CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
_ Cornell University Library 
 
 F 1059A1 W36 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 028 900 491 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028900491 
 
THE STORY OF THE COUNTIES 
 OF ONTARIO 
 
THE STORY 
 
 OF THE COUNTIES 
 
 OF ONTARIO 
 
 BY 
 
 EMILY P. WEAVER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A CANADIAN HISTORY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS' 
 
 "OLD QUEBEC: THE CITY OF CHAMPLAIN" 
 
 " THE TROUBLE MAN," ETC. 
 
 WITH 16 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP 
 
 TORONTO 
 BELL & COCKBURN 
 
 MCMXIII 
 

 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <Sh Co. 
 at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THE story of the counties of Ontario is a story of 
 conquest — not of men against men — but of men, 
 with little resource save their own strong arms, iron 
 wills and alert intelligence, pitted against wild, beautiful, 
 prolific Nature, and prevailing to subdue the earth. 
 Carving their little farms from "the forest primeval," 
 planting their own towns and cities at the meeting- places 
 of mighty waters, making highways of every lake and 
 river and streamlet deep enough to bear up a birch-bark 
 canoe, our Loyalist "Pilgrim Fathers," many of whom 
 had been cast out as unworthy by the land of their birth, 
 were privileged, as has often happened with outcasts, to 
 found a new order of things and a new nation. 
 
 This Province had not, of course, a monopoly of all the 
 Loyalist settlers who came northwards after the revo- 
 lution, but it had enough to bring it into being with a 
 distinctive character of its own, enough, exclusive of 
 other brave and useful pioneers, to furnish it with heroes 
 — and heroines — for the early days of stress and strain 
 and struggle — those days over which for us hangs the 
 fairy glamour of romance, though few of us would have 
 discovered it had we had to live through them. I 
 suppose this charm of the past and — in some measure — 
 of the distant, is akin to the misty blues and purples 
 
vi THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 of the far-away horizon. It comes from a certain point 
 of view, far enough from the things seen to enable us to 
 lose sight of details and realise the relative proportions 
 of objects. So, though in literature we often associate 
 romance with the quaint trappings and customs of by- 
 gone days, its real concern is with the heroes and with 
 the big things of life — love and hate, good and evil, 
 contest and victory: and great dramas may be played 
 out on a narrow stage. 
 
 This story, with its chapters of adventure, of patriotic 
 warfare, of political struggle, and of effort to make the 
 best of marvellous opportunities, is still in the making. 
 The age of explorers and pioneers and (let us hope) of 
 patriots is not past, while that of "merchant princes," 
 " captains of industry," and organised armies of labourers 
 has begun ; but time's changes only add to its interest. 
 
 Gleaning in the fields of Ontario's local history has 
 proved a fascinating task ; but for the handfuls gathered, 
 whole sheaves are left untouched. In other words, this 
 book makes no profession of being a formal history. It 
 is but hoped for it that it may do a little to stimulate 
 interest in the history of the Province, especially amongst 
 Ontario's own sons and daughters, and may incline them 
 to make greater efforts to preserve the records and 
 memorials of their past. 
 
 Already the history of some counties and townships 
 has been written with loving care, and it was an easy 
 and a pleasant thing to follow in paths so well marked. 
 In other cases, the material had to be gathered with 
 arduous labour, here and there, far afield; but in all 
 difficulties I was fortunate enough to have the able and 
 untiring assistance of the ladies in charge of the Reference 
 
PREFATORY NOTE vii 
 
 Library at Toronto — Miss Staten and Miss Moir — and I 
 cannot let this book go to press without a very grateful 
 acknowledgment of the debt that I owe to them. 
 
 The illustrations are reproductions of old prints and 
 pictures in the Archives at Ottawa ; and I have to thank 
 Dr. Doughty for permission to use them, and his assistant, 
 Miss Casey, for her kind help in finding suitable subjects. 
 
 The map at the end of the volume shows the extent 
 of the Province of Ontario as it is to-day. 
 
 E. P. W. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CENTRAL COUNTIES 
 
 I. 
 
 FRONTENAC 
 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 LENNOX AND ADDINGTON 
 
 III. 
 
 PRINCE EDWARD . 
 
 IV. 
 
 HASTINGS 
 
 
 V. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 PETERBORO' COUNTY 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 HALIBURTON . 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 DURHAM 
 
 
 
 
 IX. 
 
 VICTORIA 
 
 
 
 
 X. 
 
 ONTARIO 
 
 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 YORK 
 
 
 
 
 XII. 
 
 PEEL 
 
 
 
 
 XIII. 
 
 HALTON 
 
 
 
 
 XIV. 
 
 SIMCOE . 
 
 
 
 
 XV. 
 
 DUFFERIN 
 
 
 
 
 XVI. 
 
 LINCOLN 
 
 
 
 
 XVII. 
 
 WELLAND 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 17 
 
 22 
 27 
 32 
 
 37 
 43 
 49 
 54 
 63 
 68 
 
 74 
 80 
 
 85 
 95 
 
 EASTERN COUNTIES 
 
 XVIII. GLENGARRY 100 
 
 XIX. STORMONT 105 
 
 XX. DUNDAS 1 10 
 
 XXI. PRESCOTT 116 
 
 XXII. RUSSELL 121 
 
 XXIII. GRENVILLE 1 26 
 
 XXIV. LEEDS 131 
 
 XXV. CARLETON 1 36 
 
 XXVI. LANARK 1 46 
 
 XXVII. RENFREW . 152 
 
THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 WESTERN COUNTIES 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 WENTWORTH 
 
 
 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 BRANT . 
 
 
 
 
 XXX. 
 
 HALDIMAND 
 
 
 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 WATERLOO 
 
 
 
 
 XXXIl. 
 
 WELLINGTON 
 
 
 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 NORFOLK 
 
 
 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 ELGIN . 
 
 
 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 
 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 MIDDLESEX 
 
 
 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 KENT . 
 
 
 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 ESSEX . 
 
 
 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 LAMBTON 
 
 
 
 
 XL. 
 
 PERTH . 
 
 
 
 
 XLI. 
 
 HURON . 
 
 
 
 
 XLII. 
 
 BRUCE . 
 
 
 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 GREY 
 
 
 
 
 
 DISTRICTS 
 
 I. 
 
 MUSKOKA 
 
 II. 
 
 PARRY SOUND 
 
 
 
 III. 
 
 NIPISSING 
 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 SUDBURY 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 TIMISKAMING 
 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 ALGOMA 
 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 MANITOULIN . 
 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THUNDER BAY 
 
 
 
 IX. 
 
 RAINY RIVER 
 
 
 
 X. 
 
 KENORA 
 
 
 
 XI. 
 
 PATRICIA 
 
 
 
 
 FAGB 
 
 157 
 167 
 172 
 178 
 184 
 189 
 194 
 199 
 204 
 209 
 214 
 224 
 229 
 234 
 239 
 245 
 
 250 
 256 
 261 
 265 
 269 
 276 
 281 
 286 
 292 
 297 
 302 
 
 Index 
 
 309 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 OLD TORONTO .... 
 
 KINGSTON, FROM THE CITADEL 
 
 PETERBOROUGH 
 
 WINTER SCENE ON TORONTO BAY 
 
 ORILLIA, FROM "THE NARROWS" 
 
 BATTLE OF QUEENSTON, OCT. 1 3, 1813 
 
 PORT COLBORNE, NEAR ENTRANCE TO 
 
 WELLAND CANAL 
 CANADIAN FLAGS USED IN THE " WAR 
 
 OF 1812" 
 SCOTT, Fl 
 BROCKVILLE 
 
 OTTAWA IN EARLY DAYS . 
 DUNDAS .... 
 GUELPH .... 
 AMHERSTBURG IN 180O . 
 THE OLD LOCK AT SAULT STE. MARIE 
 VOYAGEURS PORTAGING 
 
 Frontispiece 
 Facing page 6 
 
 30 
 
 58 
 76 
 90 
 
 98 
 
 „ 102 
 
 130 
 
 134 
 
 » 142 
 
 „ 160 
 
 180 
 
 „ 216 
 
 278 
 
 294 
 
THE STORY OF THE 
 COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 CENTRAL COUNTIES 
 
 I. FRONTENAC COUNTY 
 
 " What constitutes a state? . . . 
 Men who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain — 
 These constitute a state." 
 
 W. Jones. 
 
 TWO hundred and forty years ago, the spot where 
 the city of Kingston now stands was a wilderness, 
 but its site at the mouth of the Cataraqui was much 
 frequented by the Indians. It was, indeed, such a 
 strategic position that the vigorous governor of Canada, 
 Count de Frontenac, determined to erect a stronghold 
 there. Accordingly in the summer of 1673 he sent word 
 to the Indians of the district to meet him at Cataraqui, 
 and thither, attended by a multitude of the gay and 
 gallant gentlemen of his little court, with his impressive 
 flotilla of canoes and gorgeously painted boats, he came — 
 the embodiment of undaunted courage and imperious 
 will. At his word, as if by magic, rose the first Fort 
 Frontenac, and the Indians, awed by his good-humoured 
 contempt and delighted with his lavish gifts, seemed in 
 very deed to become the " children " he called them. 
 Two years later the wooden fort was rebuilt of stone 
 
 A 
 
2 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 by the valiant but luckless explorer, La Salle, who had 
 received a royal grant of lands at that place. It con- 
 tinued to be an important French post till the year 
 preceding Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham, 
 when, by a "masterly stroke," Colonel Bradstreet 
 captured and demolished Fort Frontenac. But it was 
 another war — that of the American Revolution — that 
 gave the first impetus to settlement in Ontario (or 
 Upper Canada). In 1783, Haldimand, then Governor of 
 Canada, desiring to make preparation for the influx of 
 Loyalists, which was indeed already beginning, ordered 
 the survey of lands on the Bay of Quintd. This, it is 
 believed, was the first survey made within the boundaries 
 of Ontario. About the same time the first mill was built 
 at Cataraqui. 
 
 The following year was marked by a greater event, to 
 which the others had led up. In June 1784 there came 
 up the river in open boats a party of Loyalists, led by 
 one Captain Michael Grass, who took up lands in the 
 township of Kingston, and thus laid the foundations of 
 "the first effective settlement" in Upper Canada. But 
 it was still counted part of Quebec, and the newcomers 
 did not like having to submit to French laws. At last, in 
 1791, after a vast amount of debate and heart-burning, 
 the Constitutional Act became law, by which Upper 
 Canada was separated from the Lower Province and was 
 put under English law, and Colonel Simcoe was appointed 
 the first Governor of Upper Canada. He threw himself 
 with enthusiasm into plans for organising the new 
 province, but was unable to reach Upper Canada till 
 half of the year 1792 was over. 
 
 It was almost nine years since the building of Ontario's 
 first mill ; and the little settlement of Kingston numbered 
 about fifty houses on the summer Sunday when the new 
 Governor's big bateau was seen entering the harbour. 
 
FRONTENAC 3 
 
 It was greeted by a salute from the guns of the garrison ; 
 and, thus warned, the population of the village hurried 
 to the wharf to see Governor Simcoe and his "lady" 
 come ashore — the first a trim, soldierly-looking man in 
 the prime of life ; the other a bright-faced little woman, 
 some years his junior. 
 
 With a kind of prophetic appropriateness the day of 
 this arrival of the first Governor of Upper Canada in its 
 first settlement happened to be July i, the day which the 
 future generations of Canadians were to celebrate as the 
 birthday of the " Dominion." Though it was a very 
 small crowd that gathered to welcome the representative 
 of the British Sovereign, the event was an important one 
 in the history of Canada, for it marked the granting to 
 the stalwart Loyalists of some beginnings of the British 
 liberty they loved (in spite of all their maligners said of 
 them), and the gift was like a tiny seed which contained 
 the germ of a mighty forest tree. 
 
 No doubt Simcoe saw some familiar faces in the crowd, 
 for he had served through the Revolutionary War, and 
 had for several years commanded the Loyalist corps 
 called the " Queen's Rangers." He understood the dis- 
 possessed and defeated, but not beaten, adherents of the 
 British Crown, and with all his force he meant to do 
 what he could i6 make the conditions of their new life 
 tolerable, and to lay solid foundations for a new British 
 State in America. 
 
 He was, perhaps, a less picturesque figure than that 
 of the old French Governor whose name he bestowed 
 on the county, and his coming with his young wife and 
 little children made a far less imposing spectacle than 
 Frontenac's arrival with his hundred or more war canoes. 
 But the age had gone by when the magnificent woods 
 and waters of our Province were merely a setting for the 
 exploits of bush-rangers and Indian fighters. A new 
 
4 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 era was dawning, and henceforth Upper Canada was to 
 be a land of homes and settled folk. 
 
 A week later, on the following Sunday, Colonel Simcoe 
 solemnly took the oath as Governor, in the tiny wooden 
 church that then stood on the site now occupied by the 
 offices of The British Whig, In those early days, by 
 the way, the music was led by a barrel-organ, and there 
 are dim, misty traditions of the faded and out-of-date 
 finery brought out by the assembled Loyalists to do 
 honour to the great event. A few days afterwards a 
 wilder scene occurred in the Governor's honour, when 
 a band of Mississauga Indians, in their war paint, danced 
 before him to the music of their native drums and the 
 chanting of a dismal tune, varied by fierce war-whoops. 
 In Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, edited and published recently 
 by Mr. J. Ross Robertson, are many interesting details 
 of the three weeks spent by the Governor and his family 
 at Kingston. 
 
 She tells of pleasant wanderings in the woods, and of 
 sailing "in a pretty boat . . . attended by music, to 
 Garden Island." She delighted in the new wild flowers 
 she found and in the strange effect of fires amongst the 
 trees, which at night seemed to turn the forest into " an 
 enchanted wood ! " and trees were then and there so 
 much too plentiful that her pleasure in the picturesque 
 scene of destruction was quite unmarred by disturbing 
 thoughts of "conservation." She is very outspoken, 
 which adds zest and reality to her bits of description. 
 For instance, when with her husband she visited the 
 shipyards, which in coming years were to supply a great 
 fleet of vessels to ply on the lakes, she mentions specially 
 the extraordinarily " bad construction " of two new gun- 
 boats, adding that the Governor named the clumsy things 
 " the Bear and the Buffalo." 
 
 Kingston would have been well pleased had Colonel 
 
FRONTBNAO 5 
 
 Simcoe decided to make it his capital, but he thought the 
 place indefensible and would not be persuaded. Half 
 a century later, however, for a brief period Kingston was 
 capital of the United Provinces of Upper and Lower 
 Canada. Real estate rose immensely in value, houses 
 to rent grew scarce, but the dream of pre-eminence for 
 the Limestone City soon faded. But we are getting 
 on too fast. Amongst Frontenac County's first things 
 had been a school opened by Dr. Stewart, in 1786, and 
 a few years later Hon. R. Cartwright employed a young 
 Scot, who was to make his mark on the educational insti- 
 tutions of the Province, to teach his four sons and several 
 other lads. The teacher lived to be Bishop Strachan, 
 and amongst the boys also was a bishop and two chief 
 justices of the future. At a later date another lad, John 
 A. Macdonald, destined to still wider fame, passed his 
 school-days in Kingston. To this day the city has re- 
 tained distinction in educational matters, for it is the seat 
 of Queen's University and of the Royal Military College. 
 
 Long before the establishment of the latter, however, 
 Kingston, which was a garrison town and naval station 
 for the gunboats of the lakes, served as a training-place 
 where raw country lads were turned into soldiers. 
 
 One June day, a century ago, in 1812, there came word 
 by private letter that the United States had declared war 
 on England. Half an hour later the drums beat to arms, 
 and couriers were despatched in hot haste through all 
 the countryside to " warn out " the militia. In those days 
 and for more than thirty years to come the streams and 
 lakes of Frontenac County formed her highways (for the 
 era of road-building did not begin till about 1840), but 
 speedily the appalling news was carried to every little 
 hamlet for miles round, and the sturdy woodsmen, young 
 and old, came pouring into the town to defend it against 
 the expected attack. 
 
6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Once, in October 1813, a "Yankee fleet of 14 sail" 
 appeared off the Upper Gap, and a shot was sent from 
 the Old Windmill to tell the American commander that 
 the sons of the Loyalists were ready for him. Indeed, as 
 the hostile boats came on, troops marched along the 
 shore, and the woods were fired to prevent their furnish- 
 ing cover for the invaders, but no landing was made. 
 
 During the years of warfare, Kingston and the neigh- 
 bourhood were kept in a ferment of excitement by the 
 coming and going of troops, the setting out of naval 
 expeditions, the arrival in boats and bateaux from the 
 Niagara frontier of prisoners of all ranks (from generals 
 downwards), and, after the capture of York by the 
 Americans, the coming of pitiful boat-loads of wounded 
 in dire need of help and comfort. 
 
 In the " century of peace " which has passed since 
 those sad days, the aspect of Frontenac County (as 
 indeed of a great part of old Ontario) has been greatly 
 changed. Not only roads, but railways and telegraph 
 and telephone lines, make communication easy. The 
 once-wooded country is studded with small towns and 
 prosperous homesteads, and the much-frequented market 
 of Kingston (which was supposed by some people in early 
 days to be the centre of a country so unproductive that 
 it could not be expected to supply the wants of a capital 
 city) tells a tale of prosperity and industry. As for the 
 city itself a pleasant air of restfulness and dignity seems 
 to brood over its shady streets and old grey houses, while 
 the picturesque bustle of its wharves and water-front 
 keeps in mind the busy days when it was a naval station. 
 
II. LENNOX AND ADDINGTON 
 
 " We piled with care our nightly stack 
 Of wood against the chimney-back — 
 Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleatn 
 On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
 Until the old, rude-furnished room 
 Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom." 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 THE names of the twin counties and their townships, 
 with one or two exceptions, are memorials of 
 English princes and noblemen who flourished — to use 
 the quaint old phrase — a little over a century ago. The 
 townships of Ernestown, Fredericksburg and Adolphus- 
 town were named after three of the many sons of 
 George III. The counties themselves were called, re- 
 spectively, after Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, 
 and Henry Addington, Viscount Sidmouth. Many of 
 these men were great in nothing but rank and fortune, 
 and their mode of life was singularly unlike that of the 
 sturdy pioneers and industrious farmers who were to 
 hew their farms from the green woods. Even to-day 
 there are no large towns and very few villages within 
 the bounds of Lennox and Addington. Napanee, the 
 county town, though a busy little place, with its flour 
 mills, foundries, factories and elevator, has a population 
 scarcely reaching three thousand souls. 
 
 The special interest of the story of these counties lies 
 perhaps in what we can glean concerning the everyday 
 life of the pioneers. Happily some records by their own 
 
8 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 hands remain to us. Such a typical story is that of 
 Hon. Henry Ruttan, published by the United Empire 
 Loyalists' Association of Ontario. Mr. Ruttan, who 
 lived to be Speaker of the Assembly, colonel of militia, 
 and sheriff (for thirty years) of the Newcastle district, 
 began life as the child of a Loyalist family in Adolphus- 
 town. 
 
 The Ruttans were descended from a Huguenot, who 
 settled in America about 1734. When the Revolutionary 
 War broke out, Henry's father and his " Uncle Peter " 
 took up arms for the King, and became, the one, a 
 lieutenant, the other, a captain in the 3rd Battalion of the 
 Jersey Volunteers. At the close of this struggle the 
 brothers joined Major van Alstine's party of Loyalists, 
 and each obtained a grant of twelve hundred acres in 
 Adolphustown. Some four years later the lieutenant 
 married Margaret Steele, an Irish girl, who had come to 
 Canada with her parents. She became the mother of 
 seven children, some of whom had also large families. 
 
 The clearing of the forest for the first crops involved 
 long and heavy labour, but when "industry was the 
 order of the day " the newcomers slept so soundly through 
 the nights that wolves prowling about their little cabins 
 rarely disturbed them. They kept the savage brutes at 
 bay, however, by building fires, and in summer-time the 
 same means were used to gain some rest from the 
 tormenting clouds of mosquitoes. 
 
 Peter Ruttan had two sturdy, hard-working black 
 slaves, a man and a woman ; they did good service in 
 the early days. The Loyalists, for the most part, brought 
 into the country little but a few clothes, and had to 
 depend on their own ingenuity and diligence for every- 
 thing they needed, except that the Government supplied 
 them with some tools and with rations for a few years. 
 The Ruttans, better off than many of their neighbours. 
 
LENNOX AND ADDINGTON 9 
 
 had brought a cow, which, in the terrible time long 
 known as " the Hungry Year," saved their lives. 
 
 Very soon after the Government rations were stopped, 
 the crops failed, and in the following year, 1783, the 
 settlers, for months at a time, had to look starvation in 
 the face. During the winter the snow was so deep that 
 the deer fell an easy prey to the wolves ; they grew fat, 
 but the human beings were all wasted by want. Nothing 
 was to be had in the woods, and at least five of the 
 settlers were found dead, one being a woman, on whose 
 breast lay a living baby, which was saved and cared for. 
 
 At the best of times, it was hard to get provisions in 
 any little hamlet where they fell short, for there were no 
 roads save the rude cuttings through the bush made by 
 the settlers themselves. For instance, if the people at 
 Adolphustown needed to get a barrel of pork or to have 
 a sack of grain ground, they had to go all the way to 
 Kingston. But in "the Hungry Year" the soldiers in 
 the garrison were put on an allowance of a biscuit a day, 
 so it was vain to look for help in that quarter. At last, 
 in desperation, Peter Ruttan, who had saved some 
 money from the sale of his captain's commission, sent 
 two men all the way to Albany, in New York State, for 
 four bushels of Indian corn. It was a perilous journey 
 through the trackless woods deep in snow ; but they 
 returned in safety with the precious grain, and upon this, 
 the milk of their cow, and the roots and berries they 
 could gather in the woods, the family of eight persons 
 lived till harvest. Before the corn could be made into 
 cakes or bread, it had to be pounded in the hoUowed-out 
 stump of a tree. By the time Governor Simcoe arrived 
 the farms of the earlier settlers were greatly improved, 
 and additional settlers coming in made life altogether 
 more cheerful. 
 
 The young folk were packed off early to bed in the 
 
lo THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 little dimly-lighted log cabins; but the boy who wrote 
 the story of those days remembered how, when awakened 
 by a sudden clap of thunder or storm of wind, his busy 
 mother was still sitting, far into the night, at her spinning- 
 wheel or loom; and when the cloth was woven it was 
 she who fashioned it into garments for all the family. 
 Another scene used also to come back to him. That 
 same hard-worked mother gave him his first lessons, and 
 told the children all the strange, exciting stories of the 
 war, which were their tales of adventure. 
 
 Books were scarce in the settlements and so were 
 teachers. Indeed, it was often those having some in- 
 firmity, which rendered manual labour impossible, who 
 gave their time to teaching, and young Henry Ruttan 
 went from school to school, finding in each Dilworth's 
 Spelling-book and the -New Testament as the only text- 
 books. One teacher, who worked hard during the day, 
 kept a night-school five miles away ; and to this Henry's 
 brothers went on snowshoes, thinking it an enjoyable 
 excursion on moonlight nights, especially when some 
 girls were of the party. 
 
 The young people, as a rule, grew up strong and 
 healthy; and, though life in the woods was somewhat 
 monotonous, it had its own pleasures. 
 
 Adolphustown village was for years a rival to Kingston, 
 and was " always the centre of Upper Canada." At one 
 early general election four of the representatives of the 
 people were Adolphustown men. Courts were held in 
 the village twice a year, alternately with Kingston. As 
 it was summer-time, the first court was held in a barn, 
 the next (in winter) was held in the Methodist Church, 
 though some of the brethren made quaint objection to 
 turning it into " a den of thieves." 
 
 In the different townships life ran on in much the same 
 groove, yet each has its special claim to distinction. In 
 
LENNOX AND ADDINGTON ii 
 
 Fredericksburg, for instance, in 1786, was opened the 
 first common school in the Province. At Ernestown 
 (now Bath) there lived at the close of the eighteenth 
 century Rev. John Langhorn, an eccentric Welsh bachelor 
 and clergyman of the Church of England, who was the 
 first man authorised to celebrate marriages west of 
 Kingston. He divided Lennox County into parishes and 
 erected log churches at Ernestown and Fredericksburg, 
 the former of which was in use at least as late as 1899. 
 About a mile west of Ernestown, there was built in 181 5 
 the first steamer that was ever launched on the waters of 
 Upper Canada. She was named the Frontenac. Three 
 years later the Charlotte steamboat was built in the 
 same place, and at her launching hundreds of people 
 gathered from all the country round, many coming long 
 distances on foot to see the spectacle. 
 
III. PRINCE EDWARD 
 
 "Ontario, Ontario, 
 
 Thy water rolls as blue 
 As in the days thy bosom bore 
 The Indian's birch canoe." 
 
 Anon. 
 
 JUTTING out into the blue waters of Lake Ontario is 
 a sunny, fruitful "half-island" — to use the Nova 
 Scotian phrase — which by cool breezes, excellent roads, 
 and fine fishing attracts numerous summer visitors and 
 pleasure-seekers. But, better than that, with its fertile 
 fields, its rich orchards, and its sleek, well-nourished 
 herds of cattle, it might seem that it had become a 
 little paradise for the farmers were it not that it is so 
 hard for them to obtain a sufficient number of men to 
 carry on the "intensive" methods of cultivation now so 
 much in favour in the district. With all but a small 
 fraction of its area rated as arable land, with no great 
 towns, but with several thriving smaller centres of 
 population, it is emphatically a farmers' county. Of 
 the hundred automobiles owned in Prince Edward 
 County, fifty belong to farmers. Of the several hundred 
 motor-boats that give life to its many bays and inlets, 
 farmers possess two hundred, whilst a large proportion 
 of the twelve hundred telephones of the county serve 
 the rural population. Moreover, in Prince Edward, the 
 plan of rural mail delivery has passed the experimental 
 stage, and there are nine rural mail routes, with 450 
 boxes. 
 
 Originally connected with the mainland at the old 
 
PRINCE EDWARD 13 
 
 Indian "Carrying Place" by a narrow isthmus, the 
 county has been made into a second Prince Edward 
 " island " (in many respects resembling its larger name- 
 sake in the Atlantic), by the cutting of the Murray 
 Canal, five miles in length and deep enough to allow 
 the passage of large boats. But, as if to make up for 
 this interference with nature's plans, a bridge gives 
 connection with Belleville. Without this, however, the 
 county would be by no means devoid of easy communi- 
 cation with its neighbours, for no part of it is over six 
 miles from navigable water, and several lines of steam- 
 boats ply from its ports to those of the mainland. 
 
 This pleasant farmers' county, called " Presqu' Isle de 
 Quintd " by the French, now bears a royal name. About 
 the time of the division of Upper from Lower Canada, the 
 Duke of Kent, on his return from a journey to Niagara, 
 called at Marysburg, and in memory of that brief visit 
 the county received its name of Prince Edward. Of the 
 numerous sons of George III, Edward was the most 
 popular. In many relations of life he is said to have 
 been kind, courteous, and gracious, but, as a soldier, his 
 notions of necessary discipline led him into harshness 
 and severity. He had no special opportunity to win 
 distinction, and much of the posthumous interest in his 
 character has arisen from the fact that he was the 
 father of the future Queen Victoria, though she was but 
 an infant when he died. 
 
 The three original townships of the county, afterwards 
 subdivided to make seven, were named after the Prince's 
 sisters, Mai-y, Sophia, and Amelia. The latter was the 
 youngest child of King George, and was described by 
 her eldest sister as " a sweet, amiable, pious, good little 
 soul, patient (during a long illness) beyond all descrip- 
 tion." Another writer (quoted in Mr. Gardiner's Nothing 
 but Names) says!: "Amelia! Everyone who has read 
 
14 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Thackeray remembers her — the pretty little maiden, 
 prattling and smiling in the arms of the fond old King, 
 her father — and then her death in the bloom of woman- 
 hood and the shock to the father's reason." 
 
 It is said that Prince Edward County, or part of it, 
 was included in the seigniory granted to La Salle. 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century, Indians of 
 different tribes were scattered along the shores from 
 Gananoque to the Bay of Quinte, but they relinquished 
 their claim to most of the land in consideration of the 
 promise of an annual payment to each brave of two 
 blankets, cloth for a coat, a gun and some other articles. 
 To receive these things they used to go in their canoes 
 to Fort Frontenac, and sometimes as many as a thousand 
 men were afloat at one time on the bay. Many years 
 later, the small island called Waupoos, about a mile 
 from the coast of Prince Edward, was still the home 
 of an Indian chief. 
 
 The settlement of Prince Edward County was begun 
 by the Loyalists, many of whom were oiScers or soldiers. 
 A number of Hessians settled in Marysburg, but the 
 first house in the township was built by a Scot, Colonel 
 Archibald Macdonald. This building, erected by ships' 
 carpenters instead of amateur joiners, was not of the 
 usual pattern. The walls were built of hewn logs, nicely 
 squared and dove-tailed at the corners. It stood for 
 over a century, but was torn down in 1900. 
 
 Colonel Macdonald never married, but his niece, 
 Frances, who kept house for him, married a French 
 gentleman, Mr. Prinyer, and her descendants preserve 
 as heirlooms the old " grandfather's clock," the despatch 
 box, and mahogany chairs, desk, and table brought out 
 by the Colonel from Scotland. 
 
 It is told in a paper read to the Women's Historical 
 Society of Ottawa how during the War of 18 12 a party of 
 
PRINCE EDWARD 15 
 
 Americans landed at Macdonald's Cove, intending to carry 
 off the master of the old house, for colonels were esteemed 
 "big game." But Macdonald was too "canny" for 
 them. Knowing the Americans' dread of the Indians, 
 he placed two or three men in the woods to whoop and 
 yell like savages, then sent his nephew to demand the 
 surrender of the interlopers, with the suggestion that 
 otherwise their scalps might soon be adorning the belts 
 of the ambushed warriors. In terror of such a fate his 
 would-be captors surrendered, and were imprisoned in a 
 blockhouse near the Colonel's dwelling till he could find 
 opportunity to send them to Kingston. 
 
 No land was taken up in Sophiasburgh till 1788, when 
 it was settled by Loyalists, who had previously spent a 
 few years in Nova Scotia or in the neighbouring township 
 of Adolphustown, or were " late Loyalists," who before 
 leaving their native land had tried the uncomfortable 
 experiment of remaining there under the new Govern- 
 ment. These did not receive grants on the same terms 
 as the original Loyalists, but were able to buy lands at 
 very small cost. For instance, one of the best farms 
 in Sophiasburgh, valued a few years ago at seven or 
 eight thousand dollars, was then purchased for an old 
 horse. 
 
 The first man to set foot on the site of Picton (of which 
 there is a most picturesque view from the water between 
 the lofty shores of the bay) was Colonel Henry Young, 
 with his two sons. That was in the year 1784, when a 
 dense forest covered the spot ; but it was over thirty 
 years later when Mr. McAuley, the minister and builder 
 of the first church in the settlement, bestowed upon it 
 the name of Picton, in honour of a general who had 
 fallen in the battle of Waterloo. The name did not 
 appeal to everyone, and for some time the village to the 
 south of the bay clung to its designation of H alii well, 
 
1 6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 still perpetuated in the name of the township. As early 
 as 1798, by the way, "the town meeting" of Halliwell 
 had shown its interest in agricultural matters by passing 
 by-laws about fences, and ordering that any freeholder 
 suffering " the Canadian thistle," that bugbear of careful 
 farmers in our own day, to go to seed on his premises 
 should be fined twenty shillings. 
 
 For years the growth and progress of Picton was very 
 slow, but 1830 saw the first issue of The Halliwell Free 
 Press, and the formation of a company to run a steamer 
 between Picton and Prescott. In the following year 
 Prince Edward became a separate county, and a court- 
 house and jail were added to the buildings of Picton, 
 which now has a population of about 4000 souls. 
 
 Ten miles away in a northerly direction is the 
 village of Demorestville, near which was built " the first 
 canning factory in Canada." Ten miles southward of 
 the county town are " the far-famed sandbanks," or hills 
 of white, shifting sand, which stretch for four and a half 
 miles along the shore of West Lake, and five miles to 
 the east is the curious, clear, circular " Lake-on-the- 
 Mountain," 200 feet above the little village of Glenora. 
 From this lake water was brought down the hill in iron 
 pipes to turn the wheels of a grist mill which was once 
 rented by the father of John A. Macdonald, then a lively 
 little lad. 
 
IV. HASTINGS 
 
 " From the cedar swamp the gaunt wolves howl, 
 From the oak loud whoops the felon owl ; 
 The snowstorm sweeps in thunder past, 
 The forest creaks beneath the blast." 
 
 Susanna Moodie. 
 
 '""T^HE old Indian names along the Quinte shores 
 X were nearly trampled underfoot in the shame- 
 less tuft-hunting of our early Governors," quotes Mr. 
 Gardiner from Picturesque Canada. One instance will 
 suffice. At Belleville, the ancient River Sagonaska was 
 re-named to flatter the Earl of Moira, and even his 
 baronies were detailed in the county of " Hastings " 
 and the townships of " Rawdon " and " Hungerford." 
 In this case (though by no means always), the names 
 recall individuals of some note. In his younger days, as 
 Lord Rawdon, this particular aristocrat served through- 
 out the revolutionary war from Bunker's Hill onward; 
 as the Earl of Moira, he commanded a British force sent 
 to Flanders ; and, as Marquis of Hastings, was Governor 
 of Bengal, acquitting himself so much to the satisfaction 
 of the East India Company that they presented him on 
 his retirement with ;^6o,ooo. Green, by the way, gives 
 him "credit for paving the way for the abolition of 
 suttee" — that terrible custom which bound the widows 
 of India to die in the flames consuming the bodies of 
 their husbands. 
 
 Other names suggestive of interesting personalities are 
 written on the map of this county — including those of 
 the scientists Faraday and Herschel, and the Arctic 
 
1 8 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 explorer McClure, who in 1850 took a British vessel 
 through the long-sought North-west Passage. But, with 
 the exception of the last, who is said to have " served in 
 the lake fleet during the rebellion of 1837," their owners 
 had no actual connection with the Province. 
 
 The settlement of Hastings County, which fronts for 
 thirty miles on the Bay of Quintd, was begun by the 
 Loyalists. The most easterly of Hastings' front town- 
 ships bears the Indian name of Chief Brant, " Tyen- 
 dinaga," and was granted at the close of the war to 
 the Indian Loyalists of the Mohawk tribe. Portions of 
 the township were afterwards surrendered, but there is 
 still an Indian reserve of about 17,000 acres bordering 
 on the bay. The greater part of this is good land, and 
 part of it is well cultivated. Some of the farms are 
 leased to white people, but there are Mohawk farmers 
 who have good buildings and clean, productive fields. 
 Nine or ten years ago an agricultural society was estab- 
 lished, and a number of very successful " fairs " have 
 been held in the " Council House " of the tribe. There 
 are several schools and two fine churches on the Indian 
 land. 
 
 The adjoining township of Thurlow (then called 
 "Nuitte Town") was surveyed in 1787, and in the 
 spring of 1789 fifty Loyalists (many of them forced by 
 persecution to leave their old homes in the United 
 States) came to that township and its westerly neigh- 
 bour, Sidney. They suffered many hardships, for they 
 arrived after the Government had ceased to allow rations 
 to the Loyalists. In the following year John Taylor 
 settled near the mouth of the Moira (then called " Single- 
 ton's Creek," after an early settler who died very soon), 
 and the spot where he built his log cabin is now one of 
 the busiest parts of the city of Belleville. The energetic 
 Captain John W. Meyers came next after Taylor, and 
 
HASTINGS 19 
 
 from him the future county seat was called " Meyers' 
 Creek" until 18 16, when, according to Dr. Scadding, 
 Governor Gore jocosely suggested the abbreviation of 
 his wife's name, Arabella, as a good name for the 
 village. No doubt nine persons out of ten imagine 
 that it is merely a tribute to the beauty of the town 
 or its situation. 
 
 The Historical Atlas claims for Meyers that, after 
 constructing a dam and erecting a mill, he built, in 
 1794, "the first brick house that Canada had ever 
 seen." This remarkable dwelling was set on a hill and 
 stood for eighty years. Ten years later the first bridge 
 — a covered one — was thrown across the narrowest part 
 of the river. Belleville's first church was built by the 
 Methodists in 1810. Pulpit and seats were made of 
 rough boards (in the latter case they were mounted on 
 small blocks of wood), but twenty years went by before 
 it was superseded by a more commodious building. Mean- 
 time, in 1820, the Anglicans of Belleville had erected 
 their first church in that district, west of Adolphustown. 
 
 At the time of its re-christening, the site of the village 
 comprised two hundred acres. Now the city of Belleville 
 covers about nine times that area, and has a population 
 of over 10,000 souls. Its "first flag-stone sidewalk" 
 was laid down in 1836. Three years later the Court of 
 Quarter Sessions was held for the first time in the Court 
 House, which had been recently erected, costing, with 
 the jail, nearly $24,000. Belleville was incorporated as 
 a town in 1850, a year memorable also for the commence- 
 ment of the making of gravel roads. At first tolls were 
 charged on them, but in 1859 they became toll-free. 
 
 Belleville's first newspaper, pubhshed in 1831, had 
 a brief existence, like many of its immediate successors. 
 Amongst these was the Plain Speaker, which in 1836 
 essayed to give support to Mackenzie's party. The 
 
20 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 editor, Hart, was put into the penitentiary for an 
 attempted raid on a bank at Cobourg. A little later the 
 paper appeared one morning with the British arms upon 
 it, upside down, and, regarding this as a deliberate in- 
 sult to the Government, a company of loyal volunteers 
 marched to the office, upset the type-fonts and " trailed " 
 the luckless manager through the snow and slush. In 
 1 84 1, Mr. and Mrs. Hoodie, who had come to live in 
 Belleville two years earlier, when the former was ap- 
 pointed Sheriff of Hastings County, became joint-editors 
 of another unfortunate literary venture. The Victoria 
 Magazine. The lines at the head of this chapter are by 
 Mrs. Hoodie, who was one of the notable Strickland family. 
 
 The first annual township meeting of Sidney was held 
 in 1790, and in an early record of resolutions dealing with 
 the height of fences and the running of animals on the 
 roads, it is quaintly stated that " Hogs is to be free com- 
 mons till they done damage " ! At the extreme west of 
 Sidney is the flourishing town of Trenton, which now has 
 about 40QO inhabitants. Its first Loyalist settlers arrived 
 in 1790. A few years later, Dr. Strachan, the future 
 Bishop of Toronto, bought land on the broken front of 
 Sidney. This he laid out in town lots, giving to the sub- 
 division his wife's maiden name of " Annwood." It has 
 long ago been absorbed in Trenton, formerly a great 
 lumbering centre, to which thousands of feet of lumber 
 were rafted down every year. One of the old type of 
 covered bridges spanned the river at this place. 
 
 There was another bridge higher up the stream at 
 Frankford, built some time after the spot was visited by 
 that versatile Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, for it 
 was he who named the ford after himself. Another 
 Hastings County name to which a suggestive little anec- 
 dote is attached is that of " Thrasher's Corners." It does 
 not now appear, however, in the list of post-ofSces, so 
 
HASTINGS 21 
 
 perhaps the name has been changed by the generation 
 which knew not " old Mr. Thrasher," and can no longer 
 glory in his exploit of engaging single-handed, armed 
 only with a club, in combat with two full-grown bears. 
 With this primitive weapon he slew them both, so well 
 earned the right to give his name to the " Corners " 
 where the deed was done. 
 
 Such sturdy, valiant men were common amongst the 
 pioneers. But very early the authorities decided that 
 discipline and training are needful to make the best of 
 courage, so, in 1799, the Hastings militia was organised, 
 and every other Saturday, in pioneer days, the men were 
 put through their drill. In 18 12 Hastings men helped 
 for weeks to garrison Kingston, and in 1838 they were 
 hurried to Gananoque to look after filibusters threatening 
 the border. For this they claimed a promised payment 
 of three shillings per day, but the Adjutant-General " re- 
 fused to certify their pay and allowances," and, despite 
 a great outcry, the money was not forthcoming. 
 
 Within more recent years it has been discovered that 
 the county is rich in minerals, ranging from granite, 
 limestone, marble, and beautiful blue sodalite, used for 
 building purposes, to arsenic, corundum, talc, zinc, and 
 iron pyrites, which are obtained in different townships. 
 In the town of Deseronto the smelting of iron has been 
 carried on since 1898. Hastings County, moreover, has 
 had its attack of gold fever. Nearly half a century ago 
 traces of the precious metal were discovered in Madoc and 
 later in Marmora and other townships, and for a season 
 people went wild with excitement. Thousands of dollars 
 were wasted in speculation and in putting expensive 
 machinery into mines which gave insufficient returns. 
 The story is largely one of lawsuits and disappointments, 
 but Hastings County, dowered with so much other wealth, 
 can well afford to let go its dreams of being an Eldorado. 
 
V. NORTHUMBERLAND 
 
 " A breath from the tropics broke Winter's spell 
 With an alien rain which froze as it fell, 
 And ere the Orient blushed with morn 
 A beautiful crystal forest was born." 
 
 Barry Straton. 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND County, named after the 
 English shire, was one of the original nineteen 
 counties set apart by Simcoe in 1792. With Hastings, 
 it sent one member to the first Parliament of Upper 
 Canada. In 1798 it became part of the Home District, 
 but by an Act passed at the beginning of the year 1800 
 it was provided that, as soon as the two counties of 
 Northumberland and Durham attained to a population 
 of one thousand souls and had no less than six town- 
 ships holding town meetings, the new District of New- 
 castle was to be formed. According to the " Historical 
 Atlas " of the two counties (which were long united), the 
 Newcastle District was set apart in 1802, and for a time 
 the magistrates were empowered to decide where the 
 courts should be held. This was found inconvenient, 
 and in 1805 they were authorised to erect a jail and 
 court-house in either Haldimand or Hamilton Township. 
 Indirectly, the cutting off of the Newcastle from the 
 Home District led to a tragedy. This is the story. An 
 Indian, who in 1804 murdered a trader at Oshawa Creek, 
 betrayed himself when drunk and was captured on 
 Toronto Island, but his counsel objected to his being 
 tried at York, because the crime was said to have been 
 
NORTHUMBERLAND 23 
 
 committed within the boundaries of the new Newcastle 
 District. On account of this technicahty the court and 
 prisoner embarked upon the Speedy on their fatal voyage 
 down the lake, and the ingenious lawyer paid with his 
 life for his legal quibble. 
 
 For years after that there was no suitable accommo- 
 dation in Northumberland for a court. At length build- 
 ings were begun on the site of the present county town, 
 but questions were raised as to the right of the magis- 
 trates to erect them, and a quarter of a century after the 
 foundering of the Speedy the matter was carried to the 
 Court of King's Bench. Finally, in 183 1, an Act was 
 passed giving legal sanction to the proceedings of the 
 magistrates and indemnifying them for their illegal ex- 
 penditure on the jail and court-house, then in course of 
 erection. 
 
 The county seat has borne a bewildering number of 
 names. At first it was called Amherst, in honour of the 
 General who was Wolfe's superior officer. Next it was 
 called Hamilton, to correspond with the township in 
 which it was situated, and finally it was baptized 
 Cobourg, by which name it has been designated for 
 the last sixty or seventy years. As if these changes 
 were insufficient, it was at one time known locally as 
 Buckville, after an early settler, Elijah Buck, who de- 
 serves remembrance as the maker of the first wagon 
 ever put together in Hamilton Township. As a mere 
 nickname, moreover, the struggling little hamlet, destined 
 to develop into the clean and prosperous town of Co- 
 bourg, was once unkindly called " Hardscrabble," in 
 reference to the supposedly overwhelming difficulties of 
 those who undertook to make a living in it. The village 
 was situated unpromisingly in the midst of a cedar 
 swamp, and consisted for long of little more than a main 
 street, so cruel to the wretched animals forced to drag 
 
24 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 a load along it, that it was described as " a founderous 
 morass." 
 
 The earliest surveys in Northumberland were made in 
 1 79 1 by Augustus Jones, a man of Welsh extraction, 
 who took an Indian bride, variously described as the 
 daughter of " a noted Mohawk warrior " and an Ojibway 
 chief, and thus became father to " the famous Wesleyan 
 Indian missionary," Peter Jones, who was brought up, 
 till the age of fourteen, in the customs and superstitions of 
 his red mother. He rejoiced in a many-syllabled Indian 
 name, translated as " Sacred Waving Feathers." 
 
 The county had many Irish pioneers, a smaller 
 number of Scotch and English ones, and some Americans, 
 coming chiefly, perhaps, from Vermont. James Keeler, 
 the first settler in Colborne (Cramah^ township), was a 
 Vermont man. He arrived in 1789, and was so well 
 pleased with the country that, four years later, he brought 
 in forty other settlers. Keeler gave free sites for churches 
 and a public square to Colborne and built mills. A 
 notable pioneer of Murray Township was Asa Weller, 
 who kept a tavern at the Carrying Place, and used to 
 convey travellers up the Lake Shore by means of a 
 " sled " and a yoke of oxen. Another Weller, William 
 (doubtless of the same family), was proprietor of a more 
 ambitious "stage," and became the first Mayor of 
 Cobourg after its incorporation as a town. 
 
 Early in the War of 1812 Robert Wilkins (also of 
 Murray) raised a company of volunteers, but soon re- 
 signed his captaincy to take charge of the commissariat 
 department of the district, and he made the Carrying 
 Place his headquarters. Being a man of decision, though 
 conciliatory in manner, he usually succeeded in obtaining 
 supplies, without having recourse to " the half-martial 
 law " of the time, in spite of the somewhat general dis- 
 position to stick out for fancy prices. 
 
NORTHUMBERLAND 25 
 
 Notwithstanding the hardships they had to endure, 
 many of the pioneers were long-lived folk, and two 
 Northumberland men, Gibson and Lawson, were amongst 
 the last of the veterans of 18 1 2 to draw their $20 
 pensions. Gibson could recall a time when it was no 
 uncommon thing to see five or six bears together, eating 
 beech-nuts, and Lawson used to tell how, when " drafted " 
 in 1 81 2 for military service both by land and water, and, 
 preferring to do duty on the lake bateaux, he had swum 
 three miles to escape impressment by the land force. 
 
 Upon the first survey of Seymour (about 18 19), a 
 number of half-pay officers took up land, and Campbell- 
 ford (now a flourishing town of about 3000 inhabitants) 
 was founded and named by Major Campbell of Cobourg. 
 The incorporated village of Hastings, on the Trent (down 
 which, season after season, for several generations, logs 
 have swirled with the current from the woods of Victoria 
 and Peterboro' counties), is half in the last-named county 
 and half in Percy Township of Northumberland. Part of 
 the neighbouring township of Alnwick is taken up by an 
 Indian reserve, bordering on Rice Lake, which still 
 affords good fishing. 
 
 About 1827 a young Methodist preacher, whose name 
 — Egerton Ryerson — was to become a household word 
 in Upper Canada, began to pay occasional visits to these 
 Indians. Probably he was the more readily interested 
 in them because he had already lived some time with the 
 Indians on the Credit, giving them instructions in various 
 useful arts as well as in the Gospel. In Northumberland 
 he had, however, little time to devote to the red men, for 
 he was in charge of the whole Cobourg circuit, then ex- 
 tending from Brighton to Bowmanville. His sermons 
 were often composed on horseback, but he was soon re- 
 called from Cobourg to edit The Christian Guardian at 
 York. 
 
26 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 Through the Upper Canada Academy, however, the 
 young minister was again to become connected with 
 Cobourg. The building erected for this famous school 
 was " classic in architecture and imposing in appearance." 
 The workmanship was so good that after more than 
 " seventy years the Government of Ontario find it still 
 a substantial, valuable building." But the cost of the 
 building and its furnishings ran up to .^9000, more than 
 double the amount collected up to 1834 by a thorough 
 canvass of the Methodists and their friends. To go on 
 with the work, the trustees had to pledge their personal 
 credit for a large sum, and, feeling that something more 
 must be done, they appointed Egerton Ryerson their 
 agent to go to England to solicit funds and petition the 
 Imperial Government for a Royal charter. The task was 
 difficult, but it was accomplished. 
 
 Mr. Ryerson returned with a considerable sutii of 
 money for the building fund, and " with the first Royal 
 charter ever granted by the Imperial Government for an 
 educational institution outside of an established church." 
 Owing largely to Ryerson's exertions, the Academy was 
 opened on June 18, 1836. Five years later it was granted 
 university powers under the name of " Victoria College," 
 and Mr. Ryerson became its first President, holding office 
 until, in the autumn of 1844, he took up his great work 
 of improving the common schools of the Province. As 
 for the university, which he had done so much to 
 establish — it ultimately entered into federation with the 
 University of Toronto, and half a century after the 
 inauguration of its first President it removed to its new 
 and beautiful home in Queen's Park, Toronto, to the 
 regret, it may be said, of not a few who had spent their 
 happy undergraduate years in the old Victoria College at 
 Cobourg. 
 
VI. PETERBORO' COUNTY 
 
 " Brighter hopes shall greet them 
 Amidst the pathless wild, 
 Than e'er on Britain's cultured soil 
 For British- peasants smiled." 
 
 Agnes Strickland. 
 
 THE fifteen townships of Peterboro' County, which 
 takes its name from its chief town, are somewhat 
 sparsely settled. It is a country of lakes and woods, and 
 in some districts the camps of the aboriginal red men are 
 still occasionally to be seen. The county seat is, how- 
 ever, a flourishing city of about 16,000 inhabitants; and 
 in the agricultural country surrounding it are many 
 pleasant farms and a few villages. Some sixty years 
 ago the present county was known as the North Riding 
 of Northumberland, and for a time after its separation 
 from its southern neighbour it comprised what is now 
 Victoria County. 
 
 Before the beginning of its history as a white man's 
 town, the place where Peterboro' now stands was known 
 as Indian Plain. In the earlier decades of last century, 
 a chief, remarkable for his great stature, claimed a kind 
 of ownership of Stony and other lakes, and though he 
 permitted the white men to fish and to shoot deer and 
 partridges, he jealously guarded the privilege of trapping 
 fur-bearing animals. He was called " Handsome Jack," 
 a name commemorated in those of Jack's Lake and Jack's 
 Creek, whilst the Polly Cow Islands in Clear Lake dimly 
 recall the traditionary account of his daughter, a lovely 
 Indian girl, who died of fever at the age of sixteen, and 
 
28 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 was buried by her heart-broken father under a balsam 
 tree on one of the islands. So that the spirit of his 
 child might be able to wander at will down to the water's 
 edge, the chief cleared the forest trees from the shore. 
 He could not tear himself away from his darling's grave, 
 and was still watching over it when death came at last 
 to release him from his sad task. 
 
 The first settlers in this Canadian Lake District came in 
 1818 from the more famous Enghsh "Lake District," and 
 in the same year a little party of young men, headed by 
 one Adam Scott, crossed the treacherous Rice Lake, and 
 made its way up the Otonabee River to the site of the 
 future city. Arriving late on a day in May, one of them 
 struck a spark from his gun flint into a heap of dry leaves, 
 and so kindled the precursor of all Peterboro's " household 
 fires." After cooking and eating their supper, the young 
 fellows lay down to sleep under the oaks and chestnuts. 
 On the morrow some of the party went by the " blazed " 
 trails to seek out earlier settlers, and Scott explored the 
 neighbourhood to find a suitable site for a mill he was 
 planning. 
 
 He was successful in finding a creek which answered 
 his purpose, and before two years had gone by he had 
 erected a combined grist and saw-mill. For years this 
 was the most important building in the neighbourhood, 
 serving as a kind of social centre, where the settlers 
 exchanged the news of the day in addition to obtaining 
 suppHes of flour and lumber. Soon after it was built 
 something went wrong with the crank of the mill, and 
 Scott set off on a March day to trudge through the snow, 
 all the way to Smith's Creek (now Port Hope), with 
 the broken crank upon his shoulders. It weighed 250 
 pounds, and, though the round trip took several days, 
 Scott returned home in triumph with the crank again 
 in working order. 
 
PETERBOEO' COUNTY 29 
 
 Some little time later, when a state-aided band of over 
 two thousand immigrants arrived from Ireland, Scott 
 displayed his customary enterprise in less commendable 
 fashion. Having a superfluity of Government rations, 
 the new arrivals turned an honest penny by selling the 
 food they could not eat. They had, however, a craving 
 for whisky, which was difficult to satisfy till Scott con- 
 trived a rude still, in which he made a quantity of a 
 coarsq spirit to sell at the rate of ten or fifteen cents a 
 gallon ! 
 
 Meanwhile, the Hon. Peter Robinson (a member of 
 the well-known Loyalist family), who had undertaken 
 to settle the immigrants near Peterboro', had a difficult 
 task. On the voyage from Ireland fifteen of the emigrants 
 had died, and before a twelvemonth in the new land 
 had rolled its course eighty-seven more found graves 
 in the forest, dying chiefly of malarial fevers. 
 
 The task of marshalling the host of new-comers to 
 their destination had cost their leader endless toil and 
 thought. On the way they had had to camp at Kings- 
 ton, from which place they were brought up in detach- 
 ments by boat to Cobourg. Before they could proceed 
 farther Robinson had had to make passable a twelve- 
 mile road to Rice Lake, and to carry the settlers and their 
 goods up the Otonabee he had built a huge flat-bottomed 
 boat sixty feet long by eight feet wide. When at last 
 they reached Scott's Landing (as Peterboro' was then 
 called) there were neither houses to shelter them nor 
 roads by which they could proceed to their destined 
 homes. 
 
 Happily, Robinson found an able second in a naval 
 officer named Charles Rubidge, who had had the expe- 
 rience of settling with his wife and child in a log-house 
 without doors or windows, and knew what it was to 
 be almost eaten by mosquitoes and blackflies. After- 
 
30 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 wards he was able to boast that he had " made " a farm 
 in the country and had worked hard on it for twenty- 
 two years. It was he who cut the road, now called 
 Keene road, from Peterboro' to Rice Lake, and was 
 rewarded for this service by Governor Maitland with 
 the grant of a town and park lot. Later he was the 
 first postmaster of Otonabee, and, for convenience of 
 distributing the letters to people whom he might chance 
 to meet, was accustomed, it is said, to carry " the mail " 
 about with him in his hat. Under his directions the 
 older settlers were employed to put up cabins for the 
 newcomers at the price of ten dollars a house. 
 
 The name of Peterboro' was chosen at a dinner, given 
 by Robinson in his tent, in honour of the host. In the 
 following year, when the village of log cabins, " sown 
 broadcast," with blackened stumps sticking up in its 
 streets, was in the roughest condition imaginable, the 
 lieutenant-governor. Sir Peregrine Maitland, visited the 
 settlement. Not popular with some of the people, here 
 he won golden opinions. Cedar-boughs were strewn 
 in his honour along the sleigh-track, and a triumphal 
 arch of evergreens was erected. He held a reception in 
 the biggest log-house in the place, which was, perhaps, 
 that used by the Roman Catholic father for service in 
 days when the present cathedral was undreamed of. 
 
 In 1 83 1 a second large body of immigrants was sent 
 by the British Government to the neighbourhood of 
 Peterboro'. Meantime a few colonists of a higher class 
 were struggHng with the hardships of "Roughing it in 
 the Bush," as Mrs. Moodie, one of the Strickland family 
 — almost all of whom seem to have wielded the pen 
 of the ready-writer — phrased it. Her brother. Major 
 Strickland, gives a graphic account of a journey through 
 eleven miles of bush to seek land he had bought at 
 Lakefield, and also to find the free grant of a poor 
 
PBTERBORO' COUNTY 31 
 
 English blacksmith who had been sent out to him from 
 his home village in Suffolk. The man, on reaching his 
 journey's end, with a wife and child, had one halfpenny 
 in his pocket. But he lived to own a comfortable little 
 homestead. He was at first so dismayed, however, by 
 the trackless woods that he positively shed tears. The 
 Major describes with zest his own achievements as a 
 joiner, stone-mason, and wagon-builder, but some English 
 gentlemen, after wasting money in " fancy log-houses," 
 speedily disappeared from the scene. 
 
 It was the lumber trade which gave to Peterboro' 
 its first impetus towards prosperity. Now many of its 
 people find employment in factories, some of which make 
 the noted " Peterboro' canoe." Peterboro's great claim 
 to distinction, however, rests on its " Lift Lock," in con- 
 nection with the Trent Valley Canal. This is the largest 
 lock of its type in the world. It was designed by Mr. 
 R. B. Rogers, and the engineer in immediate charge of 
 the work was Mr. W. J. Francis. The lock was formally 
 opened on July 9, 1904. 
 
VII. HALIBURTON 
 
 " Poverty bought our little lot, 
 Flooded with daisy blooms ; 
 Poverty built our little cot, 
 And furnished all its rooms." 
 
 Ethelwyn Wetherald. 
 
 ON a first glance at the map the provisional county 
 of Haliburton forcibly suggests the title of a book 
 (already mentioned) by Mr. H. F. Gardiner, which was 
 published a few years ago, and deals from an interesting 
 point of view with Ontario. This title is Nothing but 
 Names; and on a recent official map of Ontario eleven of 
 the twenty- three townships of Haliburton are represented, 
 without a hint of the existence of a hamlet or any centre 
 of population whatever. In fact, in the whole county 
 there is neither city nor town nor even a large village, 
 and much of it offers a fine field for the sportsman. 
 
 But, regarding it for a moment from the standpoint of 
 names alone, Haliburton is worthy of special attention, 
 for there is no part of Ontario where great names are 
 clustered more thickly than in this county. It has its 
 share of place-names, many of them Welsh, though the 
 Enghsh county of Leicester has lent the name of Lutter- 
 worth (famous for its connection with John Wycliffe, 
 " the Morning Star of the Reformation ") to the town- 
 ship in the extreme south-west. Striking diagonally 
 across to the north-east and touching in passing at 
 Havelock, named after one of the heroes of the Indian 
 Mutiny, one reaches a township recalling the memory of 
 
HALIBURTON 33 
 
 one of the world's great women, Florence Nightingale. 
 Turning westward, one crosses the township of Law- 
 rence, called after the Governor of the Punjab, who 
 served his country so well during the Mutiny that he 
 won the title of " the saviour of India." Next in order 
 is the township of Livingstone, named in honour of the 
 missionary traveller, who from his grave in Westminster 
 Abbey still seems to raise a battle-cry of freedom for the 
 enslaved Africans. Lastly, still " stepping westward," 
 the name of M'Clintock carries one in thought from the 
 burning tropics to the regions of eternal frost, where Sir 
 John Franklin and his men lost their lives, for it was 
 M'Clintock, sent out by Lady Franklin, who in 1857 
 discovered the fate of the gallant explorers. 
 
 Across the whole county is written the name of a 
 man who, though " cast in less heroic mould " than those 
 mentioned above, certainly has claims to be remembered 
 by his countrymen of the Dominion, for he was the first 
 of Canadian writers to win recognition throughout the 
 English-speaking world. Thomas Chandler Haliburton 
 was a Nova Scotian by birth, and became in turn a 
 member of the Assembly, a judge, and the historian of 
 his native Province, but it was as a humorist that he 
 won his fame. He so identified himself with the quaint 
 character of his Yankee clockmaker, who went "on 
 circuit " amongst the country folk and villagers " down 
 by the sea," that he used as a pseudonym the name of 
 " Sam Slick." Whilst selling his clocks " Sam " picked 
 up many amazing " yarns," in repeating which he loved 
 to give sly hits at what he was pleased to consider the 
 laziness and slowness of the " Blue-noses." 
 
 Being a " Blue-nose " himself, Hahburton evidently felt 
 criticism of their shortcomings a patriotic task, but, like 
 good old John Bunyan, the Nova Scotian writer believed 
 in wrapping up wholesome truths in parables, and in 
 
34 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 trying by gibes and jests to sting his countrymen into 
 energy. 
 
 He described Novia Scotia as " the best location in all 
 America," but at last went to live in England, where he 
 married a second time and became member of Parlia- 
 ment for Launceston, though it is said that he regarded 
 himself rather as a representative of England's overseas 
 dominions. He died in 1865 and was buried at Isles- 
 worth on the Thames, in the churchyard where the 
 explorer Vancouver had earlier found a resting-place. 
 
 His name was given to the village in Dysart Town- 
 ship, and was afterwards applied to the county, because 
 he was director and first Chairman of the " Canadian 
 Land and Emigration Company," which in 1861 bought 
 ten townships, comprising about a million acres, in the 
 future county. The object of the company was largely 
 speculation, and, to cut a long story short, it may be 
 said that those who took stock in it lost more than they 
 gained. 
 
 Already there was a beginning of settlement along 
 the colonisation road, which struck northward from 
 Bobcaygeon deep into the beautiful wilderness of the 
 hills and lakes and dense forests of maple, birch, hem- 
 lock and (before- the advent of the lumber-men) pine. 
 The oldest village in the county is Minden, situated at 
 the point where the Bobcaygeon road crosses the Gull 
 River. The first settlers arrived there about 1859, and 
 by 1864 the village was able to boast of a saw- mill about 
 a mile up the river, and of a store or two, a blacksmith's 
 shop, and a hotel. In those days (unless the early 
 settlers have been sadly maligned) the arrival of a 
 barrel of whisky at " Buck's Hotel " (as at some other 
 places) was an event which drew together the scattered 
 population from far and wide, to indulge in wild and 
 long-continued dances and merry-making. On New 
 
HALIBURTON 35 
 
 Year's Eve, 1864, a dance began at "Buck's" which, 
 with slight intermissions, lasted four days and five 
 nights. 
 
 This same year, 1864, saw the building of a saw-mill 
 on the village plot of Haliburton, in Dysart Township. 
 The settlers here were of a higher type than the too 
 zealous patrons of Buck's Hotel at Minden, and soon a 
 tiny church, 16 feet by 24 feet, was put up by Mr. 
 Stewart, the Manager of the Land Company. The 
 first services were read by a surveyor, whilst an English 
 doctor " led the choir, with an accordion, mounted on a 
 little frame and worked with a treadle." Unfortunately, 
 the doctor's repertoire consisted only of two tunes, " The 
 Evening Hymn " and " The March of the Men of 
 Harlech." Settlers of all denominations attended the 
 services and sent their children to the Sunday school, 
 and after a time the little church was replaced by a much 
 better one, whilst the accordion was superseded by an 
 organ, given by Haliburton, the widow of the Nova 
 Scotia humorist. 
 
 At this time most of the Haliburton townships made 
 part of Peterboro' County, but, when the great project 
 of a line to give a railway connection with Lindsay was 
 mooted, the settlers in what are now the southern and 
 central townships of Haliburton grew restive, for they 
 desired that railway so earnestly that they were prepared 
 to tax themselves to the utmost to get it ; but the Peter- 
 boro' County Council, like a prudent parent, refused to 
 let them take up the burden of bonusing the railway. 
 
 Still the ambitious young townships, believing that 
 they knew what was best for themselves, refused to give 
 up the project. Their next demand was separation from 
 Peterboro', and they got it. In 1874 the new county 
 of Haliburton, comprising twenty townships of Peter- 
 boro' and three of Victoria County, came into being, 
 
36 THE COUNTIES OF ONTAEIO 
 
 with a Municipal Council, a Registrar, a Stipendiary 
 Magistrate and a Division Court Judge of its own, 
 though for the administration of justice and for the 
 election of members of Parliament it was attached to 
 Victoria County. The two villages of Minden and Hali- 
 burton were both eager for the honour of being the 
 " chief town " of the new county. 
 
 The Government decided in favour of Minden, and 
 there, in the gtimmer of 1874, the Municipal Council 
 immediately set to work to raise money — $55,000 — 
 to present to the Victoria Railway Company. For this 
 sum only the townships likely to receive direct benefit 
 from the line were made responsible. At first all went 
 merrily, but soon the financiers of the county got into 
 difficulties. Payments came due, and there was no 
 money to meet them. The sheriff had much disagreeable 
 duty to perform, and the credit of the county fell. At 
 last, in desperation, the Council, accompanied by the 
 clerk, the treasurer, and the constable, went up in a body 
 to Toronto to seek i*elief. They received sympathy, but 
 no promise of assistance, so they went back home man- 
 fully to face and conquer the difficulties of their position. 
 Ultimately the railway, which cost the county so dear, 
 became a branch of the Grand Trunk System. 
 
 No doubt it did something to benefit the settlers, but 
 the rush to the west, beginning very shortly after Hali- 
 burton County was organised, for a time actually lessened 
 the population. Instead of new settlers coming in, men 
 who owned farms became in some instances so anxious 
 to remove that, being unable to find purchasers for 
 their lands, they simply abandoned them. After these 
 troublous times the population again began to increase, 
 and a second railway line now crosses the southern 
 townships. 
 
VIII. DURHAM 
 
 " Where health and wealth and hope abound, 
 Where gold waves in the breeze ; . 
 Where rivers hasten with sweet sound 
 To join the inland seas." 
 
 Anon. 
 
 PROBABLY the first white man to settle in what is 
 now Durham County was the trader Peter Smith, 
 after whom Port Hope's little river was long called 
 Smith's Creek. He was succeeded by another trader 
 named Herchimer, but the first permanent settler, accord- 
 ing to the Historical Atlas, was a United Empire 
 Loyalist, Myndert Harris, who had come from Nova 
 Scotia by a roundabout route through New York State. 
 Crossing into British territory at Newark, he and his 
 family were treated most courteously by Governor Sim- 
 coe himself, who helped the new-comers over the last 
 stage of their journey by sending a gunboat to carry 
 them to Smith's Creek. There they landed on June 8, 
 1792, but they were alarmed by the number of Indians 
 who, on their part, took them for Yankees ! Captain 
 Walton, of the gunboat, and the trader Herchimer kindly 
 did their utmost to persuade the red men that the new 
 arrivals were good British Loyalists, and the Indians 
 did not prove bad neighbours ; but no doubt the Harrises 
 were extremely thankful when before winter two other 
 families arrived from Nova Scotia. 
 
 Fish and game were plentiful, but flour was hard to 
 obtain. At first there was no mill nearer than Kingston, 
 
 but within two years a grist-mill was in operation at 
 
 37 
 
38 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Belleville, and that shortened the journey for flour by 
 forty miles. The next improvement, three years later, 
 was the erection of mills at Smith's Creek itself. 
 
 Meanwhile other little settlements had been begun. 
 In the autumn of 1 794 the three families of John Burk, 
 John W. Trull, and Roger Conat settled in Darlington 
 Township, on Barber's Creek, later called Port Darling- 
 ton. These families were from the Susquehanna River, 
 and some of the party had coasted in large bateaux 
 round the head of Lake Ontario, whilst others had 
 driven their stock — one horse and two cows — along the 
 shore. When the bateaux reached Newark these new- 
 comers also received from Governor Simcoe not only a 
 kindly welcome, but some practical assistance, for he 
 sent back a man to help them in driving their animals 
 to Niagara and as far as York. 
 
 Arriving at the beginning of October, these settlers 
 had barely time to build their log shanties, roof them 
 with bark, and plaster them with mud before winter. In 
 their case the journey to the nearest mill and back took 
 two weeks, so they economised flour in every way pos- 
 sible. Sometimes they contrived to make a coarse wheat 
 meal by grinding the kernels in a coffee-mill, or, taking 
 pattern by the Indians, they pounded Indian corn in a 
 stump hollowed out by burning, and so made " samp," 
 or they gathered wild rice, parched, and pounded, and 
 made it into cakes. 
 
 The Indians, though not dangerous, were rather 
 troublesome neighbours. Generally the settlers were 
 careful not to anger them, but one of their number, John 
 Burke, must have caused his friends a good deal of 
 anxiety, for on the least provocation he was always 
 ready to administer a thrashing to the red men. One 
 of the Trull family, who was a boy when the incident 
 occurred, used to tell how a squaw came with four 
 
DURHAM 39 
 
 " papooses " to his mother's house and demanded flour. 
 It was scarce, and the white woman ventured to refuse 
 it. This was of no avail. The squaw searched the 
 house, and found some of the coveted luxury in a knead- 
 ing-trough, hidden away. But the Indian woman had 
 her own standards of justice. Taking the flour " in 
 double handfuls," she proceeded to divide it amongst all 
 the company, beginning with the mistress of the house, 
 taking next a portion for herself, then giving some to 
 each white child and " papoose " in order, till all was 
 distributed. Finally, carrying off her own and her 
 children's shares, she decamped. 
 
 About 1796, an Irishman, Richard Lovekin, came 
 from Cork to Clarke, the middle one of Durham's three 
 lakeside townships. He had left his family behind, but 
 brought with him two hired men. On one occasion these 
 men, going up the creek to cut grass, heard wolves 
 snarling and yelping, and began to mock them. The 
 wolves appeared to resent the impertinence, and the 
 whole pack gathered together. Thoroughly frightened, 
 the men rowed down the creek towards their shanty as 
 if they were pulling in a great boat-race, but the wolves 
 kept up with them along each bank, and, so long as one 
 of the fierce brutes remained in sight, they dared not 
 land. At last, however, they reached the shanty in 
 safety, and all night long kept up a great roaring 
 fire. 
 
 After building a house, Lovekin prepared to go back 
 to old Ireland to bring out his family. Having one 
 hundred and fifty dollars in silver more than he expected 
 to need, he wrapped it in paper, tied it up in an old 
 stocking, and hung it inside the trunk of a hollow tree. 
 But he had not reckoned on the needs and the doings 
 of the " kindred of the wild." On his return he found a 
 bear in possession of his house. It had made a bed for 
 
40 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 itself of dry leaves, and when he entered — so the story 
 is told — came rushing wildly down the stairs. Going 
 next to the tree, Lovekin found nothing of his treasure 
 but the string that had held it. Later he cut down the 
 tree, and discovered his money mixed up with the moss 
 and grass of a field-mouse's nest. In after years, 
 Lovekin, going to Smith's Creek on a " Training Day " 
 (June 4), and lacking money, carried with him a pack 
 of furs. It was a very hot day, and this form of cur- 
 rency was most burdensome ; but furs were amongst the 
 very few things for which cash could then be obtained. 
 As part of the price he received, it is said, a gold 
 doubloon (of the value of about $16), and this he kept 
 for six or eight years before he found anyone in his own 
 neighbourhood able and willing to change it. 
 
 Before 181 2 Lovekin had become a magistrate, and 
 during the war time administered the oath of allegiance 
 to many patriotic folk. In 1815 he invited his friends to 
 a " corn-husking bee," but after their arrival discovered 
 an old bear busily husking on his own account. There 
 were several dogs with the company, and these attacked 
 Bruin. The creature escaped, but the " bee " was a 
 failure. A day or two later, however, the farmer had 
 his revenge. Following the animal's tracks, he found 
 and shot him on the brow of the hill, where was after- 
 wards Bowmanville cemetery, and had the skin made 
 into an overcoat. 
 
 Much of the land on which Bowmanville (once Dar- 
 lington Mills) stands was drawn by John Burke. After 
 building saw-mills and grist-mills, he sold out to a man 
 named Purdy, but the property came again into Burke's 
 possession, and he sold it a second time to Lewis Lewis, 
 who opened the first store in Darlington about 1820. 
 Already, however, there had been a post-office for some 
 years — the mail being brought in once a week in a 
 
DURHAM 41 
 
 sleigh or on the back of a mule. By the way, the post- 
 mUle is said to have lived well on into the sixties ! 
 
 Bowmanville got its name from a Scot from Arbroath. 
 One of his employees in the early days was John Simp- 
 son, also a Scotchman, and akin to the famous Sir George 
 Simpson of the Hudson Bay Company. He lived for 
 fifty-two years in Bowmanville. In 1837 many men in 
 Darlington and Manvers sympathised with Mackenzie, 
 but Simpson was on the side of the established govern- 
 ment and order. The stores at Darlington Mills were 
 used as barracks for the loyal troops. Half a dozen 
 years later, at a bitterly contested election at Newton- 
 ville, when stones flew freely and one luckless voter 
 was killed, Simpson put himself at the head of "forty 
 good men and true" and prevented the roughs of the 
 opposing party demolishing the polling booth. At Con- 
 federation Simpson was appointed a Senator of the 
 Dominion. An incident in connection with the mills 
 which gave Bowmanville its earlier name is the grinding 
 from wheat grown in Clarke Township of two barrels 
 of flour, which were sent to London and received a 
 prize at the Great Exhibition of 1851. 
 
 During these years the. future county seat of Durham 
 had also been growing and improving, though very 
 slowly at first. For twenty years after the mills were 
 built on Smith's Creek there was no store in the village, 
 and it depended for supplies on the vessels which came 
 in from time to time. About 1820, "when wheat was a 
 drug in the market at 25 cents the bushel," the settlers 
 who wished to trade their grain for groceries were met 
 by the discouraging intimation that " tea was a cash 
 article!" And it was the same with other groceries. 
 Gradually the name of Smith's Creek fell into disuse, 
 and for a time the village was known as Toronto! 
 When a post-office was opened, the old name was 
 
42 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 officially revived ; but there was such confusion between 
 the two names that a public meeting was called to settle 
 the difficulty, and this decided upon the pleasantly-sug- 
 gestive name of Port Hope. In 1857 the town obtained 
 good railway connection by means of the Grand Trunk, 
 and also a line to Lindsay. Two years later the town 
 was of sufficient importance to separate from the county, 
 and now it is a flourishing place of 5000 inhabitants. 
 Since 1868 Port Hope has been the seat of Trinity 
 College School, which was moved thither from Weston, 
 near Toronto. 
 
IX. VICTORIA 
 
 " Her court was pure ; her life serene ; 
 God gave her peace ; her land reposed ; 
 A thousand claims to reverence closed 
 In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen." 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 THIS county — the only one in Ontario called after 
 a sovereign of England — bears a truly noble name 
 in that of the queen during whose long reign the 
 Dominion, free and prosperous, began to be. But, as 
 Mr. Gardiner recalls in his Nothing but Names, the 
 great queen's most familiar designation was given to her 
 in an almost accidental fashion. Her father wished her, 
 it is said, to figure in history as " Elizabeth II," whilst 
 her uncle, the Prince-Regent — afterwards George IV — 
 desired that she should be called Georgiana or Georgina, 
 after himself. He insisted, however, that this name should 
 be put before that of Alexandrina — to be given to the 
 child in honour of the Czar of Russia. This being 
 thought impolitic, he declined to allow the infant to be 
 called after himself at all, so, at the last moment, her 
 father added her mother's name Victoria, and when in 
 1837 the young girl ascended the throne it was by this 
 name that she preferred to be known. 
 
 Victoria County was once part of Durham, and later 
 part of Peterboro'. It became a county in 185 1, but 
 continued to be connected with Peterboro' judicially till 
 1863. The old townships of Emily and Ops (the former 
 surveyed in 1818 and the latter in 1825) were settled in 
 
 part by some of the Irish emigrants brought out to 
 
 43 
 
44 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Peterboro' (as already related) by Peter Robinson, the 
 son of a Loyalist and elder brother of the better-known 
 Chief Justice of Upper Canada, Sir John Beverley Robin- 
 son. But Peter also was a notable man in his day. 
 Physically he was remarkably strong^ and he had a taste 
 for athletic sports. In the war of 1812 he commanded 
 a volunteer rifle company, which took part in the capture 
 of Detroit. For several years he represented the East 
 Riding of York in the Assembly of Upper Canada, and 
 was afterwards a member of the Legislative Council. In 
 1827 he was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands, 
 but it was before that, in 1825^ that he was concerned 
 in the great assisted emigration scheme, which led to 
 the bestowal of his Christian name upon the town and 
 county of Peterboro'. 
 
 He was very popular with the impulsive Irish settlers, 
 though, in spite of all the assistance they received, the 
 new-comers did not escape the common troubles of the 
 inexperienced in a strange country. Yet the Government 
 certainly provided for them in a fashion at once liberal 
 and paternal. Each head of a family received a grant 
 of one hundred acres (this was, of course, wild land), and 
 in addition a log-house was built for him, and he was 
 started on his farm with a cow and a variety of useful 
 implements — from an axe and spade down to an iron 
 pot and a frying-pan. Five bushels of seed potatoes and 
 eight quarts of Indian corn were added, and blankets 
 if the family was very ill-provided with comforts. The 
 scheme was criticised at the time as ineffective, but in 
 the first year (when 1878 persons were brought out, 
 of whom considerably more than a third were children) 
 1386 acres were cleared. 
 
 Victoria's share of these immigrants gave her her first 
 start as "a white man's country"; and by 1836 "the 
 fine townships ol Ops, Emily, Fenelon, Bexley, Somer- 
 
VICTORIA 45 
 
 ville, and Verulam (surveyed between 1823 and 1835) 
 were settling fast. The water-power of Fenelon Falls, 
 a miniature " Horse-shoe Falls," sixteen feet high, was 
 soon taken advantage of for the working of mills, and 
 amongst the settlers of this district were a number of 
 young men of good family. The falls and township 
 of Fenelon were named after a zealous Sulpician mission- 
 ary who laboured amongst the Indians north of Lake 
 Ontario from 1668 to 1670. He was stepbrother to the 
 more famous Ahh6 Fenelon, who wrote Tilemaque. The 
 Canadian Abbd engaged in a heated quarrel with Fron- 
 tenac, was sent as a prisoner to France, and was for- 
 bidden to return to Canada. 
 
 From the beginning of white settlement in Victoria, 
 the problems of communication and transportation were, 
 of course, vital questions, and in 1833 the scheme of the 
 Trent Valley Canal, by which the navigable lakes and 
 streams between the Georgian Bay and the Bay of 
 Quints were to be connected with artificial waterways, 
 was mooted. Governor Colborne appointed a civil 
 engineer, named Baird, to make a survey and estimate 
 the cost of the proposed canal. His estimate was half 
 a million pounds, but he suggested that the expense 
 could be cut down by using railway connections in places 
 instead of canals, and recommended that long steamers 
 should be built upon which trains of cars might be run. 
 
 The undertaking was begun, and some ;£^90,ooo was 
 expended on the Trent and on works at Peterboro', but 
 the troubles of 1837-38 checked the enterprise, and to 
 this day part of the canal is still under construction. 
 The portion going through Victoria County is, however, 
 in operation, and the township of Eden possesses a 
 remarkable engineering work in the Lift-lock at Kirkfield. 
 Its two chambers, into which the vessels enter, are even 
 larger than those of the Lift-lock at Peterboro' ; but the 
 
46 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 height of the lift at Kirkfield is only 48 feet 6 inches as 
 against Peterboro's 65 feet. 
 
 A branch of the canal, extending across the township 
 of Ops, connects Lakes Sturgeon and Scugog, the latter 
 of which was much increased in size by the building of 
 the mill dam at Lindsay. This, indeed, did so much injury 
 to the farms higher up the Scugog that the courts 
 ordered that the dam should be lowered. The result 
 was that the mill at Lindsay became unworkable, and 
 this was of such great importance to the community that 
 the dam had to be raised again regardless of the drown- 
 ing of the lands along the Scugog River. 
 
 In the early fifties, Victoria and Peterboro' Counties 
 took stock to the extent of ;£^ioo,ooo in the Grand 
 Junction Railway Company, but owing to the amalgama- 
 tion of this company with the Grand Trunk, which had 
 many irons in the fire, and to the stringency in the 
 money market due to the Crimean War, there was long 
 delay in the construction of the promised line. Mean- 
 while the Port Hope and Peterboro' Railway Company 
 offered to build a line through Victoria to the west 
 boundary of Mariposa; but Peterboro' declined to take 
 stock in the scheme. ;£'20,ooo was subscribed in Ops, 
 however, on condition that the line should be built to 
 Lindsay, and in 1857 the first locomotive ran into the 
 town, and, even before the line was completely ballasted, 
 the railway did a good business. Now all the townships 
 of Victoria, except the five most northerly, are served by 
 branches of the Grand Trunk Railway, and a branch of 
 the Canadian Pacific Railway runs through Lindsay to 
 the picturesque village of Bobcaygeon. From this settle- 
 ment, over half a century ago, a colonisation road was 
 opened northwards, and the lots upon it were very 
 quickly taken up by young farmers — no less than two 
 hundred coming in in nine months. The town plot of 
 
VICTORIA 47 
 
 Bobcaygeon was laid out on the mainland, but the indi- 
 viduals who actually founded the village preferred to 
 build on the beautiful rocky island between Pigeon and 
 Sturgeon Lakes. 
 
 In Mackenzie's time the neighbourhood of Lindsay was 
 a stronghold of " Reform," and upon the collapse of the 
 attempt on Toronto, in December, 1837, it was imagined 
 that some of the rebel leaders might seek refuge in this 
 district, so it came to pass that a company of loyal 
 Peterboro' militiamen, who had vainly endeavoured to 
 get transportation from Port Hope to the scene of the 
 disturbances, was sent into Victoria. These valiant 
 fellows did their duty with a zeal alarming to some 
 unoffending citizens. For instance, they stopped a 
 farmer driving home with a small load of hay, while they 
 prodded it with their bayonets in the belief that William 
 Lyon Mackenzie himself might be lying concealed within. 
 
 Lindsay was " the county town elect " of Victoria 
 before separation from Peterboro' was effected. The 
 town site was surveyed in 1833, but "owing to bad 
 roads and distance from the sea-board " its growth was 
 slow ; and at the close of its first quarter of a century, it 
 had something less than two thousand inhabitants. In 
 the next half-century, however, its population was multi- 
 plied by three, and now it is a town of between 7000 and 
 8000. It is at its liveliest when the summer season 
 brings its crowds of sportsmen and tourists bound for 
 the beautiful Kawartha Lakes. Of these. Sturgeon, 
 Cameron and Balsam are within the bounds of Victoria, 
 lying in a wild, sparsely-inhabited region of granite 
 crags, forest-covered hills and clear limpid streams. 
 
 Lindsay is the home of Colonel Sam Hughes, the 
 veteran Parliamentarian of twenty-one years standing, 
 and at Kirkfield Sir William Mackenzie, President of the 
 Canadian Northern Railway, whose connection with 
 
48 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 railway building began as a contractor for part of a line 
 in Victoria County, was born. Ernest Thompson Seton, 
 the author, artist and naturalist, made his first acquaint- 
 ance with the denizens of the Canadian wilds in the 
 woods about Scugog, near which his English parents 
 made their home in his early childhood. But limitations 
 of space forbid any attempt to chronicle the doings, at 
 home and abroad, of these and other Victoria " Old Boys." 
 
X. ONTARIO 
 
 " Secure from winter's frost and snow — 
 
 From bears and wolves, then prowling round — 
 A home that wealth could not bestow — 
 Content and happiness we found." 
 
 Joseph Gould. 
 
 SIMCOE gave the name of Ontario to a county com- 
 posed of Wolfe, Howe, Amherst, and other islands, 
 now forming parts of Frontenac and Lennox Counties. 
 But this was very soon abolished, and about sixty years ago 
 its name was given to another county, cut off from York. 
 
 It is difficult even to sketch slightly the story of this 
 county within the prescribed limits, not so much because 
 it was the scene of specially thrilling events, but because 
 one of its sons — Joseph Gould — was blessed with an 
 interest in local history, which impelled him to gather 
 together and record many tales that he heard from the 
 lips of the pioneers. 
 
 His own sturdy figure is an interesting one, and we 
 can hardly suggest the story of Ontario County better 
 than by telling something of the life of this man, whose 
 home it was from birth till death. 
 
 Gould's father, a man of Irish descent, was one of 
 the Pennsylvanian pioneers who very early in last 
 century " trekked " northward in their great covered 
 wagons to found new homes in this Province. A 
 number of Pennsylvania folk settled in the township of 
 Uxbridge, after a journey of three weeks, through New 
 York State, across the Niagara River above the Falls, 
 around the head of Lake Ontario to Little York, thence 
 up Yonge Street to Newmarket, before making the final 
 
 49 D 
 
50 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 plunge into the scarcely-broken forest. The elder Gould, 
 dissatisfied with the country, worked two years to save 
 a couple of hundred dollars to take back his family to his 
 old home, but he left the money in his master's hands. 
 He failed, and all Gould could obtain, instead of his two 
 hundred dollars, was a lot of wild land in Uxbridge Town- 
 ship. iThere he settled, however, and there, on Dec 
 29th 1808, his son Joseph was born. 
 
 In the neighboui'hood there were a dozen widely- 
 scattered " Dutch " families, but not a single white man 
 had taken up land north of Uxbridge. Indians were 
 numerous and, happily, friendly. In clearing the ground 
 the Pennsylvanians grubbed up the earth with a mattock, 
 and at harvest-time used an American sickle, men and 
 women working together in a kind of useful version of 
 the old game of " Follow my Leader," with the best 
 worker to set the pace. 
 
 In those days neighbours were usually neighbourly, 
 "changing" work and helping each other in all emer- 
 gencies. People going away from home used to carry 
 horns, so that, if they lost their way in the woods, they 
 could make signals of distress. (Joseph's mother 
 possessed a sea-shell instead of a horn, and on a calm 
 night the sound from this carried as far as five miles.) 
 Anyone hearing a horn, answered it, according to pre- 
 concerted arrangements, and if the member of a family 
 was belated and did not reach home when expected, at 
 nightfall the horn was sounded to guide the wanderer 
 or to give the signal for searchers to turn out. A 
 general "tattoo" was the joyous signal to cease from 
 searching. 
 
 These were by no means unnecessary precautions 
 when the woods were scarcely tracked and were infested 
 with wolves and other wild beasts. Indeed, some of 
 Gould's reminiscences are of a tragic character. He 
 
ONTARIO 51 
 
 connects a terrible little story with the spot where now 
 stands the village of Beaverton. An ex-soldier, Corporal 
 Crawford, when hunting with an Indian friend, was 
 attracted by the beauty of the situation, and, putting 
 up a little log-cabin, took his wife and two small children 
 to live there, far from any other human habitation. The 
 wife wished to return for the winter to York, but late 
 in the autumn another child was born, and it seemed 
 impossible for her to take the journey with a young 
 baby. The winter proved exceptionally severe. The 
 father was obliged to go hunting to provide for the 
 family. One night he was very late, and his wife 
 sounded the horn again and again. He was indeed 
 scarcely a mile from his home, and had just wounded 
 a buck, when he was overtaken by a pack of wolves 
 and had to climb into a tree. But the wolves took up 
 the chase of the buck, which fled toward the little cabin, 
 and the wife, hearing their howling, and fancying, it was 
 supposed, that they were in pursuit of her husband, 
 opened the door. At daylight the corporal hurried home, 
 to find his little daughter safe under a heavy crib, which 
 apparently had been overturned in the first mad rush 
 of the hungry brutes. But there were many signs that 
 his wife and two little ones had met a fate too dreadful 
 for words. The wretched man lost his reason in the 
 horror of it, but was adopted and kindly cared for by his 
 Indian friends. 
 
 But to return to Joseph Gould. He learned his letters 
 by the red light of the huge winter's fires, but had little 
 regular education. At first there was no school within 
 reach, and then but a poor one. He read everything 
 that came in his way — even to Blackstone's Commentaries 
 on the Laws of England, and amused himself by making 
 rhymes. The handling of an axe was an accomplishment 
 he acquired early, and he paid for his first pair of boots 
 
52 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 by cutting seven cords of wood, only to find when he got 
 them home that " one was a number seven and the other 
 a number nine ! " 
 
 During the War of i8i2 new settlers almost ceased 
 to come in, and many Americans returned to the land 
 of their birth. Later the immigration of Americans 
 began again, and Ontario County thus got some useful 
 settlers and a few rogues, whose escapades caused some 
 excitement in the little backwoods settlements. In 1 826 
 came John Plank, a " wide-awake Dutchman," from New 
 York State, who built a tavern at Uxbridge and a saw- 
 mill a little higher up the river, which he afterwards sold 
 to Joseph Gould. By that time the young man had 
 learned the trade of a carpenter, and had prospered as 
 a farmer. The story of his early enterprises and ven- 
 tures throws much light on the ways of the pioneer com- 
 munities, but I can only recommend those interested to 
 read The Life and Times of Joseph Gould for themselves. 
 
 About 1836 Joseph, who, though brought up in 
 Quaker fashion, had indulged very freely in " worldly 
 amusements," fell in love with a pretty Quakeress, Mary 
 James. She wore the Quaker garb, " rich, plain, clean 
 and tidy," which, in the opinion of her lover, was the 
 most sensible and becoming any woman could wear. 
 After due consideration the young lady consented to be- 
 come his wife, but a sudden cloud rose on the horizon. 
 
 Gould had energy to spare from his multifarious 
 private undertakings for political matters. He worked 
 hard to return Mackenzie as member for York each time 
 he was unseated, and was present when the rebel leader 
 held a secret meeting at Stouffville to discuss plans 
 for the attack on Toronto. Gould remonstrated against 
 violent measures, but marched with his friends to 
 Montgomery's Tavern, and after the fight, being "on 
 the wrong side of Yonge Street to get home," was 
 
ONTARIO 53 
 
 captured in the woods. The jail being crowded, he 
 was lodged in the Legislative Council Chamber. He 
 narrowly escaped being sent to Van Diemen's Land, 
 but was pardoned by Lord Durham, and celebrated 
 New Year's Day, 1839, by wedding Mary James. In 
 1854 he was elected to the Assembly, and died at 
 Uxbridge in 1886. 
 
 Gould struggled earnestly for the independence of 
 his county. Whitby, once Perry's Corners, became 
 county town, but, despite this advantage, its good 
 harbour and the coming of the Grand Trunk Railway, 
 its progress was slow. Perhaps it was retarded by the 
 eagerness of speculators. 
 
 The largest town in the county is Oshawa, founded 
 by two brothers named Farewell, who, exploring the 
 shores of Lake Ontario at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century, paddled their canoe up Oshawa Creek and 
 encamped on its banks. A little later, when going to 
 trade with the Indians on Lake Scugog, they left a man 
 named Sharp in charge of their camp. On their return 
 they found that he had been killed by an Indian ; and 
 it was the latter who was embarked with his judge, the 
 Solicitor-General, the witnesses, constables, and other 
 passengers on the Government schooner Speedy, which 
 foundered in a fierce October gale with every soul on board. 
 
 It was after the townships had been surveyed that the 
 dam constructed at Lindsay turned Scugog Township 
 into an island, but the building of a bridge, after it 
 became a separate municipality in 1856, immensely 
 increased the value of the property within it. About 
 the middle of last century the settlements of Rama, 
 begun by British officers, were perhaps the most 
 northerly in the Province. By that time, however, most 
 of the officers had left, and its population consisted almost 
 entirely of Indians, who in 1838 had removed from Orillia. 
 
XI. YORK 
 
 ' ' Where the blue hills of old Toronto shed 
 Their evening shadows o'er Ontario's bed." 
 
 Thomas Moore. 
 
 TO tell in full the story of York County would be to 
 re-write much of the history of Ontario — one might 
 almost say of Canada itself. But my endeavour will be, 
 while making slight reference to the great historical 
 events, to use the very limited space at my disposal in 
 picturing to the best of my ability what one might call 
 the domestic life of the county. 
 
 Long before the cession of Canada to England, what 
 is now York County was known as the Toronto region, 
 and in the middle of the eighteenth century the French 
 fort, Rouille, often called Fort Toronto, was erected just 
 east of the Humber River, with a view to the discomfiture 
 of the enterprising English traders who had been known 
 to cross the lake from the south to traffic with the Indians, 
 bringing their rich supplies of furs down the Humber. 
 
 The first exploration of the place under the English 
 Government was made in 1788, when Deputy Sur- 
 veyor Collins reported to Lord Dorchester that " as a 
 military post I do not see any striking features to re- 
 commend it." In 1 79 1 surveyors began to mark out a 
 row of townships along Lake Ontario. Of these York 
 Township was first named Dublin, and Scarborough 
 Glasgow. 
 
 In that year Lord Dorchester ordered that grants of 
 land of 700 and 1000 acres in extent should be laid out 
 
YORK 55 
 
 at Toronto for three French gentlemen, but before the 
 order was executed "the new Province was duly con- 
 stituted," there was a change in the regulations, and the 
 three got no land near the site of the capital of Upper 
 Canada,, which was started in its career as "a very 
 English town" by that sturdy Briton, John Graves 
 Simcoe. He baptized it with the English name of 
 York, and established there as close a copy of British 
 political institutions as he could contrive. For many 
 years to come, moreover, it was a common, and the 
 Canadians used to think a reprehensible, custom to 
 bring in Englishmen to fulfil the executive functions of 
 government, in due accordance with English precedents 
 and traditions. At first the development of York de- 
 pended almost wholly on its being the seat of government. 
 
 In 1797 Chief Justice Elmsley, who had just arrived 
 from England, objected to the removal of the courts from 
 Newark to York, on the ground that the latter place 
 " was forty miles beyond the most remote settlements at 
 the head of the lakes " (I quote from Mr. Yeigh's book 
 on Ontario's Parliament Buildings), and that " the road 
 to it passed through a country belonging to the Missis- 
 saugas. There was no jail or court-house there, no 
 accommodation for grand or petit juries, none for the 
 suitors, the witnesses, or the Bar, and very indifferent 
 for the Judges, so that those attending had to remain in 
 the open air or be crowded in tents. Many of the jurors, 
 too, would have to travel sixty or eighty miles, and be 
 absent from home not less than ten days, so that a mere 
 fine would have no effect as against the expense, loss of 
 time and fatigue in going to that point ; in fact, he very 
 much feared that he would not be able to form a jury at 
 York." The Chief Justice, however, was forced to give 
 way and resign himself to holding courts in York. 
 
 The first jail was a squat wooden building, surrounded 
 
S6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 by a high stockade. It stood a little east of that now 
 busy spot in Tpronto — the intersection of Yonge and 
 King Streets. By the year 1811 the building was 
 dreadfully dilapidated, and an order was given to repair 
 it. Then it was discovered that there were no suitable 
 spike-nails to be had of any of the dealers in the town, 
 but after long delay some were furnished from the mili- 
 tary stores. In the following December the Sheriff re- 
 ported that " the prisoners in the cells . . . suffer much 
 from cold and damp, there being no method of com- 
 municating heat from the chimneys, nor any bedsteads 
 to raise the straw from the floors, which lie nearly, if 
 not altogether, on the ground." He suggested that a 
 small stove should be placed " in the lobby of each range 
 of cells," and that some rugs and blankets should be 
 supplied. This was done, and the poor prisoners must 
 have blessed Sheriff Beikie for his humanity. Debtors 
 as well as criminals were confined in the jail, and in 
 those days York had its stocks, its pillory and frequent 
 hangings. But in 1817 a number of men arrested in the 
 town in connection with the troubles of the Selkirk 
 Settlement on the Red River had to be taken for safe- 
 keeping to Montreal. Seven years later a new jail and 
 a court-house of a rather pretentious type of architecture 
 in red brick were erected. 
 
 By this time there were many settlers in the country 
 round. At first communication between the different 
 settlements was, of course, chiefly by water, but Yonge 
 Street, leading northwards, and Dundas Street, leading 
 westwards, were cut through the county at an early date. 
 As now, the pioneers of the new settlements were of 
 different " nations and languages." Of the Quaker immi- 
 grants from Pennsylvania (some of whom settled in King 
 and Whitchurch Townships), something was said in the 
 article on Ontario County. T hese settlers, by the way. 
 
YORK 57 
 
 were considerably annoyed by long delays in the issue of 
 patents for their lands, but on appealing to the newly- 
 appointed Governor Hunter, a vigorous soldier, they 
 ohtained them in two days. 
 
 In 1794, some years before the arrival of the Quakers, 
 sixty German families came from the south side of Lake 
 Ontario and settled in Markham Township. Some of the 
 Germans travelled, it is said, in wagons with bodies of 
 close-fitting boards with caulked seams, so that, in case 
 of necessity, " by shifting the body off the carriage " it 
 served, presumably as a boat, " to transport the wheels 
 and the family." In going from York to Holland Landing 
 the pioneers often used ropes passed around saplings to 
 haul their wagons up or steady their descent down the 
 steeps of Yonge Street. 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century grants were 
 made to a number of French military refugees who had 
 been driven from their own country by the Revolution. 
 Wishing to take up lands in a block, they were settled 
 in the rather sterile region known as Oak Ridges, just 
 where the four townships of King and Whitchurch, 
 Vaughan and Markham, come together, and for a little 
 while counts, viscounts and " chevaliers " followed more 
 or less successfully that strenuous mode of life, " rough- 
 ing it in the bush." Occasionally they went down to 
 York to add a special lustre to the balls given by the 
 Governor or other officials, and it is on record that the 
 jewels of one aristocratic lady, " Madame la Comtesse de 
 Chalus," created a great sensation. A good many years 
 later, York's first fancy-dress ball, given "on the last 
 day of 1827, conjointly, by Mr. Gait, Commissioner of 
 the Canada Company, and Lady Mary Willis, wife of Mr. 
 Justice Willis," caused a great stir. But little " Muddy 
 York " seems to have had no lack of excitements con- 
 cerning more important matters. There were the 
 
58 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 comings and goings of Governors, the sittings of the 
 courts, the doings of the Legislature, and, above all, 
 the happenings during the years of warfare, 1812 to 
 1 8 14. On the outbreak of the strife volunteers from 
 York were sent promptly to the front, and everyone 
 knows that the gallant Brock was leading men of this 
 county to the charge at Queenston Heights when he got 
 his death wound. Indeed, his last words were, " Push on, 
 brave York Volunteers ! " 
 
 In 1 8 13 the men of York twice found the war carried 
 into their own home district. On April 27,1 600 Americans 
 under Generals Dearborn and Pike swooped down upon 
 the little town and effected a landing in Humber Bay. 
 They were pressing eagerly forward to drive out the 
 defenders of the fort, when a magazine suddenly ex- 
 ploded in the western battery, and a number of men on 
 both sides were killed and wounded. Amongst the latter 
 was General Pike, who died on shipboard a few hours later. 
 
 Thinking the town indefensible, Major-General SheafFe, 
 with his few British regulars, retreated towards King- 
 ston, and the invaders burned all the public buildings. 
 It is said that when they were on the point of setting 
 fire to the Parliament buildings they found above the 
 Speaker's chair in the Legislative Chamber what they 
 took to be a human scalp. " This startling prize, how- 
 ever, turned out to be but a periwig, or official peruke, 
 left behind by its owner." Unfortunately all the state 
 papers were burned with the building. 
 
 It was on March 6, 1834, that the town of York be- 
 came (with extended limits) the city of Toronto. The 
 first mayor of the municipality (in fact, the first mayor 
 in Upper Canada) was William Lyon Mackenzie, the 
 popular hero, who had been five times expelled from the 
 Assembly and had been as persistently re-elected by 
 the " free and independent electors " of York County. 
 
YORK 59 
 
 Indeed, it is safe to say that, for a considerable number 
 of years, this " wiry and peppery little Scotsman, hearty 
 in his love of public right, still more in his hatred of 
 public wrongdoers," was the most conspicuous figure in 
 York County, not excepting even the Governors in their 
 picturesque trappings of state. 
 
 Mackenzie, moreover, was the occasion of, or the actor 
 in, many lively scenes characteristic of the early days, 
 and therefore I make no apology for dwelling at some 
 length on his doings and sufferings, though I cannot 
 pretend even to mention the names of many men who 
 served their country more wisely and not less well. 
 
 When the little capital in the wilderness could boast 
 only a population of two or three thousand souls, political 
 contests were waged with the bitterness and the fierce 
 personahties of an ancient hand-to-hand fight, and 
 apparently the onlookers took much the same kind of 
 savage delight in the shrewd blows given and received 
 as their ancestors had found in the single combats of 
 accredited heroes. 
 
 This is the portrait of the redoubtable little champion 
 of the rights of the people and the freedom of the press, 
 as sketched by a friendly hand : " Mackenzie was of 
 slight build and scarcely of medium height, being only 
 five feet six inches in stature. His massive head, high 
 and broad in the frontal region and well rounded, looked 
 too large for the slight, wiry frame it surmounted. . . . 
 His keen, restless, piercing blue eyes . . . and the 
 ceaseless and expressive activity of his fingers . . . be- 
 trayed a temperament which could not brook inaction. 
 The chin was long and rather broad. The lips, firmly 
 pressed together, were in constant motion, with which 
 the twinkling of the eyes seemed to keep time, giving 
 an appearance of unrest to the whole countenance." 
 
 Shortly after Mackenzie's settlement in York a mob 
 
6o THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 of young men connected with the officials invaded his 
 newspaper office, broke his press and scattered his type, 
 flinging some of it into the bay. The somewhat un- 
 looked-for result of the outrage was to extricate the 
 enterprising editor from financial difficulties, for he was 
 awarded heavy damages. Soon afterwards, without 
 waiting for an invitation from anybody, Mackenzie 
 announced himself as a candidate at the approaching 
 election for one of the two seats for York County. At 
 the same time he declared that, contrary to the all but 
 universal practice of the period, he would " keep no open 
 houses '' and " hire no vehicles to trundle freemen to the 
 hustings to serve themselves." His daring was justified 
 by success. He and Jesse Ketchum, the philanthropic 
 tanner, found themselves at the head of the poll. A 
 little later Mackenzie's repeated expulsions from the 
 House kept the county in a ferment, and Dr. Scadding, 
 in his Toronto of Old, recalls seeing a crowd pelting 
 Mackenzie in the old Court House Square with "the 
 missiles which mobs usually adopt." On the same day, 
 when Jesse Ketchum was haranguing the throng from 
 a farmer's wagon, some sturdy fellows suddenly laid 
 hold of the vehicle and wheeled it rapidly down King 
 Street, nearly throwing the speaker off his balance. 
 
 At another time, Mackenzie, "after one of his re- 
 elections," was "borne aloft in triumph on a kind of 
 pyramidal car," with a massive golden chain, the gift 
 of his admirers, about his neck, whilst in the procession 
 was a printing-press " at work in a low sleigh, throwing 
 off hand-bills," which were tossed to right and left into 
 the attendant crowd. 
 
 Year by year the plot thickened. Despairing of any 
 redress of their grievances, the more ardent of the 
 Reformers began to think of emulating the example of 
 the American "Patriots," of Revolutionary memory, 
 
YORK 6 I 
 
 and declaring for independence. The theatrical indis- 
 cretions of Sir Francis Bond Head made bad worse, 
 and at the end of July 1837 there was a meeting of the 
 disaffected in a Bay Street brewery, at which a Decla- 
 ration of Independence was adopted, and then Mackenzie 
 went out into the country, holding meetings at New- 
 market and, it is said, at some two hundred other places, 
 to organise vigilance committees and prepare for revolt. 
 He did not by any means confine his labours to York 
 County, but when the attempt on Toronto was deter- 
 mined on, Montgomery's Tavern, on Yonge Street, a 
 few miles from the city, was appointed as the rendezvous 
 for the rebels ; and it was there that they were com- 
 pletely defeated by the loyal forces. 
 
 After that, for over a decade, Mackenzie disappeared 
 from the county, and, though his return to Toronto in 
 1849 was the signal for rioting on the part of some 
 hot-headed Tories, and for the burning of the effigies 
 of Attorney-General Baldwin, Solicitor-General Blake 
 and Mackenzie himself, he was a worn and broken 
 man, and never again played his former energetic part. 
 
 At the time of his return. Lord Elgin was Governor- 
 General. In private life he appeared as " an unassuming, 
 good old gentleman," and was often seen " walking arm 
 in arm with his wife in the good old-fashioned way," but 
 he used to go in state to open or prorogue the House, in 
 his Viceregal chariot,drawn bya "gaily caparisoned four-in- 
 hand," and attended by a " full complement of postilions." 
 
 Mr. Yeigh tells of many famous scenes in the old 
 Parliament buildings on Front Street, as when George 
 Brown, in April 1857, introduced his motion declaring for 
 " Representation by Population," or when John A. Mac- 
 donald, violently attacked by the brilliant Irishman D'Arcy 
 M'Gee, calmly went on sealing a pile of letters with wax, 
 as if absolutely deaf to the storm raging about his head. 
 
62 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 After the union of the Canadas, when the Legislature 
 sat in Montreal, the building was put to other uses, 
 serving at one time as a medical school in connection 
 with King's College, and at another as a lunatic asylum, 
 after which it was reoccupied by the Parliament of the 
 United Provinces. Next it was used as military bar- 
 racks, but from Confederation until 1892, when the 
 new Parliament buildings in Queen's Park were ready 
 for occupation, it was the home of the Legislature of 
 the Province of Ontario. 
 
 Reading its old history, one gets the impression that 
 the capital of Upper Canada was always a lively, 
 stirring place, and though John Gait was unkind enough 
 to refer to it in terms implying that it was superlatively 
 dull, from the first it had one great advantage, apart 
 from its position as capital. It was comparatively easy of 
 access, for in pre-railway days it was served by numerous 
 sailing vessels and steamers. (The first steamer to 
 ply on Lake Ontario was built in 18 16.) Then, as 
 already mentioned, York town and York County were 
 far better off for roads in the early days than most 
 pioneer communities. The importance of Yonge Street 
 as a route towards the upper lakes was recognised in 
 a practical fashion by the old " North-west Company," 
 which in 1799 gave ;^i2,ooo "towards making Yonge 
 Street a good road." 
 
 Towards the middle of the nineteenth century the 
 demand for good roads became secondary to the agita- 
 tion for railways. The first of the iron roads upon 
 which an engine ever ran in Upper Canada was the 
 Northern Railway, which was cut through the centre 
 of the county. The first sod was turned by the Earl 
 of Elgin on October 14, 1851, but the line was not 
 opened for traffic throughout its ninety-five miles of 
 length till New Year's Day, 1855. 
 
XII. PEEL 
 
 " The air is still— the night is dark — 
 No ripple breaks the dusky tide ; 
 From isle to isle the fisher's bark, 
 Like fairy meteor, seems to glide." 
 
 Susanna Moodie. 
 
 THE beginnings of the story of Peel County centre 
 about the River Credit, famed once as a fine 
 salmon river. That lively Welshwoman, Mrs. Simcoe, 
 wife of the first Governor of Canada, tells, in her recently 
 published Diary, how, on a June day in 1796, when 
 coasting along the north shore of Lake Ontario from 
 Burlington to York, she and her husband and little 
 daughter Sophia were caught in a fierce storm. A con- 
 tinued east wind had raised a great swell, and when, 
 after an interval of comparative calm, the wind " rose 
 violently from the west, coming against the late swell," 
 it " formed a terrifying sea." Mrs. Simcoe, who a year 
 or two earlier had recorded the wreck of a boat carrying 
 letters along this shore, adds : " My fears awoke also, 
 till we landed at three o'clock at the River Credit, twelve 
 miles from York. We were surprised to see how well 
 the canoe made her way through this heavy sea. She 
 rode like a duck on the waves. After dinner we walked 
 by the River Credit. Numbers of Indians resort here at 
 this season to fish for salmon, and the Governor, wishing 
 to go some way up it, which our boat was too large to 
 do, made signs to some Indians to take us into their 
 canoe, which they did ; there were two men in her, which, 
 with ourselves and Sophia, completely filled the canoe. 
 
 «3 
 
64 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 They carried us about three miles, when we came to 
 rapids and went on shore." 
 
 Nearly a quarter of a century later the village of 
 Streetsville was founded beside these rapids, which still 
 exist ; " but these," says Mr. J. Ross Robertson, the editor 
 of the Diary, " are greatly reduced in volume as compared 
 with what they were even sixty years ago." In early 
 days " venturesome lumbermen " used to " run their 
 timber rafts down them during the spring." Mrs, Sim- 
 coe continues : " The banks were high, one side covered 
 with pine, and a pretty piece of rocky country on the 
 other." Some time during the afternoon she made a 
 sketch of a bend in the river, winding between high bluffs 
 and shaded here and there by trees. 
 
 On returning to the boats, where they had neither 
 provisions nor money left, the stately Governor was 
 again forced to go through a pantomime to show the 
 Indians " that they would be recompensed for their 
 trouble if they came to York. About five, the weather 
 being calm," the voyagers adventured themselves again 
 on the water, and arrived at York at nine. 
 
 The first house built at Port Credit was often called 
 " Government House," because it was erected by the 
 Government as an hotel and residence for a ferryman to 
 take travellers across the Credit. It was kept at first by 
 Thomas Ingersoll. When he died, his widow, Sally, and 
 his son, Charles, applied for a licence of the tavern. 
 Charles, however, ultimately moved westward and founded 
 the town of Ingersoll, in Oxford County. His successor 
 at "Government House" was a man named George 
 Cutter, who once had to pay the large fine of ;£'io for 
 selling liquor to Indians. A few years later a ferryman 
 was no longer needed, for in April 1 820 a grant of £$0 
 was made to build bridges over the Humber, the Mimico, 
 and the Credit. 
 
PEEL 6s 
 
 For a time the ferryman and his family were, it is 
 believed, the only white settlers in the township of 
 Toronto, but in 1 806 what was afterwards called " the 
 Old Survey" was made. A strip of land one mile 
 wide on each side of the Credit was then reserved for 
 the Mississauga Indians, with special privileges as to fish- 
 ing. Without their consent no white man might fish 
 in the river. Subsequently, alarmed perhaps by the 
 advancing tide of civilisation, they sold their lands and 
 removed to the Saugeen River, in Bruce County. 
 
 The real settlement of Toronto Township began about 
 1807, upon the completion of the survey. For five years 
 new-comers continued to arrive. Then the progress, not 
 only of Peel County, but of the whole country, received 
 a severe check through the war of 1812. Soon after the 
 return of peace " the New Survey " of Toronto Township 
 was made, and in 1819 a colony of Irish folk, who had 
 intended to settle in the United States, but found con- 
 ditions not to their liking, arranged, through their agents, 
 Beatty and Graham, for a portion of the township to be 
 set apart for them. 
 
 About 1 83s the town of Port Credit was laid out by 
 the Government, and lots in it were put on sale. A few 
 miles inland and eastward of this once flourishing little 
 port lies the old village of Cooksville, which, in John 
 Lynch's sketch of the " History of Peel," is said to have 
 been ruined by the making of the railways to the north 
 and south. It had perhaps the first vinery and wine- 
 making establishment in the district. 
 
 The township of Chinguacousy — a word of Indian 
 origin meaning a pinery, and akin to the name of the 
 Chief after whom the Shingwauk Home for Indian Boys 
 at Sault Ste. Marie was called— was settled in part by 
 persons entitled to write after their names that title to 
 honour, " U. E. Loyalist." Brampton, now the county 
 
66 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 seat of Peel, was once a famous hunting-ground for deer 
 and partridges, and it is told that a colony of beavers and 
 its first human settlers arrived on the scene about the 
 same time ; but the former soon left their unfinished dam 
 and retreated further into the wilderness. It seems almost 
 a matter of course that Brampton's early buildings should 
 have included a store, a mill, an ashery, and a distillery ! 
 
 In Caledon Township, about ninety-five years ago, a 
 violent attack of " gold fever " seized the settlers in the 
 neighbourhood of what is now the little village of Cataract. 
 For some reason the idea went abroad that the Devil's 
 Pulpit and other hills along the Credit contained the 
 precious metal, and for months many a settler neglected 
 more profitable labours to give himself to prospecting. 
 One young Scot, Grant by name, failing to discover 
 gold, imagined he had found a mine of wealth in a spring 
 of brackish water near the Credit Falls. He determined 
 to make salt, but this venture ended, like his prospecting, 
 in loss and waste of time. 
 
 Though for many years part of its population had 
 agitated for municipal independence. Peel County was 
 united with York until 1865. In very early days Toronto 
 Township had, it is said, " more business with the 
 ' Court Book ' at York than any other outside township, 
 excepting perhaps Scarborough." This business largely 
 took the form of actions for " assault and battery," 
 applications for tavern licenses (which appear to have 
 been granted in abundance), and disputes about statute 
 labour. 
 
 As early as the autumn of 1793 Port Credit was 
 connected with York by Dundas Street, a highway ulti- 
 mately extended westward to Amherstburg. At a later 
 period the Hurontario road was cut through Peel County 
 from Port Credit to Orangeville. In pre-railway days 
 good roads were of even more vital importance than they 
 
PEEL 67 
 
 are now, but some of the pioneers seem to have found 
 road work so peculiarly distasteful that, rather than do 
 it, they put the luckless " path-master " in " bodily fear " 
 with threats and blows. In 181 2 Philip Cody, then 
 path-master, brought complaint against James M'Nabb 
 for assault and battery, but, as both in that and the 
 following year the defendant was found to be exercising 
 his pugnacious instincts in a useful and patriotic fashion 
 with the loyal forces on the Niagara frontier, the case 
 against him was dismissed. At that date, by the way, 
 the war took so many of the able-bodied men out of the 
 district that it was hard to find constables. 
 
 Then, as now, attempts to evade the import duties were 
 not infrequent, but on one occasion a Toronto Township 
 man had the good luck to reap the fruits of some other 
 person's adroit smuggling. One day he bought in York 
 a barrel of American salt. On opening it he discovered 
 within it " a keg of good tobacco," worth £s or more. 
 The York merchant endeavoured to recover its value, but 
 failed to do so. 
 
XIII. HALTON 
 
 " The memory of the Red Man, 
 How can it pass away, 
 While his names of music linger 
 
 On each mount and stream and bay?" 
 
 Anon. 
 
 SURELY Halton County has its share of the "wild 
 names" of which the poet sings, for, of its four town- 
 ships, two bear the Indian appellations of Esquesing and 
 Nassagaweya. The other two, set apart in 1806, a few 
 months after Nelson's death and victory off Cape Trafalgar, 
 were named in honour of the hero and " his last sea-fight." 
 Moreover, in Trafalgar Township, a little, old fishing 
 village calls to mind a foreign title bestowed on Nelson 
 by the Neapolitan Government before he was created an 
 English Peer. In 1799 he was made Duke of Bronte, 
 receiving with the title the market-town of Bronte, in the 
 Val di Demona, in Sicily, its territory and an income of 
 £i7SO a year. Thirty-five or forty years ago, the Cana- 
 dian Bronte was more important than now ; and from it 
 were shipped annually about 8o,ocx) bushels of grain. 
 
 As first constituted in 18 16, Halton was an immense 
 county, comprising several townships of the present 
 Wentworth County, and much of Wellington and Water- 
 loo. Now it is a very small one, and it has no large 
 town within its borders, for neither Oakville (a name 
 of note in connection with the culture of strawberries) 
 nor Milton, the county seat, named after the poet, has 
 as many as three thousand people. In 1824 Oakville 
 was represented by one log-cabin, and it was in 1 822 that 
 
HALTON 69 
 
 the first settlers came to Milton at a time when " roads 
 were rather imaginary than real." But perhaps better 
 than large towns are the many pleasant villages and 
 fruitful farms which make little Hal ton a prosperous 
 county, though, in common with other rural districts 
 of Ontario, its population has rather fallen off than 
 increased within the last half-century. Originally Halton 
 County had been included in York, and had formed part 
 of the Mississauga Indian Reserve. 
 
 A few years before his death the great Mohawk, Brant, 
 received a Royal grant of what is now Burlington, once 
 called Wellington Square. Just at the head of Burling- 
 ton Beach the Chief erected a large two-storey house, 
 which is still standing, though much altered. It was 
 built of red cedar brought from the Thousand Isles. He 
 furnished it in English style. There he spent his closing 
 years, and there, on November 24, 1807, he died at the 
 age of sixty-four. His body was taken for burial to the 
 Mohawk Reserve on the Grand River, and his wife, Cathe- 
 rine, who preferred the Indian mode of life, returned to 
 dwell amongst her own people. But in later years, after 
 fighting bravely in the war of 1812, her youngest son, 
 John, whom his mother (having the right to do so by the 
 custom of her people) had appointed Chief, came back 
 to the Brant House at Burlington with his youngest 
 sister, Elizabeth. 
 
 An English traveller. Hall, says that, except for wear- 
 ing moccasins, the young man dressed in European style, 
 whilst some other travellers (Buchanan, the British 
 Consul at New York, and his two daughters) having 
 an introduction to "a Miss Brant," were astonished at 
 first to discover that she was " an Indian Princess," and 
 then to find that her manners differed little from those of 
 any other well-bred lady. These people, arriving very 
 early in the morning and seeing no one about, entered 
 
70 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the house, and had time to note the " pier and chimney 
 glasses " in the parlour, " the fashionable chairs," and 
 the guitar, that suggested a fashionable accomplishment, 
 before their hostess, " a charming, noble-looking Indian 
 girl," came to greet them. She was clad all in black 
 silk, from her stockings to her tunic and short skirt, and 
 her head was covered with a silk net, which, however, 
 allowed her hair to fall in loose tresses on her shoulders. 
 She talked easily and composedly till a squaw, wearing 
 " a man's hat," began to make preparations for a sub- 
 stantial breakfast of tea and coffee, hot rolls, eggs, ham, 
 and broiled chickens. The guests were surprised to see 
 no Indian weapons in the hall, but the young Chief ex- 
 plained that his English guests, of whom he had had 
 many, had begged from him all of such things that he 
 had once possessed. In 1832 John Brant died of cholera, 
 but his sister, who had married a grandson of Sir William 
 Johnson and Molly Brant, named Kerr, lived with her 
 husband and children at the Brant House. Like her 
 father, she translated portions of the Scriptures into 
 Mohawk for the benefit of her own people. 
 
 Meanwhile white immigrants were coming into the 
 country, and in a book on "The Canadas," compiled 
 from papers furnished by John Gait, there is to be found 
 some interesting information as to the state of things in 
 Halton County about 1830, in letters written home by 
 an English day labourer. This man, Thomas Hunt, 
 had settled in Nelson, about nine miles from the lake, 
 and with his two brothers had bought two hundred acres 
 of land at 1 2s. 6d. an acre, to be paid in instalments. 
 
 " We are in a good country for poor folks," he wrote, 
 " we have plenty of good fire and grog." Then he gives 
 some of the current prices — wheat, 4s. per bushel ; Indian 
 corn, 2s. 6d. ; oats, 2s. ; potatoes, is. ■^d. ; rum, lod. per 
 quart ; good whisky, 7^12^. ; brandy, gd. ; tea, 3^. 6d. per 
 
H ALTON ft 
 
 lb. Beef and mutton were then 2d. per lb., fat geese 
 only IS. 6d. each, and good apples is. per bushel. "We 
 make our own sugar, our own soap and candles, and 
 bake good, light bread," he says. " We shall never want 
 for water or timber. We have several adjoining houses, 
 chiefly English people. We can raise up a good house 
 in a little while at little expense. ... It is called the 
 healthiest place in Upper Canada. . . . They that think 
 to work may do well. But," he adds, " if our fathers and 
 mothers were here, they should never be obliged to do a 
 hard day's work, for we would keep them without work 
 if they were not able." 
 
 Six months later Hunt wrote again to tell his friends 
 at home that the house was built, and that they hoped 
 " to get a plough of oxen this summer and a cow or 
 two." Part of the time in those first years he and his 
 brothers " had to work out sometimes," getting three 
 pounds the month and living with their masters. But 
 they looked forward to being able soon to work " all the 
 time on their own farm." And one hopes that the rosy 
 dreams of these simple folks were realised, and that they 
 did not fall victims to too cheap and too plentiful " grog " 
 in any form. 
 
 In 1837 William Lyon Mackenzie had some very try- 
 ing experiences in Halton County. About three o'clock 
 in the afternoon of the day after the fight at Mont- 
 gomery's Tavern, the rebel leader, with a lad of about 
 nineteen, Allan Wilcox, as his sole companion, reached 
 Streetsville, on the Credit, and went to ask for some 
 bread and cheese at the house of a miller bearing the 
 auspicious name of Comfort. The good wife pressed the 
 fugitives to stay for dinner, and then the miller sent his 
 man with a wagon to help them on their way westward. 
 Mackenzie had heard at the mills that parties of men 
 were out searching for them and he saw "bills duly 
 
72 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 posted" offering the reward of a thousand pounds for 
 his apprehension, but, though it was still broad daylight 
 when they left Comfort's house, no one tried to stop them. 
 The roads were rough and frozen, and it was hard 
 travelling. At length they discovered that they were 
 being hotly pursued by mounted men, and, hearing when 
 they approached the Sixteen Mile Creek (at the mouth 
 of which is Oakville), that a party was guarding the 
 bridge, they jumped from the wagon. To put their 
 pursuers on the wrong track Mackenzie asked a labourer 
 the way to Esquesing, then turned with his companion 
 into a patch of woods, near the deep ravine, at the 
 bottom of which runs the creek, then swollen with heavy 
 rains. Regarding Trafalgar as " a hotbed of Orangeism," 
 and a district where he could "hope for no friendship 
 or favour," Mackenzie felt that his one chance of escape 
 was to cross the stream and press on westward. Wilcox 
 insisted on sharing his fate, so stripping and holding 
 their clothes in bundles above their heads, they plunged 
 up to their necks into the turbid stream, thick with cakes 
 of ice, which beat and buffeted against them. It was 
 a bitter December night, and the icy water chilled them 
 through and through, so that when they gained the other 
 side the frozen bank seemed almost warm to their feet. 
 
 An hour and a half later they reached a house, where 
 they were fed and warmed and given a place to rest 
 in, while the sons and daughters of the Nelson farmer 
 kept a silent watch outside in the cold. But the fugitives 
 dared not rest long, for they had to make the most of 
 the hours of darkness. About eleven o'clock they crossed 
 Dundas Street, and at midnight passed over what they 
 supposed was the Twelve Mile Creek (Bronte's little 
 river) on the trunk of a fallen tree. About four in 
 the wintry morning they reached the house of another 
 friendly farmer at Wellington Square, and, hearing that 
 
HALTON 73 
 
 M'Nab's men were scouring the country in all directions, 
 Mackenzie parted from his young friend and hid in a 
 pea-stack, from which, like Charles II in his oak tree, 
 he had the pleasure of watching the Sheriff and his 
 men searching for him. The rest of his adventures 
 (and they were many) do not belong to the story of 
 Halton County. Mackenzie safely reached the United 
 States, and one cannot help thinking (with him) that 
 it is something to be proud of that no Canadian was base 
 enough to try to sell him for Head's thousand pounds. 
 
XIV. SIMCOE 
 
 " Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. 
 Make ye sure to each his ovifn 
 That he reap where he hath sown ; 
 By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord ! " 
 
 RuDYARD Kipling. 
 
 LARGE as Simcoe County now is, it once contained 
 J half as many more townships than it does at 
 present, and was also for a time the mother county of 
 the districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound, being re- 
 sponsible for the maintenance of order and the dis- 
 pensing of justice throughout that vast wild region. A 
 quarter of a century ago Simcoe was relieved of this 
 burden, but still contains sixteen townships. The 
 names of some of these are derived from Spanish, 
 African, Welsh, and Irish sources, whilst others com- 
 memorate (if tradition speaks truly) two Indian beauties, 
 a great chief and (in Tiny, Tay, and Floss) the pampered 
 lapdogs of a Governor's lady. 
 
 The name of the county itself is borrowed from that 
 bestowed on the lovely lake, forming much of its eastern 
 boundary, by the energetic first Governor of Upper 
 Canada, in honour of his father. Captain John Simcoe, 
 who was killed during Wolfe's siege of Quebec. 
 
 The story of Simcoe County has been written at length, 
 and I must gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to the 
 labours of its historian, Mr. A. F. Hunter. He devotes 
 many interesting pages to accounts of the Indian peoples 
 who occupied the district before the period of immigration 
 from Europe, and reminds us that it was the scene of 
 
SIMCOE 75 
 
 those weird Feasts of the Dead when the Hurons in- 
 terred in one huge common grave the remains of all 
 their kindred who had died within ten or twelve years. 
 
 In 1615 Champlain made his way up the Ottawa, 
 Lake Nipissing, and French River to the Georgian Bay. 
 Then, attended by a friendly band of Indians, he explored 
 the eastern coast of the bay, passing the spot where 
 Parry Sound now stands, and turning inland from the 
 site of Penetanguishene to the Huron town of Otouacha, 
 whither the Recollet missionary, Le Caron, had come 
 before him. Champlain had promised the Huron chiefs 
 who had visited the settlements on the St. Lawrence his 
 help against the Iroquois ; and his arrival was the signal 
 for the mustering of a great war party, at the head of 
 which he travelled through the heart of our Province. 
 
 The warriors crossed Lake Simcoe, and paddling on by 
 lake and stream came down the Trent to its mouth, where 
 Champlain was not much more than two hundred miles 
 from his starting-point at Montreal. But this was his 
 first sight of Lake Ontario, over which he passed with his 
 army of painted braves into the Iroquois country. Un- 
 fortunately his fire-breathing arquebus seemed to have 
 lost its magic, and, lamed by a severe wound, he had to 
 make much of the long return journey cramped up in a 
 basket on the back of a stalwart Indian. Obliged to 
 spend the winter in the Huron country, he continued his 
 explorations, and amongst other journeys made one 
 through the territory now forming the counties of Bruce 
 and Grey. 
 
 The next great chapter in the history of the county 
 is the tragic story which has been told with so much 
 brilliancy and pathos by Francis Parkman, of the found- 
 ing and destruction of the Jesuit missions to the Hurons. 
 The chief of the mission towns, in those brief days of 
 sunshine when the courage and patience of the " Black- 
 
76 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 robes " had triumphed over the distrust and stupidity and 
 the superstition of their dusky flocks, was Ste. Marie, 
 situated on the Wye, a little east of Midland in Simcoe 
 County. With energy still to spare for other labours 
 the valiant Brebeuf once penetrated into the country of 
 the ferocious Neutral Nation in the Niagara Peninsula, 
 but after months of deadly peril was forced to retreat. 
 Thus narrowly he escaped the crown of martyrdom, only 
 to win it a few years later at the hands of the Iroquois, 
 who in one terrible year swept the Christian villages out 
 of existence and broke forever the proud spirit of the 
 Huron warriors. In later years another tribe entered 
 into their ancient hunting-ground, and when the white 
 men desired to possess the land they had to purchase it 
 from the Chiefs of the Ojibways. 
 
 The fur-traders, of course, followed the Indians to the 
 wilderness, and early records afford glimpses of many 
 a picturesque figure doing business with the red men at 
 strategical points on the great inland waters. Near 
 Matchedash Bay there settled an English trader. Cowan, 
 who, as a captive in boyhood, had learned the Indian 
 speech and ways, and relics of his dwelling-place are 
 still to be seen on the shore. Another trader whose 
 story reads like a romance established himself at the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century at the "Narrows" 
 of Lake Simcoe, where Orillia now stands. This was 
 the French exile of the Reign of Terror, Quetton St. 
 George, who, having landed in England on St. George's 
 Day, had "in gratitude added the saint's name to his 
 own." The Indians, with whom he was popular, called 
 him "White Hat." He was a successful trader, and 
 ultimately returned — a wealthy man — to his native land. 
 
 In early years, owing to its position with regard to the 
 lakes, the great route to the west lay through Simcoe 
 County. In 1813 a gallant force of 250 men, consisting 
 
SIMCOE 77 
 
 chiefly of Glengarry Light Infantry, passed through to 
 reinforce Michillimackinac— and many a civilian travelled 
 the same road. Amongst these was that " heroic sailor- 
 soul," Sir John Franklin, who, twenty years before his 
 last disastrous voyage, set out from Penetanguishene to 
 explore the Arctic coasts of Canada. 
 
 The first surveys were made in Simcoe County, a little 
 before the War of 1812, but some of the work was done 
 carelessly, giving rise in consequence to many disputes 
 over boundaries. Many towns were laid out on paper, 
 but only two or three actually came into being, and for 
 years these grew very slowly. In the pioneer period 
 free grants were given to U. E. Loyalists and their 
 descendants, to the militia-men of 1812, and to retired 
 British officers, but other settlers had to obtain their 
 lands by purchase, and the " land-grabbers " and specu- 
 lators did their utmost to escape any share in the cost 
 and labour of opening up the country. Patents for 
 lands were sometimes issued by those in power in re- 
 turn for votes. In one case it is said that the number 
 of patents issued before an election exceeded the whole 
 number of settlers in the township. In fact, election 
 scandals were as common then as now. 
 
 The first election for Simcoe County (or rather district) 
 was held at Holland Landing, then in Simcoe, and the 
 only polling place for the huge constituency. The elec- 
 tion lasted six days, and each candidate kept open house 
 at a tavern for his supporters. On the Monday a settler, 
 an ex-soldier, established himself at the inn where the 
 adherents of Robinson, the " Family Compact " candi- 
 date, refreshed themselves. There he remained, keeping 
 high revelry till Saturday, when he went to the poll, 
 attended by a mob of his late boon companions, and 
 to their intense disgust recorded his vote for " Cawthra." 
 He was, indeed, in danger of rough handling, but an 
 
78 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 audacious excuse saved him. " Gintlemen," he shouted, 
 "I sarved under Wellington in the Peninsoolar, an' 
 moi Giniral larnte me to faste on moie innimies. Now," 
 he added, with an oath, " haven't oi done it ? " 
 
 In a new country almost every other problem seems 
 to hang on that of transportation, and for long years the 
 history of Simcoe County is the history of the efforts 
 of the people to get roads cut, bridges built, steam-boats 
 put upon the lakes, railways driven through the country, 
 and now (in this era of bicycles and automobiles) the 
 old question of usable roads is again to the fore. Sim- 
 coe's first road was the " Nine-mile Portage," between 
 Kempenfeldt Bay and Willow Creek, a tributary of the 
 Nottawasaga. This was in one place so steep that when, 
 in 1813, cannon had to be taken over it, it was necessary 
 to put ropes round the trees at the wayside to prevent 
 the loads going too fast. Later, in some districts, 
 " planked roads " were tried, proving a great boon at first, 
 but soon wearing out. A feature of the times was the 
 enormous number of taverns, the more travelled roads 
 having one to every mile or so. Innkeepers and carters 
 opposed the building of railways "tooth and nail," but 
 in vain. 
 
 Simcoe County, which was destined to have " a woeful 
 experience" of the costliness of the early railways, can 
 at least claim the honour of having, in the Northern 
 Railway, the first hne "of any extent completed in 
 Ontario.^' The engine which pulled the first train out 
 of Toronto on a bright May morning in 1853 was the 
 first ever built in Canada. It was appropriately named 
 "the Toronto " — an earlier engine, " the Lady Elgin," used 
 in construction work, having been built in New Jersey. 
 
 A subject nearly related to roads and railways is that 
 of the mails, which before 1837 were carried chiefly by 
 men on foot or horseback. In those days it cost four- 
 pence-halfpenny to send a letter from Toronto to Barrie, 
 
SIMOOE 79 
 
 and to more distant places in proportion. This, of course, 
 kept down the number of letters. In 1832 the postmaster 
 of Orillia found plenty of space for the mail of the whole 
 countryside in a birch-bark basket, and during "the 
 fifties " the good-natured postmaster of Innisfil, by way 
 of saving the settlers many a long walk, used when 
 going to church on a Sunday to " crowd " his tall " plug 
 hat " full of letters. 
 
 Speaking of churches, the first Protestant place of 
 worship appears to have been a log-cabin built about 
 1823 in the " Scotch Settlement " (of refugees from Lord 
 Selkirk's ill-fated Red River Colony) in West Gwillim- 
 bury. An interesting old church of Simcoe's pioneer 
 days still stands at Shanty Bay, a neighbourhood which 
 was once largely settled by half-pay officers. The edifice 
 is built of mud-bricks, and has been kept in excellent 
 repair. Within is a memorial tablet to Lucius O'Brien, 
 one of Canada's earliest notable artists, and not far 
 distant is the large old log-house built by his father. 
 
 The historian of Simcoe County dates events before 
 and after the Rebellion of 1837. At that time there was 
 some disaffection, especially in the southern parts of the 
 county, but the population, on the whole, was eagerly 
 loyal. The men sprang to arms, leaving only women 
 and children in the settlements. It is told that the day 
 after the fight at Montgomery's Tavern six hundred men 
 of Simcoe, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Dew- 
 son, came marching down Yonge Street, headed by 
 Highland pipers playing the national pibroch. With this 
 party were brought in sixty prisoners, tied to a long pole. 
 
 Many of these were released on parole, but Samuel 
 Lount, who had formerly represented Simcoe County 
 in the Assembly, was captured after attempting to escape 
 in an open boat across Lake Erie, and, in spite of many 
 petitions to Governor Arthur for mercy upon him, was 
 executed in the following April. 
 
XV. DUFFERIN 
 
 ' ' He's a king upon a throne 
 Who has acres of his own ! " 
 
 Alexander M'Lachlan. 
 
 THIS little county, which from the first has always 
 been essentially a fanning district, long laboured 
 under the disadvantage of being somewhat swampy. 
 This seems strange, when it is remembered that it is one 
 of the highest parts of old Ontario, and is, in fact, the 
 watershed between the four lakes — Huron, Simcoe, 
 Erie, and Ontario. The altitude of Orangeville, which 
 is only forty-nine miles from Toronto, is 139S feet above 
 sea-level, or iioo feet above the spot occupied by the 
 City Hall of Toronto. But this " roof of Ontario," as it 
 has been called, is a very flat and in places a depressed 
 roof, so that, fifty years ago, it was described as a dreary 
 level of cedar and tamarack swamps, out of which the 
 head-waters of the numerous streams that take their rise 
 in the county "oozed" as little rivulets. But though, 
 during the last few decades, Duflferin, like some larger 
 counties, has lost population to the cities and to the 
 West, its swamps are being gradually reclaimed, and 
 now, especially during the last year or two since the 
 county has had the benefit of a District Representative 
 of the Department of Agriculture, the work of drainage 
 has been going forward with great rapidity. A citizen of 
 Orangeville owns a modern ditching machine, and at the 
 little village of Laurel, which is only a flag-station on the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway, no less than four cart-loads 
 
DUFFBRIN 8 1 
 
 of tiles were delivered during one season, whilst one 
 Dufferin County farmer put in "well over five miles of 
 drains himself." 
 
 The settlement of the county began in the twenties of 
 last century, but for years the population Was very thinly 
 scattered. As late as 184 1 Amaranth and Melancthon 
 Townships together had only 105 inhabitants, but by 1851 
 this number had multiplied by five, whilst the less 
 swampy township of Mono had over 1000 inhabitants. 
 
 Dufferin County was, of course, named after the 
 popular nobleman who was Governor General of the 
 Dominion from 1872 to 1878, but the origin of its some- 
 what odd township names is involved in an obscurity 
 which even Mr. Gardiner's painstaking industry can 
 scarcely penetrate. Mulmur and Garafraxa are sup- 
 posed to have been derived from Indian names — Mono is 
 Spanish for "monkey," but why it was applied to the 
 township is not clear — and Amaranth may have been 
 named after a common weed or the " imaginary unfading 
 flower" of the poets. As to Melancthon and Luther, 
 there is a local tradition that a Roman Catholic surveyor, 
 disgusted with the swamps, determined to name them 
 after " the meanest man he had ever heard of ! " But as 
 the name of the gentle Philip Melancthon was his German 
 patronymic, Schwarzerd (meaning "black earth") done into 
 Greek, is there not a possibility that the township name 
 merely refers to the colour of the swampy soil, and that 
 the giver of the name Melancthon may have added that of 
 his great associate, Luther, as an afterthought ? 
 
 There is a pitiful pioneer tragedy connected with Mel- 
 ancthon and the scattered settlement of Homing's Mills. 
 One day a son of Horning and three other children, 
 named Van Meer, were sent to fetch the cows for milking, 
 and from that hour were never seen again. Long there 
 lingered a notion that they had been carried off by 
 
82 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Indians, and twenty years later a young man turned up, 
 claiming to be the lost Horning boy. But he gave such 
 a contradictory account of himself that his story was 
 not believed, and the mystery of the children's fate was 
 never cleared up. There were rumours in the pioneer 
 days of a silver mine, known only to a few white men 
 and Indians, on a kind of island of rock in Melancthon 
 swamp, but no one has ever been the richer for its 
 mythical treasures. 
 
 Sixty years ago large quantities of maple sugar used 
 to be made in Garafraxa and other parts of the county, 
 and to the young folk at least sugar-making, though 
 there was plenty of hard work connected with it, seemed 
 one of the pleasantest tasks of the year. It belonged to 
 the bright weather of early spring, when, though the 
 snow still lay deep in the woods and the nights were 
 sharp and frosty, the sun's power was making itself 
 felt in the lengthening days. Before the sap began to 
 run, the careful pioneer made ready plenty of troughs 
 and buckets, casks and kettles, for the " tapping " of 
 his trees, often two or three hundred in number. The 
 first step of the process was to make an auger-hole 
 through the bark, in which to fix a "spile" or spout 
 of metal or wood to carry the sap into the receptacles 
 below. The sap was collected once or twice a day, and 
 was boiled in great kettles hung from a pole held in 
 crotched sticks over a fire in the open air. This fire 
 was often built along the great trunk of some fallen tree. 
 If possible each day's " run " of sap was finished the 
 same night. When the syrup was sufficiently well 
 boiled, the kettles were taken from the fire, and their 
 contents were stirred till they turned to sugar, which 
 was set in moulds to harden. "On these occasions," 
 writes one who had often taken part in such frolics, 
 " the fun was free and boisterous," and when the 
 
DUFFERIN 83 
 
 youngsters at last made their way homewards, they 
 were usually very hilarious and sticky. 
 
 Mr. C. R. M'Keown, who since 1907 has been the 
 representative of the county in the Provincial Legis- 
 lature, and has been kind enough to give me some notes 
 concerning its history, says that " Dufferin was formed 
 in 1879, by taking Orangeville, East Garafraxa, East 
 Luther, and Amaranth from the county of Wellington, 
 Mono and Mulmur from Simcoe, and Shelburne and 
 Melancthon from the county of Grey. The Act forming 
 the county was so shaped that Orangeville, upon the 
 passing of the Act, became at once the county town. 
 This caused great rivalry between this town and the 
 village of Shelburne, which, though small as compared 
 with Orangeville, was situated in the very centre of 
 the new county. The Separation Act, however, carried, 
 and Orangeville became the county town." 
 
 With the exception of one instance, Dufferin has 
 always been represented in the Dominion and Provincial 
 Legislatures by Conservatives. It first became entitled 
 to representation as a separate county in the Dominion 
 HcSuse in 1905, and Dr. Barr of Shelburne was its first 
 member in the House of Commons. 
 
 The county has been the scene of many triumphs in 
 the cause of temperance, and, except in the village of 
 Grand Valley, there are no licensed hotels within its 
 borders. In some other respects Dufferin is a progressive 
 county. It has many rural telephones and a number 
 of rural mail delivery routes. In connection with its 
 high schools, short courses have been given in judging 
 stock and seed, and a few months ago six rural schools 
 united to hold a school fair at Laurel, the exhibits coming, 
 not from school gardens, but from the home-farms of 
 the pupils. 
 
 The couplet at the head of this sketch was written 
 
84 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 by a Scotsman, who in more senses than one may be 
 counted a " pioneer " Canadian poet. Like Kingsley's 
 Alton Locke, M'Lachlan was both "tailor and poet," 
 having learnt his trade in Scotland, before coming out 
 to try, somewhat unsuccessfully, to make a success of 
 bush-farming. Like Kingsley's hero too his ideals were 
 democratic. His early volumes of verse were printed 
 in Toronto and published, not very effectively, by himself. 
 But he made many good friends in his life. D'Arcy 
 M'Gee in 1862 obtained for him the appointment of 
 Government Emigration agent in Scotland, and twice his 
 admirers, of whom there were many, subscribed to " testi- 
 monials " in the form of sums of money for his benefit. 
 When nearly sixty, he settled with some members of 
 his large family on a farm in Amaranth Township ; and 
 in the last year of his chequered life he bought " a sub- 
 stantial brick house in Elizabeth Street, Orangeville." 
 There he died suddenly on March 20, 1896, and his 
 mortal remains were laid to rest in the pleasant Green- 
 wood Cemetery, two miles west of the town. 
 
 In the early nineties, a barrister and prominent citizen 
 of Orangeville, Elgin Myers, who was created Queen's 
 Counsel in 1890 and County crown attorney of DufFerin 
 in the following year, startled the community by his 
 written and spoken recommendations of annexation to 
 the United States. When it was objected that " public 
 advocacy of the transfer of Canada and its people to 
 a foreign nation" was "inconsistent with the holding 
 of a public office in connection with the administration 
 of justice," he insisted on his right of free speech and 
 declined to resign. Finally, after much correspondence, 
 he was dismissed from his office by Hon. Oliver Mowat's 
 Government in 1892. 
 
XVI. LINCOLN 
 
 " Where once the pagan rite was seen, 
 Or French or Indian warlike bands, 
 Where fratricidal strife had been. 
 Two Christian nations now clasp hands." 
 
 Janet Carnochan. 
 
 WE have all heard the oft-repeated sneer that 
 " Canada has no history," but the story of this 
 one county, if it could be told at all adequately, would 
 effectually disprove the assertion. The trouble in writ- 
 ing of Lincoln is not paucity of historic material, but 
 difficulty of selection from an embarrassment of riches. 
 From the days of La Salle onward, the district about 
 Niagara has supplied many a vivid page to the history 
 of Canada. Like Quebec in Lower Canada, it is in our 
 upper Province the chosen home of romance. Now 
 cultured and fruitful and peaceful as a very garden, 
 the peninsula, three parts surrounded by the mighty 
 lakes and the majestic river, has formed a background 
 for the deeds of heroes and for the intricate play of the 
 most varied human activities. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War that grim Loyalist, 
 Butler, and the noted Mohawk, Joseph Brant, wintered 
 several times at Niagara, and when peace was made 
 Butler's disbanded " Rangers " settled along lake shores 
 and river bank, to begin a bloodless warfare on the great 
 trees which seemed to them little better than "cum- 
 berers of the ground." In the struggle to subdue the 
 earth and to make homes in the wilderness for their 
 large families of children (sometimes numbering twelve, 
 
 85 
 
86 THE COUNTIES OF ONTAEIO 
 
 sixteen, and even twenty lads and lasses), not only the 
 military pioneers but their stout-hearted wives proved 
 their mettle. Slowly they triumphed over their diffi- 
 culties, but the records of the old churches hint that 
 the hardships and privations and perhaps ignorances 
 of the time were too much for many a tender little 
 blossom of humanity, and, more even than in our own 
 day, babies were born but to die in a few weeks or 
 months. Those hardy enough to struggle through the 
 first year or two often grew up strong and sturdy, 
 able (both men and women) to bear burdens and to 
 toil for hours, which would make their descendants think 
 themselves greatly ill-used. 
 
 At first, the new-comers lived under something like 
 martial law, but the Loyalists, notwithstanding traditions 
 to the contrary, were as much in love with liberty as 
 their brethren who had driven them from their old homes, 
 and they appealed — -not in vain — for British law. 
 
 It was a great day in little Niagara (or Newark), the 
 chief settlement of Lincoln (then a much more extensive 
 county than to-day), when Governor Simcoe opened 
 there the first Parliament of Upper Canada. It is some- 
 times said that the ceremony took place under a tree, but 
 the fact is that the importance of the occasion was 
 marked by all possible pomp and ceremony. That first 
 meeting of the Legislature of our Province took place 
 in the Indian Council House, on a hill above the river. 
 The Governor, stately and gorgeous in his military 
 uniform, was attended by soldiers from Fort Niagara 
 as a guard of honour, and right royally he played his 
 part that day as the representative of the Sovereign, while 
 the guns from the fort and the shipping in the river 
 boomed out their sonorous applause. 
 
 For five successive years (until the giving up of Fort 
 Niagara, on the opposite side of the river to the 
 
LINCOLN 87 
 
 Americans, threatened the security of the town) Parlia- 
 ment met at Newark ; but long after it ceased to be 
 capital its geographical position, and perhaps the 
 character of its early settlers, ensured the continuance 
 of its eager, stirring life. Many an old-time visitor to 
 Canada has a good word to say for the busy Httle 
 frontier town and its "very agreeable" society, which 
 was indeed composed to a remarkable degree of people 
 of a fine type, who had energy to spare for the things 
 of the mind and the spirit, despite the pressure of the 
 material needs of a pioneer community. 
 
 The records of the Anglican Church of St. Mark and 
 the Presbyterian Church of St. Andrew, beginning 
 respectively in 1792 and 1794, have been lovingly studied 
 and interpreted by Miss Janet Carnochan, whose various 
 papers on Niagara give many a glimpse into those old 
 -days. During the War of 1 812 St. Mark's was used as 
 a hospital by the British and as a barracks Jby the 
 Americans. In the churchyard are still to be seen 
 traces of rifle-pits, and a large tombstone, hacked and 
 broken, shows evidence of having been used by the 
 soldiery as "a butcher's block." As for the church, 
 only its solid stone walls escaped destruction when the 
 town was set on fire by the Americans in 1813 on that 
 
 " day of fear and dread 
 When winter snow robed dale and down, 
 And mothers with their children fled 
 In terror from the burning town." 
 
 Soon after the war it was restored, and " the pictur- 
 esque grey-stone church, with its projecting buttresses and 
 square tower peeping through the branches of magnificent 
 old trees," still stands. The Presbyterian church, though 
 built in 179s of extraordinarily solid timbers, was totally 
 destroyed in the conflagration, and the later St. Andrew's, 
 now guarded " by a belt of solemn pines," was not begun 
 
88 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 for seventeen years after the war. Another early church 
 of the county which did duty as a hospital when the 
 country was invaded was that at Twelve-mile Creek, 
 near St. Catherine's, now the county seat. 
 
 There were not a few book-loving folk about Niagara 
 in its early days, and the little town has to its credit not 
 only the publishing of the first newspaper in the Province, 
 in 1793, and the formation of the first agricultural society, 
 but also the foundation of the first public library. The 
 fact had been long forgotten, when an old record fell into 
 Miss Carnochan's hands, which told the whole story from 
 its foundation in 1800 to its dissolution nearly twenty 
 years later, after having been sadly " wasted " in the time 
 of the American occupation. It was supported by sub- 
 scriptions, and during the course of its existence nearly 
 a thousand volumes were bought, at a cost of over five 
 hundred pounds. It was strong in works on history and 
 agriculture and other grave subjects, but was more 
 sparsely supplied with works of fiction and poetry. In 
 those days books were an expensive luxury, but the 
 trustees of the library did not scruple to pay six guineas 
 for a Life of Pitt, or, which is more surprising, half as 
 much for Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs. After this 
 library was scattered the congregation of St. Andrew's 
 established one which ultimately numbered over nine 
 hundred volumes ; and there is still in existence a most 
 valuable collection of books sent out from England to 
 the first clergyman of St. Mark's and presented to the 
 church by his heirs. Fortunately, when Niagara was 
 burned in 181 3, these books were at a log-house, called 
 Lake Lodge, about three miles out of the town. 
 
 But it was not only the taste for books that gave 
 savour to life at Niagara. The little group of people 
 gathered in the wilderness had come from the ends of the 
 earth, and there was a constant change in the personnel 
 
LINCOLN 89 
 
 of society in all ranks. There was much coming and 
 going of soldiers and officers, and, for a time, of the 
 Government officials. Governor Simcoe, with his viva- 
 cious Welsh wife, long made it his headquarters, and 
 that alone brought many visitors and settlers to Niagara. 
 A misty figure in the traditionary lore of old Niagara was 
 " the old French Count " ; but investigation has proved 
 him to have been a very real, very human personage, 
 who lived through as many misfortunes and adventures 
 as any hero of romance. The Count de Puisaye was 
 conspicuous amongst the crowd of noblemen to whom 
 the French Revolution brought disaster, and his name 
 appears in every history of that dread time, " The Reign 
 of Terror." At first he had taken the popular side, but 
 alarmed at the excesses of its leaders had set himself in 
 1792 to raise an army to aid the king. A price was set 
 on his head, and he was obliged to flee. With the help 
 of the English Government, a rising in Brittany was 
 organised, and De Puisaye was one of the leaders. The 
 attempt ended in disaster, and De Puisaye spent months 
 in concealment in a cavern in the woods of Brittany. 
 Failing to raise another force, he planned to lead a 
 military colony of French Royalists to Canada, and 
 received a promise of lands and assistance from the 
 British Government. Only forty Royalists joined him, 
 and this scheme too was a failure, though for a time the 
 French Countess de Beaupoil dazzled society at York 
 with her jewels, while De Puisaye and other noble 
 gentlemen shed lustre on the social gatherings at Niagara 
 and elsewhere. Clever, ambitious, graceful in manner 
 and person, strangely dogged by misfortune, the gallant 
 Count seemed formed to be a hero of romance ; but, alas 
 for him, it was a romance with a dismal ending, for after 
 a few years in Canada, he returned to England to drag 
 out his last years in exile and loneliness. 
 
90 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Of all the notable people who at one time or other have 
 had a connection with Lincoln County, perhaps, in the 
 eyes of Canadians, the imposing figure of Isaac Brock 
 looms largest. Born at St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, " the 
 hero of Upper Canada " was the eighth son of a family 
 of fourteen children. Even as a boy he was very tall, 
 strong, and athletic. At fifteen he obtained a commis- 
 sion in the army, and before he was twenty-nine had 
 attained the rank of Lieutenant-colonel. He saw active 
 service on the continent of Europe during Napoleon's 
 wars, but it was in our own land that he gained his 
 lasting fame. It was not a little thing that in those days 
 of terrible severity, when three subordinate officers could 
 order a man to receive " 999 lashes with a ' cat ' steeped 
 in brine," that Brock won the love of his men. Yet he 
 could be stern enough upon occasion. 
 
 Soon after his arrival in Canada, he visited Niagara 
 under strange circumstances. He was at York when he 
 heard that six deserters had gone off with a Government 
 bateau across the lake, and at midnight he started in 
 pursuit in an open boat with a crew of twelve men. " It 
 was a hard pull of over thirty miles," but Brock took 
 his turn at the oar, and the deserters were duly 
 captured. 
 
 A few months later news came that a plot was on foot 
 at Fort George to murder the commanding officer, Sheaffe ; 
 and again, without an hour's delay. Brock crossed the 
 lake, walked quietly into the barrack square, found some 
 of the suspected men on guard, and had them handcuffed 
 and marched off to the cells before they could take 
 breath. Four of the mutineers and three deserters were 
 shot at Quebec, and Brock, assembhng the garrison at 
 Fort George, read the account of the execution, but he 
 added, in a voice that trembled, " Since I have had the 
 honour to wear the British uniform I have never felt 
 
LINCOLN 91 
 
 grief like this " ; and when he took command at Fort 
 George there were no more desertions. 
 
 Brock was a good friend and a true-hearted brother 
 (as there are many incidents to show), as well as a great 
 soldier. At first he found life at Niagara somewhat dull, 
 and "would travel the worst road in the country — fit only 
 for an Indian mail-carrier — to mix in the society of 
 York." But he did his share to enliven the little town, 
 giving annually a ball, which was one of the events of 
 the season. Perhaps one of the attractions that drew 
 him to York was the fact that " a log mansion " on the 
 outskirts of that little capital was the home of a young 
 lady named Sophia Shaw, to whom he became engaged. 
 Often, however, she used to go to visit a sister who lived 
 near Niagara. 
 
 Mr. Nursey, in his vigorous and picturesque Story oj 
 Isaac Brock, says that a vast quantity of freight was sent 
 up from Kingston to Queenston, " the remote North-west 
 looking to Niagara for food and clothing — the return 
 cargoes being furs and grain." The goods were carried 
 in farmers' wagons round the Falls, "and the entire 
 length of the portage from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie 
 was practically a street," full of bustle and activity. " A 
 quite pretentious wharf lined the river, and from this on 
 any summer afternoon a string of soldiers and idle citizens 
 might be seen — casting hook and troll for bass, trout, 
 pickerel and herring, with which the river swarmed." 
 Once Brock himself helped "to haul up a seine-net in 
 which were 1008 white-fish of an average weight of two 
 pounds, 6000 being netted in one day." 
 
 But all the time while Brock was in Canada the storm- 
 clouds of the coming war were slowly gathering. For 
 years he was trying to prepare for the tempest, and be- 
 fore it broke he was appointed head both of the forces 
 and the civil government in Upper Canada. When war 
 
92 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 was declared, more men than he could clothe and arm 
 rallied to his standard, but in all Canada there were 
 less than 1 500 regularly trained soldiers, and the whole 
 population of the two Provinces could have been packed 
 into a city of the size of present-day Toronto, whilst the 
 United States had 8,000,000 people. Moreover, Brock, 
 subject to the orders of his far less able superior officer. 
 Sir George Prevost, had not a free hand ; but, in spite of 
 all drawbacks, his success at Detroit and his personality 
 inspired the hard-pressed Canadians with such confidence 
 that he fairly earned the title, with which he was greeted 
 everywhere on his return from the west, of " the saviour 
 of Upper Canada." By an odd coincidence the bells in 
 England clanged out upon his birthday for the capture of 
 Detroit, and a knighthood was bestowed upon Brock, but 
 he never knew it, for before the news reached Canada he 
 had gone up to iight and fall on Queenston Heights. 
 
 I have no space — nor is there need — to tell again 
 the story of that grim battle for the possession of the 
 Heights ; nor of the first burial of Brock and his gallant 
 aide, Macdonnell, in a grave within a bastion of Fort 
 George, soon to be desecrated by the footsteps of the 
 invaders ; nor of the building and destruction (in 1 840) 
 of the first monument, and of the gathering in that year 
 of a mighty concourse of thousands to testify to their 
 admiration for the dead hero and their love of British 
 institutions ; nor of the erection of the tall shaft beneath 
 which Brock's remains, three times disturbed, have now 
 rested in peace for all but sixty years. 
 
 We must pass on to speak of a building, erected in 
 old Niagara soon after the war, to which cling as many 
 historic associations as to the remaining vestiges of Fort 
 George and to old St. Mark's. I refer to Niagara's 
 second jail and court house, once counted the hand- 
 somest building in Upper Canada, and transformed in 
 
LINCOLN 93 
 
 1 866 from a grim abode of misery and despair to a house 
 of hope, for in that year it was bought by Miss Rye 
 to shelter the little English waifs to whom she was giving 
 a new chance in Canada ; and the court-room, which 
 had witnessed many exciting trials, became a dormitory. 
 
 Here, on an August day in 1819, assembled a huge 
 crowd to witness the trial of Robert Gourlay, self- 
 elected champion of liberty and good government, whom 
 some of the officials were determined to crush. At the 
 time they seemed to triumph, not only driving Gourlay 
 into banishment, but daring also to condemn the editor 
 of The Niagara Spectator, in which had been printed 
 a letter of Gourlay's, to a punishment of unheard-of 
 severity. This included a fine of fifty pounds, an hour 
 in the pillory, eighteen months' imprisonment, and the 
 obligation, under peril of a debtor's prison, to give for 
 seven years a security of a thousand pounds. This sort 
 of thing, however, only provoked the advocates of justice 
 to go to greater lengths. 
 
 In 1824 William Lyon Mackenzie began at Queenston 
 to edit The Colonial Advocate, dragging abuses into the 
 light and agitating for reform so unceasingly and fer- 
 vently that he worked up himself and his followers into 
 such a state that rebellion seemed the only hope of 
 remedy. But there was no Canadian revolution, and on 
 another August day, in 1838, the court house was again 
 packed, while the judge, to the horror of many present, 
 pronounced on two of the captured rebels the terrible old 
 sentence for treason. Then were heartbreaking inter- 
 views with the prisoners through the narrow grating of 
 the tomblike condemned cell. But at last, when all was 
 ready for that dreadful hanging and quartering, the town 
 was thrilled by the news that just in time had come a 
 respite, won by two brave women. Wait's young wife 
 and Chandler's daughter, who had made a hasty, difficult 
 
94 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 journey of seven hundred miles to Quebec to appeal to 
 Lord Durham himself. 
 
 A year earlier Niagara had witnessed a desperate 
 struggle to save an escaped slave from being cast out of 
 the land of freedom, to which, when the Southern States 
 were slave States, many a negro steered his course by 
 the light of the North Star. A charge of robbery against 
 the slave was the master's excuse for demanding his 
 extradition, and the authorities of Upper Canada allowed 
 it. But, led by Holmes, a coloured preacher, the 
 negroes, hundreds strong, guarded the jail, and finally, 
 at the cost of two lives, succeeded in rescuing the man 
 from the Sheriff as he was being taken to the frontier. 
 It is good to know that at last the slave reached England 
 safely, and so got beyond his master's reach. 
 
XVII. WELLAND 
 
 " Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, 
 From their far hamlets the yeomanry come ; 
 As through the storm-clouds the thunderburst rolling, 
 Circles the beat of the mustering drum." 
 
 O. W. Holmes. 
 
 THIS fair and extraordinarily fruitful region of farms 
 and orchards (for over half a century included 
 within the bounds of Lincoln County) has a chequered 
 history of war and peace, of struggle and achievement. 
 During the War of 1812 Welland shared with its parent 
 county the perilous honour of being again and again the 
 battle-ground upon which the defenders of our land 
 staunchly resisted the invaders. It is not possible to tell 
 in detail the story of the struggle, even as it specially 
 touched Welland; but no sketch of the county's history 
 would be worthy of the name which passed over those 
 brave old days in silence. No episode in the three years' 
 war is more dramatic than the " Battle in the Beech- 
 woods " at " Beaverdams," and, though the opening scene 
 of the drama had Queenston for a stage, the fifth act was 
 played out in what is now Welland County, as is testified 
 by a monument near the railway station of Thorold. 
 This British victory, as no Canadian needs to be told, 
 has a heroine as well as a hero, and, throughout, it was 
 a triumph not of superior force, but of keen wit. 
 
 In the early summer of 181 3 the gallant Irishman, 
 Lieutenant FitzGibbon, with a small party of daring 
 followers, was finding a multitude of ways of rendering 
 himself annoying to the Americans, who had seized upon 
 
 Niagara and made it their headquarters. He so dis- 
 ss 
 
96 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 tinguished himself that at last the American Colonel, 
 Boerstler, was ordered to take some five hundred men to 
 surprise him at his post at Beaverdams, but a couple of 
 officers ventured to discuss the scheme in the hearing of 
 Laura Secord. Daughter of a Loyalist, wife of a militia- 
 man (still disabled by a wound received at Queenston 
 Heights), mistress of the house to which the body of 
 General Brock had been carried after he fell, she was 
 every inch a patriot, and when the Americans rose from 
 the table where the quiet woman had been ministering 
 to their wants the plan was foredoomed to failure. 
 
 Very early next morning Laura Secord passed the 
 invaders' sentries by means of a ruse, and set out on a 
 twenty-mile walk to put FitzGibbon on his guard. The 
 enemy held the roads, so Laura plunged into the woods, 
 to toil all the long day by blazed trails, through swamps 
 and over fallen trees, across creeks swollen to torrents by 
 recent rains, to come out at dusk in a clearing on the 
 outskirts of FitzGibbon's camp, and to find herself sur- 
 rounded by a horde of painted, yelling Indians. Weary, 
 dishevelled,but high-hearted still, she made the chief under- 
 stand by signs that she must speak to the British leader. 
 
 At once the valiant Irishman fell into the spirit of the 
 thing. Outnumbered by something like ten to one, he 
 might have been content to beat a masterly retreat. 
 Instead, he stood his ground, bent on the capture of his 
 would-be captors, and so posted his Indian allies that 
 when the Americans entered the beechwoods, weary 
 from the march and unnerved by the disquieting atten- 
 tions of a troop of Indians who had hung on their rear, 
 they were greeted with a pandemonium of yells and 
 screeches and dropping shots. Prompt surrender seemed 
 then the better part of valour, yet it taxed FitzGibbon's 
 Irish v/k and audacity to the utmost to keep the perilous 
 secret of his troops' scanty numbers. 
 
WELLAND 97 
 
 From the British point of view, the affair at Beaver- 
 dams was a cheerful little burlesque, but Welland County 
 had its share of the grimmest side of war. In those 
 unquiet years many a farmhouse went up in smoke and 
 flame. Early in July 1814, an American force took 
 possession of Fort Erie, and defeated the British on the 
 banks of Chippewa Creek. Soon afterwards both armies 
 received reinforcements, and the British took up a strong 
 position near the Falls of Niagara, at the end of a narrow 
 road called Lundy's Lane. Their guns commanded the 
 lane, but the Americans attacked them furiously. It was 
 late in July, and the battle, beginning at six in the evening, 
 raged, with a brief lull, till after midnight. The opposing 
 guns roared almost mouth to mouth, drowning for the 
 time the mighty voice of the great cataract. Sometimes a 
 fitful gleam of moonlight shone down on the combatants, 
 but for the most part the struggle was shrouded in the 
 black darkness of a cloudy night. In this battle the 
 carnage was greater than in any other during the war, 
 but the smaller British force held their ground, and the 
 Americans retreated to Fort Erie, where they were be- 
 sieged in vain by the British. At last, however, they blew 
 up the fortifications and returned to their own country. 
 
 Twenty-three years later, in 1837, William Lyon 
 Mackenzie, after a futile attempt to overturn the Canadian 
 Government, fled to the United States, only to venture 
 back into British territory, with a few followers, whom 
 he called the " Patriot Army." Making Navy Island, in 
 the Niagara River, now part of Welland County, his 
 headquarters, he set up a "provisional government," 
 offered a reward of five hundred dollars for the capture 
 of Sir Francis Head, and promised land grants to all 
 who would aid in the conquest of Canada. For several 
 days the " provisional government '' was suffered to rule 
 undisturbed in Navy Island, then Colonel M'Nab, with a 
 force of loyal volunteers, determined to capture the little 
 
 G 
 
98 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 steamer Caroline^ which the rebels used for carrying over 
 supplies from the mainland. Accordingly, after dark on 
 December 29th, a few brave volunteers crossed the rapid 
 river to the wharf where the vessel lay, drove the crew 
 ashore, and, setting the boat on fire, towed it out into 
 the current. The blazing vessel cast a red light on the 
 rushing waters, then suddenly sank, and all was black. 
 Colonel M'Nab was knighted for this exploit, but as the 
 Caroline was the property of American owners it caused 
 a great outcry in the United States. 
 
 The rebels held Navy Island for a month, secure 
 against musket shot in the protection of its woods, but 
 when heavy guns were sent up from the St. Lawrence 
 they hastily retired across the boundary. 
 
 A generation later, in 1866, the township of Bertie was 
 invaded by 900 armed " Fenians " and sympathisers, many 
 of whom had served in the American Civil War. They 
 made a raid on the village of Fort Erie, tore up the railway 
 tracks, cut the telegraph wires, and marched westward. 
 A few regulars and some companies of "the Queen's 
 Own " and other volunteers from Toronto and Hamilton 
 were promptly sent to look after them, but owing to some 
 mistake the volunteers were hurried forward in advance 
 of the regulars, and, falling in with the Fenians at Ridge- 
 way, were ordered to attack. Under the fierce onslaught 
 of the Canadians, many of them young lads, the Fenians 
 wavered. Then they rallied and poured a murderous 
 fire on their assailants, killing nine, wounding thirty, and 
 forcing the rest to retire ; but O'Neil did not care to stand 
 up against the regulars, and that same night he and his 
 marauders made the best of their way out of Canada. 
 
 But even in Welland such conflicts between man and 
 man were only episodes in the greater struggle, which 
 has lasted now for well over a century, " to replenish the 
 earth and subdue it," and sometimes the early settlers 
 "builded better than they knew." For instance, it is 
 
WELLAND 99 
 
 told that the idea of cutting the Welland Canal (which, 
 besides its use as a waterway, supplies water for scores 
 of factories and workshops) arose from the desire of its 
 promoter, William Hamilton Merritt, to secure for his 
 mill a water-supply which would not fail in dry weather. 
 Soon, however, he grasped the full significance of his 
 idea, and, getting his neighbours to help him, made the 
 first rough survey for the canal. That was in 1818, and 
 for half a dozen years Merritt worked unceasingly to 
 interest the Government and the capitalists in his pro- 
 ject. The result was that it was finally taken up by a 
 private company, with a Welland County man, George 
 Keefer, as its first president. In 1824 the first sod of 
 the canal was turned; and in 1829 hundreds of people 
 gathered at St. Catharines (of which city it has been the 
 making) to see two vessels gaily decorated with flags 
 pass up the new waterway towards Lake Erie. Since 
 then it has been several times enlarged, and has been 
 taken over by the Government, which is now construct- 
 ing a larger and deeper Welland Canal. Through the 
 present one, however, there passes annually something 
 over two million tons of freight. 
 
 Last but not least of the distinctions of Welland 
 County, its boundary takes in the Horseshoe Falls of 
 Niagara, and owing to this its soil has been trodden by 
 every visitor of distinction — artists, authors, poets, states- 
 men, princes — since the days when the only access to 
 the foot of the cataract was by " an Indian ladder " or 
 pine tree, with branches lopped off near the trunk. To 
 these and to thousands and thousands of other men and 
 women the mighty cataract has spoken messages of awe 
 and wonder and delight; and now, in this last decade, 
 man has found a way to make a servant of " the Thun- 
 derer of Waters," and Niagara power turns his wheels 
 and lights his streets not in Welland County only, but in 
 a dozen others. 
 
EASTERN COUNTIES 
 
 XVIII. GLENGARRY 
 
 " From the lone shieling of the misty island 
 Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas — 
 Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, 
 And we in dreams behold the Hebrides : 
 
 Fair these broad meads — these hoary woods are grand ; 
 But we are exiles from our fathers' land." 
 
 TO anyone who has ever felt the enchantment of Sir 
 Walter Scott's poetry and romance, the very word 
 "Glengarry" calls up visions of chivalrous chieftains in 
 waving tartans and plumed " bonnets," and of their wild 
 following of kilted clansmen, armed with dirk and clay- 
 more and almost drowning the skirling of the war-pipes 
 with their fierce battle-cries. Their tongue to most of us 
 may be unknown, yet, thanks to the " Great Magician's " 
 wondrous art, we know and love them as if they were 
 our kin. Our hearts beat in sympathy with their 
 passionate love for their deep glens and misty mountains, 
 and we mourn with the exiles torn from their "own, 
 their native land." Many of us, I doubt not, in days 
 when the romance-world was almost more real to us 
 than the calmer life about us, have gone campaigning 
 with " bonnie Prince Charlie," that graceless, fascinating, 
 most luckless of mortals, and, forgetful of due respect 
 to our forbears, have all but learned to hate the Saxon 
 — or let us say "the Sassenach." We have looked on 
 at many a hard-fought field, and so we approach the 
 story of "Glengarry" in Canada in a mood inured to 
 
GLENGARRY loi 
 
 the clash of blades and shouts of men in deadly combat ; 
 and it is well, for it was the tide of war which first swept 
 the hot-hearted Celts into our now quiet land, and - in 
 a later struggle — the War of 1812 — Glengarry men, 
 gallantly defending the soil of their new country as they 
 had defended the heathery mountains of their fatherland, 
 again and again drank "delight of battle with their 
 peers." 
 
 It was after the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion 
 of 1 745 that the Highlanders of old Glengarry in Scot- 
 land first emigrated to America, settling, at the invitation 
 of Sir William Johnson (the friend of Brant and his 
 Indians), in the Mohawk Valley. It was a beautiful 
 and fruitful land, but not for long did the Highlanders 
 give themselves to the quiet cultivation of their farms 
 and orchards. The Revolutionary storm was brewing 
 when they arrived, and when it broke many of the Gaelic 
 clansmen took up arms to strike for the King. Soon the 
 war was raging with peculiar fury along the banks of 
 the Mohawk. Fire and sword turned the fruitful farms 
 into blackened deserts ; cruelty and rapine were repaid 
 in kind and with interest, hundreds of wives became 
 widows and thousands of children orphans. Men lan- 
 guished for years in prison, infants were snatched away 
 by the Indians to grow up white savages, families starved 
 while their bread-winners were with the army, and war, 
 shorn of all glamour save that which through every 
 horror clings to deathless courage, appeared as the grim, 
 heart-breaking, evil thing it is. 
 
 From time to time, parties of the non-combatants, left 
 behind in the Mohawk Valley, made their way to Canada. 
 Once a large number of women and children were 
 brought off by an armed band of their husbands and 
 brothers, but others came, a few at a time, suffering 
 many a hardship and adventure in their weary journey 
 through the woods. One woman, it is told, undertook to 
 
102 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 carry two small children on her back. On one occasion 
 it occurred to her that her burden had become strangely 
 lighter, and she discovered that she had actually dropped 
 one little fellow by the way. Hurrying back along the 
 track, she found the child, sleeping peacefully beside a 
 decayed log over which she had had to climb. His 
 hands were begrimed with earth, and to old age he was 
 known by the nickname " Spogan Dubh," or " Black 
 Paws," as his mother had exclaimed on finding him. 
 
 The war ended, many of the Highlanders settled in 
 what are now the three counties of Glengarry, Stormont, 
 and Dundas. As a rule, the heads of families made their 
 way to New Johnstown (now Cornwall), where the Govern- 
 ment land agent allotted lands to them by letting them 
 draw from numbered slips of paper shaken together in a 
 hat. Amongst the new-comers were a number of High- 
 land gentlemen who had held commissions in the " Royal 
 Highland Emigrants " and other regiments ; and the half- 
 pay received by these ex-ofScers was for some years the 
 chief source of the very limited supply of cash which 
 circulated in the settlements. 
 
 Sir John Johnson (son of Sir William, previously men- 
 tioned), who had lost an enormous amount of property, 
 received some lands in Glengarry. He built a mill at 
 Williamstown, named after his father, and later presented 
 to the people twelve acres for "fair grounds," still in 
 use under the name of the "Glengarry Agricultural 
 Grounds." Lord Dorchester recommended his appoint- 
 ment as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, 
 but the authorities at home thought it better not to choose 
 a resident of the colony. 
 
 But in the history of the county, where the good old 
 Scottish names of the early settlers still abound, 
 Macdonell is a greater name than Johnson. In the 
 first Parliament of Upper Canada, two Macdonells, 
 brothers, sat for Glengarry, and one of them was 
 
GLENGARRY 103 
 
 elected Speaker. The famous Glengarry Regiment of 
 Light Infantry, which so distinguished itself throughout 
 the War of 18 12, was raised chiefly through the exertions 
 of two other men of the name ; and a Macdonell shared 
 the fate and the glory of Brock in the battle of Queenston 
 Heights... Yet another Macdonell, a priest, Alexander, 
 came from Inverness in 1786 with almost his whole 
 parish of about five hundred souls, to found in the new 
 Glengarry St. Raphael's, the pioneer parish of his com- 
 munion in Upper Canada. Here he built the first 
 Roman Catholic church, known as the "Blue Chapel," 
 upon the site of which another priest of the same name, 
 who became the first Roman Catholic Bishop in Upper 
 Canada, erected a large and handsome church. 
 
 This last-mentioned Alexander Macdonell is a most 
 interesting figure. Physically, almost a giant, he held, 
 it is said, that every man of his race should either be a 
 priest or a soldier, and, though his cloth forbade him to 
 fight, it did not prevent his working with might and main 
 to raise Highland regiments, first in Scotland and after- 
 wards in Canada. It must be said, however, that his 
 object, in the first instance, was to relieve the distress of 
 his parishioners, who had been thrown out of employ- 
 ment by the war between England and France; and 
 when the regiment was disbanded he was instrumental 
 in bringing a large number of them to settle amongst 
 their kinsmen in Upper Canada. Later, when war with 
 the- United States was threatening, the future Bishop, 
 actuated by patriotic motives, was " most active in 
 rousing and recruiting the Glengarries." "The fiery 
 cross " had passed through the land and every clansman 
 " obeyed the summons," the more readily, no doubt, for 
 the exhortation and example of the valiant chaplain. 
 But by no means were all his energies devoted to mili- 
 tary affairs. As a missionary, the sphere of his labours 
 extended over a great part of Upper Canada, and, as a 
 
104 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 pastor, he laboured for the temporal as well as the 
 spiritual benefit of his flock. For instance, immediately 
 after his arrival in Canada he made it his business to 
 obtain legal patents for the lands held by the High- 
 landers — a matter of which few of them understood the 
 importance. 
 
 Another Scot who had also been an army chaplain, the 
 Rev. John Bethune, was for long the only minister in 
 Upper Canada of the Kirk of Scotland. He settled at 
 Williamstown, but ministered also to congregations at 
 Martintown, Lancaster, and Cornwall. One of his six 
 sons, Alexander Neil Bethune, succeeded Dr. Strachan, 
 whose pupil he had been, as Bishop of Toronto. It is a 
 somewhat curious circumstance that these two earliest 
 Bishops of the diocese should have begun life as Presby- 
 terians and have passed some of their youthful years 
 amongst the people of Glengarry. 
 
 The " Man from Glengarry,'' however, has always had 
 the reputation of being strong and forceful, and it has 
 been said that the history of the county "is a proud 
 record of most valuable services rendered to the country 
 in early times, when the men of that county made its 
 name famous in war and peace." 
 
XIX. STORMONT 
 
 " Not drooping like poor fugitives they came 
 In exodus to our Canadian wild, 
 But full of heart and hope, with heads erect 
 And fearless eyes victorious in defeat." 
 
 William Kirby. 
 
 THE Stories of the neighbouring counties of Glen- 
 garry, Stormont, and Dundas, almost inextricably 
 interwoven, must be taken as supplementing one another. 
 Stormont, possessing at Cornwall (now a flourishing town 
 of some 6600 inhabitants) a Court House and Jail, ranks 
 as the senior county of the three, which together have 
 only twelve townships. 
 
 The pioneers of Stormont were Loyalists, many of 
 whom had served in Sir John Johnson's " Royal Regi- 
 ment, of New York." Having been farmers before they 
 took up arms, they were better fitted for life in the 
 wooded wilderness than most of the officers and soldiers 
 of the regular army, though some settlers of this class 
 also " made good." About one-third of the first settlers 
 were Highlanders, one-third Germans, and the remaining 
 third were English, Irish, and Lowland Scotch. 
 
 In some cases the holders of land grants disposed of 
 them for very trifling amounts. One allotment of two 
 hundred acres changed hands, according to tradition, 
 for a gallon of rum. It is perhaps still more curious 
 that persons who were toiling with might and main to 
 make their farms, neglected for years to obtain a legal 
 title to them. The first land patent issued in the three 
 counties bore the date of 1793, and the first for a lot 
 
io6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 in Cornwall 1803, respectively ten and twenty years 
 after the great Loyalist immigration. Perhaps the hard 
 toil necessary to clear a little space on which they might 
 build up the tiny log-house and sow a little corn for 
 the support of their families distracted the minds of 
 the pioneers from thoughts of legal formalities. At 
 first the settlers of Stormont had neither oxen nor 
 horses, so they loyally helped each other with the 
 heavier tasks, and little by little tamed the wilderness 
 to their will. If ever sturdy grit and common sense and 
 ability to make the best of resources all in the rough were 
 desirable, these qualities were needed by the pioneers. In 
 his little book, entitled Lunenburg: or the Old Eastern 
 District, Judge Pringle has brought together many an 
 interesting fact which throws light on the lives led by 
 our Canadian " Pilgrim Fathers." In every district the 
 erection of a grist-mill was an event of an importance 
 difficult for us to realise in these days of railways and 
 steamboats. When they were built those first grist-mills 
 freed our great-grandfathers from the toil of carrying 
 huge sacks of grain on their backs for many a day's 
 journey or set our great-grandmothers at liberty from 
 the exhausting labour of grinding meal for their house- 
 holds in a hand-mill. On account of "the shoving of 
 the ice," Cornwall could not have a watermill, but two 
 windmills were soon erected, one of which, after helping 
 to supply the settlement with flour for many a long 
 year, was turned into a blockhouse. 
 
 In the pioneer days Cornwall was the headquarters 
 of the officials who distributed rations and other sup- 
 plies to the Loyalists. Soon it became a centre for 
 general business, with a store or two, a smithy, and 
 a tavern, and about 1794 a Court House and Jail were 
 erected. 
 
 This was a time of severe old-fashioned punishments 
 and of rough and ready justice,- In default of regular 
 
STORMONT 107 
 
 stocks, it is said that a culprit's feet were sometimes 
 fastened between two rails of a justice's fence, or that 
 by way of "hard labour" an offender was set to hoe 
 the magistrate's corn or potatoes. For petty larceny 
 offenders were made to stand in the pillory, to receive 
 "thirty-nine lashes on the bare back," or (in the case 
 of a woman in the year 1800) to be whipped till the 
 blood came. 
 
 Like the famous Fleet and Marshalsea prisons in 
 London, Cornwall jail did duty as a debtors' prison. 
 An Act, passed in 1805, requiring the creditor to pay 
 an insolvent debtor five shillings a week for his support 
 in prison may, however, have done something to dis- 
 courage the practice of imprisoning persons for debt. 
 In 1822 debtors were allowed, if their friends would 
 give bail, to go outside the jail, keeping within certain 
 specified limits. But if they accepted this privilege 
 they could no longer claim support from their creditors. 
 In Cornwall the limits were marked by white posts. 
 Originally the Courts of Quarter Sessions, besides 
 having jurisdiction in criminal cases, attended to many 
 matters now under the control of the municipalities, such 
 as the making of roads and bridges. 
 
 During the War of 1812 (of which there will be more 
 to say in connection with Dundas County), the court- 
 house and jail at Cornwall were used as barracks. 
 In November 181 3, when almost all the men were 
 absent with the militia, American troops occupied the 
 town. They helped themselves to goods from the stores, 
 and a woman who had buried her stock of preserved 
 fruit in a garden bed was unlucky enough to have it 
 discovered by a Yankee prodding about with an iron 
 ramrod; but on the whole, "the enemy" scarcely 
 wrought more mischief than was done at times by 
 the riotous parties of British seamen who used to stop 
 at Cornwall on their way to man the warships of the 
 
io8 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 lakes. It is told that one night some of these fellows, 
 probably the worse for drink, capturing what they took 
 for a calf, killed, cooked, and ate it, to discover in the 
 morning, from the animal's hoofs, that they had supped 
 on a colt! Twenty years later, when the great cut 
 was being made for the Cornwall Canal to overcome 
 the Long Sault Rapids, the army of rough navvies, a 
 thousand strong, became a positive terror to the country 
 people having business in town. Finally, after a trifling 
 dispute a man was killed. For this one of the navvies 
 was hanged, and afterwards the rest were less unruly. 
 
 It was in the autumn of 1834 (a notable year in the 
 history of Cornwall) that Chief Justice Robinson cut the 
 first sod of the canal, which was eight years in the 
 making. In the same year, Cornwall (which had before 
 been assessed with the township and received such 
 small grants for roads that its streets were almost 
 impassable with mud) was incorporated. Almost imme- 
 diately the town began to provide sidewalks of flagstones, 
 but, till cured of the dangerous habit by heavy fines, the 
 country-folk coming into town on horseback insisted on 
 riding along them. 
 
 In 1834 Cornwall first sent its own member to the 
 Assembly. As everywhere in early days, elections 
 caused vast excitement, and not a little disorder. It 
 is said that in the first or second election held in 
 Stormont the number of votes cast exceeded that of 
 the whole population. At that date every man having 
 a freehold in land was entitled to vote, so some ingeni- 
 ous persons, intercepting the boatmen on the river, 
 provided them with deeds for lands in the county, and 
 marched them to the poll. One candidate had the fore- 
 thought to provide printed forms of deeds, whilst on the 
 other side they had to be laboriously written out by hand ; 
 consequently, the former captured five or six times as 
 many votes as the latter. In Glengarry and Stor- 
 
STORMONT 109 
 
 mont the candidate's piper played his adherents to the 
 poll. 
 
 At funerals the bagpipes "whustled mony a braw 
 lad to his grave." At one time the music for fashionable 
 parties in Cornwall was supplied by a one-legged negro 
 fiddler, who played six or seven tunes by ear, not very 
 well when sober, and execrably when drunk. A few 
 years later, there were three pianos in the town, and 
 one in the neighbourhood, spindle-legged and rather 
 " wiry in tone," but highly prized. 
 
 In 1803, the future Bishop Strachan opened the 
 school famed as " The Cornwall Grammar School." In 
 1808 he built a schoolhouse, which, when he left for 
 York four years later, he conveyed to trustees for a 
 District School. About 1824 the Anglican Church, 
 painted white, with a tin-covered spire, was one of the 
 most imposing buildings in the place. The Roman 
 Catholics of Cornwall were then regarded as belonging 
 to the parish of St. Andrews, which, by the way, was 
 long the home of the notable explorer Simon Fraser. 
 
XX. DUNDAS 
 
 " War in all men's eyes shall be 
 A monster of iniquity 
 
 In the good time coming ; 
 Nations shall not quarrel then, 
 
 To prove which is the stronger, 
 Nor slaughter men for glory's sake — 
 Wait a little longer." 
 
 Mackay. 
 
 DUNDAS is one of those counties which, with a 
 fairly well distributed rural population, has no 
 great town within its borders. Morrisburg, the largest 
 of its villages, situated in a good dairy country, has a 
 population of about 1700 souls. Its chief industries are 
 poultry-fattening and certain manufactures of iron and 
 steel, including the making of stoves, nails, and tacks. 
 
 The German Loyalist pioneers of this county had an 
 interesting history. Their Lutheran forefathers had 
 dwelt on the banks of the Rhine in the "Palatinate." 
 More than once at the close of the seventeenth century 
 the district was terribly ravaged by the French, and, in 
 1708 and 1709, 15,000 "Palatines" sought refuge in 
 England, where Queen Anne gave them a daily cash 
 allowance and the use of the army tents from the Tower. 
 The refugees encamped at Blackheath, where they were 
 visited by the Mohawk chiefs, who chanced then to be 
 in England; and from them the distressed Germans re- 
 ceived an invitation to take up lands in their territories 
 in the province of New York. In the following year 
 3200 of the Germans set sail for New York in ten ships, 
 one of which was lost on the way with all on board. 
 The rest of the immigrants were settled by the Governor 
 
DUNDAS III 
 
 of New York on the Hudson, where they were employed, 
 not very successfully, in making tar from the pines for 
 the British navy. Afterwards some of their number 
 went to Pennsylvania and more to the Mohawk Valley. 
 Many of the latter served in Sir John Johnson's Loyalist 
 regiment, and at the close of the war were finally settled 
 on the St. Lawrence in the townships of Williamsburg 
 and Matilda. Here each family soon built a small house 
 and cleared a little plot of ground, living for a time under 
 a kind of military rule. 
 
 The settlers drew their lots and obtained rations at 
 Cornwall, to which their descendants still look up as the 
 judicial centre of the district. The pioneers used often 
 to take home their goods on hand-sleighs. At first 
 there was no mill nearer the settlements than one, in 
 each direction, sixty miles away. Occasionally several 
 men, joining together, took down a boatload of grain to 
 be ground at once, but it is no wonder that the phrase 
 " once to church, twice to mill, makes a traveller," should 
 have become proverbial in the eastern counties. Now, 
 crossed by two great railways, they have easier com- 
 munication both with the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts 
 than they had a little over a century ago with Montreal 
 and Quebec. 
 
 It is indeed astonishing how much travelling was done 
 in the open boats, by blazed trails, and on roughly-cut- 
 out woodland roads. I suppose it was often a case of 
 necessity rather than choice, for all kinds of business 
 obliged an occasional visit to some centre of trade or to 
 the seat of government, and, despite their amazing in- 
 genuity, there were some necessaries that the pioneers 
 could not make for themselves. 
 
 The Dundas settlements had much traffic with 
 Montreal, In winter goods were brought up on the 
 short sleighs with solid runners, known as "Canadian 
 trains." The shafts were hung by short chains to the 
 
112 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 bottom of the sleigh and the horse travelled in the middle 
 of the road. If the load was heavy, a second horse was 
 harnessed, tandem, in front of the first. The drivers, 
 picturesquely clad in rough homespun or blanket capotes, 
 gay sashes, red or blue caps and leather moccasins, 
 liked to travel in brigades. Going down to Montreal, 
 though a few of the sleighs might be laden with grain or 
 potash, many would be empty, and the drivers, leaving 
 their horses to their own devices, used to get together in 
 one sleigh to jest and chat and troll out their French 
 songs. 
 
 The occupants of a single sleigh dreaded meeting one 
 of these brigades, for the drivers would not turn out of 
 the track for anyone, and if their obstinacy resulted in 
 the upsetting of the other vehicle, the accident was but 
 the signal for delighted jeers. The overtaking of a 
 brigade was no less vexatious for a traveller eager to 
 press on, for often he would have to travel for miles in 
 the rear of the cavalcade before he could get past it. 
 
 In summer goods for the west were carted from 
 Montreal to Lachine, and there put on board bateaux or 
 Durham boats to be carried to Kingston or the little 
 intervening ports. 
 
 The bateau was a flat-bottomed boat, thirty feet in 
 length and pointed at each end. It was steered with 
 a large paddle, had a movable mast and a square sail, 
 and was manned by six or seven men, who, going 
 against the current, pushed or " set " the boat with long, 
 iron-shod poles. Where the stream ran too fast for 
 this, several of the men went ashore to tow with a rope, 
 but two always remained on board to keep the craft off 
 the rocks. The bateaux^ like the "trains," frequently 
 went up in brigades, so that the crews might help each 
 other. 
 
 The Durham boat was a larger vessel, built with a 
 round bow and square stem. It was decked for some 
 
DUNDAS 113 
 
 feet at the ends and had a gangway at each side for the 
 convenience of the crew in pushing it up the stream. 
 Beginning at the bow, the men set their poles against the 
 bottom of the river and wallsed towards the stern, pushing 
 with all their might. They returned to the bow, dragging 
 their poles, and the iron-tipped points struck against the 
 stones with a clank that sounded far on a still day. 
 
 At night the crews of boats or bateaux bivouacked on 
 the bank, supping on pork and pea-soup and sleeping in 
 the open. In places tow-paths were made and oxen or 
 horses were used to tow up the heavy boats. In going 
 up the Long Sault of the St. Lawrence and the rapids above, 
 the boats were unloaded and the goods carted up. About 
 1844 three short canals were made along the Dundas shore 
 to overcome different rapids. The passage downstream 
 was comparatively easy, and experienced boatmen took 
 down heavily-laden boats with few accidents. Going 
 down, rafts of timber were often utilised for conveying pas- 
 sengers and goods. In the early days a person wishing 
 to take passage up or down stream would watch on the 
 bank till a boat appeared, then, going out in a canoe, 
 would bargain with the captain to be taken on board. 
 Usually there was no difficulty about this, as the pas- 
 senger always provided his own food and blanket. But 
 some travellers preferred to go up on horseback. 
 
 The first vehicles used in Dundas and the district were 
 lumber wagons and ox-carts, with an occasional two- 
 wheeled gig, which had a body hung on leather straps 
 and a hood resembling that of a covered buggy. It is 
 stated in Croil's Dundas that in 1825 "the three 
 counties" had eleven gigs, eleven pleasure wagons 
 (also with leather "springs") and one close carriage. 
 The first stage coaches, though ponderous affairs, 
 gorgeously painted, had bodies mounted, like the other 
 vehicles intended for easy travelling over the rough 
 roads, on leather straps. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 As late as 1833 a journey from Cornwall to York took 
 eighty-six hours, exclusive of a delay in Kingston of 
 thirty- four hours. After the introduction of steamboats, 
 which at first were anything but luxurious, according to 
 modern notions, people travelled by them whenever 
 possible, but for the greater part of the year the stages 
 still ran until the Grand Trunk Railway was opened in 
 1856. 
 
 Originally Dundas was covered with fine timber. 
 Amongst its trees were white oak and huge pines, 
 much prized by shipbuilders. One of the latter, of such 
 size that it took the united efforts of fifteen or sixteen 
 teams to drag it from the woods, was sold in Quebec for 
 a bowsprit for a sum of $200. Later elm and ash found 
 a ready market, but beech and maple, thought useless 
 except for the making of potash, were rolled together 
 and burned in great piles. 
 
 The settlers along that great highway, the St. Law- 
 rence, were far less isolated than many others of the 
 pioneers, but even in their case the education of the 
 children was a difficult matter. For long, there was no 
 school in Dundas, but a good old German went from 
 house to house teaching. His plan was to stay in a 
 neighbourhood for two weeks, and then to move to 
 another. The early settlers had a great reputation for 
 honesty, but their detractors accused them of being too 
 fond of " dancing and carousing." 
 
 During the War of 181 2, the inhabitants of the county 
 found themselves almost too much upon the highway 
 Several times brigades of boats were attacked by parties, 
 of Americans, and in November 181 3, a hostile army 
 commanded by General Wilkinson, passed through the 
 county, on the way (if the plan had not miscarried) to join 
 General Hampton in an attack on Montreal. Happily, 
 Hampton's defeat at Chateauguay by De Salaberry and 
 his resolute little force had utterly discouraged him 
 
DUNDAS 115 
 
 before Wilkinson, ignorant of the mishap, set out to meet 
 him, 
 
 Wilkinson threatened both Kingston and Prescott, but 
 it was in Dundas County that he landed his troops, 
 creating great consternation amongst the country people, 
 though he paid with Spanish dollars for the provisions 
 that he took. Halting at the lower limit of Williams- 
 burgh township, he sent a force to try to capture the 
 Government stores at Cornwall. But the Canadians, 
 mustering every wagon in the countryside, had driven 
 inland with the stores, which at last were carried safely 
 to Coteau. 
 
 Meanwhile Colonel Morrison, with a few armoured 
 vessels and a small British force, was hurrying in hot 
 haste from Kingston. Overtaking the Americans at last, 
 he succeeded, on November nth, in forcing a battle on 
 ground of his own choosing at Chrysler's Farm, just 
 within the bounds of Dundas. The struggle, in which, 
 by the way, the militia of the county gave a good account 
 of themselves, lasted for hours, but the little British force 
 came off victorious, a fact which, with the news of 
 Chateauguay, decided Wilkinson to retreat across the 
 border. After the battle, Chrysler's farmhouse became 
 a hospital, where friend and foe lay side by side, whilst 
 the dead found a common resting-place in the green fields 
 near by. 
 
XXI. PRESCOTT 
 
 "Fiercely the Iroquois had sworn to sweep, like grains of sand, 
 The Sons of France from off the face of their adopted land. 
 When, like the steel that oft disarms the lightning of its power, 
 A fearless few their country saved in danger's darkest hour." 
 
 George Murray. 
 
 PRESCOTT County, set apart in 1798 and named 
 after the Governor of Canada, who succeeded Lord 
 Dorchester, has special links with the French regime. 
 There is a tradition that the rude little fort at the foot 
 of the Long Sault Rapids on the Ottawa, where Daulac 
 — or Dollard — des Ormeaux, with his sixteen heroic 
 Frenchmen, made his stand against the Iroquois, was at 
 Greece's Point in Hawkesbury Township. It is not 
 wonderful, however, that the details of the story are 
 involved in obscurity, for not one of the Frenchmen 
 lived to tell the tale which, carried to Montreal by three 
 Indians, reads Hke one of Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient 
 Rome." On first entering the stockade of tree trunks, 
 the French were joined by a few Indians. These soon 
 deserted to the enemy, yet for eight terrible days the 
 little band of heroes fought off their assailants, to be 
 overwhelmed at last by sheer force of numbers. But 
 they did not die in vain, for the Iroquois lost so many 
 of their braves, that they did not venture that year to 
 attack the French at Montreal, as had been expected. 
 
 The township of Longueuil represents one of the 
 very few grants made during the French regime, on the 
 feudal system, within the limits of what is now Ontario. 
 On a map of 1828 it was marked as the Seigniory of 
 
 Pointe a 1' Original. It was owned by descendants of 
 
 116 ^ 
 
PRESCOTT 117 
 
 Charles. Le Moyne, elder brother of the famous D'lber- 
 ville, but in 1796 was sold to an American named 
 Treadwell, who opened it to immigrants. Not being 
 a Loyalist, he declined on the outbreak of the war of 
 1812 to take the oath of allegiance. Upon this his 
 property was confiscated, and when he would have 
 returned to his native land, he was held a prisoner 
 at St. John's in Quebec. Afterwards he settled near 
 Plattsburgh, in New York State, and prospered until his 
 mills were ruined by a great freshet in 1 830. After that 
 misfortune he returned to spend the last ten years of his 
 life at L'Original, where his son Charles, having re- 
 covered the confiscated property, had already been living 
 for seven years. In 1834, the younger Treadwell was 
 appointed High Sheriff of Prescott and Russell Counties. 
 Both father and son are depicted in Mr. Thomas's History 
 of Prescott County as men of fine character, and Charles 
 Treadwell was a pioneer in religious reforms, improved 
 methods in agriculture, and projects for railways. In 
 fact, it is said that he was the first Canadian to advocate 
 a Pacific railway. 
 
 At Treadwell, in North Plantagenet, lived Thomas 
 Kairns, who had been a midshipman on Nelson's 
 Agamemnon, and had been present in 18 14 at the 
 capture of Washington. He gained the title of "Captain" 
 from running the steamer Shannon on the Ottawa ; but 
 in 1853 was called home to serve throughout the Crimean 
 War as senior purser, on Nelson's old Victory, which lay 
 all the time at Portsmouth. Returning to Canada, he 
 died in Montreal. 
 
 To go back to earlier times — another American, Eden 
 Johnson, settled in Hawkesbury Township, under circum- 
 stances suggestive of a romance, for on his first visit to 
 Canada, as a member of Montgomery's invading force, 
 he had come with arms in his hands, but by some chance 
 had been led captive by the charms of a British captain's 
 
ii8 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 daughter, and though in the first instance, he persuaded 
 her to go with him to New Hampshire, she (we may 
 suppose) ultimately brought him back to the land of the 
 old flag. His youngest son, also named Eden, received 
 a grant of Government land, on account of having been 
 the first white child born in Hawkesbury, and one of 
 Johnson's grandsons was captain of the first steamboat 
 plying on the Ottawa, between Bytown and Grenville. 
 Johnson himself, while chasing a deer along the frozen 
 river, fell into a hole in the ice and was drowned. 
 
 Both U. E. Loyalists and Americans who sympathised 
 with the other side in the struggle with Britain were 
 numerous among the Prescott pioneers ; but in the new 
 environment the old differences were forgotten. More- 
 over, settlers of French race, cultivating the low-lying 
 lands, which did not attract the English, also helped to 
 build up the county, and of late years the French element 
 in the population has been increasing. 
 
 During the War of 1812 (at which period the county 
 was grouped with its southern neighbour for Parlia- 
 mentary representation) Prescott men of both races 
 fought for England, and probably joined the famous 
 Glengarry Light Infantry. It is on record that one 
 young fellow of sixteen, Francois Laroque, joined a 
 French Canadian company which, going by forced 
 marches to Kingston, was sent to the Niagara frontier, 
 in time to take part in the grim conflict in the dark at 
 Lundy's Lane. Laroque was wounded in his first battle, 
 and afterwards settled in Hawkesbury. 
 
 Half a century after the war, the militiamen of Prescott 
 were called out of the churches on a June Sunday to go 
 to Ottawa, and thence to the town of Prescott (in Gren- 
 ville County) to be ready to drive back the Fenians 
 gathering on the opposite side of the St. Lawrence. The 
 Hawkesbury company of militia was called out again in 
 1870, to report for duty at Cornwall, when the whole 
 
PRESCOTT 119 
 
 Dominion was seething with excitement over the murder 
 of Scott on the Red River; but the services of the 
 Prescott men were not then required. 
 
 In connection with the beginnings of Hawkesbury, 
 which was incorporated as a village in 1859 and as a 
 town in 1896, there is a tragical story that seems almost 
 like a modern version of the Book of Job. In 1805 a 
 mill was erected at Hawkesbury, which was bought three 
 years afterwards by three brothers named Hamilton, one 
 of whom, George, was left in charge. All went well for 
 some years, then, "in one fatal summer," misfortune 
 followed misfortune. The two absent brothers died, and 
 George received an intimation that he must pay off the 
 mortgage on the mill for which one of them had arranged. 
 Next a flood carried away the dam at a time when the 
 mill-pond was full of logs. A few nights later, Hamil- 
 ton's dwelling-house was burned to the ground, and no- 
 thing was saved nor insured. Last and worst of all, when 
 the unfortunate man was taking his family down the river 
 to Montreal, his canoe upset in the rapids. The boat- 
 men managed to cling to the upturned boat, but George 
 Hamilton, though a swimmer, tried in vain to save his 
 three children. He supposed his wife had shared the 
 same fate, but, strange to say, when the canoe was 
 righted, she was found beneath it quite unconscious, but 
 clinging with a desperate grip to the thwarts. The story 
 ends, however — still like that of Job — with renewed 
 happiness and prosperity for the much - tried pair. 
 Hamilton managed in some measure to retrieve his 
 broken fortunes, and after the loss of the three elder 
 children seven others were born, of whom one became 
 a senator and another was in succession Bishop of 
 Niagara and of Ottawa. By the way, the parish of 
 Hawkesbury originally included the whole of Prescott 
 County, but in 1 869 the two parishes of Vankleek Hill 
 and Plantagenet were set off from it. 
 
I20 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Prescott is a well-watered county, but it long suffered 
 from want of roads, Gourlay, in i8l8, said that the 
 district had had no communication with other parts of 
 the province (except by water) till 1816, when some 
 Scottish settlers of Glengarry had helped to open roads. 
 Much of the landed property was held by merchants in 
 Montreal, and the farmers of Hawkesbury Township 
 were " so kept at arm's length by untaxed lots that they 
 could do little for the public good or their own relief." 
 
 L' Original (the French word for "moose"), though the 
 county seat, is still only a village of twelve or thirteen 
 hundred souls. Formerly most of its inhabitants were 
 English, now there are as many French. It is a 
 picturesque little place, especially from a distance, but 
 its progress has been slow. At first the court sat in 
 a school-house, and a private house, generally the 
 sheriff's, was used for a jail. But about 1824 small 
 county buildings were erected on land given for the 
 purpose. The punishments dealt to offenders in pioneer 
 days now seem very severe. In 1817 a man convicted 
 of stealing a httle flour received thirty-nine lashes, and in 
 1828 a person convicted of larceny was sentenced to ten 
 days in jail and an hour in the pillory. Twice within 
 the last thirty years L' Original has been the scene 
 of executions, in both cases for peculiarly revolting 
 murders. 
 
 Another village, in Caledonia Township, was once 
 quite noted as a "spa," or watering-place. In 1806 
 a white man, hunting beaver, came upon a spring, which 
 the Indians regarded as medicinal. They had marked 
 the trees about it with their strange hieroglyphics, per- 
 haps to guide sufferers to its healing waters; but in 
 later years an enterprising settler built a hut at 
 Caledonia Springs and charged a small fee to visitors. 
 
XXII. RUSSELL 
 
 " A crystal pavement, by the breath of Heaven 
 Cemented firm, till, seized from shore to shore, 
 The whole imprisoned river growls below." 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 THIS county was not one of the nineteen created by 
 Simcoe in 1792, but was set apart in 1798, It was 
 called after Peter Russell, who had been military secre- 
 tary to Sir Henry Clinton during the Revolutionary War, 
 and came out with Governor Simcoe as Inspector-General 
 of Upper Canada. He had a seat in the first Assembly 
 of the Province, also in the Legislative Council. When 
 Simcoe left Canada he was senior member of the 
 Council, and so it fell to him to administer the Govern- 
 ment until the arrival of General Hunter in 1799. 
 
 In Dr. Scadding's Toronto of Old there are numer- 
 ous references to Russell, who had a place called Peters- 
 field near " the Grange," where Professor Goldwin Smith 
 lived for many years. Petersfield, in 1803, was prac- 
 tically in the country, and old advertisements show that 
 Russell's hen-roosts were sometimes robbed. Another 
 advertisement betrays the fact that, like many of his 
 aristocratic contemporaries in Canada, he kept slaves; 
 for, in February 1800, he offered for sale a woman 
 of forty, named Peggy, and a boy of fifteen, Jupiter — 
 asking, for the former, $150, and, for the latter, $200, 
 " payable in three years secured by bond ; but one- 
 fourth less would be taken for ready money." Miss 
 Elizabeth Russell, his sister, had a negress, " named Amy 
 Pompadour," who used to wait on her in a red turban. 
 
122 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 Russell was one of the committee appointed to arrange 
 for the building of St. James's Church in Toronto. 
 
 Above all else, however, Peter Russell is famous 
 as a land-grabber. There are traditions that he granted 
 lands to himself as well as to all his friends ; and, though 
 he made few personal enemies, his administration was 
 not good for the country. He never married, and died 
 at York in 1808, leaving a part of his estate to the 
 Baldwin family. 
 
 One of the four townships of Russell County is also 
 called Russell. The other three — Cambridge, Cumber- 
 land, and Clarence — were named after the same royal 
 dukes whose Christian names are recalled in the town- 
 ships of Ernestown, Adolphustown, and Williamsburg, 
 in the counties of Lennox and Dundas. 
 
 In 1827 an agent of the "Canada Company" made 
 a careful inspection of the townships in the Ottawa 
 district, and found that in 1824 the two counties of 
 Prescott and Russell had a population, all told, of 2560 
 — a number which could be housed easily in two small 
 villages. These people were of mixed race — Americans, 
 Scotch, Irish, Canadian — and the former having the 
 benefit of experience were said to "show the others 
 a good example in clearing their lands," while the 
 Canadians who, "by their industry and perseverance," 
 got on as well as the Americans were "much more 
 economical in their way of living," and saved "what 
 the others would lay out in luxuries." The farmers of 
 this district found a good market for all they could raise 
 in supplying the wants of the lumbermen and of those 
 working on the "Grenville Canal" on the Quebec side 
 of the Ottawa, obtaining " generally double the Montreal 
 price, at least." 
 
 In Clarence Township the concession fronting the 
 Ottawa was granted to U. E. Loyalists, and very few 
 settlers had, in the twenties, settled " back from, the 
 
RUSSELL 123 
 
 river." There were then no roads in Clarence, but 
 apparently the inhabitants managed very well without 
 them, as a steamboat passed and repassed their doors 
 twice a week, and when the winter set in the river made 
 an excellent road. " The transport up the river on the 
 ice is immense," said the report. In fact, winter was the 
 time preferred for travelling, and was looked forward 
 to as the chief season for enjoyment. 
 
 All over the country, upon the first touch of frost, the 
 sleighs were prepared for visits of pleasure and busi- 
 ness, and Russell was in the region where a hard frost 
 and a long winter might reasonably be expected. " It 
 is generally conceived in England," said M'Taggart, 
 who was surveyor for the Rideau Canal, " that the long 
 snowy winter acts against Canada — nothing can be 
 farther wrong than this idea. The farmer requires it 
 all, and the lover thinks it much too short, for it is only 
 in the sleighing season that he has a chance of seeing 
 his mistress." " A farm in a tract of country that has 
 five months' sleighing snow in the year is considered 
 to be in a more favourable climate than that which has 
 but three." 
 
 Philemon Wright, the founder of Hull, travelled up 
 the Ottawa on the ice in the year 1800, sixty-five miles 
 from the head of the Long Sault, passing on his way 
 the riverside settlements of Prescott and Russell. It 
 was a patriarchal company of thirty men, women, and 
 children, in covered sleighs. At the head of the pro- 
 cession went the axemen — " trying every rod of the 
 ice," which was so covered with snow about a foot 
 thick " that it was impossible to know whether it was 
 good or not without sounding it with the axe." Greatly 
 dreading that in spite of all these precautions they might 
 lose some of their "cattle," they "travelled up the ice 
 very slow" — doubtless to the scorn of the gay young 
 people taking their pleasure in the lighter "carioles." 
 
124 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 At the beginning of their journey on this ice road they 
 fell in with " a savage and his wife drawing a child upon 
 a little bark sleigh," and this Indian, promptly sending 
 his wife to camp in the woods till his return, volunteered 
 by signs to guide the party to its destination. He 
 accomplished his self-appointed task most satisfactorily, 
 and appeared delighted with the presents and thrice- 
 repeated huzza given to him on his parting from 
 Wright's company. 
 
 Through the townships of Clarence and Cumberland 
 runs a fine stream called Bear Brook, which served the 
 lumberers in summer in bringing down their logs, and 
 the settlers in winter ^ for a road. " Back from the 
 Ottawa " there was " little or no settlement," and almost 
 all the land was held by speculators and absentees. A 
 great part of the land fronting on the river was owned, 
 eighty-five years ago, by a Mr. M' Kindly, who had 
 bought it from the " Loyalists," to whom it had been 
 granted. The township of Russell had, in 1827, "only 
 one settler — Mr. Loucks, who built a mill on the Castere 
 River " — but there was promise of more, for the township 
 had "lately been located by emigrants from Scotland 
 and militiamen who served during the last war with 
 the United States." Fifteen years later it had 196 
 inhabitants, a number which was doubled by 1850. In 
 the other back township of Cambridge, a family named 
 Rankin, living in the United States, owned 5000 acres, 
 while another family, named Kuylu, owned about as 
 much. In 1827 only every second concession line had 
 been surveyed, and even these were difficult to trace, 
 as many of the corner posts had been destroyed by the 
 lumber-men, who had been through the county and 
 stripped it of almost all the oak and pine fit for market 
 before the Crown Reserves were bought by the Canada 
 Company. 
 
 Smith, writing about 1850, when the population of the 
 
RUSSELL 125 
 
 county was still under 2000 souls, says the lack of roads 
 had kept back settlement. Upon the whole, however, 
 the slow progress of Russell has gone on steadily, decade 
 after decade, and it is not amongst the counties which 
 during the last few years have shown a falling off in 
 their population, either rural or urban. Indeed, in the 
 year 1900 it had between eight and nine times as many 
 people as in 1850, and the increase has continued during 
 the early years of the twentieth century. 
 
 In 1822 Russell was united with Prescott for Parlia- 
 mentary representation, and though it has long had 
 representatives of its own, both in the Dominion and 
 Provincial Houses, it still is joined with Prescott in its 
 judicial affairs, and looks to the village of L'Original as 
 county town. 
 
XXIII. GRENVILLE 
 
 " The thick roof 
 Of green and stirring branches is alive 
 And musical with birds that sing and sport 
 In wantonness of spirit ; while below 
 The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect, 
 Chirps merrily. ..." 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 THIS small old county (named after a British 
 Secretary of State) was first surveyed at the end 
 of the eighteenth century, when it had three rows of 
 townships. Now it has but five townships in all, of 
 which three front on the Rideau and two on the St. 
 Lawrence. The two latter are named respectively 
 Edwardsburg, after the Duke of Kent, and Augusta, 
 after George Ill's second daughter. The county town, 
 Prescott, from which a car ferry giving connection with 
 the New York Central Railway plies, winter and summer, 
 across the St. Lawrence, is partly in one of the town- 
 ships and partly in the other. 
 
 Ages ago the neighbourhood of Prescott and of 
 Spencerville, in Edwardsburg, were favourite Indian 
 resorts. At the latter place is a great embankment, 
 three and a half acres in extent, in the shape of a 
 moccasined foot, where numerous Indian relics have 
 been unearthed. Clay pipes, fragments of pottery, and 
 implements for dressing skins have been discovered in 
 company with the bones of human beings, sharks, and 
 walruses, on terraces from one to two hundred feet above 
 the level of the water, whilst rooted in the earth above 
 
 them are the stumps of enormous pine-trees. 
 
 126 
 
GRENVILLE 127 
 
 It almost goes without saying that the first white 
 settlers in this county were Loyalists. At the close of 
 the War two Provincial corps, under Majors Jessup and 
 Rodgers, after wintering at St. John's in Quebec, came 
 up the St. Lawrence to take up lands in Leeds and 
 Grenville counties. At that time not a tree had been 
 cut by an actual settler from the eastern boundary of 
 our Province to Kingston,, a distance of 1 50 miles. In 
 a paper read a few years ago by Mrs. Burritt to the 
 Women's Historical Society of Ottawa are quotations 
 from the reminiscences of one of the children of the 
 pioneers, old Sheriff Sherwood, who remembered seeing 
 the cutting of the first tree in Grenville County, the 
 planting of the first hills of corn and potatoes, and 
 recalled with affection the memory of a little dog, named 
 " Tipler," at one time the only domestic animal in the 
 district. " Tipler " was a mighty hunter, and had vast 
 opportunities to exercise his powers, for deer and other 
 game abounded in the woods. Wild plums, cranberries, 
 and other berries were all to be had for the gathering, 
 while, as to the wealth of provision from lake and stream, 
 no modern " fish story " sounds at all astounding beside 
 the marvels gravely recorded in diaries and papers of 
 the fishings of those old days. The pity of it all seems 
 that our modern apostles of " conservation " were not 
 born a century earlier. 
 
 But wild meat palls on the appetite of civilised man, 
 for he has acquired tastes which nothing save his own 
 labour can satisfy. The pioneers longed for bread, but 
 it does not appear that those of Grenville County shared 
 in the distribution of hand-mills made by the Government, 
 so they had to depend at first on home-made substitutes 
 for mills. The more enterprising settlers planted a great 
 stump firmly in the ground, burnt out its heart, and 
 within the hollow pounded their Indian corn into meal 
 with the trunk of a young ironwood tree made into a 
 
128 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 pestle. This simple contrivance was of little use for 
 wheat, but the Indian meal made fine porridge, which 
 the English-speaking people called " samp " and the 
 Dutch " suppawn." When, after a few years, horses 
 were brought into the country, the pioneers took their 
 grist to mill along the frozen river, which in those days 
 made a fine winter road, though, added the old settler 
 referred to above, " Providence only sent the ice-road 
 when it was needed," and later, in not one winter for 
 fifty years, would it have been possible to take loads of 
 grain upon the ice. 
 
 In very early days Grenville was fortunate enough to 
 have a doctor, but it was years later before the first 
 minister settled in the county (though one came to Leeds 
 in 1811), and persons wishing to get married had to go 
 to a magistrate. 
 
 The first settlers " who went back and settled on the 
 Rideau " were named Burritt. During the Revolutionary 
 War two brothers, Stephen and Adoniram Burritt, fight- 
 ing on the king's side, found a young American lying 
 wounded after the Battle of Bennington in Vermont. 
 They carried him to a place of safety, and he was nursed 
 until well. A year later the brothers were arrested and 
 taken to Bennington Jail. Luckily for them, the American 
 whom they had befriended was set to guard them, and he 
 planned their escape. 
 
 Stephen Burritt, as a U. E. Loyalist, drew lot 29 in 
 the first concession of Augusta. Thither he brought his 
 father and family, and there the old man lived to be 
 nearly a hundred. But Stephen, after the exciting work 
 of the War, could not at once settle down. He tried fur- 
 trading, and went on an exploring expedition to the 
 Rideau. Striking the river at Cox's Landing, he made a 
 raft and floated down to a place now called after him, 
 Burritt's Rapids. There he settled, but the Indians 
 regarded him as an interloper. While he was chopping 
 
GRENVILLE 129 
 
 in the woods one attacked him, but Burritt had the 
 better of it, and, standing over the prostrate red man 
 with an axe, forced him to beg for mercy and promise 
 friendship. Once made, the promise was kept faithfully, 
 and in after years Burritt and the Indians were fast 
 friends. 
 
 The adventurous young fellow, carrying his supplies 
 for thirty miles into the wilds, had taken a wife to the 
 Rapids. Soon after their arrival the pair were attacked 
 by fever. Not a neighbour was within reach, and, unable 
 to leave their beds, they lay for three days expecting 
 death. But a band of Indians arriving at the Rapids 
 proved very "Good Samaritans." The squaws nursed 
 the invalids back to life, and the braves harvested Bur- 
 ritt's little crop of corn. Burritt lived to be a prosperous 
 and important man in the country, but he never forgot 
 his debt to the Indians. He kept open house for them, 
 and sometimes when he went down in the morning 
 he found them in possession of the place. Stephen's 
 son, born at the Rapids in December 1793, was the first 
 white child born on the Rideau. 
 
 The town of Prescott was founded by Colonel Jessup 
 in 1 8 10, and it was on the homestead of the first pioneer 
 that Fort Wellington was afterwards built. 
 
 From Prescott on a wintry February day in 181 3 went 
 forth the force, led by one of the gallant Macdonells, to 
 avenge, by the capture of Ogdensburg, with many prisoners 
 and much booty, the recent raid upon Brockville. In 
 1822 a West Indian merchant, Hughes by name, erected 
 at Prescott a stone windmill (which in 1873 was trans- 
 formed into a lighthouse), on Windmill Point. 
 
 Once at least during the rebellion in 1838 this building 
 did duty as a fortress. Earlier in the year there had 
 been organised along the frontiers of the United States 
 societies called " Hunters' Lodges," the object of which 
 was to help the Canadian rebels to overturn the Govern- 
 
 I 
 
130 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 ment ; and in November two hundred of these Hunters, 
 led by a Pole named Von Schultz, who regarded the 
 Canadians as grievously oppressed, crossed the St. 
 Lawrence and landed near Prescott. 
 
 Von Schultz expected to be hailed as a deliverer, but 
 the country people did not flock to his banner. Armed 
 steamers patrolling the river rendered retreat impossible, 
 and after a fight, in which many of the Hunters lost their 
 lives, Von Schultz took refuge in the windmill. Here he 
 held out for three days, till Colonel Dundas arrived from 
 Kingston with artillery and opened a heavy fire on the 
 mill. Several Canadians were killed, but resistance was 
 useless, and soon Von Schultz surrendered at discretion. 
 A hundred of the daring aggressors were thus made 
 captive, to be tried by court-martial at Kingston and 
 London. 
 
 Von Schultz was ably defended at his trial by a young 
 barrister, who afterwards won wide fame as Sir John A. 
 Macdonald. But his eloquent plea was unavailing. The 
 Pole was condemned to die, and was executed at Kingston 
 on a December day, with nine of his followers. He left 
 four hundred pounds to the widows of the Canadian 
 militiamen who had fallen in the fight, and perhaps his 
 fate seems the more tragic because he realised before 
 his death that he had been acting under a mistake. 
 
XXIV. LEEDS 
 
 "... So shanties grew 
 Other than his among the blackened stumps ; 
 And children ran with little twigs and leaves 
 And flung them, shouting, on the forest pyres, 
 Where burned the forest kings." 
 
 Isabella Valancy Crawford. 
 
 LEEDS is the largest of the five counties set apart 
 _ along the St. Lawrence in 1792 ; but the country 
 is much broken with lakes, some of which have been 
 taken advantage of in the making of the Rideau Canal 
 from Ottawa to Kingston. The county was named after 
 Francis Godolphin Osborne, fifth Duke of Leeds, and 
 there is a romantic and well-known story connected with 
 a far-back ancestor of his, the founder of the noble 
 family, telling how a young apprentice, Edward Osborne, 
 leaped from London Bridge to save from drowning his 
 master's infant daughter. The little girl lived to marry 
 the bold apprentice, who ultimately " became Lord Mayor 
 of London and Member of Parliament for the city." 
 
 But we need not travel so far afield for stories con- 
 nected with the county. In some respects there is no 
 better way of making real to ourselves the conditions 
 of earlier days than by following in detail the life-story 
 of some individual. I will, therefore, venture to tell again 
 here the history of Colonel Joel Stone, the Loyalist 
 founder of Gananoque, only explaining that I am in- 
 debted for the facts to the vividly painted sketch of this 
 pioneer by Miss Agnes Maule Machar, printed in the 
 Transactions of the U. E. Loyalist Association. 
 
132 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 About 1785 — so Miss Machar paints the picture — a 
 stalwart, handsome, dark-eyed man, in the prime of life, 
 was roaming along the shores of the St. Lawrence, near 
 where the Thousand Isles begin to cluster in the stream. 
 At length he came upon one of the great river's tributaries, 
 which, after a long, placid journey through the shady 
 woods, between banks fringed with flowers, leaped full 
 thirty feet over a barrier of brown rocks, with a force 
 and suddenness sufficient to turn its dark clear waters 
 to the likeness of snow. The Indians called the place 
 " Rocks in Deep Water," or " Cadanoghue," a word 
 which on our English tongues has become " Gananoque." 
 
 Whether it was the wild beauty of the spot or its 
 possibilities as a site for settlement that appealed to the 
 wanderer, here he determined to make his home. Almost, 
 of course, Captain Joel Stone was a Loyalist and a man 
 whom the troubles of the Revolution had turned into a 
 soldier. Born in Connecticut, he was descended from 
 one of twenty-four " pilgrim-pioneers," whose arrival at 
 New Haven in 1659 had been celebrated with a thanks- 
 giving service by the few colonists previously settled 
 there. Joel Stone himself was a capable business man, 
 who had made money as a merchant, and was prospering 
 greatly under laws and a system of government which he 
 regarded " as the best in the universe," when the country 
 was plunged "into the horrors of an unnatural war." 
 Stone was one of those who determined never to flinch 
 from his " duty to the best of sovereigns " (it was the 
 custom of the time to deal boldly in superlatives), and he 
 resolved " sooner to perish in the general calamity than 
 abet in the least degree the enemies of the British 
 Constitution." 
 
 And these were not words merely. Refusing to take 
 up arms against the King, he had to flee from his home ; 
 he was taken prisoner and escaped ; but his house was 
 looted by a mob and his property was confiscated. During 
 
LEEDS 133 
 
 the war he married and children were born to him. At 
 the peace he spent two years in England, with the result 
 that he secured rank as captain, and received a pension 
 of forty pounds a year. 
 
 Coming to Canada, he tried first for land in Cornwall. 
 Too late for this, he turned westward, and eventually 
 obtained a grant of five hundred acres on the Gananoque 
 River, with half the water-power — Sir John Johnson ob- 
 taining a grant on the east bank. Before settling down 
 he travelled overland to his old home, with his son and 
 daughter, to visit his aged father in Connecticut. In 
 the following year he returned to take possession of his 
 grant, coming down the river in a bateau, probably from 
 Niagara. 
 
 From the site of Stone's future home no human habita- 
 tion was in sight, save one solitary fisherman's hut on an 
 island about a mile away. To this Stone made his way, 
 receiving kind hospitality from its owner, a Frenchman 
 named Cary. There he housed his goods and stayed on 
 for some time — a luckless proceeding, as it proved, for 
 one day a fire broke out, consuming the hut and all its 
 contents. Undaunted by this misfortune. Stone began 
 to build for himself. Soon he opened a store, began a 
 lumbering business, and constructed a boat, which was 
 probably "the first built in Canada since the French 
 r%ime." 
 
 Having lost his wife five or six years earlier, he heard 
 that a Mrs. Dayton, who had been a neighbour in Con- 
 necticut, and had settled with her husband in Brantford, 
 had become a widow. Waiting for " a year and a day " 
 after her husband's death, he then wrote a quaintly 
 guarded letter to the lady. This he followed, long before 
 there was time in those days of slow travel to get an 
 answer, with a more outspoken epistle, in which he asked 
 permission to visit the widow. Before he received a 
 reply he was obliged to go to Montreal on business. 
 
134 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 which he feared might prevent his getting to Brantford 
 that year, so he magnanimously declared that if she " had 
 a good offer from another," he would not stand in the 
 way, but added, " I only trust in your good sense that 
 you will not accept a very crooked stick till I can have 
 the pleasure of seeing you." 
 
 Despite the calm coolness of the preliminaries, the 
 marriage duly took place, and proved a happy one. In- 
 deed, the widow became not only a true helpmeet to her 
 second husband, but a kindly mother to his children as 
 well as her own. Moreover, she was a regular " Lady 
 Bountiful" to the neighbourhood, though the phrase 
 hardly gives a fair idea of her charities, for she bestowed 
 upon the needy not only material comforts but much 
 personal service. Being an expert horsewoman, she 
 acted as both doctor and nurse to the sick within a 
 radius of forty miles. As cows were scarce, she " dis- 
 pensed " the milk of hers. She gave a hospitable wel- 
 come to the poor wayfarers, who would now be dubbed 
 tramps. At Christmas she sent round a wagon-load of 
 good things to those less fortunate than herself, whilst 
 on New Year's Day she entertained the Indians, who 
 paid her husband the compliment of calling him " Father " ! 
 Mrs. Stone was a good Methodist, but, living in days 
 when less stress was laid on the duty of temperance than 
 now, she provided for her red-skinned guests not only 
 quantities of cake but of rum ! 
 
 During the War of i8i 2 Colonel Stone became Colonel 
 of a militia regiment, a position which often took him 
 away from home. On one occasion during his absence 
 the settlement of Gananoque was attacked by a party of 
 Americans ; but Mrs. Stone was equal, as usual, to the 
 emergency. She barricaded the house and boldly directed 
 its defence. Not even when a chance shot wounded her 
 in the thigh, did she show any sign of quailing, and her 
 companions only discovered what had happened after 
 
LEEDS 13^ 
 
 the immediate danger was past by the blood which had 
 flowed into her shoe. She was then carried two miles 
 inland to have her wound dressed, but it left her lame 
 till the day of her death. 
 
 Under her influence Joel Stone also joined the Methodist 
 Church. He was the superintendent of the first Sunday 
 school in Gananoque, and exercised a patriarchal in- 
 fluence in the little community on the side of law and 
 order. As a Justice of the Peace he forced many a 
 drunken husband to do his duty to his family. He 
 married many couples, sometimes with such an odd 
 substitute for the regulation ring as a blacksmith's door- 
 key. Both husband and wife lived to a good old age, 
 seeing their children's children grow up. 
 
 Gananoque is now a busy little town of about 3800 
 inhabitants, who are employed in a variety of industries. 
 It is also a favourite summer resort, and a port of call for 
 the steamers plying east and west. 
 
 But the county town, Brockville, is a much more 
 important place, with a population of nearly 9500. 
 Formerly called Elizabethtown, it was renamed by 
 General Brock after himself. Early in its history, in 
 the winter of 1813, the little settlement had a day of 
 terrible excitement, when a body of troops from the 
 American side crossed the river, and carried off as 
 captives fifty-two of Brockville's citizens ; but this 
 indignity was soon avenged. 
 
XXV. CARLETON 
 
 " Above her river, above her hill, 
 Above her streets of brief renown. 
 In majesty austere and still 
 Ottawa's gloried towers look down. 
 
 Dim in the sunset's misty fires. 
 
 Set on the landscape like a crown, 
 Loom tower and bastion, as the spires 
 
 Of some old-world cathedral town." 
 
 William Wilfred Campbell. 
 
 THE name Carleton recalls the memory of that suc- 
 cessful defender and early Governor of Canada, 
 Sir Guy Carleton, or Lord Dorchester; and, appropri- 
 ately enough, there were many officers and soldiers 
 amongst the pioneers of the county. Half-pay officers 
 settled thickly along the banks of the Ottawa, or Grand, 
 River, and private soldiers filled many a concession behind 
 them. The district was emphatically one of magnificent 
 forests, and in the days when roads were not it was a 
 vast advantage to obtain lands on the river, even though 
 the only craft the settler had at his command might be 
 some such rough, home-made apology for a boat as a 
 " dug-out " cut from a huge pine. 
 
 The woods were, indeed, so thick that people might 
 live in the same district for months without knowing of 
 each other's existence, until some accident led to the 
 pleasant discovery of neighbours. For instance, two 
 runaway steers, owned by different men, but usually 
 worked together, led their masters (settlers of South 
 
 Gloucester) to the clearing of Colonel Macdonell, a few 
 
 136 
 
CARLBTON 137 
 
 miles distant in Osgoode Township. This gallant soldier, 
 by the way, had had exciting experiences during the War 
 of 1812 as a despatch rider, and, between a grant made 
 to himself as an officer and that to his U. E. Loyalist 
 wife, possessed a farm of a thousand acres, which he was 
 beginning to clear. The oxen had begun their wander- 
 ings along a newly-cut road leading inland from the 
 Rideau River. Reaching its eastward end, they had 
 then made their own trail to the Colonel's dwelling-place. 
 Happily, their escapade gave him a hint, and, calling 
 his five or six neighbours together, they cut a road, 
 following the track surveyed, so to speak, by the oxen. 
 At first it was but " brushed " and " blazed," but soon 
 became the winter road to Bytown for all that district, 
 and it was eventually " the highway to market, mill, and 
 store." 
 
 Osgoode Township was settled later than most of the 
 other nine, and chiefly by Scottish folk, whilst in the rest 
 of the county there was a mixture of English, Scotch, 
 Irish, and Welsh. Some of the townships had belonged 
 to Russell County, some to Grenville, whilst Goulbourn 
 and the four townships in the north-west corner of 
 Carleton were not set apart till 18 16 and later. Every 
 township has its own interesting stories (many of which 
 can be discovered in Mr. J. L. Gourlay's History of the 
 Ottawa Valley), but, of course, in all there was much 
 similarity in the experiences of the pioneers. 
 
 Wolves were common enough anywhere, but it was 
 within eight miles of the future capital of the Dominion 
 that, in the thirties, the young wife of an officer had the 
 experience of spending days alone in a log-house " with 
 wolves howling madly round, the fiercest of them thrust- 
 ing their noses against the window-panes." Huntley 
 also has its stories of wolves and bears ; of thick clouds 
 of wild pigeons, and yet thicker clouds of mosquitoes, 
 which, of course, particularly tortured newly-arrived 
 
138 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 immigrants. One Irishman, marching through the 
 swamps with an iron pot on his head, and his back and 
 arms burdened with heavy " government " hoes, was 
 most grievously bitten by his vicious little tormentors. 
 
 Many of the log shanties built by inexperienced new 
 arrivals can hardly have been weatherproof, but it was 
 the wife of an officer, the first settler in March Township, 
 Mrs. Monk, who used a large tin tea-tray to shelter her 
 baby in its cradle from the rain pouring through the 
 roof. There was one man, an English merchant, Hamnet 
 Pinhey, who " came rich to March," and used his wealth 
 in building a grist-mill, a sawmill, and a church, to the 
 general benefit of the little community. The little village 
 of North Gower, in the township of the same name, also 
 owed to its first settler. Rev. Peter Jones, a retired 
 Methodist minister, both church and school ; at least he 
 used his own fine shanty, one " with ornamental corners," 
 for preaching on Sundays and for teaching the children 
 during the week. 
 
 It was not only in one township that girls (and 
 others) occasionally lost themselves in the woods, but to 
 Fitzroy belongs the story of the young lady who " on 
 two occasions spent the night on a tree," and so won 
 from the boys the name of " the angel of the swamp." 
 It was also in Fitzroy that a young girl who was " lost 
 with her faithful dog, and was eight days away, living 
 on berries," at last had the happy thought that " the dog 
 might take her out." Accordingly " she scolded him, 
 ordering him home. He went reluctantly, every few 
 minutes turning to look at her, but at length brought 
 her out." Possibly in other townships, too, darning- 
 needles were in the pioneer days scarce and valuable, 
 but in Fitzroy (so the story goes) when the soUtary 
 darning-needle of the settlement got lost, the people 
 "turned out in force and found it." 
 
 There is a dim tradition that Gloucester had a white 
 
CARLETON 139 
 
 inhabitant as early as 1803, but the first white man to 
 make a home in the township was Braddish Billings, 
 who had been employed by Philemon Wright, the ener- 
 getic founder of Hull, to " take out staves " in the woods 
 along the Rideau. Higher up the stream lived a beauti- 
 ful and charming girl, Almira Dow, who, though still in 
 her teens, had for some months taught a settlement 
 school at a salary of seven dollars a month, with the 
 privilege of " boarding round " at the homes of the pupils. 
 But when pay-day came no cash was forthcoming; 
 nothing but notes, promising certain amounts of wheat. 
 Hoping to obtain money for these. Miss Dow walked 
 thirty miles through the woods to Brockville. The 
 merchants there would do no more than promise goods 
 for the wheat upon its delivery in Brockville, so the re- 
 sourceful damsel walked back home, collected her wheat, 
 drove with it to Brockville, received her "store pay," 
 and returned in safety. When she married she helped 
 her husband to harvest his first crop of corn, and showed 
 in at least one perilous emergency the same qualities of 
 courage and determination that had marked her as a girl. 
 
 Sometimes the hopes of the new-comers proved, from 
 some cause or other, delusive. In 181 8 there came up 
 the Ottawa a company of officers and men of the 99th 
 and lOOth Regiments, but, though they settled their 
 families temporarily in tents near the spot where the 
 capital now stands, they proceeded to cut a road to the 
 River Jock, or Goodwood, where, with high hopes, they 
 founded what they anticipated would in the future be the 
 city of Richmond. (The only Duke to be Governor- 
 General of Canada till the coming of the present royal 
 representative of his Majesty had just arrived, and at 
 that date "all was Richmond!" though the Duke's 
 critics broadly hinted that his character was less exalted 
 than his rank.) 
 
 The town-planning spirit was abroad amongst the 
 
I40 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 military pioneers, and lots were reserved for public 
 buildings and parks, but the remaining months before 
 winter were too short to allow of the building of a 
 sufficient number of houses and shanties. Some, there- 
 fore, had to spend the winter in tents. 
 
 One evening in the following August two men arrived 
 at midnight with the exciting intelligence that his Grace 
 of Richmond was close at hand, and was intending to 
 visit the village named in his honour, having come on 
 foot thirty miles through the woods from Perth for the 
 purpose. In the morning " every piece of board, plank, 
 or flat stick to be found was carried by scores of willing 
 hands to enable the Duke" (who had spent the night 
 at a not far-distant tavern) "by temporary bridges to 
 cross the gullies." Had he let them, the delighted people 
 "would have carried him the three miles through that 
 slough." 
 
 Arrived at the village, the Duke ordered a fine dinner 
 for the leading people, and was most sociable and kind ; 
 but his visit ended tragically. At the sight of water he 
 showed, it was remarked, a strange nervousness, and he 
 slept ill. In the morning he set out for Hull, taking the 
 boat, as previously arranged, to go down the Jock to 
 Chapman's farm, where he was to be met and taken on 
 towards Hull by a wagon and two yokes of oxen. Before 
 reaching the landing-place, he became violently excited, 
 and leaping from the boat, fled through the woods, to 
 be found in a barn in a terrible paroxysm of hydrophobia, 
 caused by the bite of a tame fox. In hot haste doctors 
 were sent for, but they could do nothing, and the oxen 
 and wagon served for a funeral car to carry the Duke's 
 lifeless body to the Ottawa river. 
 
 A few years later Richmond's two annual fairs were 
 the occasions of wild brawls between the lumbermen and 
 ex-soldiers, when excited with drink, but at times a 
 gigantic Irish priest. Father Peter Smith, used to scatter 
 
CARLETON 141 
 
 the combatants with a long whip. Ottawa, or rather its 
 embryo village of Bytown, frequently witnessed similar 
 scenes. 
 
 Apart from the construction of the Rideau Canal (to 
 which, indeed, the city owed its beginning), lumber and 
 legislation are the key- words to the history of Ottawa. 
 It was in 1806 that that "sharp lumberer," Philemon 
 Wright, took the first raft of timber down the Ottawa 
 to Quebec. That was a score of years before the be- 
 ginning of Bytown, but the trade in lumber and in 
 manufactures of which wood is the basis are still the 
 chief industries of the twin cities on the Ottawa, and at 
 certain times of the year it is a most interesting sight 
 to see the logs come down the timber-slides at the Falls. 
 
 Hull was a flourishing village before a single settler 
 had established himself on the site of Ottawa. In fact, 
 in 1 8 16, when one of the pioneers died on the south side 
 of the " Grand River " (as the earliest settlers liked to 
 call the Ottawa) his body was ferried over to Hull for 
 burial. As for getting married, the people on the south 
 side used sometimes to fetch a justice of the peace from 
 a long distance to perform the ceremony, and, as in the 
 Province of Quebec marriage by a magistrate was not 
 legal, some ingenious settlers of Hull crossed in winter 
 to that half of the river which was under the jurisdiction 
 of Upper Canada and were then married by a magistrate 
 on the ice. 
 
 As late as 1818 a cedar swamp covered the site of 
 Ottawa, and there was good duck-shooting on a pond 
 where are now fine streets. Years later " when the cows 
 waded along (the future) Bank and O'Connor Streets 
 they had to be washed before they could be milked." 
 Yet in very early years there were not wanting prophets 
 who predicted Ottawa's future greatness. The War of 
 181 2 had set the mihtary authorities searching anxiously 
 for some other route for the transportation of troops and 
 
142 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 stores than that by the St. Lawrence, which seemed too 
 much exposed to the possible attacks of the Americans ; 
 and before the name of By was heard at the Chaudiere 
 Lord Dalhousie (then Governor-General), strolling on 
 the beach at Hull, observed to a friend that the Duke 
 of Wellington had proposed a scheme for uniting the 
 Ottawa with Lake Ontario, and went on to predict that, 
 in that event, the very eminence which we call Parlia- 
 ment Hill would be the seat of government for the two 
 Canadas. The noble Earl did not see quite far enough 
 to discern one Canada stretching from ocean to ocean. 
 
 It was not till the year 1 826 (" the birth year of 
 Ottawa") that the Imperial Government actually began 
 the construction of the Rideau Canal. The work was 
 put in charge of Colonel By, and for the next six years 
 his stalwart, soldierly figure, often mounted on a great 
 black horse, was a familiar sight in the village (bearing 
 his name), which sprang up like a mushroom. Un- 
 questionably Ottawa is a name at once more euphonious 
 and more dignified than Bytown (which somehow seems 
 to savour of the odd place-names in Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
 Progress) ; but it seems a pity that the gallant Colonel's 
 name had to be superseded. 
 
 He was of a fine type of British soldier. He had his 
 share of that bulldog tenacity of purpose which refuses 
 to acknowledge defeat — a quality which inspired him, on 
 the one hand, in a long struggle to persuade the British 
 Government to build the new waterway on a scale which 
 could be used by the steamboats, then beginning to 
 supersede the old Durham boats ; and, on the other, 
 enabled him to rise superior to the natural difficulties of 
 his task. When the almost completed dam at the Hog's 
 Back was washed away by a spring flood, he is reported 
 to have said that he would rebuild the dam " until it 
 would stand, if he had to build it with solid half-dollar 
 pieces ! " An enthusiast for his work, he would allow no 
 
CARLETON 143 
 
 shirking or scamping or poor workmanship ; but, though 
 a strict disciplinarian, he was also kind and charitable. 
 
 He first pitched his tent in the unbroken forest of 
 Nepean Point, but soon removed to a house built of 
 boulders, with " very rustic woodwork," on what is now 
 Major's Hill, while barracks were erected for his com- 
 pany of sappers and miners on the hill now crowned by 
 the Parliament buildings. 
 
 Early in 1827 Lord Dalhousie visited Bytown to wit- 
 ness " the ceremony of breaking ground for the canal " ; 
 and in August of the same year the famous Arctic ex- 
 plorer, Franklin, laid the corner-stone of the locks. But 
 these only represented part of By's activities. He was 
 busy with a bridge at the Chaudi^re to give the first 
 land-communication between the two Provinces, with the 
 Deep Cut, the Sappers' Bridge, and some twenty-six 
 miles of road. 
 
 Money for the payment of the workmen used to come 
 out from England in half-crowns, packed in kegs like 
 nails. Once the head came out of one of these kegs, and 
 its contents were scattered in the street. The cost of 
 the canal amounted in all to about $5,000,000. The 
 distance by the Rideau Canal from Ottawa to Kingston 
 is 126 miles, but much advantage was taken of natural 
 waterways. Twenty-four dams and forty-seven locks 
 (eight of which are within the limits of Ottawa) had to 
 be constructed to turn numerous rapids into still water 
 and to overcome diiferences of level. In the spring of 
 1832 the first steamer passed through the locks. This 
 vessel was called by the inelegant name of the Pumper ; 
 and the second steamer to go through was the Union. 
 
 After this, till the completion of the St. Lawrence 
 canals, the whole trade of Upper and Lower Canada 
 went past Bytown. Sometimes hundreds of immigrants 
 passed through in a day, and it was the chief amusement 
 of the townsfolk to watch the vessels going through the 
 
144 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 locks. For the first quarter of a century, however, 
 visitors noted that the Bytown folk seemed to have no 
 time to pave their streets, to think of gardens or flowers, 
 or even to remove the boulders lying about amongst the 
 houses. The upper and lower towns were separate 
 villages, with "the wooded spur of the hill," on which 
 the barracks stood, between ; and from all accounts a 
 rough, lawless, little place it was, frequented by lumber- 
 men, of different nationalities, for business and pleasure, 
 and these often fell to fighting amongst themselves or 
 with the wild Irish "shiners," who also found employ- 
 ment rafting lumber down the river. Whisky was 
 cheap, and, as " Ralph Connor " says of the lumberers 
 in The Man from Glengarry, " drunken rows were their 
 delight, and fights so fierce that many a man came out 
 battered and bruised to death or to life-long decrepi- 
 tude." Escape to the woods was so easy that it put 
 a premium on crime, and in 1837 the law-abiding citizens 
 formed an " Association for Preserving the Public Peace 
 in Bytown," the object being mutual protection against 
 " felonious assault." Nor was it only in Bytown that 
 peaceful settlers suffered from the lawless lumbermen. 
 All along the canal the " shiners " were always on the 
 look-out to pick quarrels with the farmers, some of whom 
 were themselves " rough-and-ready fighters." 
 
 But despite the rude accompaniments of the trade, it 
 was building up Bytown, which was incorporated as a 
 town in 1847, with 6000 inhabitants, and as a city in 
 1855, when it changed its name to Ottawa. At the 
 earlier of these two dates, about half the population was 
 Irish and a quarter French-Canadian. From morning 
 to night the streets were filled " with Lower Canadian 
 caleches," and altogether, to an English observer, the 
 scene was " exceedingly foreign." 
 
 In 1857, as every Canadian knows, Queen Victoria 
 chose Ottawa to be the capital of the Canadas, on 
 
OARLETON 145 
 
 account not only of its central position with regard to 
 the two Provinces, and of its distance from the frontier, 
 but also because of the striking beauty of its site, which 
 is a worthy setting for Parliament buildings, not now 
 of " the Canadas " alone, but of the Dominion. A new 
 chapter of the history of Ottawa was begun in 1867, but 
 it belongs to the story of the nation rather than to that 
 of the counties. 
 
XXVI. LANARK 
 
 " Hath not old custom made this life more sweet 
 Than that of painted pomp ? Are not these woods 
 More free from peril than the envious court ? " 
 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after the War of 1812 (to which 
 period belongs the beginning of settlement in Lanark 
 County), the military and civic officials in Canada, the 
 half-pay officers and other educated British settlers, seem to 
 have been obsessed (not unnaturally) with fear and dislike 
 of the Americans. The travellers of the time constantly 
 held up to ridicule and obloquy American manners and 
 American morality, but this distrust did not deter 
 "Yankee" pioneers from flocking into the country, from 
 making, as individuals, as much as possible of it their 
 own, nor from doing it good service by their experience 
 of similar conditions of life. 
 
 As was mentioned previously, the Rideau Canal owed 
 its inception to this chronic suspicion of our neighbours, 
 and, of course, it was always in the thoughts of the 
 actual constructors of the work. Possibly, therefore, 
 their accounts of the Yankees, in Lanark and elsewhere, 
 may not have been quite free from prejudice. There 
 are, however, some interesting pages concerning Lanark 
 County in a book, published about 1828, by John 
 McTaggart, clerk of the works on the canal, who was 
 sent through the country to make careful surveys and 
 reports, and from his pages one can glean many a 
 picture of the state of the district through which the 
 canal was to pass. Of course, his first interest is in 
 
 the river, vexed in its course by rapids or plunging 
 
 146 
 
LANARK 147 
 
 madly over great ledges of rock, but he gives some 
 glimpses of the scattered settlers and their doings. 
 
 Hinting now and then at the lonely beauty of the 
 wilderness, he paints the land, upon the whole, in some- 
 what forbidding colours. He tells of long stretches of 
 swamp where, by actual measurement, the black mud 
 was over three feet in depth. These dread morasses 
 were the haunt, as canal-workers and settlers alike 
 found to their cost, of fever and ague. They were 
 the haunt, too, of all manner of noxious stinging and 
 biting insects — black flies and hornets and mosquitoes 
 in clouds — which tortured all the workers at their 
 patient measuring and surveying. In the spring the 
 thickly growing forests were strangely vocal with wild 
 pigeons innumerable, sometimes flying in flocks of " five 
 acres " in extent. 
 
 Swamps and dense woods must have had a subduing 
 effect on their few human inhabitants, for McTaggart 
 mentions " a melancholy peculiar to Canada." The notion 
 scarcely suits with our twentieth-century conception of 
 our young country, nor does it seem altogether to 
 accord with the idea one gets of the man himself, who, 
 amidst the manifold difficulties of his canal-building, 
 was so eager and enthusiastic as to be dreaming 
 strange dreams of a " grand canal ' ' across the northern 
 half of the North American continent, through a "notch" 
 in the Rockies to the waters of the Pacific, upon which 
 he saw visions of a city of Nookta as large as the metro- 
 polis of the Empire itself. 
 
 But McTaggart was not always in the clouds. He 
 could grow eloquent in dispraise of the "cheap and 
 nasty'' whisky made in every little hamlet from bad 
 potatoes and other refuse, to the great detriment of 
 the health, morals, and fortunes of the people. At that 
 time distilleries seemed to be regarded as only second 
 in importance to grist mills and sawmills, which were 
 
148 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 generally built by the aristocrats amongst the pioneers, or 
 "settlers of eminence," as McTaggart calls them. Of 
 course, many of the energetic settlers also took to keeping 
 the tiny village stores, which had to cater for the wants 
 of a very miscellaneous population. For instance, in 
 headgear, it was customary for them to keep " white 
 hats for Yankees, black hats for Irish, and Kilmarnock 
 bonnets for Canadians." 
 
 As might be guessed from its Scottish name, Lanark 
 township was largely settled by Scotch — many of them 
 Glasgow weavers; and in that day, when means of 
 communication throughout the country were so deficient, 
 any settlers might count themselves fortunate if within 
 reach of neighbours whose upbringing and modes of 
 thought bore some resemblance to their own. 
 
 In the year 18 16 the townships of Bathurst, Drummond, 
 and Beckwith (like the neighbouring to\mship of Goul- 
 burn in Carleton County) were settled to a considerable 
 extent by discharged soldiers, some of whom had been, 
 it is said, " with Abercrombie in Egypt, with Wellington 
 and Sir John Moore in Spain, with Cornwallis in America," 
 but the greater part had seen service in 1812, when 
 Canada was the battlefield. At a very great expense, 
 the British Government — partly to strengthen the Colony 
 from the military point of view — " tried to make these 
 old soldiers and their families as comfortable as pos- 
 sible. . . . They chose their locations without expense, 
 and each man received, according to his rank, from one 
 hundred to five hundred acres. They were also supplied 
 with all necessary implements of husbandry, and tools 
 for building purposes ; also cooking utensils and blankets, 
 with one year's provisions for each man, woman, and 
 child." Some of the ex-soldiers of this " Perth settle- 
 ment" did well. Others stayed only as long as the 
 distribution of rations continued, or until they could 
 obtain some trifle for their lands. By the middle of 
 
LANARK 149 
 
 the century it was said that scarcely one soldier-settler 
 in fifty had remained for good ; but by that time Irish 
 and English immigrants had filled up the deserted 
 holdings. 
 
 In 181 5 proclamations had been issued in Britain in- 
 viting civilians also, under certain conditions, to become 
 settlers in Upper or Lower Canada, as they might choose, 
 though the exact location was left to the Government; 
 and some of the Perth settlement pioneers were gathered 
 in this way. According to Robert Gourlay, that indus- 
 trious hunter-out of abuses, the good intentions of the 
 Government were, in part, frustrated by the careless- 
 ness and bad conduct of its accredited agents. As a 
 beginning, the new-comers, unused to axe-work, were 
 obliged to cut a road twenty miles long through the 
 wooded wilderness before they could reach the principal 
 place of settlement, and, arriving there, found the sur- 
 veying of their lands only beginning. Sometimes, too, the 
 promised rations were stopped for very slight reasons. 
 
 The county town of Perth was laid out by the Govern- 
 ment in 1 8 16, on an island in the Tay River, which was 
 afterwards rendered navigable for small vessels to the 
 Rideau Canal by a private company. Sixty years ago 
 Perth was a clean, thriving little place of nearly 2000 
 inhabitants. Its attractiveness was due largely to its 
 river and its many stone buildings. Its population has 
 nearly doubled since then, but it has been outstripped 
 by its younger rival. Smith's Falls. Originally, by the 
 way, the progress of this latter place was, it is said, 
 much hindered by the cupidity of its owners, who asked 
 as much as two hundred and fifty pounds for quarter-acre 
 lots in the business section of the village. 
 
 Of course in the early days there were many squatters 
 in the county, who, going into the wilderness in advance 
 of the surveyors, built their shanties and made their 
 little clearings, trusting to the authorities to give due 
 
ISO THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 consideration to their claims whenever the country should 
 be opened formally to settlement. McTaggart tells that, 
 in the winter of 1827, when, going with his men through 
 the woods in a part of Lanark County which he believed 
 to be absolutely unsettled, he came on the track of a 
 sleigh — a sight almost as astonishing, under the circum- 
 stances, as was the footprint to Robinson Crusoe on 
 his desolate island. Following the track, the party came 
 to a clearing of about seven acres, in the midst of which 
 "a neat little log-house sat smoking." Its master, in 
 a voice trembling with emotion at the unusual sight of 
 strangers, asked them to " Come ben ! " Accepting the 
 invitation, they entered to find "a snug little cabin," a 
 wife, three children, some sleek grey cats, and a 
 good dog. " Having broached the rum jug " (not the 
 simplest courtesy was then complete without strong 
 drink), they all sat down to listen to their host's story. 
 
 A plain working man, Peter Armstrong by name, 
 from Hawick, in Scotland, he had managed, fifteen years 
 earlier, to save enough to come to Canada ; had " fought 
 up the water St. Lawrence to a place they ca'd Perth, 
 and there finding nought to do — nae country wark " — 
 (one wonders what they did in that pioneer hamlet, if 
 not country work 1) — " he just went afar into the heart 
 of the wild woods with his axe, dog and gun, and, after 
 looking about, fixed on the place where we found him 
 for his abode in this world. 
 
 " Year by year, he wrought away all by himself — read 
 the Bible every Sabbath day — made a journey to Perth 
 twice a year and bought wee needfuls ; at last got a house, 
 and sleigh, and cleared about five acres." Having good 
 health, " spring-water plenty just aside him," and no 
 lack of firewood, he lived well enough for five long 
 solitary years, on " what he caught, shot, gathered, or 
 grew." " All at once, on one of his visits to Perth, whom 
 should he meet but Tibby Patterson, who was the 
 
LANARK 151 
 
 byre-woman at the laird of Branksome's, where he was 
 once a herd lad. Far frae hame in a wild land," with 
 few friends, they were drawn to each other at once. So 
 they were married by one of the irregular weddings 
 of those days when parsons were so far to seek — and 
 for nine years they had lived happily, deep in the great 
 woods. But McTaggart wondered less at their content 
 than at the grumbling of others whom he met in his 
 wanderings, who would neither leave the woods and 
 " fight for an honest living and cheerful society, nor yet 
 be at peace in them." 
 
XXVII. RENFREW 
 
 " I wuss ye weel I the kintra's lairge, 
 An' ye're but twa wi' Mary, 
 Ye'll shortly hae the owner's cbairge, 
 
 Nae doot, o' half a prairie. 
 There's ample room in sic a park 
 
 To foond a score o' nations, 
 An' flourish like a patriarch 
 Amon' your generations." 
 
 J. LoGiB Robertson. 
 
 " ' I "HE country's large " — even so it may be said of 
 J. Renfrew County alone, with its three dozen 
 townships, named variously with Indian words and with 
 names reminiscent of Canadian Governors, Crimean 
 generals, lumber merchants, great ladies, and little 
 English villages. 
 
 A curious incident links this county, till less than a 
 century ago inhabited only by Indians, with the brave 
 days of early French exploration, for in 1867 an antique 
 astronomical instrument was ploughed up near Muskrat 
 Lake, which, on good circumstantial evidence, proved to 
 be an astrolabe lost by Champlain in 161 3 on his dis- 
 appointing journey up the Ottawa, by which route the 
 lying De Vignau had promised to lead him to Hudson 
 Bay. 
 
 In 1827 the Hudson's Bay Company established one 
 trading post at Golden Lake and another at the Chats, 
 with a third. Fort Coulonge, on the Quebec bank of the 
 Ottawa, between Allumette and Calumet Islands. Some 
 seven years later the lumbering operations begun on the 
 Ottawa extended to the banks of its tributary streams, 
 
RENFREW 153 
 
 watering the well-wooded wilderness now Renfrew 
 County. But the dark and turgid Madawaska — the 
 " Never-frozen," as its Indian name means — rushing 
 headlong between high precipitous banks, was regarded 
 even by the hardy lumbermen as so dangerous that it 
 was not till 1 836 that the cutting of the valuable timber 
 upon its banks commenced. Soon after that, however, 
 the Government took measures to render it more passable. 
 
 In 1 82 1 Peter White, who had been in the Royal 
 Navy and had come to Canada in 181 3 to serve under Sir 
 James Yeo on Lake Ontario, settled on the site of Pem- 
 broke, Renfrew's future county town. He had brought 
 up his family by canoe from Bytown, taking fourteen 
 days on the way, though the journey can now be made 
 in three and a half hours, and at first the house of his 
 nearest white neighbour was sixty miles distant from his 
 log cabin. It is said, by the way, that the roofs of such 
 log cabins, made of hollowed tree trunks, with the grooves 
 placed alternately up and down, were a better defence 
 against rain than the walls usually were against wind. 
 
 It was not then, as with our modern pioneers in the 
 west, that the first resource was grain. The old-time 
 backwoodsman looked to obtain his first cash payment 
 from potash ; and Mrs. McDougall, a member of the 
 Women's Historical Society of Ottawa, writing of 
 " Renfrew in the Early Days," describes how the ashes 
 from the burnt wood were leached in wedge-shaped 
 vessels, how the lye was boiled " until it looked like 
 molten iron," and then was poured into coolers, " two of 
 which filled a barrel." A barrel of potash of first quality 
 was at one time worth thirty dollars, and it was the 
 custom for the local merchant to pay on account twelve 
 dollars for each barrel, but the farmer had to wait 
 patiently for the rest until " the merchant returned from 
 Montreal, where he got ready money for all the potash 
 entrusted to him." 
 
154 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 The housekeeper of those almost moneyless days was 
 happily wonderfully independent of the shops, with her 
 remarkable ingenuity, her spinning-wheel, her supply of 
 sugar and syrup from the maples on the farm, and plenty 
 of " Labrador tea " for the gathering along the edges of 
 swamps and streams. (This was said, by the way, to 
 be a " very fair substitute for the real article.") If she 
 wanted vinegar, she made it with " vinegar-plant." If 
 she had need of candles, she took some wicks, about half 
 a yard long, and dipped and re-dipped until her candles 
 were thick enough ; but her labours in this matter were 
 soon simplified by the coming in of moulds. 
 
 Bread-making in those days had its own peculiar 
 difficulties. In the first place, as has been said over 
 and over again, it was hard to obtain flour. One Ren- 
 frew settler carried a bag of wheat twelve miles to be 
 ground in a coflfee-mill, and another, whose family was 
 giving a party, rode sixty miles to Perth for flour to 
 make bread. In the second place, before hops were 
 grown, ordinary yeast was not to be had, and the dough 
 was " raised " with a preparation made from burnt hard- 
 wood or with fermented bran, which last made a nice 
 white loaf, but one that dried extraordinarily quickly. 
 
 The Indians brought supplies of fish, game, and cran- 
 berries to the settlers, but wild strawberries, raspberries, 
 blackberries, and blueberries only followed the clearing 
 of the land. The Caughnawaga Indians, coming from 
 the Lake of Two Mountains to winter at Golden Lake, 
 were the first to bring in apples — little, round, hard 
 things, but none the less the delight of the children. 
 
 That was the period when many useful people had to 
 itinerate — not only missionaries, but also tailors and 
 shoemakers. As for teachers, Renfrew seems to have 
 been fortunate in obtaining for the children the services 
 of some well-educated young men who had come into the 
 district in hopes of sport. 
 
RENFREW 155 
 
 Amongst the immigrants of different ranks and nation- 
 alities, the county had, of course, its share of oddities. 
 One of the most eccentric of the pioneers was that " real 
 Highland chieftain," "The MacNab of MacNab," who, 
 in 1825, received a grant of the township named after 
 him. Four or five miles from the head of the Chats 
 Rapids, he built his castle, Kinnel Lodge. Around it 
 his clansmen erected their humbler dwellings. Every 
 year he sold an immense quantity of fine timber, and it 
 was his delight at times, " to move about the Provinces," 
 somewhat in the style of " Vich Ian Vohr " in Waverley, 
 attired in full Highland costume, and attended with a 
 piper going before, and a " tail " of henchmen following 
 after. There are many stories of his consequential 
 manners. It has often been told how he registered in 
 the visitors' book of an hotel at Kingston as "The 
 MacNab," and how a young relative, the future " Sir 
 Allan " of Hamilton, coming in immediately afterwards, 
 registered as " The Other MacNab." An acquaintance 
 who addressed him as " Mr. MacNab " was called to order 
 with the remark : " Sir, I thought you had known better — 
 nothing but MacNab, if you please. Mr. does not belong 
 to me." In 1837 he offered his services to Sir Francis 
 Bond Head, as " the only Highland Chieftain in America." 
 
 Many immigrants, some of whom were described as 
 "lovely Highland girls," came out to his estate every 
 year. He used to meet the new-comers at Quebec and 
 escort them in person " to the land of timber instead of 
 heather," but his management of affairs did not altogether 
 please his clansmen, and in 1842 the Government, desir- 
 ing to put an end to the constant contentions, paid him 
 $16,000 to relinquish his rights. After living in Hamilton 
 for a few years, he returned to Scotland to take posses- 
 sion of a small estate left to him in the Orkneys, and 
 died in France in i860. Highlanders settled also in 
 Buchanan and Ross townships. 
 
iS6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 In the early days the district along the upper portion 
 of the Madawaska (now comprised in the townships 
 of Brougham, Wilberforce, and Grattan) was known 
 as " Rogues' Harbour," from the fact that absconding 
 debtors and other disreputable squatters had made it 
 their refuge. 
 
 In 1854 Renfrew, separated from Lanark, was repre- 
 sented in Parliament by Sir Francis Hincks. It was 
 twelve years later, however, before the county gained its 
 municipal independence ; and " when the county town 
 was Perth and there were no roads through Renfrew, to 
 be singled out as a juryman meant that the hand of 
 fortune was against you." Jurymen were then paid 
 twelve and a half cents for each case they were on, but 
 were not allowed mileage, even though they might have 
 to tramp on foot fifty, sixty, or seventy miles to attend 
 the court. 
 
 About 1850 a road was opened from the Ottawa, below 
 Calumet Island, to Cobden, at the head of Muskrat Lake, 
 and stages were run on this highway to connect with a 
 " line " of rowboats which carried passengers and goods 
 to Pembroke, till they were superseded by a small steam- 
 boat. This seemed an immense advance, but now the 
 transcontinental line of the Canadian Pacific Railway 
 passes through Pembroke. 
 
 For long, farming in Renfrew was neglected for the 
 sake of lumbering; but as the lumbermen had to go 
 farther back their demand for supplies led to some 
 cultivation of the soil, and some of the great lumber 
 merchants established farms to supply their own camps. 
 
WESTERN COUNTIES 
 
 XXVIII. WENTWORTH 
 
 " In the rough old times, 
 In the tough old times, 
 
 Of twenty years agone, 
 There was nae a clock in the settlement 
 
 To tell how the time went on ; 
 But we kenned very well when the day began. 
 
 And we kenned very well when 'twas o'er, 
 And our dinner-bell was the gude-wife's shout, 
 
 When the sun reached the nick in the door." 
 
 David Martin. 
 
 WHEN, in 1669, La Salle and his party, including 
 the adventurous priests Dollier de Casson and 
 Gallin^e, found their way to " the head " of Lake Ontario, 
 the spot was much frequented by wild animals and 
 Indian hunters, and many Indian relics and traces of 
 villages have been discovered in the vicinity. Deer, 
 bears, and wolves were perhaps attracted not only by 
 the pure, abundant waters, but by the numerous " salt- 
 licks '' on the side of the mountain. There, too, rattle- 
 snakes found congenial lurking places, and Father 
 Gallin^e records that when the intrepid explorer of the 
 Mississippi was seized at this place with a fever, some 
 of his party declared that it was due " to the sight of 
 three large rattlesnakes which he had encountered on 
 his way while ascending a rocky eminence." 
 
 Somewhat over a century later, when the settlement 
 of the district had fairly begun, rattlesnakes were still 
 extraordinarily plentiful, and Mr. J. H. Smith, the 
 
 IS7 
 
158 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 historian of Wentworth County, tells how each returning 
 spring the pioneers used "to organise hunting parties 
 to destroy these dangerous neighbours. ... On the 
 projecting ledges on sunny days they might be seen 
 gathered together in heaps varying in height from one 
 to two feet, and here they lay basking in the sunshine. 
 It was at these times that the hunting parties visited the 
 mountain side, and with muskets loaded with slugs or 
 coarse shot fired into these piles and destroyed them by 
 hundreds." 
 
 Who was the first permanent settler at " the head of 
 the lake " is uncertain. About 1785 two Loyalists, Charles 
 Depew and his brother-in-law, George Stewart, coasted 
 along the lake shore in search of homes, and, dragging 
 their canoe across Burlington Beach, landed on what 
 was afterwards known as the Depew Farm. No survey 
 having been made, they marked their names on flattened 
 stakes and drove them into the ground, to show other 
 home-seekers that there was a claim on the land. 
 
 On a tombstone in Christ Church Cathedral, the honour 
 of being " the first settler at the head of the lake " is 
 claimed for a trader, Richard Beasley. This man was 
 the first owner of what is now Dundurn Park, and it is 
 said that Simcoe planned for a town on the heights, but 
 that Beasley set so high a value on his rights in the land 
 that the settlement began its existence south and east of 
 the intended spot. 
 
 Robert Land was another very early settler at the 
 " head of the lake," and his story reads like a romance. 
 When the revolutionary war broke out he was living on 
 the banks of the Delaware. Of a daring and adventur- 
 ous temper, he came out boldly on the side of the King, 
 and was often employed to carry important despatches. 
 One night, however, he was shot at and wounded, but 
 managed to creep into a thicket to conceal himself till he 
 was able to continue his journey. Reaching home, he 
 
WENTWORTH 159 
 
 found his house in ashes, his wife and children gone. 
 Believing that they had been murdered by the Indians, 
 he made his perilous way to Niagara, and later took up 
 land under the mountain beyond Stony Creek. Here for 
 seven years he lived, " a solitary," but one day when he 
 returned home to his cabin he saw, in the dim light that 
 struggled through the " wolf-skin " window of his cabin, 
 a weary, travel-worn woman and two grown-up young 
 men. It was the wife and boys whom he had mourned 
 so long as dead; they, on the other hand, believed that 
 he had been slain. In far New Brunswick the wife had 
 been toiling for her sons till they reached manhood, 
 when hope of bettering their fortunes drew them west- 
 ward. Reaching Niagara, they heard the strange news 
 that a settler bearing the lost man's name was living 
 alone in the woods fifty miles away, and at once set out 
 on foot to verify the rumour. At last, " a happier Evan- 
 geline," Mrs. Land ended her toilsome pilgrimage in a 
 glad reunion with her husband for many years. 
 
 In 1787 two brothers from Pennsylvania, Abraham and 
 Isaac Horning, built a cabin near Burlington Bay, plant- 
 ing near it some garden seeds given them by their mother. 
 A year later two sisters and another brother, with his 
 family, set out in a home-built boat to join them. Be- 
 fore the weary journey of eight weeks was ended the boat 
 was driven ashore and dashed to pieces. Leaving the 
 rest of the party at Niagara, the sisters and brother fol- 
 lowed the trail to the head of the lake, where they soon 
 came on a little log hut in the midst of blooming flowers, 
 and one of the sisters said : " We are at the end of our 
 journey. I know it by these flowers." 
 
 An early settler at Waterdown was Colonel Brown, 
 called by the Indians " the White Man of the Mountain." 
 He made a somewhat unusual disposal of his four- 
 hundred-acre farm at his death, leaving it to his grand- 
 daughter and " her heirs female." At first the mails to 
 
i6o THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the more westerly settlements passed through Waterdown, 
 but from the time when the stage line between Toronto 
 and Hamilton was started until 1840 the village was left 
 out in the cold, and had no post office at all. 
 
 Another Wentworth village, Ancaster, is an older 
 centre of population than either Hamilton or Dundas. 
 It had a school as early as 1796, and letters for the 
 future Hamilton were sometimes addressed, " Burling- 
 ton, near Ancaster." Dundas was once known as 
 " Coot's Paradise," and, according to tradition at least, 
 its three first permanent settlers bore the oddly-related 
 names of " Hatt, Hare, and Head." In its infancy 
 Dundas had the distinction of possessing a log jail, 
 which was used during the War of 1 812. At that time, 
 by the way, the southern part of Wentworth County 
 was part of Lincoln, whilst its northern townships first 
 belonged to York, and later to Halton County. 
 
 As everyone knows, the early settlers had to do with- 
 out, or to depend upon themselves for, numberless articles 
 which we regard as necessaries, but perhaps it is from little 
 concrete examples that we realise best what this general 
 statement means. For instance, most present-day cooks 
 would hardly like to have to make their own baking-soda 
 from the " lye " of burnt corncobs, nor would our gay 
 young girls or gallants, when dressing for some festive 
 occasion, care to have to go to a neighbour's before they 
 could obtain a glimpse of themselves in a looking-glass. 
 But an old settler of Wentworth County remembered as 
 one of the chief glories of the ancient frame house where 
 he lived as a boy " a wonderful mirror of large size " — 
 by actual measurement 12 by 20 inches! This "very 
 expensive article," costing six or seven dollars, " had 
 been imported with great care, wrapped between two 
 pillows with the glass downwards. That mirror was 
 the pride of the household and the delight of the neigh- 
 bourhood. Girls living in the vicinity made frequent 
 
WENTWORTH i6i 
 
 pilgrimages to its shrine, and the wild Indians enter- 
 tained great veneration for our house in consequence of 
 this wonderful talisman, helping them to see themselves 
 as others saw them. Stoics though they were, their 
 grimaces were extremely ludicrous." 
 
 It has been already mentioned that wild beasts were 
 plentiful in Wentworth County. To capture the larger 
 animals, the settlers dug deep pits, which they concealed 
 by a kind of trap-door contrived to spring back to its 
 horizontal position after the creature stepping upon it 
 had slipped into the hole below. A story is told of an 
 unscrupulous fellow who, running oif with a ham pur- 
 loined from a neighbour, was caught in one of these 
 traps. The fall did not greatly hurt him, but he was 
 sorely troubled at the thought of being discovered in the 
 morning with his stolen booty as evidence of his theft. 
 He was destined to have something else to think of, how- 
 ever. Presently he was startled by a heavy thud, and a 
 bear landed beside him at the bottom of the trap. Some 
 time later a wolf came to share their captivity. After a 
 while the man plucked up courage to offer them the ham 
 in turn, partly to propitiate them, partly in the hope of 
 getting rid of his plunder. In vain ! The cowed animals 
 had lost both appetite and spirit, and when morning 
 dawned they had touched neither this discreditable 
 " Daniel " nor the ham. At last a^' small boy peeped 
 into the trap, and, seeing the bear, cried : " So you are 
 caught at last, my fine fellow ! " " Yes, I am," replied 
 the man, and the child ran home in terror to report that 
 Bruin had answered him with a human voice. Immedi- 
 ately his father and brothers hurried to the trap, and, 
 despatching the beasts, drew from his prison the now 
 penitent thief. 
 
 Indirectly it was the War of 1812 that gave to the city 
 of Hamilton its name, for when the conflict began a 
 young Queenston man, George Hamilton, who had 
 
 L 
 
i62 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 wedded a Miss Jarvis of York, determined to move, with 
 his young wife and infant son, to somewhat less exposed 
 quarters. The httle family consequently migrated to the 
 head of the lake, where, some years later, Hamilton laid 
 out upon his property streets which he named after 
 members of his family — John, James, Catharine, Hannah, 
 Maria, and Augusta. He also presented to the town 
 bearing his name Court- House Square, the Wood 
 Market, and Gore Park. 
 
 But in the attempt to escape the troubles of the time 
 by removal from the Niagara frontier Hamilton reckoned 
 without his host, for the tide of war soon swept north- 
 ward and westward, surging into Wentworth County 
 during the second year of the struggle. In the spring 
 the Americans, on their way to attack York, destroyed 
 the " King's Head Inn," or " Government House " as it 
 was sometimes called, at the southern end of Burlington 
 Beach, whither the Indians came annually by hundreds 
 to receive the presents promised to them for the lands 
 they had relinquished. A few days later the settlers, 
 whose log cabins near the bay faintly indicated the spot 
 which within a century was to be covered by the homes 
 of some 90,000 people, may have seen the smoke of the 
 conflagration which destroyed the little capital of Upper 
 Canada. Then flying rumours of disaster on the Niagara 
 frontier heralded the march of General Vincent, with the 
 remnants of the British garrisons of Forts George, Erie, 
 and Chippewa, to make a stand upon Burlington Heights, 
 His troops, consisting in part of men of the 49th Regi- 
 ment, the Glengarry Fencibles, and some companies of 
 the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, entrenched them- 
 selves on the ground where was to be built " Dundurn 
 Castle." 
 
 A few days afterwards, on the hot afternoon of June S, 
 an American force, led by Generals Chandler and Winder 
 arrived at Stony Creek. Thirsty, hungry, and tired, the 
 
WENTWORTH 163 
 
 troops " were ordered to sleep on their arms that night," 
 and cannon were placed in readiness to sweep the narrow, 
 crooked road leading to the British camp on the Heights. 
 Hearing of the approach of this force, which probably 
 numbered from two to three thousand men, Vincent sent 
 a party to reconnoitre, under Colonel John Harvey (later 
 the Governor of several of the British Provinces in suc- 
 cession), and doubtless it was on this occasion that 
 Lieutenant FitzGibbon (recently raised from the ranks 
 and soon to share with Laura Secord the glory of the 
 bloodless victory at Beaver Dams) penetrated into the 
 enemy's camp, disguised as a settler, with a basket of 
 butter on his arm. He soon sold his stock-in-trade, but 
 not before he had attained a good knowledge of the dis- 
 position of the American troops. Vincent was short of 
 ammunition and seriously outnumbered, and an attack 
 upon his camp might have ended disastrously for the 
 whole upper country; but, reversing the old adage, the 
 General evidently thought valour "the better part" of 
 prudence. Promptly he fell in with the suggestion of a 
 night attack, and in a few moments the sleeping officers 
 and men were aroused from their couches on the grass, and 
 the whole camp was alive with preparations for the march. 
 About 10.30 on a night when black darkness was 
 varied by fitful flashes of lightning the little army, seven 
 or eight hundred strong, noiselessly took its way down 
 the lonely road eastward, to arrive a little before two 
 o'clock the next morning in sight of the first American 
 sentry, on guard near the old Methodist church of Stony 
 Creek. The building was full of slumbering soldiers, 
 but by some means, it is said, the British had obtained 
 the American countersign. At any i"ate, they passed the 
 sentries and got to the centre of the invaders' camp before 
 they were discovered. Then, breaking their long silence 
 with wild yells, they burst with fixed bayonets upon the 
 astonished enemy. The two American Generals, who 
 
1 64 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 had been spending the night at Gage's farmhouse (which 
 still stands), were made prisoners ; so were a number 
 of their men, but five hundred who had been posted in 
 the lane " flew madly to the hill, leaving their blankets, 
 knapsacks, and some of their arms behind." Soon re- 
 covering from their confusion, however, the Americans 
 fired a volley from the hill. At times the opposing forces 
 were strangely mixed in the hand-to-hand fight, and 
 prisoners were taken on both sides, but before daybreak 
 the British leader, Harvey, fearful lest the enemy should 
 discover the smallness of his force, drew off his men. 
 After this check the Americans decided to make no 
 further attempt on Vincent's camp. 
 
 Several months later the broken remains of Proctor's 
 army, on its way to join Vincent's force, straggled 
 through Ancaster, to the great alarm of the villagers, 
 who imagined that the victorious Americans were in 
 hot pursuit ; but after Stony Creek, Wentworth County 
 was not destined to furnish another battleground for the 
 opposing armies. 
 
 Occasionally during the War the settlers suffered a 
 good deal from their friends ; at least there are traditions 
 of British officers " pressing " men and teams for military 
 service and of Indians taking down the fence around 
 some settler's wheatfield to turn in their horses. In 1813, 
 it is told, two thousand Indians gathered to a great feast 
 on Dundas flats, for which they had prepared by killing 
 the neighbouring farmers' sheep and pigs. 
 
 It was soon after the return of peace, in 18 16, that 
 Wentworth became a separate county. Its first county 
 buildings were a combined court-house and jail of logs. 
 The walls of the lower storey, for the detention of 
 criminals, were four logs thick ; those of the second, 
 the debtors' prison, three logs thick; and those of the 
 court-room above only two logs thick. This was super- 
 seded in 1828 by a stone building. 
 
WBNTWORTH 165 
 
 Did space permit much might be told of the social 
 conditions of the early years, For instance, in that 
 whisky-drinking period, it is surely worthy of record that 
 in 1832 a Waterdown man, Griffin, succeeded (with the 
 usual neighbourly help) in erecting a sawmill in half 
 the ordinary time — without whisky ! It was evidently 
 an unpopular proceeding, however, for when he tried 
 to arrange a barn-raising on the same conditions he had 
 to send to the Indian mission on the Credit before he 
 could obtain men. Later he started a kind of aristocratic 
 temperance society, in which, while ardent spirits were 
 tabooed, those who could afford might still indulge in 
 wine, but in 1833 the pledge was broadened to include 
 abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. 
 
 In 1832 Hamilton had a population of 800, which, 
 despite the terrible ravages of cholera in that year and 
 in 1834, had increased by 1837 to some 3500. But the 
 Rebellion brought things to a standstill. Building al- 
 most ceased, the poor mechanics of the towns suffered 
 sadly, and tradesmen became eager to obtain labourer's 
 work at 75 cents a day. A more pleasing event of the 
 year was the opening of the Desjardins Canal, four miles 
 in length ; but not long after the construction of the railway 
 between Toronto and Hamilton, the breaking of a bridge 
 across the canal resulted in a shocking railway accident, 
 which caused the death of seventy persons. 
 
 During the early decades of the nineteenth century many 
 of the immigrants had to undergo experiences not less try- 
 ing than those of their precursors, the Loyalists. In May, 
 1832, a party of Scottish emigrants set out for Hamilton. 
 The ocean voyage to Quebec consumed seven and a 
 half weeks, and it took three weeks more to complete 
 the journey in a Durham boat, which made such slow 
 progress that its passengers, strolling along the shore, 
 could keep pace with it. The miseries of the journey 
 were sorely increased by the fact that the little company 
 
i66 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 had the dread cholera f6r a travelling companion. One 
 of their number, John Glasgow, fifty-seven years later, 
 told the story in one of the "Wentworth Historical 
 Society" publications, and, strange to say, one of the 
 great difficulties of the immigrants was to obtain water. 
 They had been warned against drinking from the river, 
 and the settlers on its banks chained the " swing-hoists " 
 of their wells, lest cholera-infected immigrants should 
 be tempted to linger in their neighbourhood. 
 
 Several of the voyagers died upon the way. Some- 
 times it was impossible to land the corpse for several 
 hours ; sometimes it was left nailed up in a rough coffin, 
 in some outhouse on the shore, for the authorities to 
 dispose of as they could. At last the weary travellers 
 reached Hamilton, the first object in the town that struck 
 their attention being the glittering spire of the old Court- 
 House. But there was no welcome for them, and the 
 first night they had to make their beds on the wharf. 
 Within a few hours of their landing a young husband 
 and wife both passed away, and the townsfolk dared not 
 take them in. At last George Hamilton came to the 
 rescue, proposing to build them a shelter at the edge 
 of the woods. There they stayed till the cold weather 
 came, ultimately moving out of the village to bush farms 
 in East Flamboro', where they erected their log houses 
 about Christmas — some three miles from a road ! 
 
XXIX. BRANT 
 
 " Then upon the ground the warriors 
 Threw their cloaks and shirts of deer-skin, 
 Threw their weapons and their war-gear, 
 Leaped into the rushing river, 
 Washed the war-paint from their faces.'' 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 IN the mother-isle red and white roses recall the 
 memory of the rival Houses of Lancaster and York 
 and of a long civil war. In Canada the same fair flowers 
 were taken, on the occasion of ai recent centenary, as 
 symbols of the Indian and Canadian peoples, and wreaths 
 of red and white roses were laid on the monument com- 
 memorating the great chief from whom the city of Brant 
 — or Brant's Ford — takes its appellation. 
 
 The name of Brant is with excellent reason written 
 upon the map of our Province, for, none the less for his 
 Indian blood, he was one of the most notable Loyalist 
 pioneers of Upper Canada. Born on the banks of the 
 Ohio in 1742, Joseph Brant, or Thayandanegea, received 
 at thirteen years of age his " baptism of fire," when his 
 patron. Sir William Johnson, defeated the French, under 
 Dieskau, on the shores of Lake George. After this first 
 taste of warfare. Brant was sent by Johnson to a school 
 for Indian boys in Connecticut. There he learned to 
 speak, read, and write English so well that he acted later 
 as interpreter to a missionary, and aided in the trans- 
 lation of the New Testament into his native tongue. 
 But he soon returned to " the Mohawk Castles," for 
 
 school routine was not to his taste, and the best-loved 
 
 167 
 
i68 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 business of his maturer life was warfare. Always on 
 the side of the British, he fought against the French in 
 1759 j against Pontiac's braves in 1763 ; for the LoyaHsts 
 throughout the Revolutionary War; and against the 
 Americans in the Indian uprising, west of the Ohio, in 
 1 79 1. As a warrior, he gained a name of terror, not 
 all deserved, for there are many stories of his mercy to 
 old acquaintances in the midst of fierce scenes of carnage ; 
 and the evening of his days was passed in peace. 
 
 Despite his Indian blood. Brant realised that it would 
 be for the benefit of his race to learn many of the arts 
 and ways of civilised life, and tried to interest his people 
 both in agriculture and books. He, himself, according 
 to a visitor, who, in 1792, stayed at his home on the 
 Grand River, was "well acquainted with European 
 manners," receiving his guests "with much politeness 
 and hospitality. . . . Tea was on the table when we came 
 in, served in the handsomest china plate — our beds, 
 sheets, and English blankets were fine and comfortable. 
 Two slaves attended the table." But " Mrs. Brant 
 appeared superbly dressed in the Indian fashion. Her 
 blanket was made up of silk and the finest English cloth, 
 bordered with a narrow strip of embroidered lace." 
 Afterward Brant built the fine house, already referred to, 
 at Wellington Square (now Burlington), and there, in 
 1807, he died, when his wife returned to the more con- 
 genial home amongst her own people on the Grand 
 River. Brant's last resting-place, moreover, is under 
 the shadow of the little old " Mohawk Church " near 
 Brantford, built by George III for the Indians. It is 
 famous as the oldest Anglican church in Upper Canada, 
 and possesses a communion service of beaten silver, 
 given by Queen Anne to the Mohawk chiefs who visited 
 her court. One of these, by the way, is said to have 
 been the grandfather of Brant. Brant was succeeded 
 as Chief of the Six Nations by his youngest son, John, 
 
BRANT 169 
 
 a well-educated gentleman, who died at a comparatively 
 early age. 
 
 The county named after the great Mohawk is rather 
 small, comprising only six townships. It is of a curious 
 tripartite shape, resembling a short, thick letter Y, laid 
 upon the convolutions of the Grand River. South 
 Dumfries, originally half of the larger township of 
 Dumfries, of the settlement of which some account will 
 be given in the "story" of Waterloo, forms the right 
 arm of the Y ; and Burford, once part of Oxford County, 
 makes the left arm. The tiny triangular township of 
 Oakland was successively known as the "Gore" of 
 Townsend and of Burford before it took a more dis- 
 tinctive name. 
 
 The remaining three townships were borrowed from 
 Wentworth when Brant County was organised in 1852. 
 Onondaga is called after that nation of the Iroquois 
 Confederacy known to this day as the " Fire-keepers," 
 who, in the formal councils of the tribes, hold a position 
 resembling that of umpires. The township name, Tus- 
 carora, comes from that of a tribe of North Carolina 
 Indians who, early in the eighteenth century, joined the 
 Iroquois League, which henceforth was known as the 
 " Six " instead of the " Five " Nations. The whole of 
 Tuscarora, as well as parts of Onondaga and Oneida 
 (in Haldimand County), is included in the famous Indian 
 Reserve; and these townships, with Brantford, South 
 Dumfries, and others, were within the " tract of land six 
 miles in depth on each side of the Grand River," from its 
 mouth to the Falls of Flora, given in 1784 to the Six 
 Nations Loyalists. The boundaries of this grant followed 
 the general direction, not the minor curves, of the river, 
 and were drawn in straight lines, with angles here and 
 there, to enclose a strip of country a hundred miles long 
 by twelve in breadth. The Indians found this territory 
 of 1200 square miles, or 768,000 acres, unnecessarily 
 
lyo THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 large, and from time to time it was reduced, by sales to 
 private persons or concessions to Government, to its 
 present relatively small dimensions of a little less than 
 44,000 acres. The plan of the original grant has left its 
 traces in the township lines and the curious shape of 
 Brant County. 
 
 In early days white men sometimes squatted on the 
 Reserve, but sixty years ago the squatters were all 
 obliged to remove. One of the pioneers of Onondaga 
 unfortunately happened to pitch upon a place where the 
 Indians had a " long house,'' or meeting-place, and were 
 accustomed to "burn their dog." Holding the spot 
 sacred, they pulled the intruder's hut down about his 
 ears, and at another time beat him into insensibility. 
 Generally, however, they were friendly to the white 
 settlers. 
 
 About 1853 the population of the Reserve was 2330 
 souls, a number now nearly doubled, two-thirds of the 
 Indians on the Reserve belonging to the Mohawk and 
 Cayuga tribes. To-day there are several churches and 
 ten or eleven schools on the Reserve, besides the Mohawk 
 Institute, where both boys and girls are trained in in- 
 dustrial pursuits. It is under the care of what is known 
 as the " New England Company," an ancient missionary 
 society, which has worked amongst the Mohawks since 
 1649. The Indians on the Reserve are generally in- 
 dustrious and law-abiding. They live chiefly by farming 
 and have long had a flourishing agricultural society 
 among themselves. 
 
 Settlement began in a small way at Brantford about 
 1 8 16 — when there was a log hut by the river, used as 
 a tavern — but it was not till April, 1830, that the Indians 
 surrendered the town-plot to the Government. Its 
 situation is in many respects advantageous. It was 
 made a port in 1852. Now it has many flourishing 
 industries and a population of over 28,000. In 18 14 
 
BRANT 171 
 
 the American General, McArthur, marching from Detroit 
 to relieve his countrymen besieged in Fort Erie, arrived 
 at the spot to find the river high and a number of British 
 troops (white and red) guarding the ford. A few shots 
 were exchanged before McArthur turned aside to the 
 township of Oakland to burn Malcolm's Mills, where a few 
 raw volunteers had gathered. The story goes that, on 
 his approach, some of the would-be defenders of the soil 
 fell into a panic and, seeking the most direct line of 
 flight, splashed into the mill-pond, from which they were 
 with difficulty rescued. However, McArthur, at any 
 rate, went back to Detroit without accomplishing his 
 purpose. 
 
 The town of Paris was founded in 1828 by Hiram 
 Capron, an enterprising Vermonter, who bought a 
 thousand acres of land at " the forks of the Grand 
 River," and built a mill, with "two run of stones," for 
 the double purpose of grinding wheat and plaster. This 
 he sold to another good business man, named Elias 
 Conklin. Other settlers soon came in, and in 1836 
 Capron called a public meeting to give a name to the 
 village, suggesting it should be called Paris, "for short- 
 ness and because there was so much gypsum in the 
 neighbourhood." Locally, Hiram was known as " King " 
 Capron, and, on one occasion, having an opportunity to 
 buy a five-gallon keg of oysters — then a rare luxury — he 
 invited every man, woman, and child in the village to an 
 oyster supper. 
 
XXX. HALDIMAND 
 
 " They are white men, we are Indians ; 
 What a gulf their stares proclaim ! 
 They are mounting ; we are dying : 
 All our heritage they claim." 
 
 W. D. LiGHTHALL. 
 
 AN excellent guide through the story of this county 
 1\. " in the days of Auld Lang Syne " is the Rev. 
 R. B. Nelles, a Haldimand " Old Boy." 
 
 Haldimand has no very large towns. In fact, Dunn- 
 ville is its only town, and Cayuga, its picturesque 
 county seat — on the Grand River — ranks as a village, 
 but it is a thriving village, like several others in the 
 county, within which there is now little wild land. 
 
 The Grand River flows through Haldimand, and the 
 greater part of the county was included in the grant 
 made by Governor Haldimand in 1784 to the Mohawk 
 Loyalists. But Chief Brant had many friends in the 
 Loyalist corps known as " Butler's Rangers," and he 
 invited some of these men to settle on the banks of the 
 Grand River, giving them lands on 999-year leases. 
 The Loyalists, Nelles and Young, with their sons, thus 
 obtained grants in Seneca Township. John Huff ob- 
 tained lands in North, and John Dochstader in South, 
 Cayuga. Captain Hugh Earl, who had wedded a sister 
 of Brant's, received 1000 acres in Dunn Township for 
 himself and his three daughters. Nor was this all. 
 After about ten years. Brant concluded that it would be 
 advisable to sell part of the reservation to raise money 
 
 for such necessaries as guns and powder and blankets, 
 
 172 
 
HALDIMAND 173 
 
 and, obtaining the consent of the Government to this 
 step, was appointed agent for his tribe. In 1810 an 
 American, Canby, agreed with Dochstader to purchase a 
 block of nearly 20,000 acres for about as many dollars. 
 The money was to be secured by mortgage, but as late 
 as 183 s was still owing to Dochstader's " Indian children." 
 A few years later the Indians parted with a great portion 
 of Moulton Township — the estate was for a time in the 
 possession of Lord Selkirk — but they received only a 
 small amount of the sale price, and Mr. Nelles states 
 that the mortgage executed to the trustees of the Indians 
 still stands in the registry office against the land. 
 
 The little township of Sherbrooke was patented to 
 William Dickson, on the extraordinary stipulation that 
 it was to be paid for " in professional services " when 
 required. Finally the Government stepped in and took 
 from the Indians, for their own sakes, the power to sell 
 or lease their lands. Shortly after 1830, however, the 
 Government decided, with the consent of the chiefs, to 
 sell the remainder of their lands in Haldimand County, 
 excepting a small part of Oneida Township, which is still 
 an Indian reserve, and to invest the proceeds for the 
 benefit of the Indians. The result was that in 1832 the 
 county generally was opened to white settlers. Many 
 of the first actual settlers in Haldimand were Germans 
 or of German descent. 
 
 As already mentioned, a few families had come in 
 under the Indian regime. The nearest settlements of 
 their own race were at Ancaster and Niagara, and in 
 many respects they lived like their red neighbours, trust- 
 ing for food chiefly to Indian corn and to the fish and 
 game to be obtained from the streams and woods. The 
 building of the first mill in the district was, of course, 
 an event. The first erected in the county was at Can- 
 borough village, soon after the War of 1812. Men and 
 women alike dressed much in homespun, coloured with 
 
174 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 indigo or butternut bark. Neighbours were too far apart 
 to interchange visits frequently, except when winter's 
 snow had turned the forest tracks into fair roads. 
 
 To those who treated them well the Indians were not 
 dangerous neighbours, but in the case of real or fancied 
 wrongs they were ready to wreak vengeance with their 
 own hands. Once a certain Captain Clinch of Niagara, 
 on the way to visit John Dochstader, was carrying a 
 keg of rum in his sleigh. This caught the attention of 
 three Delawares, whom he met in the woods, and one 
 seized the horses' heads, another held the indignant 
 officer himself, whilst the third filled an iron kettle with 
 the liquor. Then each in turn took "a long pull" at 
 the rum before releasing Clinch. In a rage he drove 
 on "to John Huff's," borrowed a fowling-piece, loaded 
 it with slugs, and drove back to where the three Indians 
 sat carousing on a log. Firing his piece, he wounded 
 one of the red-men severely, then turned and went on his 
 way. But when Dochstader heard the story he sent a 
 swift runner to beg Joseph Brant to give him aid, for he 
 knew that the Delawares would not rest till they had 
 taken vengeance on Clinch. Brant hurried to the rescue 
 with two hundred braves ; and he was not a moment too 
 soon, for he found Dochstader's house surrounded by 
 the angry Delawares. 
 
 His force was strong enough to overawe them, and 
 Clinch was escorted out of the Reserve by some of the 
 Mohawks. But he had had his lesson, and never ven- 
 tured to re-enter it. 
 
 As a pendant to this picture, it is only fair to give 
 another one. It happened that Salmon Minor, one of 
 the first white settlers in the county, who had promised 
 to pay a rent in wheat for his lands, was for some years 
 unable to raise the crops he had hoped for. At last he 
 had a good yield, and went at once to the Indian Council 
 to pay up the arrears. For a time the red-men sat silent ; 
 
HALDIMAND 175 
 
 then the old chief rose and said, " You owe us no wheat. 
 Indian never went to your house and came away hungry. 
 Indian eat all the wheat in the house." And when the 
 tribe agreed to sell that part of their lands they stipu- 
 lated that Minor's farm should be secured to him. 
 
 In 1833 the Grand River Navigation Company, organ- 
 ised to improve navigation below Brantford, began to 
 build dams and locks and short canals. Until one of 
 these dams was constructed at Dunnville, Gifford's Ferry, 
 in South Cayuga, was the only place in the county where 
 teams could cross the river. Opposite, on the North 
 Cayuga side, stood Windecker's Tavern, an old house 
 (now swept away) with an immense fireplace, which 
 seemed to give a cheery welcome to many a tired traveller. 
 One of the stockholders in the navigation company, 
 David Thompson, built grist-mills and sawmills and a 
 distillery at Indiana, in Seneca Township. He did a 
 large business in lumber also, but when he died his little 
 village lost its short-lived importance. York, two and 
 a half miles away, settled first by an Irish gentleman, 
 Richard Martin, owed its origin to the water-power 
 furnished by the company's dam and to deposits of 
 plaster in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Rainham and Walpole, originally part of Norfolk 
 County, began to be settled early. About 1791 the 
 Hoovers, a Swiss family from Pennsylvania, crossed the 
 Niagara and Grand Rivers, " towing " their horses be- 
 hind their boats, and settled beside Lake Erie, near 
 where the village of Selkirk now stands. A few others 
 came into these townships before the War of 1812, but 
 some got discouraged and others deserted to the 
 Americans. Still worse, in Walpole Township a band 
 of men, sympathising with the invaders, made their 
 headquarters near the Nanticoke River, and used to 
 make raids on their Loyalist neighbours. They were 
 responsible for the murder of a somewhat overbearing 
 
176 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 military settler, Captain Francis. At last a company of 
 militia was sent to drive them off. All escaped save one, 
 who was found hidden in a sap trough, and he and a 
 squatter of disreputable character, after whom Peacock's 
 Point was named, were executed at Burlington. 
 
 On a December night in 1837 two men coming ashore 
 from a skiff asked for shelter at the Hoovers' house. In 
 the morning they left for Buffalo, but the wind drove 
 blocks of floating ice inshore, and off Dunn Township 
 they were seen by a man named Overtrott, hopelessly 
 entangled. He put out, seemingly, to their rescue, but 
 he suspected that they were rebels trying to escape, and 
 when he got them ashore he delivered them up to the 
 authorities. One of the pair was Samuel Lount, upon 
 whose head a large price had been set. Overtrott ob- 
 tained this money, and with it the scorn of his neigh- 
 bours ; whilst Lount, snatched from his threatening 
 grave in Lake Erie, died a few weeks later by the 
 hangman's hand. 
 
 Haldimand County (set apart for judicial and municipal 
 purposes in 1850) was famous for the heat of its political 
 contests and for the length and frequency of its election 
 trials. John Brant, the first man elected to the Assembly 
 in Haldimand, was unseated on a technicality growing 
 out of his father's long leases. In 1851 there was a 
 three-cornered contest, in which George Brown was one 
 of the defeated candidates, and William Lyon Mackenzie 
 — the ex-rebel leader — was victorious. Twice afterwards 
 he sat for the county, but resigned in 1 860. 
 
 Haldimand men came of a stock who in politics or 
 war could feel fierce joy in battle, and some families had 
 a military record of many generations. The family to 
 which the historian of Haldimand belongs is a remark- 
 able instance of this. William Nelles, a Loyalist settler 
 in the county, had fought in 1776 ; his son took up arms 
 in 1812; his grandson fought against the rebels in 1837; 
 
HALDIMAND 177 
 
 his great-grandson marched against the Fenians in 1866; 
 one of his great-great-grandsons saw service during the 
 North-west RebeUion of 1885, and, lastly, another. 
 Lieutenant W. H. Nelles of Strathcona's Horse, laid 
 down his life in South Africa in 1901. 
 
 M 
 
XXXI. WATERLOO 
 
 " The sun is up and through the woods 
 His golden rays are streaming ; 
 The dismal swamp and swale so damp 
 With faces bright are beaming." 
 
 Alexander M'Lachlan. 
 
 FROM a first visit, long ago, to the little old Trinity 
 Church at Gait there remains with me an im- 
 pression of a quaint tin-covered spire, and of a certain 
 white tablet on one of the walls within, bearing in bold 
 black letters the name, Absalom Shade ! More recently, 
 on taking up James Young's Reminiscences of the Early 
 History of Gait and the Settlement of Dumfries, I dis- 
 covered again the same quaint name " writ large " across 
 its pages. And this is how Mr. Young portrays its 
 owner : " He was tall and wiry, straight as an arrow, 
 with regular and sharp features — the whole face being 
 lit up with the sharpest of bluish-grey eyes." Shade's 
 connection with Waterloo County began in his early man- 
 hood, when he "looked, every inch of him, the typical 
 ' live ' Yankee, minus the dyspepsia, slang, and tobacco." 
 By birth a Pennsylvanian, by trade a carpenter and con- 
 tractor, circumstances threw him into association with 
 William Dickson, a Scotch gentleman, practising law 
 at Niagara, who had just purchased the township of 
 Dumfries. 
 
 Originally, this block of 94,305 acres had been part of 
 the Indian grant on the Grand River, but Brant had sold 
 it some eighteen years earlier. After that it had changed 
 
 hands several times, but none of its owners before Mr. 
 
 178 
 
WATERLOO 179 
 
 Dickson imade any use of it. He, however, immediately 
 after his purchase, in 18 16, took steps towards settling 
 the land. 
 
 At that date Dumfries was uninhabited save for a few 
 hunters and trappers who had squatted along the river, 
 but in the neighbouring township of Waterloo there were 
 beginnings of settlement. Thither in the first years of 
 the century had come a number of German families from 
 Pennsylvania, travelling for weeks along the rude trails 
 of the time, to what was then a wilderness, but is now 
 a prosperous farming country, dotted with towns and 
 villages. The covered wagons of these immigrants, serv- 
 ing at night instead of tents, were usually heavily laden 
 and drawn by four or five horses each. One case is on 
 record, however, of a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen 
 and a single horse hitched in front. 
 
 Of course these people suffered hardship at first, but 
 they were thrifty and persevering. In the first years ot 
 scarcity they planted the parings of the potatoes they 
 were obliged to eat. Not all were poor, however. There 
 is a tradition that one company brought with them half a 
 barrel of gold and silver to pay for the land they were 
 taking up, and suffered in consequence "perils of robbers" 
 on the journey. These immigrants were less ruthless 
 than some of their contemporaries in the indiscriminate 
 slaughter of forest trees, and within a generation the 
 thickly-settled township of Waterloo had a picturesque, 
 well-settled appearance, delightfully reminiscent of many 
 a lovely country district in the old world. The " Penn- 
 sylvania Dutch," as their neighbours called them, were 
 followed in a few years by Mennonite immigrants from 
 Europe ; and half a century ago it was only the chil- 
 dren in many a household in Waterloo who could speak 
 English. 
 
 In 1805 the first settlers came to Berlin ; but its 
 population had not reached five hundred forty-five years 
 
i8o THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 later, and the not-far-distant village- of Preston, with one 
 thousand one hundred inhabitants, was a more important 
 place. In the middle of the century, when the district of 
 Wellington became the County of Waterloo — an enor- 
 mous county, by the way, extending ninety miles from 
 north to south and from twenty to forty from east to 
 west — there was a lively struggle over the choice of a 
 county town. Gait, then an incorporated village of two 
 thousand souls, bid hard for the honour; Preston, too, 
 made a fight for it ; but it fell to Berlin, which, though 
 small, was thriving. It had already entered into the 
 manufacture of furniture, now one of its chief industries ; 
 and in the course of years it has outgrown its rivals for 
 municipal honours, though Gait is a busy town, claiming 
 to be " the Manchester of Canada." 
 
 But when young Absalom Shade agreed to go "pro- 
 specting " with Mr. Dickson on his huge estate, all this 
 was far in the future. About where Paris now stands 
 they judged it advisable to hire an Indian guide. Under 
 his leadership they soon came to a beautiful valley, sur- 
 rounded by forest-clad hills and watered by the broad 
 river, where years earlier a solitary settler had begun to 
 build a mill, of which some dilapidated remains still stood. 
 Tragical stories of Indian outrage floated about the ruin, 
 but the truth seems to be that Alexander Miller, as the 
 adventurous pioneer was called, had failed to obtain a 
 title to the land and so had abandoned the enterprise. 
 
 Shade fell in love at first sight with the valley, and, 
 though he explored further, remained convinced that this 
 was the best site for beginning the settlement. Mr. 
 Dickson returned to Niagara, though afterwards he lived 
 for some years at Gait, and one of his sons eventually 
 made his home there. But Absalom Shade's house and 
 store were the first buildings erected, while he converted 
 the old ruin into " a rough-and-ready grist-mill " to serve 
 till a better one could be constructed. A smithy and a 
 
WATERLOO i8i 
 
 distillery were soon added, but for several years the place 
 grew very slowly. About 1825 there was an improve- 
 ment, Mr. Dickson having persuaded many Scottish 
 settlers to come to Dumfries. 
 
 He offered a farm to the "Ettrick Shepherd," but 
 Hogg declined, saying, "The Yarrow couldna want 
 him." For another literary man, an old schoolfellow 
 of his, Mr. Dickson showed his affection by naming 
 after him his settlement when it first attained to the 
 dignity of having a post-office, but the settlers clung 
 to the familiar name of "Shade's Mills" till, in 1827, 
 John Gait visited the little hamlet, when his popularity 
 brought the new name into favour. 
 
 Destined, like other districts, to suffer from " the 
 railway fever" in the 'fifties, the opening of a new 
 road was quite sufficient in 1839 to throw the district 
 into wild rejoicings. Gait was cut off "from the head 
 of navigation at Hamilton " by the dreaded Beverly 
 swamp, which, with "its bottomless mud-holes," soon 
 became the scene of various appalling stories of the 
 disappearance of benighted travellers by mire or murder. 
 It was a terrible business to conduct a heavily-laden 
 wagon through this "Slough of Despond," and, to 
 avoid the necessity, Absalom Shade, who took quantities 
 of farm produce " in trade," conceived the brilliant idea 
 of building a fleet of great flat-bottomed boats — sixteen 
 feet wide and eighty feet long — to sail down the Grand 
 River to Lake Erie, and thence by the recently- opened 
 Welland Canal to Lake Ontario. Each of these " arks " 
 was of capacity to carry 400 barrels of flour, and there 
 was vast excitement in Gait when they were loading. 
 Owing to the difficulties of navigation they could be 
 used only during the spring floods. For three years in 
 succession Mr. Shade sailed with his fleet, but in the 
 third year one of his seven well-laden " arks " ran on a 
 rock. With difficulty its cargo of flour was saved and 
 
i82 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 put on an island in the river ; then Shade hurried back 
 to Gait, worked almost night and day to complete a new 
 "ark," reloaded his flour, and "caught up to the first 
 and only fleet which Gait ever possessed" about the 
 middle of the Welland Canal. With such energy, it 
 is not wonderful that Shade succeeded in making a 
 fortune. 
 
 In 1832 Dr. Miller, Gait's first permanent medical man 
 to remain any length of time, settled in the village, 
 though he regarded it as a " very discouraging " place. 
 Conditions were rapidly improving, when in 1834 a 
 terrible calamity occurred. Late in July the whole neigh- 
 bourhood welcomed eagerly the coming of a " wild-beast 
 show " to Gait, but the country folk had hardly left the 
 village when it was whispered that one of the showmen 
 was down with the cholera. That was Monday, and 
 " within a week, and chiefly before Friday night, nearly a 
 fifth of the villagers had fallen victims to the plague." 
 Not a few of the country visitors to the show were also 
 stricken, but through the horror of the sudden agonising 
 deaths and hasty burials, sometimes of several bodies 
 in one grave. Dr. Miller, Dr. McQuarrie, and a young 
 doctor, John Scott (who had just arrived from Scotland, 
 and afterwards settled in Berlin), fought the disease inch 
 by inch. They were aided bravely by a number of the 
 villagers, and before long the plague was stayed. 
 
 It may give a false impression of the brave old pioneer 
 days to close with this sombre picture ; but there is not 
 space to tell of the debating societies and amateur thea- 
 tricals which enlivened the settlers' busy lives, nor of 
 the lengthy sermons and admirable lectures which im- 
 proved their minds. For the same reason, the hot poli- 
 tical contests of " the Rebellion " period, the excitement 
 over the visits of such notables as William Lyon Mac- 
 kenzie, Governor Arthur, and Lord Elgin, the odd 
 happenings on " training day," and other festive occasions, 
 
WATERLOO 183 
 
 have all to be passed over (regretfully) in silence. But 
 they leave one with the impression that life in the 
 country — when the province was practically all coun- 
 try — was extraordinarily full and vigorous and in- 
 teresting. 
 
XXXII. WELLINGTON 
 
 " When first I settled in the woods 
 There were no neighbours nigh, 
 And scarce a living thing, save wolves, 
 
 And Molly dear, and I. 
 We had our troubles, ne'er a doubt. 
 
 In those wild woods alone ; 
 But then, sir, I was bound to have 
 A homestead of my own." 
 
 Alexander M'Lachlan. 
 
 THE latest change in the boundaries of Wellington 
 County, giving it its present size and shape, oc- 
 curred in 1883, but the name of Wellington has been on 
 the map since 1838, when the district containing the 
 present county of that name and also Waterloo, Grey, 
 and part of DufFerin County was set apart. At that time 
 Gait and Fergus contested for the honour of being the 
 county seat, but it fell to Guelph, the story of which 
 begins somewhat unusually with a deliberately dramatic 
 scene. 
 
 This was imagined and carried out by John Gait, the 
 popular Scotch novelist, two of whose sons won dis- 
 tinction in Canadian public life. Mr. Gait at this period 
 of a changeful and chequered career was acting as Com- 
 missioner of the Canada Company. Early in 1827 he 
 visited the village on the Grand River, called by his name, 
 and on April 23 — a dismal, wet St. George's Day — walked 
 through the woods from Gait to the site of the future 
 " Royal City." In a straight line the distance is about 
 thirteen miles, but Gait and his companion, Dr. Dunlop, 
 
 lengthened it by losing their way. Men were waiting for 
 
 184 
 
WELLINGTON 185 
 
 them at the appointed place, and on their arriving at 
 what was to be the centre, or " radiant point " of the new 
 settlement. Gait, with solemnity, struck the first blow on 
 a great maple. The doctor then produced a flask of 
 whisky, and they " drank prosperity to the City of 
 Guelph " — a name chosen in compliment to the Royal 
 Family, because Gait " thought it auspicious in itself," 
 and because he " could not recollect that it had ever been 
 used in all the King's Dominions." In after years the 
 stump of the maple was nicely levelled, and upon it was 
 placed a sun-dial which served as the town clock. This 
 historic landmark, near the River Speed, was ultimately 
 obliterated by the throwing up of the embankment for the 
 Grand Trunk Railway. 
 
 Of course the first necessary business was to erect 
 houses. Amongst these was a log building of an un- 
 usually imposing character, costing between ;£^iooo and 
 ;^2000. It not only served as a dwelling for the heads 
 of the settlement, but one wing was used as a tavern and 
 post-office. It overlooked the river, and in honour of 
 Mr. Prior, one of Gait's friends and assistants, was dubbed 
 " The Priory." 
 
 That year the King's birthday fell on Sunday, but it 
 was determined to celebrate it on the following day, 
 August 13, and hold a kind of formal "opening" of 
 Guelph. A frame market-house, 40 by 50 feet in dimen- 
 sions, with open sides and a floor 18 inches above the 
 street, was hastily finished for the occasion, and very 
 early in the morning the traditional " whole ox " was set 
 to roast before a huge bonfire. Unhappily the six hours 
 allowed for cooking proved insufficient, and many of the 
 five hundred guests at Guelph's first civic banquet found 
 the meat too " rare " for their taste. Fortunately, potatoes 
 also had been cooked on a grand scale — in two potash 
 kettles — and there was no lack of bread or of hemlock 
 tea, whilst the supply of whisky was plentiful enough to 
 
1 86 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 be responsible for a few fights before the close of the day. 
 A band from Toronto (" Little York " then) discoursed 
 sweet music, and in the evening a grand ball was held for 
 the aristocrats at the Priory. A special feature of the day 
 was the laying of the foundation-stones of Guelph's first 
 stone buildings, a bank and a schoolhouse. (By the way, 
 the provision made by Gait for education was one of the 
 early attractions of the place to settlers.) In their re- 
 joicings the pioneers showed their usual ingenuity, having 
 prepared for the occasion a number of wooden cannon of 
 hoUowed-out beech and maple logs. They were bound 
 with hoops of iron, but this did not prevent their adding 
 to the excitement by bursting after the second firing or so. 
 
 Roads are always a pressing need of a newly-opened 
 district, and Gait did his best to meet it ; but when the 
 way led through swamps the task of road-making was as 
 unhealthy as it was difficult, and on one occasion the Com- 
 missioner was shocked by the return of forty men, who 
 were the " colour of mummies," from ague. He had tried 
 to induce the company to engage a doctor, but as they 
 neglected to do so, was obliged to meet the difficulty by 
 taking on a surgeon as clerk and " making him compen- 
 sation for his skill." 
 
 In the Historical Atlas of Wellington County are 
 scattered various interesting notes on its " first things " 
 and events and of its representative personages. For in- 
 stance,*the first physician — Welsh by name — who settled 
 in Guelph speedily earned by his eccentricities the title of 
 " the mad doctor." He built himself a log house without 
 a door, having an aperture six feet from the ground, 
 through which he climbed. Only two. patients trusted 
 themselves to his tender mercies, and both died. The 
 first death in the settlement was that of a " beer peddler," 
 killed instantly by a tree being blown across his wagon. 
 A house and lot was promised for the first baby born in 
 Guelph, but the parents of little Letitia Brown, who was 
 
wfeLLINGTON 187 
 
 born in October 1827, never claimed it for her. Guelph's 
 first baker had, it is said, a sad experience when trying to 
 bake in an oven of limestone. The heat crumbled down 
 the oven, and people helped themselves to his loaves. The 
 first horse in the district, while it was " the only one 
 within a radius of fourteen miles," was so much in request 
 that it became " a wreck of skin and bones," and was only 
 saved from becoming an absolute " martyr to civilisation " 
 by the arrival of a team of horses. 
 
 In 1 834 the first political contest in Guelph resulted in 
 the ruin of both candidates and the election (from lack of 
 a sufficient number of votes) of neither. One of the rivals. 
 Captain Poore, organised a company of loyal volunteers 
 during the rebellion. The other, a young Englishman, 
 Roland Wingfield, after acquiring in Puslinch Township 
 an estate of 800 acres, which he stocked with imported 
 Durham cattle. Southdown sheep, and Berkshire hogs, 
 was forced by that luckless election to sell out. His suc- 
 cessor, John Howitt, continued to improve his Durham 
 herd, and at the first Provincial Exhibition, in 184S, his 
 cattle took nearly all the prizes. This was a good show- 
 ing for the district, which, some twenty years later, 
 through the establishment of what is now the Ontario 
 Agricultural College, was to become a centre of " light and 
 leading " for Canadian farmers. Much more recently the 
 Macdonald Institute and the consolidated schools near 
 Guelph have begun to make their valuable contribution 
 towards the solution of some of the country problems, 
 especially touching women and children. 
 
 A decade before Guelph was founded with flourish of 
 trumpets, the neighbouring township of Eramosa received 
 its first settlers in the persons of three Irish brothers, 
 Ramsay by name. They are credited with raising the 
 first crop of potatoes, and the wife of one of them grew 
 from pips the first apple-tree ever grown in the county. 
 That was in days when wolves were alarmingly plentiful, 
 
1 88 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 and when the whole carcase of a deer was sometimes 
 bought for a dollar, to salt down. During the Rebellion, 
 seven farmers were arrested for having attended a meet- 
 ing in an Eramosa schoolhouse to discuss public affairs, 
 but all were acquitted. 
 
 Guelph Township was settled in part by Scots, who came 
 to Canada after eighteen disappointing months in Vene- 
 zuela, and Peel Township, during the days of " Aboli- 
 tionist " activity, received many escaped slaves from the 
 United States. The neighbouring Township of West 
 Luther was once a kind of " dismal swamp." It was said 
 that it had only one dry spot, and that " if you ran thirty 
 yards on that knoll and then took a long jump, you could 
 feel the whole township shake and quiver beneath you." 
 But during the early 'seventies a dry summer with re- 
 peated fires burned oft the mud and greatly simplified 
 the work of clearing. 
 
 The picturesque village of Elora had, as its first pio- 
 neers, the Matthews family of father, mother, and nine 
 children, who, arriving on the spot as night was falling, 
 built a huge fire and lay down under a rude shelter of 
 hemlock bows. In the night a great snowstorm came on. 
 Their cattle wandered off, and the father, seeking them, 
 lost his way, but was guided back by his son's shouts. In 
 due time Matthews and his boys cleared a little patch on 
 which they grew grain. But in order to reach a market 
 they had to hollow out a huge pine, and in this " dug-out," 
 30 feet long, they took down sixteen bags of wheat to 
 Gait and sold it to Absalom Shade, who gave them 50 
 cents per bushel cash. They sold the " dug-out " also 
 for $2.50, and marched home cheerfully on foot. 
 
XXXIII. NORFOLK 
 
 " Cheerily on the axe of labour 
 Let the sunbeams dance, 
 Better than the flash of sabre 
 Or the gleam of lance." 
 
 Whittibr. 
 
 THE first white settlers in Norfolk County on I-ake 
 Erie, as in Frontenac and Lennox, were Loyalists, 
 and the story of their journeys to their new home in 
 the great woods of noble beeches, maples, and white 
 pines would easily fill a volume. One large family party 
 of men and women and young children — the Mabees — 
 wintered at Quebec; then the mothers and little ones 
 were put on board open boats, whilst the men, happy 
 enough to possess several horses and cows, drove the 
 animals along the shore. For provisions they trusted 
 largely to corn-meal and the milk of the cows. 
 
 The patriarchal leader of the cavalcade, Frederick 
 Mabee, built the first log cabin of the new settlement 
 at the foot of the hill overlooking Turkey Point, but 
 within a year he died suddenly and was laid to rest in 
 a coffin made painfully by the hollowing out of a great 
 walnut log, and his grave was marked by a large boulder. 
 
 Another party of settlers from the south, bound for 
 Townsend Township, slung baskets or panniers in pairs 
 across the backs of their cows and tucked a little child 
 comfortably in each basket. 
 
 Late in the summer of 1,795, Governor Simcoe visited 
 Norfolk County and chose a site, a little east of where 
 
 Port Dover now stands, for its chief town, intending that 
 
 189 
 
190 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 a fort and Government building should be erected. He 
 named it " Charlotte Villa," in honour of the Queen, but 
 the town was never built. In 1803, when Turkey Point 
 (or Port Norfolk, as it was called- for a time) became 
 chief town of the London District, which was much larger 
 than the present County of Norfolk, the settlers put up 
 a log building, of which the upper storey served for a 
 court-room and the lower for a jail. The latter was, 
 however, so insecure that "any prisoner could release 
 himself in half an hour unless guarded by a sentinel." 
 The juries, by the way, generally "held their consulta- 
 tions under the shade of a tree." 
 
 During the War of 18 12 three American schooners 
 bore down on Port Norfolk to burn the Court-House. 
 One of their officers was killed, and they retreated with- 
 out carrying out their plan. Several of the mills were 
 burned, however. In 1820 Vittoria became county town ; 
 afterwards the courts were held at London, and still 
 later Simcoe, which now has a population of about 3200, 
 became county town for Talbot District, as the country 
 now comprised in Norfolk was called for a while. At the 
 time of the rebellion Norfolk was represented in the 
 Assembly by Dr. Rolph, and feeling ran high for and 
 against the rebels. 
 
 But to go back to earlier times — Governor Simcoe was 
 so much pleased with the district that when a Loyalist, 
 Captain Samuel Ryerson (uncle of the great educationist, 
 Rev. Egerton Ryerson), asked his advice as to where to 
 settle, he recommended Long Point and promised large 
 grants of land to him and his family. Ryerson had come 
 to Niagara from New York, a difficult journey in those 
 days, when there were no roads. Being obliged to come 
 up the Hudson, then down the Mohawk to Lake Ontario, 
 he had brought a boat as large as he dared, considering 
 that it was necessary to make a portage between the two 
 rivers. Besides its human freight it was heavily laden 
 
NORFOLK 191 
 
 with farm implements, household utensils, and supplies 
 of groceries to last two or three years ; but at Queens- 
 ton it had to be unloaded and carried round the Falls 
 to Chippewa, a distance of twelve miles. By this time 
 the summer was almost ended and the voyagers were 
 eager to press on, to get some kind of shelter put up 
 before winter; but they were twelve days making the 
 final hundred miles, which seemed to carry them beyond 
 the last outpost of civilisation. 
 
 Sailing along the shore of Lake Erie, the captain, 
 liking the appearance of a small creek with high, sloping 
 banks, ran his boat into it, landed and decided that at 
 that spot he would make his home. There in due course, 
 after many difficulties, he built not only a log house, but 
 a flour mill and sawmill. Once he planned to try to 
 make a town of it, but thought better of it, and to 
 this day Port Ryerse — as, through a mistake, the place 
 was called — is only a little hamlet. The Long Point 
 settlement at this time (179S) boasted four householders 
 in twenty miles, all settled along the shore. Between 
 them and Niagara lay the Mohawk reserves along the 
 Grand River, but the Indians were friendly and were by 
 no means bad neighbours. 
 
 All kinds of wild creatures abounded in the woods and 
 along the shores — from wild geese and ducks, pigeons 
 and turkeys to bears and wolves. Years afterwards an 
 old trapper declared that he had killed over a hundred 
 bears and wild-cats innumerable, whilst musk-rats were 
 so plentiful that in one year he had caught 1700. 
 Captain Ryerson had a couple of deerhounds, and 
 when he wanted meat he used "to go to the woods 
 for his deer as a farmer would go to the fold for a 
 sheep." For fear of the wolves the cow was tied to the 
 kitchen door every night, and during the day was taken 
 by the men to the place where they were chopping and 
 
192 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 fed on "browse" from a maple tree cut down each 
 morning for her especial benefit. 
 
 Of course the settlers got their sugar from the trees, 
 and till the mill was built they made johnny-cake, instead 
 of bread, of corn ground in a coffee-mill. Almost the 
 greatest difficulty in the early days was to get clothes. 
 The wolves, which, even after the country was partly 
 settled, used to raid the folds, made it difficult to keep 
 sheep, and " it was flax, the peddler's pack, and buck- 
 skins that the early settlers had to depend upon for 
 clothing." 
 
 After the Loyalists other immigrants gradually came 
 in, but the lack of markets was a great discouragement 
 to farming. There was very little money in the country, 
 and the people had to trade their goods as best they 
 could. For many years lumbering was the chief industry 
 of the county. In Walsingham Township thousands of 
 forest giants were floated down Big Creek, near the 
 mouth of which stands the little old village of Port Royal, 
 and even in the last quarter of the nineteenth century the 
 people in the back parts of the township were clearing 
 the land and chopping and logging as the settlers on the 
 lake had been doing eighty years earlier. 
 
 Besides its magnificent trees Norfolk County possesses 
 other interesting natural features. In the township of 
 Townsend are beds of limestone extraordinarily rich in 
 fossils, whilst Houghton has strange high sandhills above 
 the lake, from which the tops of dead trees stick out like 
 the masts and spars of stranded ships. In Charlotteville 
 deposits of bog iron-ore led to the building at Normandale 
 in 1823 of a small blast-furnace. Last, though not 
 least, amongst the notable features of the county is the 
 island, jutting out thirty miles into the lake, from which 
 the early settlement of Long Point was named. It sup- 
 plied excellent cedar for posts and was the haunt of wild- 
 fowl innumerable. 
 
NOEFOLK 193 
 
 It has, moreover, a special human interest, for there, 
 some fifty-eight years ago, lived Abigail Becker, a 
 Canadian "Grace Darling," who one bitter winter morn- 
 ing—the story is well known — saved from death the 
 crew of a lake schooner. It had been driven by a fierce 
 north-west gale on a sand bar, the waves every moment 
 threatening the lives of the eight men who formed its 
 crew. 
 
 " And it was cold — oh, it was cold ! 
 The pinching cold was like a vice, 
 Spoondrift fell freezing— fold on fold- 
 It coated them with ice." 
 
 For hours the sailors had clung despairingly to the 
 rigging, but Abigail and her boys made a fire on the 
 shore and then the strong, brave young woman signalled 
 to the men to trust themselves to the raging surf and to 
 her help. At last the captain ventured and was swept 
 far down the beach, but Abigail dashed into the foaming 
 water and dragged the half-frozen man to land. She did 
 the same for six more. The cook, unable to swim, could 
 not be induced to venture, but on the morrow they reached 
 him with a raft. Before this Abigail had saved two other 
 people from drowning, and it seemed especially sad that 
 later she should lose a boy of her own in the waters of 
 Port Rowan Bay. 
 
 N 
 
XXXIV. ELGIN 
 
 " Shall we not thro' good and ill 
 Cleave to one another still ? 
 Britain's myriad voices call : 
 ' Sons, be welded, one and all. 
 Into one imperial whole, 
 One with Britain, heart and soul 1 
 One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne ! ' 
 Britons, hold your own ! " 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 THE early history of Elgin County is dominated by 
 the striking personality of Colonel Talbot, founder 
 of the Talbot Settlement. 
 
 Since Upper Canada became a province, this county 
 has changed name and boundaries more than once. Its 
 eastern townships of South Dorchester, Malahide, and 
 Bayham were originally part of Norfolk County. The 
 remaining four townships, three of which bear names 
 borrowed from the English shire of Suffolk, were included 
 in a county named Suffolk. When this disappeared from 
 the map these townships became part of Middlesex, but 
 some sixty years ago the new county of Elgin, with its 
 present limits, was set apart and named after the staunch 
 Governor-General of " Rebellion Losses Bill " fame. 
 
 In the township of Southwold, between the Talbot and 
 Kettle Creeks, there are mounds, known as the "Old 
 Fort," from the neighbourhood of which Indian arrow- 
 heads, pottery, and charred maize have been unearthed, 
 which are believed to indicate the site of an ancient 
 stronghold of the Neutral Indians, and on old French 
 maps the district was marked as the " Iroquois Beaver 
 
 19* 
 
ELGIN 195 
 
 Ground." Charlevoix, a French traveller, visited the 
 country in 172 1, and was enchanted with its beauty. 
 He gave a glowing description of it as " the finest forest 
 in the world," whilst the clear sky, the charming climate, 
 the waters, " bright as the finest fountain," on which his 
 boat was floating, made him think that, if such conditions 
 could continue, he " would be tempted to travel all his 
 life." A later observer, the Government surveyor, Peter 
 M'Niff, was not so well pleased. He objected strongly 
 to the high white and yellow sandbanks along the lake- 
 front, and the townships were accordingly first laid out 
 along the Thames River. 
 
 Charlevoix's description is said to have greatly im- 
 pressed young Thomas Talbot who, however, himself 
 visited the country in his early manhood, when he was 
 acting as private secretary to the energetic Governor 
 Simcoe. 
 
 Born at Malahide, near Dublin, in 1 771, he belonged 
 to an ancient Norman family. Receiving a commission 
 in the army as ensign before he was twelve years old, he 
 was appointed at sixteen aide to his relative, the Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland. A fellow-aide was Arthur Wel- 
 lesley, the future conqueror of Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 Talbot attained the rank of Colonel at the early age of 
 twenty-five, and a brilliant career seemed to lie before 
 him. He saw active service in Holland and at Gibraltar; 
 but his thoughts turned back to the peaceful shores of 
 blue Lake Erie, and, to the astonishment of his friends, 
 he resolved, while scarcely past thirty, " to bury himself" 
 in the Canadian wilderness. But indeed Talbot was very 
 much alive and full of ambition, though he dreamed not 
 of military glory, but of planting a strong colony in 
 Canada under the flag he loved. 
 
 He desired first to settle in the township of Yarmouth ; 
 but the Canada Company and the Baby family had been 
 before him, and a large grant was not there available. 
 
196 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 When, therefore, partly through the good offices of the 
 royal Dukes of Kent and Cumberland, he obtained a 
 grant pf 5000 acres (an amount which had been given to 
 many other officers) it was for lands in Dunwich Town- 
 ship. Afterwards he obtained additional grants. 
 
 It was on May 21, 1803, that he landed at a spot 
 which has always since been called Port Talbot, though 
 there is not even a village there. With his own hands 
 he chopped down the first tree, and for years afterwards 
 the anniversary was kept in the settlement as a holiday. 
 From that date on, for half a century, till, as an old man 
 over eighty, he was carried to his grave in the little vil- 
 lage churchyard of Tyrconnell, he was one of the best- 
 known men in Upper Canada. Sometimes he fell into 
 conflict with the Provincial Government at York, but, 
 having interest with the authorities at home and being 
 ready at any time to make a voyage to England to set 
 forth his case in person, he succeeded in maintaining a 
 very independent position in his settlement; and, upon 
 the whole, in spite of some eccentricities, he managed so 
 well that, while the settlement of other districts was slow, 
 colonists " flocked " to his lands. 
 
 For one thing, owing, perhaps, to his training as a 
 military man. Colonel Talbot was impressed with the 
 strategic value of roads. One of the conditions attached 
 to the free grants of fifty acres which he offered to 
 settlers, with the right to purchase an additional hun- 
 dred and fifty at $3 an acre, was the opening within 
 three years of half the road in front of each farm. The 
 other conditions were the building of a small house and 
 the clearing and sowing of ten acres of land. The result 
 of the road-making provision was that the settlement 
 became noted for its good roads, especially for that 
 named the Talbot Road. 
 
 Talbot gave the choicest positions to actual settlers, 
 relegating Crown and Clergy reserves to the rear; but 
 
ELGIN 197 
 
 he had a somewhat remarkable way of keeping a record 
 of his land transactions. He had at Port Talbot a map 
 on which he marked in pencil the names of the settlers. 
 If they failed to fulfil the stipulated conditions within the 
 allotted three years, he simply erased their names. When 
 the conditions were fulfilled he gave the settler a certifi- 
 cate, which, on payment of certain fees at York, enabled 
 him to obtain a patent from the Government. But, be- 
 tween lack of ready money and their absolute confidence 
 in Talbot's integrity, the settlers were often dilatory in 
 completing the business, and at one time over 5000 
 deeds were waiting at York to be taken out by Talbot's 
 settlers. Having sometimes to deal with rough fellows, 
 he conducted his business through a window with a 
 sliding pane in it, and was attended by a faithful servant 
 named Jeffrey Hunter. On one occasion he is said to 
 have concluded an unsatisfactory interview with the curt 
 command, " Jeffrey, set on the dogs ! " 
 
 Talbot's grist-mills and sawmills were burned, as were 
 many others, during the War of 181 2. He commanded 
 the militia of the London and Western districts at that 
 time. 
 
 In the early years of the settlement the nearest store 
 was that at Long Point, sixty miles away, and in 1807 
 the price asked for broadcloth was $20 a yard; for 
 printed cotton, $1 ; for brass buttons, a York shilling 
 each; for a paper of pins, 50 cents; for tobacco, $1 a 
 pound ; for a single nutmeg, 25 cents, and for a bushel 
 of salt, $12. In many instances the settlers had to 
 carry home their purchases on their backs. During the 
 War an enterprising peddler took a horse-load of salt into 
 the Talbot Settlement, and sold it at the rate of $8 for 
 fourteen pounds. In a few years, however, stores were 
 opened at St. Thomas and elsewhere. 
 
 When Mrs. Jameson visited Talbot in 1 837, the Colonel 
 told her that he had settled some 50,000 people on 
 
198 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 650,000 acres of land, of which 98,700 acres were cleared. 
 Nowadays over eighty per cent, of the land in this good 
 farming county (which, however, only represents a part 
 of the Talbot Settlement) is cleared. 
 
 In the summer of 1846 an agitation began for the 
 separation of the district from Middlesex, and on the 
 morning of August 27 a band from St. Thomas (named, 
 it is said, from Talbot's Christian name) paraded the 
 neighbouring villages with flags flying. At noon the 
 band returned to St. Thomas, doubtless with some re- 
 cruits for the public meeting, which passed resolutions in 
 favour of separation. One of the townsmen, Benjamin 
 Drake, offered sites for a court-house, a jail, and a market- 
 place, if St. Thomas should become a county town ; but 
 it was not till the autumn of 1853 that the separation 
 was actually accomplished. 
 
XXXV. OXFORD 
 
 " In the country places. 
 Where the old plain men have rosy faces. 
 And the young, fair maidens 
 Quiet eyes I " 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 THIRTY years ago there lingered about Woodstock, 
 in Oxford County, traditions of English gentlemen, 
 " fine " and otherwise, who had " come out " with more 
 or less money, and had attempted to transplant into the 
 wilderness — tracked here and there with " blazed " paths 
 — the luxurious habits and customs of their class. They 
 were remembered as " holding their heads high," thinking 
 much of " family," superciliously tolerant of " the lower 
 orders," keeping numerous servants, making rash experi- 
 ments in farming, building roomy dwelling-places, devot- 
 ing their time largely to sport and amusement, spending 
 freely on wine, horses, and imported luxuries. Elderly 
 ladies recalled with indulgent smiles the gay doings — the 
 balls, the sleighing parties — of their girlhood, when the 
 Imperial garrison at London furnished for a large area 
 of country a supply of military gallants always ready to 
 take part in any accessible diversion. Woodstock was 
 in those days, it was said, " a very English place," but 
 even thirty years ago these early glories were but a 
 memory. Scarlet-coated officers had long disappeared 
 from the scene ; the gay butterflies of family and fashion 
 had given place to more sober, hard-working folks — in 
 some instances, it was whispered with bated breath, to 
 the men and women who had tended their horses and 
 cooked their luxurious feasts. Some were ruined, some 
 
200 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 were dead ; others, after playing for a few years at 
 pioneering, had returned to more congenial surroundings, 
 but meanwhile the rank and file of " less fortunate " 
 settlers had plodded on, year after year, clearing the 
 bush, gathering out the stones, making at once their own 
 farms and the county, which is to-day notable for its pros- 
 perity and for its quiet beauty of low, rolling hills, well- 
 cultivated fields, and gentle streams. 
 
 The county gained its name of Oxford in 1798, when 
 the old township of Oxford on the Thames, with other 
 municipalities formerly belonging to the then huge counties 
 of Norfolk and York, was formed into a new county and 
 made part of London district. The townships of Zorra 
 and Nissouri were added in 1821, and sixteen years later 
 steps were taken for the erection of a jail and court-house 
 at Woodstock, where the first court was held for the new 
 " District of Brock " in April, 1 840. The survey of the 
 first three concessions of Blenheim Township was ordered 
 in 1793 for the benefit of an American, Watson, to whom 
 Governor Simcoe, in reward for some services rendered 
 during the Revolutionary War, had promised a township. 
 This man's nephew, Thomas Horner, built the first mill 
 in the county, bringing the material from Albany, New 
 York State, in two small boats by lakes and rivers and 
 portages to Burlington Bay, from which he carried them 
 inland to Blenheim on ox-sleds. The mill was built and 
 fitted up by the end of 1795, but before a plank was sawn 
 the dam burst and could not be repaired, for lack of work- 
 men, till 1797. This accomplished, Horner claimed the 
 township, but Simcoe had left the country, and the new 
 Governor refused to honour his promise. Worse still, in 
 the troublous times that succeeded doubts were cast upon 
 Horner's loyalty. Though Deputy -Lieutenant of the 
 county, General Brock would not trust him with a com- 
 mand during the War of 181 2. But, not to be deterred 
 from taking part in the defence of the country, Horner, 
 
OXFORD 201 
 
 at his own expense, raised a corps of seventy-five Indian 
 warriors, and afterwards served in the ranks as a volunteer. 
 
 When Oxford County became entitled to a represen- 
 tative for itself in the Assembly, Horner was its first 
 member. He was also a Justice of the Peace, performing 
 many marriages, under the rule that a magistrate might 
 officiate where no Church of England clergyman lived 
 within eighteen miles. A brother-magistrate is said to 
 have married between four and five hundred persons. 
 
 A few years after Horner's death in 1834 Francis 
 Hincks (afterwards knighted) represented the county. 
 Still later, George Brown, founder of " The Globe, sat for 
 Oxford." Several early elections for the constituency were 
 held at " Martin's Old Stand," in the village of Beachville, 
 whose importance has been long outstripped by its younger 
 rivals, Woodstock and Ingersoll. 
 
 The former, long referred to ignominiously as the 
 " Town Plot," had indeed been marked out for a town by 
 Simcoe, but as late as 1836 it was represented by "a 
 paltry village " — or, rather, by " a few straggling houses 
 at very unsocial intervals." Even at that date it had its 
 (now) venerable brick Church of St. Paul's, one brick 
 house among the wooden ones, a post-office, to which 
 came three mails a week, and a subscription library, but 
 it had no newspaper till 1840. 
 
 During the first half of the nineteenth century the 
 population of Oxford County increased very rapidly, 
 numbering over 32,500 by 1852. Of these nearly a 
 third had been born in " the old country." At that time 
 immigrants usually arrived in Canada about August, 
 a circumstance which must have added to the hardships 
 of the first year. 
 
 In the township of Zorra there settled a notable colony 
 of Scotch Highlanders. The pioneers of this colony, 
 Angus and William MacKay, took up land in Zorra in 
 1820. After nine years Angus, as is told by Rev. W. A. 
 
202 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 MacKay, in his Pioneer Life in Zorra, went back to 
 Scotland and brought out his aged mother and a ship- 
 load of Sutherlanders, who had been heartlessly driven 
 by their landlords from their little holdings. Of course, 
 much in their new life was quite outside their former 
 experience, and, judging from the number of ghost stories 
 told amongst them, the great woods must have had a 
 powerful effect on their lively Celtic imaginations. In 
 the first spring after their arrival, one party of immi- 
 grants was much alarmed one morning by some weird, 
 unaccustomed sounds. On this occasion, however, they 
 decided that the Indians, not ghosts, must be accountable 
 for the noise, and the men armed hastily, only to be in- 
 formed by older settlers that the disturbance was caused 
 by nothing more dreadful than the bull-frogs celebrating 
 the breaking of their icy prison. 
 
 In clearing the woods many accidents occurred through 
 the inexperience of the choppers, and some piteous stories 
 could be told of women and children left alone in the 
 strange land to fight the battle of life. On the whole, 
 however, the Highlanders were of the type speedily to 
 " make good." They were alike sturdy and God-fearing, 
 helpful to each other, ready to sacrifice much for the 
 education of their children, great readers of their Gaelic 
 Bible, regular attendants at the little log churches. Once 
 a year people used to gather from miles around for the 
 great Communion in Zorra Church — the best building in 
 the township — and on that occasion every householder in 
 the neighbourhood showed that hospitality which caused 
 Burns to declare : 
 
 " In Heaven itself I'll ask no more 
 Than just a Highland welcome." 
 
 Unhappily some amongst those fine people found a 
 terrible enemy in "the black bottle." One Scot, with 
 grim irony, called his own whisky jug "Jeroboam," 
 
OXFORD 203 
 
 because that king "had made Israel to sin," and at 
 elections, weddings, and funerals, at barn-raisings and 
 logging bees " the black bottle " was responsible for much 
 that was unlovely and not a little that was tragic in the 
 simple life of the times. Perhaps it had also something 
 to do with the ghost-seeing habit. 
 
 When a Highlander died in Zorra his corpse lay for 
 several days in state, his neighbours keeping watch over 
 it, and relieving the near relatives of the work of house 
 and farm. The coffin was home-made and darkened 
 with lampblack and white of egg. Covered by a " morte 
 cloth " of black silk velvet, it was borne to the grave on 
 men's shoulders. Later, as the roads improved, lumber 
 wagons were used, and the first spring wagon in a 
 neighbourhood did duty as a hearse far and wide. As late 
 as 1830, however, there were in the whole county only 
 three carriages of the type described as pleasure wagons. 
 
 In the thirties Oxford County, as others, had its 
 grievances concerning land grants and roads ; but dur- 
 ing the Rebellion two hundred stalwart men presented 
 themselves at Embro to express their loyalty in a practical 
 fashion by fighting the rebels, if need were. As there 
 were not guns enough to go round, the men were put 
 through their exercises with hop-poles. After a week 
 there came news of an intended attack on Woodstock • 
 so, armed with guns and clubs, the Highlanders marched 
 to the defence of the town, inspired by the warlike strains 
 of the pipes. It proved a false alarm. On their way 
 home some of the volunteers were so much alarmed by 
 the cracking reports from the trees that they fled helter- 
 skelter ; but apparently this little lapse did not destroy 
 the confidence of the neighbourhood in the valour of its 
 amateur soldiers, for during the " Fenian scare " an old 
 Zorra lady is reported to have said: "They may tak' 
 Montreal, and they may tak' Toronto, and they may tak' 
 Woodstock, but they'll never tak' Zorra." 
 
XXXVI. MIDDLESEX 
 
 " Down by the river our log hut stands, 
 Where father and mother dwelt ; 
 And the old door-latch that was worn by our hands, 
 And the church where in prayer we knelt." 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 IT has been quaintly said that the " dawn of civilisa- 
 tion " in Middlesex County first appeared in the 
 township of Delaware, and here we also find a trace, 
 but only a trace, of the pioneer Highlander of the county, 
 Ronald M'Donald, who in 1798 obtained a patent of 
 the land on which Delaware village stands, but soon 
 after sold out to Dr. Oliver Tiffany. It was, however, 
 twenty years later that there began the great Highland 
 immigration, lasting {sive for a short break) for some- 
 thing like thirty years, and giving almost every township 
 a greater or less number of immigrants from the northern 
 counties and western isles of Scotland. 
 
 These settlers were of a notably fine order, tall, strong, 
 and sturdy in physique, and possessing solid mental 
 qualities, enlivened by the imaginative fire and poetry 
 of the Celt. As to their moral qualities, honesty, earnest- 
 ness, hospitality, and a strong sense of the unseen seem 
 to belong to the type, and if, like other folk, they had 
 their faults, these were often " the defects of their quali- 
 ties." It is somewhat strange that these immigrants — 
 most of them poor — should have set an unusually high 
 value on education ; but it was so, and the little log 
 schoolhouses were amongst the earliest buildings in the 
 new settlements. Often the pupils could at first speak 
 
MIDDLESEX 205 
 
 no language save Gaelic, but they speedily acquired 
 English, and soon a surprisingly large number of 
 teachers, ministers, and other professional men looked 
 back to these little country schools as the scenes of 
 their first triumphs in life and "book-learning." 
 
 The majority of the Gaelic poineers of Middlesex were 
 Presbyterians, and often they met together for worship, 
 to read "the Book" and sing their Gaelic versions of 
 the Psalms, without waiting for the visit of missionary 
 or minister. Until the Rebellion of 1837 and the gradual 
 multiplication of newspapers, the Highlanders were slow 
 to take an interest in politics. 
 
 Some notable men are connected with the early history 
 of Middlesex. First and foremost must be mentioned 
 Governor Simcoe, who, from careful study of maps and 
 accounts of the country, had concluded that the forks 
 of "La Tranche," which he renamed the Thames, would 
 be the best situation for the capital of Upper Canada. 
 
 In February, 1793, he undertook an arduous journey 
 across the peninsula from Newark to Detroit to investi- 
 gate the matter for himself. Taking five or six officers, 
 a dozen soldiers, and twenty Indians as guides, the 
 Governor travelled on foot most of the way, a journey 
 of about 400 miles, but, as it was a "service of no 
 danger " and Hkely to " afford him amusement," his wife 
 was " quite easy about it " ; in fact, she thought the 
 excursion would improve his health. On his departure 
 " the Governor wore a fur cap, tippet and gloves and 
 moccasins, but no greatcoat. His servant carried 
 two blankets and linen. The other gentlemen carried 
 their blankets in a pack on their backs." The party 
 was accompanied by a Newfoundland dog, Jack Sharp, 
 which got into sad trouble with a porcupine, probably 
 one of those which made a woodsman's feast for the 
 Governor and his suite, tasting " like pork." At Detroit, 
 
2o6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 " all his Majesty's ships lying there " fired a salute on 
 Simcoe's departure. On a Sunday "his Excellency 
 ordered prayers to be read in the woods . . . and forty 
 people attended." 
 
 " The Governor rose early on the march and walked 
 till five o'clock. A party of the Indians went on an 
 hour before" — I quote from Mrs. Simcoe's recently 
 published Diary — " to cut down wood for a fire and 
 make huts of trees, which they cover with bark so 
 dexterously that no rain can penetrate, and this they 
 do very expeditiously." When the Governor came to 
 the spot the Indians had fixed upon a spot to lodge 
 for the night, and the provisions were cooked. " After 
 supper the officers sang 'God Save the King,' and 
 went to sleep with their feet close to an immense fire, 
 which was kept up all night." On the outward journey 
 the party passed through the (future) townships of 
 Delaware and Westminster, and, returning, spent a 
 March day at the spot which Simcoe thought " eminently 
 calculated for the metropolis of all Canada." During 
 the night it rained incessantly, and the travellers found 
 that the hemlock boughs which served for beds had 
 been wet when gathered, but such trifles did not chill 
 the Governor's enthusiasm for the situation. 
 
 He thought of naming the future city, in compliment to 
 his Sovereign, " Georgina-on-the-Thames," but ultimately 
 pitched, instead, on the briefer, and already famous, name 
 of London. Though circumstances forced him to make 
 York his headquarters, he regarded the necessity as only 
 temporary, but the Governor-General, Lord Dorchester, 
 was of another mind, and Simcoe's wishes were over- 
 ruled. He had, however, had a town-site surveyed, and 
 in consequence, while the land all around London was 
 being taken up, the beautiful park-like spot where Simcoe 
 had set apart for his city " remained in primeval beauty." 
 George Heriot, writing about 1807, mentioned that there 
 
MIDDLESEX 207 
 
 were several " rich settlements " along the banks of the 
 Thames, and that " new establishments " were " every 
 week added to this as well as to other parts of the 
 neighbouring country by the immigration of wealthy 
 farmers from the United States." 
 
 It is told also in some of the Ontario Historical Society 
 papers that Governor Simcoe promised a grant of two 
 thousand acres to a certain B. Allen, on condition that 
 he should erect a grist-mill in Delaware. He began, 
 accordingly, in 1797, to build a mill on Dingman's Creek, 
 but before it was finished " had to go to jail for counter- 
 feiting." About that time the post-office at Delaware was 
 the only one between Newark and Detroit. Sir George 
 Drummond established a military post at this village, and 
 from it, on March 3, 18 14, "a sortie of 240 men, under 
 Captain Basden, was made against a United States post 
 at Longwoods." This was not captured, but soon after- 
 wards the Americans retreated to Detroit. 
 
 About 1 8 16 one John Applegarth began cultivating 
 hemp on a ridge east of what is now Mount Pleasant 
 Cemetery, but, being somewhat unsuccessful, soon went 
 elsewhere, leaving his log cabin to squatters. There was 
 as yet no bridge over the river, but a canoe ferry afforded 
 some means of communication between the opposite 
 banks. In 18 17 Gourlay estimated that there were nearly 
 9000 settlers in the London district, of which the official 
 centre was the inconsiderable hamlet of Vittoria. This 
 was fifty miles, as the crow flies, from the forks of the 
 Thames ; and when the court-house there chanced to 
 be burnt, the people of Middlesex began a vigorous 
 agitation for the removal of "the headquarters of the 
 district to a more convenient locality." 
 
 The agitation was successful, and early in 1826 the 
 Provincial Parliament authorised a second survey of 
 London and appointed five commissioners to erect a 
 court-house. Three of these were Hon. Thomas Talbot 
 
2o8 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 (founder of the Talbot Settlement), Mahlon Burwell, after 
 whom Port Burwell was named, and Charles Ingersoll, 
 who gave his name to the town in Oxford County. Talbot, 
 particularly, had much to do with the settlement of 
 London. The incoming people were required to pay the 
 equivalent of $32 for the patent of each lot, and to erect 
 some kind of a house, 24 feet by 1 8 feet in dimensions, 
 upon it. A Scotch tailor, Peter MacGregor, built the 
 first house in London, on King Street, where the Grand 
 Central Hotel now stands. It was a mere shanty, but 
 served as an hotel. When the courts were first held 
 in London, MacGregor had to turn away many guests, 
 who were obliged to go three miles further before they 
 could obtain shelter. 
 
 The "first native-born Londoner," Nathaniel Yerex, 
 " saw the light of day in 1 826." By the following year 
 thirty- three families, numbering, all told, 133 souls, had 
 settled in the place. The first Court of Quarter Sessions 
 was held on January 9, 1827, in a temporary building, 
 afterwards used for a school ; and one of the first trials 
 was that of a murderer, who had slain a sherifi^'s officer 
 and, being found guilty, was hanged three days after 
 sentence was pronounced. Thus, the beginnings of 
 London, as it has been said, " centred in a tavern, a jail, 
 and a post-office." The latter was opened as soon as 
 the work began of building the court-house, which was 
 designed, on an imposing scale, in the Gothic style. 
 
 At first London grew slowly; and in 1845 a terrible 
 fire destroyed no less than 1 50 of its buildings, causing a 
 loss which, for so small a place, was enormous. Now 
 the city covers some 4500 acres instead of its original 
 240 (of which, by the way, the estimated value is 
 something like thirty million dollars), and the 133 people 
 of its second year have now increased to over 46,000. 
 
XXXVII. KENT 
 
 " Sleep well, Tecumseh, in thy unknown grave, 
 Thou mighty savage, resolute and brave ! " 
 
 Charles Mair. 
 
 THE county of Kent, now not a small one, was origi- 
 nally of enormous and indefinite extent. Its northern 
 boundary was the Hudson Bay Territory, and, with the 
 exception of Essex County, it included " all the territory 
 to the westward and southward to the utmost extent of 
 the country known by the name of Canada." In a map 
 made about 1798 it is indeed shown with something like 
 its present limits ; but when it was joined with Essex to 
 form the western district, the Sheriff of the united counties 
 Used to serve his process as far north as Sault Ste. Marie 
 and Lake Superior. 
 
 In 1792 it is said to have had six families, but Talbot's 
 colonising zeal did much for Kent as well as for Elgin, 
 and his great road, " Talbot Street," was continued 
 through part of this county. It offered, indeed, just as 
 good a field for his activities as the district to the east- 
 ward. The very character of the forest, abounding in 
 mighty oaks, walnut trees, hickories, beeches, and maples, 
 testified to the fertility of the soil, as do now the fine farms 
 and prosperous little country towns which are so nume- 
 rous here. The county is noted for its corn, tobacco, and 
 sugar-beets ; also for two products, which seem naturally 
 associated in our minds, if not on our tables — pork and 
 beans ! The western townships yield also petroleum and 
 natural gas. 
 
 In the year 1803, signalised at Port Talbot by the 
 
 209 O 
 
2IO THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 cutting down of the first tree, another notable coloniser 
 appeared on the scene in Kent County. This was the 
 Earl of Selkirk, afterwards so well known from his efforts 
 to found a settlement on the Red River. As a very young 
 man he had gone on a tour through the Scottish High- 
 lands, and had been much impressed with the pitiable 
 condition of the crofters, evicted from their little holdings 
 by landlords who wished to turn their estates into pasture 
 lands or game preserves. It seemed to him, then, that 
 the only hope for the distressed peasants was emigration, 
 and when, by the death of six elder brothers in succes- 
 sion, he succeeded to the earldom and estate, he made 
 an earnest attempt to put his theories into practice. 
 As a beginning he settled 800 crofters in Prince Ed- 
 ward Island, then turned his attention to Upper Canada, 
 and, obtaining a grant of nearly 1000 acres on Big Bear 
 Creek (now known as the Sydenham), he settled there 
 III Highlanders, naming the place " Baldoon." Like 
 Talbot, he realised that one of the first necessities of a 
 successful colony was good roads, and he offered to 
 spend ;^20,000 in making a wagon road from Bal- 
 doon to York, on condition of a grant of wild lands 
 along the route. In those days land grants were often 
 made so recklessly that the progress of the country was 
 seriously hampered by the huge blocks of lands held by 
 speculators and absentees, but Selkirk's offer met with 
 no favour. 
 
 He was hardly fortunate in other respects. The situa- 
 tion of Baldoon proved to be so unhealthy that in the first 
 year forty-two of the colonists died, and a great marsh 
 between the settlement and the more populated part of 
 the Province became almost impassable in bad weather. 
 Later, Selkirk arranged to plant a settlement on the Grand 
 River, but the war raging betwen France and England 
 interfered with this project. He deserves all honour, 
 however, for his untiring efforts to help the down-trodden, 
 
KENT 211 
 
 at great cost of ease and pleasure; and the city of 
 Chatham has done well to commemorate him and his 
 work in the names of two of its thoroughfares — Selkirk 
 and Baldoon Streets. 
 
 The name Chatham was bestowed upon the county seat 
 by Simcoe, though many years were to pass before it 
 attained to that dignity. In fact, till about 1830, it was 
 represented by a small shipyard, a blockhouse to protect 
 it, and a single house, beside which an orchard was 
 planted. When General Proctor evacuated Detroit, after 
 the defeat of the British fleet on Lake Erie, the great 
 Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, retreated with him up the 
 Thames, though he urged Proctor to make a stand against 
 the enemy. On the night of September 3, 181 3, it is on 
 record that Tecumseh crossed the bridge over the creek 
 dividing the military reserve from the town-site of Chatham, 
 and encamped with his weary braves on the ground which 
 now appropriately bears the name of Tecumseh Park. 
 
 The great Indian's name has been translated variously 
 and picturesquely. Some say it signifies " the Shooting 
 Star"; others, "the Crouching Panther." Either suits 
 well enough the stern, stately, tragic figure of the chief, 
 who, after trying in vain to set back the hand of time 
 and to rouse his countrymen to make a determined stand 
 against " the pale-faces " and their customs, fell fighting 
 desperately in the white men's quarrel, with English 
 George's medal on his breast. 
 
 Proctor unfortunately neglected to destroy the bridges 
 behind him, and his retreat before the American General 
 Harrison was almost a flight. At last, near the Indian 
 village of Moraviantown, just within the borders of Kent, 
 he turned for a moment to bay. But the honours of that 
 disastrous field belong to Tecumseh and his band, for, 
 deserted by the leader, they fought on like lions, till 
 their great chief fell dead. His faithful warriors bore his 
 body from the field to bury it on St. Anne's Island in 
 
212 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Lake St. Clair ; and for almost a century his people kept 
 inviolate the secret of his last resting-place. 
 
 After the War, the great events in the story of the 
 county are those which led to improvements in the con- 
 dition of the settlers. For instance, in 1828 the first 
 steamboat, the Argo by name, went up the Thames. 
 In 1837 Kent's first Agricultural Society was organised 
 in the township of Howard, soon to be followed by one 
 in Chatham. In 1 841 the first newspaper. The Chatham 
 Journal, was published. In the following year the first 
 " fair" was held at Chatham. In 1853 the Great Western 
 Railway began to run its cars through Chatham, which 
 previously had depended for communication with other 
 places on steamboats and stages and private travel on 
 roads none too good. 
 
 In very early years Kent looked to Detroit as chief 
 town of the district, then, as "junior county" in the 
 union with Essex, to Sandwich ; but in 1 847 steps were 
 taken to erect at Chatham the court-house and jail, 
 which, in the case of counties, are the marks of gradua- 
 tion from the status of "juniors"; and in 1850 Kent 
 was finally separated from Essex. 
 
 At an earlier date the counties had been separated for 
 electoral purposes ; and in a little book called Harrison 
 Hall and Its Associations (published on the occasion of 
 the opening of the said hall, erected by the county of 
 Kent and the city of Chatham, for judicial, municipal, 
 and other uses) an amusing description is given of an 
 election in 1841. 
 
 After having suffered defeat by Sir Allan Macnab at 
 Hamilton, an English lawyer, Harrison by name, 
 appeared at Chatham. Already there were several other 
 candidates in the field, but all save one, whose name 
 was Woods, retired from the fight. In those days the 
 constituency consisted of twenty townships, stretching 
 from Tilbury West in Essex to Bosanquet in Lambton, 
 
KENT 213 
 
 a distance of 130 miles; and there was only one polling 
 place, that at Chatham. 
 
 It was in the early spring, when the streams were in 
 flood, and many a bridge had been swept away, whilst 
 roads and woods were still half under ice,'half in water ; 
 but at least one company of twenty-six voters were so 
 determined to exercise their franchise that they came on 
 horseback, a two-days' ride from Sandwich, led by a 
 guide and swimming their beasts across the icy streams. 
 The election lasted from nine o'clock on Monday morning 
 till midnight on Saturday night; indeed, excitement ran 
 so high that the successful candidate, Mr. Woods, was 
 not declared elected till two on Sunday morning, when 
 his supporters indulged in great demonstrations of delight. 
 Still undaunted by this second defeat, the vaUant Mr. 
 Harrison tried again and was finally elected for Kingston. 
 
 Harrison Hall at Chatham is called, not after this per- 
 severing candidate, though later he represented Kent in 
 the Assembly, but after Hon. Robert Alexander Harrison, 
 the Chief Justice of Ontario, who in 1877 was one of the 
 three arbitrators appointed to fix the northern and western 
 boundaries of the Province. 
 
XXXVIII. ESSEX 
 
 " Father of Nations ! Help of the feeble hand ! 
 
 Strength of the strong 1 to whom the nations kneel ! 
 Stay and destroyer, at whose just command 
 
 Earth's kingdoms tremble and her empires reel ! 
 Who dost the low uplift, the small make great, 
 
 And dost abase the ignorantly proud : 
 Of our scant people mould a mighty State ! " 
 
 Charles G. D. Roberts. 
 
 AVERY interesting county is Essex! It is one of 
 Simcoe's original nineteen counties, and its boun- 
 daries, fixed to a great extent by Nature, have seen com- 
 paratively little change. It is, in fact, a peninsula, more 
 than three parts surrounded by the waters of Lake 
 St. Clair, the Detroit River and Lake Erie, and, like 
 many another district, it owes its historical importance 
 to its geographical position. As is the case with Fron- 
 tenac and Lincoln Counties, Essex already had a history 
 before the district became a county of Upper Canada. 
 
 Early in the eighteenth century it was the scene of a 
 Jesuit mission to the Hurons, and hundreds were baptized. 
 Some twenty years later the French Governor of Canada 
 decided on planting a colony along both banks of the 
 Detroit River, and within the next half-dozen years 
 many families were settled at this then far western out- 
 post of civiUsation. In 1752 was born the first white 
 child in the future county, Jean Dufour by name. 
 
 Though over-level to appear picturesque in the eyes 
 of the lovers of hills and heights, this fertile region is at 
 least beautiful in its rich productiveness, and within a 
 
ESSEX 215 
 
 decade the industrious French settlers had turned a strip 
 of the luxuriant wilderness into cultivated fields and fruit- 
 ful orchards. Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, command- 
 ing at Detroit in 1761, was much impressed with the 
 general air of prosperity. Every farmer, he said, had 
 his yoke of oxen for ploughing, his calash for summer, 
 and his cariole for winter, driving, whilst everywhere 
 were to be seen blossoming shrubs and fine fruit-trees. 
 In fact 
 
 " Many a thrifty Mission pear 
 Yet o'erlooks the blue St. Clair, 
 Like a veteran faithful warden ; 
 On their branches gnarled and olden, 
 Still each year the blossoms dance, 
 Scent and bloom of sunny France." 
 
 But Nature was not so subdued that she had nothing 
 to bestow spontaneously. It was but a step from the 
 trim farms to woods rich in game and berries; indeed, 
 in a few hours a farmer "with gun or line" could 
 " furnish food for several families." 
 
 A hundred and fifty years ago a village of Ottawa 
 Indians was situated a little above where Walkerville 
 now stands, and when after the cession of Canada to 
 England the red men rose in revolt, Pontiac assembled 
 his forces at this village for an attack on Detroit. Peach 
 Island, a little higher up the river and on the other side 
 of the international boundary line, was the home of the 
 great chief, but a few years later it was sold to an Eng- 
 lish officer for three rolls of tobacco, half a dozen pounds 
 of vermilion and eight barrels of rum ! 
 
 The town of Detroit, in 1763, contained about a 
 hundred houses, surrounded by a palisade and defended 
 by a small garrison. As a rule, Indians were chary 
 of attacking a fortified place ; but Pontiac, though in 
 many respects a thorough savage, was a warrior of a 
 different type from most of the dusky braves, and for 
 
2i6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 months he struggled to gain possession of Detroit by 
 stratagem, open assault, or siege. While other trading 
 posts fell, Detroit held out till winter drove the Indians 
 from the field; but in the spring of 1764, Pontiac again 
 gathered his warriors to the attack. Again he was 
 foiled, and three or four years afterwards he was mur- 
 dered in a drunken quarrel. 
 
 In 1788 an English-speaking settlement in the district 
 was begun by immigrants from Pennsylvania and others 
 of the American States. Four years later it received its 
 present designation ; and names borrowed from the 
 English " country of the East Saxons " were freely 
 bestowed on townships and town-sites. Maiden, Col- 
 chester, Sandwich, Gosfield, and Mersea are good old 
 Essex names, but the appellation bestowed on the lonely 
 township of Pelie Island recalls the fact that the French 
 were first in possession of the county. Pointe P6l6e, 
 jutting sharply into the surges of Lake Erie, was so 
 called by the early voyageurs because it seemed to have 
 been denuded or " peeled " of trees. Once, when 
 Charlevoix was journeying westward, he was detained 
 for some hours on this point, and learned that bears 
 were so numerous in the neighbourhood that during 
 the previous winter "four hundred of them were 
 killed upon Pointe P61^e alone." This is a digression, 
 however. 
 
 Not long after the coming of the first English-speak- 
 ing people there was an election in Essex County, con- 
 cerning which some amusing details were given by Miss 
 Jean W. Barr in a recent number of The Globe, She 
 had been fortunate enough to come across a letter written 
 before the contest by the successful candidate, David 
 William Smith, Surveyor-General of Upper Canada, and 
 afterwards a baronet. Writing to a friend in Detroit, 
 John Askin, who afterwards settled on the Essex side 
 of the river. Smith begged his help in convejHing voters 
 
ESSEX 217 
 
 to the hustings and in arranging for Hberal supplies of 
 beer and rum, without which nothing could be accom- 
 plished in those days. In the event of success, he 
 planned to celebrate his triumph with a public dinner, a 
 dance " for the ladies," a generous distribution of strong 
 drink and white ribbon favours, an enormous bonfire and 
 the hoisting near it of a large red flag, emblazoned with 
 the word " Essex " in big letters of blue tape. 
 
 Ten years after this Askin built a log-house overlooking 
 the river, just above the site of Walkerville. That 
 " brilliant and unfortunate foster-son of Essex," Major 
 John Richardson, author of The War of 18 12, and of 
 Wacousta, was one of his grandsons. Richardson 
 fought in the war of which he wrote, was captured at 
 Moraviantown in 1813, and his name is associated not 
 only with Askin's house, " Strabane," but with Sandwich 
 and Amherstburg. 
 
 Until 1796, when it was given up to the United States, 
 Detroit was the chief town of the Western District of 
 Upper Canada. When it passed under " the Stars and 
 Stripes " many soldiers and settlers removed to Amherst- 
 burg or Sandwich, and the erection of Fort Amherstburg, 
 or Maiden, as it was afterwards called, was immediately 
 begun. 
 
 In 1812 General Hull, with 2500 men, invaded Essex. 
 The General established himself in " Colonel Baby's big 
 brick house" at Sandwich, from which he issued his 
 bombastic proclamation to the people of Canada. But 
 he had to deal with one whose motto was : " Deeds, not 
 words." Brock inspired the successful attack of the 
 British on Mackinaw, and many another valiant deed of 
 which I have no space to tell, but happily he was not 
 Canada's only hero in that perilous time. 
 
 Hull had designs on Amherstburg, but British regulars 
 and Essex militiamen proved lions in the path, and ere 
 Brock, with a small force, hastening in open bateaux 
 
2i8 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 along the surf-beaten shore of Lake Erie, arrived at 
 Amherstburg (where he had a memorable interview with 
 Tecumseh), Hull had recrossed the river to Detroit. In 
 his turn, Brock made his headquarters in Charles Baby's 
 house ; then he crossed the Detroit, with his little army 
 of 750 regulars, militiamen and voyageurs, and his 600 
 Indian allies, to terrorise Hull, who had double the 
 number of men behind his fortifications, into the surrender 
 of himself, his army, his military stores, and the whole 
 territory of Michigan. 
 
 A few months later Proctor brought to Sandwich an 
 American General and 500 men, captured at the river 
 Raisin, but Essex was to witness other scenes less 
 flattering to our country's pride. In September, 181 3, 
 Captain Barclay sailed from Amherstburg with a little 
 armament to meet defeat at the hands of the American 
 commander. Perry ; and a few days later Proctor, who 
 was certainly in a perilous position, abandoned Detroit 
 and Amherstburg to the enemy, and retreated up the 
 Thames, leaving an open way for Harrison and his 
 Americans to follow. 
 
 The story of the battle of Moraviantown, where 
 Tecumseh fell, belongs to another county and has been 
 told already. For nearly two years the invaders occupied 
 Amherstburg, rebuilding the fort which Proctor had 
 demolished on his flight. Within a decade these new 
 works had fallen into decay, and Fort Maiden, the third 
 stronghold on the site, was not begun till after 1837. 
 
 The year 1838 was an exciting one in Essex County, 
 and the garrison of Fort Maiden, assisted as occasion 
 required by Essex militiamen, was kept busy repelling 
 the attacks of marauders who gathered within the 
 boundaries of the United States with the intention of 
 overturning the Canadian Government. They called 
 themselves "Patriots," and amongst them were some 
 honest enthusiasts for liberty, but a number of them 
 
ESSEX 219 
 
 were ruffians and desperadoes, hoping to profit by 
 disturbing the peace of our country. 
 
 In January " General " Sutherland led a " Patriot 
 Army" to attempt the capture of Amherstburg, but 
 his mob of followers was defeated and their schooner, 
 the Ann, was captured. Six weeks later another band 
 of " Patriots " took possession of " Fighting Island " (as 
 it has since been called) in the Detroit River half-way 
 between Windsor and Amherstburg. But soldiers from 
 the garrison were hurried to the scene in the night, and 
 the next morning the invaders were dislodged. In March 
 they landed on P61^e Island, and early in December 
 made a final attempt on Windsor. 
 
 Led by one named Bierce, the intruders crossed from 
 the end of Belle Isle in the steamer Champlain, and 
 burnt a blockhouse. But on the site of the present City 
 Hall of Windsor they were met by Colonel John Prince 
 of Sandwich, with a loyal force, which, after a hot fight, 
 defeated and dispersed the foe. 
 
 In any sketch of Essex County, Prince deserves more 
 than a passing mention, for for some years he was credited 
 with being " the most popular man in the Western 
 District." Having practised as a barrister at Gloucester, 
 in England, he came out to Canada in 1834, attracted 
 apparently by the hope of good sport and of a free, 
 congenial life. He brought with him his wife, three sons, 
 five servants, and "a box of golden guineas so heavy 
 two men were required to lift it." Prince set up two of 
 his servants on a farm close to Sandwich, and when the 
 pair tired of country life and opened an hotel in Sandwich, 
 their master himself removed to the " Park Farm." He 
 enlarged the old house, which still stands and has 
 recently been acquired for a clubhouse by the "new 
 golf and country club " of Sandwich. 
 
 Prince spent his money freely in beautifying his 
 grounds, bringing out pheasants, peacocks, and swans, 
 
220 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 and stocking his farm with thoroughbred cattle and his 
 woods with deer and game. He was always ready, 
 moreover, to lend to his more needy friends, and exercised 
 hospitality in a most lavish fashion. He was a good 
 speaker, and when elected to the Assembly acquitted 
 himself so much to the satisfaction of his constituents 
 that on his return to Sandwich the people on more than 
 one occasion took the horses out of his carriage and 
 dragged him home in triumph. 
 
 But the " Patriot " incursion brought a cloud over his 
 popularity ; for, as he himself reported (after stating that 
 twenty-one " of the brigands and pirates " had been killed 
 in the fight), four of their number were " brought in at 
 the close of the argument, all of whom I ordered shot, and 
 it was done accordingly." For this high-handed proceed- 
 ing of condemning men to death on his own responsibility? 
 without even a form of trial, Prince was naturally much 
 criticised. The affair was discussed in the Imperial 
 Parliament, but the " Iron Duke " spoke in the Colonel's 
 favour, saying that an armed mob entering a country and 
 marching against unprotected citizens deserved to be dealt 
 with severely. Many of Prince's former admirers turned 
 against him, however, whilst his enemies in Detroit put 
 on his head a price of a thousand dollars. Prince re- 
 torted by advertising in the Detroit newspapers that he 
 had placed " man-traps and spring-guns " in the woods 
 surrounding his house. The warning appears to have 
 been effective. At any rate the redoubtable Colonel lived 
 to a good old age, though, being appointed Judge of 
 Algoma District, he left Essex years before his 
 death. 
 
 During the Fenian alarms of 1866 Essex volunteers 
 prepared to repel attack, but on that occasion their valour 
 was not put to the proof. In fact, so far as this county 
 is concerned, we have now done with warfare, but we 
 have by no means exhausted the interesting associa- 
 
ESSEX 221 
 
 tions connected with its old buildings and long-settled 
 localities. 
 
 For instance, in the neighbourhood of Amherstburg, 
 there is an Indian burying-ground about two hundred 
 years old. The town is on the boundary-line between 
 the townships of Maiden and Anderdon, which latter was 
 known as " The Indian Reserve " till about forty years 
 since, though Sir Francis Head had induced the red men 
 to resign two-thirds of their lands as long ago as 1837. 
 Amherstburg itself has been said to be, in some respects, 
 " very British ; in others, very French." Its narrow 
 streets, however, bear English names. 
 
 " Strabane," the " Park Farm," and the Baby House 
 at Sandwich have been referred to already ; but there is 
 one episode, so far unmentioned, in connection with the 
 last-named dwelling, which it would be a shame to pass 
 over in silence. In the year 1830 a runaway negro from 
 the States contrived to cross the river and to fly for refuge 
 to the historic house. His master was hot upon his track, 
 and, following him to his asylum, demanded that the poor 
 wretch should be given up. But he reckoned without 
 his host. Charles Baby recognised no property right in 
 human flesh and blood, and the Southerner was forced to 
 retreat discomfited from British soil, leaving his former 
 slave a free man at last. 
 
 In more recent years the oppressed negroes seeking 
 liberty found many a helper in Kent and Essex counties. 
 In fact, Windsor has a street which possesses the dis- 
 tinction of having been settled, for a mile, on both sides, 
 by escaped slaves. 
 
 About 1830 people of three counties used to come to 
 Sandwich to cast their votes for their representative in 
 the Assembly, and in that year was published in the little 
 town the first newspaper of Essex, caUed The Sandwich 
 Emigrant. A quarter of a century later the county 
 court-house was being built at Sandwich by Alexander 
 
222 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Mackenzie, the master builder, who lived to become 
 Premier of the Dominion, and whose statue on Parlia- 
 ment Hill at Ottawa is adorned with emblems of the craft 
 by which in his younger days the statesman earned his 
 bread. The distinction of being the chief town of Essex 
 has, however, passed to Windsor, which was incorporated 
 as a town in 1858, and now is a flourishing city of nearly 
 18,000 people. In early days it was known simply as 
 " The Ferry," from the fact that it was the point of de- 
 parture for the big canoes which carried passengers back- 
 wards and forwards to Detroit for the modest charge of 
 25 cents the round trip. Later, the canoes were succeeded 
 by a horse-boat, destined to give way in its turn to the 
 great boats propelled by steam, which not only cross 
 the river, but ply from port to port of the Great 
 Lakes. 
 
 On the confines of Windsor there stands — or stood 
 till very recently — an ancient Hudson Bay Company's 
 building, erected in the eighteenth century. It was called 
 " Moy House" by its builder, Angus M'Intosh, son of the 
 " Lady of Moy," who on one occasion harboured " Bonnie 
 Prince Charlie," and took the field in person for the luck- 
 less Stuart, riding at the head of 300 fighting men 
 of the clan, with a man's bonnet on her head and a 
 brace of pistols at her saddle-bow. Angus, it is said, went 
 into voluntary exile on account of the disinherited Prince ; 
 yet later was so good a liegeman to King George that he 
 crossed from Detroit to Essex in 1796, and did valiant 
 service, with his sons, in the War of 181 2. 
 
 But Essex is not only interesting historically. To-day 
 it is one of the most populous counties of Ontario. Corn 
 and tobacco, grapes and peaches flourish remarkably in 
 its mild climate and fertile soil. Nor is it surprising that 
 such sun-loving crops come to rare perfection when one 
 realises that Essex is several degrees nearer the equator 
 than any part of Great Britain. P6l6e Island, some miles 
 
ESSEX 223 
 
 to the south-west of Point P616e, or rather its little neigh- 
 bour, Middle Island, is the most southerly point in the 
 Dominion ; and " due east of the P6l6e Island vineyards 
 lie the famous old cities of Saragossa and Valladolid and 
 the orange groves of Barcelona." 
 
XXXIX. LAMBTON 
 
 " But here's to the man who can laugh when the blast 
 Of adversity blows ; he will conquer at last. 
 For the hardest man in the world to beat 
 Is the man who can laugh in the face of defeat. " 
 
 Emil Carl Aurin. 
 
 THIS fertile county, with its three or four towns, its 
 many pleasant villages and numberless prosperous 
 farms, with its long water-front washed by the waves of 
 Lake Huron and the currents of the St. Clair River, 
 bears a name which no Canadian should be willing to 
 forget. John George Lambton, the Earl of Durham, had 
 faults which gave his enemies a ready handle against 
 him, but his brief sojourn in Canada (immediately after 
 the Rebellion) was productive of great good to the whole 
 of the Dominion. The county of Lambton, therefore, 
 may be proud to bear the name of the much-maligned 
 statesman, whose celebrated " Report " opened the eyes 
 of the authorities at home to actual conditions in this 
 country and led to the long-desired concession of re- 
 sponsible government and to the establishment of the 
 present municipal system. 
 
 Curiously enough, several of the other names written 
 upon the map of Lambton County recall incidents in 
 the life of that stern soldier. Sir John Colborne, whose 
 blunders, when Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, 
 had helped to raise the storm of insurrection. Plympton 
 Township is called after a town in Devonshire, near 
 which was Colborne's — or Lord Seaton's — beautiful man- 
 sion, " Beechwood," and the not-far-distant township of 
 
LAMBTON 225 
 
 Moore recalls the dead hero of the midnight burial at 
 Corunna, who 
 
 " Lay like a warrior taking his rest, 
 With his martial cloak around him." 
 
 Colborne was Sir John Moore's military secretary, and 
 almost with his last breath the General expressed a wish 
 for his advancement. Lastly, there is a tradition that it 
 was Sir John Colborne who gave the name of Sarnia to 
 the county seat of Lambton and the township in which it 
 is situated. In 1835 the Governor visited the place (then 
 known as " The Rapids "), with some idea of erecting a 
 fort at that point to defend the shores. He was feasted 
 royally, and " an excursion (the first on record in Lamb- 
 ton) was planned for a trip up the rapids into Lake 
 Huron," but a stiff breeze forced the party to turn back. 
 At the time a hot discussion was going on over the choice 
 of a name for the village. It was decided to refer the 
 matter to the Governor, and perhaps that experience of 
 Huron's boisterous seas reminded him of the little surf- 
 beaten island of Guernsey, in the English Channel, where 
 he had spent some years as Governor. At any rate, he 
 bestowed upon the village the Roman name of the Isle of 
 Guernsey — Sarnia. 
 
 Lambton County has now a population of about forty- 
 five thousand to an area of something over a thousand 
 square miles, but, as much of the land is suitable for 
 growing fruits and vegetables, there is still room for 
 multitudes more workers to till the soil and gather in 
 the bountiful harvests. About half of the present popula- 
 tion are dwellers in towns and villages, but the farmers 
 of to-day have advantages which are rapidly giving a 
 new character to rural life. There are schools, post- 
 offices and churches within comparatively easy distance 
 of almost every farm. Rural telephones are numerous, 
 and a rural mail delivery has been tried with success. 
 
 P 
 
226 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 The county is crossed from east to west by the lines of 
 three railway companies. The principal centres of popula- 
 tion in the neighbourhood of the oil-fields of Lambton 
 County and the farmers living along the pipe lines use 
 natural gas, whilst other farmers have their own gas- 
 wells, from which they obtain light and power for lessen- 
 ing their labours in many different directions. 
 
 By way of contrast to such conditions, it is worth 
 while to give a backward glance to the state of things 
 as described in Smith's Canada, some sixty years ago. 
 In Moore and Sombra there were then a few good farms, 
 but in general the clearings were small and the buildings 
 poor. In the former township lots in a Chippewa Indian 
 Reserve were being offered for sale at from five to twelve 
 shillings the acre; but the only white people as yet 
 settled on it were half a dozen squatters. As at present, 
 there were reserves in Sarnia and Bosanquet Townships 
 and on Walpole Island, and at the latter place, in 1842, 
 no less than 11 40 Indians claimed presents. The Lamb- 
 ton County Indians are chiefly Chippewas or Ojibways, 
 but in 1837 several bands of the wild, roving Pottawa- 
 tamies, famous as hunters, settled on Walpole Island. 
 A few of the red men attempted the culture of the soil on 
 a small scale, but the largest amount of land cropped by 
 an Indian was twelve acres, and their descendants do not 
 take very kindly, as a rule, to farming their own land. 
 
 Though Bosanquet was in Lambton, it belonged to the 
 Canada Company, and therefore was reckoned as part of 
 the "Huron Tract." Till after the middle of the last 
 century settlers were few. A little over sixty years ago a 
 road through the new township was a new luxury, the un- 
 fortunate settlers having previously had to content them- 
 selves as best they could with an Indian trail unfit for 
 vehicles. But lack of roads was a common grievance. 
 The Government had spent over twenty thousand pounds 
 in making a road from Port Sarnia to London, but in a 
 
LAMBTON 227 
 
 short time it was allowed to fall into such a bad condition 
 that it was almost useless. The township of Plympton, 
 where much potash was made, suffered seriously from 
 want of good means of communication with Sarnia. A 
 great grievance which Lambton shared with other coun- 
 ties was that immense quantities of land were held by ab- 
 sentees and speculators, and it was not to be expected that 
 a settler, after making a road through his own lot, would 
 " do it through five hundred or a thousand acres more." 
 In Warwick there were good clearings, though the 
 farmers showed an inclination to exhaust the soil by 
 sowing wheat repeatedly; but Enniskillen and Brooke 
 were little settled, and much of the land was wet and 
 marshy. In the strangely-named township of Dawn, a 
 Virginian gentleman, King, had settled a little colony of 
 slaves whom he had set free. 
 
 The county seat of Sarnia (now a prosperous town of 
 nearly 10,000 inhabitants and a port "with two miles of 
 water-front, at any point of which boats can dock safely ") 
 was laid out about eighty years ago. It was, indeed, in 
 the thirties that many of the first settlers of Lambton 
 came in. One of the most notable pioneers of Sarnia 
 itself was the valiant sea-captain of Huguenot descent, 
 Richard Emeric Vidal. Having served thirty years in 
 the Royal Navy and taken a hand in " the capture or 
 destruction of thirty war vessels and sixty-eight merchant 
 ships," he came to Canada, and took up land within " the 
 corporate limits " of the future chief town. Not prepared 
 for the severity of the weather, he got so badly frozen 
 that "a portion of each hand had to be amputated." 
 After returning for a short time to England, he settled in 
 Sarnia in 1834, and became first collector of customs at 
 the port. One of his seven children, Alexander, who had 
 been educated at Christ's Hospital, in London, and ulti- 
 mately became a surveyor, took up land, at the age of 
 eighteen, seven miles from Sarnia. On this farm he 
 
228 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 lived as a bachelor for five years. He had few neigh- 
 bours but the wolves ; and once when he was returning 
 to his cabin with a round of beef that his mother had 
 prepared for him, he was much alarmed by their howling 
 close to him, as he was unarmed, save for a pocket-knife. 
 
 Another young fellow, James Houston, who, following 
 his family to Canada, had had a long, adventurous jour- 
 ney from Greenock to Sarnia, set out to walk through 
 the woods to his father's homestead in Plympton, but was 
 so terrified at the sight of some Indians that he ran back 
 to the town again. Assured that they would not hurt 
 him, he made a second venture and reached his journey's 
 end safely. Soon afterwards he took up land for him- 
 self, and lived for a while by making potash, which he 
 sold in Sarnia. It was very cheap, however, while pro- 
 visions were high ; flour brought from Detroit costing 
 $14 per barrel. Ultimately Houston prospered. In 1837 
 he enlisted on the Government side, and was stationed 
 for some time at Sarnia. 
 
 Another Plympton pioneer was John Morrison, who 
 came in with his father in 1827, as a child. The family 
 drove from Hamilton, in an ox-wagon, containing all 
 their worldly goods ; and the mother had taken the wise 
 precaution to fill every pot and pan with seed potatoes. 
 These were experienced pioneers, and the father had sent 
 on a grown-up son in advance to put up a log shanty. 
 But when they reached the shanty it had neither doors 
 nor windows. There were no neighbours within reach, 
 no ditches in the swampy land, no grist-mill nearer than 
 London ; but they triumphed over all difficulties, and 
 John Morrison became noted in the county for the fine 
 stock he raised. He was a Liberal in politics, and was 
 proud in his latter years to think that in 1851 he had 
 helped George Brown, " one of the Fathers of Confedera- 
 tion," to win his first seat in Parliament for the new 
 constituency of Lambton-Kent. 
 
XL. PERTH 
 
 " Rickety, shingleless, old and grey. 
 
 Scathed by the storms of many a day, 
 In a wayside spot where the wild weeds grow. 
 Stands the old cabin of long ago." 
 
 Thomas Sparks, M.D. 
 
 THIS county was not set apart as a separate muni- 
 cipality till 1847, but to make intelligible the first 
 chapter in its history it is necessary to go back a quarter 
 of a century — to the year 1824 — when the Canada Land 
 Company was organised in London. It received its 
 charter in 1826. One of its most eager promoters 
 (already mentioned more than once) was the Scottish 
 novelist John Gait, and he was amongst those who 
 came out to this country to look after the interests 
 and carry out the plans of the Company. It began 
 its operations by buying up "vast tracts of the 
 Clergy Reserves and Crown lands," to sell at an ad- 
 vanced price in small lots. It was at first intended that, 
 under certain conditions as to settlement and improve- 
 ments, it should be permitted to buy at a low price all 
 that remained ungranted of the Crown Reserves (about 
 1,300,000 acres), and half of the Clergy Reserves. It 
 had not, however, been many years in business when 
 another able Scot, Bishop Strachan, succeeded in per- 
 suading the Government that the Clergy Reserves should 
 be controlled by the Church. The Canada Company 
 was accordingly forced to accept, in exchange for the 
 Clergy Reserves, what was known as the Huron Tract, 
 of which the present county of Perth is an important 
 
230 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 part. This vast estate comprised about one million acres, 
 and stretched almost from the head of Lake Ontario to 
 the site of Goderich on Lake Huron. It has proved 
 to be a rich and fertile country, but was then unknown. 
 Only where the agents of the Company had entered from 
 the east, near where the city of Stratford now stands, 
 they had found a great swamp, which stretched away 
 towards the north, through Elma and Ellice townships, 
 and it seemed vain to hope that these dismal marshes 
 could " ever be made available for agriculture." 
 
 However, the Company, determined to make the best 
 of what seemed to them a very bad business, set about 
 making surveys and opening roads. The Huron road 
 was cut from the east across the present counties of Perth 
 and Huron from the site of Stratford (now a flourishing 
 city of 13,000 inhabitants and the county seat of Perth) 
 to Goderich on the shore of Lake Huron. On both 
 sides of this road the wild lands were surveyed, con- 
 cession by concession, as settlers came in. In the names 
 of the townships then set apart there lingers a reminis- 
 cence of the first directors of the Company — Easthope, 
 Ellice, and Downie ; Blanshard, Fullarton, Hibbert, and 
 Logan. The Company leased lands to the incoming 
 settlers, giving them the right to purchase the farms they 
 were improving, after five or ten years, but, as they 
 charged increased prices as the country settled up, the 
 people felt the Company's hold upon them a hardship and 
 an injustice ; and some, it is said, ruined themselves by 
 borrowing money at exorbitant rates of interest to pay 
 for their farms. The pioneers felt that, though the Com- 
 pany had done some good work in opening roads, and 
 so forth, that it was they who were really making the 
 country, in putting up their rude log huts, clearing their 
 patches of fields in the great woods, making their homes 
 in the wilderness, marrying and giving in marriage, 
 bringing up a new generation to possess the land after 
 
PERTH 231 
 
 them, building their small schoolhouses at the cross-roads 
 so that the little ones might have a chance to become 
 good and useful citizens ; and one cannot but feel that 
 the pioneers were largely in the right. 
 
 Always, indeed, in these little excursions into the stories 
 of the counties, the interest of the tale belongs to the 
 people — the men, the women and the children, at their 
 work and play. So we are proportionately grateful when 
 a writer, like Mr. William Johnston, in his Pioneers of 
 Blanshard, succeeds in gathering up some of the hitherto 
 neglected crumbs of history, lingering in local tradition 
 and the memories of the older inhabitants. 
 
 For instance, he tells — and the paragraph seems full 
 of the " local " colour of the pioneer days — how the 
 immigrant seeking a home was always anxious to locate 
 himself near water. The first settlements of Perth were 
 near the Thames or its tributary creeks. Later comers, 
 sometimes far from a running stream, were forced often 
 to content themselves with water drawn from a hole dug 
 in a marshy spot. A " tasteful and methodical " pioneer 
 might cut three or four feet from a hollow stump and sink 
 it in the hole he had scooped out, to give the substitute 
 for a well some appearance of cleanliness. More often 
 no such precaution was taken ; the frogs were permitted 
 freely to enjoy themselves in the source of the family 
 water-supply, and when, during the summer-time, the 
 " wrigglers " became too uncomfortably numerous, the 
 water was strained before using through a piece of calico. 
 
 The writer lingers in his passage through that pictur- 
 esque period of sugar-making and spinning-wheels, of 
 logging and " raising " and quilting " bees," to describe 
 the evolution of a farmer's vehicle from the first "ox- 
 sled " of the pioneer, made with axe and auger, and used 
 both in summer and winter— through the more preten- 
 tious ox-cart and the larger ox-wagon, with its seats 
 resting on poles— to the spring wagon, and that trim 
 
232 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 delight of the spruce young farmer, especially in his 
 courting days, the top-buggy, which in turn may soon 
 be superseded perhaps by the motor " runabout." 
 
 The way in which the poor and struggling people 
 helped each other was a pleasant feature of those bygone 
 days, but a blot upon almost every large gathering for 
 work or amusement was the amount of drinking. In fact, 
 at " bees " and sales and " raisings " one of the most 
 important functionaries was the " grog-boss," armed with 
 a jug of whisky. In consequence not a few social 
 gatherings ended in free fights, nor was it uncommon 
 that during the putting up of a new barn some poor 
 wretch should be crushed to death by carelessly handled 
 timbers. 
 
 But in those days there were fine opportunities for 
 the steady and determined. A young Irishman in 1856 
 opened a humble little backwoods store on Fish Creek 
 in the village of Kirkton (half in Perth and half in Huron 
 County). Afterwards he carried on business in St. Mary's, 
 and later in Toronto, living to make widely famous for 
 commercial success and integrity the name of Timothy 
 Eaton. 
 
 By the way, the first building was not erected in 
 St. Mary's (or Little Falls) till 184 1, and in the following 
 summer an immigrant family tried in vain to obtain food 
 and shelter in the little hamlet ; but when, at the sugges- 
 tion of the Canada Company, a grist-mill was erected, 
 the village began to thrive. In 1845 when Commissioner 
 Jones of the Canada Company visited the place his wife 
 was invited to give it a new name. Her own name being 
 Mary, she dubbed the settlement St. Mary's, bestowing 
 upon it the sum of ten pounds towards the erection of a 
 stone schoolhouse. Two years later St. Mary's was 
 advanced to the dignity of having a post-office, the 
 settlers previously having had to go to Embro or Beach- 
 ville in Oxford County for their mail. 
 
PERTH 233 
 
 The high prices current during the Crimean War, when 
 wheat reached the phenomenal figure of |2.2S the bushel, 
 did something to set many a struggling farmer on his feet, 
 and the conditions of life gradually improved. Nor were 
 there wanting occasional holidays and merrymakings. 
 In those days May 24th, the Queen's Birthday, was also 
 " training-day " for the militia, and every able-bodied man, 
 from twenty-one years of age to sixty, was required to 
 muster at an appointed place for a day's drill. Mr. Johnston 
 gives a lively account of " training day " at St. Mary's in 
 1 860, when he was one of the company of citizen-soldiers. 
 
 The weather was hot, and many of the men had walked 
 seven or eight miles to take part in the exercises. Horses 
 were scarce, but the commander. Colonel Sparling, was 
 mounted on an ancient steed to give dignity to the occa- 
 sion. Few of the officers had had any military training, 
 and it was an anxious task to put the men, in their 
 motley garb of blue cotton or black broadcloth, through 
 the prescribed drill. On this occasion an Irishman, Cath- 
 cart, who had at least seen the drilling of regular soldiers 
 in his native isle, took the lead, and for an hour or two 
 the men marched and counter- marched, shouldered and 
 grounded arms as best they could. At last came the 
 order to " change front," but, says Mr. Johnston, " soon 
 it was painfully evident that we Were not going to be 
 successful." To make matters worse some mischievous 
 fellow had attached a bunch of grass to the brass buttons 
 adorning the " claw-hammer " tails of a comrade's coat, 
 and at a crucial point in the manoeuvres the Colonel's 
 steed reached out, seized upon the morsel and held on 
 till the cloth of the tails gave way. The wearer of the 
 garment expressed his wrath in no measured terms, and 
 the absurd incident so upset the gravity of the already 
 confused amateur soldiers that there was nothing for 
 their officers]^to do but propose three cheers for the Queen 
 and dismiss them. 
 
XLI. HURON 
 
 " The lochs and lakes of other lands, 
 
 Like gems may grace a landscape painting, . . . 
 But ours is deep, and broad, and wide, 
 
 With steamships thro' its waves careering. 
 And far upon its ample tide 
 
 The bark its devious course is steering. 
 Whilst hoarse and loud the billows break 
 On islands in our own broad lake ! " 
 
 Thomas M 'Queen. 
 
 THE Huron County seal is dated 1841, but the 
 emblems that it bears suggest pioneer days, as 
 well as the easier periods after the woods had been 
 laid low. Upon a shield of gold and blue is first a bare 
 and brawny arm wielding an axe. Next is a plough, and 
 finally a wheat-sheaf, while a laurel bough on the left 
 and a spray of oak leaves on the right all but encircle 
 the whole. In one respect, perhaps, the wheat-sheaf 
 was an even more appropriate symbol for the county a 
 decade ago than it is now, for it is said that at that time 
 a thousand bushels of grain were marketed in Goderich 
 for every hundred to-day. This only means that the 
 farmers of Huron are becoming more alive to the advan- 
 tages of mixed farming, are raising more stock than 
 formerly, and are even beginning to make a serious 
 business of apple-growing. 
 
 Long before 1841, what is now Huron County was 
 included in the Huron Tract or District, the settlement 
 of which began about 1827, when the town of Goderich' 
 was founded by Dr. Dunlop and John Gait, Commissioner 
 
 of the Canada Company. It was a period when thousands 
 
 234 
 
HURON 235 
 
 of immigrants were arriving annually in Canada, and the 
 lands of the Company, scattered through the more settled 
 districts, were speedily taken up, but the settlement of 
 the Huron Tract was slow, and the immigrants who did 
 settle there were often disappointed and dissatisfied. 
 The bridges, roads, and mills, liberally promised by the 
 Company, often proved lacking altogether, or were very 
 poor, and, chafing against such conditions, a party was 
 soon formed amongst the settlers in the Huron Tract, in 
 strong opposition to the Company and its representatives. 
 John Gait did not long remain in its service, and Dr. 
 Dunlop soon became the head of the anti-Company party. 
 
 Principal Grant (in his preface to Miss Robina and 
 Miss Kathleen Lizars' In the Days of the Canada 
 Company, which is a veritable mine of information on 
 the Huron pioneers and their times) says that Gait was 
 too big a man for the Company, which distrusted him, 
 and showed its distrust by sending out an accountant to 
 be a sort of spy upon him. Gait was, perhaps, some- 
 what egotistical and self-sufScient, but at least he was 
 " a man of ideas," and he did good service to Canada in 
 bringing out people " of the right stock." In physique 
 he was himself a magnificent specimen of humanity, 
 being almost six feet four inches in height, and broad in 
 proportion. In complexion he was fresh-coloured, and 
 his hair was black and his eyes keen. He was convinced 
 of the necessity of roads, and Principal Grant says that 
 the road he cut, nearly a hundred miles in length, 
 between Lakes Huron and Ontario, is " one of his best 
 monuments." For the making of this highway Gait was 
 allowed only three thousand pounds, but by paying the 
 settlers whom he employed partly in land he was able to 
 accomplish the work. It was, however, but a narrow 
 track, and after a storm was often obstructed by huge 
 trees that had fallen across it. 
 
 The directors of the Company wished Gait to change 
 
236 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the name of his Httle new town of Guelph to Goderich. 
 To mollify them, the novelist bestowed the latter name 
 on the infant port of Lake Huron, From the first it 
 was chief town of the district, as it is now of the county. 
 Perhaps Dunlop — "Tiger" Dunlop, he was nicknamed, 
 from his exploits in hunting big game in India — ought to 
 be counted founder of Goderich, for it was he who led a 
 party through the woods, fixed on the site of the town, 
 and had a log-house built on the rising ground above the 
 River Maitland, so named in honour of Sir Peregrine 
 Maitland, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada. A 
 little later John Gait, sailing in the Government gunboat 
 Bee, from Penetanguishene, doubling Cabot's Head', 
 which he called " the Cape of Good Hope of the Lakes," 
 and examining the coast with a telescope for possible 
 harbours, saw " a small clearing in the forest, and on the 
 brow of a rising ground a cottage delightfully situated." 
 While he was debating whether this could be the location 
 of Dunlop, the vessel was met by a canoe, " having on 
 board a strange combination of Indians, velveteens, and 
 whiskers," and Gait " discovered within roots of red hair 
 the living features of the doctor." 
 
 Except for the last brief period of his life, when acting 
 as Superintendent of the Lachine Canal (an office said to 
 have been given to get him out of Parliament, where his 
 sharp tongue was an annoyance), the old " Tiger " iden- 
 tified himself with the Huron district. At the roomy log- 
 house of " Gairbraid " he and his brother, the Captain, 
 kept "bachelor's hall." About 1833 a Highland dairy- 
 woman, Louisa M'Coll, came out to them from Scotland. 
 She was something of a character, and when asked how 
 she came to this country used to reply : " Oh, indeed, 
 shuist by poaste ! " She was devoted to " the deare 
 gentlemen," but (the story goes) gossip started, and, both 
 being unwilling to let the girl go, the doctor told his 
 brother that they would toss up to see which should 
 
HURON 237 
 
 marry her. The Captain won — which is not surprising, 
 seeing that the doctor tossed a double-headed penny — 
 so " Lou " became, by a marriage in which " Black 
 Jimmy," the butler, officiated, Mrs, Dunlop. It was of 
 doubtful legality, so the bride wisely insisted on having 
 the ceremony repeated in more regular form at a later 
 date. She continued to serve and look after both 
 brothers to the end, but failed to check their too con- 
 vivial habits. The Captain died first, and was buried 
 by the river, with a cairn to mark the spot. Some time 
 later came the news that the doctor, then in charge at 
 Lachine, was dangerously ill, and the faithful "Lou" 
 journeyed to his bedside, nursed him till the end, and 
 then in the Indian summer set out to bring back his body to 
 his old home. At Hamilton it was given a temporary 
 resting-place in Sir Allan M'Nab's plot, but when winter 
 improved the roads, " Lou " continued her doleful journey 
 with the heavy leaden coffin, and at last laid the doctor 
 in the grave next to his brother's beside the Maitland. 
 Still the old " Tiger " lives in the pioneer legends, and 
 his queer, energetic personality meets us at every turn 
 in The Days of the Canada Company. It was the doctor 
 who, when there was but a ferry over the Maitland, 
 drove " an inoffensive cow " into the stream and crossed 
 upon her back. It was he who took vengeance upon 
 Gait's bugbear, " the Cockney accountant," by persuad- 
 ing a servant and Major Strickland (who, by the way, 
 took service with the Canada Company in 1828) to 
 howl like wolves while the innocent-seeming " Tiger " 
 was guiding the wretched new-comer through the dense 
 woods to Goderich. But Dunlop's love of a practical 
 joke was equal to his love of strong drink. 
 
 In the latter taste he was not singular, and, like other 
 counties, Huron seems to have been fairly flooded in 
 the early days with cheap whisky and more costly im- 
 ported intoxicants. Almost at the beginning of things 
 
238 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the thirty white men, then at Goderich, spent " a night 
 of terror," because five hundred Chippewas on the flats 
 below were engaged in a great drinking bout. 
 
 The pioneers of all ranks were chiefly of a hardy, 
 adventurous type, and many even of the gentlemen chose 
 to affect in dress and behaviour the fashions depicted in 
 such books as those of Fenimore Cooper. But, though 
 red shirts and unconventionable manners were in vogue, 
 "society" in the restricted sense was not lacking in the 
 " backwoods " of Huron. " A fat, dark little Baron " 
 from Belgium was amongst the early speculators in land, 
 and was duly succeeded by a much handsomer heir, who 
 caused a flutter by his good looks, his high play, and 
 great flirtations. Then there was the " Colborne (Town- 
 ship) clique" of Scotch gentlemen, who made common 
 cause against the Canada Company. And (to name but 
 one more) there was Van Egmond (descendant, it is said, 
 of the luckless Count who figured in the history of the 
 Dutch Republic). He left the farm, where was grown 
 the first wheat cut in Huron, to lead the rebels in 1837, 
 but on the day of his funeral, his son, true to his adopted 
 country, refused to allow a volley to be fired over the 
 grave — because, as he said, his " father was Mackenzie's 
 general." 
 
XLII. BRUCE 
 
 "When the hill of toil was steepest, 
 When the forest-frown was deepest, 
 Poor, but young, you hastened here ; — 
 
 Toil had never cause to doubt you — 
 Progress' path you helped to clear ; 
 But to-day forgets about you, 
 And the world rides on without you — 
 Sleep, old pioneer ! " 
 
 Will Carleton. 
 
 LONG after the Loyalists had begun the building up of 
 -» this province, Bruce County was peopled only by 
 Indians, who belonged to the Ojibway race, made famous 
 by Longfellow in his poem "Hiawatha." In 1834 a 
 Methodist missionary settled at the mouth of the Sau- 
 geen, turning many a red man to Christianity, and his 
 son, born in 183S, was without doubt the first white child 
 born in Bruce County. 
 
 A little earlier, Captain Alexander MacGregor had dis- 
 covered that the neighbourhood of " Fishing Island " 
 (Amabel Township) was teeming with fish, and he ar- 
 ranged with a Detroit company to buy from him all the 
 fish he could catch, at a dollar a barrel, to be salted and 
 packed. Near his camp he used to station a watchman 
 in a tree to report the approach of a shoal, which looked 
 like a silver cloud in the water. Then in hot haste a 
 large rowboat, " its stern piled high with the seine," was 
 manned. Rowing round the shoal, the fishermen en- 
 circled it with the great net, then hauled ashore and 
 
 239 
 
240 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 sometimes thousands and thousands of fish were thus 
 entrapped. To land them a man got into the net, in the 
 midst of the struggling, glittering mass, and threw the 
 fish ashore with a scoop. But sometimes, when the catch 
 was very large, the landing was extended over three days 
 to give the curers a chance to handle the fish, or, if the 
 supply of salt or barrels ran low, some of the prey were 
 allowed to escape. For a while MacGregor made large 
 profits, then a Canadian company obtained the sole right 
 of fishing on the islands, and MacGregor had to seek new 
 fields for his operations. 
 
 In 1848 arrived the first permanent settler, according 
 to Mr. Norman Robertson, to whose History of the 
 County of Bruce I am much indebted ; but Kincardine 
 and Southampton both claim the honour of being the 
 first settlement. At the latter place one of the pioneers 
 was Captain Kennedy, " an educated half-breed," who, 
 four years later, headed a party sent out by Lady 
 Franklin to search for her husband, the famous Arctic 
 explorer. 
 
 One of the Huron Township pioneers, Abraham 
 Holmes, is notable for his enterprise in sailing a huge 
 dug-out canoe regularly between Goderich and Penetan- 
 gore (Kincardine). It was propelled by oars or sails, was 
 large enough to carry as many as five barrels of flour, 
 and in it many a settler made part of his journey into 
 the wilderness. 
 
 The subject of transportation in those early days, as 
 now, when it is occupied largely with great railway enter- 
 prises, is a fascinating one, perhaps because so much 
 depends upon it. In nothing did the pioneers display 
 greater pluck and ingenuity than in their journeys, A 
 jam of driftwood in the Saugeen River was made to do 
 duty for a bridge, and a man, lacking a boat, once crossed 
 the stream on the back of an ox. Others made great 
 rafts to carry their families and effects downstream, and 
 
BRUCE 241 
 
 happy they might count themselves if they did not get 
 their unwieldy crafts stranded in some rapid. 
 
 One Bruce County woman recalled, long years later, 
 the perils of her journey in as a child. Starting from 
 Goderich on a dark night in an open boat, the party was 
 overtaken by a gale, and, dreading worse things, attempted 
 to run ashore. So in black darkness their little vessel 
 plunged to her doom on the beach, while her passengers 
 were rescued with difficulty, to trudge dripping wet 
 through the howling storm to seek shelter in an over- 
 crowded shanty. But at last they reached Kincardine, 
 " thankful to be done with travel either by land or 
 water." 
 
 Not less perilous was the plight of two young daughters 
 of a settler in Saugeen Township, who on a December day 
 in 1851 undertook to ferry two travellers across the river 
 in a canoe. When they started there was ice and snow- 
 slush in the water, and on their return this blocked their 
 way when they were too far from land to be reached by 
 rope or pole. Paddling incessantly, the girls kept them- 
 selves from freezing, but all the long day could make no 
 headway, and it was dusk when someone felled a small 
 tree into the river. At this they grasped in passing, 
 and so were saved. 
 
 It was about the same time that an enterprising busi- 
 ness man resolved to set up a steam saw-mill in South- 
 ampton, but as there was no road through the county, the 
 problem of getting the huge iron boiler to its destination 
 threatened to be insoluble. By some means the boiler was 
 brought to Hanover, high up the Saugeen, and was there 
 left on the river's bank till some ingenious mortal pro- 
 posed " to make an ironclad of it." All openings having 
 been plugged up, it was rolled into the water with a tre- 
 mendous splash. It was so long in coming to the surface 
 that the pessimistic declared that it was lost for ever, but 
 a moment later its black bulk reappeared, and started on 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 its way north without waiting for any one to take com- 
 mand. It was soon captured, and with a dry cedar log 
 lashed to each side made " the strangest craft that ever 
 navigated the Saugeen." It was steered safely to South- 
 ampton, at the mouth of the river, however. 
 
 A somewhat similar story is told about a great potash 
 kettle. In the early days a few of the pioneers made 
 potash, though when there were no wharves it was a 
 formidable task to land such a huge mass of iron from a 
 small sailing vessel, but Captain Duncan, who later com- 
 manded the Ploughboy, the first steamboat of Bruce 
 County, got over the difficulty in an original fashion. 
 Placing the kettle gently in the water, he got into it him- 
 self and paddled it ashore. This was no doubt " the first 
 instance of sailing in an iron vessel on Lake Huron." 
 
 In matters small and great there was indeed endless 
 opportunity for the ingenuity of the pioneers to display 
 itself. In the shanties was often found a mysterious- 
 sounding article of furniture called " a one-post bed," the 
 walls of the shanty being made to do duty as supports 
 instead of the other three posts. The crossing of streams 
 was a frequent difficulty, but when a foot-bridge over the 
 Teeswater, where Paisley now stands, was carried away 
 by a freshet, the two families living on opposite sides of 
 the stream trained a dog to carry small articles across it. 
 By the way, the first doctor who settled at Paisley was 
 the father of one of Canada's sweet singers, Isabella 
 Valancy Crawford. 
 
 There was a great mixture of races in Bruce County, 
 including a number of Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites,and 
 a colony of evicted Highlanders, who spoke only Gaelic, 
 and being fishermen and shepherds, suffered great hard- 
 ships before they could reap much profit from their bush 
 farms. 
 
 For thirty years after the opening of the " Queen's 
 Bush " to settlement Bruce County made great progress, 
 
BRUCE 243 
 
 touching in 1881 its high-water mark in population with 
 65,000 souls, though the emigration of the young to the 
 west and other districts had already begun. A few dates, 
 taken almost at random, suggest the gradual improvement 
 in the conditions of life. In 1851 and 1853 the first 
 schools were opened at Kincardine, Southampton, and 
 Walkerton, but by 1856 twenty-eight or thirty school- 
 houses had been erected. Already Bruce County had an 
 agricultural society, and in 1856 its first public library 
 was opened at Inverhuron. Five years afterwards the 
 first newspaper was published at Walkerton, and 1862 
 was the last in which a bounty was paid for " wolf scalps." 
 In 1867 Bruce County (earlier united with Huron and 
 Perth) began its existence as a separate municipality. A 
 year or two later South Bruce had the honour of being 
 represented in Parliament by a great man who has recently 
 passed away, Edward Blake. 
 
 Open-handed hospitality, helpfulness to each other and 
 great energy were characteristics of the Bruce pioneers, 
 the latter quality sometimes displaying itself in hot con- 
 tests over municipal matters. When in early days the 
 townships of Bruce were to have been made an adjunct 
 to two townships in Huron County, the pioneers refused 
 to pay taxes. When Kincardine wished to pass a by-law 
 taxing the county for the construction of a harbour a great 
 procession started from Brant Township to protest, headed 
 by Joseph Walker, riding the solitary horse of the settle- 
 ment. Bad roads were long a drawback to the community, 
 and in 1868 began an agitation for rival railways, one to 
 have its terminus at Kincardine and the other at South- 
 ampton. The latter town was first to obtain railway 
 connection in 1872. Finally, a battle royal raged for 
 eight or nine years over the choice of a county town. In 
 1865 the matter was settled in favour of Walkerton, 
 named after the energetic little Irishman mentioned above, 
 who had built there a grist-mill and saw-mill. This town 
 
244 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 is situated on the Saugeen, in a valley so beautiful that a 
 Scotchman who saw it in the spring of 1849, when white 
 with the blossoms of wild plums and cherries, said to a 
 comrade, " Eh, mon, if Eden was anything like this, what 
 a fool Adam was to eat the apple." 
 
XLIII. GREY 
 
 " Here's to the Land of the axe and the hoe ! 
 
 Here's to the hearties that give them their glory ! 
 With stroke upon stroke, and with blow upon blow, 
 The might of the forest has passed into story ! . . ." 
 
 William Wye Smith. 
 
 THIS county bears the name of the Liberal noble- 
 man, Earl Grey, who was premier when the great 
 Reform Bill of 1832 was passed by the Houses of 
 Parliament. Grey is a huge county of sixteen townships, 
 the western ones once forming part of Wellington and 
 the others of Simcoe. It was set apart in 1852. 
 
 In 1840 it had no white inhabitants, except twenty 
 families in St. Vincent and Collingwood Townships, 
 but the following year saw the beginning of settle- 
 ment in Derby and Sydenham (named after the first 
 Governor of the United Canadas). In 1842 a man 
 named Stephens arrived from Toronto at what is now 
 the important lake port of Owen Sound, in the 15 -ton 
 schooner Fly, and established a general store, a pot- 
 ashery, a grist-mill and a saw-mill at Inglis Falls. Two 
 years later, the steamer plying between Sarnia and 
 Sturgeon Falls in Simcoe County began to call at Owen 
 Sound, which was destined in a few years to become one 
 of the most important ports and shipbuilding centres on 
 the great lakes. In 187S was organised the company 
 which constructed the great dry dock at Owen Sound ; 
 but already, twenty years earlier, the town had received 
 an impetus to its growth in becoming county seat. The 
 county buildings were erected in 1853, but the jail was 
 remarkable for its insecurity. 
 
246 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 From very early days Grey was fortunate enough to 
 have some attempt at great roads through the county. 
 Charles Rankin made a survey for the " Garafraxa Road " 
 in 1837; but the outbreak of the Rebellion prevented the 
 completion of the work till 1840, when the surveyor of 
 the Canada Company laid out " a tier of lots on each side 
 of the line," and immediately many of these were taken up 
 as "free grants." In 1848 the Durham Road was laid 
 out, leading east and west from the village of Durham, 
 which vigorously contested the claim of Owen Sound 
 to be county seat. Another great highway was the 
 Toronto and Sydenham Road, running diagonally across 
 the county in a south-easterly direction ; and a fourth 
 was the Northern Road, leading from Collingwood 
 Harbour to Owen Sound and thence to Saugeen in 
 Bruce County. About 1861 these four roads, which 
 reached every part of Grey, were gravelled at a cost 
 of $300,000, and the people had a right to take pride 
 (as they did) in the fact that there was not a toll-gate 
 within the limits of the county. 
 
 From the roads, settlement gradually extended in every 
 direction. Being "a hardwood county," Grey had no 
 lumber to export, and from the first the settlers depended 
 on the cultivation of the soil ; but the gravelling of the 
 roads gave the farmers much easier access to their 
 markets. With its long coast-line, its numerous water- 
 falls, and the " Blue Mountains " of its north-eastern 
 townships, which rise to 1500 feet above sea-level and 
 900 feet above the lake, Grey has the attraction of 
 picturesque and beautiful scenery, but to the pioneers 
 of eighty years ago it must have seemed sadly " out of 
 the world," for the first comers reached it by travelling 
 up Yonge Street to Lake Simcoe, thence they made their 
 way to the Georgian Bay, to skirt its shores in bateaux 
 or (later) in steamboats. 
 
 During the three decades after 1831, when there were 
 
GREY 247 
 
 practically no settlers in the county, the population of 
 Grey rose gradually to over 37,000, who, in 1861, were 
 chiefly Canadian-born, though both Scottish and Irish im- 
 migrants were numerous. In early days, speculators in 
 land were very " persistent " and troublesome, pouncing 
 on the townships as soon as surveyed and contriving 
 somehow to evade " the actual settlement " clauses of the 
 regulations. A great part of CoUingwood Township 
 was thus acquired, when first opened, by absentees ; and 
 when the town-plot of Sydenham (now Owen Sound) was 
 laid out, its " park plots " were held so long unused by 
 speculators, that the town seemed to be surrounded by 
 woods ; the more so, because its site was so large (5000 
 acres) that it held the farmers at arm's length, as it were. 
 Its great advantages of situation, on the beautiful sheltered 
 inlet of Owen Sound (more accurately a "bay" than 
 a "sound") have, however, enabled the town to grow 
 up to the large ideas of its promoters. 
 
 On the opposite side of the harbour was an Indian 
 village, called Newash, after an old chief whose father 
 and gi-andfather had lived there before him. It was in- 
 habited by Ojibways and Pottawatamies, for whom, in 
 1842, Government cleared a few acres of land and put 
 up sixteen log houses. It also gave the Indians a 
 few oxen and cows, some of which were slaughtered for 
 beef when winter came. In 1857 the Indians surrendered 
 Newash and removed northwards to Cape Croker in 
 Bruce County, where there is still a Reserve for their 
 tribes. 
 
 When CoUingwood Township was being surveyed an 
 Indian chief interfered, and though the surveyor, Rankin, 
 explained that the lands had been duly surrendered by 
 the Indians, the old chief posted off to York to appeal 
 to Government. But his faith in the officials must 
 have received a rude shock, through the foolish jest 
 of some clerk. In ten days he returned, and with all 
 
248 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 solemnity " served " Rankin with a paper, which proved 
 to be actually only an advertisement of " Lands for Sale " ! 
 Happily when the old fellow found that his trouble had 
 been of no avail, he took Rankin into his confidence, and 
 explaining that he was hungry, was mollified with the 
 gift of something to eat and drink. 
 
 This township, from its height, was first called " Alta," 
 whilst its neighbour was dubbed " Zero," but they were 
 re-christened — after two naval heroes — Collingwood and 
 St. Vincent. Collingwood and Artemesia, in early days, 
 had the distinction of possessing township libraries. That 
 of the latter had nine branches, with seventy-five volumes, 
 changed annually, in each division. In the last-mentioned 
 township are situated the beautiful Eugenia Falls — 
 seventy feet high — on the Beaver River. In a chasm 
 near these falls, says Rev. William Wye Smith, once 
 editor of the Owen Sound Times and author of an 
 historical sketch of Grey (from which I have obtained 
 much of the information embodied here), were found the 
 antlers of an immense moose, which was supposed to 
 have fallen in and been devoured by wolves. 
 
 About the year 1852 some of the settlers, according 
 to Mr. Smith, imagined that they had made a much more 
 valuable discovery — of nothing less, in fact, than gold, 
 which could be chipped out of the rocks by the sackful ! 
 The find was made below the falls, and at first the secret 
 was kept amongst half a dozen men, who " wrought like 
 beavers to make their pile " before others found out. But 
 rumours of gold, like murder, "will out." One day, 
 another prospecting party, from the commanding height 
 of a precipice, perceived the gold-diggers hard at work 
 below, and the latter, seeing that further concealment was 
 impossible, stopped their work to discuss the situation. 
 
 The new-comers were doubtful whether it was " the 
 real thing ! " " ' Well,' said an old man, wiping the sweat 
 from his brow, and sitting down on a very respectable 
 
GREY 249 
 
 pile of the purest and most glittering ' rocks ' he had been 
 able to find, * Well, if it's gold, I've got enough ; and if 
 it isn't gold I've got enough ! '" A wagon -maker of York, 
 who chanced to be in the neighbourhood, rushed to the 
 diggings with the rest, and carried home a " back-break- 
 ing load" of the glittering treasure, solacing himself 
 during the toil of his three or four days' journey on foot 
 through the woods with plans for the future. He would 
 buy a good farm, he determined, and on reaching home 
 at once " kindled his forge fire to melt down a little 
 of the precious stuff. The catastrophe was entirely un- 
 anticipated. The sulphurous fumes and horrible stench 
 of the vile stuff choked him. . . . The harder he blew, 
 the more horrible the stifling fumes, till in despair he 
 pitched the whole lot into the street. He had carried 
 home a backload of worthless iron pyrites," — sometimes 
 unkindly called " Fool's gold ! " 
 
 But, if Grey was not destined to prove itself a great 
 gold region, many of its people, in its fisheries and its 
 good farms, have found a surer, though perhaps a slower, 
 road to prosperity than that by way of gold mines. It 
 has lost one of its townships, Melancthon, to Dufferin 
 County, but the population of Grey is now about 64,000. 
 
THE DISTRICTS OF ONTARIO 
 
 I. MUSKOKA 
 
 " Weird monarchs of the forest I ye who keep 
 Your solemn watch betwixt the earth and sky, 
 I hear sad murmurs through your branches creep, 
 
 I hear the night wind's soft and whispering sigh, 
 Warning you that the spoiler's hand is nigh." 
 
 Anon. 
 
 IT is sometimes said that the name of this " Lake 
 District " of Ontario is derived from that of an Indian 
 chief, or medicine-man, which meant " Clear Sky." An- 
 other suggestion is that the name comes from that of the 
 vaUant chief of the Chippewas — Misquuckkey — whose 
 name, with that of two brother chiefs, appears on treaties 
 signed in November 1815, by which, for the considera- 
 tion of ^4000, they resigned their claims on 250,000 
 acres between Lakes Simcoe and Huron. But for long 
 years to come Muskoka and the surrounding districts 
 continued to be Indian hunting-grounds, and "in the 
 early fifties the region on the north of the Severn was to 
 the inhabitant of the neighbouring county of Simcoe a 
 wilderness of rocks and lakes, which never could be 
 settled. ' There is no land,' the inquirer was told. ' No- 
 thing but rocks and lakes.'" A peculiarity, it is said, of 
 Muskoka rocks, whether showing themselves from land 
 or water, is that they rise up sharply aud suddenly, so 
 that there may be. depths of good soil or fathoms of clear 
 water close beside and around the miniature peaks. Flat 
 rocks are rare, and so are land-stones. 
 
MUSKOKA 251 
 
 Angus Morrison, a Scot, who had been brought to 
 Canada by his parents at the age of twelve, and had 
 become a barrister and a member of Parliament, did 
 much for the opening of the Muskoka District. His name 
 is deservedly recalled by that of the township of Mor- 
 rison, which is the very gateway into the region now so 
 widely famous as one of the great " playgrounds " of our 
 country. Before any modern means of travel was intro- 
 duced into the district, Morrison, with a party of friends 
 and Indian guides, in canoes, penetrated into the beauti- 
 ful wilderness, by way of the Severn River, Sparrow, 
 Morrison, and Leg Lakes, to the spot where Gravenhurst 
 now stands on Muskoka Bay. Soon afterwards, in 1858, 
 the history of Muskoka as " a white man's country " may 
 be said to begin with the construction of the Government 
 road from Washago to the South Falls on the Muskoka 
 River. At that time Bracebridge did not exist, and the 
 only bridge over the river was a great pine-tree. To 
 cross this required a steady head, and on one occasion a 
 man who had been drinking slipped off the log into the 
 stream. He narrowly escaped drowning, but it chanced 
 that he had, tied to him, a great " demijohn " — originally, 
 no doubt, the occasion of his unsteadiness — which went 
 down on the opposite side of the trunk from himself. 
 Thus balanced, he hung beside the log till some witnesses 
 of the accident could pull him out. 
 
 Before it was decided to open up the Muskoka and 
 Parry Sound Districts to settlers, the idea was discussed 
 of turning the whole region into a vast Indian reserve. 
 This plan fell to the ground, and, in October 1859, the 
 first party of settlers was met at Severn Bridge by the 
 Government agent, Oliver, and received seventeen loca- 
 tion tickets for free grants adjoining the road. By 1861, 
 when there was but one house on Muskoka River, the 
 townships of Morrison, Muskoka, Draper, and Macaulay 
 were opened to settlers. 
 
252 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Then began a repetition of the same tale of pioneer 
 hardships, adventures, fortitude, and resourcefulness as 
 belonged to the earlier Loyalist days. Muskoka District, 
 in 1 86 1, had a population of 300 souls. By 1882 this 
 had multiplied a hundredfold, but the first settlers in the 
 roadless " bush " were terribly isolated. Some of them 
 lost count of time, and one man, with little to mark the 
 days, for many months kept Tuesday instead of Sunday 
 as the " Lord's Day." Again it was the old story of long 
 journeys on foot to the mill or the post-office. On one 
 occasion some settlers, having walked forty miles to 
 Orillia for flour, found the supply exhausted, so had 
 to trudge on to Barrie, twenty miles farther, whence 
 they carried home their hard-won flour sixty miles on 
 their backs. Worse still, there were times when the 
 poorer settlers could not obtain flour by any means, and 
 so had to strip the birch trees of their buds, or dig up 
 again the seed-potatoes they had planted in hope of more 
 plentiful fare later in the year. 
 
 Of course, until the coming of the railways, the easiest 
 means of communication in that country of lakes and 
 rivers was by water. Birch canoes were the passenger 
 vessels of early days, whilst heavier "dug-outs" were 
 used for freight. Then were introduced sail-boats, and 
 scows for lumber-men's supplies, while the lumber rafts 
 themselves, with their floating shanties, sometimes took 
 a passenger or two. On Lake Muskoka a man named 
 Holditch experimented with a large flat boat, worked 
 by a horse, but it proved intolerably slow. Soon after- 
 wards, Cockburn, an enterprising merchant, and reeve 
 of Victoria County, put the steamer Wenonah on Lake 
 Muskoka. She made her first trip in 1866, when there 
 were only twenty people at the village, now Bracebridge. 
 The first settler, by the way, going in there in a birch 
 bark canoe had spent five days trying to find the mouth 
 of the river, by which to go to " North Falls," as it was 
 
MUSKOKA 253 
 
 then called. The Wenonah was a boon to the settlers, 
 but at first proved a loss to her owner, who, however, 
 after five years was able to put a second steamer on the 
 lake. By that time stages were running weekly to Parry 
 Sound, Huntsville, and Orillia, but goods were still 
 brought in summer from the latter town in a "one- 
 horse sled." 
 
 The pioneers were of many nationalities, and many of 
 them had no idea how best to meet the conditions of the 
 new life. They were unused to the severities of the 
 climate, and were not experts at chopping and clearing. 
 A droll story is told of one unfortunate who, having cut 
 his foot severely with his axe, endeavoured for some time 
 afterwards to prevent a repetition of the disaster by 
 standing in a wash-tub to chop his firewood ! 
 
 Not the least to be pitied were the few gently-brought- 
 up people who, burdened with habits and prejudices 
 which made the rough life almost unendurable, attempted 
 to redeem previous failures by taking up " free grants " 
 in the bush. Such a one, according to her own account, 
 was the writer of the " Sonnet to Muskoka Pines " quoted 
 above. After living for years in France, and being 
 driven from that country by the Franco-German War, 
 this unfortunate lady settled in Muskoka, during the 
 seventies, six miles from Utterson. She was a widow, 
 but had a family of sons and daughters, some of them 
 married, who also came to Muskoka. 
 
 From the first, the poor thing seemed to be the special 
 butt of misfortune. In fact the children of this literary 
 " Mrs. Gummidge " began to fear that her perpetual tears 
 and lamentations would end in " softening of the brain." 
 Some of the family came to the country in advance of 
 their mother, who arrived with one or two daughters at 
 a season when bush fires "were raging," a fact that 
 added to the discomfort of their long ride in a wagon to 
 the log-cabin which was to be their winter's home. The 
 
254 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 road was full of stumps, and dust and smoke and heat 
 from the smouldering embers where the fire had passed 
 through added to their troubles. Too late to build a 
 house of their own, the new-comers had to crowd for the 
 winter into a daughter's cabin, which was already over- 
 full, and when at last the widow got into her own house 
 the roof, put on by inexperienced hands, was so leaky 
 that on a rainy night a big umbrella had to be fixed over 
 the head of the bed. The family fared ill as to food, and 
 there are records of Christmas festivities when the chief 
 part of the feast was a single " scarecrow " chicken, with 
 a pudding made mainly of flour, or a couple of herrings 
 and a big vegetable marrow. In this case time only 
 made matters worse, and at last the family gave up the 
 hopeless struggle ; but the widow wrote of neighbours, 
 of a humbler class, who were kind, hard-working, con- 
 tented, and full of hope. 
 
 By this time, at least in that part of the district so 
 well known to summer visitors, the number of settlers 
 was increasing fast, and the conditions of life were 
 certainly improving. Here and there schoolhouses were 
 springing up, and little churches, where occasional 
 services were held by wandering missionaries of different 
 denominations. New townships were being surveyed, 
 and older ones were being organised, with reeves and 
 councils. In 1872 the first election for a member of 
 Parliament was held in Muskoka, and in 1874 the 
 Governor-General, Lord Dufferin, arrived, on a July 
 evening, at Bracebridge, to find the little village bedecked 
 with no less than eight triumphal arches. Of course an 
 address was presented and replied to with all possible 
 ceremony, but the Governor talked freely to the settlers 
 with whom he came in contact, and appeared particularly 
 interested in a man from Iceland, perhaps because of 
 happy reminiscences of his own sojourn in that island in 
 " high latitudes." 
 
MUSKOKA 25s 
 
 Bracebridge, incorporated in 1875, was surely remark- 
 able for the number of its associations, ranging from a 
 temperance society to a chess club, which used annually 
 to play a rival club at Huntsville by telegraph. Towards 
 the close of 1877 a teachers' association for Muskoka 
 was formed. In that same year Gravenhurst was thrown 
 into excitement by the discovery, during the digging of 
 a well, of some small nuggets of gold. ■ But no expert 
 was called in, and all the " delving and washing " that 
 went on failed of the desired result, while the people who 
 rushed in from outside were unkind enough to suggest 
 that " the Muskoka folk were frauds." 
 
II. PARRY SOUND 
 
 " Hurrah for the Rapid ! that merrily, merrily 
 Gambols and leaps on its tortuous way ; 
 Soon we will enter it, cheerily, cheerily. 
 
 Pleased with its freshness and wet with its spray." 
 
 Charles Sangster. 
 
 THIS district gets its name from the town and harbour 
 of Parry Sound — on the Georgian Bay — called 
 after the famous Arctic explorer, Sir William Edward 
 Parry. The Indians called the inlet " Shining Light," 
 but its present name was bestowed upon it by Captain 
 Bayfield, who was employed surveying the Georgian Bay 
 and Lake Huron from 1822 to 1825. 
 
 A little over two centuries earlier, Champlain, in his 
 own less formal fashion, had also surveyed the coasts of 
 Parry Sound and Muskoka Districts, when, in 161 5, he 
 made his way by the Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, and 
 French River and along the Georgian Bay to the country 
 of the Hurons. By the same route, a few years later, 
 those gallant soldiers of the Cross — Br6bceuf and his 
 brother-Jesuits — went to their work amongst the Hurons ; 
 and after the tragedy of the Iroquois invasion, which 
 annihilated the flourishing missions for ever, several of 
 the black-robed fathers who had escaped martyrdom led 
 the broken remnants of their flock back by this way 
 to seek safety nearer to the settlements of the French. 
 It was on a June day in the year 1650 that the fleet 
 of canoes — bearing a melancholy, half-starved company 
 of three hundred Hurons, men, women, and children, all 
 
 told, with a few French priests and laymen — took their 
 
 856 
 
PARRY SOUND 257 
 
 way northwards through the countless islands which 
 guard the land from the onslaught of the furious surges. 
 At last they reached Champlain's old water-way east- 
 ward, and so, skirting the region which is now Parry 
 Sound District, passed to less lonely scenes. The Jesuit 
 fathers knew the excellent harbour of Parry Sound, and 
 a few years ago there was found there some ancient relic 
 (of what description I do not know) bearing date, moulded 
 in the metal, " 1636." 
 
 In 1837, this famous old canoe-route was surveyed by 
 David Thompson, the great explorer and map-maker of 
 the North-West, whose name has been bestowed on one 
 of the swift rivers which hurry westward down the gorges 
 of the British Columbian mountains. But though the old 
 water-way which forms the boundary of Parry Sound 
 District was so well known for generations, the land 
 itself was left to the Indians, as a hunting-ground, for 
 another quarter of a century. After 1861, however, a 
 few settlers were sent in the winter from time to time 
 into Parry Sound District from Bracebridge, and about 
 1865 the settlement of Parry Sound village began, when 
 the steamer Waubuno was built to run between that 
 harbour and Collingwood, and the lumbering firm of 
 J. & W. Beatty established themselves there. The 
 resident partner, belonging to the Methodist church, 
 helped to establish a Sunday School, and soon the little 
 village had no less than three churches, and was annually 
 the scene of camp-meetings attended by hundreds of 
 Indians and whites. 
 
 In 1870, when the Parry Sound region became a 
 separate district, the village of Parry Sound became 
 chief town, and a court-house, a jail, and a registry 
 office were added to its few buildings. Now it has a 
 population of about 3500, and, being the point of supply 
 and departure for numerous tourists and sportsmen, is 
 
258 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 especially lively in summer. Its steamer connection 
 extends not only to CoUingwood but to Chicago, Duluth, 
 Port Arthur, and other places, and it is served by no 
 less than three railways. 
 
 The whole district is dotted with lakes — eight hundred, 
 it is said, if all, small and large, are counted — and still 
 it is a sportsman's paradise, though probably it would be 
 difficult now to rival the fish and game stories of the 
 pioneers of thirty years ago. Then deer were extra- 
 ordinarily abundant in M'Murrich, one of the most 
 southerly townships, now crossed by the Grand Trunk 
 Railway — but they were being rapidly destroyed by the 
 depredations of wolves and of " rapacious pot-hunters " ! 
 A settler, in 1879, saw a herd of deer at Whitestone 
 Lake (so named from its good limestone) which he 
 estimated at three thousand head. One winter, in the 
 early seventies, a traveller came upon an Indian camp 
 near this lake surrounded with deerskins hung on poles, 
 whilst in the snow lay several deers' heads at which the 
 well-fed dogs " sniffed contemptuously," and on the fol- 
 lowing day he saw a young, athletic-looking Indian yoked 
 in a kind of harness attached to a load of deer meat. He 
 had no sleigh, but the meat was packed in the skins of 
 the slaughtered animals, with the hair so arranged as 
 not to catch on the snow. The winter of 1 874-S was one 
 of remarkably deep snow, and in some cases numbers of 
 the deer, herded in "yards," were wantonly destroyed, 
 for mere inexcusable love of slaughter, though they were 
 too lean to be good food, and their skins were not market- 
 able. 
 
 But the chance to get wild meat was (and no doubt is) 
 a great boon to the settlers, who at first often had a 
 terrible struggle to make a livelihood. Pickerel used to 
 be so plentiful in May that people caught them with their 
 hands at the foot of rapids, and, in November 1877, one 
 man in fourteen days caught 2300 lbs. of herrings in the 
 
PARRY SOUND 259 
 
 narrows between the two arms of Whitestone Lake. 
 Some of these weighed, it is said, no less than 2 lbs., 
 whilst the largest of the pickerel weighed 20 lbs. Moose 
 were plentiful in those days, and bears also. These latter 
 animals, though usually inoffensive, and only anxious to 
 get out of the way of human beings, occasionally behaved 
 in a somewhat alarming fashion. In M'Murrich Town- 
 ship an agent for a commercial house was " treed " by a 
 bear; and, the story goes, so frightened Bruin by his 
 wild shouting that the animal sought refuge in another 
 tree. On another occasion two young men in Croft 
 Township were going to look for their cows, accompanied 
 by a small dog. This little creature started a bear and 
 gave chase to it. The bear, instead of turning on the 
 dog, chased the boys, who by means of a cedar " lodged 
 in an ash tree" climbed into the latter. The bear, in 
 unabated rage, came to the tree, and in spite of vigorous 
 kicks tore the boots off the feet of the younger boy and 
 severely wounded him. He got a branch, however, and 
 with that managed to keep the angry brute at bay ; but 
 from eight in the morning till two in the afternoon the 
 pair were held prisoners in the tree. 
 
 In September 1869, the village of Parry Sound held a 
 gala day in honour of the visit of a number of officials of 
 the Northern Railway, and its people were delighted, no 
 doubt, at the promise of improved means of communica- 
 tion with the outside world. In 1874 Lord Dufferin, 
 after visiting Bracebridge, arrived at Port Cockburn on 
 Lake Joseph, and came on by land to Parry Sound. The 
 same year saw a rush of settlers to the free lands of 
 Parry Sound as well as to those of Muskoka, and as many 
 as sixty farmers from Haldimand County came into 
 Ryerson, which was the first township to send a consign- 
 ment of wheat and oats to the outside world. North of 
 Parry Sound village, Hagerman was the first township 
 to send grain to market ; and it also had the distinction 
 
26o THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 of being represented in the Paris Exhibition by an 
 English settler's "Early Rose" potatoes. 
 
 Parry Sound District was the field for various experi- 
 ments in colonisation. In 1874 M'Murrich Township 
 was selected for the establishment of a "Temperance 
 Colony," but after roads had been cut and mills built the 
 township was thrown open to all comers. About the 
 same time a plan of "ready-made farms" was tried in 
 Ryerson Township long before the experiment was made 
 in the west. It was known as the Donaldson Colonisa- 
 tion Scheme. The Government, after having five acres 
 cleared and a small house built on certain farms, offered 
 them for sale for $200 each, cash, the title to be given 
 after the settler had cleared an additional ten acres. 
 The money received was to be used in extending the 
 scheme, but the " cash " stipulation was not insisted on 
 and the plan failed. A colony of Swiss was settled by 
 the Baroness von Koerber on the Magnetawan River, 
 which the pioneers crossed by "a free-and-easy bridge 
 of floating logs " that sank beneath the water under the 
 weight of a team. 
 
 Foreigners were numerous in many townships, and often 
 different nationalities were strangely mixed. Twentyyears 
 ago, for instance, a young man sent to teach a school in 
 Mills Township found himself in a settlement where nearly 
 all the men were Italians and the women Germans, for the 
 former, working as navvies on a German railroad, had 
 taken German helpmeets, and had afterwards emigrated 
 to Canada. On the whole the speech of "the Father- 
 land " had triumphed over that of Italy, and, to all intents 
 and purposes, it was " thirty smiling German ' kinder ' " 
 who gathered in the primitive log schoolhouse to 
 take their first lessons in " the three R's." These had 
 to be given in the unfamiliar English language, but, 
 before long, that also began to make some showing in 
 the strife of tongues. 
 
III. NIPISSING 
 
 "And here a gorge, all reft and rent, 
 With rocks in wild confusion, 
 As they were by the wood-gods sent 
 To guard them from intrusion." 
 
 Alexander M'Lachlan. 
 
 TILL a few months ago the districts of Nipissing and 
 Sudbury included a region bordering on James 
 Bay ; now this northern territory has been divided from 
 the southern portions and has become the new district of 
 Timiskaming. 
 
 Nipissing is named from the lake, by which, almost 
 three centuries ago, Champlain travelled to Lake Huron, 
 and by a strange, roundabout course visited Lake 
 Ontario. Closely following the direction of the ancient 
 Indian canoe route of the River Mattawan, taken by the 
 intrepid French explorer, the main line of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway between Ottawa and Winnipeg was 
 traced a generation ago through this wild and broken 
 country. To all intents and purposes it is still a wilder- 
 ness, where sportsmen may find fish and game in plenty, 
 though it is dotted sparsely with small farms and little 
 hamlets, in which the sawmill is usually the most con- 
 spicuous building. 
 
 Moreover, at commercially strategic points in the wilds 
 
 there is situated, here and there, some town of fair size 
 
 and more impressive activity. Such a one is North Bay, 
 
 on beautiful Lake Nipissing. It was made by the 
 
 " C.P.R.," and is becoming more and more of a railway 
 
 centre. It now has a population of about 6000, a good 
 
 261 
 
262 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 proportion of whom are supported by industries connected 
 with the mine and the forest. From North Bay the state- 
 owned railway of Ontario, known as the Timiskaming 
 and Northern Ontario Railway, strikes in a north- 
 westerly direction, two hundred and fifty miles to Coch- 
 rane, giving ready access to the Cobalt silver district, 
 the Porcupine gold fields, and the great " Clay Belt," with 
 all its rich agricultural possibilities. A large proportion 
 of the passengers it carries are prospectors, miners, and 
 sportsmen, but when it is pushed on to James Bay (as 
 no doubt it will be in a few years' time), it will surely 
 stimulate, or create, a great salt-water fishing industry. 
 
 Twenty-four miles west of North Bay, still on the 
 "C.P.R.," is another growing town. Sturgeon Falls. 
 The most important industry of this place is the manu- 
 facture of wood-pulp and paper, but it owes everything 
 to the river, which not only brings to the huge mill the 
 spruce that " feeds its ponderous grinders," but also 
 " supplies the power which makes the wheels revolve." 
 
 Within the bounds of Nipissing District is Algonquin 
 Park, the first of Ontario's many "Forest Reserves." 
 As long ago as February 1892, a commission was ap- 
 pointed by the Provincial Government to consider the 
 question of the creation of such a reserve. The com- 
 missioners reported favourably on the plan, on the 
 grounds not only of the conservation of the forest itself 
 (part of the territory, by the way, was already under 
 license for the cutting of timber), but also for its bene- 
 ficial effect on the water-supply of the surrounding 
 country, six important rivers taking their rise within its 
 limits. A third very important object was the protection 
 of fur-bearing animals and game, which, unless special 
 means were taken to prevent it, were in danger of ex- 
 tinction at the hands of careless and greedy hunters. 
 It was also pointed out that the Park would serve as a 
 delightful health resort and as a school of experiment in 
 
NIPISSING 263 
 
 conservation methods. It was accordingly set apart and 
 named after the ancient inhabitants of the land in 1893. 
 
 The Park is fifty-six miles long by forty-eight miles 
 broad, comprising the whole or parts of thirty-one town- 
 ships, and has an average elevation of 1 500 feet above 
 sea-level. It is under the charge of a superintendent 
 and a staff of rangers, whose duty it is to guard the 
 forest against fire, whether started by lightning or the 
 carelessness of man, to see that the game-laws are duly 
 observed, and as far as possible to protect the denizens 
 of the woods and streams from the depredations of all 
 enemies, human and otherwise. 
 
 Wolves give the rangers a good deal of trouble, having 
 discovered that the Park affords them fine hunting. In 
 one recent year the rangers killed about a hundred, but 
 the protected animals are increasing, and Algonquin 
 Park is an ideal field for the hunter with camera instead 
 of gun. There, for instance, he may get pictures of 
 Canada's emblem, the beaver, busily building his dams 
 and his domed mud-dwelling. 
 
 Many of the rangers are educated men, attracted to 
 the life by love of the open air, or for the opportunity it 
 offers of the study of the ways of beasts and birds and 
 of the life of plants, and some of these men rarely leave 
 the forest from year's end to year's end. Of course 
 visitors go to the Park chiefly in summer ; but there are 
 people who find its enchantment greatest in the winter. 
 Then it is very silent in the daytime, though at night it 
 is vocal with the " yelps of the wolf-pack," or " the 
 shriller bark of the trailing fox." 
 
 Part of another great " Forest Reserve," Temagami, 
 including the lake from which it takes its name, is in the 
 Nipissing District. This lake is not set amidst heather- 
 covered mountains, yet an enthusiastic and imaginative 
 Scottish tourist felt that it would have made a fit setting 
 for the appearance of Scott's " Lady of the Lake," in " her 
 
264 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 fairy shallop." " But," he added, " this first flash of a 
 comparison between Loch Katrine and Lake Temagami 
 must quickly give way to a feeling of awe. The islands 
 of Temagami are numbered by at least a thousand, its 
 shore lines by thousands of miles, and its area by hun- 
 dreds of miles. Visitors to the Dominion are probably 
 better acquainted with the thousand islands of the St. 
 Lawrence just above the Montreal Rapids than with those 
 of Temagami." 
 
 But Ontario's railway now gives easy access to this 
 pleasant holiday-country; and visitors who wish to 
 explore its maze of land and water can be " assured of 
 reliable guides in the Indians, who reside in several of 
 the islands, and know every nook and corner of the great 
 lake. These Indians, by the way, are mostly half-breeds, 
 and, coming from Hudson Bay, have a large dash of 
 Scottish blood amongst them. The names of MacLeod 
 and MacPherson and Campbell are quite common. Of 
 this fact one of a party of British journalists who sailed 
 for a long day on Temagami without seeing one tithe of 
 the vastness of its territory had a significant experience. 
 Having lost touch with his colleagues in a tramp over 
 Bear Island, he timorously inquired his way of a dusky 
 native, who, from his appearance, might have had a 
 tomahawk concealed in his belt. But the reply was as 
 reassuring as amusing. ' Yer freens ha'e just got ayont 
 the tap o' the brae, and dinna forget that ye've been telt 
 that by Sandy Macleod ! ' " 
 
IV. SUDBURY 
 
 " Thence I ran my first rough survey — 
 
 Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em ; 
 
 Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour ; 
 Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that 
 screen 'em — 
 Saw the plant to feed a people — up and waiting for the power ! " 
 
 RuDYARD Kipling. 
 
 THE day of the romance of Northern Ontario is not 
 yet over. It has, perhaps, taken on soberer tints 
 than of yore, but it has its heroes still in the guise of 
 Government surveyors, of railway-builders or miners, of 
 the fire-fighters of the forest, or the modern pioneers of the 
 settlement, whose courage is put sometimes, and often, 
 to strange and unexpected tests. A recent writer, Mr. 
 Talbot, speaking of the toils and dangers of the " scouts " 
 who make the first rough surveys for the construction of 
 a railway, declares that more is known about the land 
 around the North Pole than of the northern stretches of 
 Ontario and Quebec, excepting where some great river 
 makes a highway into the back country. 
 
 To some men there is no joy like the joy of the wilder- 
 ness ; but here is another view of a land where reigns 
 " a silence and loneliness that bludgeons the senses into 
 inactivity." " On every hand is the interminable forest, 
 a verdant sea, except where here and there jagged 
 splashes of black and brown betoken that the fire fiend 
 has been busily at work." And the forest covers unseen 
 dangers. Even a slight exploration of its recesses is a 
 
 perilous task, and often the line of march is crossed by 
 
 365 
 
266 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 pile on pile of jagged rocks, fallen trees massed in in- 
 extricable confusion ; deep gulches, always being cut 
 deeper by the raging torrents at the bottom. The dotted 
 line of a " projected railway " across a map unmarked by 
 towns or villages does not give a hint to most people of 
 the wild work which must have been accomplished by the 
 surveyors before even that broken line could be traced. 
 Often three or four preliminary lines are gone over before 
 the best is discovered. 
 
 But the railway " scouts " frequently discover more 
 than a good route on which to lay the iron road. It was 
 due to railway enterprise — to the building of the Canadian 
 Pacific Railway, in fact — that the richest known nickel 
 deposits on the globe were discovered in the district of 
 Sudbury, and the story of the find and its utiHsation is 
 an interesting illustration of the close relations in our 
 modern world between persons and events that till the 
 denouement of the drama often appear totally discon- 
 nected. All unconsciously, a^ number of men, each 
 occupied with his own special end and aim, worked to- 
 gether during the 'eighties at the " making " of the Sud- 
 bury mining field, which was described in 1908 by a 
 mining expert in the pages of The Canadian Magazine 
 as the most productive and most profitable metal-mining 
 enterprise in the British Empire. 
 
 First, as stated above, came the builders of the "C.P.R.," 
 cutting their way through the vast metalliferous deposits, 
 just within the bounds of Sudbury J)istrict. The presence 
 of copper in good quantity attracted attention. Then a 
 group of American capitalists took a hand in the matter, 
 and in Ohio was formed the Canadian Copper Company, 
 a name which future events were to prove scarcely 
 appropriate. In 1886 work was begun at the Copper 
 Cliff mine, and the crude ore was shipped for treatment 
 to New Jersey. There the experts in the smelting works 
 detected the presence of nickel in the slag. In a short 
 
SUDBURY 267 
 
 time a pound of nickel proved equal in value to two 
 pounds of copper, but the copper company at first had 
 great difficulty in separating the nickel " in pure metallic 
 form from the associated metal," and "also in the ex- 
 pansion of the market for its valuable product." 
 
 Meanwhile a scientist. Dr. Ludwig Mond, unaware of 
 the existence of the deposits at Sudbury, " was working 
 at his carbon monoxide method of separating copper and 
 nickel." Later he formed a company and acquired pro- 
 perties in the new mining district, where he made a 
 practical and commercially successful application of his 
 method to the ores of the Victoria mines, twenty-two 
 miles west of Sudbury. 
 
 It was in the year 1889 that Dr. Mond made the dis- 
 covery, but there was no great demand for nickel until 
 (in that same year) "an historic paper was read by Mr. 
 James Riley before the English Iron and Steel Institute, 
 and drew the attention of the world to this wonderful 
 alloy." Soon it was being used in the manufacture of 
 armour-plate for the world's navies, of heavy ordnance, 
 of bicycles, and of many other kinds of machinery. So 
 the annual value of Sudbury's nickel output climbed up 
 far into the millions (representing sixty per cent, of the 
 world's product of this metal), whilst at the mining 
 centres huge heaps of debris and tall smokestacks — 
 pouring forth thick clouds of ill-smelling gases and 
 vapours from the tremendous cauldrons, kept ever on 
 the boil by the modern wizards of invention and com- 
 merce — have for many a mile scarred and changed the 
 face of the green wilderness. 
 
 As is well known, the actual building of the railways 
 is done largely by foreigners of many nationalities — 
 Russians, Austrians, Poles, Galicians, and others. There 
 are thousands of these men, "most of them living in 
 little shacks, and doing the work by contract. As a matter 
 of fact," says a member of " The Shanty Men's Mission," 
 
268 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 "the contractors will tell you that without the aid of 
 these men it would be almost impossible to build rail- 
 ways ; they will do work that no Canadian or English- 
 speaking man would put his hand to. In the muskeg 
 you can see them standing in water half-way up to their 
 knees, shovelling the dirt into wheelbarrows to grade the 
 road, and doing this work at a price that often does not 
 bring them in $i a day and board." 
 
 Often they live under most deplorable conditions. For 
 instance, the cellars of a number of houses near the 
 "C.P.R." station in Sudbury "are fitted up with two 
 tiers of bunks, into which the men are packed, regardless 
 of health considerations. The owners of these houses 
 are themselves foreigners, and are getting wealthy at 
 the expense of their less fortunate countrymen." 
 
 Many of these sturdy fellows would make excellent 
 settlers on the bush farms, and some have taken up such 
 farms ; but they are sorely handicapped by their little 
 knowledge of English, and not a few ultimately return to 
 their native lands. 
 
 There are still a few Indians in the district of Sud- 
 bury, and once a year, at the Hudson's Bay Company's 
 station of Flying Post, and at Fort Metagami, a sum of 
 14 is paid as " treaty money " for each member of each 
 Ojibway family — man, woman, or child. 
 
 The Indian agent goes to these wilderness posts in 
 state with "a weather-beaten Union Jack, symbol of 
 British might and good will," flying from a spruce pole 
 set up in the bow of his canoe ; and his arrival " is the 
 big event of the year " to the dwellers at the post, so no 
 wonder that it is greeted with much firing of guns and 
 other demonstrations of delight. 
 
V. TIMISKAMING 
 
 " And when we bring old fights to mind 
 We will not remember the sin — 
 If there be blood on his head of my kind, 
 Or blood on my head of his kin — . . . 
 
 " After us cometh a multitude — 
 Prosper the work of our hands, 
 That we may feed with our land's food 
 The folk of all our lands ! " 
 
 RuDYARD Kipling. 
 
 THOUGH the new district of Timiskaming (a name 
 which has had many varieties of spelling) looks 
 somewhat blank upon the map, it has a story which 
 would lend itself admirably to representation in a great 
 historic pageant like that enacted some years ago on the 
 Plains of Abraham at Quebec. From the first scene 
 to the last, the background is always the wilderness — 
 sometimes forests of well-grown pine and spruce, some- 
 times acres upon acres of stunted poplar or small second- 
 growth trees. But it is not unbroken forest, for here 
 and there broad lakes reflect the blue of the sky. Here 
 and there streams of all sizes, from considerable rivers 
 to little creeks, loiter through level, swampy lands or 
 hurry down from the hills in a succession of rapids and 
 chutes. Here and there is a wide muskeg, haunt of 
 water-fowl and amphibious four-footed things, or a 
 dismal brull, the scar of a fire started by some careless 
 wanderer or by heaven's lightning. 
 
 The opening of our pageant would show the red men 
 fighting, hunting, trapping, fishing, building their bark 
 
 tenees in the woods, feasting or starving, according to 
 *^ 269 
 
270 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the season or chances of the chase, bewailing their dead, 
 trying to propitiate the spirits of the earth, the air, and 
 the beasts they had slaughtered. 
 
 Then come the white men on the stage, and we are 
 plunged into the bewildering story of the struggles of 
 French and English for the possession of the Hudson 
 Bay country, a story rendered the more complicated and 
 confusing by the "turn-coat" proceedings of the two 
 French adventurers, Raddisson and Des Groseilliers. 
 To put the matter briefly — in 1670 was formed that 
 famous trading association, the Hudson's Bay Company, 
 which immediately sent out a vessel and built a little fort 
 at the mouth of Rupert's River on the shores of James 
 Bay. Very shortly afterwards the energetic Talon, at 
 Quebec, commissioned a Jesuit, Albanel, "to penetrate 
 as far as the Mer du Nord"; and, accompanied by a 
 young Frenchman and a few Indians, the valiant father 
 struggled through the wilderness of Northern Quebec to 
 his goal. A little later other French adventurers bade 
 defiance to the English claim of sole sovereignty over 
 the frozen north by erecting a little trading post at the 
 mouth of Moose River, just within the boundaries of 
 what is now Timiskaming District. The English pro- 
 tested, and presently the French lost their footing in 
 this paradise of fur-traders, leaving their rivals in 
 possession at Moose River and several other points. 
 
 In 1685, however, two Frenchmen travelling down the 
 Abitibi river and lake, and thence by way of Lake Timis- 
 kaming and the Ottawa, pioneered a new route from the 
 north. This suggested a daring scheme to a retired 
 French officer, the Chevalier de Troyes, and on Christmas 
 Eve 1685 he sought permission of the Governor, Denon- 
 ville, to " drive the English utterly from the bay." So 
 comes in the second episode of our pageant. 
 
 Toiling through the wilderness, impeded by snow and 
 ice, up-stream and down-stream, making many a portage 
 
TIMISKAMING 271 
 
 through deep morass or tangled wood, goes a stout- 
 hearted, ruthless band. Upon the march are thirty French 
 soldiers, veterans of European wars; fourscore bush- 
 rangers, wild in mien and in habiliments as the Indians 
 themselves; a French priest in the black robe of the 
 Jesuit; De Troyes himself, elderly, scholarly, frail of 
 body, dauntless of spirit ; last, but not least interesting 
 to Canadians, three of the famous sons of Charles Le 
 Moye — Sainte [H^lene, De Maricourt, D'Iberville himself 
 — the very type in hardihood, resourcefulness, utter in- 
 difference to bloodshed, of the young gallants bred in the 
 castles " dangerous " of the St. Lawrence. 
 
 Such wild journeys wear down the strength of the 
 hardest muscles, and reaching Abitibi the adventurers 
 run up a little stockaded fort and take a brief rest before 
 voyaging down the swift-flowing Abitibi River to surprise 
 the English at Moose Factory. When they do strike, on 
 a dark night, it seems to their prey that they have sprung 
 full-armed from the very ground. The little fort is esca- 
 laded. The chief gunner, resisting single-handed, dies by 
 D'Iberville's blade. His comrades cry for quarter, and, 
 fifteen in all, are captured. Then, with solemn cere- 
 monial, De Troyes, in the name " of the Most Redoubtable 
 Monarch, Louis XIV," takes possession of Moose Fort 
 and island, and cries of " Vive le Roi ! " ring sharply out 
 over the icy waters. 
 
 After capturing Moose Factory, taking two English 
 ships, overpowering Fort Rupert, and making its garrison 
 prisoners, De Troyes' French force turned westward along 
 the coast to seek out the third English factory on that 
 part of James Bay. They did not know its situation 
 exactly. Meanwhile two Indians had carried to Governor 
 Sargeant of Fort Albany the appalling tidings of the 
 doings of the French. But Sargeant determined to resist 
 to the last. When, however, the French began to attack 
 the fort by land and water most of its inmates (who were 
 
272 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 servants and traders, not soldiers) lost heart. The death 
 of one man by the enemy's shot brought them to the verge 
 of mutiny, and they were terrified lest their powder maga- 
 zine should be undermined and they should all be blown 
 up together. Finally Sargeant — so the story is told in 
 Mr. Beckles Willson's Great Company — " desired to lower 
 the flag above his own dwelling," but the hail of bullets 
 whistled so thick and fast that none dared to undertake the 
 task until Dixon, the under-factor, oifered to show himself 
 and propitiate the French. He first thrust a white cloth 
 through a window, waving a lighted torch before it ; then 
 he shouted with all his might. On this the firing ceased, 
 and he went forth beyond the parapets, with a huge flagon 
 of wine in each hand. The French officers came to meet 
 him, and presently his comrades saw him by the light of 
 the full moon sitting with some of the foe upon a mounted 
 gun and drinking to the health of the Sovereigns of Eng- 
 land and France. Next day Sargeant surrendered the 
 fort, and on August 10 De Troyes set off" on his return 
 journey to Montreal, taking spoil in the shape of 50,000 
 beaver skins, many of which the unhappy English captives 
 were forced to carry on the long march through the 
 wilderness. 
 
 The French rechristened the fort Ste. Anne, and, in 
 spite of some efforts of the English to dislodge them, suc- 
 ceeded in holding it for seven years, till 1693, when three 
 English vessels, which had wintered at Fort Albany, ap- 
 peared on the scene and landed forty men. These were 
 met by a brisk fire from the fort, but it ceased very su4- 
 denly, and when the English entered cautiously, fearing 
 a ruse, they found the place deserted, save for a wretched 
 criminal, who lay loaded with chains in the cellar. Some 
 sailors presently reported seeing three Frenchmen running 
 away as fast as they could go, and it appeared that it 
 was they who had fired the threatening salute to their 
 opponents. 
 
TIMISKAMING 273 
 
 Some ten years later the French tried again to surprise 
 the post, but on that occasion its Governor was not to be 
 caught napping. He drove back the assailants from his 
 gates in confusion, and from that day to this the flag of 
 England has continued to wave over Fort Albany. 
 
 By the Treaty of Utrecht the English at last obtained 
 undisputed possession of the Hudson Bay region, and the 
 great fur-trading corporation began to reach out in every 
 direction from the bay which had lent it a name. In 1755 
 (the eventful year of Braddock's defeat and the expulsion 
 of the Acadians) a Hudson's Bay Company's post was 
 erected on a picturesque point of land jutting out into 
 Lake Abitibi from its eastern end. This has been con- 
 tinuously occupied ever since, and until comparatively 
 recently, when steamers began to ply on Lake Timiskam- 
 ing, the post was supplied from Moose Factory, " whence 
 the goods were laboriously conveyed up the river after 
 the arrival of the annual vessel from England," and the 
 coming of these canoes, or the setting out for Timiskam- 
 ing of the Abitibi brigade, which two years ago was 
 described as " the last of the splendid fur brigades of the 
 north," would provide a most animated though peaceful 
 scene in our pageant. 
 
 Now scenes crowd on us thick and fast. While the 
 railway was building, two contractors, M'Kinley and 
 Darragh by name, struck with the appearance of a heavy* 
 blackish substance on the shores of what was then known 
 as Long Lake, sent away samples to be examined (which 
 proved extraordinarily rich in silver), and staked a claim 
 at the southern end of the lake. About a month later 
 a French-Canadian blacksmith, La Rose, discovered a 
 vein of silver at the other end of the lake, and staked 
 his claim. The story goes that one day, when La Rose 
 was busy at his temporary forge, he caught sight of an 
 impudent-looking fox staring at him from a bush, and 
 flung his hammer at the intruder. The fox decamped, 
 
 S 
 
274 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 and the man, going to pick up his hammer, found a bright 
 metallic streak on the rock, where it had struck. The 
 same summer two more veins were discovered, and the 
 Provincial Bureau of Mines sent up experts to report 
 on the district. One of these. Dr. W. G. Miller, fearing, 
 it is said, that the coming town might be christened Long 
 Lake, put up a board near the lake, inscribed "Cobalt 
 Station, T. & N. O. Railway." 
 
 Not quite at once was the public to be persuaded of 
 the wealth of precious metals and other minerals that 
 lay hidden beneath the soil of New Ontario ; then sud- 
 denly the news seized on the imagination of the people, 
 and Cobalt became a great mining camp. Shacks and 
 houses were run up without a plan or order, and at 
 first the methods of mining were as rough and ready as 
 the place itself. Old hands at mining flocked thither from 
 every quarter of the globe, but at first much of the work 
 was done by inexperienced "lumber-jacks," who needed 
 expert supervision to make a success of their new trade. 
 In its roughest days Cobalt (which was incorporated in 
 December 1906) is said to have been an orderly place, 
 as mining towns go. 
 
 But it is only one of Timiskaming's mining centres. 
 Elk Lake City and Gowganda have their famous silver 
 mines. The year 1906 saw a stampede to Larder Lake, 
 where it is told that a certain old Indian, Towmenie, used 
 to obtain gold quartz, with which he paid for strong 
 drink, and in 1910 the name of Porcupine began to be 
 coupled with the magic monosyllable gold ! In the fall 
 of that year the district was " a moss-covered, gold-laden " 
 swamp; by the following spring there were the begin- 
 nings of two or three little towns beside the lake. A few 
 weeks later almost every human habitation was swept 
 from the scene by the awful fires which for a generation 
 to come will make 191 1 a marked year in the annals 
 of Timiskaming District. At Cochrane, far to the north. 
 
TIMISKAMING 275 
 
 only six houses escaped the flames, but the story of the 
 disaster is too recent to call for more than a mere refer- 
 ence here. 
 
 A discovery of importance perhaps as great as that 
 of the precious metals, though of an altogether different 
 character, was due to the scouts of the Grand Trunk 
 Pacific Railway. Penetrating far north of the region 
 once scornfully characterised as " a few acres of snow," 
 they came in Timiskaming and Algoma Districts on the 
 immense stretch of fertile lands known as the great Clay 
 Belt. And this is surely destined in not far distant days 
 to be a fair and prosperous land of fine' farms, richly 
 cropped fields, and many people. 
 
 At present much of the population of Timiskaming is 
 of Indian blood; and a story that well deserves telling 
 is that of the missionaries, who for the love of God 
 and of humanity have given their lives to the service 
 of the folk of the wilderness. The name of one such 
 " hero of the Cross," John Horden, is indissolubly linked 
 with that of Moose Factory, which for forty years was 
 his headquarters as missionary and bishop. Horden 
 was a Devonshire man — a printer's son — and in the 
 beautiful Cathedral of Exeter a memorial tablet hints at 
 the noble story of his life. Arriving at Moose Factory 
 in 1851, after the withdrawal of the Methodists, who had 
 been labouring there, he found a small Christian congre- 
 gation to begin with. His experiences were naturally 
 varied in "a parish" extending "as far north as you 
 please," and including "the last house in the world," 
 as he described that lone outpost of civilisation. Fort 
 Churchill. 
 
VI. ALGOMA 
 
 "Our hearts are as free as the rivers that flow 
 To the seas where the north star shines, 
 Our lives are as free as the breezes that blow 
 Thro' the crests of our native pines. " 
 
 Robert K. Keenighan. 
 
 THE map of Algoma shows a vast territory, stretch- 
 ing some three hundred and sixty miles northwards 
 from " the Soo " to the Albany River. Its southern 
 portion is checkered with townships, already numerous 
 enough to make several counties after the pattern of 
 those of old Ontario, but bearing a small proportion to 
 the huge blank spaces of the north, marked only with 
 the names of the lakes and rivers that plentifully water 
 that " Great Lone Land." The lines of the townships 
 run on the north into the larger oblong of the Mississauga 
 Forest Reserve. Indirectly the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
 way's advertising agents had a hand in the setting apart 
 of the vast reserve by calling the attention of "canoe 
 travellers " to the Mississauga River. This flows through 
 a large block of pine timber, and the authorities, fearing 
 that the coming of tourists would cause increased danger 
 of forest fires, decided to take measures to protect the 
 valuable pine. Accordingly, on February 24, 1 904, an 
 Order in Council was passed, creating the Mississauga 
 Forest Reserve, which comprised about 2900 square 
 miles. 
 
 Dotted along Algoma's two hundred miles or more 
 of coast-line on Lakes Huron and Superior are a few 
 
 villages and towns, the largest and most important of 
 
 876 
 
ALGOMA 277 
 
 which is the historic Sault Ste. Marie. It was first 
 visited, says Dr. Bain, " by the French traders, who 
 named the Indians Saulteaux, from the falls in the St. 
 Mary's River." Jesuit Fathers soon followed, and P^re 
 Marquette established a mission there in 1669. Two 
 years later the Intendant Talon sent Daumont de St. 
 Lusson, accompanied by the interpreter, Perrot, to seek 
 for the copper mines, of which there were rumours, on 
 Lake Superior. The expenses of the expedition were to 
 be paid by trading in furs. St. Lusson wintered with 
 the Indians, claiming in the name of his Sovereign the 
 whole land as far as the western and southern and 
 northern seas. As a visible token of these stupendous 
 claims, a cross bearing the Royal Arms was planted at 
 Sault Ste. Marie, and the Jesuit AUouez harangued the 
 assembled Indians, representing several tribes, on the 
 power of the King of France. But the red men, prob- 
 ably actuated by superstitious fears, pulled down the 
 cross as soon as the backs of the French were turned. 
 
 The troublesome Iroquois caused the abandonment of 
 the mission in 1689. Sixty-one years later. La Jonquiere, 
 then Governor of Canada, gave his nephew and the 
 Chevalier de Repentigny a grant six leagues square at 
 Sault Ste. Marie, so that — "at their own expense" — 
 they might build a palisade fort to prevent the Indians 
 trading with the English. "The palisade was no feet 
 each way," and enclosed three small houses and a " re- 
 doubt of oak 12 feet square." A Canadian, Jean Baptiste 
 Cadeau, or Cadot, was put in charge; and there, long 
 after the French lilies "had ceased to float over the 
 ramparts of Quebec," this trader kept the old flag flying 
 by St. Mary's River, though ultimately he accepted the 
 changed situation, and even fought gallantly for England. 
 He had married an Indian woman "of great force of 
 character, energy, and uprightness," and in his house 
 only Chippewa was spoken. 
 
278 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Alexander Henry visited Cadot in 1762, and this 
 notable trader and explorer was much interested by the 
 spectacle of the Indians — two in each canoe — scooping 
 up whitefish with a long-handled net from the turbulent 
 waters of the rapids. At times the fish (some of which 
 weighed 1 5 lbs.) were so crowded together in the water 
 that a skilful fisherman could catch five hundred in two 
 hours, but some winters the usual supply of fish failed, 
 and the traders and Indians had hard work to fight 
 off starvation. Henry was at Michillimackinac, or 
 Mackinaw, during Pontiac's war, when the fort was 
 taken by the Indians, but after many hair-breadth 
 escapes he fell in with Madame Cadot, who was on a 
 journey, and with her reached Sault Ste. Marie in safety. 
 Two years later Henry took Cadot into partnership. 
 
 The story of the first success in the War of 1 8 1 2 belongs, 
 in a sense, to the district of Algoma. On St. Joseph's 
 Island there was at that time a blockhouse commanded 
 by Captain Roberts, to whom Brock had sent orders that 
 if war were declared he was immediately to attack the 
 American fort at Mackinaw. Roberts had only forty-five 
 regular soldiers available, but traders and voyageurs 
 eagerly volunteered, and the North-west Company fur- 
 nished the brig Caledonia as a transport. The surprise 
 was so complete that there was no bloodshed, and Mackinaw 
 remained in British hands till the end of the war. 
 
 Amongst the volunteers was John Johnston, a well- 
 to-do Irish trader of Sault Ste. Marie, who had wedded a 
 Chippewa. During his absence his house was raided and 
 burnt by Americans, while his wife and children looked 
 on from the woods. Later he took his wife and a 
 daughter, a beautiful girl, home to England. The Duke 
 and Duchess of Northumberland were so charmed with 
 the latter that they wished to adopt her, but she preferred 
 to return home, and ultimately became the wife of Henry 
 Schoolcraft, the famous historian of the Indian tribes. 
 
ALGOMA 279 
 
 Another pioneer who took part in Roberts' expedition, 
 and had also married an Indian woman, was Charles 
 Ermatinger, a trader, of Swiss extraction. His post was 
 on the south side of the river, and in 1822 the Americans 
 took possession of it and made it into a fort, but after- 
 wards gave compensation to its owner, who had removed 
 to the British side. 
 
 In the days of trouble between the North-west Com- 
 pany and the X. Y. Company there was a hot dispute 
 over the portage past the rapids. The latter company, 
 says Dr. Bryce, "forced a road through the disputed 
 river-frontage, while the North-west Company used a 
 canal half a mile long on which was built a lock, and at 
 the foot of the canal a good wharf and store." Remains 
 of the tiny old lock are still to be seen, near an old block- 
 house lately used by the directors of the Algoma Steel 
 Company for a lunch-room. The voyageurs in their little 
 boats often had perilous voyages along the rugged coast 
 of Lake Superior, to which clung many a legend of terror, 
 and not a few bold fellows went down to death in its chill 
 depths. Here and there along its grim shores were dotted 
 little trading posts, that at Michipicoten, where Henry once 
 tried unsuccessfully to grow potatoes, being within a few 
 miles of what is now the western boundary of Algoma. 
 
 In 1870, when the Red River expedition was working 
 its difficult way westward, there was no Canadian canal 
 at Sault Ste. Marie by which vessels could pass the rapids, 
 and the Americans would not at first permit the force to 
 use their canal, built in 1855, so guns and stores had all 
 to be " portaged " three miles and a half. After urgent 
 remonstrances, however, the embargo was removed, and 
 then the American officers at Fort Brady became very 
 civil to the British officers. Of course, when the troops 
 had embarked for Sault Ste. Marie, that stately name was 
 often on the lips of the officers, and it was told that the 
 old skipper of one of the steamboats grew obviously un- 
 
28o THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 comfortable at its repetition, and at last protested : " Call 
 it the Soo, sir — the Soo ! . . . We always calls it the Soo ; 
 it's ever so much shorter, and everyone will understand 
 ye ! " And " the Soo " it most often is to this day, when 
 its population has passed ii,ooo, and when millions of 
 dollars are invested in its huge iron and steel works, its 
 great paper factories, and other vast industrial enter- 
 prises, to say nothing of its world-famous canal. 
 
 To many people, indeed, the canals are the most in- 
 teresting feature of " the Soo." It was in 1888 that the 
 Dominion Parliament passed a measure for the building 
 of the canal which was to make Canada independent of 
 the good-will of her neighbour for the passage of her 
 vessels between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Plans 
 were at once prepared, but the engineer died before they 
 could be carried into effect. 
 
 For the lock the final design was made in the autumn 
 of 1892, and the contractors agreed to complete it by 
 1894. But in the summer of 1893 the United States 
 Government ordered the collection of tolls on all vessels 
 passing through the American lock. Upon this the 
 Dominion Government offered the contractors a bonus of 
 $90,000 to complete the work by the end of the year, and, 
 except for a very small portion, the whole of the walls of 
 the lock, from 20 to 25 feet in thickness, was built in five 
 months, the last stone being put in place on November 
 16, 1893. The lock is 40 feet deep, 60 feet wide, and 
 900 feet long. Vessels go through as well by night as 
 day, only fog, which sometimes makes it hard to find the 
 narrow channel leading to the lock, stopping the proces- 
 sion. The canals on both sides of the international 
 boundary are now free to the vessels of both nations. 
 The larger vessels, however, often choose the Canadian 
 canal, and the tonnage which annually passes through it 
 is three times as great as that passing through the Suez 
 Canal. 
 
VII. MANITOULIN 
 
 " Girdled by Huron's throbbing and thunder; 
 Out of the drift and rift of its blue ; 
 Walled by mists from the world asunder, 
 Far from hate and passion and wonder, 
 Lieth the isle of the Manitou." 
 
 William Wilfred Campbell. 
 
 IT is easy to guess from the name they bear that the 
 Manitoulin Islands were supposed to be the haunt of 
 the Indians' Great Spirit, or " Manitou " ; and very 
 appropriately, the descendants of the former lords of 
 lake and forest here hold their own a little more firmly 
 than in most other districts of Ontario. There are nine 
 or ten " Reserves " on the Manitoulin Islands ; and out 
 of a population of about 7000 the Indians (chiefly 
 Ottawas and Ojibways), number between one and two 
 thousand. 
 
 Great Manitoulin, said to be " the largest fresh-water 
 island in the world," is about as large as the Isle of 
 Wight and the Channel Islands taken together. Its 
 coast-line is extraordinarily indented, and its land- 
 surface is further diminished by lakes galore, some of 
 considerable size. One of these. Lake Wolseley, is 
 separated from Campbell Bay by a mile of shallow reef, 
 which is now " filled in " and " made into the Indian 
 Point Bridge," saving travellers a ten-mile trip round 
 the head of the lake. Tobacco Lake, which has no 
 visible outlet, lies amongst the hills, which, however, are 
 of no great altitude, the highest point in Great Manitou- 
 lin being 350 feet above the level of Lake Huron. The 
 largest sheet of water in the island is Lake Manitou, but 
 
 88l 
 
282 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 the most beautiful, according to Mr. Arthur Seaton 
 (writer of an interesting article in The Westminster), is 
 Lake Mindemoya. Its waters, of opalescent tints of blue 
 and green, are in part surrounded by shores of " white 
 fretted limestone mounted with trees and flowers." There 
 are caves too in these white rocks, with arched roofs, that 
 recall the groining of a cathedral, whilst Mother Nature, 
 seemingly in whimsical mood, has decorated the lake 
 with statuary, in the shape of " a high island, which at 
 one side looks like an old woman sewing moccasins, hence 
 the name ' Mindemoya,' " meaning " Old Woman." 
 
 Some seventy-five years ago, Mrs. Jameson, the 
 famous writer and art critic, visited Manitoulin and 
 wrote an account of an Indian Council held while she 
 was there. She was, by the way, the daughter of an 
 Irish artist, named Murphy, " Painter-in-ordinary to the 
 Princess Charlotte," and the wife of a barrister, Robert 
 Jameson, who became Attorney-General and, later, Vice- 
 Chancellor of Upper Canada. The marriage was not a 
 happy one, and ultimately the pair agreed to separate, 
 but, before that, Mrs. Jameson spent a few months in 
 Canada with her husband, and afterwards published a 
 book, which has its interest for Canadians of to-day, 
 called, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada. 
 
 She states that the Government of Upper Canada at 
 one time had an idea of forming " an Indian Settlement " 
 on the Manitoulin Islands, but that some people objected 
 that this would retard the civilisation of the red men, by 
 making their religious instruction more difficult, and 
 throwing them back on hunting and fishing. Some 
 persons also asserted that the soil of the Manitoulin 
 Islands was unsuited for agriculture, but Mrs. Jameson 
 gave the Government credit for good intentions at any 
 rate. 1837, when she was in Manitoulin, was the second 
 year in which the annual distribution of presents to the 
 Indians had taken place there. Those desiring presents 
 
MANITOULIN 283 
 
 were obliged to attend in person, so there was a great 
 concourse of 3700 Indians, including many Chippewas, 
 Ottawas, and Pottawatamies, some of whom had travelled 
 five hundred miles for presents that to the Irish lady 
 seemed very trifling. The chiefs got something in addi- 
 tion, but the present given to each man of the rank and 
 file consisted of " f yard of blue cloth, 3 yards of linen, 
 J oz. thread, 4 strong needles, i comb, i butcher's knife, 
 3 lbs. tobacco, 9 lbs. shot, 4 lbs. powder, and 6 flints." 
 There were presents also, but less in value and variety, 
 for the women and children. All of these things were 
 given to the chiefs, who distributed them to their people 
 with a fairness that seemed to give general satisfaction. 
 
 During the days they spent on the island, the Indians 
 received rations of Indian corn and melted fat — " tallow," 
 Mrs. Jameson called it — which they made into porridge, 
 reported by some white men to be quite palatable. In 
 addition to this simple fare, the Indians were able to 
 catch plenty of fish for themselves. 
 
 The Governor, Sir Francis Bond Head, was prevented 
 attending the council by the death " of the Great Father 
 on the other side of the Great Salt Lake and the accession 
 of Queen Victoria," but, in his stead, Mr. Jarvis, Super- 
 intendent of Indian affairs, addressed the Indians, through 
 an interpreter, giving notice that after two years more 
 the Government would cease to give presents to Indians 
 resident in American territory, but inviting all who 
 chose to come to live in any part of the British Empire 
 they preferred, from Manitoulin Island to England itself! 
 Finally a silk flag, bearing a representation of a lion, 
 emblematic of the English, and of a beaver, emblematic 
 of the Indians, was given into the custody of the Ottawas 
 resident on the island, to be kept for all the tribes. 
 
 The Indian interpreter, Assikinack, or " the Black 
 Bird," an intelligent man, with a strangely high-pitched 
 voice, was esteemed a great orator, and had the reputa- 
 
284 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 tion of having once spoken from sunrise to sunset. In 
 youth he had been a drunkard, but having been con- 
 verted to Christianity, had learned to hate " fire-water." 
 On one occasion he was commissioned by Mr. Jarvis " to 
 capture a cargo of rum on its way north from Detroit and 
 throw it into the river." His baptismal name was Jean 
 Baptiste, and the signature, J. B. Assikinack, appears 
 on more than one Indian treaty. In 1812 he had been 
 present at the capture of Machillimackinac. He was 
 then forty-four, but survived till 1866, almost living out 
 his century. In 1840 his son Francis was sent by Mr. 
 Jarvis to Upper Canada College, where he did excellently, 
 taking several prizes. Ultimately he became a clerk and 
 interpreter in the Indian Department. The name of " the 
 Black Bird " survives in the township name of Assignack, 
 in Manitoulin. 
 
 From the top of a steep hill near Lake Mindemoya are 
 to be seen many well-cultivated farms, belonging both to 
 white and red owners ; but there is also a strange " circle 
 on one of the hills," to which the Indians, though no 
 longer heathen, come once a year " to keep up the 
 ancient practice of shooting the evil spirit with arrow 
 or with musket." Yet some of the Indians are very 
 progressive, improving their lands and keeping the roads 
 in. repair, as do the better class of white settlers. The 
 village of West Bay, for instance, with its white-washed 
 log church and houses and its fishing-boats moored along 
 the sands, is most picturesque and attractive. Mr. Seaton, 
 who spent the night in one of the houses, found that his 
 Indian hostess had taken " a domestic science course " at 
 the Industrial School of Wikwemikong, in the " unceded " 
 portion of Great Manitoulin, and the well-cooked and 
 nicely-served meals she prepared for her guest witnessed 
 to the excellence of her training. 
 
 The special interest of Manitoulin seems to lie largely 
 with the Indians, but, as mentioned before, the white 
 
MANITOULIN 285 
 
 section of the population is immensely the larger. The 
 Islands were opened in part to settlement in the sixties, 
 but when, in 1870, the Red River Expedition was on its 
 way westward, white settlers were very few. Amongst 
 them, however, was one enterprising " Yankee," engaged 
 in making jam in large quantities, which he sent into 
 the United States and to various parts of Canada. He 
 lived on what was called " Raspberry Island." 
 
 The white population is derived chiefly from older 
 Ontario, the original settlers paying fifty cents an acre 
 for their lands to a Government fund to be used for the 
 benefit of the Indians. In places the land is stony ; and 
 great piles of " land-stones " in many of the fields tell a 
 tale of struggle and endurance. The chief towns are 
 Gore Bay (the district town), and Little Current. 
 
 It is said that the best way to see the " Great Mani- 
 toulin," of the beauty of which its inhabitants are very 
 proud, is to walk or drive inland, and to take a voyage 
 in " the fish tug " which collects the catch of the fisher- 
 men from the hamlets along the shores. The difficulty 
 of access to markets has been a long-standing grievance 
 to Manitoulin farmers, who have hitherto been sorely at 
 mercy of wind and weather in their communication with 
 the mainland, but, at last, the long-agitated-for railroad 
 connection is in sight. In fact, the Algoma Eastern 
 Railroad Company has laid its rails to the yards on Goat 
 Island, opposite Little Current, and the work on the huge 
 bridge which is to carry the railroad into the island is 
 being pressed forward. 
 
VIII. THUNDER BAY 
 
 " We fathers and our fathers saw, before the white man came, 
 Yon mighty giant heave in sleep and breathe the sulphurous flame ; 
 Have seen him, roused in anger, lash these seas in furious wrath, 
 And all the torrents of his ire iii lightning pouring forth ; . . . 
 But never saw through lifted clouds his rugged sides before 
 The white man came to drive away those lurid clouds of yore. " 
 
 H. R. A. PococK. 
 
 THE very name of Thunder Bay appeals to the 
 imagination, and, even when traveUing along the 
 rugged coast of Lake Superior in the idle ease and 
 the accompanying noise and crowding of a modern 
 railway train, one understands a little how Indian 
 legends of grim gods and sleeping giants — with the 
 powers of tempest and death in their keeping — should 
 have arisen here. The shifting mists, the dark waters, 
 the towering crags of " Kitchi-gama " — the Ojibways' 
 " Big Sea Water "—even now force one to think of the 
 sternest side of nature, and of the mysteries of pain and 
 storm. Here and there along the margin of the lake 
 man has made good his foothold, and, though in one sense 
 his achievements of engineering skill and mechanical in- 
 genuity are dwarfed by the grand scale of nature's 
 workings, this, from another point of view, but adds 
 to his triumph. The forbidding rocks and long, long 
 stretches of lonely wilderness hint at the magnitude of 
 the powers against which the explorer, the trader, the 
 maker of railways has pitted himself, sometimes to meet 
 crushing disaster, often to come off conqueror. 
 
 At all times men have been few in the Thunder Bay 
 
 236 
 
THUNDER BAY 287 
 
 District, but these few have been, for the most part, men 
 of energy, who have dared largely, though not rarely, for 
 ends that seem small enough, and so the story, as it is to 
 be pieced out from the records kept under difficulties by 
 explorers and traders, has fascinations which here can 
 scarcely be hinted at. First it is Frenchmen who en- 
 chain our interest. The valiant pair, Radisson and 
 Des Groseilliers, whose love of country suffered eclipse, 
 perhaps, through their love of adventure, may have been 
 the first of white men to reach the Kaministiquia (where 
 the city of Fort William now stands), after which, turn- 
 ing northwards, they passed through the Lake Nipigon 
 region. Some sixteen years later, in 1678, Greysolon 
 Dulhut, "one of the most daring spirits in the service of 
 France in Canada," is supposed to have erected a trading- 
 post at the mouth of the Kaministiquia. Afterwards he 
 built a fort in the heart of the wilderness at Lake Nipigon, 
 which vast sheet of water is now the centre of one of the 
 largest of Ontario's forest reserves. Here he probably 
 stayed for several years, and no doubt succeeded in 
 diverting some of the Indian trade from the English 
 posts on Hudson Bay; but when the French finally 
 resigned their claims to that region they only became the 
 more eager in prosecuting the trade in the districts north 
 and west of Lake Superior. 
 
 In 1 728 La V6rendrye was in charge at Lake Nipigon, 
 and whilst there heard from the Indians marvellous tales 
 of the farther west, which impelled him to devote the 
 remainder of his life to the hard task of the explorer. 
 But such undertakings were costly, and to enable him to 
 finance the work he obtained from the French Govern- 
 ment a monopoly of the fur trade in the far west, as men 
 then knew or imagined it. In 1731 he wintered where 
 Fort William now is, before starting on his search for 
 the western sea, but in the following summer this noble 
 and courageous explorer, who was actuated not by love 
 
288 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 of gain, but by a passion for discovery, passed to a stage 
 beyond the boundaries of Thunder Bay. 
 
 Some seventy years later, when the United States 
 Government imposed a duty of from twenty to twenty- 
 five per cent, on all goods carried over the " Grand Port- 
 age" in Minnesota, which was the route used by the 
 North -West Company, that great trading association 
 removed its headquarters from the Portage to the mouth 
 of the Kaministiquia, having previously sent out men to 
 search for a new water route (entirely within British 
 boundaries) from Lake Superior to Lake Winnipeg. A 
 way had thus been discovered from Lake Nipigon to 
 Portage de L'Isle, on the Winnipeg River, but it was not 
 a convenient route. Then, in 1798, the old French route 
 from the Kaministiquia, by Dog Lake, Dog River, Rainy 
 Lake, and the Lake of the Woods, was rediscovered 
 by Roderick Mackenzie, a cousin of the more famous 
 Sir Alexander Mackenzie. 
 
 The buildings at the mouth of the Kaministiquia were 
 begun about 1801, but the removal was not completed 
 till 1804, and the new fort did not receive its present 
 name till 1807, when it was named Fort William, in 
 honour of William McGillivray, one of the partners of 
 the North- West Company. From this time Fort William 
 was the point from which the Montreal voyageurs or 
 mangeurs de lard, turned back towards the east, and 
 the trappers and hunters again set forth towards the 
 regions of the setting sun. Alternately it was the scene 
 of wild feasts and revels, of the strenuous labours of 
 loading and unloading the trading canoes, and of fierce 
 contentions amongst their rival crews. The fort was 
 imposing in appearance, consisting of a large number of 
 houses, stores, workshops, and other buildings, sur- 
 rounded by a palisade fifteen feet in height. After 18 13 
 its great banqueting-hall was adorned by a map com- 
 pleted in that year by David Thompson, whose later 
 
THUNDER BAY 289 
 
 explorations were accomplished in the service of the 
 North- West Company. 
 
 In 1 8 16 Simon Fraser, who nine years earlier had 
 made " the descent of the fearful canon " down which the 
 river bearing his name plunges towards the Pacific, was 
 in charge at Fort William. It was the eventful year 
 when Lord Selkirk, hearing on his way to the Red River 
 of the murder of Governor Semple, turned aside to Fort 
 William to demand of the North- West Company's partners 
 there an account of their treatment of his unhappy 
 colonists. He was armed with the authority of a Magis- 
 trate of Upper Canada and the Indian Territories, and 
 backed by a force of 250 men, of whom many were ex- 
 perienced soldiers. On August 12th he encamped his 
 following on the south side of the Kaministiquia, in full 
 view of Fort William ; then he proceeded to arrest Fraser 
 and other partners, ultimately sending them to York for 
 trial, while he wintered at Fort William, and then went 
 on to the Red River. The Nor'- Westers had powerful 
 friends in the east, however, and soon the tables were 
 turned. The Earl had to answer in the courts, and was 
 fined two thousand pounds for having imprisoned the 
 traders at Fort William. Selkirk did not long survive 
 his harassing experiences in Canada, and in 1820, the 
 year of his death, the rival trading companies united 
 under the time-honoured name of the Hudson Bay 
 Company. 
 
 Fifty years later, on a bright May morning in 1870, 
 Colonel Wolseley, on his way to chastise Riel, passed 
 " the clean, white buildings " of Fort William, and landed 
 a little to the north, naming the spot Prince Arthur's 
 Landing (afterwards changed to Port Arthur) in honour 
 of Queen Victoria's third son (now our Governor-General). 
 There the troops were disembarked, and as an old Indian 
 • stood watching the landing of a company of sappers and 
 gunners he exclaimed: "What a lot of white people 
 
290 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 there must be in the world ! " But the problems con- 
 nected with the taking of all these men and the necessary 
 stores through the wilderness to the Red River seemed 
 at times to defy solution. Immediately after Confedera- 
 tion the cutting of what was called the Dawson Road 
 had been begun, but as yet it extended only forty-four 
 miles, and had been recently damaged by forest fires. 
 Renewed fires, tempests, floods, plagues of flies, the 
 inexperience of boatmen — all threatened the success of 
 the expedition, but patience and cheerfulness won the 
 day and accompHshed the task. 
 
 But it is not to soldiers alone that the untracked 
 wilderness turns a forbidding face. The surveyors of 
 our first transcontinental railway — the C.P.R. — had no 
 less hardships to endure, no fewer difficulties to sur- 
 mount. In 1 872 a surveyors' party of seven, owing to 
 a little carelessness in leaving alight the fire at which 
 they had cooked breakfast, all lost their lives in a forest 
 fire. Another party, exploring for the Nipigon and 
 Port Arthur branch in the winter of 1879-80, were frozen 
 in on a sudden drop of the temperature, whilst trying " to 
 navigate Black Bay in the venerable tug Neff." The 
 tunnelling of the huge crags and the construction of the 
 road-bed along the north shores of Lake Superior were 
 scarcely less difficult than the crossing of the western 
 mountains, but in both instances man's ingenuity 
 triumphed over nature's " thus far and no further ! " 
 
 The Canadian Pacific Railway gave a great impulse to 
 the growth of Port Arthur, which by 1887 had a popu- 
 lation of 4500. Then a serious difference of opinion 
 between the authorities of the town and the railway was 
 followed by the removal of the divisional headquarters of 
 the latter to Fort WiUiam, which, of course, caused that 
 old fur-traders' station to develop rapidly. Meanwhile, 
 Port Arthur languished, till, in 1902, it became the lake 
 port of the Canadian Northern Railway, and now " the 
 
THUNDER BAY 291 
 
 twin cities," with their immense docks and elevators, 
 flourish side by side. 
 
 But they do not live wholly by the activities of the 
 transportation business. The stern country behind 
 them is rich in mineral wealth. Ages ago some ancient 
 people mined for copper on Isle Royale, just beyond the 
 international boundary line, and the spot where Port 
 Arthur stands was called by the Indians " Shuniah " or 
 " Silver," a name justified by some finds of the precious 
 metal during the construction of the streets. The red 
 men feared to awaken the wrath of " the Sleeping Giant " 
 by pointing out his treasures, but the clue to the dis- 
 covery of the Rabbit Mountain silver mine was given by 
 an Indian. This is only one of many rich mines in the 
 district, whilst the Atikokan Iron Company has a huge 
 smelting plant at Port Arthur. 
 
IX. RAINY RIVER 
 
 " Through tangled forests, and through dangerous ways ; 
 Where beasts with man divided empire claim, 
 And the brown Indian marks with murderous aim.'' 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 THIS district has a name which, though picturesque, 
 appears to convey a reflection upon its climate. 
 In reahty, however, the name was not intended to do this, 
 but was given by the French traders to the lake and 
 stream, as " Lac " and " Riviere k la Pluie," because they 
 were connected by a perpendicular waterfall of such force 
 that it raised a mist like rain. The voyageurs frequently 
 seized upon such striking natural features to distinguish 
 places in the wilderness, and it was they who dubbed 
 the cataract itself the " Chaudiere," or " Caldron," as the 
 falls on the Ottawa were named earlier. 
 
 It is 225 years since a young Frenchman, Jacques de 
 Noyon, wintered, it is supposed, at the mouth of the 
 Rainy River, where he heard from the Indians of a 
 nation of dwarfs, " three and a half or four feet tall and 
 very stout," and of cities to the west inhabited by white 
 men with beards, and of ships that fired great guns. 
 Probably De Noyon reached the Lake of the Woods, but 
 he did not discover the Indians' land of marvels. A few 
 years later a French officer. La Noiie, was sent to estab- 
 lish a trading-post on Rainy Lake, with a view of inter- 
 cepting the furs carried to the English on Hudson Bay. 
 
 In 1731, La V^rendrye, beginning his western explora- 
 tions, sent his nephew, La Jemeraye, to build a fort for 
 
 him on Rainy Lake. After some difficulty in persuading 
 
 292 
 
RAINY RIVER 293 
 
 men to go with him, not only on account of the long and 
 difficult portages but also for fear, it is said, of the demons 
 that were supposed to haunt the little-known western 
 solitudes, the young man succeeded in building Fort St. 
 Pierre, as he named the new post in honour of his uncle. 
 After wintering there he returned with a rich harvest 
 of furs, and, cheered by this good fortune. La V6rendrye 
 and the rest of the party proceeded to the new fort, which 
 was situated in a delightful meadow, surrounded by a 
 grove of oaks. After a short rest, the leader pushed on 
 to the Lake of the Woods, escorted by a flotilla of fifty 
 Indian canoes. On a peninsula, running far into the lake 
 from its western shore (now Manitoba), was built another 
 post. Fort St. Charles, consisting of a quadruple oblong 
 of posts, from twelve to fifteen feet high, which enclosed 
 several log-cabins. It was an excellent spot for the fur 
 trade, and for several years La Verendrye, though he 
 had by no means given up hope of pursuing his journey 
 westward, made it his headquarters. Once he had to 
 travel back to Montreal to persuade the merchants there 
 to furnish him with additional supplies. Returning, he 
 hastened forward in a light canoe, to find his people at 
 Fort St. Charles approaching the starvation point. Then 
 came his son Jean, from Lake Winnipeg, to report the 
 death of La Jemeraye, and it was decided to send the 
 young man with some of the most active of the voyageurs 
 to meet and hasten the provision boats. A Jesuit, Father 
 Aulneau, joined the party, which started from the fort 
 very early one morning. But, a day or two later, the 
 supply boats arrived, and their crews reported that they 
 had seen nothing of Jean and his comrades. At once, 
 the anxious father sent out a search-party, and horrible 
 was the discovery that they made. 
 
 On a little island, off what is now known as Oak Point, 
 guarding the entrance to the Rainy River, the headless 
 bodies of the whole company were found lying in a circle 
 
294 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 on the beach, where it was supposed that they had stopped 
 to breakfast, and had been attacked suddenly by a band 
 of Sioux. Afterwards it leaked out that, during La 
 V6rendrye's absence, a party of Sioux visiting Fort St- 
 Charles had been fired upon by some Crees who happened 
 to be within. The French got the credit of this piece 
 of treachery, and upon the French the Sioux took the 
 first opportunity of wreaking vengeance. La V^rendrye's 
 Indian allies pressed him to make war on the murderous 
 Sioux, and at first the gallant Frenchman was sorely 
 tempted to take their advice ; but he knew that, if he did 
 so, it was " good-bye " to all his plans of exploration, so 
 he finally laid aside any thought of retaliation. 
 
 About 1765, the Indians of Rainy Lake made them- 
 selves so obnoxious to the traders, by plundering them 
 of their goods and demanding blackmail, that they earned 
 the name of "the Pillagers." Two notable traders of 
 Montreal, Benjamin and James Frobisher, suffered much 
 at the hands of these thievish Indians, on their first 
 expedition ; but afterwards, by " a show of force and 
 co-operation" with other traders, they managed to get 
 their goods safely through the dangerous country. 
 
 The names of many remarkable men amongst the 
 traders are connected with the Rainy River District. 
 The elder and the younger Alexander Henry (uncle and 
 nephew), David Thompson and Daniel Williams Harmon, 
 all travelled by way of Rainy Lake and the Lake of the 
 Woods westward. The last-mentioned traveller, when he 
 reached Rainy River Fort on July 24th, in the year 1800, 
 found many Chippewas encamped near by, living on the 
 sturgeon and white fish they caught in the lake, and on 
 wild rice, which though darker in colour than the " real 
 rice," was nearly as nourishing and palatable. About 
 1791, Peter Grant, then only in his twenties, but already 
 a partner of the North- West Company, was in charge 
 of the fort on Rainy Lake, and, at the request of that 
 
RAINY RIVER 295 
 
 literary trader, Roderick Mackenzie, he wrote some inter- 
 esting descriptions of the manners and customs of the 
 Indians and the methods of the voyageurs. 
 
 It was Sir George Simpson, for forty years Governor 
 of the Hudson Bay Company's vast territories in North 
 America, who named the Rainy River post Fort Frances, 
 in honour of his wife, and in his account of his 
 journey round the world he spoke of this district with 
 less than the usual caution of the fur-trader when dealing 
 with the resources of the country. " From the very brink 
 of the river," he says, " there rises a gentle slope of 
 greenwood, crowned in many places with a plentiful 
 growth of birch, poplar, beech, elm, and oak. Is it too 
 much for the eye of philanthropy to discern, through the 
 vista of futurity, this noble stream, connecting, as it does, 
 the fertile shores of two spacious lakes, with crowded 
 steamboats on its bosom and populous towns on its 
 borders ? " 
 
 In Captain Huyshe's account of the " The Red River 
 Expedition," he tells with what delight the toil-worn, 
 ragged troops bound for Manitoba reached Fort Frances, 
 "the long-expected half-way house." The fort itself, 
 consisting of " a collection of one-storied block-houses," 
 surrounded by a palisade, stood just opposite to the lovely 
 falls of the Rainy River, and its surroundings seemed 
 like " a glimpse of the Promised Land," especially as the 
 party had been detained for days on an island in Rainy 
 Lake by a north-westerly gale, solacing themselves as 
 best they could during their captivity by eating and 
 gathering into every available receptacle the delicious 
 blue-berries that grew on the island. 
 
 Anxious lest the Chippewas might attempt to prevent 
 the passage of the troops through the wilds, the Govern- 
 ment at Ottawa had sent on agents in advance to inform 
 the Indians that the soldiers were on the way, and to 
 arrange that they should allow them to pass peaceably. 
 
296 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 A great council had been held at Fort Frances, and the 
 Indians had lingered there for long, awaiting the arrival 
 of the force, but the difficulties of the journey so delayed 
 it that at last most of them grew impatient and left, and, 
 when Colonel Wolseley arrived, only half a dozen lodges 
 remained pitched beside the fort. But few as they were, 
 the braves from these lodges did not permit the colonel 
 and his officers to pass without a lengthy " pow-wow." 
 One Indian after another, with his hair plaited in long 
 tails and his blanket draped about him like a Roman 
 toga, inflicted his incomprehensible eloquence on the 
 strangers ; and the Englishmen, at first amused with the 
 novelty of the scene, had more than enough of it before 
 it was over. But the Chippewas gave no trouble ; and 
 Colonel Wolseley established at Fort Frances a depot of 
 supplies and a hospital, to guard which a company of the 
 I st Ontario Rifles was left behind in a camp on the grassy 
 bank of the river. Since those days Fort Frances has 
 become a busy little place of several thousand inhabitants, 
 having easy connection bymeans of the Canadian Northern 
 Railway and steamboats with the world at large. 
 
 Rainy River District was of course involved in the 
 boundary dispute between Ontario and the Dominion 
 Governments; but the story can be told more con- 
 veniently in connection with Kenora. 
 
X. KENORA 
 
 " Here Nature holds her Carnival of Isles, 
 Steeped in warm sunlight all the merry day, 
 Each nodding tree and floating greenwood smiles, 
 And moss-crowned monsters move in grim array." 
 
 Charles Sangster. 
 
 IN this district the interest of the story centres chiefly 
 about the place that for considerably over a century 
 was known as Rat Portage — so called, it is said, from the 
 numbers of musk-rats seen crossing this way. Here the 
 Lake of the Woods pours its waters into the Winnipeg 
 River by three distinct cataracts — " Hebe's Falls," " The 
 Witch's Caldron," and another. 
 
 By this route, in 1732, passed La V^rendrye's son on 
 his way to Lake Winnipeg, and many a later tralveller 
 followed in his steps, doubtless noting as he descended 
 what one of them, Harmon, described as the " majestick 
 and frightful waterfalls " of the Winnipeg River. In its 
 course, says Captain Butler, in his Great Lone Land, 
 there is a descent, "by terraces," of 360 feet in 160 
 miles, and in ascending the river he had to make no less 
 than twenty-seven portages, but words failed him in his 
 attempt to do justice to its beauty. A quarter of a 
 century earlier, Ballantyne, the author of many a stirring 
 book for boys, who was at that time in the service of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, crossed the Lake of the Woods 
 in a great canoe paddled by eight sturdy boatmen, at a 
 speed of seventy-two miles a day, and tells how the sight 
 of the " sombre forest rivers of the American wilderness " 
 had, upon him, " the same effect as sacred music." 
 
298 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company's first fort at Rat Portage 
 was on an island below the falls, and at times was diffi- 
 cult of access, but before 1852 it was removed to what 
 was later the west side of the main street of Rat Portage 
 town. In 1870 Captain Huyshe described the post as "a 
 small affair," consisting of three log houses, roofed with 
 bark and enclosed by a high palisade. Of the thirteen 
 men attached to the post, nine were employed at outlying 
 places ; and the well-educated Scotchman in charge had 
 been " buried alive " here for thirteen years, receiving news 
 of the outer world only once or twice a year. But he was 
 "quite happy and contented" with his family and his 
 little farm, " of a few acres of wheat, barley, and potatoes, 
 some pigs and cows," and a large number of "nasty- 
 looking " dogs, of all sizes and colours, used in winter for 
 drawing sledges. 
 
 There were three distinct "carrying-places" at Rat 
 Portage, to match its three waterfalls. One of these, 
 distant three miles from the Hudson's Bay post, was 
 used chiefly for big boats, as it was only 1 30 yards long, 
 and a nearer one, though twice as long and very rough, 
 was used for light craft. Behind the town stretches the 
 magnificent lake with its maze of islands, on which the 
 Indians used to grow their crops of corn. The Ojibways 
 called it the " Lake of the Islands," and in its northern 
 half at least it emulates " the Thousand Isles," as many 
 a voyager, venturing without a guide amongst the per- 
 plexing labyrinth, has found to his cost. No less a person 
 than Lord (then Colonel) Wolseley discovered that in 
 such a case "most haste" may be "least speed." 
 Travelling in a light canoe, he had been storm-stayed 
 on an island in the southern part of the lake, and desiring 
 to press on while there was still " too much sea " for so 
 frail a craft, he had changed into a " gig." But he had 
 neglected to make sure of a competent guide, and hour 
 after hour was spent in rowing into one " cuLde sac " after 
 
KENORA 299 
 
 another, till the bewildered white men had the good 
 fortune to fall in with an Indian, who, understanding 
 their signals of distress, though not their language, 
 guided them safely to Rat Portage. There they found 
 that seventeen large boats, filled with men of the 60th 
 Regiment, driven by a favouring breeze, had arrived 
 before them, and preparations were being made to light 
 a beacon on a conspicuous island to guide the lost com- 
 mander to his destination. A few days earlier six 
 Hudson's Bay Company's boats had been sent to Rat 
 Portage by the loyal people of the Red River, with an 
 urgent request that men and guns might be sent back in 
 them without delay, as there was danger of an Indian 
 rising. But there is no occasion to follow the expedition 
 further, for the story of its bloodless victory and of Riel's 
 flight belongs to Manitoba. 
 
 About this time began a struggle, in which the weapons 
 were pens and maps and dusty old books ; and the prize 
 contended for was the western portion of Thunder Bay 
 and the whole of the districts of Rainy River and Kenora. 
 It was one of the numerous boundary disputes which 
 figure in Canadian history, but was strictly a family 
 quarrel between tlje Dominion Government (later re- 
 inforced by that of Manitoba) against the Province of 
 Ontario. In 1 869, when the annexation of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company's Territories to the Dominion was being 
 arranged, it was suggested that Ontario's northern and 
 western boundaries ought to be defined. Upon this 
 there arose a dispute, of which it is impossible here to 
 give a detailed account, as to where these boundary fines 
 ought to be drawn. Ontario claimed that her boundaries 
 on the north and west coincided with those of old Canada 
 under the Quebec Act, but the Dominion contended for 
 the Height of Land between the basins of the rivers 
 flowing to the Great Lakes and to Hudson Bay as the 
 northern boundary, and a line drawn a little west of the 
 
300 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 89th parallel of longitude (or about six and a half miles 
 east of Port Arthur) as the western boundary. The 
 question, which involved a vast amount of historical re- 
 search, was by mutual agreement submitted to arbitration. 
 The award, made in 1878, upheld Ontario's claim, but 
 the Dominion Government refused to ratify it, and in 
 1 88 1 passed an act putting this "disputed territory" 
 under the jurisdiction of Manitoba. 
 
 Upon that Manitoba appointed justices of the peace at 
 several places in the district, incorporated Rat Portage 
 as a Manitoba town, appointed a police magistrate there, 
 and acquired a building to be used as a jail. But the 
 magistrates of Ontario had been exercising jurisdiction 
 in the territory since 1871, and already there was at Rat 
 Portage in the pay of Ontario a stipendiary magistrate 
 and a small police force. There was also a court-house 
 and a jail which had been built by Ontario. On August 13, 
 1883, a public meeting held at Rat Portage asked that it 
 might be incorporated as an Ontario town. 
 
 Under these circumstances there was necessarily some 
 friction amongst the rival guardians of the peace, and 
 there was also trouble over the timber licenses issued by 
 the Dominion Government. A few arrests were made, 
 but the actual disorder was never very great, though the 
 confusion of authority made a perilous situation. For 
 instance, September 28, 1883, saw the polling at Rat 
 Portage for members for both the Provincial Legislatures 
 of Ontario and Manitoba, and the latter province judged 
 it necessary to order the Winnipeg Field Battery to assist 
 to keep order, but the polling passed off peacefully. Soon 
 afterwards the Manitoba authorities took action against 
 the holders of Ontario liquor licenses ; but when one of 
 these, M'Quarrie, was arrested by the Manitoba Chief of 
 Police and three of his men, a stronger force of Ontario 
 policemen hberated M'Quarrie and arrested his captors. 
 
 Happily, at this pass the governments of the rival 
 
KENORA 301 
 
 provinces determined to make a great effort to settle the 
 dispute peaceably. Accordingly arrangements were made 
 for the submission to the Imperial Privy Council of a 
 Special Case. In the meantime all prisoners were re- 
 leased, and it was agreed that the affairs of the territory 
 should be administered by the two governments jointly 
 till a decision could be reached. In the following summer 
 the Privy Council decided (as the arbitrators had done) 
 in favour of Ontario, in which province the satisfactory 
 settlement of the dispute was generally credited to Hon. 
 Oliver Mowat, and upon his return from England in 
 September, 1884, he received a welcome perhaps "un- 
 paralleled in the history of any Ontario public man." 
 
 Rat Portage, now become, with one of its sister towns, 
 Kenora (a name evolved ingeniously by adding together 
 the first syllable of the three names Keewatin, Norman, 
 and Rat Portage) has a population of over 6000. It is a 
 great summer resort for Winnipeg people and a growing 
 industrial centre. At the neighbouring town, Keewatin 
 (still having an independent existence) are immense 
 works to develop power from the Falls. It possesses 
 also one of the largest flouring mills in the world, built 
 of granite quarried in the neighbourhood. A few years 
 ago sturgeon roe (for caviare) and berries used to be the 
 chief exports of Rat Portage, and still there are sturgeon 
 (and numerous other fish) in the Lake of the Woods. 
 
 The land in the district is easily cleared, as the timber 
 is generally small, and about Kenora are many market 
 gardens, which find a good sale for their produce in 
 Winnipeg. To encourage farming and to test the 
 capabilities of the region for the benefit of the incoming 
 settlers, the Ontario Government, in 1 894, established an 
 experimental farm at Dryden, in the Wabigoon section. 
 
XI. PATRICIA 
 
 ■• And now there came both mist and snow, 
 And it grew wondrous cold ; 
 And ice mast-high came floating by, 
 As green as emerald. . . . 
 
 The ice was here, the ice was there, 
 
 The ice was all around, 
 It cracked and growled, and ro ared and howled, 
 
 Like voices in a swound." 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 THE Story of the counties and districts of Ontario is 
 now all but completed as it has been found pos- 
 sible to tell it in the very limited space available for each. 
 There remains to be spoken of one district only — the 
 last, but (very literally) " not the least " — for Patricia — 
 so named in honour of the popular young princess then 
 resident in Canada — was added to the Province by Act of 
 the Dominion Parliament only in 191 2. In extent it com- 
 pares with all the rest of Ontario — Old and " New," as 
 we have been accustomed to call its northern portion — 
 as 55 or 60 to 100. In fact the area of the new district 
 is about one and one-fifth times the size of the British 
 Isles, and being bounded on the east and north by James 
 and Hudson Bays, it lengthens out Ontario's salt-water 
 shore to 600 miles in all. 
 
 It is true that many people regard the region as hope- 
 lessly frozen and inhospitable to man ; but the reports 
 of the explorers sent out in connection with the Geological 
 Survey tell of indications of mineral wealth ; of forests 
 
 which, though the trees are rarely of very large size, 
 
 30s 
 
PATRICIA 303 
 
 and though some districts have evidently been burnt over 
 more or less recently, may furnish large quantities of 
 pulpwood and timber for other uses ; of fish in lakes and 
 rivers and in the vast salt-water bays; of fur-bearing 
 animals, still numerous in spite of the depredations 
 wrought by hunters and traders for nearly two and a 
 half centuries ; of great navigable rivers, of water-powers, 
 chiefly inland ; and of possibilities (proved by the culti- 
 vation of vegetables in the gardens of many generations 
 of Hudson's Bay Company's factors) not small even in 
 agriculture. It is not easy for most of us to realise that 
 the new district is by no means Arctic in its latitudes ; 
 but its most northerly and most southerly points are 
 (roughly) in about the same latitudes as the most 
 northerly and southerly points of the British Isles. It 
 has been well said, however, that the agricultural value 
 of the land is " of less immediate interest," whilst there 
 still remain " such vast unsettled areas in other more 
 readily accessible parts of northern Ontario." 
 
 It may well be, indeed, that the question of comparative 
 accessibility may have to be revised, when the long- 
 discussed railways are built to Hudson Bay, and that 
 ancient waterway from the heart of the West to Europe 
 is restored to the importance it had in the palmy days of 
 the fur trade. The consensus of opinion of sea-captains 
 who have had experience of the navigation of the Bay 
 seems to be that for three months of the year at least 
 " Hudson Strait and Bay afford a safe commercial route 
 to Europe." It is stated, moreover, that " in the course 
 of a century and three-quarters (to 1870) 750 vessels, 
 ranging from 70-gun ships to 10- ton pinnaces, crossed 
 the ocean, passed through the straits, and sailed the bay 
 in the service of the (Hudson's Bay) Company. And 
 only two were lost. A marvellous record, when it is 
 remembered that all the craft were sailers, and most of 
 them small and of crude construction, and that the bay 
 
304 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 and strait afforded none of the modern accessories to 
 navigation in the way of coast aids." 
 
 But not all the navigators of the Bay were so fortunate 
 as the Company's servants. The very name reminds 
 one of a tragedy in which indeed the treachery of man 
 played part as well as the cruelty of the sea. Sailing in 
 1610 in his Httle Discovery to seek the elusive North- 
 West Passage to the East, Henry Hudson entered the 
 bay which bears his name and wintered on what was 
 later called James Bay. Curiously enough, Hudson and 
 the navigators who immediately followed him represented 
 this smaller bay on their charts as cut in two by a great 
 peninsula running up from the south. During the 
 winter provisions ran very low, and Hudson had hardly 
 set forth on his return voyage, when, according to the 
 account of one of the mutineers, some of the crew con- 
 spired against "the master," whom they bound and 
 forced with eight other men into a shallop, to shift for 
 themselves. One man alone, John King, the carpenter, 
 elected to leave the ship, if he might take with him his 
 chest of tools ; and one fancies that in this he played 
 the hero, for all the rest were sick or disabled. Fearing 
 lest the doomed men should overtake the ship, as they 
 seem to have tried to do, the mutineers crowded on all 
 sail, and the last chapter in Hudson's story was never 
 known to mortal man. "* 
 
 About six months after the mutineers reached England 
 (themselves having suffered terrible things), Hudson's 
 little Discovery sailed again with a larger consort, the 
 Resolution, under command of Sir Thomas Button, who 
 was commissioned to make another search for the " North- 
 West Passage." He was provided by King James with 
 a letter to the Emperor of Japan, and was bitterly dis- 
 appointed to find the western shores of the great bay 
 utterly impenetrable. At Port Nelson, which he named 
 after his sailing-master, Button and his company spent a 
 
PATRICIA 305 
 
 wretched winter, somehow losing the Resolution, for it 
 was in their smaller vessel that the survivors sailed for 
 home. Two years later, " the good and luckie ship 
 Discovery" carried Bylot and Baffin into Hudson Bay, 
 and in 1619 a Danish navigator, Jens Munk, came with 
 two ships to Port Churchill, but his crews suffered so 
 terribly that, of sixty-four persons, only himself and two 
 others survived the winter, and managed, in their smaller 
 vessel, with great difficulty to reach Norway. 
 
 The stretch of coast recently added to Ontario was 
 almost the last to be explored; but in 163 1 two expedi- 
 tions, commanded respectively by Luke Foxe, of Hull, 
 and Thomas James, of Bristol, sailed from England 
 within two days of each other in the Charles (a pinnace 
 of something less than 150 tons, lent to Foxe by the 
 King) and the Henrietta Maria (of 70 tons, fitted out by 
 James's fellow-citizens). The two vessels met at the 
 mouth of the Winisk River off the coast of " Patricia," 
 and the captains dined together, on August 29, on 
 James's ship, whose guest and rival seems, however, 
 to have treated him with scant politeness, holding him 
 to be "no seaman." 
 
 Both sailed on to Cape Henrietta Maria, so named by 
 James ; but from this point Foxe sailed northwards to 
 the channel now bearing his name, and then home, while 
 James sailed along the west coast of the bay called after 
 him, to winter on Charlton Island, where in the spring 
 the adventurers were sorely tormented by an "infinite 
 abundance of bloud-thirsty Muskitoes." Leaving his 
 winter quarters on July 3, 1632, James sailed back to 
 Cape Henrietta Maria and planted a cross, bearing the 
 royal arms and those of the city of Bristol. It was he 
 who discovered and named the new " Severne," after the 
 English river ; and it is said that the account of his 
 "strange and dangerous voyage" suggested to Coleridge 
 his weird, beautiful poem of "The Ancient Mariner." 
 
 U 
 
3o6 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Henceforth seekers for the "North-West Passage" 
 came no more into Hudson Bay; but some thirty-five 
 years later the ships of the Hudson's Bay Company 
 began to frequent it for the sake of the furs collected by 
 the Indians scattered through the surrounding wilder- 
 ness. It is still largely an Indian country, though the 
 red men are probably much less numerous than they 
 were two and a half centuries ago. There are other 
 changes, wrought not only by the coming of the traders, 
 but also by the self-denying labours of both Roman 
 Catholic and Protestant missionaries. There are now 
 few pagans amongst them, and, thanks to the wonder- 
 fully simple syllabic alphabet, invented by the Methodist 
 missionary. Rev. James Evans, "practically all the Indians 
 can read and write." In fact, " every Indian camping- 
 place and every point where canoe routes diverge become 
 local post-offices, where letters written on birch-bark" 
 are left for the information of persons coming after. A 
 few of the Indians of Patricia have built, for use in winter, 
 log-huts "with fireplaces and chimneys of wattles and 
 mud," but most still cling to the bark teepees. In the 
 matter of clothing the present-day Indians are scarcely 
 as well off as their forefathers, who dressed in the skins 
 of the animals they hunted or trapped, for they sell 
 everything marketable to the traders, and in place of 
 furs garb themselves in manufactured cloth, not always 
 of good quality. There is, however, no sale for rabbit- 
 skins, and these, cut (spirally) into long strips and sewn 
 together at the ends, are woven and fashioned into warm, 
 rough blankets and coats. 
 
 By 1685 there were five trading posts on the bay, and 
 in the following year it began to be the scene of the 
 daring exploits of D'Iberville. In 1694, and again in 
 1697, he captured Fort Nelson, which then remained in 
 his countrymen's hands till the resignation of all French 
 claims on the Hudson Bay territory by the Treaty of 
 
PATRICIA 307 
 
 Utrecht in 171 3. Afterwards, as York Factory, it was 
 the headquarters on the bay of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
 pany, and as such was the stage for many interesting 
 scenes. But just now the people of Ontario are thinking 
 rather of the future of this old port than of its past, for, 
 though not properly within Patricia, it is to be connected 
 therewith (for the building of a railway) by the " Five- 
 mile Strip " through the territory of Manitoba. Nor is 
 this all. At the mouth of the Nelson River an additional 
 space of five miles by half a mile will bring Ontario's 
 water-frontage up to ten miles, so that the Province may 
 construct a full equipment of docks, warehouses, and 
 grain-elevators at this new " Archangel of the West." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aeercrombie, 148 
 Abitibi, 271 
 
 — Lajce, 273 
 Addington, 7 
 
 — Henry Viscount Sidmouth, 7 
 Adolphustown, 7, 8, 9, 10, 19, 122 
 Albanel, 270 
 
 Albany, g, 200 
 
 Alexander, Henry, 294 
 
 Algoma, 230, 276 
 
 Algonquin Park, 263 
 
 Alionez, 277' 
 
 Allumette Islands, 152 
 
 Alnwick, 25 
 
 Alstine, Major von, 8 
 
 Amabel, 239 
 
 Amaranth, 81, 83, 84 
 
 Amelia, Princess, 13 
 
 Amherstburg, 66, 217, 218, 219, 221 
 
 Amhurst, 49 
 
 Ancaster, 160, 164 173 
 
 Anderdon, 221 
 
 Anne, Queen, no 
 
 Annwood, 20 
 
 Applegarth, John, 207 
 
 Arabella, 19 
 
 Arbroath, 41 
 
 Armstrong, Peter, 150 
 
 Artemesia, 248 
 
 Arthur, Governor, 79, 182 
 
 Askin, John, 216, 217 
 
 Assikinack, 283, 284 
 
 Augusta, 126, 128 
 
 Aulneau, Father, 293 
 
 Baffin, 305 
 Bain, Dr., 277 
 Baird, 45 
 Baldwin, 61 
 Balin, 182 
 Ballantyne, 297 
 Balsam, 47 
 Barcelona, 223 
 Barclay, Captain, 218 
 Barr, Dr., 83 
 
 — Jean W., ai6 
 
 Barrie, 78, 252 
 Basden, Captain, 207 
 Bathurst, 148 
 Bayfield, Captain, 256 
 Bayham, 194 
 Beachville, 201, 232 
 Bear Island, 264 
 Beasley, Richard, 158 
 Beatty, J. and W., 257 
 Beaupoil, Countess de, 89 
 Beaver River, 248 
 
 — dams, 9S, 96-97, 163 
 Beaverton, 51 
 
 Becker, Abigail, 193 
 
 Beckwith, 148 
 
 Beikie, Sheriff, 56 
 
 Belle Isle, 219 
 
 Belleville, 13, 17, 18, 19, 38 
 
 Bennington, 128 
 
 Berlin, 179, 180 
 
 Bertie, 98 
 
 Bethune, Alexander Neil, 104 
 
 — Rev. John, 104 
 Beverly, i8i 
 Bexley, 44 
 Bierce, 219 
 
 Big Bear Creek (Sydenham), 210 
 Big Creek, 192 
 Blackheath, no 
 Blake, E., 243 
 
 — Solicitor-General, 61 
 Blenheim, 200 
 Bobcaygeon, 46, 47 
 Boerstler, Colonel, 96 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 90, 195 
 Bond Head, Sir Francis, 20, 61, 155, 
 
 221 
 
 Bosanquet, 212, 226 
 Bowmanville, 25, 40, 41 
 Bracebridge, 251, 252, 254. 255, 257, 
 
 259 
 Bradstreet, Colonel, -^ 
 Brampton, 65 
 Brant, Catherine, 6g 
 
 — Elizabeth, 69 
 
 — John, 69, 176 
 
 309 
 
3IO 
 
 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Brant, Joseph, 69,70, 85,101,161,167, 
 168, 174, 178, 243 
 
 — Molly, 70 
 
 Brantford, 133, 134, 168-169, 170 
 
 Brtbeuf, 76 
 
 Biemt, Chief, 17a 
 
 Brighton, 25 
 
 Brook, Isaac, 58, 90, 92, 96, 135, 163, 
 
 200, 217 
 Brockville, 129, 135, 139 
 Bronte, 68 
 Brooke, 227 
 Brown, Colonel, 159 
 
 — George, 61, 176, 201, 228 
 
 — Letitia, 186 
 
 Bruce, 65, 75, 239-244, 246, 247 
 Buchanan, 6g, 155 
 Buck, Elijah, 23 
 Buffalo, 176 
 Bunyan, John, 33 
 Burford, 169 
 Burke, John, 38, 40 
 Burlington Bay, 200 
 
 — Beach, 158, 162 
 Burritt, Adoiiiram, 128 
 
 — Mrs., 127 
 
 — Stephen, 128, 129 
 Butler, 8s 
 
 — Captain, 297 
 Button, Sir Thomas, 304 
 By, Colonel, 142, 143 
 By lot, 305 
 
 Bytown, 153 
 
 Cabot's Head, 236 
 Cadean, Jean Baptiste, 277 
 Cadot, Madame, 278 
 Caledon, 66 
 Caledonia, 120 
 Calumet Islands, 152, 156 
 Cambridge, 122, 124 
 Cameron, Lake, 47 
 Campbell Bay, 281 
 
 — Major, 25, 264 
 Campbellford, 25 
 Canborough, 173 
 Canby, 173 
 Caprow, Hiram, 171 
 Carleton, 136, 144, 148 
 Carnochan, Janet, 87, 88 
 Cartwright, Hon. R., 5 
 Cary, Monsieur, 133 
 
 Casey, Miss, Prefatory Note, vii 
 Castere River, 124 
 Cataract, 66 
 Cataraqui, 2 
 
 — River, i 
 Cathcart, 233 
 Cayuga, 172 
 
 Cayuga, South, 173 
 
 Champlain, 75, 153, 256, 257, 261 
 
 Chandi^re, 142, 143 
 
 Chandler, General, 162 
 
 Charlevoix, 195, 216 
 
 Charlotteville, 192 
 
 Charlton Island, 305 
 
 Chateauguay, 114, 115 
 
 Chatham, 211, 212, 213 
 
 Chicago, 258 
 
 Chief Brant, 18 
 
 Chinguacousy, 65 
 
 Chippewa Creek, 97 
 
 Christ Church Cathedral, 158 
 
 Chrysler's Farm, 115 
 
 Clarence township, 122, 123, 124 
 
 Clarke, 39 
 
 Clinch, Captain, 174 
 
 Clinton, Sir Henry, 121 
 
 Cobalt, 274 
 
 Cobden, 156 
 
 Coburg (Amherst, Hamilton, Buck- 
 
 ville), 20, 23, 25, 26, 29 
 Cochrane, 262, 274 
 Cockburn, 252 
 Cody, Philip, 67 
 Colborne, 24 
 
 — Governor, 45 
 
 — Sir John, or Lord Seaton, 224, 
 225 
 
 Colchester, 216 
 
 CoUingwood, 245, 248, 257 
 
 Collins, S4 
 
 Conat, Roger, 38 
 
 Conklin, Elias, 171 
 
 Connecticut, 132, 133, 167 
 
 Cooksville, 65 
 
 Cooper, Fenimore, 238 
 
 Coots' Paradise, 160 
 
 Cork, 39 
 
 Cornwall (New Johnstown), 102, 104, 
 
 109, III, 114, 115, 118, 133 
 Comwallis, 148 
 Corunna, 225 
 Coteau, 115 
 Cowan, 76 
 
 Cravrford, Corporal, 51 
 Crawford, Isabella, 242 
 Credit Falls, 66 
 
 — Port, 65, 66 
 
 — River, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71 
 Crotter, Cape, 247 
 Cumberland, 122, 124 
 Cutter, George, 64 
 
 Dalhousie, Lord, 142, 143 
 D'Arcy M'Gee, 61, 84 
 Darlington, 36, 41 
 Daulac des Ormeaux, 116 
 
INDEX 
 
 311 
 
 Daumont de St. Lusson, 277 
 Dawn , 227 
 
 Dayton, Mrs., 133, 134 
 Dearborn, General, 58 
 Delaware River, 158, 204, 206, 207 
 Demorestville, 16 
 Denonville, 270 
 Depew, Charles, 158 
 Derby, 243 
 
 De Repentigny, Chevalier, 277 
 De Salaberry, 114 
 De Seronto, 21 
 Des Groseilliers, 270, 287 
 Detroit, 44, 92, 171, 205, 207, 211, 
 218, 220, 222, 228, 239 
 
 — River, 219 
 
 De Troyes, Chevalier, 270, 271 
 
 De Vignan, 152 
 
 Devil's Pulpit, 66 
 
 Dewson, Lieut.-Colonel, 79 
 
 D' Iberville, 306 
 
 Dickson, William, 173, 178-181 
 
 Dieskau, 167 
 
 Dingraan's Creek, 207 
 
 Dixon, 272 
 
 Dochstader, John, 172-174 
 
 Dog Lake, 288 
 
 — River, 288 
 DoUier de Casson , 157 
 Dorchester, Lord, 54, 102, 116, 136, 
 
 206 
 
 Doughty, Dr. , Prefatory Note, vii 
 Dow, Almira, 139 
 Drake, Benjamin, 198 
 Draper, 251 
 Druramond, 148 
 
 — Sir George, 207 
 Dryden, 301 
 
 Dufferin, 80, 81, 83, 184, 249 
 
 — Lord, 2S4, 259 
 Dufour, Jean, 214 
 Duke of Cumberland, 196 
 
 — of Kent, 13, 126, 196 
 
 — of Richmond, 139, 140 
 Duluth, 258 
 
 Dumfries, 178, 179, 181 
 
 Duncan, Captain, 242 
 
 Dundas, 102, loj, 107, 115, 122, 160 
 
 — Colonel, 130 
 
 " Dundurn Castle," 162 
 Dunlop, Dr., 184, 234, 235, 237, 
 238 
 
 — Mrs. , 237 
 Dunn, 172, 176 
 Dunville, 172, 175 
 Dunwich, 196 
 Durham, 22, 37, 39, i,t> 43 
 
 — Lord, S3 
 Dysart, 34, 3S 
 
 Earl, Captain Hugh, 172 
 East Flamboro', 166 
 Eaton, Timothy, 232 
 Edwardsburg, 126 
 Egypt, 148 
 Elgin, 194, 209 
 
 — Lord, 61, 62, 182 
 Elma, 230 
 
 Elmsley, Chief-Justice, 55 
 Elora, 188 
 
 — Falls of, ,i6g 
 Embro, 232 
 Emily, 43, 44 
 Emperor of Japan, 304 
 Enniskillen, 227 
 Eramosa, 187, 188 
 Erie, Fort, 97, 98 
 
 — Lake, 79, 80, 91, 99, 171, 175, 
 176, 181, 189, igi, 19s, 211, 214, 
 216, 218 
 
 Ermatinger, Charles, 279 
 Emestown, 7, 11, 122 
 Esquesing, 68, 72 
 Essex, 212, 214-223 
 Eugenia Falls, 248 
 Evans, Rev. James, 306 
 
 Faraday, 17 
 F6nelon, 44 
 
 — Abb6, 45 
 
 — Falls, 45 
 Fergus, 184 
 Fish Creek, 232 
 
 FitzGibbon, Lieutenant, 95, 96, 163 
 Fitzroy, 138 
 Flanders, 17 
 Fort Albany, 272 
 
 — Brady, 279 
 
 — Chippewa, 162 
 
 — Churchill, 275 
 
 — Coulonge, 152 
 
 — Erie, 162 
 
 — Frances, 295, 296 
 
 — Frontenac, i, 2, 14 
 
 — George, 162 
 
 — Maiden, 218 
 
 — Nelson, 306 
 
 — Rupert, 271 
 
 — St. Charles, 293, 294 
 
 — St. Pierre, 293 
 
 — William, 287, 288, 289, 290 
 Foxe, Luke, 305 
 
 Francis, Captain, 176 
 Francis, W. J., 31 
 Frankford, 20 
 Franklin, Sir John, 33, 77, 143 
 
 — Lady, 33, 246 
 Fraser, Simon, 289 
 Fredericksburg, 7 
 
312 
 
 THE COUNTIES OP ONTARIO 
 
 French River, 75 
 Frobisher, Benjamin, 194 
 
 — James, 394 
 
 Frontenac County, i, 5, 6, i8g, 214 
 
 — Count de, i, 3, 45, 49 
 
 Gallin^e, 157 
 
 Gait, John, 57, 62, 70, 178, 180, 181, 
 
 182, 184, 185, 186, 188, 229, 234, 
 
 23s > 236 
 Gananoque, 14, 21, 131, 132, 133, 
 
 134-135 
 Garafraxa, 81, 82, 83 
 Garden Island, 4 
 Gardiner, H. F., 13, 17, 32, 43, 8i 
 George, Fort, 90, 91, 92 
 
 — Lake, 167 
 
 Georgian Bay, 45, 75, 246, 256 
 Gibson, 25 
 Gilford's Ferry, 175 
 Glasgow, John, 166 
 Glengarry, 100, 102, 105, 120 
 
 — St. Raphael's, 103 
 Glenora, i5 
 Gloucester, 139 
 
 Goat Island, 285 
 
 Goderich, 230, 234, 236, 237, 238, 240, 
 
 241 
 Golden Lake, 152, 154 
 Gore Bay, 285 
 
 — Governor, ig 
 Gosfield, 216 
 Goulburn, 137, 148 
 Gould, J., 49, 50, SI, 52, S3 
 Gourlay, Robert, 93, 149, 207 
 Graham, 6s 
 
 Grant, 66 
 
 — Peter, 294 
 
 — Principal, 235 
 Grass, Captain Michael, -^ 
 Grattan, 156 
 Gravenhurst, 251, 255 
 Great Lone Land, 276 
 Greece's Point, 116 
 Green, 17 
 
 Greenock, 228 
 Grenville, 137 
 
 — canal, 122 
 
 — county, 126-130 
 
 Grey, Earl, 75, 83, 184, 245-249 
 
 Griffin, 165 
 
 Guelph, 184, 186, 187, 188, 236 
 
 Gull River, 34 
 
 Gwillimbury, West, 79 
 
 Hagerman, 259 
 
 Haldimand, 2, 22, 169, 172, 176, 259 
 
 — Governor, 172 
 
 Haliburton, Mrs., 35 
 
 Haliburton, Thomas, " Sam Slick,'' 
 
 3a. 33. 35. 3^ 
 Hall, 6g 
 
 Halliwell, 15, 16 
 Halton, 68, 69, 70, 73, 160 
 Hamilton, 22, 98, 155, 160, 165, 181, 
 
 212, 228, 237 
 
 — Lieutenant-Colonel, 215 
 
 — George, 119, 161, 162, 166 
 Hampton, 114 
 
 Hanover, 241 
 Harmon, 294, 297 
 Harris, Myndert, 37 
 Harrison, Hon. Robert Alexander, 
 213 
 
 — Mr., 212, 213, 218 
 
 — General, 211 
 Hart, 20 
 
 Harvey, Colonel John, 163, 164 
 
 Hastings, 17, 18, 20, 21, 32, 25 
 
 Havelock, 32 
 
 Havrick, 150 
 
 Hawkesbury, 116, 117, 118, iig, 120 
 
 Head, Sir Franeis, g7, 283 
 
 " Hebe's Falls," 297 
 
 Henrietta Maria Cape, 305 
 
 Henry, Alexander, 278 
 
 Heriot, George, 206 
 
 Herschel, 17 
 
 Hincks, Sir Francis, 156 
 
 Hogg, 181 
 
 Holditch, 252 
 
 Holland Landing, 77 
 
 Holmes, 94 
 
 — Abraham, 240 
 Hoovers, 175, 176 
 Horden, John, 275 
 Horner, 200, 20Z 
 Horning, Isaac, 159 
 Homing's Mills, 81 
 Houghton, 192 
 Hounston, 228 
 Howard, 212 
 Howe, 49 
 Howitt, John, 187 
 
 Hudson Bay, 152, 264, 292, 300, 302 
 
 — River, iii 
 Hudson, Henry, 304 
 Huff, John, 172, 174 
 Huglaes, Colonel Sam, 47, 129 
 Hull, 123, 139, 140, 142, 305 
 
 — General, 217, 218 
 Humber Bay, 58 
 
 — River, 54, 64 
 Hungerford, 17 
 Hunt, Thomas, 70, 71 
 Hunter, General, 121 
 
 — Governor, 57 
 
 — A. F.. 74 
 
INDEX 
 
 Huntsville, 253. 25s 
 
 Huron Lake, 76, 80, 224, 225, 230, 
 
 =3S. 236, 2421 250, 256, 261 
 Huyshe, Captain, 295, 298 
 
 Indian Mutiny, 32 
 
 — Point Bridge, 281 
 IngersoU, Charles, 64, 201, 208 
 
 — Thomas, 64 
 Inglis Falls, 245 
 Inverness, 103 
 Isleworth, 34 
 
 Jack's Creek, 27 
 
 James Bay, 261, 262, 270, 271, 302 
 
 304 
 James, Mary, 52, 53 
 
 — Thomas, 305 
 Jameson, Mrs., 197, 282 
 
 — Robert, 282 
 Jarvis, Mr., 283, 284 
 
 — Miss, 162 
 Jessup, Colonel, 129 
 
 — Major, 127 
 
 Jock River (Goodwood), 139, 140 
 Johnson, Eden, 117 
 
 — Eden, junior, 118 
 
 — Sir John, 102, 105, in, 133 
 
 — Sir William, 70, loi , 167 
 Johnston, Mr. William, 231, 233 
 
 — John, 278 
 Jones, Augustus, 24 
 
 — Commissioner, 232 
 
 — Rev. Peter, 138 
 
 — Peter, 24 
 Joseph Lake, 259 ' 
 
 Kairns, Thomas, 117 
 
 Kaminislignia River, 287, 288 
 
 Katrine, Loch, 264 
 
 Kawartha Lakes, 47 
 
 Keefer, George, 99 
 
 Keeler, James, 24 
 
 Keewatin, 301 
 
 Kempenfeldt Bay, 78 
 
 Kennedy, Captain, 240 
 
 Kenora, 296, 297-301 
 
 Kent, 209-213, 221 
 
 Ketchum, Jesse, 60 
 
 Kettle Creek, 194 
 
 Kincardine, 240, 243 
 
 King, 227 
 
 Kingston, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, 21, 
 29. S6. 57. 91. »I2, 114, 115, 118, 
 127, 130, 131, 143, 15s, 213 
 
 Kinnel Lodge, 155 
 
 Kirkfield, 45, 46, 47 
 
 Kirkton, 232 
 
 313 
 
 Koerber, Baroness von, 260 
 Kuylu, 124 
 
 Lachine, 112 
 
 — Canal, 236, 237 
 La Jemeraye, 292 
 La Jonquiere, 277 
 La Notie, 292 
 
 La Rose, 273 
 
 La Salle, 2, 14, 85, 157 
 
 La V&endrye, 287, 292, 293, 294 
 
 Lakefield, 30 
 
 Lake of Two Mountains, 154 
 
 Lake of the Woods, 288, 292, 293, 
 
 294, 297, 301 
 "Lake-on-the-Mountain," 16 
 Lambton, 2x2, 224-228 
 Lanark, 146, 150, 156 
 Langhorn, Rev. John, 11 
 Larder Lake, 274 
 Laroque, Franfois, 118 
 Laud, Mrs., 159 
 Launceston, 34 
 Laurel, So 
 Lawrence, 33 
 Lawson, 25 
 Le Caron, 75 
 Le Moye, De Maricourt, 271 
 
 — D'lberville, 271 
 
 — Sainte Hiline, 271 
 
 Le Moyne, Charles, 117, 271 
 
 Leeds, 127, 128, 131 
 
 Leg Lake, 251 
 
 Lennox, 7, 11, 49, 122, 189 
 
 Lewis, Lewis, 40 
 
 "Lift Lock," 31 
 
 Lincoln, 85, 86, 95, 160 
 
 — county, 214 
 Lindsay, 35, 42, 46, 47, 53 
 Little Current, 285 
 
 — York, 49 
 Livingstone, 33 
 
 London, 199, 200, 206, 207, 208, 226, 
 227, 229 
 
 — district, 190 
 Long Lake, 273 
 
 — Point, 190, 191, 192, 197 
 Long Sault River, 113, 123 
 
 — — Rapids, 116 
 Longueuil, 116 
 Longwoods, 207 
 L'Original, 117, 120, 125 
 Lount, Samuel, 79, 176 
 Lovekin, Richard, 39 
 
 Loyalists, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 18, 20, 86, 
 104, loj, 124, 127, 165, 167, 168, 
 172, 175, 176, 190, 192, 239, 252 
 
 Lundy's Lane, 118 
 
 Luther, 81, 83 
 
314 
 
 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Lutterworth, 32 
 Lynch, John, 65 
 
 Mabee, F., 189 
 McArthur, 171 
 Macaulay, 251 
 
 — Lord, ii6 
 McAuley, Mr., 15 
 M'Clintock, 33 
 McCIure, 18 
 M'CoU, Louisa, 236 
 Macdonald, Colonel Archibald, 14, 
 
 — Frances, 14 
 
 — John A., 5, 16, 61, 130 
 
 — Roland, 204 
 Macdonald's Cove, 15 
 Macdonell, Alexander, 103 
 
 — Colonel, 92, 136 
 McDougall, Mrs., 153 
 McGillivray, 288 
 
 MacGregor, Captain Alexander, 239- 
 240 
 
 — Peter, 208 
 
 Machar, Agnes Maule, 131, 132 
 M'Intosh, Angus, 222 
 MacKay, Angus, 201 
 
 — Rev. W. A. , 202 
 MacKenzie, Alexander, 222 
 
 — Roderick, 288, 295 
 
 — W. Lyon, 19, 41, 47, 52, 58-61. 
 
 71-73. 93. 97 
 M'Keown, C. R., 83 
 Mackinavir, 217, 278 
 M'Kindly, 124 
 MacLeod, 264 
 M'Murrich, 258-260 
 M'Nab, Colonel, 73, 97, 98 
 Macnab, Sir Allan, 212, 237 
 M'Niff, Peter, 195 
 MacPherson, 264 
 M'Quarrie, 300 
 
 — Dr., 182 
 
 M'Taggart. John, 123, 146-148, 150, 
 
 Madawaska, 153, 156 
 Madoc, 21 
 
 Magnetawan River, 260 
 Mahlon Burwell, 208 
 Maitland River, 236 
 
 — Sir Peregrine, 30, 236 
 Malahide, 194 
 Maiden, 216-217, 221 
 Manitoba, 295, 299, 300, 307 
 Manitou Lake, 281 
 Manitoulin, 281 
 Manvers, 41 
 
 March, 138 
 Mariposa, 46 
 
 Markham, 57 
 Marmora, 21 
 Marquette, Pkre, 277 
 Martm, Richard, 175 
 Martintown, 104 
 Mary, Princess, 13 
 Marysburg, 14 
 Matchedash Bay, 76 
 Mattawan River, 261 
 Melancthon, 81, 83, 249 
 Mer du Nord, 270 
 Merritt, William Hamilton, 99 
 Mersea, 216 
 Metagami, Fort, 268 
 Meyers, Captain John, 18, 19 
 " Meyers' Creek," 19 
 Michigan, 218 
 Michillimackinac, 77 
 Michipicoten, 279 
 Middle Island, 223 
 Middlesex, 194, 198, 204-208 
 Miller, Alexander, 180 
 
 — Dr., 182 
 
 — Dr. W. G., 274 
 Mills, 260 
 Mimico River, 64 
 Mindemoza Lake, 284 
 Minden. 34, 35, 36 
 Misquuckkey, 250 
 Mississippi , 157 
 
 Moira, Earl of (Lord Rawden, Mar- 
 quis of Hastings), 17, 18 
 
 Moir, Miss, Prefatory Note, vii 
 
 Mond, Dr. Ludwig, 267 
 
 Monk, Mrs., 138 
 
 Mono, 81, 83 
 
 Montgomery, 117 
 
 Montreal, 56, 62, 75, in, 112, 114, 
 116, 117, 119, 120, 133, 272, 293, 294 
 
 Moodie, Mr. , 20 
 
 Moodie, Mrs., 20, 30 
 
 Moose River, 270 
 
 Moraviantown, 211, 217, 218 
 
 Morrisburg, no 
 
 Morrison, Angus, 251 
 
 — Colonel, H5 
 
 — John, 228 
 
 — Lake, 251 
 
 — town, 251 
 Mowat, Oliver, 84, 301 
 Mulmur, 81, 82 
 Munk, Jens, 305 
 Murray, 24 
 
 Muskoka, 74, 250-256, 259 
 Muskrat Lake, 152, 156 
 Myers, Elgin, 84 
 
 Nanticoke River, 175 
 Napance, 7 
 
INDEX 
 
 172, 173 
 117 
 
 Nassagavraya, 68 
 Navy Island, 97 
 Nelles, Rev. R. B. 
 
 — W. H., 177 
 Nelson, Lord, 68, 
 
 — River, 307 
 Newark, 37, 38, 55, 86, 87, 205, 207 
 Newash, 247 
 
 New Brunswick, 159 
 Newcastle, 22, 23 
 New Haven, 132 
 
 — Jersey, 78, 266 
 Newmarket, 49 
 Newtonville, 41 
 
 New York, 49, no, igo 
 
 Niagara, 6, 13, 67, 76, 85, 88-91, 94- 
 
 9S, 118-119. 159, 162, 173-174, 178, 
 
 180, igo-191, 200 
 
 — Falls, 97, 99 
 
 — Fort, 86 
 
 — River, 49, 175 
 Nightingale, Florence, 33 
 Nipigon, 290 
 Nipissing, 261, 268 
 
 — Lake, 75, 256, 261, 287, 288 
 Nookta, 147 
 
 Norfolk, 175, 189, 200 
 Norman, 301 
 Normandale, J92 
 North Bay, 261, 262 
 
 — Cayuga, 175 
 
 — Gower, 138 
 Northumberland, 22-25 
 
 — Duke and Duchess of, 278 
 Nottawasaga, 78 
 
 Nova Scotia, 34, 37 
 Noyon, Jacques de, 292 
 Nursey, Mr,, 91 
 
 Oakland, 169, 171 
 Oak Point, 293 
 
 — Ridges, 57 
 Oakville, 68, 72 
 O'Brien, Lucius, 79 
 Ogdensburg, 129 
 Ohio, 167-168, 266 
 Old Windmill, 6 
 Oneida, i6g, 173 
 O'Neil, 98 
 Onondago, 169, 170 
 
 Ontario, Prefatory Note, p. v, vi, 
 vii, 2, 6, 26, 32, 43, 49, S2. S4. 56. 
 69, 80, 116, 222, 250, 262, 264, 265, 
 296, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 305, 
 
 307 
 
 — Lake, 12, 38, 45, 49, 53, 54, 57, 
 62, 63, 80, 91, 142, 157, 181, igo, 
 230, 235, 261 
 
 Ops, 43, 44. 46 
 
 315 
 
 Orangeville, 66, 80, 83 
 Orillia, 53. 76. 79. 253 
 Osborne, Edward, 131 
 
 — Francis Godolphin, Duke of 
 Leeds, 131 
 
 Osgoode, 137 
 Oshawa, 53 
 
 — Creek, 22 
 Otonabee, 30 
 
 — River, 28-29 
 Otonacha, 75 
 
 Ottawa (Bytown), Prefatory Note, 
 vii,|i3i, 141-144, 152, 157, 21S, 222, 
 261, 270, 292, 29s 
 
 — River (Grand River), 6g, 75, 116, 
 118, 122-123, '3^1 139-14I1 162- 
 i6g, 171-172, 175, 178, 181, 184, 
 210, £56 
 
 Overtrott, 176 
 
 Owen Sound, 245-247 
 
 Oxford County, i6g, igg, 200, 232 
 
 Paisley, 242 
 
 Paris, 171 
 
 Parkman, Francis, 75 
 
 Parry, Sir William Edward, 256 
 
 — Sound, 74, 75, 251, 253, 256-260 
 Patricia, 302-307 
 
 Patterson, Tibby, 150 
 Peach Island, 215 
 Peacock's Point, 176 
 Peel County, 63, 65, 66 
 
 — 188 
 
 Pel^e Island, 216, 2ig, 222, 225 
 Pembroke, 153, 156 
 Penetangnishene, 75, 236 
 Pennsylvania, I5g, 175, I7g, 213 
 Percy, 25 
 Perrot, 277 
 Perry, 218 
 
 Perth, 140, 149, 150, 229-234, 243 
 Peterboro', 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 43, 45, 
 
 46.47 
 Petersfield, 121 
 Picton, 15 
 Pigeon Lake, 47 
 Pike, General, 58 
 Pinhey, Hamnet, 138 
 Plank, John, 52 
 Plantagenet, iig 
 Plattsburgh, 117 
 Plympton Township, 224, 227 
 Point Pelfe, 216, 223 
 Polly Cow Islands, 27 
 Pontlac, 215, 2i6 
 Poore, Captain, 187 
 Portage de L'Isle, 288 
 Port Arthur, 258, 289, 290, 291, 300 
 
 — Burwell, 208 
 
3i6 
 
 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Port Churchill, 305 
 
 — Cockburn, 259 
 
 — Credit, 64 
 
 — Dover, 189 
 
 — Hope, 28, 41, 42, 46, 47 
 
 — Nelson, 304 
 
 — Norfolk, 190 
 
 — Rowan Bay, 193 
 
 — Royal, 192 
 
 — Ryern, 191 
 
 — Sarnia, 326 
 
 — Talbot, 196, 197, 209 
 Porter, Jane, 88 
 Pottawatamies, 247 
 
 Prescott, 15, 115-120, 122, 123, 125, 
 
 126, 128, 129, 130 
 Preston, 180 
 Prevost, Sir George, 92 
 Prince, Colonel John, 319 
 
 — Edward County, la, 13, 14, i6 
 
 — Edward Island, 210 
 Prinyer, Mr., 14 
 Prior, Mr. , 185 
 Procter, General, 211, 218 
 Puisaye, Count de, 89 
 Puslinch, 187 
 
 Quebec, 2, 74, 85, 90, iii, 114, 117, 
 
 152, 155, 165, 189, 26s, 269 
 Queenston, 91, 93, 95, 161, 191 
 Quetton, St. George, 76 
 Quints, Bay of, 2, 14, 17, r8, 40 
 
 Raddison, 270, 287 
 Rainham, 175 
 Rainy Lake, 288 
 
 — River, 292, 299 
 Raisin River, 218 
 Rama, 53 
 Ramsay, 187 
 
 Rankin, C, 124, 247, 248 
 Raspberry Island, 285 
 Rat Portage, 297, 298, 399, 300, 301 
 Rawdon, 17 
 
 Red River, 56, 119, 210, 389, 290, 299 
 Renfrew, 152, 153, 154, 156 
 Rice Lake, 25, 28, 29, 30 
 Richardson, John, 217 
 Rideau Canal, 131, 141, 142, 143, 146, 
 149 
 
 — River, 126, 128, 129, 137, 139 
 Ridgeway, 98 
 
 Riel, 289, 399 
 Riley, James, 367 
 Roberts, Captain, 278 
 Robertson, J. Ross, 4 
 
 — Mr. Norman, 240 
 Robinson, Sir John Beverley, 44 
 
 — Hon. Peter, 29, 30,-44 
 
 Rodgers, Major, 127 
 Rogers, R. B., 31 
 Rogue's Harbour, 156 
 Rolph, Dr., 190 
 Ross, 155 
 Rouille, 54 
 Rubidge, Charles, 29 
 Rupert's River, 270 
 Russell, 117, 121-125, 137 
 Russell, Elizabeth, 121 
 Russell, Peter, 121, 122 
 Ruttan, Hon. Henry, 8, 10 
 
 — Peter, 8, 9 
 Rye, Miss, 93 
 Ryerson, 259, 260 
 
 — Rev. Egerton, 25, 26, igo 
 
 — Captain Samuel, igo, 191 
 
 Ste. Anne, 272 
 St. Anne's Island, 211 
 St. Catherine's, 88, gg 
 St. Clair Lake, 212, 214 
 
 — River, 224 
 
 St. John's, 117, 127 
 
 St. Joseph's Island, 378 
 
 St. Lawrence River, iii, 113, 114, 
 
 118, 126, 127, 131, 132, 142, 264, 
 
 271 
 St. Mary's, 232, 233 
 St. Peter's Port, go 
 St. Thomas, ig7, igS 
 St. Vincent, 245, 248 
 Sagonaska River, 17 
 Salmon Minor, 174, 175 
 Sandwich, 212, 216, 217, 218, 219, 
 
 220, 221 
 Sangeen, 23g, 242, 244, 246 
 
 — River, 65, 240 
 
 — Township, 241 
 Saragossa, 223 
 Sargeant, Governor, 271 
 Sarina, 225, 227, 228, 345 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie, 65, 76, 2og, 277, 278 
 Scadding, Dr., 19, 60, 121 
 Scarborough, 66 
 Schoolcraft, Henry, 278 
 Scott. Adam, 28, 39 
 
 — John, 183 
 
 — Sir Walter, 100 
 Scugog, 46, 48 
 
 — Township, 53 
 Seaton, Arthur, 383, 2S4 
 Secord, Laura, 96 
 Selkirk, 175, 289 
 
 — Lord, 79, 173, 210 
 
 — Settlement, 56 
 Semple, Governor, 289 
 Seneca Township, 172, 175 
 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 48 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Severn Bridge, 251 
 
 — River, 251 
 " Severne," 305 
 Seymour, 25 
 
 Sliade, Absalom, 178, 180, 181, 182, 
 
 188 
 Sharp, 53 
 Shaw, Sophia, 91 
 Sheaffe, Major-General, 58, go 
 Shelburne, 83 
 Sherbrooke, 173 
 Sherwood, Sheriff, 127 
 Sidney, 18, 20 
 Simcoe, 37, 38, 49, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 
 
 158, 190, 211, 214, 245 ,' 
 
 — Captain John, 74 
 
 — Colonel, 2, 3, s, 9, 22, 86, 89, 
 121, 189, 190, 200, 201, 205, 206 
 
 — John Graves, SS 
 
 — Lake, 75, 76, 80, 246, 250 
 
 — Mrs. , 4, 63 , 206 
 Simpson, Sir George, 41, 29s 
 
 — John, 41 
 
 Smith, Father Peter, 140 
 
 — J. H., 157 
 
 — Peter, 37 
 
 — William, 216 
 
 — Rev. William Wye, 248 
 Smith's Falls, 149 
 Sombra County, 226 
 Somerville, 45 
 
 Sophia, Princess, 13 
 Sophiasburgh, 15 
 South Dorchester, 194 
 
 — Dumfries, 169 
 Southampton, 240, 243 
 Southwold, 194 
 Sparling, Colonel, 233 
 Sparrow Lake, 251 
 Speed River, 185 
 Spencerville, 126 
 
 Staten, Miss, Prefatory Note, vii 
 Steele, Margaret, 8 
 Stephens, 245 
 Stewart, Dr. , 5 
 
 — Mr., 35 
 
 — George, 158 
 
 Stone, Colonel Joel, 131, 132, 133, 
 
 134. I3S 
 Stoney Creek, 159, 162, 163 
 Stormont, 102, 105 
 Stouffville, 52 
 
 Strachan, Bishop, 5, 20, 104, 229 
 Stratford, 230 
 Streetsville, 64, 71 
 Strickland, Major, 30, 31, 237 
 Sturgeon Falls, 245, 262 
 
 — Lake, 46 
 Sudbury, 261, 265-268 
 
 Suffolk, 194 
 
 Superior Lake, 209, 290 
 Susquehanna River, 38 
 Sutherland, " General," 219 
 Sydenham, 245 
 
 Talbot, 190, 195, 197, 208, 209, 265 
 
 — Creek, 194 
 
 — Mr., 265 
 
 — Thomas, 194, 195, 196, 207 
 Talon, 270 
 
 Taylor, John, 18 
 
 Tay River, 149 
 
 Tecumseh, 211, 218 
 
 Teeswater River, 242 
 
 Temagami Lake, 263, 264 
 
 Thames River, 195, 205, 207, 211, 
 
 212, 218, 231 
 Thomas, 117 
 Thompson, David, 175, 257, 288, 
 
 294 
 Thorold, 95 
 
 Thunder Bay, 286, 288, 299 
 Thurlow (Nuitte Town), 18 
 Tiffany, Dr. Oliver, 204 
 Tilbury West, 212 
 Timiskaming, 261, 269-275 
 Tobacco Lake, 281 
 Toronto, 22, 26, 47, 52, 55, 56, 58, 
 
 61, 65, 66, 67, 78, 80, 92, 98, 122, 
 
 160, 165, 186, 232, 245 
 Towmenie, 274 
 Townsend, 189, 192 
 Trafalgar, 68, 72 
 Treadwell, Charles, 117 
 Treaty of Utrecht, 273 
 Trenton, 20 
 Trent Valley Canal, 45 
 Trull, J. , 38 
 Turkey Point, i8g, 190 
 Tuscarora, 169 
 Tyrconnell, 196 
 
 Upper Gap, 6 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, 3C17 
 Utterson, 253 
 Uxbridge, 49, 50, 53 
 
 Val di Demona, 68 
 
 Vallodolice, 223 
 
 Vancouver, 34 
 
 Van Dieman's Land, 53 
 
 Van Egmond, 238 
 
 Vankleek Hill, 119 
 
 Vaughan, 57 
 
 Venezuela, 188 
 
 Vermont, 24, 128 
 
 Victoria, 35, 36, 43, 45, 47, 48, 252 
 
 — Queen, 13, 144 
 
ai8 
 
 THE COUNTIES OF ONTARIO 
 
 Vidal, Alexander, 227 
 
 — Richard Emeric, 227 
 Vincent, General, 162, 163, 164 
 Vittoria, 190, 207 
 
 Von Schultz, 130 
 
 Wabigoon, 301 
 Walker, Joseph, 243 
 Walkerton, 343 
 Walkerville, 215, 217 
 Walpole, 17s 
 
 — Island, 226 
 Washago, 251 
 Walsingham, 192 
 Warwick, 227 
 Washington, 117 
 Waterdown, 159, 160 
 Waterloo, 15, 68, 87, 178-184 
 Watson, 200 
 
 Waupoos, 14 
 Welland, 95, 97, 98 
 
 — Canal, 181 
 Waller, Asa, 24 
 
 — William, 24 
 Wellesley, Arthur, 195 
 Wellington, Duke of, 142 
 
 — 68, 83, 148, 180, 184, 24s 
 
 — Fort, 129 
 Wentworth, 68, 158, i6o, 161 
 West Bay, 284 
 
 — Luther, 188 
 Westminster, 206 
 Weston, 42 
 Whitby, 53 
 Whitchurch, 56, 57 
 White, Peter, 153 
 Whitestone Lake, 258, 259 
 
 Wilberforce, 156 
 Wilcox, Allan, 71, 72 
 Wilkins, Robert, 24 
 Wilkinson, General, 114, 115 
 William Lyon Mackenzie, 176 
 William Mackay, 201 
 Williamsburgh, 115, 122 
 Williarastown, 102, 104 
 William Nelles, 176 
 Willis, Justice, 57 
 
 — Lady Mary, 57 
 Winden, General, 162 
 Windsor, 219, 221, 222 
 Wingfield, Robert, 187 
 Winisk River, 305 
 Winnipeg, 261, 301 
 
 — Lake, 293 
 
 — River, 297 
 Wolfe, 2, 49, 74 
 Wolseley, 289, 296, 298 
 
 — Lake, 281 
 Woods, Mr., 212, 213 
 Woodstock, 199, 200, 201, 203 
 Wright, Philemon, 123, 124, 139 
 Wycliffe, John, 32 
 
 Yarmouth, 195 
 
 Yeigh, Mr., S5, 61 
 
 Yeo, Sir James, 153 
 
 Yerex, 208 
 
 York, 6, IS, 22, 25, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 
 58, 59, 60, 6i, 62, 63, 64, 65,67, 
 69, 89, 160, 162, 172, 175, 197, 200, 
 206, 247, 249, 289 
 
 Young, Colonel Henry, 15 
 
 ZORRA, 200, 201, 202, 203 
 
 Printed by Ballantvne, Hanson &^ Co, 
 at Paul's Work, Edinburgh 
 
mm