road, made for herself
wings of silk, and, on the night of 14th of February, jumped off the
porch of her home, expecting to fly heavenward. Falling to the ground
some fifteen feet, she was shaken up severely and rendered wholly unfit
to attend at all to the fires that were expected to follow the next day.
(See page 220.)
The house in the illustration is the one from the windows of which the
attempt to fly was made. The wings were made of silk. Though, in the
picture, they appear to do their work, they did not prevent the wearer
falling to the ground about fifteen feet, and suffering the result in a
broken leg.
Mr. John Henry, on that 14th day of February, was riding alone and met a
man on horseback coming at the top of his speed. Accosting Mr. Henry he
said, “Say, stranger, do you see that sign in the sky?” Mr. Henry looked
up and saw only a sun-dog, frequently seen then and now in the winter
season, and replied, “Yes, what of it?” “Well, that’s the Lord coming
to-morrow to burn the world up,” and Mr. H. replied, “Get out! that’s
only a sun-dog.” “Oh! you are an unbeliever,” was the retort, as the man
dug spurs into his horse’s sides as if to ride away from the fire he
felt so near. My father told me that on the evening before the final
great day, he took a sleigh-load of neighbors down to a meeting in a log
school-house near where Ebenezer Church now is, in Darlington. So deep
was the snow, he said, that they had no difficulty in driving over the
fences. Arriving at the log school-house, they found it densely packed,
and most of the auditors standing. Being late, they sought to push
themselves in, when someone from the middle of the room called out,
“Stand back, boys, you don’t know breeding.” But they pushed on
heedless of breeding or the want of it, and got in a few feet from the
door, where they stood and listened to some Millerite in the master’s
rostrum desk, as he told about the terrible fires to come on in a few
hours. His words riveted the attention of all, cramped and uncomfortable
as they were in the crowded room.
Tallow dips, fastened in tin reflectors, shed a mild light over all, and
the heat from the crowded room became so great as to give a taste, an
intense one, too, of the awful heat promised when the fires should
appear. The old log school-house had been used before as a rude pioneer
dwelling, and a cellar had been scooped out below the centre. Without an
instant’s warning the old floor-beams broke and the crowd, who all
expected to go up, as the Millerite preacher assured them, were let
_down_ with unexpected precipitancy. The scene, my father said, was too
ludicrous for description. Screaming, fainting, pulling, praying,
squirming, the dense mass fought to get out. Fortunately the tallow dips
were fastened to the walls and continued to light up the place. My
father dryly said he made his way out, got his load and went home (at
Port Oshawa) and to bed. The next morning he found the snow as usual
upon the ground and no signs of fire.
A. S. Whiting, the manufacturer, tells of his experience of the
Millerite scare. During the long winter he was peddling eight-day clocks
from house to house--clocks which he had brought with him from
Connecticut. For many weeks he had heard that the immense snow mantle in
that part of Upper Canada around Port Hope would turn to blood and burn
up. On the afternoon of the 14th February, 1843, he, with his horse and
sleigh and a load of clocks, was driving north from Port Hope. It was a
gloriously bright, sunny day of clear bracing cold, with not a cloud in
the sky. Just at nightfall he arrived at a small village and drove
direct to the tavern. Tying his horse to the hitching-post, he went into
the bar-room to ask for lodging and food for himself and the steed. He
found no one, so pushed on into the sitting-room usually provided for
guests. No one was yet visible. Then he called out, but received no
answer. Going on from room to room, he finally reached the kitchen. Here
he found a woman crying and sobbing. Upon asking for the landlord, and
also questioning the hostler where to find him, he was told they had
“all gone to meeting.”
“Well, I want to put my horse in the stable and then have some supper,”
the traveller exclaimed.
“There is no use of eating, for we shall all be burnt up before
morning,” the weeping woman managed to get out between her sobs.
“Well, never mind, I’ll go and put up my horse, while you get me some
supper.”
On partaking of his supper, he asked for his room; still there was no
one else about, and on retiring he was told in faltering words that he
would be burnt up while he slept.
The sun set that night in more than usual splendor; all nature seemed
serene and peaceful, and he could discover nothing to betoken the awful
deluge of fire so soon to rain upon them. He slept well, and did not
waken at two o’clock in the morning to see the two feet of snow turn to
blood and commence to burn. Next morning, at the usual hour, rising and
feeding his horse, he called loudly for someone to get him breakfast.
After a time the inmates appeared, looking haggard and worn, and very
much surprised that they were still alive. After breakfast, when he was
about setting out, he asked “if they wanted pay, since they were all
going to die so soon.” This broke the spell and brought them back to
mundane things. They promptly enough asked for and received pay for the
entertainment of man and beast.
All that day, the narrator said, he could do no business, because the
people had not gotten over the surprise of finding themselves alive.
Just why they had fixed on that special day and hour is past finding
out. Since that time there have
[Illustration: POTASH MAKING. THE MELTING SCENE.]
been many attempts to fix the time for a general conflagration, but
nothing ever became so general as this of the Millerites. It is said the
Scotch were not as a class believers in the doctrine, and had no
disposition to scare themselves to death.
During the summer of that memorable year (1843) the Mormons came to the
country, in the hope of making converts. At Butterfield’s Corners
(Taunton) a man named John G. Cannon held forth for several days,
sometimes in the open air and again in the houses of those inhabitants
who appeared to have leanings that way.
On one occasion, in the midst of a heated harangue out of doors, he
raised his right hand and said, “I ask Heaven if this is not true?” at
the same time looking upwards. A moment, and the answer came from above,
in a deep bass voice, “It is true,” thus startling the audience almost
into belief. Again, on making the assertion that the golden tablets of
brother Joseph Smith were inspired, he asked, raising his voice, “Are
they?” and again came the deep-voiced reply, “They are.” One of the men,
listening, declared there must be a man in a hollow basswood tree
standing near, and said he would go for his hired man with his axe and
have it cut down. “Don’t you touch it,” the Mormon cried
authoritatively; “if you do the Lord will strike you dead.” Perhaps half
convinced, the man did not have the tree chopped down, the fraud
passed, and the Mormon thus scored what appeared convincing arguments.
Quite near this scene a young girl was very sick with a fever, and lay
in a state of coma. That he could raise the dead he now gave out, as in
the illustration (page 228) he is represented as doing. And it is only
fair to the Mormon to add that after his pressure and manipulations over
the girl she did open her eyes and look about.
Several converts were made. Among these a family of the name of McGahan
embraced the faith, sold their farm for $4,000, gave the money to the
Mormon, and went off to Salt Lake. Another, named Seeleys, also sold all
and went, but they could not raise much money.
My father had charged me many times, that if ever I went to Salt Lake I
should go and see these people. In 1878 I happened to be in the Mormon
centre. From a man cutting stones for the new Mormon tabernacle I
enquired for the family. The stone-cutter dropped his mallet as quickly
as if shot, and replied that he knew them well, and would get a
conveyance and take me to them, twenty-five miles down Salt Lake valley,
and assured me of a most hearty welcome.
I did not, however, accept his offer, for, honestly, I confess I was
afraid of the Mormons. As a “Gentile” I feared to risk my life among
them, and preferred not to leave the protection of United States troops
at Camp Douglas.
* * * * *
After the Irish rebellion there came to New York State a talented
Irishman, who lodged on the United States side of the Niagara River at
the Falls. From that point of vantage he daily watched the Canadian
shore just across the river. Like the moth and the candle, he could not
keep away from Britain after all. But while he remained there this is
what he wrote of us:
THE RED-CROSS FLAG.
I.
Beside Niagara’s awful wave
He stood--a ransom’d Irish slave;
Self-ransom’d by a woful flight,
That robbed his heaven of half its light,
And flung him in a nation free--
The fettered slave of Memory.
II.
The exile’s eye strove not to rest
Upon the Cataract’s curling crest,
Nor paused it on the brilliant bow
Which hung aslant the gulf below;
The banks of adamant to him
Were unsubstantial all and dim,
But from his gaze a child had guessed
There raged a cataract in his breast.
III.
A flag against the northern sky
Alone engaged his eager eye;
Upon Canadian soil it stood--
Its hue was that of human blood,
Its red was crossed with pallid scars--
Pale, steely, stiff as prison bars.
“Oh, cursed flag!” the exile said,
“The hair grows heavy on my head;
My blood leaps wilder than this water,
On seeing thee, thou sign of slaughter.
Oh, may I never meet my death
Till I behold the day of wrath,
When on thy squadrons shall be poured
The vengeance heaven so long has stored.”
IV.
Then turning to his friends, who had
Deemed him, from sudden frenzy, mad:
“My friends,” he said, “you little know
The fire yon red rag kindles so;
None but an Irish heart can tell
The thought that causes mine to swell,
When I behold the fatal sign
That blighted the green land once mine;
That stripped her of each gallant chief;
That scourged her for her bold belief;
That would have blotted out her name
Could England buy the Trump of Fame.
But, help us, Heaven, she never can
While lives one constant Irishman.”
V.
He paused. No human voice replied,
But with a mighty oath, the tide
Seemed swearing as it leaped and ran--
“No! no! by Heaven, they never can
While lives one constant Irishman.”
Extravagant as is the tenor of this poem, yet as a literary production
it is good, and points unmistakably to the man’s genius.
Time in its whirligig works wonders, especially in America. A few years
after, that poet and refugee came to Canada, sought election to
Parliament, succeeded, and afterwards became a member of the Dominion
Government. Comment is unnecessary.
CHAPTER VIII.
Canadian laws--Cases of justifiable homicide--Ineffectual attempt
to discipline a church member--Major Wilmot--Asa Wallbridge--“Uncle
Ned”--Cows and matrimony--A humorous dialogue--A witty retort--An
amusing duel.
“The autumnal glories all have passed away!
The forest leaves no more in hectic red
Give glowing tokens of their brief decay,
But scattered lie, or rustle to the tread,
Like whisper’d warning from the mouldering dead;
The naked trees stretch out their arms all day,
And each bald hill-top lifts its reverent head
As if for some new covering to pray.”
During the early days in the newly settled townships many odd characters
were to be found among the sparsely scattered population, and curious
scenes were frequently enacted--scenes that it would be difficult to
reproduce from the annals of other lands. The following might be taken
as a specimen of at least one phase:
A more law-abiding people than the Canadians are not to be found in any
land. The laws they abide by are those enacted by the will of the people
through their elected representatives, and are based upon the
constitutional laws of Great Britain. Occasionally incidents occur which
show how truly these laws are the will of the people. The following will
illustrate my meaning:
At the time when the Home Government kept a small body of troops
stationed in the Canadas, a dissipated young subaltern of the regiment
then quartered at old Quebec deceived a daughter of one of its citizens
by a promise of marriage, and ruined her. Her brother, a lad of
eighteen, upon discovering her trouble, attended a social function held
in the skating rink, at Quebec, where the betrayer was expected to be
present. He met the lieutenant in the passage leading to the rink, and
demanded if he “intended to marry his sister.” A contemptuous derisive
laugh and insulting remark was the only reply, to which the lad
responded by drawing a revolver from his pocket and shooting the man
dead on the spot.
The avenger of his sister’s betrayal at once gave himself up to the
authorities. The trial, as well as the crime, caused a great sensation,
and though the case was a strong one for the Crown, the jury would not
convict him of murder, and the lad went out from the court-house a free
man.
A somewhat similar case occurred in Upper Canada. Some time before the
railway era, when a steamer conveyed the mails and passengers to and
from the towns on the lake front, a resident of one of these towns took
passage west on the steamer, inducing the wife of one of his neighbors
to accompany him. The round trip up the lake, calling at all the western
and southern ports, occupied about a week. Upon the return of the boat
the injured husband, waiting on the wharf, saw the evil-doer in one of
the cabins, and sent a bullet through the window with deadly aim. As in
the case just related, arrest and trial followed, but no jury could be
got to convict him of murder, such a crime being justified in the eyes
of the people by the more heinous one which provoked it.
* * * * *
In one of the counties fronting on Lake Ontario there lived one W--B--,
a descendant of one of our earliest settlers in this locality, a man who
bore an honored name. Among his possessions was a farm, a homestead of
about two hundred and fifty acres, situated upon the shore of Lake
Ontario. He was a most exemplary man and a member of the Disciples’
church at B----, where he usually went to worship. A son of this man,
having a liking for the water, induced his father to buy him a large
well-found schooner, at a cost of about $9,000, which he sailed as
captain on Lake Ontario. For several seasons he
[Illustration: HAULING CANNON. WAR OF 1812.]
plied this vessel conveying general merchandise as freight. He was not
successful, but, on the contrary, continued at ever increasing loss.
Finally his ship was sold for debt, and he came back to his father’s
farm, where he built a second house and lived with his family. Being
without occupation or friends, he asked his father (now an old man) for
a deed of the home farm. This time the father refused, telling him he
had “sailed away $9,000 in a ship, and he would sail away the farm, too,
if he had a chance.” Then the son went to the leaders and elders of the
Disciples’ church, of which his father was a member, and told his story
and his desire for a deed of the farm.
A general special meeting of the church was called, and it was filled
with both sexes, all being members. J--S--, merchant and agent of a bank
doing business in B----, and afterwards a senator, arose. He spoke
earnestly and pointedly about it being Brother B--’s duty to deed his
farm to his son, and for quite twenty minutes urged upon the assembly
the justice, desirability and reasonableness of the act, advocating it
as a matter of duty, and a proof of fatherly love for the son. One L--,
a resident, and a member and leader of the church as well, followed in
the same strain. His words were listened to with rapt attention, and
after speaking some fifteen minutes he too-sat down.
No one arose to speak on the other side of the question. No one cared to
be opposed to S--, for he was very powerful at that time. Though they
keenly felt the undesirableness of acceding to such a demand, they had
not the courage to express it publicly. The stillness became painful,
and for a moment it seemed there could no way be found to break it.
The aged father, at the time stiff with rheumatism, was present. He
grasped the seat before him. It creaked as the strain of his weight came
upon it, and slowly and laboriously the old man arose. Once on his feet
he stood somewhat bent, but, being a large man, towered majestically
above the rest, and in a clear audible voice said, “I’m not going to
take off my coat and throw it down and ask the Church or anyone else
whether or not I shall put it on again.” The strain was broken,
adjournment followed, and the son did not get the deed he coveted.
Jesse Trull, of Darlington, whose father, Captain Trull, was present as
a member at that meeting, related the anecdote to me. This memorable
church meeting took place about the year 1848. To-day it is hard to
conceive any such state of society as would ask a church to try to
compel a man to deed away his farm.
The transition stage was approaching in Upper Canada. Many of the old
pioneers found it hard to trim their sails to meet the new order of
things, and many of them in fact did not, but followed the old way until
they died and were laid to rest under the sod.
Major Wilmot was one of the early settlers, and lived near Newcastle,
Durham County. He married the daughter of John Steigman, a surveyor.
From him he learned field surveying, and did many years’ work for the
Government. A relative of mine lived for years with Wilmot, and was to
have been his heir, but left him too soon. He told me Wilmot was
implicitly trusted by the Government, and often he had gone out
surveying with him, and many times to York to make reports to the
Government. During these years of surveying Wilmot picked out many
desirable lots for himself, and ultimately got a title to them all.
Consequently, as you may easily understand, he became a very rich man.
Asa Wallbridge lived near him, upon a large farm. This neighbor was the
forefather of all the Wallbridges in this part of Upper Canada, a most
influential family. Both of these farm homesteads were overflowing with
abundance--great houses, many cattle, sheep, hogs and horses, and
everything which then represented a rich and prosperous home; yet, my
relative said, Wilmot would pack provisions in a one-horse waggon, stow
in his compass (the theodolite had not come into use at that time),
tripod and chain, sit down in the bottom, and take the young man, my
relative, with him to spend a whole week in surveying, perfectly happy
and contented.
One day they were passing Wallbridge’s, about the usual pig-killing
time, and Wilmot accosted Wallbridge thus: “Good morning, Mr.
Wallbridge; would you like to buy some pork?” “No, Mr. Wilmot,” was the
reply, “I have as much pork as you have.” Then Wilmot added facetiously,
“Well, I thought perhaps you wanted some grease to fry your pork in,”
thus intimating that Wallbridge’s hogs had not a reputation for fatness.
These men with their families led most enjoyable lives, happy, free and
contented, with the greatest of plenty of homely fare. But as Wilmot
grew older Newcastle grew, and the forest was cleared; the settlers
became more and more prosperous; well-built houses replaced the log
houses, carriages the pioneer-cart, and other luxuries of civilization
became the daily portion of the people. Yet on a fine morning Wilmot
would hitch a yoke of oxen to a cart, bestride the axle, and having
secured a long gad, would drive in to the village post-office at
Newcastle and home again. Carriages and fine horses he could not take
to, although then a very wealthy man.
Another old man, but lately deceased, was a continual source of
amusement to the settlers. He died as he had lived, an enigma from the
first to the very last. As nearly as I can learn he was born in Quebec
Province, in the year 1782, and removed to this Province with his
parents some time about the beginning of this century. Upon the death of
his father he inherited some of the choicest lands in Ontario and for
many years of his life passed for a rich man. A character he was in the
neighborhood, and so recognized by all who knew or had ever heard of
him, far or near. Perhaps the prime causes of his noted peculiarities
were in his continually avowed interest in cows and matrimony. In those
days the struggling settler was glad enough to get a cow in any honest
way he could, and our friend was the man to accommodate all those in his
locality in need of one. His system was to let the farmers take a cow
from him for three years, and at the end of that time the farmer must
return to Uncle Ned (for so he was called) the identical cow lent and
another--the other to be generally a calf from the cow lent, grown to be
a young cow itself. During this time the farmer had free use of the cow,
and all the other increase there might be from her. The arrangement
seemed to be quite advantageous to the farmer as well as to Uncle Ned.
It enabled the former to get his first nucleus of a stock without cost
to himself of anything more than the feed of the cow; and it equally
paid Uncle Ned, for on his capital outlay of, say, $20 (for a cow), in
three years he had it doubled, or about 33⅓ per cent. per annum,
barring accidents of course. He seems never to have farmed his lands,
but thought of nothing else, and talked of nothing else at any and all
times, but cows--save and always excepting matrimony. Yet though he
lived to be seventy-five years of age, he never attained the
consummation of his connubial ambitions.
But not to leave the cows too quickly, it is as well to say that Uncle
Ned used generally to take in those days what were called “notes” for
the cows. They were termed notes, but since the short document went on
to enumerate that the signer should return two cows at the end of three
years, etc., it would almost appear that such “notes” were short
contracts. However, be that as it may, sometimes our friend had as many
as one hundred cows out at a time, and consequently one hundred notes on
hand for them. The curiosity in this particular was, that although Uncle
Ned could not read or write a letter, he could and would at any time
pick out from the one hundred notes any one asked for.
His ideas of matrimony were early developed. At the age of twenty-two he
is reported as wandering about the neighborhood in search of any
eligible single ladies who were supposed to be in the matrimonial
market. By so going about from house to house he became acquainted with
the wants of each household in any special particular. Was a family out
of cats, at the next visit in his capacious pocket a kitten was found
nicely and snugly curled up. Would some farmer like a dog, Uncle Ned
brought along a puppy on the occasion of his next hunt in the
matrimonial line. Had the family spinning wheel worn out its spindle and
become useless for the want of one, Uncle Ned did not fail to bring one
next time. Did the good housewife need some saleratus from the store at
the distant corners, in these days before soda became known, Uncle Ned
brought the desired pound package of saleratus, that the family cake
should rise in the dough and be toothsome and pleasant. In fact, Uncle
Ned gradually became, with his obliging attentions to the wants of his
neighbors, and by his quaint idiosyncrasies, the darling of the
neighborhood. And he never ceased, from the time he was twenty-two years
of age up to his seventy-fifth year, to go the rounds of his neighbors,
always careful to supply their little wants, and always in search of a
wife. Did he at one time think of breaking the route, and of stopping
at another and a new farmer’s house for dinner, he would approach the
man of the house, out in the field, and without a word of apology or
preface, ask, “Does your wife make strong tea?” “Well, I never heard of
any complaint on that point,” he is answered. “Ah! I thought I would
stay to dinner with you, but if your wife don’t make strong tea I won’t
stop.” He decides to stop, and earnestly enquires about a maiden lady
living in an adjoining township, who is known to the farmer, he having
removed from the township and locality of the maiden. On his tip-toes,
and as silently as an Indian, Uncle Ned approaches the farmer, who is
about his work in the field, and whispers in his ear:
“Has she got a farm?”
“Oh, yes; she has three hundred acres.”
Uncle Ned retreats some rods, to the point from which he so noiselessly
advanced, exploding with loud and jovial laughter. Up again he comes on
tip-toe, and whispers,
“Is she engaged?”
“No, I think not.” And away he backs off again amid another burst of
laughter.
Again he steals up, and whispers, “Can she spin flax and make her own
shifts?”
“Oh, yes; she can spin as well as any woman in the county.” And he
backs away, with the laughter louder than before.
Now he comes again: “Has she got red hair?”
“Yes; she has red hair.”
No laughter this time, but he hangs his head and backs away, muttering
to himself, “Well, that’s too bad. I do hate red hair. But then, since
she has three hundred acres, that will make one overlook the red hair
after all.”
And he comes on again, more cautiously than ever before, and whispers,
“I have as good a new suit of clothes at home in my trunk as any man
has, and they are paid for, too. Now, do you think I had better wear
this new suit the first time I go to see her?”
“Yes, I think I would the first time; but since the people are plain
people they might think you too extravagant if you wore it the next
time; and then I think I would wear the common suit on all visits after
the first one.”
Ned backs away. “Ha! ha!! ha!!!” and bawls out to the farmer, “Don’t be
in a hurry to go to work; you’re not working by the month.”
He steals up again: “Don’t you think Sam Green would be a good man for
me to take with me the first time to introduce me?”
“Yes, he’s just the man.”
“Ho! ho!! ho!!!”
Forward he comes again, and whispers, “You tell Sam Green to tell her
that I’ll stock the land with cows. Tell her that I’ll hire a girl to
nurse the baby. Tell her that I’ll wear my good suit the first time I
come to see her, but during all the rest of our courting I’ll only wear
my working suit.”
At this juncture the good wife calls from the door “Dinner!” and Uncle
Ned has to cease this courting by proxy to go in and see if the tea be
really strong enough for him. Courting thus by double proxy it was in
this instance, as his courting generally was done. That is, this farmer
must tell Sam Green, and Sam Green must tell the red-haired maiden in
the adjoining township. It is more than likely the maiden never heard of
Uncle Ned either before or after his resolve to court her, unless it be
through the lone intermediary of Sam Green. It is probable for a year of
his life this red-haired maiden was the subject of Uncle Ned’s
matrimonial thoughts; then at the expiration of the year another lady
comes to take her place--or rather, another lady comes to take the place
which the red-haired lady was supposed to take, but never did.
Along the road again, some eight or ten miles away from his home, on
foot (always on foot, for he was never known to ride), Uncle Ned
approaches Farmer G--, and whispers, “Do you know the widow T--?” “Yes,
what about her?” “Is she smart?” “No, she’s like her husband was, rather
lazy.” “Oh, that’s bad.” No laugh this time; he whispers, “Has she any
land?” “Yes, she has fifty acres.” “Well, I must overlook her laziness.”
For the space of another year the widow T--engrosses the current of his
thoughts, and becomes the constant theme of his talk. And yet it is not
at all probable that he ever met her, either before her husband’s death
or after, when she was supposed to be in the matrimonial market. As he
journeyed along down life, always on the same themes of cows and
matrimony, some of the neighbors at whose house he used to stop would
deem him crazy. Well, if he were so, it was madness always with a method
to it, and in his bargains about his cows he frequently displayed
considerable shrewdness and business ability. A distant farmer came to
him one day to make a bargain to get two cows to double as already
described. It so happened that the cattle were out in the field, and
they together went out to see them. In talking over the details of the
bargain the farmer sat down upon a convenient stump. During the
weariness of a lengthened conversation he, as he sat, happened to begin
trotting his foot and contracting the fingers of his left hand, which
the quick eye of Uncle Ned noticed.
“Are you a fiddler?”
“Yes, I fiddle sometimes.”
“You can’t have any of my cows, for I never knew a fiddler to be worth
anything in my life,” and he wouldn’t let him have the cows at all.
So far as I know he was never known to actually address himself to the
object of his affections for the time being, and likewise the theme of
his talk, but the once. This time he called upon a farmer and asked him
if he knew of Mr. E.--’s girls. The farmer told him he did, but that he
(Uncle Ned) was crazy. Said he in reply, “Do you know, Ezra, why there
is no danger of your ever going crazy?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Well, you don’t know enough. It’s only bright men who go crazy.”
In this instance the farmer takes Uncle Ned to Mr. E--’s and gives him a
kind of general introduction to the father, mother and two daughters
assembled, in this wise: “See here, folks, this is Mr. S--in search of a
wife.”
“Come in, sir, come in.” The girls, seeing a huge chance for fun, lent
themselves to the joke, and so kept it up for the space of a couple of
years. At the termination of each visit, as he was about to set out,
one of the girls would put in a plea for a new dress, which Uncle Ned
would promise faithfully to bring, and he was generally as good as his
promise. At the next visit the other girl would ask for a piece of
cloth, and again, as before, he brought it. For the whole two years the
girls did not discover which one of them was the object of his
affections or regard. Still his visits continued during the intervals
spared from his dealings about his cows, and the idea of matrimony never
for a moment left his brain.
* * * * *
There are not many records extant of duels having been fought in Canada.
The following was possibly one of the last, and perhaps the most amusing
instance of such “honorable combat”:
It was during the closing days of the Canadian rebellion, when the
troops were about to be disbanded. A ball had been given in Whitby, at
which many of the officers of the troops, as well as society people of
the sparsely settled country, attended. Among the guests at this ball
were two young men, one in later years a public official in Newcastle,
the other a resident of Oshawa, lately deceased. Both of these men were
well mounted, as most persons were who travelled the bad roads in the
early days of April of the year 1838.
Tradition tells us that the ball was both gay and stylish, and many of
the young ladies of the gathering were ambitiously gotten up for the
occasion. Indeed, a gentleman now among the living, who was present,
describes a lady’s head-dress of ostrich plumes which extended quite two
feet above her head, and nodded with every motion, involuntary or
otherwise, of the wearer. The supper, too, was the best that the day
could give, mainly substantial perhaps, but of the lighter culinary art
there were some cakes, and very attractive ones too--so much so, that
one of the young men whom we have mentioned accused the other of
pocketing some of them. This accusation could only be wiped out with
blood, and was most indignantly denied. The accused purloiner of cakes
mounted his steed and made his way to Richard Wood’s tavern, then kept
by him in a story-and-a-half wooden building on the south-west corner of
Oshawa “four corners.” The old tavern stood about one hundred feet back
from the road, just south from where Morgan’s grocery store now is. A
circular stage road led to its hospitable doors, and a low veranda or
“stoop” extended along the whole north side of the hotel.
By the time the accuser arrived the accused had possessed himself of an
immense old horse-pistol, and challenged his antagonist to fight a duel.
The latter declined to fight with such a crude weapon, but insisted on
getting proper duelling pistols, if his antagonist really must fight.
The late Capt. Trull, of Darlington, then had command of the few troops
stationed in Oshawa. He tried to break up the duel and prevent
bloodshed, but without success. At each end of the “stoop” of the hotel,
just as it was becoming daylight, April, 1838, the principals took
stations ready for the word. Capt. Trull actually placed his own person
between the men, so anxious was he to stop the fray. But the word was
given, and one of the duellists, proving himself game to the last,
managed to dodge out of the way of Capt. Trull’s person and fired
deliberately. The other, unhurt, threw down his pistol and ran as fast
as his legs could carry him around the hotel. And now Capt. Trull, who
had been so anxious to prevent the fight, became so disgusted at the
man’s cowardice that he picked up the pistol where it had been thrown by
the fugitive and made the best gait possible after him to fire at him
for being so great a coward. So laughably ended Oshawa’s only duel.
CHAPTER IX.
Paring bees--Mirth and jollity--Dancing and games--Playing
“forfeits”--Anti-Slavery Act--Canada’s proud distinction--Refugee
slaves--“Uncle Tom”--Old Jeff--Story of a slave.
“It came from Heaven--it reigned in Eden shades;
It roves on earth, and every crack invades;
Childhood and age alike its influence own;
It haunts the beggar’s nook, the monarch’s throne;
Hangs o’er the cradle, leans above the bier,
Gazed on old Babel’s tower--and lingers here.”
A paring bee is still an ordinary occurrence in the autumn in the rural
districts of this Province, though less frequent than when the process
of preserving apples by evaporation was unknown. There is almost a
superfluous abundance of apples in the fall, especially of the softer
kinds, and those which will not keep are utilized by being dried for use
after the hardier varieties are gone. These dried apples form a staple
article of diet among Canadians, especially in the North-West and in the
lumber camps.
There is much fun and jollity at these paring bees. After the apples
are gathered in the fall, and sweet cider has been pressed out, one of
the house-holders of a group will send out invitations for a paring bee.
These invitations are invariably given verbally, and extend to all young
lads and lasses, as well as to the married people in the vicinity, not
forgetting the school-master. On the night appointed, those living at
greater distances come in carriages, but never on horseback; the nearer
ones on foot. Horses are put away, and all gather in the kitchen. This
is generally one of the largest rooms in the farm-house, and for this
occasion it has been cleared of its every-day _impedimenta_, and a long
table placed in the middle of the room.
The young men do the paring with paring machines. This machine as at
first used, before the patented iron article came into use, was of home
construction. It consisted of a wooden pulley, about eight inches in
diameter, over which a belt ran on a smaller pulley of about three
inches. By turning the large pulley great speed was given to the smaller
one, to which the fork for holding the apple was attached. The knife for
the paring of the apple was held in the hand of the operator. Some of
the young men became very skilful in manipulating the knife, and their
reputation kept them in requisition at every bee. It is almost
incredible how quick one of these experts was at paring an apple. With
his home-made machine he could very quickly empty a bushel basket as he
deftly and smoothly divested the apples of their skins.
Three or four parers were usually employed during the evening. Along the
table the young lasses were seated, and before them were heaped the
pared fruit. As a division of labor, the first in order only quartered
the apples, and pushed them on to her next neighbor, who, in turn, did
the coring; and thus many bushels were pared, quartered and cored in the
one evening. They were then strung upon linen thread by the younger
persons of the party, who were not supposed to be sufficiently skilful
to pare, quarter or core the fruit. Long darning needles with strong
linen thread, cut in long lengths, were used. These were driven through
the apple quarters, and a string so formed. It did not usually take long
for the lads and lasses to be promiscuously inter-mixed, for no
quaker-meeting formality was permitted at a paring bee.
Sallies of wit never went unheeded by the willing ears. Should one be
too sober, he or she would be quickly brought to a sense of duty by a
light blow from a quarter of an apple discharged from a neighbor’s
dexterous hand.
It was the duty of the older members of the party to hang the strings of
apples, as fast as they were ready,
[Illustration: MOODE FAREWELLS’ TAVERN, NEAR OSHAWA, 1812.]
upon poles near the kitchen ceiling. From fifteen to twenty bushels of
closely pared, cored and strung apples was not an uncommon result of an
evening’s work. Thus in a single evening the household was provided with
dried fruit for a year’s use.
Paring, quartering, coring and stringing at last done, the company rise.
A great heap of apple skins, seeds, and cores remain. The next step is
to wash the hands in the apple litter, for this is supposed to be a
means of preventing the apple juice pressed into the wrinkles of the
hands from staining them when they become dry. And so all must
thoroughly rub the hands in the apple litter. The lasses scarcely need
the caution, for they do not want their hands stained. All “take hold”
and clear the room, and in a few minutes it is put to rights, and the
company sit upon benches and chairs around the room. The good housewife
has prepared her lunch, and each one receives a plate, most likely laden
with a slice of pumpkin pie, a bit of cheese and some cakes. Then
someone comes around with a pitcher of sweet cider. There is no stint to
the amount of food or drink anyone might partake of, and slice after
slice of savory pumpkin pie disappears.
Enough at last, and the room is again cleared. The table is now removed,
and according to the religious scruples of the company, they divide.
Those who dance take a large room to themselves, someone produces from
a green bag a well-worn violin, and it is a matter of only a few minutes
before a voice is calling off: “Salute your partners,” “All promenade
down the centre,” “All join hands,” etc., and such calls so familiar to
many of us now in Ontario. I am not going to say there was as much style
about the dance as nowadays, nor were there any long trains to the
ladies’ dresses to get entangled under the gentlemen’s feet, but for
genuine fun I am free to say the dignified dances of the present day are
at a discount. As quickly as one set gets through an eight-hand reel
there is another ready to take its place, and so the dance goes on.
But we must turn to the other party, still out in the capacious kitchen,
whose religious scruples do not permit them to dance. Even if so, they
do not fail to glance furtively through the door now and again at the
graceful dancers, and almost wish their theology would allow them to
join in! A feature peculiar to America is now to be enacted in the
kitchen, and it is simply a play among the boys and girls. A “kissing
bee” it finally came to be called, and, as time went on, grew less
fashionable, though it lingers yet. In those days it was one of our
institutions, and must not pass away without a remark. Someone is chosen
as judge, and blindfolded and placed in a chair. Two are chosen to lead
the victims to the judge, and the hands of the former are held over the
judge’s head with the words, “Heavy, heavy, what hangs over?” The judge
asks “Fine, or superfine?”--fine, of course, being for the lads, and the
superfine for the lasses. Gravely the judge proceeds to pronounce the
sentence. We will take one sentence from the judge, at random, among
many from memory, which will give an idea of the general tenor of the
judicial decisions. Allow the hand above his head to be superfine in
this particular case. Sentence: “She must make a double-twisted
lord-o’-massy with John Jones.” Now, John Jones knows what this means,
and is not averse to kissing a pretty girl, for the judge generally
knows his company, and the run of the sweethearts, and usually sends
such together. Jones seizes the girl’s hands, elevates her arms to one
side, and kisses her on one cheek, turns the hands over and elevates
them again to the other side this time, and kisses her again through
their arms on the other cheek. Then the next one comes up for sentence.
Various sentences were of course given, but they invariably ended in
kissing, much to the delight of the young men present.
Thus the jollity and fun went on, but even so with this peculiarity of
American kissing I wish to unequivocally record the fact that no
impropriety was ever indulged in or thought of. Perhaps kissing in this
general and public way cannot commend itself, but to the participants in
those days it was fun, and no harm came from it, and, so far as I can
see, it had just about as many arguments to sustain it as the mazy dance
has, where they all go “promenading down the centre.”
The blindfolded judge has at last pronounced upon everyone in the room,
and a change of the play is sought. Charlie is present and has brought
his guitar. Now this Charlie is a wealthy farmer’s son (a farmer who
owns his two hundred and fifty acres and stock, and is worth $30,000 at
least), who, becoming rather proficient at the school, has been away a
term to the old Normal School at Toronto. It must have been at the
Normal he learned the guitar and began cultivating the incipient
moustache which appears upon his upper lip like a streak of soft down.
Still it is a moustache, and as such it is worth cultivating. And
Charlie crosses his legs and proceeds to tune his guitar, amidst the
good-humored gibes of the young ladies intently looking on. He gets the
tune after all, and commences to hum an air and now and again give the
instrument another turn of the screws. Boldly Charlie strikes out, and
it is all about “Mrs. Fogarty’s Christmas cake.” At the termination of
each verse the applause of handclapping follows, and Charlie is spurred
on to renewed efforts. The chorus comes in from this distance of years
in my memory:
“There were plums and prunes and cherries,
And nuts and candies and cinnamon too;
There were caraway seeds in abundance,
And the crust it was nailed on with glue,
And it would kill a man twice
If he ate him a slice
Of Mrs. Fogarty’s Christmas cake.”
Well done, Charlie! and he’s free to go home with the prettiest girl in
the group, and said prettiest girl is not at all averse to accept of
Charlie’s company.
This is a faithful picture of one of the scenes of the days of my
boyhood. From out of the assemblage of those paring bees have sprung
much of the bone and sinew of our glorious Province (the freest and best
under heaven). The lads have become our M.P.’s, our wealthy merchants
and staunch landowners, and many, I am sorry to say, have gone to the
United States and given that country the benefit of their untamable
Canadian energies and sturdy physique, while others fill the
professional walks in our own land.
The first Act which passed the Legislature of Upper Canada in 1792 was
an Anti-slavery Act. Canadians can therefore claim the proud distinction
for their flag--the Union Jack of 1801--that it has never floated over
legalized slavery. There are numerous instances in our records of
negroes brought with the U. E. Loyalists to Canada, or who came of their
own freewill, remaining as devoted servants with their masters and
one-time owners until their death--not a few of these freed slaves
devoting all their earnings to support their beloved masters or provide
them with comforts and luxuries in their old age; and others, to secure
themselves from being separated from their old masters during their
lives, binding themselves by indentures to serve them for life.
Canada is truly a land of freedom. Once within her borders the hunted
slave, who had committed no crime, could claim the protection of its
laws and know that he was a free man. Therefore when ill-treated it is
obvious that slaves would escape from slavery and come to
Canada--crossing at any part of the three-thousand-mile line boundary
between the United States and Canada, and here finding security and
freedom.
About Chatham, in the western part of Ontario, there were many such
escaped slaves, who had reached there by what was known as the
“underground railway.” These men made very good citizens and settlers.
They were usually quiet, self-respecting, respectable, law-abiding,
religious people--excellent servants, and often devoted to those whom
they served.
Winters in the northern States and Canada east of Toronto are not
conducive to their pleasure, for the negro is really and truly a child
of the sun. Thus the more western townships, which are sunny and have
milder winters, suit them best.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom, in her great book, “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” lived for some years in Chatham. Several, however, have settled
and left kindly memories behind them in the neighborhood of Oshawa. One
of these was
OLD JEFF.
About 1865 there came to this locality an intensely black negro. He had
been a cotton-picker in Alabama, and had run away from slavery.
How he got away he never would tell, but said he followed the north
star. Without permission from anyone he went into the woods, just south
of Cedar Dale shop, and in a thicket built himself a hut by inclining
poles together like the letter A, covering them with dirt and using one
unstopped end as a door. In this hut he dwelt by himself with his big
dog for about seven years, when he died. Charitably disposed persons
used to give him food and clothes, for he was too old to work. He was
very polite and harmless, and indeed became quite a favorite in the
neighborhood.
There seemed to be some hidden romance in his history which he never
would tell, and during his latter days, although he had been anxious to
get away from the South, he pined to go back. In the words of the old
song:
“I’ve hoed in fields of cotton,
I’ve worked along the river,
I thought if I got away
I’d ne’er go back any longer;
But times have changed the old man,
And his head is bending low,
For my heart’s turned back to Dixie,
And I must go.”
The late Mrs. F. W. Glen had a water-color drawing of old Jeff’s hut,
which was prized highly for its faithful reproduction of the picturesque
but rude dwelling. Poor old Jeff! the remains of his hut are still
standing in the thicket.
My father, in his earlier years, had a black man as a general servant.
He lived so long in Canada that his story may be included in this
sketch.
He was born about the year 1814 in one of the counties in Virginia,
which was so storm-swept during the great rebellion from 1861 to 1865.
His home was in the track which Gen. Sheridan despoiled so effectually
that he was able to boast, “Even a crow flying over must carry its own
rations.” But during the first forty years of this poor slave’s life it
smiled and produced grains and grasses and cattle in abundance. There
his home was on the farm, where the system of agriculture is more like
ours. The “plantations” proper are farther south, and the negroes
employed on them are looked upon by the farmer slaves as belonging to an
inferior race. “Only a plantation nigger” is a common saying among those
employed on the Virginia farms. Owned by the head of one of the first
families of Virginia, he had to thank him, too, for being the author of
his existence. There were other sons born to this proud first family of
Virginia. As they grew up they became sensitive of their slave
half-brother, and induced their father to sell him.
His new master farmed one thousand acres of land, but only about
one-half of this was arable, the rest being broken and used mainly for
sporting in the scrub. On this one-thousand-acre farm sixty slaves, male
and female, were kept, and the new master thought seriously of making
his new slave foreman. The old overseer, however, strongly resisted
being put under a “nigger,” and his opposition, when putting it in such
light in that day, was sufficient to keep the new slave out of the
position.
Digressing here just a little, we can discover what would be the wealth
of one of the first families of Virginia, who as fire-eaters made such
boasts afterwards. The one thousand acres could then be bought for
$15,000, as they may be now; sixty slaves, at an average of $500, some
being old and decrepit and others young, would be worth $30,000; stock
and farming implements, say, $5,000. Total, $50,000. It is interesting
to know what the capital of one of those great men who talked so much at
the time of the war would be.
The slave whose fortunes we are following was made a teamster and given
a six-horse team to make one trip per week with a large canvas-covered
waggon to Fredericksburg and home again. He sold the grain and brought
the money home to his master at the end of every trip. On setting out on
his journey he was always given fifteen bushels of oats for his six
horses on the trip. The jealous overseer, trying to find a pretext to
whip the new slave, stole two bags of oats from his load before he set
out. This he did two weeks in succession. The consequence was that the
horses came home on the second trip looking somewhat gaunt and not quite
up to the mark.
Next morning after returning he was awakened by the overseer, carrying a
big whip and some ropes, and ordered to go with him to his master.
Arriving at the master’s house, the overseer charged him with having
sold the oats and starved the team.
The accused protested his innocence, and established it beyond doubt. “A
black girl has told me,” he said, “where the overseer has hidden the
oats, over the back part of the granary, between the ceiling and the
outside boards.” His master at once forbade the whipping, and told him
to go and find the trap, which he did straightway.
He always asserted that while his master was at home he got on well
enough, for he was a kindly-disposed man. But in an evil day for the
poor slave the master went away “to the Springs” for his health,
ordering him to continue teaming, and instructing him to hand the money
to a near neighbor, not to the foreman.
As soon as the overseer returned he, however, demanded the cash, but the
man refused, and paid it over according to his master’s orders.
Then the overseer took the slave off the road and put him ploughing with
a three-horse team. After he had ploughed a few days, he came to him one
day on horseback, just after dinner, carrying a bundle of gads. On
riding up to him he dismounted, and ordered him to “haul off.” For the
first time in his life this poor slave asserted his manhood, and
refused, declaring that “he had done nothing, and would not be whipped.”
At this juncture the overseer pulled out a pistol, and placed it to the
breast of the slave, who looked the overseer steadily in the eye, and
said, “That’s the death I want to die, and not be killed by inches, as
you have killed many hereabout.”
It was too much even for the brutal overseer, who remounted and
threatened he “would have satisfaction from him before sundown, if it
cost him his life”; and so rode away, leaving him to go on with his
ploughing.
The overseer returned at nightfall with his brother and brother-in-law,
and ropes enough “to tie down a horse,” as the old ex-slave expressed
it, and a big whip. “Now, haul off, will you?” and the overseer made an
effort to catch his victim, who dropped his reins and bolted from the
plough handles for the woods, with the three in full chase after him. He
was too fleet for them, however, and gained the shelter of the woods.
For three weeks he hung about the neighborhood, fed by the other slaves,
and waiting for his master to come home. Then the overseer
[Illustration: DANIEL CONANT’S LUMBER MILL.] advertised him as a
runaway slave, and offered $100 for his arrest.
“Any mean, poor white man, I knew, now might take me,” the old man said,
“and so I walked to London during the night.” How pathetically the
humble old ex-slave described his aversion to leave home and his
friends! He stopped at London a week, working for wages. Being once more
frightened, and not hearing that his master had returned home, he
“followed the north star by night” and slept during the day, until he
came to Harrisburg, Pa. From Harrisburg to Charlotte, N.Y., he walked
during the day-time, boldly inquiring his way to Canada, but always
careful to keep going north. He says he always had heard of Canada among
the slaves, but thought it was “a land where the wild geese go to, and
was covered over with feathers.” Liberty, the old man said, was sweet,
and he had made up his mind to risk making a living in Canada, even if
it might be a poor one.
At Charlotte, N.Y., he found a small vessel about to sail for Colborne,
Ont., and he bargained for his passage by working at loading before they
set out, and was to help unload on getting over. It was late in the
fall, he said, and when he once set foot in Canada he did not wait to
help unload the boat for fear they might take him back to Charlotte, as
they wished him to go for another trip. This was in 1854, when the
Grand Trunk Railroad was under construction, and things were booming in
Ontario. He quickly got a job as teamster, and worked at that until the
road was completed.
About this time (1856) he became a servant of my father’s and lived with
the family many years, and it was from his own lips I gathered the story
of his life as I have told it. Only about three weeks before his death
he induced the writer to communicate with his friends in Virginia,
giving his assumed name, James King, by which he always had been known
here. A reply came at once, telling his real name, (which the old man
confessed was right), and asking him to come back and see his friends,
intimating, too, that he might be profited by his visit. His dread of
slavery was too great, however, and he absolutely refused to go, but
enquired most earnestly for his white half-brother, whom, the writer
suspects, would now be glad, seeing that the great battle of slavery had
been fought, to aid him. But it was not to be. James King, the slave, in
whose veins flowed Virginia’s best blood, died of inflammation on the
20th day of October, 1895, in the land where he had sought and found
freedom.
After a silence of thirty-eight years it seemed hard that the poor old
ex-slave could not have gone to see his friends, and thus had a few
bright days at the close of his long and lonely life.
CHAPTER X.
Civil war in the United States--Large bounties paid Canadian
recruits--Prices of produce go up--More than two million men under
arms--I make a trip to Washington--Visiting the military
hospitals--I am offered $800 to enlist--Brief interview with
President Lincoln--A pass secured--I visit the Army of the
Potomac--90,000 men under canvas--Washington threatened by the
Confederates--Military prison at Elmira, N.Y.--Cheap greenbacks--A
chance to become a multi-millionaire.
“I looked, and thought the quiet of the scene
An emblem of the peace that yet shall be,
When o’er earth’s continents and isles between
The noise of war shall cease from sea to sea,
And married nations dwell in harmony;
When millions, crouching in the dust to one,
No more shall beg their lives on bended knee,
Nor the black stake be dressed, nor in the sun
The o’er labor’d captive toil, and wish his life were done.”
The civil war in the United States broke out in April, 1861, and
indirectly exerted much influence on Canada. From 80,000 to 100,000 of
our young men, who were sympathizers with the North, went from Ontario
and Quebec to join the Northern army. These Canadian recruits all
received bounties--at first, usually $800 on enlisting, and then, as the
struggle went on, receiving as high as $1,600.
The war created a large demand for produce of all kinds, and the
Northern States bought everything we had to sell, giving high prices;
the farmer and other producers became wealthy, and, to quote the usual
expression, “the times were good.”
This fratricidal war had more men engaged in it, more horses, more
ships, more mules, and more money than any war the world had yet ever
known. As to numbers, Xerxes is allowed to have had the greatest army
hitherto known, his force numbering one million of men when he crossed
the Hellespont to conquer Greece. But when the North disbanded its
armies at the termination of the war, in 1865, they had 1,250,000 men of
all kinds under arms or on the roll. The South had 800,000 men.
We do not compare their navies of that day, of course, with the peerless
navy of Her Majesty. By their fight of ironclads at Hampton Roads,
Virginia, in 1864, however, they revolutionized the naval architecture
of the world.
When the war was at its height I visited the armies. Gold had been
bounding upwards week by week as the protracted struggle went on. Its
daily rise whetted the edge of our appetites, keen to the main chance
of money-making. I was then just a young man fresh from college, but I
felt that a truly “golden” opportunity was passing by us.
Day after day we read of the advance of the Federal army, and of its
repulse by the Confederates (more especially in Virginia) and then again
of its successes, and likewise the talk of Louis Napoleon being about to
recognize the belligerency of the South.
We who were that day upon the scene, as it were, even if not in the
actual conflict, felt the blows as they were struck with all the
terrible force of war’s ravages, and honestly did not know how to make
up our minds as to the final success of either side. I resolved to see
for myself the contending armies, and then judge as well as I could from
a ramble among both parties as to the ultimate result.
Well, about June 18th, 1864, having secured my father’s consent, I set
out to inspect for myself. Down to New York I made my way, and looked
about the great metropolis of America to find some signs of the
depression of war upon the North; but I saw nothing to lead me to
suppose for an instant that the drain upon the country was at all
severe. In those days there was no Coney Island as we now know it.
Indeed, I recollect going down there upon the sand dunes and finding
only a board shanty of a restaurant where they served baked clams. And
these were only forty cents per plate in those days of inflations. That
price was no kind of bar to me, with plenty of British and American gold
in my pockets, for even then, before the premium had got to bounding up,
my greenbacks only cost me about thirty-eight cents on the dollar. So,
you see, even baked clams and the best hotels in New York of that day
were at my command for a very small outlay.
At Philadelphia I encountered no sign of war, but the great city on the
Schuylkill was booming on its way. Baltimore seemed just a little off,
and many of the people appeared to be rather sulky. Still, there were no
signs of reverses or oppressions, and so far war had not, to outward
appearances, seriously hurt the North.
Washington I found during the last days of June the gayest of the gay.
What struck me most forcibly was the extreme freedom in and about the
city. Go anywhere I could and did, and no one seemed disposed to say me
nay. In and out of Congress I went at will, as well as into the
departments of the Secretaries. More than that, I rode on horseback some
three or four miles south-easterly from the city to the great military
hospitals.
Some of these were mere structures of boards; others large field tents;
others, again, had board tops and tent sides. I walked at will among the
rows of cots, and there saw suffering in its acutest forms. Soften the
heart? Aye, the quest of gold upon which I first set out from my
Canadian home was forgotten for the time in the presence of this
suffering. Young fellows many of them were lying there by the hundreds,
so pallid and wan, and scarcely lifting eyes to look at the passer-by.
Even after this lapse of time, I vividly remember thinking of the
mothers of these young lads in far-off homes in the north, waiting so
hopefully and wistfully for their sons’ return.
In addition to the wounded in battle, many of the poor fellows were
suffering from fevers. But to me it was all suffering. And this at last
was war! Such scenes as these, harrowing though they are, mark the great
distinction between the savage and the civilized. Civilized, we care for
our wounded and sick; savage, the infirm and helpless are left to die.
Board shanties, and with board roofs, mean as they were architecturally:
“I know they were holy things
That from a roof so sacred shine,
Where sounds the beat of angels’ wings,
And footsteps echo all divine.
Their mysteries I never sought,
Nor hearken to what science tells;
For, oh, in childhood I was taught
That God amid them dwells.”
Naturally, serviceable material for army recruits was looked after most
keenly in Washington at this time. Walking along the new asphalt
sidewalk, in heat so great as to melt the asphalt so that it left the
print of my footsteps upon it, an officer wanted to know if I would like
to enlist. His first offer was $800 in money down, and I have no doubt
the offer would have gone up to $1,600 quite if I had been so disposed,
but my quest was gold and not military glory, and consequently I
declined the offer.
I made, too, a visit to Lincoln, at the White House, during the last
days of June, 1864. No one for a moment questioned my right to enter. A
challenge I did not hear. Within the doors of the White House, at the
foot of the main stair, sat an attendant upon a plebeian three-legged
stool reading a novel. Not a soldier nor a policeman in sight, and I was
free, apparently, to go where I chose.
“In which room is the President?” I asked of the novel-reading
attendant.
“First room upstairs to the right.”
I went up, and saw the great man in the room indicated. Feeling that I
had no kind of right to intrude upon a man so weighted down with cares
as President Lincoln was at that period of the war, I remained long
enough to allow his image, as he sat facing me, to be imprinted on my
memory, never to be obliterated. My first thought was, “What a tall,
awkward man and how badly his clothes fit.” One arm lay upon the table
beside which he sat, and the other upon the arm of his chair.
I could not, however, bring myself to leave without an interview with
the President. On my card being handed him he ceased talking for a
moment with his visitor, some man from Missouri, and through the open
door asked me in and told me to be seated, and he would soon be through
with the business on hand. Thus involuntarily I learned the nature of
the business of the gentleman from Missouri, which seemed to be to
importune the President to order the release of a number of guerillas
who had been committing depredations in the south-west.
After a lot of words from the Missourian, Mr. Lincoln said if he would
give him “any real good reason why these men should be liberated” it
would be done. The conversation continuing, I thought it my part to
retire. As I left the room, the President sat with fixed gaze,
apparently absorbed in thought, and so preoccupied as not to notice my
departure. While disappointed of my interview, I had seen and spoken
with the man whose figure stands out in clear and massive outline on the
canvas of American history, and I remember this with pardonable pride
and satisfaction.
A pass was granted me to go wherever I chose in Virginia or about the
vicinity of Washington. How I got this pass I cannot even now, after
thirty-two years, tell. Some of the persons who assisted me to obtain
this great favor are yet alive--not all of them, it is true, but I would
be manifestly unwise to tell any more on this point. Being a Canadian, I
may freely say, gained me the coveted pass when backed up with some
seals of officialdom from our own Canada. More I cannot, dare not say,
only that this pass lies on my writing desk beside me as I write these
lines.
Without delay I set out to cross the Potomac, mounted upon a horse hired
from a Washington livery stable. It was when entering the Long Bridge,
as the wooden structure of two miles in length over the Potomac then was
called, that I first showed my pass. My first thought upon gaining the
Virginia shore was of the terrible barrenness and bleakness of the
country about. There were no roads, no fences, no buildings, no woods,
but just a mass of the lightest and meanest red dust one ever could
conceive of--dust quite four inches deep, so that of necessity I rode
[Illustration: WORLD TO COME TO AN END. STARS FALLING, 1833.]
in a perfect cloud and had to canter sharply to get away from it.
To describe the ride to the Army of the Potomac would take too long, and
there is really nothing worthy of much note until I got to the army
itself. At the camp every courtesy was shown me, and then I saw what few
persons now alive at this time ever saw, and that was 90,000 men
encamped in tents and under arms. It would be useless for me to try to
describe this vast army. Its very magnitude was too great for the mind
to grasp.
Men I saw, and men, and still men, everywhere and all about. There
literally seemed to be no end of them, and the idea then formed itself
in my mind that this great armed mass of humanity must and would conquer
the South.
I prize my visit to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant as one
of the greatest and most interesting experiences in my life. As to the
army, I cannot well speak from the knowledge I then had, but I certainly
got the impression when walking along the miles and miles of streets
with canvas houses at the sides that there was no want, that everything
needful was served to these men in the fullest extent and of the best.
The cavalry, I remember lay off some little distance from the infantry,
and such a mass of horse and mule flesh it has been the lot of but few
to see. Some 12,000 horses, I think, were in the camp.
Not the least restraint was placed upon me, but I was free to go where
and when I listed, while at almost every officer’s mess I was a welcome
guest. Great good-nature was the order of the day, and it was indeed a
gay scene, with the regimental bands and bright colors and the pomp and
panoply of war.
As to visiting the Confederates, I was assured that a flag of truce
would easily put me over, but I began to think I had seen as much of the
military as my brain, uneducated in military matters, could take in, and
consequently not wishing to stay my welcome out too far, and fearing a
movement on the part of the army, I began the ride back to Washington.
When within a few miles of Long Bridge, and in plain sight of the
Capitol and Washington itself, on looking back, a great cloud of dust
seemed to be coming up, as if trying to overtake me, from the direction
I had come. I was startled, of course, but I halted, and before half an
hour had elapsed along came the most confused mass of humanity one could
think of--men on foot, on cannons, on mules, on horses, some with guns,
some without, but all bowling along for Washington in the fastest
possible time.
I found they were going into Washington to defend it, having heard that
General Jubal Early, of the Confederates, had crossed the Potomac at
Williamsburg, above the city, and was about to make an effort to cut off
communication with the north. It would perhaps be superfluous to add
that after this information my horse sped as fast as any of them, and
over Long Bridge the rescuers and I went pell mell into Washington. This
was on the 6th of July, 1864. The city naturally was all excitement; men
and cannon, horses and ambulances, seemed to be moving along all the
streets. Washington at this turn of affairs had the appearance of a huge
military camp.
On returning my horse to the livery stable my first thought was for food
and a bath. Both of these I obtained at the hotel, the landlord of which
informed me that I could not get out of the city by the trains, they
being closely guarded. At four o’clock I came with my grip to the
Baltimore Depot, and did indeed find it guarded by bluecoats. Stepping
up to one of the men I asked for the captain of the guard. He came. When
I asked him to let me get on the Baltimore train, he quietly shook his
head and turned away. Then, and not till then, I called him back to look
at my pass. A wonderful change instantly followed. His hand came to the
salute, the necessary order was given the guard, their bayonets were
raised to the salute, and I walked through a row of glittering steel to
the railway platform.
This, as I have said, was at four in the afternoon. The next train left
at six for Baltimore. General Franklin was on the latter train, when
General Early’s scouts stopped it and took him off. On my train there
was no trouble. I easily got to Baltimore, and for these thirty-two
years I have been curious to know what the Confederates would have done
with me had they caught me on the train with General Franklin. The
conclusion I have arrived at is that they would have taken my money if
they had had time (for the Union cavalry was after them hot), and then
let me go.
To pursue this narrative a little further, I at length arrived at
Elmira, N.Y., and saw the Confederate prisoners in a camp about a couple
of miles south of the town. Their prison was only a field of some ten
acres, surrounded by a tight board fence about ten feet high, on which
guards were placed at intervals. Within were houses for the prisoners.
Without any difficulty I was allowed to walk upon the platforms at the
fence top and see the prisoners as long as I would. The same freedom was
given me here as I had enjoyed in the White House, in the army, in the
great hospitals, and in fact, everywhere--and this, too, during one of
the most terrible wars the world has ever seen.
As to the prisoners, there were some two hundred of them standing about
in groups, many of them smoking, listening to some talker in each group
spinning yarns. To my astonishment, they did not all wear the
Confederate grey, but many had butternut-colored jeans, and among the
lot there was scarcely a well-dressed man. So far as I could judge, they
were not feeling their imprisonment very badly, and I noticed that when
the officer of the guard was absent they talked and joked quite freely
with the guards upon the fence. Keen-eyed, sharp-looking fellows they
were, and generally quite young men.
At this time in my life I had not seen Europe with its fuss and
feathers, and could not draw the comparison which I now can; but I can
conscientiously say now, having been under almost every flag in the
world, that America (Canada of course, as well, being the greater part
of America) is pre-eminently a land of freedom, first, last and always.
Going on to Chicago I remember I sold gold to pay my expenses; one
dollar for $2.86 in greenbacks. Think of $2.86 for one of our dollars!
Now was the time, I felt, to buy the bonds, and I was fully alive to the
opportunity. My father and I, on looking over the situation, concluded
we could put $200,000 of our money into United States currency. Now
this sum at the premium of $2.86 would have given me, at a jump,
$572,000. Yes, but again the 7-30’s and 5-20’s, as the bonds of those
days were called, were sold so low and so much depreciated that one
dollar of greenbacks would buy three dollars in bonds, or thereabout, as
I now remember. Thus my $572,000 would have given me in bonds
$1,716,000, which is another jump so big as to almost take one’s breath.
There is yet more to tell, for after the war was done those very same
bonds soon sold at an average of thirty per cent. premium. Of course, I
am justified in adding this premium (that would amount to $515,800) to
my bonds in calculation, which would give me $2,131,800. These are the
millions I had in view all the time I was in Grant’s army when looking
about to form an opinion.
I never wavered for an instant in my faith, and I knew all the time that
the North would conquer, if Louis Napoleon but kept his hands off and
did not aid the South.
Of the pluck of the South and their heroic efforts, which only
Anglo-Saxons can and will make, it is not for me to speak in this
article. Older men, and men educated in military affairs, told me as I
met them in Washington, attached to the embassies, that the North must
and would win, and that the God of battles would be on the side of the
heaviest ordnance. Why I did not buy the bonds it is now necessary for
me to tell to complete this tale.
My paternal great-uncle lived in our family home, he having been born in
Massachusetts in 1786, and, coming away with my own forefathers from
that State to Upper Canada before things got quieted in New England
after the war of the Revolution, he had retained a most vivid
recollection of every turn of that most unfortunate struggle, as told
him at his mother’s knee.
Among the relics which my forefather brought from Massachusetts was a
deerskin-covered saddle-bag, with a brass ring in each end to fasten to
the horse. This old saddle-bag was octagonal in shape, and was made in
London, England, in 1719. It was used as a receptacle for papers from
New England, dating mainly before the Revolution, and as far back as
1720. Within this pile of papers in a roll was a large quantity of
money, paper money of different denominations, and made at the various
periods of the war. First, I remember, were shilling notes, then notes
for pounds, and as the war went on, notes for dollars.
From my earliest boyhood I had fingered these notes, and played with
them, but never until this year (1864) did I realize that at one time
they meant just that much money to my forefather.
To our scheme the paternal uncle listened, and took it all in. Yes, he
understood about buying the bonds just as well as I did, and freely
admitted the opportunity to be a good one. Then, arousing himself as if
from a fright, he asked me to go and get the Continental money, which I
quickly did. Fondly he looked it over, and passed the notes between his
fingers, soliloquizing to himself. “No, boy,” he said presently; “they
didn’t pay these, and they may not pay their bonds now, and better let
well enough alone and not touch them.”
My uncle’s decision settled the matter. The bonds were not bought, and
thus I lost the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire at a bound, a
chance the like of which never may occur again.
[Illustration: DANIEL CONANT.
THE AUTHOR’S FATHER.]
[Illustration: MARY ELIZA CONANT.
THE AUTHOR’S MOTHER.]
CHAPTER XI.
The “_Trent_ affair”--Excitement in Canada--Bombastic
“fire-eaters”--Thriving banks--High rates of interest--Railway
building--The bonus system--A sequestered hamlet--A “psychologist”
and his entertainment--A mock duel--A tragic page of family
history.
“There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore;
Thou art the shelter of the free;
The home, the port of liberty
Thou hast been and shalt ever be
Till time is o’er.
Ere I forget to think upon
My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore!”
The event known as the “_Trent_ affair,” November 8th, 1861, when the
American man-of-war _San Jacinto_, commanded by Captain Wilkes, stopped
the British mail steamship _Trent_ in the open sea, boarded her, and
arrested the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, then on their
way to England to plead the cause of the South and seek its recognition
as a belligerent power, caused considerable excitement in Canada. The
Northern States were much elated over this grave breach of the law of
nations, but Great Britain was indignant, and demanded the instant
release of the captives, a declaration of war as the alternative. Troops
were sent to Halifax and Quebec, one regiment riding from Halifax to
Quebec in the midst of winter, there being no Intercolonial Railway at
that date. All Canadians of military age were enrolled, and the
excitement caused thereby seemed almost to deprive many of their
reasoning powers.
There was much bombastic talk, and it certainly appeared as if a lot of
our fire-eaters wanted war and a chance to distinguish themselves, and
in no instance did this class of the community suppose that the United
States could or would strike back. No, they evidently believed we were
simply to band together and “eat up” the people of the Northern States.
A well-known practising physician of Oshawa boasted that he with ten
thousand men could march right through to Washington.
However, Lincoln’s firm wisdom prevailed, the American Government,
quietly acquiescing in Great Britain’s demand, gave up the captives, and
the war-cloud passed.
Among the many who had enlisted in the Northern army were several from
Oshawa. Robert Warren, son of John B. Warren, died from exposure, and
his body was found after an engagement, begrimed with dust and smoke, by
his schoolmate, Dr. John Wall, who was serving as surgeon in the army in
Virginia. John cared for the body of his friend, and brought it home to
Oshawa for burial. Ah, how many of our poor fellows were buried where
they fell!
“On fame’s eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread,
Which glory with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.”
The Grand Trunk Railway carried military equipments from Quebec and
Montreal to Toronto that winter and did a thriving business. Officers
guarded these stores on the cars. One cold day one of these officers
fell out of the Grand Trunk car, going up Scarboro’ Heights, and landed
in the snow. Making his way, bareheaded, to Jerry Annis’s house, it
being the nearest, he got him to drive him to Toronto, eleven miles
away.
At this period in Canada very many of the industries were carried on by
bank capital. That is to say, endorsed notes were made for three months,
discounted, and renewed from quarter to quarter. By the capital thus
raised manufacturing, lumbering, tanning, and like industries, were
carried on.
At this time of writing, when loans are current at five per cent., it
seems almost incredible that only thirty years ago business men and
manufacturers depended upon chartered banks for their capital--renewing
their notes quarterly--and by so doing paid the interest quarterly in
advance, making interest at ten and one-half to eleven per cent. per
annum. Such, however, was the case, and the banks throve by that manner
of doing business.
Banks usually succeed in Canada. Those old institutions that helped very
materially to develop the country, but which failed, failed because of
making too great loans upon real estate, and having a lot of it thrown
on their hands. Banks, however, though in deep water, may keep on for
years, until someone expresses fears of their solvency. Said an old
manager of the Bank of Upper Canada to me, “A bank is like a woman, all
right until someone says something against her character.”
From my earliest recollection, the general saying to express soundness
emphatically was “As good as the Bank of Upper Canada.” The old Bank,
however, kept on taking over real estate, distilleries, sawmills,
foundries and such, until they had to liquidate at, I think, about
thirty cents on the dollar. During the excitement caused by the _Trent_
affair, A. S. Whiting and E. C. Tuttle, who just previously had started
a large and important manufactory of hand harvest tools, such as
scythes, forks, hoes and rakes, were succeeding nicely. William L.
Gilbert, of Winsted, Conn., was endorsing their notes. They applied to
the Ontario Bank for twenty thousand dollars as a part of their capital.
Gilbert’s credit was above suspicion--he was a millionaire--but the
prospect of war from the _Trent_ affair frightened the Ontario Bank
people, and Whiting and Tuttle had to arrange with my father to make the
endorsation until people got rid of their temporary madness. This is an
instance of the peculiar state of affairs in Upper Canada, financially,
during 1862. Some of our branch lines of railways, too, were in part
built by using bank capital and discounted notes.
The Grand Trunk Railway, in the first instance, was built by British
capital and the loans (which afterwards became gifts) of the millions of
the Government of Canada. The great Canadian Pacific Railway, too, was
built by capitalists, with generous aid from the Government, but the
branch lines asked for bonuses from the different municipalities which
they touched. Townships, villages and cities issued bonds, borrowed the
money, and gradually provided a sinking fund from the taxes received, by
which in time to pay off the bonds.
In the abstract it seems unfair and uncalled for that a township had to
pay for the railway in advance in order to get it to touch that
township, and then, when it came, be charged stiff freight and passenger
rates by the same grateful railway. It was “a bitter pill to swallow,”
but it had to be taken. Those municipalities which did not “swallow the
pill” are to-day “in the lurch,” as we say in Canada. I paid one of them
a visit a little time ago, and I give herewith a sketch of my
experiences:
The long, uninterrupted winter was dragging its slow length along
without a break. Even the January thaw, as always foretold by the oldest
inhabitant, had not come to the hamlet during that winter. Snow fell
once or twice during the week with unerring regularity. Roadways had
been beaten and tracked in the snow, and the faithful villagers had
tramped through it from day to day. Nothing, in fact, had happened to
break the monotony of this quiet village hamlet for the entire winter
season. Perhaps the last noted occurrence was just as the snow came,
when the deacon’s horse ran away and came bounding back into the village
without the deacon or anyone else holding the lines, and the robes
partly in and partly out of the cutter. That occurrence for a time had
been food for gossip among the quiet villagers, some stoutly averring
that the deacon was drunk, while others, putting it mildly, said, “The
deacon was took bad in his head suddenly, as he sometimes was wont to
be, and couldn’t guide his horse.” Just how it was was still a mooted
point, even as late as the dreaded Ides of March--the time of my visit
to this quiet place. It seems no one had died, there were but few
births, and only one or two young fellows had spunk enough to do any
right-down earnest courting for the whole live-long stormy winter.
Happenings there were none. Well, business called me to this little
rural hamlet in the gusty month of March--this peaceful village, removed
from the path of the iron horse, an out-of-the way place altogether.
During the general upheaval of things in Ontario, when most towns and
villages were up and about to secure railway communication, the deacon
of this little place and a few other fore-handed citizens strongly
objected to giving “any bonus for any number of railways, be they one or
more,” so the village has gone without a railway. Excellent people they
are indeed, and they change so very slowly and deliberately that old Rip
Van Winkle could not possibly have found a better place wherein or
whereabout to take that long memorable nap of his.
Even were Rip to change, his neighbors would not, for in the twenty
years, while he calmly slumbered, the weekly “sewing circles” would
infallibly be held; and around and about the sewing circles everything
in this wayside, or rather out-of-the-way-side, hamlet revolved. When
Mrs. Dobson put on her new striped stuff dress for the first time, and
came down to the “circle,” every eye was upon her, and she had no rest
until she told where she obtained it, how much it cost per yard, and how
many yards it took for the dress. Particularly is this worthy of mention
to enable those remote from this village of snow-trodden paths to
realize fully its unchangeableness, and its hunger for something out of
the ordinary to give food for talk and thought. A boy of fourteen had
driven me from the railway station, twelve miles away, as he carried the
meagre leather bag, denominated by grace Her Majesty’s Mail, in a
square-boxed sleigh drawn by one horse--such a sleigh as in New England
they term a “pung.”
At the village hostelry I am domiciled within four wooden-sided,
clap-boarded, white-painted walls, where I am “ated and slaped,” and all
for $1.00 per day. After the ample evening tea, and over a quiet pipe in
the corner of the bar, while conning a paper two days old, the voluble
and voluminous landlady asks if I will not “go and hear the professor
to-night?”
Not having been at the weekly sewing circle for that week, I am not
posted, and in my innocence ask of the professor, “And what’s to be
heard from him?”
“He’s a psychologist, sir, and they all say he can make people do just
what he chooses to make them do. He’s going to speak to-night in the
Temperance
[Illustration: AUTHOR’S FATHER LOADING HIS SCHOONERS WITH LUMBER BY
RAFTING, ON LAKE ONTARIO.]
Hall, just across the way; all the village will be there, and I think
you would be amused, sir, if you chose to go.”
“Thanks, madam, for the information, and I’ll certainly go.”
The Temperance Hall is jammed--well, that’s the ordinary way of putting
it; but in this case it is pressed in full much the same as they press
cotton in the rude bales on the home plantations down south, before they
are sent away to the big cotton presses in the cities.
“A stranger? Well, we must let him in, for perhaps he’s a friend of the
prof.”
“Can’t quite claim the honor, but would like to get in.”
Stepping over the tops of the long seats, I get in, and make my way up
near the professor.
Now, this professor is one of those nondescripts who comes from nowhere
in particular. He opens his mouth and gives vent to sound in a steady
volume, but says nothing in particular. His speech is all about
psychology and its wonders and what he proposes to do. Some ten minutes
of this, then he invites up half a dozen young men from the gathering
for experiments. Applicants for experiment are seated on chairs on the
platform before the professor. The latter looks one of these steadily in
the eye for a couple of minutes and then makes a few undulatory motions
back and forth before his eyes with his right hand and touches his
forehead with his fingers. Already he has the spell, and sits staring
into vacancy as if he were about to have an extra large photograph
taken. All in turn are “spelled,” and all are a success save one, who is
requested to take his seat again among the people. And now the fun
commences. One fellow the professor assures is hunting, and he hands him
his cane for a gun. A flock of ducks!--down the fellow goes and crawls
on hands and knees. He fires, and the recoil of the gun throws him
prostrate on the stage. Up he gets and at it he goes again. During the
half hour I sat there, I think the fellow bagged as big a bag of ducks
as usually falls to the lot of a sportsman nowadays. Another youth sees
an excellent opportunity for a swim, and quickly doffs coat, vest, and
would doff more if not quickly stopped by the wonderful professor.
Prostrate he falls on the platform and goes through all the motions of a
genuine swim, with feet drawn up, again extended, and the long drawn
stroke of the arms regularly and in natural order repeated--a perfect
fac-simile of a swim. The “spelled” No. 3 came next, and fancied that
the glass of water which the professor extended to him contained
excellent port wine; his lips smacked and his eyes sparkled. But he
must propose a toast, which was something about Johnny Jones’ girl, and
young Mac cutting Jones out. This local hit brought down the house, and
it was fully five minutes before the audience could be got into quiet
again. Now Jones and Mac were the other two “spelled” subjects on the
platform, and of course a duel had to be fought. The far-seeing
professor, smelling such duels from afar, had provided two huge
corn-stalks, which he handed to the duellists for swords. Each one feels
carefully the keen edge of the lethal weapons, and prepares himself for
the fray. Seconds are chosen from the other “spelled” ones on the
platform, who for the moment leave their ducks, their swimming and their
glasses of port wine to see that the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules are
faithfully carried out.
“No thrusts below the belt, and on no account any hits below the belt”
And Jones’ girl all this time is looking on. She had gotten herself up
elaborately for the occasion; without a doubt her wardrobe had been duly
dissected and priced and deplored and praised at the last “circle.”
Jones’ girl’s mother is there, too, sitting just behind her.
“The low, mean fellow, to make such an exhibition of himself! I would
never let him go home with me again! Send back his ring, Mirandy. The
idea!--to get up before all the people here and fight with
corn-stalks!”
The laughter before pent up, controlled, held in, kept down, now bursts
the bonds. Human nature in this village of snow-paths could hold in no
longer. It’s just a broad ha! ha!! ha!!! and for the girls (all except
Jones’ girl) a te! he!! he!!! The old deacon joins in--it’s even too
much for his gravity. In the deacon’s case the explosion was rather
serious. He began with a cough and a sneeze, got red in the face--got
redder--his sides shook--a blast from his nose--then the explosion, ho!
ho!! ho!!! ho!!!!
If the house was brought down before, it was “fetched” now--the fun was
so hilarious--for those people hadn’t had a good laugh that winter. Some
of the other girls, whose beaux are yet to be found, are heard to
exclaim: “The absurd fellow! I wonder that she can countenance him at
all!”
But the duel--“Three paces. Now at the word, one--two--three,” and the
whacks of the corn-stalks resound. It is a spectacle to arouse laughter
from even a hypochondriac.
“Time!--first round, no blood; well, seconds, look after your
principals.”
While the duellists are resting the professor goes on to speak his
piece. He has been “a close student of human nature. It’s mental
alchemy, stored away in the great human store-house. An observer like
me can bring it out--a great science, ladies and gentlemen--and I shall
give one more exhibition before this highly intelligent community
to-morrow evening.”
And well he may, for the house this evening has paid him seventy dollars
at least.
While this speech is going on, the professor keeps hold of one of the
hands of Jones’ opponent in the duel, and manages to rub some red paint
or pigment on his wrist while he is talking.
“Take your places, gentlemen! All ready at the word. One--two--three,”
and such a pounding of corn-stalks--pounded so effectually that they fly
in fragments all over the hall.
“Blood!--first blood! Honor is satisfied, gentlemen; Jones is the
winner. Shake hands, gentlemen--that’s according to the Marquis of
Queensberry’s rules--yes, that’s it! Seconds, take care of your
principals.”
And Jones’ girl is all smiles, and will evidently allow the hero to see
her home to-night.
More applicants for the “spell” come up as I walk over the seat-backs to
the door, making my way back to mine hostelry and to bed.
This is a faithful picture of life as I saw it in a remote Ontario
village--a village too mean to pay a single dollar to get a railway, and
which therefore was beaten in the race. The tedium of a winter’s life
therein, snow-bound and with its humdrum, is not an experience to be
coveted.
If you like the picture, you can find such a place for a winter’s
residence next winter, easily; but I fancy most readers will agree with
me in saying that the deacon, the fore-handed citizens and the village
generally made a serious mistake in not securing railway communication
when it was to be had.
Villages, as well as citizens, to keep up in the race nowadays, must be
alive and moving, or both are soon left far behind by their neighbors’
ambitions.
SOME FAMILY HISTORY.
There came to the Whitbies from one of the Midland counties of England a
bachelor accompanied by his widowed sister and her little girl.
Possessing capital, he bought one of the best farms of these favored
townships. It was a glebe of about one hundred and fifty acres, without
any waste land within its borders, and was nicely built upon. Here the
bachelor brother farmed thoroughly and well, while the sister presided
over the household and looked after the education and care of her
growing daughter. Of their former history no one knew aught.
The man was a jolly good fellow, open-handed, free and hospitable. They
used to say that no visitor ever came to the home and went away dry
unless he chose to. Not that I mean to say this English gentleman
bachelor was a drinker, only that, according to the light of those days,
the rites of hospitality were administered when the tankard kept pace
with the choicest dishes of the table.
There are probably few living now who were alive and partakers of this
bachelor’s kindnesses. The farm was bought in the late forties, and he
and his sister left it for their English home once more about 1863.
But to follow more intimately their fortunes in Ontario, we must speak
now of the young daughter. Admirers of this English-Canadian belle will
even to this day aver that she was surpassingly beautiful. None of that
day had more to be thankful for in this particular, while her charm of
manner was even in excess of her beauty. Naturally, suitors came. Among
those who were truly fascinated was a young English barrister, even then
known as a pushing, rising fellow. Indeed, he has risen by sheer
downright hard work, as well as ability, till to-day he is one of the
high officials of our Canadian courts, and pre-eminently a successful
man. This man proposed duly, and after mature deliberation and
consultation with the mother, was accepted. Before the knot was tied,
however, he said to the beautiful girl that he would immediately after
marriage expect to receive full control of her property. Once more the
affianced girl and her mother consulted, and their conclusion was that
he had come courting the $8,000 which she possessed in her own right,
and not her particularly, but only as an accessory, so he was jilted.
Next came a long-haired, tall minister, who pressed his suit with all
the ardor his glib tongue was capable of, and he won.
They were married and lived together a couple of years, and two children
were born to them. The minister went on with his duties, and, outwardly,
all seemed to go fairly well, but those most intimate with the family
always felt that there was some mystery connected with him; yet, suspect
as much as they might, they could not charge him with any
irregularities. A perfect specimen of a man he was, endowed with high
social qualities, and capable of taking a high place in the ministry.
One fine day, however, he went out from the ministerial home for a
morning walk, leaving the young wife and two babes to await his coming
to dinner. Dinner that day waited and continued to wait, and is still
waiting after the lapse of thirty-four years, for it is a literal fact
that no one, so far as is known on earth, ever saw the minister and
husband after he crossed the threshold that morning in 1863 for a walk.
Back to the mother and uncle on the farm went the young mother. A few
months in silence, then came the record of a criminal trial for murder
in a neighboring state, where a minister had been tried for his life,
but by some technical legal flaw got off. Reading the trial record it
was clearly brought out that this fiend had cut his wife’s throat from
ear to ear, as she lay in bed, and in such a manner as to make it
thought she had committed suicide. In refutation of that theory, it was
most clearly shown that the former wife could not, no matter how much
disposed, do the deed herself, but that the fiend of a husband did it,
and that he afterwards fled to Ontario and to the Whitbies, and married
our most beautiful maid. This was too much for the mother and uncle.
Their beautiful farm was sold, and back to the Midland counties of
England again they went, taking the young deserted wife and the two
fatherless babes with them.
The bachelor brother has lately been gathered to his fathers, and the
sister has become a very old woman. The deserted wife, now the mother of
a young man and a young woman, is in her early old age, retaining still
much of the beauty of her earlier years, while she learns to grow old
gracefully. In deeds of charity and kindnesses to her neighbors her
time is occupied, and she is seemingly happy in the love of her
children. Her home-life in the Whitbies is never thought of. Lately,
however, a resident near her Canadian home called upon her, and found
that she had kept her property intact from her graceless
minister-husband, and was surrounded by such outward comfort and even
splendor as grand old England alone can give.
Even surrounded with these pleasant accessories, she is said to have
inquired very minutely about her home across the water, and of those who
were once her friends and neighbors, while a sigh escaped her as she sat
and gazed as if looking far across the broad Atlantic, where she had
spent so many happy, as well as unhappy, days in her home in Ontario.
CHAPTER XII.
Fenianism--A claimant for my father’s farm--A scare at Port
Oshawa--Guns, forks and clubs for fighting--Awkward squad--Guard
catch a young man out courting--The Fenian raid of 1866--A Catholic
priest taken prisoner--United States Government at last cries
“Stop!”--Adventure in high life--A youth runs away from
home--Tragic death of the mother of the runaway--Marries the
serving-maid--Wedding and funeral journey in one.
“In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For Love is heaven, and heaven is Love.”
Fenianism at first did not attract much attention. In 1865 rumors
continually reached us of head centres, drillings, armings, massings,
and other notes of warlike preparations among United States Fenians. Our
Government had spies promptly among them. Clever fellows they were, who
entered the lodges and wormed out all their secrets.
As the days went by and the rumors increased, gathering force by
repetition and transmission, our people began to feel alarmed. There
were very few sympathizers in Canada, but, preposterous as it may seem,
there were some, and certain of these, more valiant and outspoken than
others, talked of what they would do when the Fenians did come. Con.
Lyons, of Oshawa, a respectable man, working for his livelihood, made no
secret of saying he had chosen my father’s homestead farm as his share
in the prospective division of property taken by the Fenian invaders.
Timorous people became very nervous, and “the Fenians” were the topic of
the day.
Neighbors gathered nightly in each other’s houses, and debated over the
prospects, conjecturing and planning what they would do with their
horses and stock when the invaders landed. To run them off into the
forests seemed to be the general solution of that difficulty met in
advance by those who feared even the very next breeze from the south
might bring in a shipload of Fenians from the United States to occupy
this part of Ontario. Persons residing near the shore of Lake Ontario
began to watch for strange craft. The excitement was too tense to be
kept up long. Something must occur to quiet it down.
On the hot misty evening of June 26th, 1865, someone about Port Oshawa
saw the spars of a ship just
[Illustration: CANADIAN REBELLION, 1837-8. REFUGEES FROZEN IN AT OSWEGO,
N.Y.
BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO]
out from the shore, as if of a vessel at anchor. Anon the ship’s yawl
could be faintly descried making for the shore. The evening was very
still, and through the mist the ear helped the eye, as it were, as the
sound of oars in the row-locks could be distinctly heard. This regular
“swish” and “thud” of rowers in unison came to startled ears.
It was enough. A young man got a horse and rode for sweet life to
Oshawa, three miles away, calling aloud as he rode, “They have landed!
they have landed!”
Yet not all who had previously gathered at each other’s houses were
within hearing of the dreadful tidings of the landing. One Cumberland
man went to his neighbor’s door at midnight, knocked and called out,
“John, the Fenians have a’ com’d!”
In Oshawa town the consternation was too great and genuine to be
ludicrous, at least just then. Not a few persons loaded waggons with all
they could put on them, and climbing to the top of the furniture and
bedding drove away northward. “No Fenians should catch us!”
We were all summoned by the Colonel, John McGill, to assemble at the
town hall. My father shouldered his double-barrelled fowling-piece, and
I grasped a green “shillelah” in default of a gun, and repaired with
many others to the rendezvous. The illustration at page 236 is of the
“awkward squad” who thus mustered in valiant defence of their native
town.
It should not, however, be viewed with too critical an eye. Remember we
were all summoned at five minutes’ notice, no time being given even to
change our clothes. Every second the Fenians were expected to march up
Simcoe Street from Port Oshawa.
We prepared to march--men with guns in front, those with forks next, and
those with clubs in the rear. There were, however, many in the town who
did not prepare to march, but who ran and hid, fancying “one live coward
is worth two dead heroes.” Men, somehow, were rather scarce there just
then. We stood upon our arms, forks and clubs, waiting for the
word--which was never given.
Another horseman came from Port Oshawa, and told us a boat’s crew had
come ashore for milk and provisions, as well as to get their reckoning,
not knowing where they were. Inoffensive fellows enough, but they
deserved a drubbing for giving us needless alarm.
This state of feeling or tension was not confined to our neighborhood,
but was common to the country generally.
Finding there was no immediate attack imminent, our courage began to
rise, and we in that town hall, resting upon our arms or clubs, became
anxious to “wipe out” the enemy. Night patrols were set--first night,
men with guns; next night, those who had forks borrowed the guns; next,
club-men took their turn.
My father, always somewhat of a wag, arrested a young man about eleven
o’clock at night by threatening to fire if he did not halt. He halted.
It was young Allen, whom my father knew well. He begged hard to be let
off, but that could not be permitted unless he explained why he was out
so late. “I have just been over to Mr. Cinnamon’s to see his daughter.
Please let me go.” “Well, don’t you be caught out so late again
courting,” and he was let off for the time. In a few nights the watch
was discontinued. But no Fenians came that year.
The following year, 1866, they came and, landing, raided the shore of
Lake Erie, and the battle at Ridgeway was the result. There a number of
the militia who were called out to defend the country, many of them mere
lads, were killed. Others died later from the effects of the
over-exertion and excitement. Among the former was young Willie Tempest,
from Oshawa, a Trinity College (Toronto), student, who went to the front
with his company in the Queen’s Own Rifles.
The indignation and patriotic excitement throughout the country proved
to the invaders and any sympathizers with them within our borders that
Canadians were loyal to their own Government and would not suffer
invasion of their soil.
Called to a knowledge of the breach of national law in allowing the
arming of a hostile force within her territory, the United States
Government gave the necessary orders to her officials. This, following
the ill-success of the raid, put a stop to active Fenianism on our
western boundary line for the time.
A second somewhat similar attempt was even more quickly repulsed at
Eccles’ Hill, in the Eastern Townships, Quebec, in 1870.
Among the prisoners taken at Ridgeway was a young Catholic priest. He
was lodged in the Penitentiary at Kingston for being caught in such bad
company. At first it was thought we would keep him there, but as time
passed and the excitement against those who had caused the loss of our
men cooled, sorrow for the unfortunate misguided young father softened
our hearts. The prison doors were opened, he was bidden depart and be
seen no more in our land. He said he would not, and I believe he has
kept his word faithfully.
* * * * *
“Born with a silver spoon in his mouth” is a very laconic way Canadians
have of expressing the case of a child born of rich parents. The young
man of the following sketch was the only son and probable heir to
riches, both on the father’s and mother’s side. He had a sister, it is
true, who would likely inherit a proportion of the family wealth. In
that respect Canadians are like the people of the British Isles, who do
not intend the daughters to share equally with the sons. Among our
American cousins they have broken off from the old traditions, and the
girls inherit equally with the boys.
Unfortunately for this youth he did not get on well with his father, nor
did he shine very brilliantly at school, but through all he was ever the
mother’s favorite.
After the completion of the Canadian Pacific Rail-wax-many of the young
men of the older Provinces were disposed to try their luck in British
Columbia. Among such adventurers were two lads of the same town, and
schoolmates of this young man. This fact probably fired his ambition,
for in midwinter these two boys were joined by the young heir. Together
they ran away, going direct to Golden, a point on the new line of
railway in British Columbia. His mother had provided him with some
funds, else they had found it difficult to survive through the
approaching winter. Arrived at Golden, they secured a tent and lived in
it when the mercury registered 20° (Fah.) below zero. It is very
evident the lad had good “grit,” as is said in America, to thus come
straight from luxury to live and lodge with nothing between him and that
awful cold but a little cotton web.
On the ice breaking up in the spring the three runaways secured a strong
row-boat and ascended the Columbia River six days’ journey, voyaging by
day and camping by night upon the shore. At their journey’s end they
bought a ranch, built a cabin on it, and took up housekeeping, each one
in turn being cook. Thus two seasons passed away, and no word was sent
home direct to the parents of our youth. They had heard of him only
indirectly through the parents of the two other runaways.
The mother, though surrounded by luxury and comfort, with every wish
gratified, could no longer endure the separation, so she determined to
go and see that erring son, even if at the risk of her life, for she was
a woman whose health was uncertain and had been so for some years.
First, she had a Peterboro’ cedar canoe built, capable of easily
carrying five persons, and had it shipped by Canadian Pacific Railway to
Golden, B.C., the objective point from which the son had set out.
Taking her uncle as an escort, and her maid, she set out on the
fatiguing journey. Arrived at Golden, she took possession of the boat
and provisioned it for the voyage up the Columbia. Camping at night
with nothing but the blue canopy of heaven for a covering, they reached
the ranch at last. Then an unlooked-for thing occurred. The young
runaway laid siege to the serving-maid’s heart, and was determined to
marry her. In her precarious state of health, however, the mother, not
approving of the match, refused, and said she needed the girl to take
care of her. After a stay of some three weeks with her son at the ranch
(where the runaways were ostensibly raising horses), the mother and her
party returned to Golden, finding the journey down stream comparatively
easy. From Golden they made their way to Victoria, and thence by sea to
San Francisco, proceeding then to Santa Barbara, Southern California.
The mother hoped the mild climate would restore her health. She occupied
tasteful quarters, and for a time her health improved. She was able to
enjoy the flowers and out-of-door life and pleasures. In Southern
California their midwinter days are days of sunshine; picnics and such
pastimes are truly enjoyable. She was not, however, to enjoy them long,
for death came very suddenly and without a moment’s warning.
When the tidings of her death reached the son, he came at once that he
might convey the remains to the home in Ontario. Meeting the maid again,
and forgetful of his mother’s wishes, he married her, and took her with
him to his old home. Truly a strange journey, his bride with him, and
his mother’s dead body in the baggage car on the same train. From his
mother the lad inherited tens of thousands of dollars, and is probably
heir to many more.
CHAPTER XIII.
The French in Upper Canada--Sir Wilfrid Laurier--Voyageurs and
their songs--“A la Claire Fontaine”--Money-lenders--Educational
matters--Expatriated Canadians--Successful railway speculation--A
shrewd banker.
“Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.”
--GOLDSMITH, “_The Traveller_.”
Although Upper Canada is essentially an English-speaking province, there
are many settlements throughout its wide area composed of other
nationalities, emigrants from European nations, who have founded
colonies within its borders. Quebec is more French, it being the old
Canada, or New France, and in it the two languages are equally spoken.
Still, although there are not noticeably many French in the Upper
Province, there are small groups of them here and there, chiefly among
the laboring classes.
The most picturesque figure in Canada to-day is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and
as Premier of the Dominion we may claim him as belonging to us in
Ontario as well as to his native Province of Quebec. The son of a
provincial land surveyor, he is a man of finished culture and education,
whose eloquence is as fluently expressed in one language as in the
other. After taking a full classical course at L’Assomption College, he
studied law, took the degree of B.C.L. at McGill College, Montreal, was
for a time editor of a prominent and influential Lower Canadian journal,
later became well known as a powerful and skilful counsel in both civil
and criminal cases, and was created a Q.C. in 1880.
He came into politics as an associate of Dorion, Laflamme and others of
the old Liberal school in Lower Canada; later has called himself a
Liberal of the English school, a pupil of Charles Fox and Daniel
O’Connell. His débût in the Legislature of Lower Canada created a
sensation, “not more by the finished grace of his oratorical abilities
than by the boldness and authority with which he handled the deepest
political problems.” The effect of his “fluent, cultured and charming
discourse” is described by the poet Frechette as “magical.” The
brilliant Frenchman, who is yet so proud of his country and of being a
British subject, who has been honored and received by Her Imperial
Majesty the Queen, decorated with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor by
France, and given audience in the Vatican by the Pope, has taken a stand
in Canada and wielded an influence for good government, broad
statesmanship and a wide-reaching Imperial policy that falls to the lot
of few men to have the opportunity given them, and to still fewer the
ability to grasp when the opportunity arrives.
The denunciation of the treaties between Great Britain and Germany and
Belgium are the result of his efforts to clear the way to securing
preferential trade between the mother-country and her colonies. “For
this and the marvellous goal to which it leads,” said the London
_Times_, “Laurier’s name must live in the annals of the British Empire.”
Both the French and English languages are spoken by the ministers of the
Crown, and it is to be regretted that Upper Canadians are not more
sensible of the value of possessing a knowledge of two languages. Many
are, of course, taught the French as an accomplishment, but few can
speak it fluently. In Lower Canada, where both languages are spoken and
required in business, the knowledge is more appreciated.
The French habitants or peasants are a merry, contented,
laughter-loving, light-hearted people. The men spend the winters in the
woods or timber limits, felling the timber, hewing the great logs or
drawing them by the aid of horses or oxen to the surface of the frozen
rivers, and the summers in “driving” the logs, enclosing them in the
booms (logs with ends fastened together by chains to form a barrier or
enclosure for the loose floating logs), and in taking the great rafts
down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. Many a river shore in Upper Canada
re-echoes the songs of the French-Canadian lumberman or voyageur in the
twilight of a summer evening. They are men of fine physique and many
have strong sweet musical voices. The songs, with the accompaniment of
the lap of the water, the rhythmic sound of oar or paddle, the soft
breeze swaying the trees, and the murmur of the distant rapid or
waterfall, are among the things to be enjoyed.
“La Claire Fontaine” is one of the favorite songs of these men. I append
here a translation, which robs it to some extent of its lightsome
character. The repetition of the last two lines in the verse as the
first two of the following is characteristic of several of the best
known of these _chansons_, and adds much to their popularity.
A LA CLAIRE FONTAINE.
Unto the crystal fountain
For pleasure did I stray;
So fair I found the waters,
My limbs in them I lay.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest.
So fair I found the waters,
My limbs in them I lay;
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay.
Long is it, etc.
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay;
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree’s topmost spray.
Long is it, etc.
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree’s topmost spray--
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou who hast heart so gay!
Long is it, etc.
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou hast a heart so gay!
Thou hast a heart so merry,
While mine is sorrow’s prey.
Long is it, etc.
Thou hast a heart so merry
While mine is sorrow’s prey,
For I have lost my mistress,
Flown from her love away.
Long is it, etc.
For I have lost my mistress,
Flown from her love away;
All for a bunch of roses,
Whereof I said her nay.
Long is it, etc.
All for a bunch of roses,
Whereof I said her nay;
I would those luckless roses
Were on their bush to-day.
Long is it, etc.
I would those luckless roses
Were on their bush to-day,
And that itself, the rosebush,
Were plunged in ocean’s spray;
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
My dearest.
There were many money-lenders in Upper Canada. When I say money-lenders,
I mean the men who will do no business, own scarcely any real estate,
and make no improvements in the land, but simply sit still and lend
their money at interest. I will sketch one who, while young, came to a
certain township in Ontario. He is now an old man, and still a resident
of the same locality. He brought from England with him about $1,000, and
with it bought fifty acres of good land. These acres he farmed and
resided on for some years, and succeeded well as a farmer. During the
Russian war times and the building of the Grand Trunk Railway, inflation
pervaded almost every walk of life. Then he sold his small farm for $120
per acre, or $6,000, and lived in a small rented house.
[Illustration: CANADIAN REBELLION, 1837-8. REFUGEE CROSSES LAKE ONTARIO
IN A CANOE, WITH THE PROW ROTTED AWAY.
BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO]
This money and the accumulated earnings of years he lent to his
neighbors at a maximum rate of twelve per cent., with discounts and
drawbacks and many other dark and mysterious ways of figuring--so
mysterious, indeed, that in many instances the loans netted him twenty
to twenty-five per cent. per annum. Thus year by year he added to his
capital, eventually becoming a very rich man; and though the rates for
loans have now dropped down to five per cent., his money has kept on
drawing big pay--never stopped. Floods, disasters, deaths,
fires--nothing seemed to stand in the way of the steady tick of interest
and accumulated wealth. To-day he is a very old man, worth his hundreds
of thousands. Pleasures of social intercourse, books, papers, travel,
and the little elegances which go to make up life, have always been
absent, but the gold has been hoarded. He is only a type of many of the
money-lenders of our Province. Such men do not buy estates, nor make
homes, nor do anything to improve our country.
An anecdote to illustrate: My father said just after the close of the
Canadian rebellion of 1837-38 he had built a new ship and launched her
upon Lake Ontario. And now rigging, shrouds, sails, anchors, cables, and
outfit generally must be had before she could sail. Ready money after
that domestic, or rather civil, disturbance was difficult to obtain.
The outfit, however, must be had, for freights were high, and there was
money to be made. To J--H--, he went, living not far from Whitby, and
told him what he wanted. H--readily accompanied my father to Toronto,
went with him to Rice Lewis, who kept such vessel outfits, and asked him
to give my father what he might need on his account. My father got £150
(Halifax) worth, and gave his note to H--, at six months, for £200
(Halifax) for the loan. You will readily see what money-lenders demanded
and obtained for their capital. It is only fair to complete the story
and say that my father found no fault with J--H--, for although then
himself abundantly able to raise any reasonable sum, he could not wait
to do so. Two trips of the ship, when once rigged out, paid the loan,
principal and interest, and all parties were satisfied.
The question has often occurred to me, why, as a rule, the wealth
secured by money-lending has not been long retained. As I cast my eye
over the country to-day, I find very few money-lenders’ families who
have much of their parents’ funds. I am not a fatalist, but I freely say
that it does not seem to be the case that money-lending, pursued as a
business at extortionate rates, does beget prosperity for those who
follow. I am sorry to say that a like remark would apply to the families
of many of our pioneers. Very few of the farms left by the pioneers to
their sons are to-day in their hands. That they got a living too easily
would be the apparent cause, but not because of anything derogatory (as
in the case of the money-lenders) in their father’s business.
* * * * *
We have gone from one extreme to the opposite, and very far opposite, in
educational matters. To-day our school tax hangs heaviest about our
necks, so very many of our young men and women are learning Latin, Greek
and French. John Quincy Adams said over a century ago, “When a boy gets
to conjugating Latin verbs he will not dig any more ditches.” We do not
know why it should be so, but it would appear generally to be true.
Again, there is a tendency among our young women not to entertain
matrimonial ideas, but to try to be wholly independent of the sterner
sex.
Our young women go off to some training hospital, get a diploma after
three years’ voluntary service, and set up as trained nurses. As such,
when they get employment, they make from ten to twenty-five dollars per
week, with their board and lodging. There is no manner of doubt but
these nurses are exceedingly useful in the sick chamber. More of our
young women, too, become telegraph operators, type-writers, ticket
sellers and stenographers, all very much detrimental to woman’s proper
sphere as the “queen of the home” and the wife of a faithful husband.
Chicago, Ill., alone contains one hundred thousand Canadians. In our
very, very free schools and colleges we educate young men and women by
the tens of thousands, very many of whom, as in the case of those in
Chicago, leave us for the United States. Such expatriated young men and
women are lost to us forever after, much to our sorrow.
* * * * *
In a former chapter it is said that our two great railways in
Canada--the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific--were built by
capitalists. While that remark is quite true, let us look about a moment
and see how some of these large fortunes have been made at a stroke.
Here is an instance: A manager of a Canadian bank, which commands many
millions of dollars of capital, was once a Hudson’s Bay Company factor.
Well, one day a brother Hudson’s Bay factor, happening to be in St.
Paul, Minnesota, discovered that the St. Paul and Manitoba Railway,
which ran from St. Paul to the boundary line, was at low ebb--that is,
its stock was selling at exceedingly low prices. On arriving in Montreal
he reported this to the bank manager. They then borrowed some five
millions of dollars from the bank, and the ex-Hudson’s Bay factor made
his way to New York. On the open stock market he and his brokers bought
all the St. Paul and Manitoba railway stock in sight, at an almost
ridiculously low figure. Back to Montreal he came, and then a railway
from Winnipeg to the boundary line, to meet the St. Paul and Manitoba
railway, was proposed and arranged. Such news naturally quickly spread,
and the St. Paul and Manitoba railway stock became in immediate demand.
The quotation went up higher, began to boom, got to par, and soon went
away beyond, netting some millions of dollars for both the factor and
the bank manager. To repay the bank loan was a very easy matter, and
everybody was happy. Such cases are, however, rare in Canada. Canadians
are a slower, surer-going people, without the “slap-dash” of their
American cousins, though now and again they will take some chances. An
incident will serve to show this:
At one time when gold in New York was at a premium, the manager of a
wealthy Canadian bank went to New York and bought all the gold that was
offered. A steamer was about sailing for Europe. Publicly this gold in
kegs, as is the usual manner, was carted from the banks to the steamer.
Gold went up and up, for there was none in sight. It was apparently all
gone. Next morning the astute banker began to sell gold in small lots,
and gradually allowed himself to be cleaned out. How did he get the
gold? Why, easily enough. Not a keg went on board the out-going steamer.
Every one was returned by unfrequented streets, and safely lodged in the
vaults. New York was tricked and mad. But the manager made his
money--away up in the hundreds of thousands. There was no risk, in fact,
for the bank was and is still one of the soundest and strongest
financial institutions in this country. So much for the speculative side
of Canadians.
[Illustration: ASSASSINATION OF AUTHOR’S GRANDFATHER. CANADIAN
REBELLION, 1837-8.]
CHAPTER XIV.
Poor-tax--Poor-houses undesirable--The tramp nuisance--A tramp’s
story--Mistaken charity--Office seekers--Election incidents.
“The owlet loves the gloom of night,
The lark salutes the day,
The timid dove will coo at hand,
But falcons soar away.”
The burdensome tax which the people of England pay for the support of
the poor we know nothing of in Canada. True, we have a poor-rate, but it
sits so lightly upon us we do not heed it very much. For example, in the
rural township of East Whitby, in the county of Ontario, there is a
population of three thousand. The township is assessed at one and
one-half million dollars. Among these people an annual tax is levied of
about $8,000; for the poor, $400 out of the total tax levied. There is
no poor-house in this locality. The really deserving poor are given an
allowance of money weekly for their maintenance--what would be called
“out-door relief” in England. It is not to be supposed this sum is ample
for all relief, but in this land of greatest abundance the people give
and give liberally, and no further charge is made upon the authorities.
Again, we take the ground that when food is cheap and fuel plentiful
scarcely any should be so poor as to be unable to support themselves,
where the opportunities have always been sufficient to enable all to
earn enough from which to save a small competency. There are, of a
truth, cases of unfortunate and honest poverty, and such we do not demur
at relieving. Unfortunately, however, in Canada, as in the United
States, people will congregate in towns and cities and be hard pressed
to gain a livelihood, when they should be upon the farms in the country
as tenants or as owners. It is not difficult to become the latter, for
the Government of Ontario is supplying homesteads to all applicants on
very easy terms. For the lazy, however, it is easier to walk about
paved, electric-lighted streets, and drink water supplied by costly
waterworks systems brought to their doors, than to work and clear the
soil. Hence the assertion that there should be no tramps in Canada is
not without tangible foundation.
It has been a mooted question in Canada whether we ought to erect county
poor-houses for the care and provision of the poor and infirm, or leave
such matters to the ordinary township councils to deal with. In a land
of plenty like ours, where there is abundance of food and constant
demand for work-people, there should be no need for such persons to
become a charge upon the bounty of the public; and it is absolutely
certain that if we erect poor-houses there will always be poor to fill
them. Such a class of population will come to us, if not already here,
and having provided a place for them in the erection of poor-houses, we
shall never get rid of them.
There are, of course, objects of charity scattered throughout the
country, but they bear an infinitesimal proportion to the whole
population, and can be provided for at small cost to the local
community. In a country where everyone who will can provide for an
inclement season or against the needs of age and infirmity, it becomes a
very serious question whether the hard-working and thrifty ought to be
taxed to provide for the lazy and thriftless. Or again, is it wise to
foster the growth of a class of persons whose filth and foul diseases
are the result of laziness and their own vices? Charity rightly bestowed
is the very essence of man’s best nature, but I do not think it charity
to give indiscriminately to those asking alms.
The genus tramp has developed only lately among us. Prior to the
American war no such stamp of man existed in Canada. To-day he is here,
and apparently here to stay; but as there is no possible excuse for
these fellows begging through the country, it is not charity to give
them money or clothes, or even food. The following is a case in point:
An old fellow residing in Scarboro’, who owns a comfortable house and
lot, leaves home in the spring, clothed in rags, for an all summer’s
begging tour. He goes from house to house, and says he can make more by
it than he can by working. From the result of his summer’s begging he
can and does live in comfort during the winter at home. And those who
give to that man do a positive harm to our country by encouraging
vagrancy.
Last winter a clergyman wrote me from the neighborhood of Peterboro’,
saying that a colored man who was begging about the country from door to
door had exhibited a paper declaring him to be a worthy object of
charity, and purporting to have my name attached as a guarantee of good
faith. This generous and gentlemanly clergyman wrote me that he had his
doubts about the genuineness of the man’s need, for he found he had been
drunk. By telegram I repudiated the man and his paper, and asked for his
arrest. Persons who gave to that man committed an injury to our country,
and not an act of charity. I am only mentioning this case as an
illustration. Perhaps a good many of us may not yet know or realize the
fact that many tramps in our Province are using the names of prominent
or well-known citizens to help them to defraud the public. It is just as
well for gentlemen to know, if their names have been brought
considerably before the public, that in many instances these are used
without their knowledge by tramps to further their impostures. Tramps
have indeed called upon me, exhibiting what purported to be “a
recommend” signed by one or more of Toronto’s prominent citizens, when I
knew at a glance that such signatures were forgeries. The proper plan
would be to have them arrested, but no one individual wants to fight the
battles for the general public, and usually these fellows get off.
From the last tramp who honored me with a call I wormed out his story.
He was a strong, hearty, broad-shouldered young man of twenty-eight or
so, born in Ontario, the son of assisted immigrants. During the past
summer he had worked for a couple of months in a brickyard near Toronto.
His wages were $1.50 per day, but the proprietor, according to his
rules, kept back one-third until the end of the season, when this, too,
would be paid in a lump sum along with the last week’s pay. “But I could
not stand that, you know,” the tramp said. He must have his money, all
of it weekly, or quit. And quit he did, for he could not subsist on the
single dollar a day and buy his whiskey! Until the following winter he
simply “bummed” around the city, spending the balance of his brickyard
money. As winter came on he made his way to Ottawa and Pembroke--just
how did not appear quite clear. He worked about Pembroke in the lumber
woods for a couple of months; was discharged because he would not be
driven by the gang boss nor be ordered to keep up; bought a C.P.R.
ticket for Toronto, but before setting out must have a few drinks. Took
a few glasses, and then a few more, and fell into oblivion. Next morning
he awoke in a hotel stable, minus his railway ticket and $25 which he
had in his pocket, and then he had no resource but to tramp it back to
Toronto. He had no difficulty, for any of the farmers would feed him and
keep him overnight, so that it was just a question of slow marching with
him from house to house, with a full stomach and a stop whenever cold.
But as he got nearer Toronto he found the farmers not so hospitable;
they refused generally to feed him, and invariably declined to lodge
him. He said those near Toronto had been called upon by so many tramps
that they had become wise, and no longer considered it charity to give
to tramps. In a small village near Toronto, overtaken by night, he could
find no refuge, and had to apply to the village constable to be
confined in the ordinary lock-up. In this he was accommodated. But the
constable did not relish the idea of sitting up all night for any such
specimen of humanity, and so left him alone in the lock-up, where there
was a stove and supply of wood. The night was cold, and the tramp fired
up himself. On leaving him the constable had cautioned him to be careful
of fire, and the tramp said that he was only careful for fear that he
might get burnt himself. The lock-up stood beside other buildings, and
had he set it on fire a good part of the village must have been
consumed. Thus was this village placed in great jeopardy on account of
this worthless fellow who became a charge upon them for the night, and
the whole community thereabout was in great danger of losing many
thousands of dollars worth of property, and possibly precious human
life, by this wretched scamp, who was too lazy to work in summer and too
fond of whiskey to keep him off the road in winter. Now if there be any
charity in giving to such persons, I fail to see it. If we construct
county poor-houses just such fellows will want to get into them. There
is no excuse for any such persons. In the summer they can easily earn
sufficient money to keep them during the winter if they will. In this
tramp’s case he could have earned good money in the winter if he chose.
He said he would get on to Toronto, and if nothing turned up he would
go on west towards Woodstock and about Berlin, for the tramping
fraternity told him that the German farmers thereabout have big barns
and cellars and great abundance, and feed all tramps. In case they would
not feed or lodge him readily, he said most of those about Berlin
possessed stone base stables, which were always warm, and that he could
sleep as warm in them as he could in the house.
Here is a great danger--greater in fact than the risk which the people
ran when the tramp was in the village lock-up all by himself with a
red-hot stove. During the summer these idle vagabonds go about the
country in twos and threes, and camp at night in barns and stacks. No
one ever saw a tramp yet who did not smoke. Lodging in a barn or stack
is to him no valid reason why he should not indulge in his pipe.
Consequently, many barns are burned throughout our country, and the only
explanation ever given for such fires is simply “tramps.” This tramp
nuisance is one of the growing evils in our Province, and it is just as
well to stamp it out now, before it gets greater, by absolutely refusing
to give aid. If we build county poor-houses, our poor-rates will go up,
and no one ever heard of such rates coming down if once put on. The
British farmer to-day is ground down with poor-rates, but perhaps in
densely populated England there may be an excuse for such rates. With
us there is not, then let us not have them. Giving to tramps is
fostering a lazy, whiskey-drinking, shiftless class, who beg because it
is easier than to work. Indiscriminate giving is worse than not giving
at all. Let us generally, throughout rural Ontario, take warning and
look closely to our charities, and see that they are rightly bestowed.
Let us stamp out this tramp nuisance before it becomes fixed. If there
be worthy objects of charity in our midst, I know I am safe in asserting
that the big hearts of Canadians will relieve them, and there is always
the township council to fall back upon in any event.
There is another class of persons in Canada who are always in search of
“the loaves and fishes” in the shape of public offices. At first sight
these persons would not appear to be numerous, but there are a very
great many of them in various capacities--many offices, no doubt,
created for the men, and many of them, too, of no adequate good to the
community. As a class these persons will bear well a comparison with the
turtle--opening their eyes and sitting in the sun, Micawber-like,
“waiting for something to turn up.” Our labors to bring our young
country to the fore they do not share in. They “toil not, neither do
they spin,” notwithstanding they are always well arrayed. Manifestly a
certain number of public servants are necessary, but the general
feeling is that there are two where one would be enough. More, when
these public servants once get foisted upon us we can never get rid of
them. “Superannuated” is the political term; but they get pay until the
grave opens for them.
AFTER THE OFFICES.
Whatever other faults Canadians may have, they are certainly willing,
with all possible alacrity, to serve their countrymen in the way of
filling offices, small or more important, throughout the country. At the
time of the municipal elections the aspirants for municipal honors come
to the front in shoals. This particular feature of our people is, in a
way, highly commendable. And yet one cannot cease to wonder at the
immense number of persons in any community in Canada who are willing to
sacrifice (?) themselves for the public good (?).
It is held by patriots and sages that it is a citizen’s duty to serve
the public wherever his services are required, whether it be in the
tented field or in the civic chair. So far as the matter of the civic
chair is concerned, many of us--and the writer among the number--are
quite content to let those who are so supremely anxious to serve their
fellows have the offices as long as they can fulfil the duties fairly
well.
Unquestionably, the public have a right to the individual’s services,
but until the public really need them I hold it not to be a real neglect
of one’s duty to let those who are so very anxious to serve do so, so
long as they serve well and without public pay. The public will seek out
the individual if they really require his aid. When Rome was in her
palmiest days Cincinnatus was made consul, and received all the honors
the Roman people could confer upon him. When his consulship had expired
he retired to his farm beyond the Tiber, and went to cultivating the
soil with his own hands. About 458 B.C., while engaged, it is said,
ploughing in his field, five horsemen galloped up and informed him that
he had been elected Dictator of that mighty empire republic--Rome. He
left his plough and put on once more the royal purple.
George Washington, upon resigning his commission to Congress at the
close of the war of the Revolution, retired to his lands at Mount Vernon
on the Potomac, and is credited with having said, “I’d rather be among
my fields at Mount Vernon than be emperor of the world.”
As might be supposed, there are often curious incidents and characters
which appear in this connection. We have scarcely a county--I had almost
said township--in which there is not the history of some one or other
eventful election or polling day.
All sorts of objections are raised to throw doubt upon the suitability
of each candidate by his opponent in politics or rival in local
popularity, each side waxing eloquent in favor of its own man, or even
resorting to means that are in some degree beyond the limits of wit or
repartee to confound the tactics of the opposition candidate. In a
recent contest a meeting called in the interests of one side by
invitation cards was packed by their opponents through the medium of a
card, a fac-simile in all except the hour, which, being a few minutes
earlier than the _bona fide_ invitation enabled the holders to secure
the seats in advance and in good order. The old-time stories of
two-thirds of the “free and independent electors” going to the poll on
crutches that later they might be used as shillelahs, with broken heads
as the result, are not more absurd than some of the stories of incidents
in the back-country contests for municipal honors at the present time.
A candidate during recent municipal elections had been charged with
religious unbelief, and consequent unfitness for the office. He was a
farmer who owned and cultivated his one hundred acres--worth, perhaps,
farm and stock, about $11,000. During his younger days, when sowing his
wild oats, he had strayed from home and had been a sailor before the
mast on our great lakes, and had thus mixed considerably more than his
fellow farmers with the outside world. When on the rostrum, making his
speech, urging the people to vote for him as councillor, he was dressed
in a Canada pepper-and-salt tweed suit, shooting coat, with large lapels
to his pockets overhanging them, a red scarf about his neck, and a pair
of thick cowhide boots, the tops of which were too large, with the legs
of his trousers stretched tightly over them. His _tout ensemble_ would
denote a good plain, practical farmer, in fair circumstances, and having
a mediocre amount of brain power or gift of penetration. Once getting
upon the rostrum his speech ran on about thus:--“Gentlemen, I am accused
as not believing the Bible. I tell you that ain’t so, for I believe the
Bible as well as you do. There are some verses in the Bible I do not
quite believe, for I don’t believe Jonah was three days in the whale’s
belly, and that he would come out alive. Well, I don’t believe that
Samson set 3,000 foxes’ tails on fire, and set fire to green wheat. The
rest of the Bible I believe, and I think you ought to elect me.
Gentlemen, I ask for your votes,” and with this brief address he bowed
and left the platform. A hum was heard about the room, the general
conclusion being that his explanation was worse than the charge; that he
did not better it any, and would have done as well to have said nothing.
It would be almost superfluous to add that this novel candidate was
defeated, and, so far as I can learn, in Ontario at least, never before
was religious belief made a test of fitness for municipal office.
Another candidate comes before my mind who wanted to sacrifice himself
on the altar of his country by filling some civic office. He had, it
seems, been jocularly accused by someone with being a clodhopper and not
sharp enough for a councillor. For the first time in his life he mounted
the rostrum, and eager as he was to speak when among the crowd, up there
it was quite another affair. A great big, hulking fellow he was, who had
just attained his majority, and whose father had set him up on a
hundred-acre farm. Never since his youthful days, when he recited at the
common school--
“On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,”
with all the declamation the piece could possibly stand, had he stood up
before the public. He chokes, makes a squeak, tries it again, swallows
rapidly, and after a most painful suspense of a minute or so gets out:
“Gentlemen, I am a clodhopper, and I’m not ashamed to own it. But I am
fit for the office of councillor, and if you will vote for me I will
serve you well and faithfully. I promise you I will keep down
expenditures, and I will do my best to look after the roads and
bridges. Gentlemen, I ask for your votes.” And he gets off that rostrum
as quickly as if he were standing on hot coals. He is in a profuse glow
of perspiration, feeling down in his heart, “What a fool I made of
myself.” This time the religious belief was all right, and he got in.
In our towns and cities throughout Ontario, nearly seven out of every
ten men are looking for municipal offices. Let one attend a town
nomination and he will find as many as ten applicants for every single
office, and the mutual recriminations which these would-be-immortalized
townsmen make upon one another are to the listener, to say the least,
rather disgraceful and disgusting. It is a fact that very ordinary
persons in our towns and villages--men of very moderate ability or
means--will come as near calling their fellow-townsmen liars as they
dare go, and all for the sake of sitting at a council board for one
year. Let the roads in that town, for instance, be pretty bad during an
open winter, and one may hear such municipal councillors holding an
open-air meeting of the council, and it is quite refreshing to find that
every single one of that devoted council is responsible for the bad
streets of the town. To get municipal honors in towns it may be
necessary to act in this way, but then I am pleased to think there are
some few persons in every community who are content to jog on through
life and do without such honors, and who do not find it necessary to
call their fellows liars. It is said the real safeguard for the liberty
of the English-speaking people is the town meeting. If that be so, our
liberties in Canada are fully assured.
[Illustration: CAMP MEETING SCENE.]
CHAPTER XV.
Upper Canada’s favored situation--Our Great Lakes--Cases of
apparent tides on Lake Ontario--Canadians as givers--Oshawa’s
generous support of churches and charities--Life insurance--Amusing
incidents of a railway journey--A “talking machine.”
“I glory in the spirit
Which goaded them to rise,
And form a mighty nation
Beneath the western skies.
No clime so bright and beautiful
As that where ne’er was slavery;
No land so fertile, fair, and free
As that of Upper Canada.
Hurrah!”
--_Adapted._
A glance at the outline map in this volume will show how this Province
is surrounded by the Great Lakes, or tideless oceans, the peers of any
in this world.
Now, with a fertile soil, a most salubrious climate, the best form of
government, and a working, thrifty, sober people, success and the goal
of wealth being ours is not to be marvelled at. Our working habits and
abstemiousness are so strongly inculcated that our young men have always
had the best places given them when they have gone to seek work in the
great neighboring Republic.
I have called the Great Lakes tideless oceans, and they are. Still,
sometimes one would almost think they had tides. That the surface of
Lake Ontario very frequently and very suddenly rises and again falls,
within one or two hours, is very well known to close observers.
Indeed, the records of the Jesuit fathers, who were the first real
observers of Lake Ontario, have frequent accounts of sudden rufflings of
the water, and of waves on which by some unknown cause their canoes were
rocked. As a pointed illustration of this fact, my father, who was one
of the earliest shipowners on the lake, had a large vessel ashore about
Frenchman’s Bay. They had kedged the anchors and drawn the cables as
taut as it was possible to do, and still the ship would not move. After
making every effort to move it they lay down upon the beach by the ship
exhausted, wondering what next to do. Suddenly, from a perfectly calm
surface, there came a swell and a rise of two feet of water, when the
vessel immediately, with the strain upon her chains, slid off into deep
water.
Here, without a doubt, was a tide, but I feel certain that at some
remote part of the lake a heavy thunderstorm was passing, with a high
wind, or there was some such local cause to produce this swell and
apparent tide. No one has yet been able to prove that there are lunar
tides upon Lake Ontario. It is unfortunately true that no very close and
persistent observations have been made, yet even casual observers who
live upon the lake-side know positively that these tides are not
regular, are governed by no fixed law, and can never be foretold as are
the lunar tides upon the ocean. I would designate these Lake Ontario
tides “barometrical waves,” as they are truly caused by sudden
barometrical changes at different points upon the lake; for we must
never forget its great size, and that a storm or a gale may be raging
over one area and at the same time the lake be perfectly calm in
another.
* * * * *
Upper Canadians are a generous, liberal-minded people, and I fearlessly
assert that they are among the most liberal in the world. In fact, I am
not sure but they really are the greatest givers in the world--givers
for good purposes, I mean--and I am going to show unmistakably that they
voluntarily submit to a tax far greater than any Government dare try to
impose upon them.
Take Oshawa, for example--not because it is any better or worse than
other towns in Ontario, but let it stand for an average town; I cite it
simply because I know it more intimately, and therefore use it as a
basis of comparison.
There are, in round numbers, about 5,000 persons in the town of Oshawa.
Within its boundaries are ten worshipping bodies. That is, there are
that many different congregations who, at stated times, meet separately
for worship. I get it from one of the deacons of these churches that
last year his church raised $4,400 for religious purposes. But, of
course, that would not be a fair assumption for the rest, although some
two or three others would come pretty near that amount. Upon closest
inquiry I find that it can safely be taken, on an average, that every
one of these ten worshipping bodies raises at least $1,500 yearly for
religious purposes. This is putting it at a very low estimate, and is
safely within the mark. Then, ten churches at $1,500 each per year gives
the grand total of $15,000 raised yearly by 5,000 people for religious
purposes alone. Or, taking the whole sum, and apportioning it _pro
rata_, it will yield about $3 per head for every man, woman and child
per annum, voluntarily given for these purposes, which is indeed more
than any government dare levy as a tax. Of course, I know that persons
outside the town attend some of the town churches and contribute, but I
think this is fully offset by the extremely low estimate of $1,500 per
church or body, for I am quite certain, if the real truth were known, it
would be far more than that amount. Some of the churches will not in any
way divulge the facts, and of course the amount of their contributions
can be got at only approximately.
I submit that the people of Ontario are the most generous in the world,
and give most voluntarily, for, as I remarked at the outset, I am not
claiming more nor less for Oshawa, and think I must be safe in coming to
the conclusion that other towns of a similar population do likewise.
Very few of us, I am sure, ever stopped before to think of what we do
voluntarily in this our banner Province. It is only because we are a
frugal and industrious and prosperous people that we can make this
annual contribution for religious purposes. It is far greater than that
for educational purposes, and yet we feel sure we are doing as much for
education as any people under the sun.
There is one more tax which our people voluntarily subject themselves
to, which I think might well be referred to. So far as I know, no one
has ever touched upon the subject, and since it is becoming so general,
it ought, I think, to be spoken of, to give us some idea of what we are
voluntarily doing in another direction. Life insurance has become so
common, and is so fast increasing, that it bids fair to be one of the
great questions among us. I have been at considerable pains to get as
near the truth as I can, but insurance men, however, do not care to give
too many figures, and I must get all I can from policyholders and then
draw an approximate estimate. Take Oshawa again for a comparison, with
its 5,000 people. For the same reason as in the former case, I use
Oshawa for comparison solely because I know it best, and not for any
particular merit or demerit so far as it is concerned. There are three
hundred policies of life insurance in Oshawa among 5,000 people. This
number is certainly within the mark, as insurance men reluctantly admit.
Pursuing the inquiry further, I find, as near as may be, these policies
will average $2,000 each, making thereby a total of $600,000 life
insurance now carried by this people. With the gross amount I am not
particularly concerned, but it is the sum they yearly voluntarily tax
themselves to pay to keep these three hundred policies in force that I
want to discover. It is difficult to get at the sum the people pay
annually, for there are so many kinds of life insurance that they vary,
some policies being on the plan of annual payments for life, while
others are only for a stated term of years, so that it is difficult to
get at the average amount. Five thousand dollars per month one insurance
company has been known to receive from here. But I take it that this was
a special month, and that more policies were renewed that month than
usual, so it will not be safe to take those figures for any average. It
is certain, however, that these three hundred policies average a cost of
$30 per annum. Now, this $30 per annum is well within the mark, and I
feel quite warranted in using that as a basis for comparison. This will
give us $24,000 per year which the people here pay for life insurance,
and I am quite right in classing these payments as among the generous
acts and givings of the people, because the persons assured by these
policies cannot ordinarily be expected to be benefited themselves, but
are doing it and making these annual sacrifices for those who remain
after their decease. Hence, these payments are charitable donations. If
5,000 people pay $24,000 per annum, that means very nearly $5 per head
for every man, woman and child yearly paid in this town for life
insurance to benefit those of our friends who succeed us. Now, add this
$5 per head for life insurance to the $3 per head, as before instanced,
annually raised for religious purposes, and we have $8 per head
annually paid by the people of Oshawa, voluntarily and spontaneously.
Again I say, taking Oshawa as an index of the Province, one can begin to
form some idea of the vast sum annually contributed for these purposes.
Verily, there are no more generous people on this globe, This $8 per
head is almost equal to the annual drink bill of the greatest drinking
nations of the world. But then, of course, one must expect,
unfortunately, that men will pay more for vices, taking the world at
large, than they will for commendable objects. Ontario comes perhaps
quite as near paying as much per head for commendable objects as for
vicious ones as any people existing to-day. Hence, one can form no other
opinion than that Ontarioans are really as moral, as well educated and
thrifty, and as generous a people as there are anywhere to be found.
* * * * *
People of the Old World cannot realize the conditions of life in
America, the peculiar freedom of pleasant informal intercourse common to
it, without reading closely or unless they come and see us.
The following incidents of a railway journey will serve for
illustration. Remember that Upper Canada is covered by a very extensive
network of railways, hence such scenes are always possible.
An old gentleman in passing from the smoking-car to the first-class
coach behind, while the train was under full speed of forty miles an
hour or so, had in some way been thrown or blown or jolted from the
platform to the ground.
He is injured somewhat badly, but not seriously. In obedience to a
telegram an ambulance of the city of Toronto meets the incoming train at
the Union Depot, and the injured man is gently raised in a huge blanket
from the baggage car, where he had been placed after his fall, and
deposited in the ambulance. A doctor gets in and sits by his head. A
crowd has gathered, and, seeking to know what the trouble is, I make
enquiry of a man standing near me. The man, whose sable complexion
plainly betokens his African origin, without any visible admixture of
white blood, courteously replies:--“Don’t exazactly know, sah, but
’spects some man fell off de kears.” And the ambulance slowly moves off
to the hospital.
Reaching my train, I deposit my things in the first-class coach and make
for the “smoker.” About one-half of all the gentlemen do likewise. My
observation is that about one-half of all Canadians, taking them “by the
large,” as the sailors say, burn the fragrant weed. In Britain
three-fourths would, I think, be the proportion; in Holland and Belgium
_eleven-tenths_ is, I imagine, almost within the mark. If our medical
men can convince us that Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco is decimating the
human family, we may safely conclude that three-fourths of Canadians
will soon pass over to the great silent majority. Well, if our medical
men were to tell us so, I don’t believe we would accept their _ipse
dixit_--at any rate, we would go on smoking, regardless of consequences.
To the honor of Canadians be it said, they as a rule do not belong to
the light-fingered gentry class, and our grip-sacks and great-coats left
unguarded in the car are comparatively safe. It is only around the depot
that any real danger of pilfering exists. There one may expect some
“artful dodger” lying in wait for just such opportunities. The journey
once commenced there’s no danger at all, and “traps” may be left about
promiscuously.
But my smoke is done, and I will return to my seat. Ah! I see someone
has taken it--a lady. Of course, I cannot ask her to vacate it, although
that seat by the ordinary courtesies of travel is mine by right of
pre-possession and as the receptacle of my belongings. The next seat
behind is occupied by a single lady, and there’s room for another
person. “Is this seat occupied, madam?” in as polite a voice and gesture
towards the seat as the occasion demands. “I think not, sir,” and I sit
by her side. Some one of her “uncles, or her cousins or her aunts” may
possibly be known to me. Just how the ice is broken one can scarcely
tell, but it is broken, and we chat away as the train clips off the
usual thirty miles an hour.
Who, I ask, ever thought of speaking unintroduced to a lady in a
first-class car in England? I tried it once when a green boy, and
received such a stony stare as froze me for all my subsequent railway
journeys in the old land. But we do things differently in Canada. My
companion chats, and so do I, and so do all my neighbors, and the car is
just an incessant hum of pleasant, softly intoned voices. Such seems to
be the almost universal custom in Canada, and the millionaire (we have a
few) sits down beside the schoolmaster or the drummer, and it would take
a keener eye than Canada has yet produced to tell “which from t’other”
without previous knowledge or having been duly informed.
Were I an M.P. or an M.P.P., or possibly a Cabinet Minister (with or
without a portfolio), I suppose it would be among my prerogatives not to
talk to my seat-mate. But not being so fortunate, I can enjoy my freedom
and talk with decent, respectable people, though they are strangers.
Just across the passage are seated an ancient maiden lady and an
attenuated, pale, thin-whiskered merchant who has been up the city to
make some purchases for his store. Now this ancient maiden lady has seen
her fifty-and-two summers at least, and is strong in church government,
and church soirees, and church donative entertainments, ostensibly for
the benefit of the poor. Just now, however, I must leave her, for the
conductor has entered the forward door of the car, wearing his sombre
but neat railway uniform, and is shouting out “Tickets!” Without
exception everyone in my coach has the required pasteboard, and he has
quickly passed us. Conductors evidently can get along well with such a
class of passengers, for there’s no quarrelling or unpleasantness, nor
questions for him to answer, nor anyone for him to eject from the train.
It is manifest from his facial expression that he is in good humor with
us, his passengers, and that his dinner likewise has agreed with him.
This lady opens conversation with the merchant sitting near her, and
without waiting for a reply to the opinions she expresses, continues an
unchecked stream of talk on her favorite subject. Resignedly, patiently,
meekly, Christianlike, this helpless merchant submits. And it is poured
on, over, twisted, every side brought forth, while he calmly folds his
long white wasted hands over his breast. Some young city men are coming
down to a country town to attend a ball, and they make a lively party of
themselves. Their fun and mirth and overflowing spirits do not annoy us,
but we cannot help catching the contagious infection of mirth, and we
are all goodnatured
[Illustration: SARAH TERWILLIGAR’S ATTEMPT TO FLY TO HEAVEN. THE WORLD
TO COME TO AN END.]
in this car, except possibly aforesaid ancient maiden lady, who is still
too deep in “church government” for the contagion to catch her.
With questionable zeal a young Salvation Army fellow and a couple of
Salvation Army lasses, seated near the farther end of the car, boldly
strike up. The tune may be melodious, suggestive of piety, musical,
well-rendered, and withal nicely done, for one of the female voices is
really sweet. It gets monotonous, however, at the beginning of the third
verse, and we cannot enjoy our conversation. “Will you kindly stop?”
Perhaps the word kindly is not suggestive enough--at any rate, it does
not produce the desired quietus, and the hymn-singing goes bravely on.
Our uniformed conductor has come in again with his cry of “Tickets!”
Someone suggests to him “Will you be good enough to ask those persons in
the rear end of the car to cease their singing?” It has the desired
effect, even if the “kindly” aforementioned did not. Yes, Canada is
pre-eminently a free country, but the wisdom of such efforts among a
mixed assembly of promiscuous railway passengers is just questionable.
No doubt there would be in that coach Catholics as well as Protestants,
agnostics as well as saints--and heaven only knows but Moslems and
Greeks may have been there as well--so I think I am right in saying that
their zeal is quite right, but its peculiar manifestation just a little
questionable.
The next seat behind mine contains two young men who have so far on this
journey pored with eager interest over the _Globe’s_ columns. Church
government, city boys’ ante-ball merriment, nor Salvation Army songs
have as yet distracted their attention from these columns which they
seem to be devouring. They explain, however, that they are Toronto
University students on their way home, and have not for some days had an
opportunity to find out what this world has been about.
Did you ever in your peregrinations encounter a veritable “talking
machine?” Well, I did once, and I must ask you to allow me to leave this
coach for a moment to describe that machine.
A few seasons ago I had occasion to go to Britain in the month of
January. Now, it’s a long ride down to Halifax, and let the Pullman be
ever so comfortable, one feels now and again like walking forward and
seeing what the others are doing. In the smoker I found a long-featured,
cadaverous, wizened, pinched, saffron “bag of bones,” with a wrinkled
parchment cuticle drawn over them, made in the form of a “talking
machine.” He was talking the first time I went into the car, and talking
every time I entered it. There is just a dim recollection with me, that
I went some ten times into that car on the way down to Halifax, and the
“machine” was always in order, and always going. He went into the
steerage, and I heard him several times when on the steamer, from the
cabin deck, still in order, and always talking. At Londonderry he got on
the tender with me. As he came down the gang-plank his voice was still
raised, and for three mortal long hours I had to endure his idle
“clack,” while the tender took us ashore. Next day, when purchasing a
railway ticket, again I encountered him--still talking. I think I could
with clear conscience take my oath that he talked all the way home
(Belfast) while in that train. In fact, he had talked himself poor--poor
in flesh, I mean, for I do not know what may have been his possessions
in the coin of the realm.
This was my first real observation of a genuine “talking machine.” In
this coach to-day we had another, but of the feminine gender, which,
under ordinary acceptances, would seem to be more in the general fitness
of things, when coming from the sex to whom speech is so easy.
This old lady sat in the corner at the forward end of the car. She had
come from Ohio, and her talk ran equally as well upon ordinary sublunary
things as upon those of more elevated character. The Sphinx, or the
Delphic Oracle, or who was Junius?--it made no difference, for she was
equally at home on all these. Our ball-going city chaps quickly saw a
place and time for fun. First, they chaffed her, and squarely they got
their answers back, rather to their discomfiture. They hit upon politics
finally. Just what hers were I did not make out, but at this subject she
rose in her might, and standing with the index finger boldly extended,
laid it down right volubly--rather more than the ball-going boys
bargained for, and to the infinite amusement of all the other
passengers.
Our uniformed conductor touched her gently upon the shoulder and
requested her to sit down. Silence for a few moments followed, but the
fun was too much for the boys to lose it, and she as a talking-machine
ran too easily to quit. Again upon her feet, again the index finger, and
another request to sit down. Her station reached at last, the conductor
and brakeman with alacrity help her off and deposit her parcels with her
on the platform. The conductor raises his hand, a “toot” from the
locomotive, and away. The conductor jumps aboard, heaves a great sigh,
and almost audibly says--if not in words, at anyrate in thought and
action--“I’m glad to get rid of that talking-machine.”
“Supper! Twenty minutes for supper!” and for fifty cents we get a
substantial, good meal and are not particularly hurried. That reminds
me to say that those places where they give the traveller a good meal
are always known and commented upon and sought after. Cornwall, for
instance, is noted in many travellers’ memories for its pies. So the
traveller who happens there at the time of blueberries--ye gods, he’ll
have a feast for a king! Then again, of some railway restaurants I am
sorry to defame our our fair country by saying that they consume very
much of the traveller’s precious twenty minutes before they wait on him,
and he pays his fifty cents for a sight of the empty dishes and the
seductive odor of cooked meat in the room behind the screens, but not
yet served up to the pilgrim having only twenty precious minutes. The
eating-house at Orangeville did not on some former occasions strike me
as being particularly alert to save the traveller’s precious lunch time.
The ancient maiden lady has gone; so has my single lady, and as most of
us now remaining in the car are passengers for destinations far away, we
have gradually settled down for a really comfortable journey. Most of
the seats are now occupied by only one person, and he or she can lounge
at ease. But hold! there’s a woman crying bitterly. What’s the trouble?
Word soon goes around the car that this poor woman has been robbed of
her purse and her railway ticket as well, and she weeps deeply and
unfeignedly, as if her heart would break. There are whisperings among
the ladies, and soon one of them has interviewed her. A gentleman
approaches and consults with the weeper and the lady. Result, this
gentleman gets into the passage in the middle of the car, and makes a
little speech. Assures us he’s from Illinois, and has seen this woman on
his train all the way. Knew she had a ticket; in fact, saw her with it.
Says she had a through ticket from Chicago to some place away down in
Maine. Had a little money besides, but while crossing the river at
Detroit and Windsor some mean thief stole ticket and purse. Had only a
few quarters left in a pocket, which the thief did not get. With these
quarters has paid her fare since the robbery so far, but now her money
is all gone, and she has not a friend in this part of the world. “And
now, look a-here, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give the poor woman a
lift; a dollar a piece won’t hurt any of us, and here goes.” Taking off
his soft felt hat and putting a dollar greenback in it, around the car
he goes with the hat extended. Dollars and half-dollars fall into the
hat as the tour of the car is made, and he comes to the weeping woman
and unceremoniously dumps the whole lot into her lap. “There, there,
now; dry up your tears--you’re all right now, and you can pay your fare
through.” This woman’s sudden change from bitter weeping to smiles
through her tears was a pleasure to see, and I can fancy something kept
rising in the throats of many of the passengers, which it took a good
deal of swallowing to keep down. So the world is not so bad after all,
and Canadians have hearts and open purses when assured that the need is
a true one.
“Did you say the next station is mine, conductor?” Well, I will put on
my great-coat and go out into the darkness, for it is eleven o’clock,
and I leave this coach with its peculiarities of human nature, not
doubting but the next one I step into will contain its quota, peculiar
enough, though possibly in other ways.
CHAPTER XVI.
Drinking habits in the early days--Distilleries and mills--Treating
prevalent--Drinking carousals--Delirium
tremens--“One-Thousand-and-One Society”--Two gallon limit--Bibulous
landlords--Whiskey fights--Typical Canadian pioneers--Clearing the
farm--Sons and daughters married--Peaceful old age--Asleep in
death--Conclusion.
“Great God! we thank Thee for this home--
This bounteous birth-land of the free;
Where wanderers from afar may come
And breathe the air of liberty.”
In early days the great majority of the men in Upper Canada partook more
or less--usually more--of ardent spirits or beer. Fifty years ago there
were three distilleries in Oshawa, and they continued to do a
flourishing and paying business, as most distilleries did in those days
throughout the country generally. The operative who could extract the
most alcohol from a given amount of grain was then the great man, one
whose services were most sought in that business, and who likewise
commanded the largest pay.
[Illustration: MORMON’S ATTEMPT TO RAISE THE DEAD.]
Connected with or near to the distilleries in this part of Ontario a
custom milling was generally done. Sometimes the farmer brought his
grain to the mill, and sold it out there; but this was not the usual
course, for ordinarily then the miller could not pay for much grain. The
usual course was for the farmer to bring his grain to the mill, and get
it ground or chopped on the tolling system.
After cleaning up a load of wheat, there would ordinarily be a bag of
tailings remaining. These tailings would consist mostly of small grain,
which the farmer generally traded for whiskey, usually getting in
exchange his ten-gallon can pretty nearly filled--whiskey then being
considered a necessary of life as much as ordinary food was. To buy it
for cash cost fivepence per gallon. This style of doing things went on
until the Government began to put a tax on it. Then when the big
distillery of Gooderham & Worts, Toronto, got better machinery, enabling
them to extract more alcohol from the grain, the small distilleries
could not compete, and one by one closed up, until now there are none
about the country.
“Tuppence” per glass was the price for whiskey at the hotel bars in
those days, and one could fill the tumbler quite full or take only a
sip, at will, for this price.
Treating in those days was far more common than now, and the man who
would not treat was generally considered “mean,” as they expressed it
then. So freely did the people at large at that time partake, that the
individual who did not indulge was made the subject of curious comment.
Drinking bouts for the whole night were then very common. Usually a
party of boon companions--say eight or ten of them--would assemble in
the sitting-room of the hotel, next the bar, and someone would at once
“stand treat” all round. This having been partaken of, one of the number
would sing a song, and then someone else would provide a drink all
round. Probably a story would follow, succeeded by another drink; then
another song and another treat, as a matter of course, and so the song,
story and glass passed around, until everyone had treated, and if, like
Robert Burns,
“They were na’ fou’,
But juist had plenty,”
they were by no means disposed to stop.
Midnight has come, and though one or two of the weaker ones have already
succumbed, and are lying prone upon the floor, still the song goes
bravely on. And now is the landlord’s time to make his money. As a
matter of business form or semblance, change must be returned after
every treat has been paid for, and they are now all so “fou’” that not
one of them can count straight. Perhaps out of a one-pound note ($4)
given the landlord for a treat, only three shillings or so are returned;
or out of three or four shillings handed him for the next treat, only a
few pence are returned for change; and so the landlord dilutes his
whiskey and keeps the cash, until daylight comes upon the bouters, when
they disperse, with sore heads and stomachs, while the landlord has the
money.
This is a fair representation of an ordinary drinking bout of fifty
years ago, as told me by those who then participated in them. And they
were so common that one was usually going on at one of the hotels every
night of the week--but, let us hope, excepting the Sabbath night. During
the day these men were about their ordinary avocations, for even if they
did drink, they worked. Were this fact not so, our country would not be
what it is to-day, for downright hard work alone has made it.
Those drinkers and midnight revellers were young, or not more than
middle-aged men, and often lived fast lives. The consequence was that
not one in a hundred of them lived to be sixty, and hardly one to any
advanced age.
It is usually supposed that delirium tremens can only be produced by
long years of constant and excessive drinking; but authentic information
comes to me of a widow woman who, about the period of which I write,
began keeping hotel near the village of ----, and who had two or more
sons, young men. These young men, strong and burly up to that time, now
spent most of their time drinking. As soon as the effects of one glass
of whiskey had in a measure passed off, they would ask their mother for
more.
“Indeed, you shall have all you want to drink, for you are your mammy’s
own boys.” And this was said in the spirit of the greatest kindness. So
the boys drank, and drank again, keeping themselves stupid from day to
day. In six months those two boys, who had never before drank to any
excess, had the delirium tremens and died. All this in six months!
Allow me to here describe one of my most vivid boyish impressions of
thirty-five years or so ago:--
At the rear of a hotel in Oshawa was a garden enclosed by a high
tight-board fence, in which black currant bushes mostly were planted. A
young Englishman had been boarding about two months at the hotel,
drinking constantly and spending money freely. It is only fair to add
that this young man had been drinking just as heavily, apparently,
before he came to this hotel; and it is more than probable that a fond
father and loving mother had sent him out from England in the vain hope
of reforming him, for from his dress and manner he had evidently
belonged to a good family. It was noticed that he had the “blues”
slightly, and got to spending considerable of his time in the stable.
From the stable he finally made his way into the garden enclosure, and
somehow possessed himself of a club.
It was summer time, and I remember most vividly, as a little urchin,
looking through a knot-hole of the fence, and seeing this poor fellow,
after remaining quiet for a moment, with his eyes fixed, make a sudden
bound and strike with his club with all his might, killing imaginary
snakes among the currant bushes. A period of rest would follow, when he
would sit or stand in a contemplative mood for a few minutes, and as
suddenly almost as gunpowder explodes, strike behind him with his club
at some snake which would persist in stealthily approaching him from the
rear. Perhaps it is superfluous to add that all this was fun for us
boys, with the stout board fence between us and the man with the club.
It was known in the hotel what the trouble was with him, and it was also
generally recognized that nothing could be done for him. For four days
he ran his course, killing snakes, demons and hobgoblins in that garden,
and finally died, literally while engaged in the imaginary battle with
the enemy out in the garden. To-day he fills a nameless grave.
Indeed, so common were cases of delirium tremens in those days that I
might go on and multiply instances--tell, indeed, of a man climbing up
into a hayloft in the dark, catching the teamster who came for hay,
frightening him into a fit of sickness, and dying there before morning,
curled up on the hay like a dog. Again, I might instance the case of
another unfortunate, who started and ran from the “Corners,” then
constituting Oshawa, directly in the course of the mill-ponds, with the
whole village chasing him, making past the ponds and into the woods a
mile and a half away, before being caught--like a man running amuck. But
perhaps I have said enough on so unpleasant a feature of early life in
Ontario.
The “One-Thousand-and-One Society” of those days was an organization
formed among those who habitually drank and spent nights at bouts, and
was a recognized order among them. Probably there never was any written
constitution or by-laws to govern them; still the rules of the society
were as well known and as fully recognized as if there were such. The
fundamental rule which they were to observe in their drinking was that
no one must drink more than two gallons at one sitting without rising
and reporting the matter to the recognized chiefs of the order.
We must, in all charity, believe that the liquid in this case would be
beer--in any case it could hardly be spirits; still I am led to believe,
in many instances, before the great goal of the two gallons was reached,
the beer would be frequently mixed with spirits.
The landlord in those bouts of the Thousand-and-One Society never forgot
to make his quota, not only in the matter of change, as before enlarged
upon, but some of them used to boast that a landlord ought to be worth
$5 per day to his own house by his own drinking--that is to say, he
would take all the treats the company would offer him, and thus imbibe
his own liquor and keep the pay therefor at twopence per glass to the
amount of $5 per day.
Those were the days of pugilistic Ontario. Let there be a ploughing
match, for instance, a fight was sure to take place at it. Indeed, a
“raising” or a bee of any kind was never complete without a fight. It
would appear that persons would take that plan of settling old feuds or
grudges, and whiskey-fights were considered as much a matter of course
as it was for men to assemble.
Annually during one day in June all the able-bodied men of military age
had to assemble for drill in Toronto, and I have it from some old men
who used to go from these parts, that at every such training there were
fights in the morning before they commenced and likewise in the evening
when they were dismissed from drill. They tell of a big bully at one
training in Toronto who boldly dared any one to fight, and who finally
succeeded in arousing a small but plucky man to stand before him. A ring
was formed, and the bully punished his small opponent shamefully. There
was a man from this locality who had his feelings irritated by the
unequal and harrowing spectacle. He happened to remark, “I wish he’d
serve me so,” and the bully took him up. It is needless to add that they
had all been drinking more or less. Our man quickly pulled off his coat
and stepped before his big antagonist. This time the bully had aroused
the wrong man, for our hero possessed the strongest arm and hand anyone
was known to have in the locality, and in a few blows he thrashed the
bully clean and fair, felling him to the ground, and giving the
prostrate man a vigorous kick as a parting salute. But this was a fair
fight, whereas generally in those days they did not scruple to “strike
below the belt,” while gouging, biting and kicking were common
accompaniments.
But the picture is not a pleasant one, and I shall not further dwell
upon it. Surely we should be thankful that our Province has improved in
its ideas of temperance and conduct, as the world at large has in the
great march of reform ideas.
[Illustration: AWKWARD SQUAD. FENIAN RAID, 1865.]
In this fast nineteenth century, in these days of divorces and of free
love, it is really a pleasing spectacle to be able to point to one of
our elderly Canadian couples, who had been companions, one and
inseparable, for sixty years. They were married at twenty-two, and at
once began clearing a Canadian forest farm. During the previous fall the
expectant bridegroom alone had chopped and cleared some five or six
acres out of the dense forest, and erected a log-house in the clearing.
In due time he brings his bride to his home--a home as yet in embryo;
but there are four willing hands to work together, hard but contentedly,
to make it a home in reality.
The wife has got as her portion the usual Canadian portion of that day,
and, for that matter, very much of this day as well. A feather bed, some
chairs, a table, some bedding and a cow made her simple dowry. Alone and
almost unaided they work honestly and faithfully day after day, subduing
the “forest primeval.” Crops are gathered annually, and they are on the
high road to prosperity. Children have come to grace the household, and
the loneliness is broken. As the roads become improved around the
settlement, Sunday morning finds them both arrayed in their best, and,
with their span of horses hitched to the waggon, on their way to the
nearest church. With all their eagerness to get on they do not at any
time forget to worship God, and their place at the little church is
seldom vacant unless it be exceptionally stormy or the roads exceedingly
bad, as is frequently the case in the spring and fall.
The farm is cleared and a new house built, and he is now among the
well-to-do of the locality. Another farm has been added to the
homestead, but the good pair never so much as think casually that they
might cease their arduous labors. No family jars occur to disturb their
serenity, but day succeeds day in right good fellowship, and each
performs his and her individual part faithfully and earnestly. Divorce
forsooth! The thought of such has never entered their minds in the most
remote degree.
Time steals imperceptibly but surely along, and the eldest girl has
arrived at marriageable age. Neighbors’ sons call in occasionally, and
it takes many such calls before the good parents really get it into
their heads that the daughter has suitors. A few months roll around, and
there is a rural wedding. The minister from the near village has been
called in. He comes before dinner, and after partaking of it, chats
gaily with the neighbors who begin to assemble. Four o’clock has
arrived, and it is time for the ceremony to proceed. The young couple
join hands, a few words are spoken, the assent is given, and they are
man and wife. As the mother got her dowry, so she (the daughter) gets
hers. And the household goes on again in the ordinary way; only one
member less sits around the family board and assists at the daily tasks.
The eldest son has taken a fashion of being out at nights a good deal of
late. Not content with this, he must have a smart buggy, and his horse
must be well groomed, as he goes away with his rig solitary and alone.
But if he goes away solitary and alone, his lonesomeness is soon broken
and dispelled by the presence of a neighbor’s daughter. For a few months
this process goes on, when the youth announces to father and mother that
he is about to marry. The good couple can scarcely realize that they
have a son old enough to wed. Their lives are spent in downright
usefulness and whole-souled earnestness; time has literally stolen a
march upon them, and it almost dazes them to think that their son is to
marry and leave them. This time something more than ordinary is expected
and given. An outlying farm must be given to the son, and horses to work
it with, as well as stock and some seed-grain. Thereupon the son and his
young bride begin their life’s journey in rural Canada; but whether they
will accomplish as much as the father and mother, or whether they will
imbibe the roving notions of many of our younger people, is a question
that remains to be solved.
At last, and not until now, the old couple, who have never yet had a
thought separate and apart from the other, realize they are growing old
and must soon cease from hard work. To their honor, and to the credit of
our country, be it said, in order that their other children may contract
good marriage alliances, the family gathering is still kept up, the
family board is ever open, and a place always is ready for the worthy
neighbors. To the utmost of their physical abilities they perform all
the manual labor they can about the farm and homestead. The dollars have
accumulated, and there are sundry loans here and there in the
neighborhood, both on mortgage security and notes of hand as well. Their
money-making has been by no speculative risk in any sense, but, like the
even tenor of their united lives, has simply flowed along, gradually
accumulating, and not being made by any lucky stroke.
A few years more and the scene shifts--shifts materially--for the family
are all married and gone, and once more the old couple are where they
commenced years and years ago, in the first days of their young manhood
and womanhood--alone again in the world, but still faithful to each
other, and still doing their duties daily and faithfully. But the old
farm is yet on their hands, while their strength is not equal to the
task of attending to it. Reluctantly they consider it best to rent the
home farm and purchase a neat and commodious cottage in the adjacent
town. It was a “corners” not many years since; some time later it became
a village, and some four or five years ago it grew ambitious and took
upon itself the name of a town. Here they purchase a little home in
which to quietly spend the last years of their lives. They are free from
worry, free from anxiety, and, as during the years long past, they have
no thought that is not shared in common. Old neighbors, as they come to
town, call upon them, and their lives are diversified and enlivened two
or three times a week by such visits. Their children, most of whom
reside within driving distance of their parents, drop in upon them at
any time, and thus in perfect happiness and serenity they pass down the
sunset slope of life. Their lives and individual characters are towers
of strength in the neighborhood for rectitude and uprightness, and the
community without a dissent recognizes their true worth. One is almost
tempted to wish that their already long lives might be yet prolonged for
many years, that they may continue to be as bright and shining lights in
the community. But the dreaded day comes at last. The good wife and
mother has fallen ill. Daily the town doctor visits her and does all
that medical skill can do in such a case, but no resource of science is
able to renovate the worn-out human body. Perhaps the most affecting
sight one could view in these days would be to see the old husband and
partner of sixty long years sit hourly and daily by the bedside,
disconsolate and lost, as he sadly views the daily emaciating face of
her whom he had chosen in the bloom of youth.
The inevitable comes at last, and the spirit forsakes its worn house of
clay. At the funeral gather the whole country-side about the former
home. The carriages fill the road and the yard, and the cottage is
packed to the doors. From the town church the minister has come. He
stands in the hall, reads from Sacred Writ, admonishes, gives a few
words of solemn warning; the procession moves on, and in a few minutes
all is over. Back to the cottage home comes the aged man, alone in this
world--literally alone, for no one but persons of such advanced age can
so keenly feel the absolute loneliness. Forty years ago he might have
thrown off his grief and faced the world again, but for him now the day
is gone beyond recovery. His eyes have suddenly dimmed, his one-time
firm lower jaw relaxes, his step grows feeble. Evidently his days are
numbered, and the reader must allow me to kindly draw the veil over him
and leave him, as we see him, tottering down to join his companion of
the past sixty years, who has preceded him but a few months.
But is there in our country any more pleasing example of success than
this old couple present? Successful they have been in a most eminent
degree. They may not have accumulated any great store of wealth, but
they have raised to Canada a family of sons and daughters who are a
credit to our beloved country--sons and daughters whose families are
working their farms and fields and helping to make our Province what it
is to-day.
* * * * *
Before closing these somewhat random sketches of life in the early
settlements and country districts of Upper Canada, I would wish to thank
my readers for the courtesy of perusing these pages. May I also indulge
the hope that they have given them some pleasure and profit in the
reading, and add that it is my most earnest desire--may it also be
yours--that our country, which we all love, may be guarded and led by
the great Omniscient in the future as it has been in the past.
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