The Project Gutenberg eBook of Upper Canada Sketches, by Thomas Conant.

BY
THOMAS CONANT

With Illustrations, Portraits and Map

TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
29-33 Richmond St. West
1898

To Thomas G. Milsted

Of Chicago, Ill., U.S.

A LARGE-HEARTED, FAITHFUL FRIEND AND PLEASANT
COMPANION, UNDER EVEN THE MOST TRYING
CIRCUMSTANCES;
WHO SWAM IN THE DEAD SEA, ASCENDED THE NILE TO
THE MAHDI’S CONFINES, AND LIKEWISE WITH ME
KICKED PARIAH DOGS FROM OUR PATHS
IN CONSTANTINOPLE,

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,

WITH FULL RELIANCE IN THE HOPE THAT EXPATRIATED
CANADIANS, WHO ARE SO VERY NUMEROUS IN THE
UNITED STATES, MAY ENJOY WITH HIMSELF
(LIKEWISE ONE OF THEM)
THESE RANDOM CANADIAN SKETCHES.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

	PAGE
Prefatory Note	vii
CHAPTER I.
Normandy—William the Conqueror—Origin of the name Conant—Devon, England—Sir Walter Raleigh’s home—Richard the Mill-owner—Roger the Pilgrim—The first Governor of Massachusetts—Salem, Massachusetts—Mill-owners	9
CHAPTER II.
The American Revolution—Personal Rule of King George III.—Washington’s politeness—Valley Forge—Washington’s prayer—Raw New England levies—John Hancock—Other leaders and generals—Colonel Butler—Murder, not war—Roger Conant removes to Canada—An old deed—Governor Simcoe—York (Toronto)	21
CHAPTER III.
A home in the wilderness—Salmon fishing—An idyllic life—Logging—Fur trade—Durham boats—Rapids of the St. Lawrence—Trading with the Indians—The Hudson’s Bay Company—Coureurs du bois—Maple sugar {ii}making—Friendly Indians	32
CHAPTER IV.
Waubakosh—Making potash—Prosperous settlers—Outbreak of war of 1812—Transporting military supplies—Moode Farewell’s hotel—“Here’s to a long and moderate war”—A lieutenant’s misfortune—“Open in the King’s name”—Humors of the time—Ingenious foragers—Hidden specie—Hardships of the U. E. Loyalists	40
CHAPTER V.
Capture of York—Immigration increasing—David Annis—Niagara—Prosperous lumber business—Ship-building—High freight rates—Salmon spearing—Meteoric showers—An affrighted clergyman—Cold winters—A tragedy of the clearings	51
CHAPTER VI.
Discontent in Upper Canada—Election riots—Shillelahs as persuaders—William Lyon Mackenzie—Rioting in York—Rebellion—Patriots and sympathizers—A relentless chase—Crossing Lake Ontario in midwinter—A perilous passage—A sailor hero—A critical moment—Safe on shore—“Rebellion Losses Bill”—Transported to Botany Bay—Murder of my grandfather—Canadian legends—A mysterious guest	65
CHAPTER VII.
Religious movements—Itinerant preachers—$50 a year—Camp-meetings—Weird scenes at night—Millerites—World coming to an end—Dissenters attempt to fly—Affrighted by a “sun-dog”—Destruction fails to materialize—The Mormons—An improvised Gabriel—Raising the dead—Converts—Salt Lake—An Irish {iii}refugee and his poem	89
CHAPTER VIII.
Canadian laws—Cases of justifiable homicide—Ineffectual attempt to discipline a church member—Major Wilmot—Asa Wallbridge—“Uncle Ned”—Cows and matrimony—A humorous dialogue—A witty retort—An amusing duel	102
CHAPTER IX.
Paring bees—Mirth and jollity—Dancing and games—Playing “forfeits”—Anti-Slavery Act—Canada’s proud distinction—Refugee slaves—“Uncle Tom”—Old Jeff—Story of a slave	120
CHAPTER X.
Civil war in the United States—Large bounties paid Canadian recruits—Prices of products go up—More than two million men under arms—I make a trip to Washington—Visiting the military hospitals—I am offered $800 to enlist—Brief interview with President Lincoln—A pass secured—I visit the Army of the Potomac—90,000 men under canvas—Washington threatened by the Confederates—Military prison at Elmira, N.Y.—Cheap greenbacks—A chance to become a multi-millionaire	137
CHAPTER XI.
The “Trent affair”—Excitement in Canada—Bombastic “fire-eaters”—Thriving banks—High rates of interest—Railway building—The bonus system—A sequestered hamlet—A “psychologist” and his entertainment—A mock duel—A tragic page of family history	153
CHAPTER XII.
Fenianism—A claimant for my father’s farm—A scare at {iv}Port Oshawa—Guns, forks and clubs for fighting—Awkward squad—Guard catch a young man out courting—The Fenian raid of 1866—A Catholic priest taken prisoner—United States Government at last cries “Stop!”—Adventure in high life—A youth runs away from home—Tragic death of the mother of the runaway—Marries the serving-maid—Wedding and funeral journey in one	171
CHAPTER XIII.
The French in Upper Canada—Sir Wilfrid Laurier—Voyageurs and their songs—“A la Claire Fontaine”—Money-lenders—Educational matters—Expatriated Canadians—Successful railway speculation—A shrewd banker	181
CHAPTER XIV.
Poor-tax—Poor-houses undesirable—The tramp nuisance—A tramp’s story—Mistaken charity—Office seekers—Election incidents	193
CHAPTER XV.
Upper Canada’s favored situation—Our Great Lakes—Cases of apparent tides on Lake Ontario—Canadians as givers—Oshawa’s generous support to churches and charities—Life insurance—Amusing incidents of a railway journey—A “talking machine”	209
CHAPTER XVI.
Drinking habits in the early days—Distilleries and mills—Treating prevalent—Drinking carousals—Delirium tremens—“One-Thousand-and-One” Society—Two gallon limit—Bibulous landlords—Whiskey fights—Typical Canadian pioneers—Clearing the farm—Sons and daughters married—Peaceful old age—Asleep in death—Conclusion	228

ILLUSTRATIONS AND PORTRAITS.

PREFATORY NOTE.

IN presenting to the public these random sketches I crave the reader’s indulgence. I do not pretend to elegance of style in my writing, and if—as is doubtless the case—the canons of literary form are occasionally offended against in these pages, I ask the kindly consideration of the critics.

If asked my reasons for publishing the volume, I would state: First, the many communications received by me from time to time, from various sources, commenting favorably on my letters to the press, have given me to believe that the Canadian public appreciate and value the relation of old settlers’ stories and the legends and traditions of the past; again, as a son of this noble Province, a descendant of one of its pioneer families, having witnessed much of the marvellous development of the country, I feel constrained to thus preserve records which I believe are historically valuable. I have sought to present glimpses of the rude, free life that obtained in the{viii} earlier years of settlement, while at the same time depicting some phases of life in Canada as seen at the present day. Though since Confederation (1867) our Province has been known as Ontario, I have preferred to use the old name of Upper Canada, which seems not improper in view of the fact that much of the matter herein given relates to pre-Confederation times.

It has been my endeavor, in compiling these sketches, to avoid wounding the feelings of others in my references to the living or their friends who have passed away. If, unfortunately, I have done so, I ask the pardon of such persons, and assure them that wherever I have used names or made personal references, I have done so only where I considered it necessary to render the events chronicled historically correct.

For the insertion of some family portraits it is unnecessary to ask the reader’s indulgence, as they are portraits of those who have helped materially in the upbuilding of the Province.

UPPER CANADA SKETCHES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THERE is no reason to doubt that the progenitor of the Conant family in England and America came originally from Normandy, in 1066, as one of the followers of William the Conqueror. Frederick Odell Conant, of Portland, Maine,{10} whose exhaustive work, “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family,” entitles him to be quoted as an authority, has arrived at this conclusion.

Edward Nathaniel Conant, of Oakham, Rutland County, England, a member of the English branch, told the author, when visiting Lyndon Hall, in 1894, that he had seen the name Conan—from which Conant has been evolved—on a castle archway in Normandy. In 1896 the author met a Frenchman of the same name in Melbourne, Australia, who was, no doubt, a descendant of the branch of the family that remained in Normandy when the others came over with William to the conquest of England. There are several derivations given of the name Conant, many of which would establish it as of Celtic origin; and though a Conant came over to England with William, it would appear his ancestors had come originally from Cornwall and Devon to Brittany. The meaning of the name is almost as variously given as its origin, but it appears that the conclusion arrived at by the family historian and genealogist is that it is equivalent to the word in the Welsh, Irish, Saxon, Dutch, German and Swedish tongue, and also the Oriental, signifying chief or leader.

Although the Conants probably returned to Normandy during the reigns of William and his sons, they finally settled at East Budleigh, in Devonshire.{11} It is unnecessary here to trace the succeeding generations of the family, as we have to do only with the immediate connections of Roger Conant, known as the Pilgrim, who emigrated to the English Colonies in America in 1623, and from whom all the Conants in the United States and Canada are descended.

The picture which forms the frontispiece to this volume is a faithful one of the mill yet standing on the Conant lands at East Budleigh. This mill was owned and occupied by Richard Conant, father of Roger the Pilgrim. It will be observed that the part of the stone building at the end farthest from the water-wheel is now used as a residence. Whether it was so occupied by Richard Conant the author has been unable to ascertain. There are indications that a residence had been located back from the mill and on rising ground farther from the road. The mill is a long stone structure. In front of the part used as a dwelling is a yard, and at one side farm buildings. Mr. Green, the present Rector of East Budleigh, assured the author that there is no doubt of its being the identical building and mill occupied and used by Richard Conant. The family records (parish register) are in Mr. Green’s care. There are entries of the birth of John Conant in 1520 and of his son Richard, born in Devon in 1548. These are on parchment, the{12} latter yellow, covered with leather, wood-bound and worm-eaten.

Back of the house and mill a small spring creek runs. It has been turned from its bed by the rising ground, so that no artificial dam is needed, and to-day, as in 1560, it runs over the wheel and pours from the flume. In volume it is four inches deep and twenty wide, and is about six feet above the wheel. The latter, of course, has been renewed, being an overshoot about fourteen feet in diameter, but its foundations are now just as Richard Conant originally laid them. The lands owned by Richard Conant probably amounted to about two hundred acres. The glebe land, extending nearly to the mill, which is about five hundred yards from the church, and the Conant lands extending to the farm of Sir Walter Raleigh, we may conclude to be the probable extent of the property.

Roger’s father, Richard, inherited the mill from his father. He graduated at Emanuel College, and was also Rector of East Budleigh. The book of his charities accounts is still extant. On the fly-leaf are the words, “This book was bought in 1600, to mark the amounts of charities,” etc. It is in Richard’s handwriting. Every few pages are signed by him, and the entries are neatly made, not a blot, erasure or scratch upon the well inscribed pages. The amounts{13} vary from one penny to sixpence. All this is evidence of the careful upbringing and piety practised in the home of Roger Conant, the man destined later to exert so beneficent an influence for the well-being of the Massachusetts Colony in America.

Ascending for three-quarters of a mile the little burn whose waters turned Richard’s mill-wheel, one finds it running by the door of the Raleigh homestead, Hays Barton House.

His living near the man who drew so much attention to the New World would suggest that Roger Conant’s ambitions to seek a new home in the wilds had been fired by the tales told by the adventurous knight; and hearing of its wonders and possibilities possibly made the lad restless, and later on willing to sail away to America.

The Raleigh pew in East Budleigh church is at a right-angle from the Conant pew, and not ten feet away. They both face the pulpit, and as these were possessions as hereditary as their lands and homes, there is nothing improbable in the idea that the families were well known to each other.

On the Raleigh pew-ends are carved the armorial bearings of the family, the lower part cut off. This was done when Sir Walter was attainted for treason, and may be a curious instance of the penalties exacted from the families whose head suffered such attainder{14} at the hands of the sovereign. On the Conant pew is the head of a North American Indian. It is well done. The Indian features, high cheek-bones and large nose, are faithfully depicted. On the other pews are negroes, ships’ paddles, tropical trees and foliage. Sir Walter’s father was Rector of East Budleigh when Richard Conant ran his little grist-mill and attended the church.

Roger could not, in the natural order of succession, inherit the mill from his father, so he went early to London. No doubt the seeds sown by the study, as a child, of the quaint carvings in his parish church had an influence in directing his manhood’s steps.

The church is a small stone leaded roofed building. It is dedicated to All Saints, and was consecrated by Bishop Lacy about A.D. 1430. It consists of a nave and chancels, and north and south aisles. It is eighty feet long and forty-eight and a half feet wide. The tower, which contains five bells, is seventy-two feet high. It is a Norman embattlemented tower with a chimney-shaped buttress. (Vide “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family.”) About the church is the graveyard, walled in and the earth dug away, leaving the church and graveyard isolated, and above the level of the surrounding roads and lands.

Although the Conants are buried here, no stone or monument has been found to mark the spot where{15} they lie. The Rector told the author that all the Conants had moved away, leaving none to care for the graves of their ancestors. This was probably the cause of the absence of any information by which the place of burial could be ascertained.

A brother of Roger’s—John, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford—was made a full Fellow, 10th July, 1612; B.D., 2 Dec., 1619, or 28 June, 1620. He resigned his fellowship, and was instituted Rector of Lymington, a country parish near Ilchester, Somersetshire, on the presentation of Sir Henry Rosewell, and on the 20th of January, 1620, compounded for the firstfruits of the living—the sureties of his bond being his brothers Christopher and Roger. The name of Rosewell or Rowswell, is well known to students of the history of Massachusetts. Sir Henry’s name stands first among the grantees in the Patent from the Council of Plymouth—a fact which bears some significance to the emigration of Roger and Christopher to the New World, and also indicates that Conant had already espoused the cause of the Puritans.

The above is taken from the “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family,” and is necessary to connect Roger’s early life with the period of his emigration to the New World.

Roger was baptized at All Saints’ Church, East Budleigh, on the 9th April, 1592. He was the young{16}est of eight children. His after life showed that the integrity and piety which characterized his parents and elder brothers had been instilled into his mind in childhood. Like his brothers, he evidently received as good an education as the times would afford. He was employed to lay out boundaries, survey lands and transact other public business. The records of the Salters’ Company, to which he belonged, have been burned, so that no more authentic proof of his having been a freedman of the company can be adduced than the presumptive evidence given by the fact of his signing his brother John’s bonds as “Salter of London.” He married in London in November, 1618, and emigrated with the Pilgrims to New England in 1623.

Members of the Drysalters’ Guild of London (the ninth of the twelve great livery companies, and chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1558) have certain privileges and perquisites. To illustrate this more fully, the author during a visit to London, at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee, 1887, learned upon enquiry that by the laws of primogeniture (only abolished in Upper Canada in 1841) the direct descendant of Roger Conant was entitled to two meals a day and a bed to sleep on. The perquisite is not retroactive and an application for any commutation could not be regarded, but he was told that the two meals a day and{17} a bed would be given to the direct heir of Roger Conant, the Drysalter, whenever he chose to claim them.

It is not certain what was the name of the vessel in which Roger Conant sailed, but from the fact that his brother Christopher was a passenger in the Ann, which arrived at Plymouth about 1623, it may be inferred that Roger accompanied him. In a petition to the general court, dated May 28th, 1671, he states that he had been “a planter in New England forty-eight years and upwards.” This would fix the date of his arrival early in 1623. Roger did not remain long in Plymouth. There were differences between him and the Pilgrim Fathers, he being a Puritan and they Separatists, and although these differences were not sufficiently marked to subject him to the treatment meted out to Allan and John Lyford, he left Plymouth for Nantucket, where they had settled soon after their expulsion from the former place. While here he appears to have made use of the island in Boston harbor, now called Governor’s Island, but then and for some time afterward known as Conant’s Island.

The Dorchester Company was formed in 1622-3, and in 1624-5 Roger Conant’s reputation as “a pious, sober and prudent gentleman” reaching its associates, they chose him to manage or govern their affairs at{18} Cape Ann. While here a proof of the truth of the report was given them in the magnanimity and justness, as well as prudence, exercised by him in settling a dispute over the possession of a fishing stage between Miles Standish, “the captain of Plymouth,” and a captain Hewet, who had been sent out by the opposite party. This scene has been made the subject of a window in the Conant Memorial Congregational Church, recently erected at Dudley, Mass., by Hezekiah Conant.

Cape Ann was not a suitable place for settlement; the land was poor and the merchandise brought from England unproductive of lucrative returns. Roger selected a site “on the other side of a creek called Naumkeag (now Salem),” and shortly after removed there.

During his stay at Cape Ann Roger occupied the great frame house which had been built by the old planters in 1624. The frames, it is said, and probably with truth, were brought from England. The timbers are oak, yet sound, and in existence still as a part of a stable. The house, as given in the accompanying illustration, is taken from a drawing made in 1775. It is similar to many of the old houses of the same date, and still the most picturesque features of the villages in Surrey and Devon.

appointed Governor, it being taken down and removed to Salem. The exact site of Roger’s house, the first built in Salem, cannot be ascertained. Subsequent records go to show that the stability, the permanency and good government of the colony were largely dependent upon the influence of Conant, although after the appointment of Endicott as Governor, under the new patent, he was no longer the head. During the rivalry between the members of the old and the new company his self-denial and upright character won him friends on both sides and secured that harmony which resulted in the public good; he “quietly composed that the meum and tuum which divide the world should not disturb the peace of good Christians.”

There has been some controversy among the antiquarians on Roger Conant’s claim to the title of first Governor of Massachusetts. He is, however, entitled to the honor, for the colony of which he was the recognized head for three years was the first permanent settlement in the territory, and from it the other colonies sprung. There are many documents extant, besides entries in the records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, which go to prove how frequently Roger Conant was called upon to fill offices and do his share in the numerous works inseparable from the building up of a country, the{20} knowledge and experience as well as the influence of the “prudent Christian gentleman” being invaluable to his fellow-townsmen and settlers.

In 1668 that part of Salem known as Bass River, on the Cape Ann side, was incorporated under the name of Beverley, and one of the most interesting incidents of his long and active life is Roger Conant’s effort to change this name for that of Budleigh. The original petition, which however was not granted, is among the Massachusetts archives. It is interesting as showing how the memory of his birth-place still remained fresh in his affections. He died November 19th, 1678, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. From this date until that of the Revolution the succeeding generations of Conants have left individual records of worth, as landed proprietors in the State of Massachusetts; but it is unnecessary here to enter into their history. Several of them were graduates of Harvard University, and many of them mill-owners, thus carrying on the calling and talents of their ancestor, as we shall see, to the seventh, eighth and ninth generation; Hezekiah Conant, of Pawtucket, being a large owner of the great thread works of J. P. Coates, employing five thousand hands; and Daniel Conant, the author’s father, also a mill-owner in Upper Canada, a property which contributed largely to his success.{21}

CHAPTER II.

UPON the outbreak of the American Revolution there were three brothers, Conants, of the sixth generation from Roger the Pilgrim, in Massachusetts. Two of these took sides at once with the patriots and joined Washington’s army when that General came from Virginia and took command at Cambridge. One of them, Daniel Conant, was wounded at Lexington, April 19th, 1775.{22}

The third, Roger, and the author’s immediate ancestor, believed that the wrongs of the colonists would be righted in time by petition, and while expressing his sense of these wrongs, refused to join the patriot army. Copy of statement in “Conant Genealogy,” page 252: “The name of Roger Conant of Ealton appears on the muster-roll of Capt. Abiah Mitchell’s Company, which was down at the Alarm” (“Mass. Arch. Lexington Alarm Lists,” Vol. XIII., p. 16) and Roger Conant served one month and twelve days as corporal in Scott’s Company of Ashley’s Regiment, “which marched from Westmoreland, Chesterfield and Hinsdale to Ticonderoga on the alarm of May 8th, 1777” (N. H. State Papers, Vol. XV., p. 6). To-day, however, we all rejoice at the success of the colonies, and that the personal rule of King George III. was terminated.

The brothers met frequently and talked over current events. Among the reminiscences of these conversations the following anecdotes have been handed down from father to son, and although they have no direct relation with Upper Canada, they may be worth repeating, as showing a little of the personal character of some of the actors in the life of that time.

Washington, when at Cambridge, was riding one day to a distant part of the field, attended by several of his aides and gentlemen of the New England{23} Colonies. On the way he met a mounted negro, who took off his hat and bowed very profoundly, showing his teeth and the whites of his eyes as he smiled and exclaimed, “How are you, General, how are you?” General Washington quickly lifted his hat, and though not halting his horse, replied courteously to the salutation.

One of the New England gentlemen who accompanied him remarked to Washington, “I wonder you take the trouble to salute that negro!”

Washington replied, “It would, indeed, be a hard matter if I had not as good manners as a negro.”

The fortunes of war in 1777-80 brought the struggle to Valley Forge, just north of Philadelphia. Here the patriot army wintered in log cabins in the forest. Daniel Conant returned to his place in the ranks, and during the long winter met most of the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Among these was a fatherly Tory Quaker who one day met Washington on foot, walking within the lines, looking sad and dejected. “The British will hang thee, George,” said the Quaker. In a twinkling the great man revived, pulled down the collar of his coat, and saying, “This neck never was made for a halter,” walked briskly away.

A few days after the Quaker was walking alone in the forest. While making his way he heard a voice being lifted up in prayer. Pushing the bushes aside{24} in the direction of the sound, he saw Washington, bare-headed and kneeling in the snow, with upturned face and closed eyes, asking the God of battles to preserve his little army and himself, and to favor the right.

Reverently the Quaker waited until the General had ended his prayer, then he stepped to his side as he rose, and said, “George, thee will succeed and conquer the British.”

As to the character of Washington, there never were two opinions; he seemed always to tower above all and every one. At first when he came to New England, they said, he was disposed to find fault and look with doubt upon the New England levies. Time, however, corrected that, and not a few of the Revolutionary generals and leaders among them became known as genuine men.

John Hancock the Conant brothers did not care for, saying that he went into the war mainly to avoid the heavy suits then pending against him for customs dues. Among the leading civilians they admired and revered John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, although they did say of Adams that he was always finding fault with the British Government, and that he was offered lucrative offices in order to keep him quiet; but he was not to be held.

General Knox, who was a Boston bookseller, they{25} always spoke well of. Greene and Schuyler they thought were men who possessed real military ability and were high-minded gentlemen. Ethan Allen and General Putnam they thought brave men, but not in possession of military abilities.

Roger Conant said of Sir William Johnson, that “he was the cleverest man he had ever met. He could manage both Indians and white men.” He had met Brant also, and always spoke of him as “one of nature’s noblemen with a tawny skin.”

Colonel Butler, of Butler’s Rangers, and his acts were most frequently recalled; words failed to express the abhorrence of this marauder and his acts. Roger Conant had tarried in New York State when on his way to Canada, and knew something of the horrors of the civil war. He had met Butler and readily listened to tales told him in later years by a man who had been one of Butler’s Rangers. This man lived with Roger Conant as his hired servant. He told him that he and others, with Butler in command, had many times entered defenceless houses and murdered at the first instance the man and wife. Next the children were brought before the great gaping open wood fireplaces of those days and bayoneted, the bayonet passing quite through their little bodies, and were held over the flames that the soldiers might “watch them squirm,” as he expressed it. The{26} man would also frequently call out in his troubled dreams when asleep, such words as, “There they are! Don’t you see them squirm? Bayonet that big boy!” acting over again the murderous scenes. These stories were told the author by his ancestors many times as no fanciful picture.

On another occasion Butler captured a small garrison of Continentals in New York State, who marched out and surrendered their arms. One among them, a former neighbor of Butler’s, came to the gate and bade the major “Good day.” During the early period of the war this man had been enrolled among King George’s levies, but had never served. “Stand out by that tree,” said Butler, and the man obeyed. On the last man emerging from the garrison and surrendering his arms, Butler ordered half a dozen of his Rangers to “Right about face—present arms—fire!” and his neighbor never breathed again.

During the early months of the war and its continuance the brothers Conant met of an evening behind blinded windows and closed doors. On canvassing matters thoroughly they came to the conclusion that the colonies would never succeed, and that Great Britain would in the end wreak terrible vengeance on those in rebellion. Britain’s name carried with it a sense of power and unlimited resources, and Roger Conant could not make himself believe{27} that she would ever let the colonies go. As time went on, too, his position in Massachusetts became a difficult one, so he resolved to leave all and flee to Canada.

He had been educated for the law, and had attended Harvard University. He owned several thousands of acres of land, both in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Money was a scarce commodity then, as every one knows who has read attentively the history of that struggle, and for his large property Roger Conant could only get together $5,000. This, with the aid of his brothers, he obtained in gold, and in 1777 he set out from the vicinity of Boston with his family. Their conveyance was a covered waggon drawn by two horses, and following was an ox-team drawing a cart laden with household goods and farm implements. His first stop was about the Hudson River. When there the commandant of that point asked him to look for a deserter from the American army. A photographic reproduction of the captain’s order is herewith given. Strange to say, it is not dated; but it was given in the year 1777.

From the records extant Roger appears to have made some stay here—some authorities say on land of his own, which he sold later. A quit-claim deed is reproduced in fac-simile (page 29), conveying a valuable island on the New England coast. Reserving{28}

wood in a deed is peculiar, and it is set forth in a singular way. The Charles Annis mentioned in this deed was a relative of Roger Conant’s, and came to Canada from Massachusetts soon after him. From him most of the Annises in Canada are descended.

Leaving his family at Geneva, New York State, Roger Conant came on to Canada, arriving at the locality afterward called Darlington, County Durham, Ontario, in October, 1778. The first Crown grant of land to Roger Conant was made December 31st, 1778. It consisted of lots 28, 29, 30 and 31, in the Broken Front, Darlington; also south halves of lots 28, 29, 30 and 31, 1st concession Darlington, County Durham—in all about 1,200 acres. After building a house on his land, and probably clearing some portion of it, he returned to Geneva.

What he did between this date and 1794, when he brought his family to Canada, is not known. It is said that during these intermediate years he went to and from Massachusetts several times, in order to collect the proceeds of the sale of his property there. It was during these years that, it is said, he lived among Butler’s Rangers, and from their deeds of violence learned to execrate their memory.

In 1794 he set out again, stopping at Genesee Falls, where Rochester, N.Y., now is. Once the author asked why they did not remain there, and was told{31} that “it was only a black ash swamp, and they did not want it.”

Governor Simcoe’s proclamation, offering grants of land in Upper Canada to those who would come and occupy them, hurried Roger Conant’s journey. Arriving at the mouth of the Niagara River, and hiring a flat scow in which to ferry himself, his family and effects over, he landed at Newark, then the capital of Upper Canada. While there he met Governor Simcoe, who tried to induce him to go up Yonge Street to lands on Lake Simcoe; but not relishing the idea of leaving the shores of Lake Ontario for the wilderness, he refused. The Governor then asked him if he would fight against Canada if trouble came. Roger’s reply was, “No, sir, I will fight for the country which protects me.” And, as we shall presently see, he made good his promise by aiding the British cause in the subsequent war of 1812.

Following the lake shore, camping at night, and fording the streams where they debouch, they at last reached the site of York, then a cluster of Indian wigwams with a few houses in process of erection. The river Don being too deep to ford, they hired Indians to convey them over in their canoes. The waggons were taken apart and so ferried across, when they were put together again, and the emigrants proceeded along the broken shores of the lake.{32}

CHAPTER III.

GOLDEN autumn days were those when the emigrants’ long journey was nearing its end. Provision must first be made for the cattle and horses. October was upon them and winter near.

At Arnall’s Creek—then known as Barber’s Creek—they found a flat of marsh-grass quite free from the forest trees which then were universal above the water’s edge of Lake Ontario.

Here they pitched their tents, the creek and lake forming two sides of a triangle for defence from wolves, leaving one side only to be protected. Salmon would run in November, and the winter’s supply of fish could be secured from the creek, and the marsh-grass gathered for the stock from the flat at its mouth.

The illustration opposite is of the first house built by Roger Conant in Upper Canada. The foundation of it yet remains close by the waters of Lake Ontario. The man in the foreground of the picture is pounding or crushing grain with a burnt-out stump as a mortar, using as a pestle a billet of wood which is attached to a spring pole, thus raising it easily. There was no mill nearer than Kingston where the corn could be ground. At Port Hope (then called Smith’s Creek), in 1806, Elias Smith erected a grist-mill. Previous to that date the settlers took their grist by boat to Kingston, at the foot of Lake Ontario, 110 miles distant. The journey occupied several days, necessitating their camping on the shores at night.

At the home by the broad waters of Lake Ontario{34} the settlers led a truly idyllic life. The unerring rifle supplied them with meat, the waters with fish, and the distant mill with flour until a crop could be grown from the cleared land next season. They spent the days “logging” (felling the trees) and the nights burning. The bright flames among the trees and against the dark background of the dense forest made a picturesque scene. A singular fact about “logging” is that the log-heaps burn better at night than by day; therefore the logging was done in the day-time and the burning by night. (See illustration, page 40.) But to make money in this new country, where there were no neighbors nor any travellers to buy, nor any money to buy with, was a more difficult feat than making a home.

Furs and furs only would bring money. Possessing some capital (about $5,000, as already stated), Roger Conant made his way to Montreal by canoe, and there about 1799 had Durham boats built—broad-beamed open flat boats, strongly built for rowing and towing. These he filled with blankets, traps, knives, guns, flints, ammunition, beads and tomahawks, bought in the Montreal stores, to trade with the Indians for furs.

On page 48 is an illustration of three Durham boats ascending the rapids of the great St. Lawrence River, each towed by three men. They were launched{35} above the greater rapids near Montreal, and hugged the shores while passing the others. An axe was always ready to the hand of the man who sat in the boat and steered, for should the rapid be too strong and get the mastery of the three men who were towing from the shore, the rope was quickly cut, and the Durham, freed, shot like a catapult down stream, until it was lodged in the first cul-de-sac below. It was manifestly a most tediously slow and weary mode of progress. There were no canals built then as now, to form an easy highway past the rapids. Once attaining Lake Ontario they paddled and rowed, still keeping close along shore and camping at some convenient landing-place at night.

In the illustration on page 65 we have a fair representation of an Indian trading scene. The goods brought from Montreal in the Durham boats have been carried back to a spot a few miles from the lake shore, in charge of the trader and his assistants. Three guns were fired in quick succession upon reaching camp the previous night, as a signal for all Indians within hearing to come with their furs to trade on the morrow. A beaver skin is lying upon the ground, an Indian is negotiating for a blanket, while another is looking at a gun, and others are coming in with their furs on their backs.

A few days’ trading exhausts the goods brought{36} by the trader. He returns home with the furs received in exchange, deposits them, replenishes his pack, and sets out on other trips in different directions, until all the goods are exchanged, and the following summer the furs are taken to Montreal in the same Durham boats, where gold and silver, as well as a further supply of goods, are obtained for them.

There is no record of Roger Conant having shipped his furs direct to London, England. As good prices were paid for furs in Montreal, it is most probable he disposed of them there. Year after year the trade was continued without interruption. It brought wealth to the author’s grandsire, honestly and fairly obtained.

The great Hudson’s Bay Company maintained a regular chain of trading stations upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, as they did in the far west and the Arctic north. The trading stations on Lake Ontario being near to Quebec and Montreal, and close together, were easily supplied with trading goods.

At the period of which we are now writing, when my forefather became an opponent to the great Hudson’s Bay Company in the fur trade (1798), that Company had a trading station very near his home—only some three miles to the west, and on what is now known as Bluff Point, a promontory two miles east of Port Oshawa. This trading station was not fortified,{37} but consisted of a well-built, commodious log-house, with flat roof, and the corners of the house squared and neatly joined. Standing upon the promontory, it was easily accessible to the boats passing up or down the lake. In the spring the boats would come up from Montreal, generally gaily painted, and rowed quite close to shore, with song and laughter. After making the round of the trading stations of Lake Ontario, they came back in the same manner in the fall, laden with furs and Montreal-ward bound. “Here come the Hudson Bay boats!” was the word on the day of their arrival. During their first years in the wilderness the visit of these boats was an event in the lives of the settlers.

Halcyon days were these for the coureurs du bois (as the Frenchmen were called who manned these boats), who were often traders themselves. However, the influx of settlers and fur traders, such as my forefathers were, presented such a strong opposition to the Company, that it gradually gave up Upper Canada as an exploiting ground, and maintained its hold of regions more inaccessible. A princely heritage, forsooth! All of fertile Upper Canada to roam over—mastery of the Indians—and a steady stream of gold coming in from the trade in furs.

This Hudson’s Bay Company is one of the marvels of the world. Its charter was granted by Charles II.{38} in 1670 to some favorites, and from this inception it rapidly went on to growth and prosperity, acquiring almost despotic rule over its territories. Its servants never have plundered it. Its factors, having charge over stores and furs of immense values, away off from white men or the eyes of any who could take an interest in watching them, have always been faithful to their trust. There is no record extant of a dishonest factor. No government, priest or king ever had servants more faithful than have been the directors of this Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company of Fur Traders for the two hundred and twenty-eight years of its existence.

Sugar-making was another pursuit which, if it did not add great wealth to the settler’s pocket, at any rate increased his home comforts. The illustration on page 78 is a good representation of a sugar-making camp in the bush. The troughs at the foot of the trees receive the sap, which drips from a transverse slit in the bark, made by two blows of a hatchet, at some few feet above the ground. This trough was then no more than a hollowed-out half log, the ends left closed. The sap runs best during the day, as the warmth of the sun draws it up to the branches. It is carried in pails to the great caldrons, set over the fire on a cross limb, and poured into the one on the right side. When it has boiled, it is then transferred in{39} rude ladles to the caldron on the left, where it is further reduced by boiling, and becomes sugared sufficiently to ensure its hardening when poured into the pans and other receptacles. When hard, these are turned out and set upon cross-sticks in tiers to dry. The earliest sap which rises makes the lightest colored sugar.

The Indians are about and assisting in the work. They were always friendly, never stole or deceived, and were ever the white man’s friend in Upper Canada. Those in the neighborhood of my grandfather’s settlement were chiefly Mississaugaus. Every summer they went away to the small lakes north of Ontario, and came back in the fall for the salmon and sturgeon fishing, living in lodges or wigwams. These are covered with birch bark. The illustration, given on page 84, is not overdrawn as a representation of an Indian camp.{40}

CHAPTER IV.

WAUBAKOSH was an Indian chief of the Mississaugaus. Every fall, from the year 1808 to 1847, he came with his tribe (or at least 150 of them) to the shore of Lake Ontario, that he and they might fish.

Their lodges were almost invariably constructed on the bank of a creek, near its mouth, that they might take the salmon ascending the stream in November to spawn, and fish in the lake from their boats, with light-jack and spear, for sturgeon.

First he came as a young Indian brave, before he became chief, and, on attaining the chieftainship and a wife, the only difference which the few white settlers here at that time could discover in his attire was that his deerskin leggings were more beautifully fringed at the seams, and his moccasins likewise were more elaborately wrought with porcupine quills.

Waubakosh was never known to commit a mean act. He was always friendly, and every succeeding fall his coming back was looked for with certainty by the white settlers, who got their living in the clearings and from the waters, as much hunters and fishermen as farmers.

On bidding his white friends good-bye, about December, 1847, as he set out for the Indian encampment about Nottawasaga, in the thick woods, the Indian chief expressed the fear that he might never come back again. His fears were only too well founded, for he never did return. Old residents who knew him have been heard many times to wonder what was his ultimate fate. More strange still to say, not one of his tribe ever came back again to lodge any length of time. A noble-looking red man, he has been described as tall and straight, with a good face and a pleasant eye—in very truth, one of Nature’s noblemen.

Many of his companions who predeceased him{42} were buried near his camping-place on Lake Ontario. Their tomahawks, beads, flints, spears, ornaments, and buttons, and their skulls as well, have been found in recent years by those seeking for traces of the aboriginal red man.

As a means of money making, next to the fur trading in Upper Canada came the making of potash. Ashes were about in plenty, and were easily gathered from the burnt heaps of logs.

In the illustration facing page 97 the artist has endeavored to show the intense heat required. The fire about the kettle is blazing furiously. This is the “melting scene,” and the last firing before the potash will be done. The driest and most inflammable wood was needed to secure the great heat that was necessary.

Potash, from 1800 to about 1840, brought some $40 per barrel in Upper Canada, and with the fur trading helped to make wealth for my grandsire and others.

On the breaking out of the war of 1812, between Britain and the United States, the settlers in Upper Canada were generally on the high road to prosperity, cultivating a land as fertile as any under heaven outside the valley of the Nile, and with less waste land than in any country of like extent. Such was and is Upper Canada. It is blessed, too, with a mild,{43} salubrious climate, where the four seasons are distinctly marked.

We have seen that husbandry, begun about 1812, gradually became a national industry. Wheat at that time could only be sold for one-half cash and one-half store-pay. The usual price was two shillings (Halifax) per bushel, or about 48 cents, and it was almost invariably fall wheat. The author’s ancestors did considerable at farming, but were mainly fur traders and producers of potash up to the time of the war. Clothing was almost invariably hand-spun and woven. Deer-skin, however, was largely used for men’s leggings, moccasins, and even women’s dresses.

A story is told of a young girl having one dress only, which was made of deer-skin. By many weeks’ constant wear it had become soiled. One day, while all were away, she embraced the opportunity to wash this precious deer-skin garment, and dry it before the fire. When the family returned they found the girl in bed weeping because she had no dress. It had shrunken so much as to be too small to wear again.

When the war of 1812 was declared, the British Government was anxious to send cannon and military supplies into Upper Canada from Montreal. At first these were sent by water (see page 104), but later on the fear of capture by the enemy caused them to be sent by land. A main highway, leading from York{44} to Kingston, had been surveyed by the Government and chopped out of the forest. In many places, however, the settlers being so few, it had from disuse become overgrown again with young forest, making it impassable for laden waggons. It was known generally as the “Kingston Road.” At some places it lay quite close to the lake, and at others receded two or three miles inland; consequently only some sections were used for traffic in 1812. One of these sections was at Harmony, a small village one mile east from Oshawa.

Here a large frame hotel had been built, kept by one Moode Farewell. This was one of the stopping places or houses of entertainment for the military men who passed to and from Montreal and York during the war.

The illustration given at page 122 is from a water-color drawing made from a photograph of this hotel. Joviality and good cheer were characteristic of it, and many a merry night was spent there by the British officers. Many times my grandfather saw them call for liquors in the bar-room on arrival, each grasp his glass, touch his companion’s and drink to the usual toast of “Here’s to a long and moderate war.” Could those old walls speak to-day they would recall the many, many times this toast was given.

Fun, too, was always in order. One evening a young lieutenant, a recent arrival from Britain, came in. The heavy rain had soaked his thin buckskins and leggings. On leaving the bar-room for supper he hung them to dry on a chair back before the fire-place—a great cavernous fire-place, large enough to take in a four-foot back log two feet in diameter.

My mischievous grandsire watched the leggings and helped them on with their drying by placing them squarely before the fire. When the young lieutenant came out from supper his consternation was amusing. His property had become a shrivelled, hard piece of buckskin, shapeless and useless.

“Why did you not mind my leggings?” he cried wrathfully. “Oh, I did mind them well—just see how dry they are,” was the reply. General laughter followed, and the “long and moderate war” toast was again drunk.

Moode Farewell, the owner and keeper of this hotel, was the father of a numerous family, many of whom and of their descendants have risen to high places both in Canada and the United States. He was a man of boundless energy, pluck and endurance, and amassed a considerable fortune.

About eight miles westerly from Farewell’s was Lynde’s tavern, on the Kingston Road. Between these two points, on the way from York to Montreal, the Government had frequent occasion to have des{46}patches passed during the war. As he had promised Governor Simcoe on coming into Upper Canada in 1794, Roger Conant aided the Government, even if he did not fight for it, by carrying despatches between these two points whenever he was called on so to do. His house stood very near the shore of the lake, a new and larger one having been constructed near the first. Along the lake shore, past this house, the heavy freight and military supplies were drawn.

Frequently during the continuance of the war of 1812 a midnight summons came to him, first a knock at the door, and then the demand, “Open in the King’s name!”

“In a moment, gentlemen,” was the answer, and as soon as ordinary garb could be assumed the officers were admitted.

“Certainly, gentlemen, but can’t you wait a moment, that I may feed the oxen before setting out?”

By placing food and good cheer before the officers and men sufficient time usually was gained, but after once starting out no stop would be permitted until the fort at York was reached, about thirty-five miles westerly along the beach, the intervening streams being crossed by wading. Sometimes the freight to be hauled consisted of other military supplies.{47}

Rough and formal as the soldiers were, my grandfather said the officers were invariably fine men, and he was always well paid in coin when he reached the fort at York. On one occasion, on arrival with a gun, the commissary officer came to him and asked if he would sell a yoke of his oxen. Nothing loth, he consented £14 (Halifax) were handed him, and the oxen became beef for the garrison. This was a very lucrative trip, with the pay for hauling and for the oxen, and the country served at the same time.

The records of the time are not without the humorous side. The following recount some of the tricks of the soldiers, always ready to add variety to their bill-of-fare:

Skirting along the shore, and pulling up their boats at night, came some troops on their way to Toronto, who were billeted to lodge with a settler for a night. Now, this settler had a number of hogs, and on arising next morning he missed one from the lot. Supposing the soldiers had stolen it, he at once complained to the captain in command, who instituted a thorough search among all the boats, but all to no purpose—the hog was not to be found, and the command set off. Upon landing the following night after the day’s row the missing hog came to light. The captain, puzzled to know how it could be so successfully concealed, offered pardon to the offenders{48} if they would only tell how they concealed it. Taken at his word, they showed the captain how they had opened the hog down the front its whole length, and placed it like a sheath on the keel of the boat, so that the water thoroughly hid it, and nailed it there. Of course, no one thought of looking into the water under the boat for the hog. It would be superfluous to add that the captain had fresh pork for supper that night.

At another time, as the troops were marching past a settler’s house they came upon a flock of geese. After the men had passed one of the geese was discovered missing, and the owner came to the camp that night and demanded a search for it. A most thorough search was instituted among the camp baggage, but no bird was found. Next day, however, while on the march, the captain had a part of this goose brought to him at his meal. After partaking of the toothsome dish his wrath was no doubt much mollified, and he asked how they had brought the goose along, seeing no visible way of doing it. His surprise was great to learn that the drummer of the troop had unheaded his drum and placed the bird inside. Well, these poor fellows deserved well of this country for the hardships which they encountered in its protection, and they were right royally welcome to both hog and goose, and should be freely forgiven.

Sometimes oxen were impressed to draw specie to Toronto, and the old men used to say that they would far rather draw the cannon than the specie. While drawing the latter, which was in boxes about a foot square, the guards were very strict, and would not allow much rest for the driver or the oxen. Like the story of Captain Kidd’s buried treasure, there have been stories told of a box of this specie being hidden while on the way by the officer in command. It has been a rumor current among old 1812 men that a box of specie was placed in one of the gullies near the lake shore on the Scarboro’ Heights. From all that can be gathered, it would appear true that some specie was deposited there. Persons armed with various amalgams on the ends of sticks, others with witch-hazel twigs, have searched for this specie. It is more than probable, however, that the officer who hid it came back for it after the war was over.

The lot of the U. E. Loyalists who came here was one hard enough to deter the most resolute among us to-day from willingly entering upon its like. Those of us who would voluntarily for patriotism, or even for money, enter upon such a wild heroic life of toil are few, very few indeed. Think of going from Oshawa to Kingston to mill as one of the hardships they had to contend with. Yet they laid the foundation of fortunes for their successors, and those who{50} held on to their inherited lands are to-day among the richest families in Ontario. They, at least, have particular cause to be loyal and faithful for the good they have received at their country’s hands. But those holding on to these royal grants are very few indeed as compared with the number who originally inherited them. I do not think I can count more than a dozen families to-day, between Toronto and Kingston, who own these grants in direct descent by inheritance.{51}

CHAPTER V.

ON April 27th, 1813, upon the taking of York by Chauncey and his fleet, orders were given by the officer left in command of the British militia when General Sheaffe retreated to blow up the fort. The boom of the explosion was distinctly heard by my grandsire, Thomas Conant, at his home thirty-five miles distant. With the exception of this incident no records connected with the events from that time until the close of the war in 1814 have been preserved among the reminiscences of the family.

The supplies needed for the soldiers had encour{52}aged agriculture in the back townships and brought money into circulation in the country. At the close of the war immigration increased, sturdy settlers coming into the country both from the British Isles and the United States. The settlement of the wild lands, the clearing of the forests and the building of roads went on apace; an era of prosperity and wealth succeeded as peace became assured.

The most thriving industry was that of the lumberman, awaiting whose axe lay the magnificent forests of timber which covered so large a portion of Upper Canada. My father embarked in this trade. His mother’s decease induced his relative, David Annis, a bachelor, to ask for and adopt him as his heir.

David Annis was a descendant of the Charles Annis mentioned in the quit-rent deed given on page 29. Though unlettered and untaught, even unable to write his own name, David was possessed of excellent business ability and an untiring body; a man of fine heart, a friend to the poor, and hospitable to all. It is said of him that no Indian or white ever went from his door hungry. Together he and Daniel Conant built what was probably the first lumber mill erected in the Home District. Its capacity was seven thousand feet of lumber per day only. At page 135 a picture of this mill is given.

valueless when manufactured unless means had been provided to take it to market by schooner. Niagara, at the mouth of the Niagara River, was, even as late as 1835, one of the largest towns in Upper Canada. Thither the lumber must be taken to find a market. No wharves had then been built upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, and lumber must be floated down the stream from the mill in rafts to the lake, and so placed on board the waiting schooners. Three vessels were built by ship carpenters (many of whom came from the United States) of the lumber sawn at the mill. They were built on fine lines and had excellent sailing properties, their owners boasting they could sail them “as close to the wind’s eye as any craft that ever floated.”

Pine lumber brought at that day (1835) $7 per thousand feet in cash at Niagara; therefore the lumber mill paid $49 per day of twenty-four hours during the season of sawing. To supply the demands of this trade vessel after vessel was built, and soon return freights began to be offered, such as salt from Sodus, N.Y., and flour in barrels, to be carried to Kingston, until the business of lumber manufacturing and vessel freighting was, at that early period in the history of Upper Canada, as productive as the output of a paying gold mine. The author’s father served on many of his schooners as captain and super{54}cargo as well, and never lost his love of the water and its attendant adventure.

One of the most important occurrences of the time, and one from which many reckoned their local history, was a remarkable display of falling meteors. The following account is taken from memoranda left by my mother, and as told by my father:

On the night of the 12th of November, 1833, my father, then a young man, was salmon-spearing in a boat in the creek, at its outlet into Lake Ontario, now Port Oshawa. One of his hired men sat in the stern and paddled, while he stood close beside the light-jack of blazing pine knots, in order to see the salmon in the water. He, in common with the inhabitants generally, was laying in a stock of salmon to be salted down for the year’s use, until the salmon “run” again the following fall.

At or about ten o’clock of this evening, as nearly as he could judge, from out of an intensely dark November night, globes of fire as big as goose eggs began falling all around his boat. These balls continued to fall until my father, becoming frightened, went home,—not forgetting, he quaintly added, to bring with him the salmon already caught. On reaching home, Lot 6, B. F. East Whitby, the whole household was aroused, and frightened too; but the fires ceasing{55} they went to bed, to pass a restless night after the awe-inspiring scene they had witnessed.

Getting up before daybreak next morning, my father raked over the embers of the buried back log of the big fire-place and quickly had a blaze. Happening to glance out of the window, to his intense amazement he saw, as he said, “the whole sky filled with shooting stars.” Quickly he called to the men, his hired help in the lumbering business, to come down stairs. They needed not a second invitation, and among them was one Shields, who, on reaching the door, dropped in a twinkling upon his knees and began to pray. The balls of fire continuing, his prayers grew more earnest, if vigor of voice could be any index to his religious fervor. Of the grandeur of the unparalleled scene my father said almost nothing, for I am led to think they were all too thoroughly frightened to think of beauty, that being a side issue entirely. The fiery shower growing more dense, my father went out of doors and found the fire-balls did not burn or hurt. Then he went to a neighbor’s—a preacher of renown in the locality—having to pass through woods, and even in the darkness, he affirms, the fire-balls lighted his way quite distinctly. The preacher, already awake, was seated at the table beside a tallow dip reading his Bible, with two other neighbors listening and too fright{56}ened, he said, to even bid him good morning. He sat and listened to verse after verse, and still the stars fell. The preacher gave no explanation or sign, but read on. Looking eastward, at last my father saw a faint glimmer of breaking day. Once more he came out into the fire and made his way homeward. Before he reached there daylight broke. Gradually the fire-balls grew less and less, and, with the day, ceased altogether. To find a sign of them he hunted closely upon the ground, but not a trace was left of anything. Nor was any damage done. What became of the stars that fell he could not conjecture.

Realize that in 1833 astronomers had not taught Upper Canadians in regard to meteoric showers, as we know to-day, and we do not marvel at their consternation and fright. Such was the greatest meteoric shower the world probably has ever known. Its greatest density was said to be attained in this section of the continent.

A bit of doggerel went the rounds at that time. It was made, I believe, by one Horace Hutchinson, a sailor whom my father had on one of his schooners. Here is the first verse:

A better sailor he was than a poet, and yet, bad as the verses were, they were very popular in the thirties in a large section of the Home District, of which this is a part.

E. S. Shrapnel, the artist, paints the picture (page 144) from an actual photograph of the house, he obviously supplying the kneeling man.

Shields, who made so great a fuss, was employed by one of my father’s foremen at the lumbering, and the picture and its story are true in every essential particular.

Upper and Lower Canada were thought by many to have extremely severe winters. It is probable the belief was well founded, but the climate of Upper Canada has undergone a very material change since that period (1835). To-day Upper Canada is pre-eminently a fruit-growing country. Apples, pears, peaches and grapes are staples in this favored land.

COLD WINTERS OF YORE.

Old men tell us that our winters are less severe now than they were fifty or sixty years ago. The long unbroken spells of extreme cold which they used to experience in the early days of our history, are not known now. It is true we do get a cold spell during the winter, now and again, and sometimes deep snow; but these cold spells soon break, and the{58} deep snows do not remain all winter. Not long since I was talking with one of the Grand Trunk Railway conductors, who had been on the line for over twenty years. He said that when he first came on the line it was not at all unusual to have the snow even with the car steps for miles. At other places, he said, they would for long distances pass through tunnels of snow piled or drifted as high as the car tops, whereas now the railway company seldom send out their snow-plough at all, nor does the snow seriously hinder the running of the trains.

It may be that the snow does not now lie as deep as it did before the land was cleared, but is more drifted. This no doubt is true, in a measure, but then if we got as much snow as our fathers used to, and this drifted, the consequences would be most disastrous, and would be an effectual bar to locomotion.

The winter’s cold of former years can be best illustrated by the relation of an anecdote. An old gentleman, still alive and approaching his fourscore years says he was one day driving through a seventeen-mile belt of woods, in this province, with one horse drawing a jumper. The jumpers of those days were made by using two green saplings for runners, bending them up for the crooks. Beams and uprights were made of green saplings, like the runners. An axe and an auger were the only tools used in their construction, and{59} generally there was not a particle of iron in any shape. Rude as they were, they served their purpose admirably, and lasted well enough through one winter. The day was intensely cold, so cold that it was dangerous to leave any part of the body exposed for a moment. He saw a man sitting bolt upright in the snow on the path before him. His first thought was “What will this man be doing here alone, sitting down in this awful cold.” Coming up to him, he reined up his horse, and called to the man; receiving no answer, he tapped him with his whip, and, to his astonishment, the blow resounded as if he were striking a piece of marble. The poor fellow was frozen solid through and through. He was a settler, who lived some thirty miles farther on, and who had set out to go to some settlement, but becoming exhausted by the long weary tramp in the snow, sat down for a few moments’ rest, became drowsy from the soporific effects of the cold, and froze as he sat.

To convey to the younger generation of Upper Canadians an idea of some of the difficulties which our forefathers encountered in subduing the dense forests of our Province, I will relate a true instance of an occurrence about sixty years ago:

A man and his wife, with two children, moved into the Township of Ops, into a dense forest, eight miles{60} from the nearest settler. For months he chopped away at the forest trees, all alone, and succeeded at length in making a clearing in the forest, and erecting a log-house for himself and his family. The logs were peeled and notched at the ends, and laid up squarely, each tier making the house the diameter of a log higher. A hole was cut through for a doorway, and another for a window. To form a door he split some thin slabs from a straight-grained cedar, and pinned them with wooden pins to cross slats. The most ingenious parts of the construction, however, were the hinges. Iron hinges he had not, and could not get. With the auger he bored a hole through the end of a square piece of wood, and, sharpening the other end with his axe, he then bored a hole into one of the logs of the house, constituting in part a door-jamb, and drove the piece of wood into this hole. This formed the top part of the hinge, and the bottom part was fashioned in exactly the same way. Now to the door, in like manner, he fastened two pegs of wood with holes bored through their ends. Placing the ends of the hinges above one another they presented the four ends with holes leading through them, the one above the other. Next he made a long pin with his handy jacknife, leaving a run at one end of it, and making it long enough to reach from the top{61} to the lower hinge. Through the holes at the ends of the hinge this long pin was placed, and thus the door was hung.

The roof of the log-house was perhaps the greatest curiosity. Hollow basswood (linden) trees were generally used. These were first cut the length required, then split through the centre, each half forming a trough. A layer of these troughs was laid lengthwise from the ridge-pole to the eaves, all over the house-top, upon their backs, the bark side down. Over these was laid a second layer, reversed, or bark side up, and the edges of the upper layer fitted into the hollows of the lower one. In this way the settler made a roof for his house quickly and easily. Such a roof shed water tolerably well, too, until the logs began to rot.

This primitive house built, the settler put in a small crop in the tiny clearing. At this period in the country’s history the virgin soil produced bountifully, and the crops once put in were almost sure to give fair returns. When autumn came with its gorgeous colors—the leaves of the forest in the north temperate zone rivalling in beauty anything the tropics can show us—the settler’s crop was a good one.

Unfortunately, however, he was confined to his rude bed, too ill to gather in his harvest. Eight miles{62} away his nearest neighbors followed the “blazes”[A] on the trees through the woods and came and secured the settler’s crop for him, then departed, leaving him and his household all alone in the deep, silent forest. Days and weeks rolled along and no one came again, while the poor man got perceptibly worse. Winter at last set in with the severe cold of those days. Snow, deep and lasting, soon fell, and covered all things animate and inanimate with a pure white mantle. To have a huge pile of logs at the door was the custom of those days, to supply the winter fire in the great capacious open fire-place. Our settler had not neglected to secure the traditional and useful pile of logs before his illness. Many dreary days passed over this little snowed-in household, the husband and mainstay still sick, and gradually growing weaker. Wolves howled around the door nightly. Seeing no one out of doors, they gradually became bolder and would approach to the very door of the cabin.

To the poor disconsolate wife’s inexpressible grief, the husband died and left her alone in her solitary loneliness with her two children, the eldest of whom was only eight years of age, and the second one just able to walk. What dreadful isolation this, with no one nearer than eight miles to help her perform{63} the sacred rites of sepulture! Among the tools in the house was an old mattock, used in grubbing up the forest roots in the clearing. With this she attempted to dig a grave. Unfortunately for her, however, the snow had fallen later than usual in the autumn, after the ground had become frozen quite hard. All her efforts failed to penetrate through the deeply frozen crust, and she almost feared she could not bury her husband at all. To place the body out of doors she dare not, for it would only become food for the prowling wolves, and the idea was so revolting to her that she could not entertain it. Some solution, however, must be sought for the difficult problem, and this clever, self-reliant woman finally solved it.

Remembering that the pile of logs at the door beside the house had been put there before the frost came, with the aid of a hand-spike she rolled one back away from the side of the house. It was a large log from which one above it had been removed for the daily burning on the hearth. To her joy, under this log the ground was scarcely frozen, being under the pile and sheltered by the side of the log cabin. There with the mattock she dug a grave, dragged her husband’s body to it, rolled it gently in, and covered it over with the soil she had taken out. Then back again over the grave she rolled the log, to{64} protect it and prevent the wolves disinterring the body. She then went to the settlement, leading her youngest child by the hand, the other following in the track made in the deep snow.

A harrowing tale is this, but it is a true one. It was by just such people that the Province of Upper Canada was made what it is, and by their sufferings, buffetings and privations we enjoy the privileges which we have to-day. Let us drop a kindly tear to the memory of this brave woman, and look back with fond remembrance to our pioneer ancestors who, although often unlettered and uncultured, did so much for us.

CHAPTER VI.

VOICES of discontent had been heard for many months previous to the actual outbreak of the rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada. Meetings were held, at which the wrongs inflicted on the country by the Family Compact were discussed. Responsible government had not then been granted to Canada by the Imperial Government; prior to the rebellion the country was under the rule and the heel of an oligarchy who had foisted themselves upon the people.{66}

It would be impossible and it is indeed unnecessary for me to refer to the causes of the outbreak in Upper Canada. Most persons’ minds have already been fully made up pro and con on the subject. It is not my purpose to do more than relate such incidents as came within the notice of my father and grandfather, or had an influence on their lives or surroundings.

The elections of candidates for the Legislature were conducted differently from what they now are under responsible government, a change hastened by the rebellion, and finally secured by the able Report of Lord Durham.

At Newcastle, Durham County, an election was being held, ostensibly to elect a member of the Parliament. For one whole week electors were asked to ascend a flight of steps to a booth erected in the open air, and there verbally announce the name of the candidate for whom they would vote. The Family Compact took good care that all timorous ones voted for them, or did not vote at all, if an opposition candidate was nominated.

A participant in that election told of a waggon-load of green shillelahs brought to the grounds for the purpose of gently (?) persuading the electors to vote for the Government nominee. Whiskey could be had for the asking, without money and without price, and ab libitum. The ordinary price of whiskey at that{67} date and for many years later was tenpence per gallon. Fights were of hourly occurrence during the election, and for six days a pandemonium of riot reigned. It is superfluous to add that the Government candidate won the contested seat, as he did very generally in other constituencies throughout the Province.

William Lyon Mackenzie, the hard-headed little Scotch reformer, who was several times elected and expelled the House, exposed these acts in his paper and some of the sons of the Compact threw his type into York (Toronto) bay. The destruction of his type and the consequent revulsion of feeling secured justice, and damages assessed for the loss being paid to Mackenzie from the fines exacted of the lads who committed the depredation enabled him to continue the publication of his paper, and through it rouse his sympathizers into open rebellion. No government over English-speaking subjects has yet succeeded long in curtailing the liberty of the press. In Canada this remark was as true as elsewhere.

My father at this time was captain of one of his fleet of ships, and was not on shore to participate in the excitement. Freights that fall (1837) were exceedingly high on Lake Ontario. Salt, for instance was one dollar a barrel from Sodus, New York, to Whitby, Upper Canada, that being the nearest port to Oshawa, his home, four miles away. Flour was one{68} dollar a barrel from Oshawa and Whitby to Kingston. It was an exceedingly mild winter, and succeeding so well, he did not put his ship into winter quarters in November, as is the custom on the Great Lakes, but continued his trips until the day after Christmas, when he reached Whitby, unbent his sails and stowed everything for the winter.

A PERILOUS VOYAGE.

Many persons who occupied good positions in Upper Canada, even if not in actual rebellion, were mistrusted as sympathizers with the patriots; they were hunted by the Compact’s forces, and driven from their homes, being forced to find shelter in the forests and in barns. Life to them finally became unbearable, and they sought some means of leaving the Province. A small schooner, the Industry, happened to be laid up for the winter in one of the ports on the north shore of Lake Ontario. The owner was besought to bend his sails to the masts and take the patriots across the lake to Oswego, N.Y. Such a trip as crossing Lake Ontario in midwinter by a sailing craft is a most perilous thing to do, and naturally the owner of the vessel hesitated to take the great risk to his vessel, and to his own life as well. It was thought that the vessel might make the outlet of the Oswego River at Oswego, N.Y., and therefore effect a landing. Recol{69}lect that there were no tugs in those days to tow a vessel as soon as she hove in sight, but the wind alone must be depended upon. However, the owner, besought by the tears and entreaties of the wives and friends of the patriots in hiding, finally concluded to make the attempt. On the night of the 27th day of December, 1837, the little vessel of 100 feet in length quietly slipped from her moorings, and sailed close along the shore of Lake Ontario. It was a bright moonlight night, still, but very cold. Every mile or so she would back her mainsail, and lay to at a signal of a light upon shore, that a canoe might put off to the vessel, bearing a patriot from his hiding in the forest to the side of the boat. As yet no storm had come on to form the ice-banks since the cold set in, but there was no knowing what a day might produce in the way of a storm and the formation of ice-banks. Some forty stops, however, and forty different canoes were paddled out to the vessel, and forty patriots transferred, panting for the land of liberty across Lake Ontario, to the south of them sixty miles or so. A fine sailing breeze blew off shore, and hoisting sail and winging out mainsail and foresail, nothing could bid fairer for a quick and prosperous voyage; and the land of liberty seemed almost gained. Lying upon blankets in the bottom of the vessel were the patriots, with the hatches closed down tight on account of{70} the intense cold. Quickly and gaily the little vessel sped on, with anxious hearts beating below. Morning revealed to their gaze the mouth of the river at Oswego, and the Stars and Stripes floating from the old fort near the river’s outlet. And a glorious sight indeed it was to the heavy-hearted patriots, liberty at hand just before them, where no one dare pursue. Then “Get up, boys, and let’s get into port!” But the north wind, which bore them so gaily and swiftly over the broad lake, had driven all the floating, drifting ice before it, and wedged it firmly along the south shore. For three miles between them and the land was this mass of floating ice, and the little vessel refused to be driven through it.

Backwards and forwards, along its outer edge, they tacked, ever seeking an opening but finding none. Every means possible at their command they tried to force a passage, but all failed. The hearts of the patriots, which a few hours before beat so joyously, now sank within them. “Oh! must we put back again to Canada, and to prison? Never; we will die first!” As the day wore on, finally an athletic sailor declared he could and would force a passage. And how was he to do it? He boldly got out on the bowsprit, climbed down on the cut-water chain, and hung by his hands to the over-haul above the bowsprit. A heavy sea at this time was running, and{71} ever and anon the sailor and bowsprit would be raised on the top of a wave many feet above the surrounding level of the water. As the vessel would fall and bring the sailor down again to the water he would shove with all his might with his feet on the blocks of ice around him, to force them to one side that the vessel could enter between the loose cakes. Perilous, doubly perilous, as this attempt was, this undaunted water-dog stuck to his post until darkness set in and made any further effort in that direction an impossibility. Bitterly cold as it was, with every wave freezing as it washed over the decks, this hardy fellow did not feel the cold from the intense effort, but perspired freely and hung on to the rope barehanded. His almost superhuman task only resulted in effecting a passage through the ice about a quarter of a mile. All night they lay there among the ice, and, strange as it may seem, slept soundly in their dreadful peril. During the night the wind fell, and the intensity of the cold increased. At the first rays of the morning they were astir, and found their little vessel firmly frozen in, with a clear sheet of ice, transparent and smooth, two inches thick, all around them. Over the vessel’s side jumped our sailor of the previous night’s adventure, and found a firm footing all about the vessel. Quickly they realized that their only chance for life and safety lay in hurrying over{72} the ice with all speed for the shore before a wind might arise and break up the ice frozen the night before. The bulwarks of the vessel were torn off and split so as to form poles, each man taking one. But our sailor took instead a piece of board about ten feet long and eight inches wide. Away they started, spreading out, every man for himself, carrying his pole in front of his breast. “Step on the clear ice and keep off the hummocks,” sang out our sailor. Soon one disregarded the advice, and down he went, plump into the icy water beneath. His pole, however, would catch the firm ice at the sides, and kept his head above water. Then his nearest companion took hold of the submerged man’s pole and pulled him out upon firm ice again. Immediately on getting out he was incrusted in a sheet of ice. Overoats began to be thrown aside, and also the grip-sacks containing all the patriots’ valuables, until the path was strewn with their effects. Every moment someone would break through the ice. Out of that devoted band of patriots all had gone down and been rescued; and all of the crew, too, except one sailor, who, being lighter than the rest and more cautious where he stepped, alone remained dry. Now the patriots, one after another began to lose all heart and give up. “O God! and must I die here, with the shore and liberty just in sight.” “Get up!” shouted John our{73} sailor, swearing at them the while, and threatening to put them square under unless they got up and went on. On the shore were some hundreds of persons watching the efforts of that devoted band, gesticulating to them, and trying to move them to take heart and gain the shore.

Other help they could not afford, much as they desired to do so, for the wind is so treacherous on these waters in midwinter that in a moment the ice might be broken and all lost. John, our hero, however, at last threatening to brain with his piece of board those who had given up, finally got them on their feet again, and a little nearer shore. About three o’clock in the afternoon saw them within twenty rods of the shore, and now the cheers and shouts of the crowd of sympathizers could be heard. “At last! oh, at last our troubles will be over, and we shall get ashore,” and their hopes arose once more. “But no, oh, dear, no! has God brought us through all these perils and hardships to die so near the shore?” Anguish almost as great as death itself was stamped on the face of the most intrepid of that band.

All at once the wind had risen from the south, and the ice began drifting into the lake. Already it had parted from the shore streak of ice and left a space of open water now seven feet wide. Jump it they could not, because their clothes were frozen so hard{74} that they could not spring, and, besides, the ice on the other side of the open space was not thick enough to hold one alighting after the jump. Their last hope sank within them. Death stared them in the face; their wives and friends in Canada would see them no more. Every minute added to the width of the gulf of water between them and the shore ice, when up came the sailor with the last laggard, and in an instant threw his board over the open water, and “Now run for your lives,” said he, and they ran across the board, every man feeling this to be his last chance and his last effort. On shore at last! Tears, hot and blinding, ran down their cheeks, while the crowd gathered around them and cheered lustily. The sympathizers on shore conducted them to the bar-room of a hotel, in which was a huge fire-place, with an immense fire of logs blazing for their especial benefit. It seems this bar-room was sunken below the surface of the earth a step, and was floored with bricks. Quickly their icy clothes began to thaw, and in a little time, it is said, the water melted from their clothes actually stood three inches deep over the bar-room floor.

We have to add that the little vessel was lost and became a wreck. Well it was that it was lost, for a battery of artillery was stationed at the port whence it sailed, with orders to fire on the vessel and take{75} every man a prisoner when she came back. Had they been taken, without a doubt they would all have been sent to Botany Bay as convicts, for twenty or thirty years each, as many others were, who went away as young men and came back grey-haired, broken-down old men, scarcely knowing their own country after so long an absence. As to the patriots, they were all pardoned and invited to come home, as we all know, which they did, many of them rising to high positions in Canada in after years. That this rebellion did great good to Canada neither Tories nor Reformers now deny, but it does seem hard that so many good and true men men had to suffer so much to have the wrongs righted. To-day Canada is as free as any country under the sun. I leave it to you, reader, to say if there could be a more joyful Christmas at any place in America than the portion of it remaining to those patriots after they got on shore.

The Industry is first in line represented in the illustration of the lumber loading, on page 172. The illustration on page 186 will give some idea of the scene of the adventure of the escaping patriots, and the landing at Oswego, N.Y.

The ill-fated Industry drifted about upon the inclement lake, and was at last driven into a cove about Oak Orchard, N.Y. There a land pirate cut the ship up, and stole cables, anchors and shrouds. The fol{76}lowing spring (1838), John Pickel and William Annis, at my father’s instance, went and found this freebooter, a worthless fellow, but married to a wealthy man’s daughter. Upon the claim being made, he was advised by legal men to settle it and thus avoid the penalty. Piracy in New York State is punishable by ten years’ State imprisonment. His father-in-law paid $1,100 for the man’s act, and that is all my father ever got for a ship valued at quite $8,000 at that day.

Some years afterwards, when in Upper Canada a “Rebellion Losses’ Bill” was passed and became law, it was thought that the loss of this ship would come under the meaning of this Act. As a very young man I urged my father to put in his claim. “No, my son,” he said, “if I was fool enough to risk my ship and my life in the business of the rebellion in midwinter, I deserved to lose it.” No claim was ever put in for the lost ship. And even now, after the lapse of sixty-one years, I do not think it prudent to give the names of the passengers it carried on that eventful trip. All of them came back to Canada. Many were in high government positions afterwards. Had the Government of the day in Upper Canada then captured that ship and its precious cargo, it may be the map of Canada would be different to-day.

I was in Botany Bay, Australia, and in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1896, when, fresh from reading the tales{77} of Marcus Clark and Balderwood, I could not help thinking what untimely fate would have befallen the entire ship’s company had they been captured and transported.

Many persons were so hard pressed by the military during the rebellion, even if not participants, that they fled in every way possible. One man, on November 15th, 1837, stole a dug-out pine canoe from my father, and deliberately paddled alone across Lake Ontario, fully sixty-five miles (see page 186). Leaving Port Oshawa at 10 p.m., and having a fine north breeze, he made Oak Orchard, due south, at 4 p.m. the next day. The prow of the canoe he had taken was rotted off, but the paddler, sitting in the stern with a stone between his feet, by his own and the stone’s combined weight succeeded in keeping the open end raised above the water. This necessarily added much to the perils of the voyage, it being perilous enough in the best of weather to paddle across the lake in an open boat.

John D. Smith, before referred to as the owner of the mill at Smith’s Creek (now Port Hope), was a man of means, and being very stirring, was influential at the time of the rebellion. All the able-bodied men in the neighborhood were enrolled en masse at Smith’s Creek. The company was drawn up, answering to their names as they were called. The Colonel stood{78} at the head of the line listening to the names and responses as the word passed down the line. These men were to march to York very shortly, to be ready for any emergency. John D. Smith happened along somehow, whether designedly or not I cannot discover. Waiting, he heard the name “Ephraim Gifford” called. Smith knew Gifford well—knew him to be a hard-working, stay-at-home man, a good chopper, engaged in clearing the forest. Stepping up to the Colonel, Smith said, “There, Colonel, take out Gifford and put in Smadgers there. Smadgers is no good anyway, he won’t work, and Gifford will chop a place for fall wheat and raise a crop. Put in Smadgers.” And Smadgers was put in the ranks accordingly, while Gifford went away home to his chopping.

The times of the outbreak also brought tragedies home to the lives of many of the settlers—losses which no money indemnity could replace or the bereaved ones forget.

Thomas Conant, the author’s grandfather, happened on or about February 15th, 1838, to be walking alone on the Kingston Road, about midway between Oshawa and Bowmanville. It was quite common in those days for persons to walk or go on horseback, the roads being usually very bad for wheeled vehicles. He was an old man, unarmed, and proceeding about his ordinary business. Coming in his walk eastward

towards Bowmanville, he saw a man named Cummings sitting on his horse before the tavern door, then situated on the south side of the Kingston Road, on lot twenty-six, in the second concession of Darlington. Conant had not quite reached the hotel, but clearly saw Cummings, as he sat on his horse, partake of two stirrup cups, when he started to ride on westward towards Oshawa. Accosting him, Conant (who knew him well) said: “Good day, Cummings; drunk again, as usual!”

Cummings, who was a dragoon and a despatch bearer, dreaded, above all things, to be reported drunk when carrying despatches, and fired up in an instant. Putting spurs to his steed he attempted to ride Conant down; but Conant was too quick for him, and caught the horse by the bridle as he approached, whereupon Cummings raised his sword, and, without a word of warning, struck the old man on the head, fracturing his skull (see page 193). Death followed a few hours after. Coroner Scott held an informal inquest, but because the three witnesses of the murder were looking out of the tavern window, through the glass of the window, the evidence was not admitted, and Cummings went unpunished. But the proverbial “sword of Damocles” hung over him all the remainder of his days. Living about Port Hope he became a confirmed drunkard, and at last{80} fell under the wheels of a loaded waggon and was crushed to death. Such is the tragic story of the murder of the author’s grandfather. Not a friend of his dared to utter a protest against the murderous deed or perversion of justice. He was buried on the Kingston Road, about four miles easterly from the murder scene, on lot No. 6, in the second concession of the township of East Whitby. Do I blame the authorities of that day? Indeed I certainly do, and with good reason. But the fact is, that a few persons who exercised the supreme authority, as the rebellion waned, used it most arbitrarily. Good came in the end, and to-day Upper Canada is the peer of all self-governing countries, and one which I love for its own sake. Why shouldn’t I? Does it not enshrine the bones of my grandfather, who fell a victim to Family Compact misrule?

Although our country is almost too young to possess a stock of legends, there are some tales and many local incidents that have been handed down from father to son as fireside tales.

At the beginning of this century the Province was almost a vast wilderness, with open spaces here and there, cleared by the settler’s axe. Even as late as 1812, at the time of the American war, we had only just begun to emerge, as it were, from the dark towering forests that were intersected by only the Indian{81} footpaths. It is almost astounding when one stops to consider that even within the memory of those now living our Province has been made. Our cities have been built, our canals dug, our forests subdued and Ontario made a garden, all well nigh within the compass of a man’s lifetime. When Governor Clinton, of New York State, first made the assertion that he would bring the waters of Lake Erie to Albany, and float a boat on their surface by means of the Erie canal, there are persons now living who said they would be willing to die when that was done. But it has been done, and these old persons in our midst, so slow to believe, seem not anxious to be hurried to abide by their wish even at this late day. Many a farm in Ontario was paid for by money earned by Canadians while working on that Erie Canal. Low as the wages were at the time, it was cash, and gained at a time when our resolute workers could not earn cash at home. They brought it back to Canada, and laid the foundation of the prosperity which many Canadian families now enjoy.

Among the stories of my boyhood days is one of an Episcopal Church minister who came out from England to this Province at a very early day, and settled upon a farm a couple of miles from the church. He neither was nor could be much of a farmer, and never at any time let himself down to{82} any abandon, nor did he ever cast off his long clerical coat, even when about his home or when tossing the fly in his trout-stream. A man of cultivated tastes, he seemed literally to love the ease and quiet of a country life. For him it was just one long holiday.

He had erected a substantial stone house on the bank of a trout-stream which meandered through his farm. In those days trout were plentiful, and with his well filled library, and an ample income from England, it is not to be wondered at that to him life was worth living. He had married above him in England, it appeared, but on both sides it had been a genuine love-match. The irate father had banished his daughter from his presence, which was the real cause of their domiciling in Canada. During the father’s lifetime the annual stipend of three hundred pounds sterling came as regularly as the seasons went by, and I leave each individual reader to judge for himself or herself if he could fancy a pleasanter position, or a place in which life could be more fully enjoyed, than fell to the lot of this parson and his family.

The evil day came at length, when the wife sickened and died, and our parson scanned his father-in-law’s will most closely. There was some such ambiguous clause in it as that his daughter or her husband should receive the annuity of three hundred pounds sterling{83} per year “as long as she remained above ground.” Here was the parson’s opportunity. He procured a leaden coffin for the remains, and outside of this wood was placed; then with a double love, one for his wife naturally, and the other for her annuity, he placed the casket leaning against the wall in an upstair room. All went on as before her death, for he could annually swear that his wife was “above ground.”

Another evil day came after the lapse of a few years, when the parsonage was found to be in flames. Neighbors gathered, as they will, of course, at such times, and were anxious to render any assistance possible. During the progress of the fire the parson walked to and fro among the persons gathered, with his clerical coat still upon him, beseeching all and everybody to “save his wife.” His whole soul seemed so wrapt in the saving of his wife’s remains that he heeded and cared not for any other loss.

Importunity, however, could not stay the elements in their mad career, and as the fire progressed it caught the corpse in its embrace, and with a dull thud the leaden casket burst, and all was exposed to the fury of the element. Persons who as boys were at the fire say to this day, and stoutly aver it to be true, that when the coffin burst the blue flames shot up into the air in a straight jet for forty feet, as{84} if mocking the parson for his solicitude, and as a judgment upon him for desecrating his wife’s remains by leaving them so long uninterred. Be that as it may, I am not in a position to form an opinion, and will not attempt to judge, but I do know from indisputable testimony that when the next year rolled around, and the time came for the yearly income to be received, it did not come, nor did it ever come again, for the parson was unable to swear that his wife was still “above ground.”

There came to Upper Canada about the year 1803 a young American, strong of muscle and cunning of skill as a blacksmith. For a few years he followed his trade and prospered well, for blacksmiths in those days were few and far between, and he, being skilful, soon amassed quite a little property. Just as the war broke out he established a little log hotel on the travelled highway between Kingston and Toronto, where all the military must necessarily pass in those days. As the war went on with its preparations this American did a roaring trade, and became quite a personage in the land. Drafted persons, while on their way to Toronto, invariably stopped at his log hostelry, and to some of those of American origin like himself he became communicative over his cups and explained that he had learned his trade in one

of the States prisons, and that as soon as he was at liberty he came to Canada. Among those who passed and repassed during those stirring days in our country’s history, his place became noted for its good cheer. A stage occasionally essayed to make its way along this highway and, one day during the war it left at this man’s log hostelry a strange passenger. He was a man past middle age, dressed in clothing plain but of excellent quality, and was from the time of his landing at once installed as a guest at the log hotel. A couple of strongly bound trunks were the man’s only baggage.

As the days and nights flew by this strange guest was never averse to gather in the general bar-room and join in the ordinary gossip of the neighborhood with the assembled neighbors. He was, in fact, genial, well disposed, evidently well read, possessed a rich and inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and was ever the life of the bar-room gathering. Let the least allusion to politics, however, be made, and the stranger would shut his mouth as quickly as if his jaws were those of a trap when sprung by the tread of its intended victim upon its “trenches.” Then he would seek the solitude of his room and be seen no more for the evening. His days were spent with his gun or rod among the forests or along the streams, and many savory additions to the hotel fare{86} were made by his voluntary contributions to it as a result of his sport. Gradually and almost imperceptibly he came to be kindly regarded by those who knew or supposed they knew him. The English tongue he spoke fairly well, but now and again a little foreign accent would crop out. This he always instantly corrected when he bethought himself of his error. All attempts to discover who he was were unavailing. Whether he was a Frenchman, a German or a Russian was always conjectured, but never transpired. Our transient guest did not in any way change his ordinary mode of life. During every fine day he followed his dog with his gun, and if he felt any uneasiness at his quiet life, or endured the least chagrin at his expatriation, he was exceedingly careful not in anywise to let it be known.

To all that part of Upper Canada he became at length an enigma and a general theme of conjecture as to who he was. Bets were wagered as to his origin, but owing to the sphinx-like lips of this strange man such bets had always to be withdrawn again, for there was no possibility of verifying any decision either way. He paid his bills to the landlord regularly, and left no cause of complaint against him.

One day, after he had been at the hostelry upwards of five years, the stage deposited at this log hotel an officer from the army of old France. He was every{87} inch a soldier in dress, in looks and action. Having partaken of his dinner, he called the landlord to his side and asked if he had ever met a man of such and such a description. Now, to the landlord’s infinite surprise, the description this officer gave minutely corresponded with the mysterious stranger, but well knowing that the man had ever studiously avoided being recognized, he repudiated any knowledge of any such person. In the evening when the man returned he told him of the French officer and the enquiries he had made. He answered not a word, but ate his supper and retired to his room.

On the following morning, when the stage came along, going in the direction whence the French officer came, and in the opposite way to which he was bound, our strange guest came out of his room and asked to have his trunks strapped on the stage. With as few words as possible he paid all his reckonings with the landlord, quietly bade him and his household good-bye, climbed into the seat, and was gone forever. Nothing was ever heard of him again. He vanished from that part of Upper Canada as suddenly as he came into it. Where he came from or where he went to it is probable no one will ever know.

It was supposed by some that this person had been one of Napoleon the Great’s generals, and that after the defeat of Waterloo he had seized all he could{88} find in his division military chest; when Napoleon had given himself up on board the Bellerophon he got on board another vessel and sailed for America, and had come away from the seaboard to this remote place to avoid the probability of anyone meeting and recognizing him; and that this French officer whose arrival and enquiries had caused his departure was upon his track to wreak some vengeance upon him either for the public wrong he had committed, or, it might be, a private one of so delicate a nature as to be without the cognizance of the law. Be that as it may, the man went as he came and left no sign, an unsolved enigma to all with whom he had come in contact while in the wilds of Canada.{89}

CHAPTER VII.

BEFORE churches were built in the early settlements services were held by itinerant preachers at the houses of the people, or else in the school-houses, if accessible. Most of these itinerant preachers were earnest, zealous men, and labored honestly for what they considered to be right and their duty. Subsisting upon the cosmopolitan (to them) parishioners, their real need of money was not excessive. It is related of many of them that they did not receive in money more than $50 to $100 per year during their whole stay in the vicinity. Donations in kind being frequent, and usually abundant,{90} the need of money was not felt. Money, indeed, to the pioneer was too precious to be lightly paid out, or even talked over, except of necessity. Most of the settlers in the neighboring townships who had not received Royal grants, had bought their lands from the Crown, the Canada Company, or the Bursar of Toronto University.

Although the price was usually about $4 per acre, with long terms allowed for payment, and the vendors were very lenient, yet pay-day inevitably came around, and every Halifax pound obtained must be hoarded against it.

My earliest recollection of an itinerant preacher is of one particular man whose visits were made quarterly, and who always sang at night:

He was as happy and light-hearted as the birds of the air. His hands were not hardened by incessant chopping of forest trees, nor was his face blackened by burning log-heaps. Just how it was I never quite knew, but one day he borrowed a saddle and $40 from my father, and forgot to come back again. My father did not, so far as I can remember, participate in the{91} ideal joys of this itinerant, nor did he seem to be disturbed or unhappy from deprivation of them.

The genuine camp-meeting was every summer the great feature, and was looked upon as the special means of grace. Tents and shanties were put up in a grove, and furnished with rude tables and beds, with seats arranged outside, and a rostrum for the minister. Four crotched sticks were stuck in the ground, with beams across, and sticks upon the beams. On these earth was laid to make a hearth, and a fire built on it. Such elevated fires shed weird lurid gleams over the scene at night. So far as I can recollect I have never seen (and I have seen a little of all lands) anything more picturesque. The shouting preacher, the groaning penitents, the managers or elders flitting about among the hearers, while mischievous, unsympathizing boys perched on the trees, ready for any prank which might present itself; each separate platform of fire casting its dancing shadows, showing up each detail distinctly—all combining to make a scene never to be forgotten. (See page 209.)

The camp-meeting generally lasted a week, and I would not for a single moment wish to convey the idea that much good was not accomplished by these gatherings, although they certainly were not without some traces of fanaticism.

The “Millerite scare,” as it might be called, was{92} another instance of the extent to which religious fanatics could influence their hearers and affect their lives. From some manuscript left by my mother, and the account given me by my father, and by my uncle, David Annis, I have gleaned the following anecdotes of this curious event in our country:

During the winter of 1842-3 the Second Adventists, or Millerites, were preaching that the world would be all burnt up in February, 1843. Nightly meetings were held, generally in the school-houses. One E—H—, about Prince Albert, Ont., owned a farm of one hundred acres and upwards, stocked with cattle and farm produce, as well as having implements of agriculture. So strongly did he embrace the Second Advent doctrines of the Millerites that he had not a doubt of the fire to come in February and burn all up, and in confirmation of his faith gave away his stock, implements and farm. Sarah Terwilligar, who lived about a mile east of Oshawa “corners,” on the Kingston Road, made for herself wings of silk, and, on the night of 14th of February, jumped off the porch of her home, expecting to fly heavenward. Falling to the ground some fifteen feet, she was shaken up severely and rendered wholly unfit to attend at all to the fires that were expected to follow the next day. (See page 220.)

The house in the illustration is the one from the windows of which the attempt to fly was made. The wings were made of silk. Though, in the picture, they appear to do their work, they did not prevent the wearer falling to the ground about fifteen feet, and suffering the result in a broken leg.

Mr. John Henry, on that 14th day of February, was riding alone and met a man on horseback coming at the top of his speed. Accosting Mr. Henry he said, “Say, stranger, do you see that sign in the sky?” Mr. Henry looked up and saw only a sun-dog, frequently seen then and now in the winter season, and replied, “Yes, what of it?” “Well, that’s the Lord coming to-morrow to burn the world up,” and Mr. H. replied, “Get out! that’s only a sun-dog.” “Oh! you are an unbeliever,” was the retort, as the man dug spurs into his horse’s sides as if to ride away from the fire he felt so near. My father told me that on the evening before the final great day, he took a sleigh-load of neighbors down to a meeting in a log school-house near where Ebenezer Church now is, in Darlington. So deep was the snow, he said, that they had no difficulty in driving over the fences. Arriving at the log school-house, they found it densely packed, and most of the auditors standing. Being late, they sought to push themselves in, when someone from the middle of the room called out, “Stand back, boys, you don’t know{94} breeding.” But they pushed on heedless of breeding or the want of it, and got in a few feet from the door, where they stood and listened to some Millerite in the master’s rostrum desk, as he told about the terrible fires to come on in a few hours. His words riveted the attention of all, cramped and uncomfortable as they were in the crowded room.

Tallow dips, fastened in tin reflectors, shed a mild light over all, and the heat from the crowded room became so great as to give a taste, an intense one, too, of the awful heat promised when the fires should appear. The old log school-house had been used before as a rude pioneer dwelling, and a cellar had been scooped out below the centre. Without an instant’s warning the old floor-beams broke and the crowd, who all expected to go up, as the Millerite preacher assured them, were let down with unexpected precipitancy. The scene, my father said, was too ludicrous for description. Screaming, fainting, pulling, praying, squirming, the dense mass fought to get out. Fortunately the tallow dips were fastened to the walls and continued to light up the place. My father dryly said he made his way out, got his load and went home (at Port Oshawa) and to bed. The next morning he found the snow as usual upon the ground and no signs of fire.

A. S. Whiting, the manufacturer, tells of his experi{95}ence of the Millerite scare. During the long winter he was peddling eight-day clocks from house to house—clocks which he had brought with him from Connecticut. For many weeks he had heard that the immense snow mantle in that part of Upper Canada around Port Hope would turn to blood and burn up. On the afternoon of the 14th February, 1843, he, with his horse and sleigh and a load of clocks, was driving north from Port Hope. It was a gloriously bright, sunny day of clear bracing cold, with not a cloud in the sky. Just at nightfall he arrived at a small village and drove direct to the tavern. Tying his horse to the hitching-post, he went into the bar-room to ask for lodging and food for himself and the steed. He found no one, so pushed on into the sitting-room usually provided for guests. No one was yet visible. Then he called out, but received no answer. Going on from room to room, he finally reached the kitchen. Here he found a woman crying and sobbing. Upon asking for the landlord, and also questioning the hostler where to find him, he was told they had “all gone to meeting.”

“Well, I want to put my horse in the stable and then have some supper,” the traveller exclaimed.

“There is no use of eating, for we shall all be burnt up before morning,” the weeping woman managed to get out between her sobs.{96}

“Well, never mind, I’ll go and put up my horse, while you get me some supper.”

On partaking of his supper, he asked for his room; still there was no one else about, and on retiring he was told in faltering words that he would be burnt up while he slept.

The sun set that night in more than usual splendor; all nature seemed serene and peaceful, and he could discover nothing to betoken the awful deluge of fire so soon to rain upon them. He slept well, and did not waken at two o’clock in the morning to see the two feet of snow turn to blood and commence to burn. Next morning, at the usual hour, rising and feeding his horse, he called loudly for someone to get him breakfast. After a time the inmates appeared, looking haggard and worn, and very much surprised that they were still alive. After breakfast, when he was about setting out, he asked “if they wanted pay, since they were all going to die so soon.” This broke the spell and brought them back to mundane things. They promptly enough asked for and received pay for the entertainment of man and beast.

All that day, the narrator said, he could do no business, because the people had not gotten over the surprise of finding themselves alive.

Just why they had fixed on that special day and hour is past finding out. Since that time there have

been many attempts to fix the time for a general conflagration, but nothing ever became so general as this of the Millerites. It is said the Scotch were not as a class believers in the doctrine, and had no disposition to scare themselves to death.

During the summer of that memorable year (1843) the Mormons came to the country, in the hope of making converts. At Butterfield’s Corners (Taunton) a man named John G. Cannon held forth for several days, sometimes in the open air and again in the houses of those inhabitants who appeared to have leanings that way.

On one occasion, in the midst of a heated harangue out of doors, he raised his right hand and said, “I ask Heaven if this is not true?” at the same time looking upwards. A moment, and the answer came from above, in a deep bass voice, “It is true,” thus startling the audience almost into belief. Again, on making the assertion that the golden tablets of brother Joseph Smith were inspired, he asked, raising his voice, “Are they?” and again came the deep-voiced reply, “They are.” One of the men, listening, declared there must be a man in a hollow basswood tree standing near, and said he would go for his hired man with his axe and have it cut down. “Don’t you touch it,” the Mormon cried authoritatively; “if you do the Lord will strike you dead.” Perhaps half convinced, the{98} man did not have the tree chopped down, the fraud passed, and the Mormon thus scored what appeared convincing arguments.

Quite near this scene a young girl was very sick with a fever, and lay in a state of coma. That he could raise the dead he now gave out, as in the illustration (page 228) he is represented as doing. And it is only fair to the Mormon to add that after his pressure and manipulations over the girl she did open her eyes and look about.

Several converts were made. Among these a family of the name of McGahan embraced the faith, sold their farm for $4,000, gave the money to the Mormon, and went off to Salt Lake. Another, named Seeleys, also sold all and went, but they could not raise much money.

My father had charged me many times, that if ever I went to Salt Lake I should go and see these people. In 1878 I happened to be in the Mormon centre. From a man cutting stones for the new Mormon tabernacle I enquired for the family. The stone-cutter dropped his mallet as quickly as if shot, and replied that he knew them well, and would get a conveyance and take me to them, twenty-five miles down Salt Lake valley, and assured me of a most hearty welcome.

I did not, however, accept his offer, for, honestly, I{99} confess I was afraid of the Mormons. As a “Gentile” I feared to risk my life among them, and preferred not to leave the protection of United States troops at Camp Douglas.

After the Irish rebellion there came to New York State a talented Irishman, who lodged on the United States side of the Niagara River at the Falls. From that point of vantage he daily watched the Canadian shore just across the river. Like the moth and the candle, he could not keep away from Britain after all. But while he remained there this is what he wrote of us:

THE RED-CROSS FLAG.

II.

III.

IV.

Extravagant as is the tenor of this poem, yet as a literary production it is good, and points unmistakably to the man’s genius.

Time in its whirligig works wonders, especially in America. A few years after, that poet and refugee came to Canada, sought election to Parliament, succeeded, and afterwards became a member of the Dominion Government. Comment is unnecessary.{102}

CHAPTER VIII.

DURING the early days in the newly settled townships many odd characters were to be found among the sparsely scattered population, and curious scenes were frequently enacted—scenes that it would be difficult to reproduce from the annals of other lands. The following might be taken as a specimen of at least one phase:

A more law-abiding people than the Canadians are not to be found in any land. The laws they abide by are those enacted by the will of the people through{103} their elected representatives, and are based upon the constitutional laws of Great Britain. Occasionally incidents occur which show how truly these laws are the will of the people. The following will illustrate my meaning:

At the time when the Home Government kept a small body of troops stationed in the Canadas, a dissipated young subaltern of the regiment then quartered at old Quebec deceived a daughter of one of its citizens by a promise of marriage, and ruined her. Her brother, a lad of eighteen, upon discovering her trouble, attended a social function held in the skating rink, at Quebec, where the betrayer was expected to be present. He met the lieutenant in the passage leading to the rink, and demanded if he “intended to marry his sister.” A contemptuous derisive laugh and insulting remark was the only reply, to which the lad responded by drawing a revolver from his pocket and shooting the man dead on the spot.

The avenger of his sister’s betrayal at once gave himself up to the authorities. The trial, as well as the crime, caused a great sensation, and though the case was a strong one for the Crown, the jury would not convict him of murder, and the lad went out from the court-house a free man.

A somewhat similar case occurred in Upper Canada. Some time before the railway era, when a{104} steamer conveyed the mails and passengers to and from the towns on the lake front, a resident of one of these towns took passage west on the steamer, inducing the wife of one of his neighbors to accompany him. The round trip up the lake, calling at all the western and southern ports, occupied about a week. Upon the return of the boat the injured husband, waiting on the wharf, saw the evil-doer in one of the cabins, and sent a bullet through the window with deadly aim. As in the case just related, arrest and trial followed, but no jury could be got to convict him of murder, such a crime being justified in the eyes of the people by the more heinous one which provoked it.

In one of the counties fronting on Lake Ontario there lived one W—B—, a descendant of one of our earliest settlers in this locality, a man who bore an honored name. Among his possessions was a farm, a homestead of about two hundred and fifty acres, situated upon the shore of Lake Ontario. He was a most exemplary man and a member of the Disciples’ church at B——, where he usually went to worship. A son of this man, having a liking for the water, induced his father to buy him a large well-found schooner, at a cost of about $9,000, which he sailed as captain on Lake Ontario. For several seasons he

plied this vessel conveying general merchandise as freight. He was not successful, but, on the contrary, continued at ever increasing loss. Finally his ship was sold for debt, and he came back to his father’s farm, where he built a second house and lived with his family. Being without occupation or friends, he asked his father (now an old man) for a deed of the home farm. This time the father refused, telling him he had “sailed away $9,000 in a ship, and he would sail away the farm, too, if he had a chance.” Then the son went to the leaders and elders of the Disciples’ church, of which his father was a member, and told his story and his desire for a deed of the farm.

A general special meeting of the church was called, and it was filled with both sexes, all being members. J—S—, merchant and agent of a bank doing business in B——, and afterwards a senator, arose. He spoke earnestly and pointedly about it being Brother B—’s duty to deed his farm to his son, and for quite twenty minutes urged upon the assembly the justice, desirability and reasonableness of the act, advocating it as a matter of duty, and a proof of fatherly love for the son. One L—, a resident, and a member and leader of the church as well, followed in the same strain. His words were listened to with rapt atten{106}tion, and after speaking some fifteen minutes he too-sat down.

No one arose to speak on the other side of the question. No one cared to be opposed to S—, for he was very powerful at that time. Though they keenly felt the undesirableness of acceding to such a demand, they had not the courage to express it publicly. The stillness became painful, and for a moment it seemed there could no way be found to break it.

The aged father, at the time stiff with rheumatism, was present. He grasped the seat before him. It creaked as the strain of his weight came upon it, and slowly and laboriously the old man arose. Once on his feet he stood somewhat bent, but, being a large man, towered majestically above the rest, and in a clear audible voice said, “I’m not going to take off my coat and throw it down and ask the Church or anyone else whether or not I shall put it on again.” The strain was broken, adjournment followed, and the son did not get the deed he coveted.

Jesse Trull, of Darlington, whose father, Captain Trull, was present as a member at that meeting, related the anecdote to me. This memorable church meeting took place about the year 1848. To-day it is hard to conceive any such state of society as would ask a church to try to compel a man to deed away his farm.{107}

The transition stage was approaching in Upper Canada. Many of the old pioneers found it hard to trim their sails to meet the new order of things, and many of them in fact did not, but followed the old way until they died and were laid to rest under the sod.

Major Wilmot was one of the early settlers, and lived near Newcastle, Durham County. He married the daughter of John Steigman, a surveyor. From him he learned field surveying, and did many years’ work for the Government. A relative of mine lived for years with Wilmot, and was to have been his heir, but left him too soon. He told me Wilmot was implicitly trusted by the Government, and often he had gone out surveying with him, and many times to York to make reports to the Government. During these years of surveying Wilmot picked out many desirable lots for himself, and ultimately got a title to them all. Consequently, as you may easily understand, he became a very rich man. Asa Wallbridge lived near him, upon a large farm. This neighbor was the forefather of all the Wallbridges in this part of Upper Canada, a most influential family. Both of these farm homesteads were overflowing with abundance—great houses, many cattle, sheep, hogs and horses, and everything which then represented a rich and prosperous home; yet, my relative said, Wilmot{108} would pack provisions in a one-horse waggon, stow in his compass (the theodolite had not come into use at that time), tripod and chain, sit down in the bottom, and take the young man, my relative, with him to spend a whole week in surveying, perfectly happy and contented.

One day they were passing Wallbridge’s, about the usual pig-killing time, and Wilmot accosted Wallbridge thus: “Good morning, Mr. Wallbridge; would you like to buy some pork?” “No, Mr. Wilmot,” was the reply, “I have as much pork as you have.” Then Wilmot added facetiously, “Well, I thought perhaps you wanted some grease to fry your pork in,” thus intimating that Wallbridge’s hogs had not a reputation for fatness.

These men with their families led most enjoyable lives, happy, free and contented, with the greatest of plenty of homely fare. But as Wilmot grew older Newcastle grew, and the forest was cleared; the settlers became more and more prosperous; well-built houses replaced the log houses, carriages the pioneer-cart, and other luxuries of civilization became the daily portion of the people. Yet on a fine morning Wilmot would hitch a yoke of oxen to a cart, bestride the axle, and having secured a long gad, would drive in to the village post-office at Newcastle and home{109} again. Carriages and fine horses he could not take to, although then a very wealthy man.

Another old man, but lately deceased, was a continual source of amusement to the settlers. He died as he had lived, an enigma from the first to the very last. As nearly as I can learn he was born in Quebec Province, in the year 1782, and removed to this Province with his parents some time about the beginning of this century. Upon the death of his father he inherited some of the choicest lands in Ontario and for many years of his life passed for a rich man. A character he was in the neighborhood, and so recognized by all who knew or had ever heard of him, far or near. Perhaps the prime causes of his noted peculiarities were in his continually avowed interest in cows and matrimony. In those days the struggling settler was glad enough to get a cow in any honest way he could, and our friend was the man to accommodate all those in his locality in need of one. His system was to let the farmers take a cow from him for three years, and at the end of that time the farmer must return to Uncle Ned (for so he was called) the identical cow lent and another—the other to be generally a calf from the cow lent, grown to be a young cow itself. During this time the farmer had free use of the cow, and all the other increase there might be from her. The arrangement seemed{110} to be quite advantageous to the farmer as well as to Uncle Ned. It enabled the former to get his first nucleus of a stock without cost to himself of anything more than the feed of the cow; and it equally paid Uncle Ned, for on his capital outlay of, say, $20 (for a cow), in three years he had it doubled, or about 33⅓ per cent. per annum, barring accidents of course. He seems never to have farmed his lands, but thought of nothing else, and talked of nothing else at any and all times, but cows—save and always excepting matrimony. Yet though he lived to be seventy-five years of age, he never attained the consummation of his connubial ambitions.

But not to leave the cows too quickly, it is as well to say that Uncle Ned used generally to take in those days what were called “notes” for the cows. They were termed notes, but since the short document went on to enumerate that the signer should return two cows at the end of three years, etc., it would almost appear that such “notes” were short contracts. However, be that as it may, sometimes our friend had as many as one hundred cows out at a time, and consequently one hundred notes on hand for them. The curiosity in this particular was, that although Uncle Ned could not read or write a letter, he could and would at any time pick out from the one hundred notes any one asked for.{111}

His ideas of matrimony were early developed. At the age of twenty-two he is reported as wandering about the neighborhood in search of any eligible single ladies who were supposed to be in the matrimonial market. By so going about from house to house he became acquainted with the wants of each household in any special particular. Was a family out of cats, at the next visit in his capacious pocket a kitten was found nicely and snugly curled up. Would some farmer like a dog, Uncle Ned brought along a puppy on the occasion of his next hunt in the matrimonial line. Had the family spinning wheel worn out its spindle and become useless for the want of one, Uncle Ned did not fail to bring one next time. Did the good housewife need some saleratus from the store at the distant corners, in these days before soda became known, Uncle Ned brought the desired pound package of saleratus, that the family cake should rise in the dough and be toothsome and pleasant. In fact, Uncle Ned gradually became, with his obliging attentions to the wants of his neighbors, and by his quaint idiosyncrasies, the darling of the neighborhood. And he never ceased, from the time he was twenty-two years of age up to his seventy-fifth year, to go the rounds of his neighbors, always careful to supply their little wants, and always in search of a wife. Did he at one time think{112} of breaking the route, and of stopping at another and a new farmer’s house for dinner, he would approach the man of the house, out in the field, and without a word of apology or preface, ask, “Does your wife make strong tea?” “Well, I never heard of any complaint on that point,” he is answered. “Ah! I thought I would stay to dinner with you, but if your wife don’t make strong tea I won’t stop.” He decides to stop, and earnestly enquires about a maiden lady living in an adjoining township, who is known to the farmer, he having removed from the township and locality of the maiden. On his tip-toes, and as silently as an Indian, Uncle Ned approaches the farmer, who is about his work in the field, and whispers in his ear:

Uncle Ned retreats some rods, to the point from which he so noiselessly advanced, exploding with loud and jovial laughter. Up again he comes on tip-toe, and whispers,

“No, I think not.” And away he backs off again amid another burst of laughter.

Again he steals up, and whispers, “Can she spin flax and make her own shifts?”

“Oh, yes; she can spin as well as any woman in{113} the county.” And he backs away, with the laughter louder than before.

No laughter this time, but he hangs his head and backs away, muttering to himself, “Well, that’s too bad. I do hate red hair. But then, since she has three hundred acres, that will make one overlook the red hair after all.”

And he comes on again, more cautiously than ever before, and whispers, “I have as good a new suit of clothes at home in my trunk as any man has, and they are paid for, too. Now, do you think I had better wear this new suit the first time I go to see her?”

“Yes, I think I would the first time; but since the people are plain people they might think you too extravagant if you wore it the next time; and then I think I would wear the common suit on all visits after the first one.”

Ned backs away. “Ha! ha!! ha!!!” and bawls out to the farmer, “Don’t be in a hurry to go to work; you’re not working by the month.”

He steals up again: “Don’t you think Sam Green would be a good man for me to take with me the first time to introduce me?”

Forward he comes again, and whispers, “You tell Sam Green to tell her that I’ll stock the land with cows. Tell her that I’ll hire a girl to nurse the baby. Tell her that I’ll wear my good suit the first time I come to see her, but during all the rest of our courting I’ll only wear my working suit.”

At this juncture the good wife calls from the door “Dinner!” and Uncle Ned has to cease this courting by proxy to go in and see if the tea be really strong enough for him. Courting thus by double proxy it was in this instance, as his courting generally was done. That is, this farmer must tell Sam Green, and Sam Green must tell the red-haired maiden in the adjoining township. It is more than likely the maiden never heard of Uncle Ned either before or after his resolve to court her, unless it be through the lone intermediary of Sam Green. It is probable for a year of his life this red-haired maiden was the subject of Uncle Ned’s matrimonial thoughts; then at the expiration of the year another lady comes to take her place—or rather, another lady comes to take the place which the red-haired lady was supposed to take, but never did.

Along the road again, some eight or ten miles away from his home, on foot (always on foot, for he was never known to ride), Uncle Ned approaches{115} Farmer G—, and whispers, “Do you know the widow T—?” “Yes, what about her?” “Is she smart?” “No, she’s like her husband was, rather lazy.” “Oh, that’s bad.” No laugh this time; he whispers, “Has she any land?” “Yes, she has fifty acres.” “Well, I must overlook her laziness.”

For the space of another year the widow T—engrosses the current of his thoughts, and becomes the constant theme of his talk. And yet it is not at all probable that he ever met her, either before her husband’s death or after, when she was supposed to be in the matrimonial market. As he journeyed along down life, always on the same themes of cows and matrimony, some of the neighbors at whose house he used to stop would deem him crazy. Well, if he were so, it was madness always with a method to it, and in his bargains about his cows he frequently displayed considerable shrewdness and business ability. A distant farmer came to him one day to make a bargain to get two cows to double as already described. It so happened that the cattle were out in the field, and they together went out to see them. In talking over the details of the bargain the farmer sat down upon a convenient stump. During the weariness of a lengthened conversation he, as he sat, happened to begin trotting his foot and contracting the fingers{116} of his left hand, which the quick eye of Uncle Ned noticed.

“You can’t have any of my cows, for I never knew a fiddler to be worth anything in my life,” and he wouldn’t let him have the cows at all.

So far as I know he was never known to actually address himself to the object of his affections for the time being, and likewise the theme of his talk, but the once. This time he called upon a farmer and asked him if he knew of Mr. E.—’s girls. The farmer told him he did, but that he (Uncle Ned) was crazy. Said he in reply, “Do you know, Ezra, why there is no danger of your ever going crazy?”

In this instance the farmer takes Uncle Ned to Mr. E—’s and gives him a kind of general introduction to the father, mother and two daughters assembled, in this wise: “See here, folks, this is Mr. S—in search of a wife.”

“Come in, sir, come in.” The girls, seeing a huge chance for fun, lent themselves to the joke, and so kept it up for the space of a couple of years. At the termination of each visit, as he was about to set out,{117} one of the girls would put in a plea for a new dress, which Uncle Ned would promise faithfully to bring, and he was generally as good as his promise. At the next visit the other girl would ask for a piece of cloth, and again, as before, he brought it. For the whole two years the girls did not discover which one of them was the object of his affections or regard. Still his visits continued during the intervals spared from his dealings about his cows, and the idea of matrimony never for a moment left his brain.

There are not many records extant of duels having been fought in Canada. The following was possibly one of the last, and perhaps the most amusing instance of such “honorable combat”:

It was during the closing days of the Canadian rebellion, when the troops were about to be disbanded. A ball had been given in Whitby, at which many of the officers of the troops, as well as society people of the sparsely settled country, attended. Among the guests at this ball were two young men, one in later years a public official in Newcastle, the other a resident of Oshawa, lately deceased. Both of these men were well mounted, as most persons were who travelled the bad roads in the early days of April of the year 1838.

Tradition tells us that the ball was both gay and{118} stylish, and many of the young ladies of the gathering were ambitiously gotten up for the occasion. Indeed, a gentleman now among the living, who was present, describes a lady’s head-dress of ostrich plumes which extended quite two feet above her head, and nodded with every motion, involuntary or otherwise, of the wearer. The supper, too, was the best that the day could give, mainly substantial perhaps, but of the lighter culinary art there were some cakes, and very attractive ones too—so much so, that one of the young men whom we have mentioned accused the other of pocketing some of them. This accusation could only be wiped out with blood, and was most indignantly denied. The accused purloiner of cakes mounted his steed and made his way to Richard Wood’s tavern, then kept by him in a story-and-a-half wooden building on the south-west corner of Oshawa “four corners.” The old tavern stood about one hundred feet back from the road, just south from where Morgan’s grocery store now is. A circular stage road led to its hospitable doors, and a low veranda or “stoop” extended along the whole north side of the hotel.

By the time the accuser arrived the accused had possessed himself of an immense old horse-pistol, and challenged his antagonist to fight a duel. The latter declined to fight with such a crude weapon,{119} but insisted on getting proper duelling pistols, if his antagonist really must fight. The late Capt. Trull, of Darlington, then had command of the few troops stationed in Oshawa. He tried to break up the duel and prevent bloodshed, but without success. At each end of the “stoop” of the hotel, just as it was becoming daylight, April, 1838, the principals took stations ready for the word. Capt. Trull actually placed his own person between the men, so anxious was he to stop the fray. But the word was given, and one of the duellists, proving himself game to the last, managed to dodge out of the way of Capt. Trull’s person and fired deliberately. The other, unhurt, threw down his pistol and ran as fast as his legs could carry him around the hotel. And now Capt. Trull, who had been so anxious to prevent the fight, became so disgusted at the man’s cowardice that he picked up the pistol where it had been thrown by the fugitive and made the best gait possible after him to fire at him for being so great a coward. So laughably ended Oshawa’s only duel.{120}

CHAPTER IX.

A PARING bee is still an ordinary occurrence in the autumn in the rural districts of this Province, though less frequent than when the process of preserving apples by evaporation was unknown. There is almost a superfluous abundance of apples in the fall, especially of the softer kinds, and those which will not keep are utilized by being dried for use after the hardier varieties are gone. These dried apples form a staple article of diet among Canadians, especially in the North-West and in the lumber camps.

There is much fun and jollity at these paring bees. After the apples are gathered in the fall, and sweet cider has been pressed out, one of the house-holders of a group will send out invitations for a paring bee. These invitations are invariably given verbally, and extend to all young lads and lasses, as well as to the married people in the vicinity, not forgetting the school-master. On the night appointed, those living at greater distances come in carriages, but never on horseback; the nearer ones on foot. Horses are put away, and all gather in the kitchen. This is generally one of the largest rooms in the farm-house, and for this occasion it has been cleared of its every-day impedimenta, and a long table placed in the middle of the room.

The young men do the paring with paring machines. This machine as at first used, before the patented iron article came into use, was of home construction. It consisted of a wooden pulley, about eight inches in diameter, over which a belt ran on a smaller pulley of about three inches. By turning the large pulley great speed was given to the smaller one, to which the fork for holding the apple was attached. The knife for the paring of the apple was held in the hand of the operator. Some of the young men became very skilful in manipulating the knife, and their reputation kept them in requisition at every bee. It is almost incredible how quick one of these experts was{122} at paring an apple. With his home-made machine he could very quickly empty a bushel basket as he deftly and smoothly divested the apples of their skins.

Three or four parers were usually employed during the evening. Along the table the young lasses were seated, and before them were heaped the pared fruit. As a division of labor, the first in order only quartered the apples, and pushed them on to her next neighbor, who, in turn, did the coring; and thus many bushels were pared, quartered and cored in the one evening. They were then strung upon linen thread by the younger persons of the party, who were not supposed to be sufficiently skilful to pare, quarter or core the fruit. Long darning needles with strong linen thread, cut in long lengths, were used. These were driven through the apple quarters, and a string so formed. It did not usually take long for the lads and lasses to be promiscuously inter-mixed, for no quaker-meeting formality was permitted at a paring bee.

Sallies of wit never went unheeded by the willing ears. Should one be too sober, he or she would be quickly brought to a sense of duty by a light blow from a quarter of an apple discharged from a neighbor’s dexterous hand.

It was the duty of the older members of the party to hang the strings of apples, as fast as they were ready,

upon poles near the kitchen ceiling. From fifteen to twenty bushels of closely pared, cored and strung apples was not an uncommon result of an evening’s work. Thus in a single evening the household was provided with dried fruit for a year’s use.

Paring, quartering, coring and stringing at last done, the company rise. A great heap of apple skins, seeds, and cores remain. The next step is to wash the hands in the apple litter, for this is supposed to be a means of preventing the apple juice pressed into the wrinkles of the hands from staining them when they become dry. And so all must thoroughly rub the hands in the apple litter. The lasses scarcely need the caution, for they do not want their hands stained. All “take hold” and clear the room, and in a few minutes it is put to rights, and the company sit upon benches and chairs around the room. The good housewife has prepared her lunch, and each one receives a plate, most likely laden with a slice of pumpkin pie, a bit of cheese and some cakes. Then someone comes around with a pitcher of sweet cider. There is no stint to the amount of food or drink anyone might partake of, and slice after slice of savory pumpkin pie disappears.

Enough at last, and the room is again cleared. The table is now removed, and according to the religious scruples of the company, they divide. Those{124} who dance take a large room to themselves, someone produces from a green bag a well-worn violin, and it is a matter of only a few minutes before a voice is calling off: “Salute your partners,” “All promenade down the centre,” “All join hands,” etc., and such calls so familiar to many of us now in Ontario. I am not going to say there was as much style about the dance as nowadays, nor were there any long trains to the ladies’ dresses to get entangled under the gentlemen’s feet, but for genuine fun I am free to say the dignified dances of the present day are at a discount. As quickly as one set gets through an eight-hand reel there is another ready to take its place, and so the dance goes on.

But we must turn to the other party, still out in the capacious kitchen, whose religious scruples do not permit them to dance. Even if so, they do not fail to glance furtively through the door now and again at the graceful dancers, and almost wish their theology would allow them to join in! A feature peculiar to America is now to be enacted in the kitchen, and it is simply a play among the boys and girls. A “kissing bee” it finally came to be called, and, as time went on, grew less fashionable, though it lingers yet. In those days it was one of our institutions, and must not pass away without a remark. Someone is chosen as judge, and blindfolded and placed in a{125} chair. Two are chosen to lead the victims to the judge, and the hands of the former are held over the judge’s head with the words, “Heavy, heavy, what hangs over?” The judge asks “Fine, or superfine?”—fine, of course, being for the lads, and the superfine for the lasses. Gravely the judge proceeds to pronounce the sentence. We will take one sentence from the judge, at random, among many from memory, which will give an idea of the general tenor of the judicial decisions. Allow the hand above his head to be superfine in this particular case. Sentence: “She must make a double-twisted lord-o’-massy with John Jones.” Now, John Jones knows what this means, and is not averse to kissing a pretty girl, for the judge generally knows his company, and the run of the sweethearts, and usually sends such together. Jones seizes the girl’s hands, elevates her arms to one side, and kisses her on one cheek, turns the hands over and elevates them again to the other side this time, and kisses her again through their arms on the other cheek. Then the next one comes up for sentence. Various sentences were of course given, but they invariably ended in kissing, much to the delight of the young men present.

Thus the jollity and fun went on, but even so with this peculiarity of American kissing I wish to unequivocally record the fact that no impropriety was{126} ever indulged in or thought of. Perhaps kissing in this general and public way cannot commend itself, but to the participants in those days it was fun, and no harm came from it, and, so far as I can see, it had just about as many arguments to sustain it as the mazy dance has, where they all go “promenading down the centre.”

The blindfolded judge has at last pronounced upon everyone in the room, and a change of the play is sought. Charlie is present and has brought his guitar. Now this Charlie is a wealthy farmer’s son (a farmer who owns his two hundred and fifty acres and stock, and is worth $30,000 at least), who, becoming rather proficient at the school, has been away a term to the old Normal School at Toronto. It must have been at the Normal he learned the guitar and began cultivating the incipient moustache which appears upon his upper lip like a streak of soft down. Still it is a moustache, and as such it is worth cultivating. And Charlie crosses his legs and proceeds to tune his guitar, amidst the good-humored gibes of the young ladies intently looking on. He gets the tune after all, and commences to hum an air and now and again give the instrument another turn of the screws. Boldly Charlie strikes out, and it is all about “Mrs. Fogarty’s Christmas cake.” At the termination of each{127} verse the applause of handclapping follows, and Charlie is spurred on to renewed efforts. The chorus comes in from this distance of years in my memory:

Well done, Charlie! and he’s free to go home with the prettiest girl in the group, and said prettiest girl is not at all averse to accept of Charlie’s company.

This is a faithful picture of one of the scenes of the days of my boyhood. From out of the assemblage of those paring bees have sprung much of the bone and sinew of our glorious Province (the freest and best under heaven). The lads have become our M.P.’s, our wealthy merchants and staunch landowners, and many, I am sorry to say, have gone to the United States and given that country the benefit of their untamable Canadian energies and sturdy physique, while others fill the professional walks in our own land.

The first Act which passed the Legislature of {128}Upper Canada in 1792 was an Anti-slavery Act. Canadians can therefore claim the proud distinction for their flag—the Union Jack of 1801—that it has never floated over legalized slavery. There are numerous instances in our records of negroes brought with the U. E. Loyalists to Canada, or who came of their own freewill, remaining as devoted servants with their masters and one-time owners until their death—not a few of these freed slaves devoting all their earnings to support their beloved masters or provide them with comforts and luxuries in their old age; and others, to secure themselves from being separated from their old masters during their lives, binding themselves by indentures to serve them for life.

Canada is truly a land of freedom. Once within her borders the hunted slave, who had committed no crime, could claim the protection of its laws and know that he was a free man. Therefore when ill-treated it is obvious that slaves would escape from slavery and come to Canada—crossing at any part of the three-thousand-mile line boundary between the United States and Canada, and here finding security and freedom.

About Chatham, in the western part of Ontario, there were many such escaped slaves, who had reached there by what was known as the “underground railway.” These men made very good citizens and{129} settlers. They were usually quiet, self-respecting, respectable, law-abiding, religious people—excellent servants, and often devoted to those whom they served.

Winters in the northern States and Canada east of Toronto are not conducive to their pleasure, for the negro is really and truly a child of the sun. Thus the more western townships, which are sunny and have milder winters, suit them best.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom, in her great book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” lived for some years in Chatham. Several, however, have settled and left kindly memories behind them in the neighborhood of Oshawa. One of these was

OLD JEFF.

About 1865 there came to this locality an intensely black negro. He had been a cotton-picker in Alabama, and had run away from slavery.

How he got away he never would tell, but said he followed the north star. Without permission from anyone he went into the woods, just south of Cedar Dale shop, and in a thicket built himself a hut by inclining poles together like the letter A, covering them with dirt and using one unstopped end as a door. In this hut he dwelt by himself with his big dog for about seven years, when he died. Charitably{130} disposed persons used to give him food and clothes, for he was too old to work. He was very polite and harmless, and indeed became quite a favorite in the neighborhood.

There seemed to be some hidden romance in his history which he never would tell, and during his latter days, although he had been anxious to get away from the South, he pined to go back. In the words of the old song:

The late Mrs. F. W. Glen had a water-color drawing of old Jeff’s hut, which was prized highly for its faithful reproduction of the picturesque but rude dwelling. Poor old Jeff! the remains of his hut are still standing in the thicket.

My father, in his earlier years, had a black man as a general servant. He lived so long in Canada that his story may be included in this sketch.{131}

He was born about the year 1814 in one of the counties in Virginia, which was so storm-swept during the great rebellion from 1861 to 1865. His home was in the track which Gen. Sheridan despoiled so effectually that he was able to boast, “Even a crow flying over must carry its own rations.” But during the first forty years of this poor slave’s life it smiled and produced grains and grasses and cattle in abundance. There his home was on the farm, where the system of agriculture is more like ours. The “plantations” proper are farther south, and the negroes employed on them are looked upon by the farmer slaves as belonging to an inferior race. “Only a plantation nigger” is a common saying among those employed on the Virginia farms. Owned by the head of one of the first families of Virginia, he had to thank him, too, for being the author of his existence. There were other sons born to this proud first family of Virginia. As they grew up they became sensitive of their slave half-brother, and induced their father to sell him.

His new master farmed one thousand acres of land, but only about one-half of this was arable, the rest being broken and used mainly for sporting in the scrub. On this one-thousand-acre farm sixty slaves, male and female, were kept, and the new master thought seriously of making his new slave{132} foreman. The old overseer, however, strongly resisted being put under a “nigger,” and his opposition, when putting it in such light in that day, was sufficient to keep the new slave out of the position.

Digressing here just a little, we can discover what would be the wealth of one of the first families of Virginia, who as fire-eaters made such boasts afterwards. The one thousand acres could then be bought for $15,000, as they may be now; sixty slaves, at an average of $500, some being old and decrepit and others young, would be worth $30,000; stock and farming implements, say, $5,000. Total, $50,000. It is interesting to know what the capital of one of those great men who talked so much at the time of the war would be.

The slave whose fortunes we are following was made a teamster and given a six-horse team to make one trip per week with a large canvas-covered waggon to Fredericksburg and home again. He sold the grain and brought the money home to his master at the end of every trip. On setting out on his journey he was always given fifteen bushels of oats for his six horses on the trip. The jealous overseer, trying to find a pretext to whip the new slave, stole two bags of oats from his load before he set out. This he did two weeks in succession. The consequence was that{133} the horses came home on the second trip looking somewhat gaunt and not quite up to the mark.

Next morning after returning he was awakened by the overseer, carrying a big whip and some ropes, and ordered to go with him to his master. Arriving at the master’s house, the overseer charged him with having sold the oats and starved the team.

The accused protested his innocence, and established it beyond doubt. “A black girl has told me,” he said, “where the overseer has hidden the oats, over the back part of the granary, between the ceiling and the outside boards.” His master at once forbade the whipping, and told him to go and find the trap, which he did straightway.

He always asserted that while his master was at home he got on well enough, for he was a kindly-disposed man. But in an evil day for the poor slave the master went away “to the Springs” for his health, ordering him to continue teaming, and instructing him to hand the money to a near neighbor, not to the foreman.

As soon as the overseer returned he, however, demanded the cash, but the man refused, and paid it over according to his master’s orders.

Then the overseer took the slave off the road and put him ploughing with a three-horse team. After he had ploughed a few days, he came to him one day{134} on horseback, just after dinner, carrying a bundle of gads. On riding up to him he dismounted, and ordered him to “haul off.” For the first time in his life this poor slave asserted his manhood, and refused, declaring that “he had done nothing, and would not be whipped.” At this juncture the overseer pulled out a pistol, and placed it to the breast of the slave, who looked the overseer steadily in the eye, and said, “That’s the death I want to die, and not be killed by inches, as you have killed many hereabout.”

It was too much even for the brutal overseer, who remounted and threatened he “would have satisfaction from him before sundown, if it cost him his life”; and so rode away, leaving him to go on with his ploughing.

The overseer returned at nightfall with his brother and brother-in-law, and ropes enough “to tie down a horse,” as the old ex-slave expressed it, and a big whip. “Now, haul off, will you?” and the overseer made an effort to catch his victim, who dropped his reins and bolted from the plough handles for the woods, with the three in full chase after him. He was too fleet for them, however, and gained the shelter of the woods. For three weeks he hung about the neighborhood, fed by the other slaves, and waiting for his master to come home. Then the overseer

“Any mean, poor white man, I knew, now might take me,” the old man said, “and so I walked to London during the night.” How pathetically the humble old ex-slave described his aversion to leave home and his friends! He stopped at London a week, working for wages. Being once more frightened, and not hearing that his master had returned home, he “followed the north star by night” and slept during the day, until he came to Harrisburg, Pa. From Harrisburg to Charlotte, N.Y., he walked during the day-time, boldly inquiring his way to Canada, but always careful to keep going north. He says he always had heard of Canada among the slaves, but thought it was “a land where the wild geese go to, and was covered over with feathers.” Liberty, the old man said, was sweet, and he had made up his mind to risk making a living in Canada, even if it might be a poor one.

At Charlotte, N.Y., he found a small vessel about to sail for Colborne, Ont., and he bargained for his passage by working at loading before they set out, and was to help unload on getting over. It was late in the fall, he said, and when he once set foot in Canada he did not wait to help unload the boat for fear they might take him back to Charlotte, as they wished him to go for another trip. This was in 1854, when{136} the Grand Trunk Railroad was under construction, and things were booming in Ontario. He quickly got a job as teamster, and worked at that until the road was completed.

About this time (1856) he became a servant of my father’s and lived with the family many years, and it was from his own lips I gathered the story of his life as I have told it. Only about three weeks before his death he induced the writer to communicate with his friends in Virginia, giving his assumed name, James King, by which he always had been known here. A reply came at once, telling his real name, (which the old man confessed was right), and asking him to come back and see his friends, intimating, too, that he might be profited by his visit. His dread of slavery was too great, however, and he absolutely refused to go, but enquired most earnestly for his white half-brother, whom, the writer suspects, would now be glad, seeing that the great battle of slavery had been fought, to aid him. But it was not to be. James King, the slave, in whose veins flowed Virginia’s best blood, died of inflammation on the 20th day of October, 1895, in the land where he had sought and found freedom.

After a silence of thirty-eight years it seemed hard that the poor old ex-slave could not have gone to see his friends, and thus had a few bright days at the close of his long and lonely life.{137}

CHAPTER X.

THE civil war in the United States broke out in April, 1861, and indirectly exerted much influence on Canada. From 80,000 to 100,000 of our young men, who were sympathizers with the North, went from Ontario and Quebec to join the{138} Northern army. These Canadian recruits all received bounties—at first, usually $800 on enlisting, and then, as the struggle went on, receiving as high as $1,600.

The war created a large demand for produce of all kinds, and the Northern States bought everything we had to sell, giving high prices; the farmer and other producers became wealthy, and, to quote the usual expression, “the times were good.”

This fratricidal war had more men engaged in it, more horses, more ships, more mules, and more money than any war the world had yet ever known. As to numbers, Xerxes is allowed to have had the greatest army hitherto known, his force numbering one million of men when he crossed the Hellespont to conquer Greece. But when the North disbanded its armies at the termination of the war, in 1865, they had 1,250,000 men of all kinds under arms or on the roll. The South had 800,000 men.

We do not compare their navies of that day, of course, with the peerless navy of Her Majesty. By their fight of ironclads at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1864, however, they revolutionized the naval architecture of the world.

When the war was at its height I visited the armies. Gold had been bounding upwards week by week as the protracted struggle went on. Its daily rise whetted the edge of our appetites, keen to the main{139} chance of money-making. I was then just a young man fresh from college, but I felt that a truly “golden” opportunity was passing by us.

Day after day we read of the advance of the Federal army, and of its repulse by the Confederates (more especially in Virginia) and then again of its successes, and likewise the talk of Louis Napoleon being about to recognize the belligerency of the South.

We who were that day upon the scene, as it were, even if not in the actual conflict, felt the blows as they were struck with all the terrible force of war’s ravages, and honestly did not know how to make up our minds as to the final success of either side. I resolved to see for myself the contending armies, and then judge as well as I could from a ramble among both parties as to the ultimate result.

Well, about June 18th, 1864, having secured my father’s consent, I set out to inspect for myself. Down to New York I made my way, and looked about the great metropolis of America to find some signs of the depression of war upon the North; but I saw nothing to lead me to suppose for an instant that the drain upon the country was at all severe. In those days there was no Coney Island as we now know it. Indeed, I recollect going down there upon the sand dunes and finding only a board shanty{140} of a restaurant where they served baked clams. And these were only forty cents per plate in those days of inflations. That price was no kind of bar to me, with plenty of British and American gold in my pockets, for even then, before the premium had got to bounding up, my greenbacks only cost me about thirty-eight cents on the dollar. So, you see, even baked clams and the best hotels in New York of that day were at my command for a very small outlay.

At Philadelphia I encountered no sign of war, but the great city on the Schuylkill was booming on its way. Baltimore seemed just a little off, and many of the people appeared to be rather sulky. Still, there were no signs of reverses or oppressions, and so far war had not, to outward appearances, seriously hurt the North.

Washington I found during the last days of June the gayest of the gay. What struck me most forcibly was the extreme freedom in and about the city. Go anywhere I could and did, and no one seemed disposed to say me nay. In and out of Congress I went at will, as well as into the departments of the Secretaries. More than that, I rode on horseback some three or four miles south-easterly from the city to the great military hospitals.

Some of these were mere structures of boards; others large field tents; others, again, had board tops and tent sides. I walked at will among the rows of cots, and there saw suffering in its acutest forms. Soften the heart? Aye, the quest of gold upon which I first set out from my Canadian home was forgotten for the time in the presence of this suffering. Young fellows many of them were lying there by the hundreds, so pallid and wan, and scarcely lifting eyes to look at the passer-by. Even after this lapse of time, I vividly remember thinking of the mothers of these young lads in far-off homes in the north, waiting so hopefully and wistfully for their sons’ return.

In addition to the wounded in battle, many of the poor fellows were suffering from fevers. But to me it was all suffering. And this at last was war! Such scenes as these, harrowing though they are, mark the great distinction between the savage and the civilized. Civilized, we care for our wounded and sick; savage, the infirm and helpless are left to die. Board shanties, and with board roofs, mean as they were architecturally:

Naturally, serviceable material for army recruits was looked after most keenly in Washington at this time. Walking along the new asphalt sidewalk, in heat so great as to melt the asphalt so that it left the print of my footsteps upon it, an officer wanted to know if I would like to enlist. His first offer was $800 in money down, and I have no doubt the offer would have gone up to $1,600 quite if I had been so disposed, but my quest was gold and not military glory, and consequently I declined the offer.

I made, too, a visit to Lincoln, at the White House, during the last days of June, 1864. No one for a moment questioned my right to enter. A challenge I did not hear. Within the doors of the White House, at the foot of the main stair, sat an attendant upon a plebeian three-legged stool reading a novel. Not a soldier nor a policeman in sight, and I was free, apparently, to go where I chose.

I went up, and saw the great man in the room {143}indicated. Feeling that I had no kind of right to intrude upon a man so weighted down with cares as President Lincoln was at that period of the war, I remained long enough to allow his image, as he sat facing me, to be imprinted on my memory, never to be obliterated. My first thought was, “What a tall, awkward man and how badly his clothes fit.” One arm lay upon the table beside which he sat, and the other upon the arm of his chair.

I could not, however, bring myself to leave without an interview with the President. On my card being handed him he ceased talking for a moment with his visitor, some man from Missouri, and through the open door asked me in and told me to be seated, and he would soon be through with the business on hand. Thus involuntarily I learned the nature of the business of the gentleman from Missouri, which seemed to be to importune the President to order the release of a number of guerillas who had been committing depredations in the south-west.

After a lot of words from the Missourian, Mr. Lincoln said if he would give him “any real good reason why these men should be liberated” it would be done. The conversation continuing, I thought it my part to retire. As I left the room, the President sat with fixed gaze, apparently absorbed in thought, and so preoccupied as not to notice my departure. While disappointed of my interview, I had seen and spoken{144} with the man whose figure stands out in clear and massive outline on the canvas of American history, and I remember this with pardonable pride and satisfaction.

A pass was granted me to go wherever I chose in Virginia or about the vicinity of Washington. How I got this pass I cannot even now, after thirty-two years, tell. Some of the persons who assisted me to obtain this great favor are yet alive—not all of them, it is true, but I would be manifestly unwise to tell any more on this point. Being a Canadian, I may freely say, gained me the coveted pass when backed up with some seals of officialdom from our own Canada. More I cannot, dare not say, only that this pass lies on my writing desk beside me as I write these lines.

Without delay I set out to cross the Potomac, mounted upon a horse hired from a Washington livery stable. It was when entering the Long Bridge, as the wooden structure of two miles in length over the Potomac then was called, that I first showed my pass. My first thought upon gaining the Virginia shore was of the terrible barrenness and bleakness of the country about. There were no roads, no fences, no buildings, no woods, but just a mass of the lightest and meanest red dust one ever could conceive of—dust quite four inches deep, so that of necessity I rode

To describe the ride to the Army of the Potomac would take too long, and there is really nothing worthy of much note until I got to the army itself. At the camp every courtesy was shown me, and then I saw what few persons now alive at this time ever saw, and that was 90,000 men encamped in tents and under arms. It would be useless for me to try to describe this vast army. Its very magnitude was too great for the mind to grasp.

Men I saw, and men, and still men, everywhere and all about. There literally seemed to be no end of them, and the idea then formed itself in my mind that this great armed mass of humanity must and would conquer the South.

I prize my visit to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant as one of the greatest and most interesting experiences in my life. As to the army, I cannot well speak from the knowledge I then had, but I certainly got the impression when walking along the miles and miles of streets with canvas houses at the sides that there was no want, that everything needful was served to these men in the fullest extent and of the best. The cavalry, I remember lay off some little distance from the infantry, and such a mass of horse and mule flesh it has been the{146} lot of but few to see. Some 12,000 horses, I think, were in the camp.

Not the least restraint was placed upon me, but I was free to go where and when I listed, while at almost every officer’s mess I was a welcome guest. Great good-nature was the order of the day, and it was indeed a gay scene, with the regimental bands and bright colors and the pomp and panoply of war.

As to visiting the Confederates, I was assured that a flag of truce would easily put me over, but I began to think I had seen as much of the military as my brain, uneducated in military matters, could take in, and consequently not wishing to stay my welcome out too far, and fearing a movement on the part of the army, I began the ride back to Washington.

When within a few miles of Long Bridge, and in plain sight of the Capitol and Washington itself, on looking back, a great cloud of dust seemed to be coming up, as if trying to overtake me, from the direction I had come. I was startled, of course, but I halted, and before half an hour had elapsed along came the most confused mass of humanity one could think of—men on foot, on cannons, on mules, on horses, some with guns, some without, but all bowling along for Washington in the fastest possible time.

I found they were going into Washington to defend it, having heard that General Jubal Early, of the Con{147}federates, had crossed the Potomac at Williamsburg, above the city, and was about to make an effort to cut off communication with the north. It would perhaps be superfluous to add that after this information my horse sped as fast as any of them, and over Long Bridge the rescuers and I went pell mell into Washington. This was on the 6th of July, 1864. The city naturally was all excitement; men and cannon, horses and ambulances, seemed to be moving along all the streets. Washington at this turn of affairs had the appearance of a huge military camp.

On returning my horse to the livery stable my first thought was for food and a bath. Both of these I obtained at the hotel, the landlord of which informed me that I could not get out of the city by the trains, they being closely guarded. At four o’clock I came with my grip to the Baltimore Depot, and did indeed find it guarded by bluecoats. Stepping up to one of the men I asked for the captain of the guard. He came. When I asked him to let me get on the Baltimore train, he quietly shook his head and turned away. Then, and not till then, I called him back to look at my pass. A wonderful change instantly followed. His hand came to the salute, the necessary order was given the guard, their bayonets were raised to the salute, and I walked{148} through a row of glittering steel to the railway platform.

This, as I have said, was at four in the afternoon. The next train left at six for Baltimore. General Franklin was on the latter train, when General Early’s scouts stopped it and took him off. On my train there was no trouble. I easily got to Baltimore, and for these thirty-two years I have been curious to know what the Confederates would have done with me had they caught me on the train with General Franklin. The conclusion I have arrived at is that they would have taken my money if they had had time (for the Union cavalry was after them hot), and then let me go.

To pursue this narrative a little further, I at length arrived at Elmira, N.Y., and saw the Confederate prisoners in a camp about a couple of miles south of the town. Their prison was only a field of some ten acres, surrounded by a tight board fence about ten feet high, on which guards were placed at intervals. Within were houses for the prisoners. Without any difficulty I was allowed to walk upon the platforms at the fence top and see the prisoners as long as I would. The same freedom was given me here as I had enjoyed in the White House, in the army, in the great hospitals, and in fact, everywhere—and this,{149} too, during one of the most terrible wars the world has ever seen.

As to the prisoners, there were some two hundred of them standing about in groups, many of them smoking, listening to some talker in each group spinning yarns. To my astonishment, they did not all wear the Confederate grey, but many had butternut-colored jeans, and among the lot there was scarcely a well-dressed man. So far as I could judge, they were not feeling their imprisonment very badly, and I noticed that when the officer of the guard was absent they talked and joked quite freely with the guards upon the fence. Keen-eyed, sharp-looking fellows they were, and generally quite young men.

At this time in my life I had not seen Europe with its fuss and feathers, and could not draw the comparison which I now can; but I can conscientiously say now, having been under almost every flag in the world, that America (Canada of course, as well, being the greater part of America) is pre-eminently a land of freedom, first, last and always.

Going on to Chicago I remember I sold gold to pay my expenses; one dollar for $2.86 in greenbacks. Think of $2.86 for one of our dollars! Now was the time, I felt, to buy the bonds, and I was fully alive to the opportunity. My father and I, on looking over the situation, concluded we could put $200,000{150} of our money into United States currency. Now this sum at the premium of $2.86 would have given me, at a jump, $572,000. Yes, but again the 7-30’s and 5-20’s, as the bonds of those days were called, were sold so low and so much depreciated that one dollar of greenbacks would buy three dollars in bonds, or thereabout, as I now remember. Thus my $572,000 would have given me in bonds $1,716,000, which is another jump so big as to almost take one’s breath.

There is yet more to tell, for after the war was done those very same bonds soon sold at an average of thirty per cent. premium. Of course, I am justified in adding this premium (that would amount to $515,800) to my bonds in calculation, which would give me $2,131,800. These are the millions I had in view all the time I was in Grant’s army when looking about to form an opinion.

I never wavered for an instant in my faith, and I knew all the time that the North would conquer, if Louis Napoleon but kept his hands off and did not aid the South.

Of the pluck of the South and their heroic efforts, which only Anglo-Saxons can and will make, it is not for me to speak in this article. Older men, and men educated in military affairs, told me as I met them in Washington, attached to the embassies, that the North must and would win, and that the God of{151} battles would be on the side of the heaviest ordnance. Why I did not buy the bonds it is now necessary for me to tell to complete this tale.

My paternal great-uncle lived in our family home, he having been born in Massachusetts in 1786, and, coming away with my own forefathers from that State to Upper Canada before things got quieted in New England after the war of the Revolution, he had retained a most vivid recollection of every turn of that most unfortunate struggle, as told him at his mother’s knee.

Among the relics which my forefather brought from Massachusetts was a deerskin-covered saddle-bag, with a brass ring in each end to fasten to the horse. This old saddle-bag was octagonal in shape, and was made in London, England, in 1719. It was used as a receptacle for papers from New England, dating mainly before the Revolution, and as far back as 1720. Within this pile of papers in a roll was a large quantity of money, paper money of different denominations, and made at the various periods of the war. First, I remember, were shilling notes, then notes for pounds, and as the war went on, notes for dollars.

From my earliest boyhood I had fingered these notes, and played with them, but never until this year (1864) did I realize that at one time they meant just that much money to my forefather.{152}

To our scheme the paternal uncle listened, and took it all in. Yes, he understood about buying the bonds just as well as I did, and freely admitted the opportunity to be a good one. Then, arousing himself as if from a fright, he asked me to go and get the Continental money, which I quickly did. Fondly he looked it over, and passed the notes between his fingers, soliloquizing to himself. “No, boy,” he said presently; “they didn’t pay these, and they may not pay their bonds now, and better let well enough alone and not touch them.”

My uncle’s decision settled the matter. The bonds were not bought, and thus I lost the chance of becoming a multi-millionaire at a bound, a chance the like of which never may occur again.

CHAPTER XI.

THE event known as the “Trent affair,” November 8th, 1861, when the American man-of-war San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Wilkes, stopped the British mail steamship Trent in the open sea, boarded her, and arrested the Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell, then on their way to England to plead the cause of the South and seek its recognition as a belligerent power, caused consider{154}able excitement in Canada. The Northern States were much elated over this grave breach of the law of nations, but Great Britain was indignant, and demanded the instant release of the captives, a declaration of war as the alternative. Troops were sent to Halifax and Quebec, one regiment riding from Halifax to Quebec in the midst of winter, there being no Intercolonial Railway at that date. All Canadians of military age were enrolled, and the excitement caused thereby seemed almost to deprive many of their reasoning powers.

There was much bombastic talk, and it certainly appeared as if a lot of our fire-eaters wanted war and a chance to distinguish themselves, and in no instance did this class of the community suppose that the United States could or would strike back. No, they evidently believed we were simply to band together and “eat up” the people of the Northern States. A well-known practising physician of Oshawa boasted that he with ten thousand men could march right through to Washington.

However, Lincoln’s firm wisdom prevailed, the American Government, quietly acquiescing in Great Britain’s demand, gave up the captives, and the war-cloud passed.

Among the many who had enlisted in the Northern army were several from Oshawa. Robert Warren,{155} son of John B. Warren, died from exposure, and his body was found after an engagement, begrimed with dust and smoke, by his schoolmate, Dr. John Wall, who was serving as surgeon in the army in Virginia. John cared for the body of his friend, and brought it home to Oshawa for burial. Ah, how many of our poor fellows were buried where they fell!

The Grand Trunk Railway carried military equipments from Quebec and Montreal to Toronto that winter and did a thriving business. Officers guarded these stores on the cars. One cold day one of these officers fell out of the Grand Trunk car, going up Scarboro’ Heights, and landed in the snow. Making his way, bareheaded, to Jerry Annis’s house, it being the nearest, he got him to drive him to Toronto, eleven miles away.

At this period in Canada very many of the industries were carried on by bank capital. That is to say, endorsed notes were made for three months, discounted, and renewed from quarter to quarter. By the capital thus raised manufacturing, lumbering, tanning, and like industries, were carried on.

At this time of writing, when loans are current at{156} five per cent., it seems almost incredible that only thirty years ago business men and manufacturers depended upon chartered banks for their capital—renewing their notes quarterly—and by so doing paid the interest quarterly in advance, making interest at ten and one-half to eleven per cent. per annum. Such, however, was the case, and the banks throve by that manner of doing business.

Banks usually succeed in Canada. Those old institutions that helped very materially to develop the country, but which failed, failed because of making too great loans upon real estate, and having a lot of it thrown on their hands. Banks, however, though in deep water, may keep on for years, until someone expresses fears of their solvency. Said an old manager of the Bank of Upper Canada to me, “A bank is like a woman, all right until someone says something against her character.”

From my earliest recollection, the general saying to express soundness emphatically was “As good as the Bank of Upper Canada.” The old Bank, however, kept on taking over real estate, distilleries, sawmills, foundries and such, until they had to liquidate at, I think, about thirty cents on the dollar. During the excitement caused by the Trent affair, A. S. Whiting and E. C. Tuttle, who just previously had started a large and important manufactory of hand harvest{157} tools, such as scythes, forks, hoes and rakes, were succeeding nicely. William L. Gilbert, of Winsted, Conn., was endorsing their notes. They applied to the Ontario Bank for twenty thousand dollars as a part of their capital. Gilbert’s credit was above suspicion—he was a millionaire—but the prospect of war from the Trent affair frightened the Ontario Bank people, and Whiting and Tuttle had to arrange with my father to make the endorsation until people got rid of their temporary madness. This is an instance of the peculiar state of affairs in Upper Canada, financially, during 1862. Some of our branch lines of railways, too, were in part built by using bank capital and discounted notes.

The Grand Trunk Railway, in the first instance, was built by British capital and the loans (which afterwards became gifts) of the millions of the Government of Canada. The great Canadian Pacific Railway, too, was built by capitalists, with generous aid from the Government, but the branch lines asked for bonuses from the different municipalities which they touched. Townships, villages and cities issued bonds, borrowed the money, and gradually provided a sinking fund from the taxes received, by which in time to pay off the bonds.

In the abstract it seems unfair and uncalled for that a township had to pay for the railway in advance in{158} order to get it to touch that township, and then, when it came, be charged stiff freight and passenger rates by the same grateful railway. It was “a bitter pill to swallow,” but it had to be taken. Those municipalities which did not “swallow the pill” are to-day “in the lurch,” as we say in Canada. I paid one of them a visit a little time ago, and I give herewith a sketch of my experiences:

The long, uninterrupted winter was dragging its slow length along without a break. Even the January thaw, as always foretold by the oldest inhabitant, had not come to the hamlet during that winter. Snow fell once or twice during the week with unerring regularity. Roadways had been beaten and tracked in the snow, and the faithful villagers had tramped through it from day to day. Nothing, in fact, had happened to break the monotony of this quiet village hamlet for the entire winter season. Perhaps the last noted occurrence was just as the snow came, when the deacon’s horse ran away and came bounding back into the village without the deacon or anyone else holding the lines, and the robes partly in and partly out of the cutter. That occurrence for a time had been food for gossip among the quiet villagers, some stoutly averring that the deacon was drunk, while others, putting it mildly, said, “The deacon was took bad in his head suddenly, as he sometimes was wont to{159} be, and couldn’t guide his horse.” Just how it was was still a mooted point, even as late as the dreaded Ides of March—the time of my visit to this quiet place. It seems no one had died, there were but few births, and only one or two young fellows had spunk enough to do any right-down earnest courting for the whole live-long stormy winter. Happenings there were none. Well, business called me to this little rural hamlet in the gusty month of March—this peaceful village, removed from the path of the iron horse, an out-of-the way place altogether. During the general upheaval of things in Ontario, when most towns and villages were up and about to secure railway communication, the deacon of this little place and a few other fore-handed citizens strongly objected to giving “any bonus for any number of railways, be they one or more,” so the village has gone without a railway. Excellent people they are indeed, and they change so very slowly and deliberately that old Rip Van Winkle could not possibly have found a better place wherein or whereabout to take that long memorable nap of his.

Even were Rip to change, his neighbors would not, for in the twenty years, while he calmly slumbered, the weekly “sewing circles” would infallibly be held; and around and about the sewing circles everything in this wayside, or rather out-of-the-way-side, hamlet revolved. When Mrs. Dobson put on her new striped{160} stuff dress for the first time, and came down to the “circle,” every eye was upon her, and she had no rest until she told where she obtained it, how much it cost per yard, and how many yards it took for the dress. Particularly is this worthy of mention to enable those remote from this village of snow-trodden paths to realize fully its unchangeableness, and its hunger for something out of the ordinary to give food for talk and thought. A boy of fourteen had driven me from the railway station, twelve miles away, as he carried the meagre leather bag, denominated by grace Her Majesty’s Mail, in a square-boxed sleigh drawn by one horse—such a sleigh as in New England they term a “pung.”

At the village hostelry I am domiciled within four wooden-sided, clap-boarded, white-painted walls, where I am “ated and slaped,” and all for $1.00 per day. After the ample evening tea, and over a quiet pipe in the corner of the bar, while conning a paper two days old, the voluble and voluminous landlady asks if I will not “go and hear the professor to-night?”

Not having been at the weekly sewing circle for that week, I am not posted, and in my innocence ask of the professor, “And what’s to be heard from him?”

“He’s a psychologist, sir, and they all say he can make people do just what he chooses to make them do. He’s going to speak to-night in the Temperance

Hall, just across the way; all the village will be there, and I think you would be amused, sir, if you chose to go.”

The Temperance Hall is jammed—well, that’s the ordinary way of putting it; but in this case it is pressed in full much the same as they press cotton in the rude bales on the home plantations down south, before they are sent away to the big cotton presses in the cities.

“A stranger? Well, we must let him in, for perhaps he’s a friend of the prof.”

Stepping over the tops of the long seats, I get in, and make my way up near the professor.

Now, this professor is one of those nondescripts who comes from nowhere in particular. He opens his mouth and gives vent to sound in a steady volume, but says nothing in particular. His speech is all about psychology and its wonders and what he proposes to do. Some ten minutes of this, then he invites up half a dozen young men from the gathering for experiments. Applicants for experiment are seated on chairs on the platform before the professor. The latter looks one of these steadily in the eye for{162} a couple of minutes and then makes a few undulatory motions back and forth before his eyes with his right hand and touches his forehead with his fingers. Already he has the spell, and sits staring into vacancy as if he were about to have an extra large photograph taken. All in turn are “spelled,” and all are a success save one, who is requested to take his seat again among the people. And now the fun commences. One fellow the professor assures is hunting, and he hands him his cane for a gun. A flock of ducks!—down the fellow goes and crawls on hands and knees. He fires, and the recoil of the gun throws him prostrate on the stage. Up he gets and at it he goes again. During the half hour I sat there, I think the fellow bagged as big a bag of ducks as usually falls to the lot of a sportsman nowadays. Another youth sees an excellent opportunity for a swim, and quickly doffs coat, vest, and would doff more if not quickly stopped by the wonderful professor. Prostrate he falls on the platform and goes through all the motions of a genuine swim, with feet drawn up, again extended, and the long drawn stroke of the arms regularly and in natural order repeated—a perfect fac-simile of a swim. The “spelled” No. 3 came next, and fancied that the glass of water which the professor extended to him contained excellent port wine; his lips smacked and his eyes sparkled. But{163} he must propose a toast, which was something about Johnny Jones’ girl, and young Mac cutting Jones out. This local hit brought down the house, and it was fully five minutes before the audience could be got into quiet again. Now Jones and Mac were the other two “spelled” subjects on the platform, and of course a duel had to be fought. The far-seeing professor, smelling such duels from afar, had provided two huge corn-stalks, which he handed to the duellists for swords. Each one feels carefully the keen edge of the lethal weapons, and prepares himself for the fray. Seconds are chosen from the other “spelled” ones on the platform, who for the moment leave their ducks, their swimming and their glasses of port wine to see that the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules are faithfully carried out.

And Jones’ girl all this time is looking on. She had gotten herself up elaborately for the occasion; without a doubt her wardrobe had been duly dissected and priced and deplored and praised at the last “circle.” Jones’ girl’s mother is there, too, sitting just behind her.

“The low, mean fellow, to make such an exhibition of himself! I would never let him go home with me again! Send back his ring, Mirandy. The idea{164}!—to get up before all the people here and fight with corn-stalks!”

The laughter before pent up, controlled, held in, kept down, now bursts the bonds. Human nature in this village of snow-paths could hold in no longer. It’s just a broad ha! ha!! ha!!! and for the girls (all except Jones’ girl) a te! he!! he!!! The old deacon joins in—it’s even too much for his gravity. In the deacon’s case the explosion was rather serious. He began with a cough and a sneeze, got red in the face—got redder—his sides shook—a blast from his nose—then the explosion, ho! ho!! ho!!! ho!!!!

If the house was brought down before, it was “fetched” now—the fun was so hilarious—for those people hadn’t had a good laugh that winter. Some of the other girls, whose beaux are yet to be found, are heard to exclaim: “The absurd fellow! I wonder that she can countenance him at all!”

But the duel—“Three paces. Now at the word, one—two—three,” and the whacks of the corn-stalks resound. It is a spectacle to arouse laughter from even a hypochondriac.

While the duellists are resting the professor goes on to speak his piece. He has been “a close student of human nature. It’s mental alchemy, stored away{165} in the great human store-house. An observer like me can bring it out—a great science, ladies and gentlemen—and I shall give one more exhibition before this highly intelligent community to-morrow evening.”

And well he may, for the house this evening has paid him seventy dollars at least.

While this speech is going on, the professor keeps hold of one of the hands of Jones’ opponent in the duel, and manages to rub some red paint or pigment on his wrist while he is talking.

“Take your places, gentlemen! All ready at the word. One—two—three,” and such a pounding of corn-stalks—pounded so effectually that they fly in fragments all over the hall.

“Blood!—first blood! Honor is satisfied, gentlemen; Jones is the winner. Shake hands, gentlemen—that’s according to the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules—yes, that’s it! Seconds, take care of your principals.”

And Jones’ girl is all smiles, and will evidently allow the hero to see her home to-night.

More applicants for the “spell” come up as I walk over the seat-backs to the door, making my way back to mine hostelry and to bed.

This is a faithful picture of life as I saw it in a remote Ontario village—a village too mean to pay a single dollar to get a railway, and which therefore{166} was beaten in the race. The tedium of a winter’s life therein, snow-bound and with its humdrum, is not an experience to be coveted.

If you like the picture, you can find such a place for a winter’s residence next winter, easily; but I fancy most readers will agree with me in saying that the deacon, the fore-handed citizens and the village generally made a serious mistake in not securing railway communication when it was to be had.

Villages, as well as citizens, to keep up in the race nowadays, must be alive and moving, or both are soon left far behind by their neighbors’ ambitions.

SOME FAMILY HISTORY.

There came to the Whitbies from one of the Midland counties of England a bachelor accompanied by his widowed sister and her little girl. Possessing capital, he bought one of the best farms of these favored townships. It was a glebe of about one hundred and fifty acres, without any waste land within its borders, and was nicely built upon. Here the bachelor brother farmed thoroughly and well, while the sister presided over the household and looked after the education and care of her growing daughter. Of their former history no one knew aught.

The man was a jolly good fellow, open-handed, free{167} and hospitable. They used to say that no visitor ever came to the home and went away dry unless he chose to. Not that I mean to say this English gentleman bachelor was a drinker, only that, according to the light of those days, the rites of hospitality were administered when the tankard kept pace with the choicest dishes of the table.

There are probably few living now who were alive and partakers of this bachelor’s kindnesses. The farm was bought in the late forties, and he and his sister left it for their English home once more about 1863.

But to follow more intimately their fortunes in Ontario, we must speak now of the young daughter. Admirers of this English-Canadian belle will even to this day aver that she was surpassingly beautiful. None of that day had more to be thankful for in this particular, while her charm of manner was even in excess of her beauty. Naturally, suitors came. Among those who were truly fascinated was a young English barrister, even then known as a pushing, rising fellow. Indeed, he has risen by sheer downright hard work, as well as ability, till to-day he is one of the high officials of our Canadian courts, and pre-eminently a successful man. This man proposed duly, and after mature deliberation and consultation with the mother, was accepted. Before the knot was{168} tied, however, he said to the beautiful girl that he would immediately after marriage expect to receive full control of her property. Once more the affianced girl and her mother consulted, and their conclusion was that he had come courting the $8,000 which she possessed in her own right, and not her particularly, but only as an accessory, so he was jilted. Next came a long-haired, tall minister, who pressed his suit with all the ardor his glib tongue was capable of, and he won.

They were married and lived together a couple of years, and two children were born to them. The minister went on with his duties, and, outwardly, all seemed to go fairly well, but those most intimate with the family always felt that there was some mystery connected with him; yet, suspect as much as they might, they could not charge him with any irregularities. A perfect specimen of a man he was, endowed with high social qualities, and capable of taking a high place in the ministry.

One fine day, however, he went out from the ministerial home for a morning walk, leaving the young wife and two babes to await his coming to dinner. Dinner that day waited and continued to wait, and is still waiting after the lapse of thirty-four years, for it is a literal fact that no one, so far as is known on earth, ever saw the minister and husband{169} after he crossed the threshold that morning in 1863 for a walk.

Back to the mother and uncle on the farm went the young mother. A few months in silence, then came the record of a criminal trial for murder in a neighboring state, where a minister had been tried for his life, but by some technical legal flaw got off. Reading the trial record it was clearly brought out that this fiend had cut his wife’s throat from ear to ear, as she lay in bed, and in such a manner as to make it thought she had committed suicide. In refutation of that theory, it was most clearly shown that the former wife could not, no matter how much disposed, do the deed herself, but that the fiend of a husband did it, and that he afterwards fled to Ontario and to the Whitbies, and married our most beautiful maid. This was too much for the mother and uncle. Their beautiful farm was sold, and back to the Midland counties of England again they went, taking the young deserted wife and the two fatherless babes with them.

The bachelor brother has lately been gathered to his fathers, and the sister has become a very old woman. The deserted wife, now the mother of a young man and a young woman, is in her early old age, retaining still much of the beauty of her earlier years, while she learns to grow old gracefully. In{170} deeds of charity and kindnesses to her neighbors her time is occupied, and she is seemingly happy in the love of her children. Her home-life in the Whitbies is never thought of. Lately, however, a resident near her Canadian home called upon her, and found that she had kept her property intact from her graceless minister-husband, and was surrounded by such outward comfort and even splendor as grand old England alone can give.

Even surrounded with these pleasant accessories, she is said to have inquired very minutely about her home across the water, and of those who were once her friends and neighbors, while a sigh escaped her as she sat and gazed as if looking far across the broad Atlantic, where she had spent so many happy, as well as unhappy, days in her home in Ontario.{171}

CHAPTER XII.

FENIANISM at first did not attract much attention. In 1865 rumors continually reached us of head centres, drillings, armings, massings, and other notes of warlike preparations among United States Fenians. Our Government had spies promptly among them. Clever fellows they were, who entered the lodges and wormed out all their secrets.{172}

As the days went by and the rumors increased, gathering force by repetition and transmission, our people began to feel alarmed. There were very few sympathizers in Canada, but, preposterous as it may seem, there were some, and certain of these, more valiant and outspoken than others, talked of what they would do when the Fenians did come. Con. Lyons, of Oshawa, a respectable man, working for his livelihood, made no secret of saying he had chosen my father’s homestead farm as his share in the prospective division of property taken by the Fenian invaders. Timorous people became very nervous, and “the Fenians” were the topic of the day.

Neighbors gathered nightly in each other’s houses, and debated over the prospects, conjecturing and planning what they would do with their horses and stock when the invaders landed. To run them off into the forests seemed to be the general solution of that difficulty met in advance by those who feared even the very next breeze from the south might bring in a shipload of Fenians from the United States to occupy this part of Ontario. Persons residing near the shore of Lake Ontario began to watch for strange craft. The excitement was too tense to be kept up long. Something must occur to quiet it down.

On the hot misty evening of June 26th, 1865, someone about Port Oshawa saw the spars of a ship just

out from the shore, as if of a vessel at anchor. Anon the ship’s yawl could be faintly descried making for the shore. The evening was very still, and through the mist the ear helped the eye, as it were, as the sound of oars in the row-locks could be distinctly heard. This regular “swish” and “thud” of rowers in unison came to startled ears.

It was enough. A young man got a horse and rode for sweet life to Oshawa, three miles away, calling aloud as he rode, “They have landed! they have landed!”

Yet not all who had previously gathered at each other’s houses were within hearing of the dreadful tidings of the landing. One Cumberland man went to his neighbor’s door at midnight, knocked and called out, “John, the Fenians have a’ com’d!”

In Oshawa town the consternation was too great and genuine to be ludicrous, at least just then. Not a few persons loaded waggons with all they could put on them, and climbing to the top of the furniture and bedding drove away northward. “No Fenians should catch us!”

We were all summoned by the Colonel, John McGill, to assemble at the town hall. My father shouldered his double-barrelled fowling-piece, and I grasped a green “shillelah” in default of a gun, and repaired with many others to the rendezvous. The{174} illustration at page 236 is of the “awkward squad” who thus mustered in valiant defence of their native town.

It should not, however, be viewed with too critical an eye. Remember we were all summoned at five minutes’ notice, no time being given even to change our clothes. Every second the Fenians were expected to march up Simcoe Street from Port Oshawa.

We prepared to march—men with guns in front, those with forks next, and those with clubs in the rear. There were, however, many in the town who did not prepare to march, but who ran and hid, fancying “one live coward is worth two dead heroes.” Men, somehow, were rather scarce there just then. We stood upon our arms, forks and clubs, waiting for the word—which was never given.

Another horseman came from Port Oshawa, and told us a boat’s crew had come ashore for milk and provisions, as well as to get their reckoning, not knowing where they were. Inoffensive fellows enough, but they deserved a drubbing for giving us needless alarm.

This state of feeling or tension was not confined to our neighborhood, but was common to the country generally.

Finding there was no immediate attack imminent, our courage began to rise, and we in that town hall,{175} resting upon our arms or clubs, became anxious to “wipe out” the enemy. Night patrols were set—first night, men with guns; next night, those who had forks borrowed the guns; next, club-men took their turn.

My father, always somewhat of a wag, arrested a young man about eleven o’clock at night by threatening to fire if he did not halt. He halted. It was young Allen, whom my father knew well. He begged hard to be let off, but that could not be permitted unless he explained why he was out so late. “I have just been over to Mr. Cinnamon’s to see his daughter. Please let me go.” “Well, don’t you be caught out so late again courting,” and he was let off for the time. In a few nights the watch was discontinued. But no Fenians came that year.

The following year, 1866, they came and, landing, raided the shore of Lake Erie, and the battle at Ridgeway was the result. There a number of the militia who were called out to defend the country, many of them mere lads, were killed. Others died later from the effects of the over-exertion and excitement. Among the former was young Willie Tempest, from Oshawa, a Trinity College (Toronto), student, who went to the front with his company in the Queen’s Own Rifles.

The indignation and patriotic excitement through{176}out the country proved to the invaders and any sympathizers with them within our borders that Canadians were loyal to their own Government and would not suffer invasion of their soil.

Called to a knowledge of the breach of national law in allowing the arming of a hostile force within her territory, the United States Government gave the necessary orders to her officials. This, following the ill-success of the raid, put a stop to active Fenianism on our western boundary line for the time.

A second somewhat similar attempt was even more quickly repulsed at Eccles’ Hill, in the Eastern Townships, Quebec, in 1870.

Among the prisoners taken at Ridgeway was a young Catholic priest. He was lodged in the Penitentiary at Kingston for being caught in such bad company. At first it was thought we would keep him there, but as time passed and the excitement against those who had caused the loss of our men cooled, sorrow for the unfortunate misguided young father softened our hearts. The prison doors were opened, he was bidden depart and be seen no more in our land. He said he would not, and I believe he has kept his word faithfully.

“Born with a silver spoon in his mouth” is a very laconic way Canadians have of expressing the case of{177} a child born of rich parents. The young man of the following sketch was the only son and probable heir to riches, both on the father’s and mother’s side. He had a sister, it is true, who would likely inherit a proportion of the family wealth. In that respect Canadians are like the people of the British Isles, who do not intend the daughters to share equally with the sons. Among our American cousins they have broken off from the old traditions, and the girls inherit equally with the boys.

Unfortunately for this youth he did not get on well with his father, nor did he shine very brilliantly at school, but through all he was ever the mother’s favorite.

After the completion of the Canadian Pacific Rail-wax-many of the young men of the older Provinces were disposed to try their luck in British Columbia. Among such adventurers were two lads of the same town, and schoolmates of this young man. This fact probably fired his ambition, for in midwinter these two boys were joined by the young heir. Together they ran away, going direct to Golden, a point on the new line of railway in British Columbia. His mother had provided him with some funds, else they had found it difficult to survive through the approaching winter. Arrived at Golden, they secured a tent and lived in it when the mercury registered 20° (Fah.) below zero.{178} It is very evident the lad had good “grit,” as is said in America, to thus come straight from luxury to live and lodge with nothing between him and that awful cold but a little cotton web.

On the ice breaking up in the spring the three runaways secured a strong row-boat and ascended the Columbia River six days’ journey, voyaging by day and camping by night upon the shore. At their journey’s end they bought a ranch, built a cabin on it, and took up housekeeping, each one in turn being cook. Thus two seasons passed away, and no word was sent home direct to the parents of our youth. They had heard of him only indirectly through the parents of the two other runaways.

The mother, though surrounded by luxury and comfort, with every wish gratified, could no longer endure the separation, so she determined to go and see that erring son, even if at the risk of her life, for she was a woman whose health was uncertain and had been so for some years. First, she had a Peterboro’ cedar canoe built, capable of easily carrying five persons, and had it shipped by Canadian Pacific Railway to Golden, B.C., the objective point from which the son had set out.

Taking her uncle as an escort, and her maid, she set out on the fatiguing journey. Arrived at Golden, she took possession of the boat and provisioned it for{179} the voyage up the Columbia. Camping at night with nothing but the blue canopy of heaven for a covering, they reached the ranch at last. Then an unlooked-for thing occurred. The young runaway laid siege to the serving-maid’s heart, and was determined to marry her. In her precarious state of health, however, the mother, not approving of the match, refused, and said she needed the girl to take care of her. After a stay of some three weeks with her son at the ranch (where the runaways were ostensibly raising horses), the mother and her party returned to Golden, finding the journey down stream comparatively easy. From Golden they made their way to Victoria, and thence by sea to San Francisco, proceeding then to Santa Barbara, Southern California. The mother hoped the mild climate would restore her health. She occupied tasteful quarters, and for a time her health improved. She was able to enjoy the flowers and out-of-door life and pleasures. In Southern California their midwinter days are days of sunshine; picnics and such pastimes are truly enjoyable. She was not, however, to enjoy them long, for death came very suddenly and without a moment’s warning.

When the tidings of her death reached the son, he came at once that he might convey the remains to the home in Ontario. Meeting the maid again, and{180} forgetful of his mother’s wishes, he married her, and took her with him to his old home. Truly a strange journey, his bride with him, and his mother’s dead body in the baggage car on the same train. From his mother the lad inherited tens of thousands of dollars, and is probably heir to many more.{181}

CHAPTER XIII.

ALTHOUGH Upper Canada is essentially an English-speaking province, there are many settlements throughout its wide area composed of other nationalities, emigrants from European nations, who have founded colonies within its borders. Quebec is more French, it being the old Canada, or New France, and in it the two languages are equally spoken. Still, although there are not noticeably many French in the Upper Province, there are small groups of them here and there, chiefly among the laboring classes.

The most picturesque figure in Canada to-day is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, and as Premier of the Dominion we may claim him as belonging to us in Ontario as well as to his native Province of Quebec. The son of{182} a provincial land surveyor, he is a man of finished culture and education, whose eloquence is as fluently expressed in one language as in the other. After taking a full classical course at L’Assomption College, he studied law, took the degree of B.C.L. at McGill College, Montreal, was for a time editor of a prominent and influential Lower Canadian journal, later became well known as a powerful and skilful counsel in both civil and criminal cases, and was created a Q.C. in 1880.

He came into politics as an associate of Dorion, Laflamme and others of the old Liberal school in Lower Canada; later has called himself a Liberal of the English school, a pupil of Charles Fox and Daniel O’Connell. His débût in the Legislature of Lower Canada created a sensation, “not more by the finished grace of his oratorical abilities than by the boldness and authority with which he handled the deepest political problems.” The effect of his “fluent, cultured and charming discourse” is described by the poet Frechette as “magical.” The brilliant Frenchman, who is yet so proud of his country and of being a British subject, who has been honored and received by Her Imperial Majesty the Queen, decorated with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor by France, and given audience in the Vatican by the Pope, has taken a stand in Canada and wielded an{183} influence for good government, broad statesmanship and a wide-reaching Imperial policy that falls to the lot of few men to have the opportunity given them, and to still fewer the ability to grasp when the opportunity arrives.

The denunciation of the treaties between Great Britain and Germany and Belgium are the result of his efforts to clear the way to securing preferential trade between the mother-country and her colonies. “For this and the marvellous goal to which it leads,” said the London Times, “Laurier’s name must live in the annals of the British Empire.”

Both the French and English languages are spoken by the ministers of the Crown, and it is to be regretted that Upper Canadians are not more sensible of the value of possessing a knowledge of two languages. Many are, of course, taught the French as an accomplishment, but few can speak it fluently. In Lower Canada, where both languages are spoken and required in business, the knowledge is more appreciated.

The French habitants or peasants are a merry, contented, laughter-loving, light-hearted people. The men spend the winters in the woods or timber limits, felling the timber, hewing the great logs or drawing them by the aid of horses or oxen to the surface of the frozen rivers, and the summers in “driving” the logs, enclosing them in the booms (logs with ends{184} fastened together by chains to form a barrier or enclosure for the loose floating logs), and in taking the great rafts down the St. Lawrence to Quebec. Many a river shore in Upper Canada re-echoes the songs of the French-Canadian lumberman or voyageur in the twilight of a summer evening. They are men of fine physique and many have strong sweet musical voices. The songs, with the accompaniment of the lap of the water, the rhythmic sound of oar or paddle, the soft breeze swaying the trees, and the murmur of the distant rapid or waterfall, are among the things to be enjoyed.

“La Claire Fontaine” is one of the favorite songs of these men. I append here a translation, which robs it to some extent of its lightsome character. The repetition of the last two lines in the verse as the first two of the following is characteristic of several of the best known of these chansons, and adds much to their popularity.

A LA CLAIRE FONTAINE.

There were many money-lenders in Upper Canada. When I say money-lenders, I mean the men who will do no business, own scarcely any real estate, and make no improvements in the land, but simply sit still and lend their money at interest. I will sketch one who, while young, came to a certain township in Ontario. He is now an old man, and still a resident of the same locality. He brought from England with him about $1,000, and with it bought fifty acres of good land. These acres he farmed and resided on for some years, and succeeded well as a farmer. During the Russian war times and the building of the Grand Trunk Railway, inflation pervaded almost every walk of life. Then he sold his small farm for $120 per acre, or $6,000, and lived in a small rented house.

This money and the accumulated earnings of years he lent to his neighbors at a maximum rate of twelve per cent., with discounts and drawbacks and many other dark and mysterious ways of figuring—so mysterious, indeed, that in many instances the loans netted him twenty to twenty-five per cent. per annum. Thus year by year he added to his capital, eventually becoming a very rich man; and though the rates for loans have now dropped down to five per cent., his money has kept on drawing big pay—never stopped. Floods, disasters, deaths, fires—nothing seemed to stand in the way of the steady tick of interest and accumulated wealth. To-day he is a very old man, worth his hundreds of thousands. Pleasures of social intercourse, books, papers, travel, and the little elegances which go to make up life, have always been absent, but the gold has been hoarded. He is only a type of many of the money-lenders of our Province. Such men do not buy estates, nor make homes, nor do anything to improve our country.

An anecdote to illustrate: My father said just after the close of the Canadian rebellion of 1837-38 he had built a new ship and launched her upon Lake Ontario. And now rigging, shrouds, sails, anchors, cables, and outfit generally must be had before she could sail. Ready money after that domestic, or rather civil, disturbance was difficult to obtain. The{188} outfit, however, must be had, for freights were high, and there was money to be made. To J—H—, he went, living not far from Whitby, and told him what he wanted. H—readily accompanied my father to Toronto, went with him to Rice Lewis, who kept such vessel outfits, and asked him to give my father what he might need on his account. My father got £150 (Halifax) worth, and gave his note to H—, at six months, for £200 (Halifax) for the loan. You will readily see what money-lenders demanded and obtained for their capital. It is only fair to complete the story and say that my father found no fault with J—H—, for although then himself abundantly able to raise any reasonable sum, he could not wait to do so. Two trips of the ship, when once rigged out, paid the loan, principal and interest, and all parties were satisfied.

The question has often occurred to me, why, as a rule, the wealth secured by money-lending has not been long retained. As I cast my eye over the country to-day, I find very few money-lenders’ families who have much of their parents’ funds. I am not a fatalist, but I freely say that it does not seem to be the case that money-lending, pursued as a business at extortionate rates, does beget prosperity for those who follow. I am sorry to say that a like remark would apply to the families of many of our pioneers.{189} Very few of the farms left by the pioneers to their sons are to-day in their hands. That they got a living too easily would be the apparent cause, but not because of anything derogatory (as in the case of the money-lenders) in their father’s business.

We have gone from one extreme to the opposite, and very far opposite, in educational matters. To-day our school tax hangs heaviest about our necks, so very many of our young men and women are learning Latin, Greek and French. John Quincy Adams said over a century ago, “When a boy gets to conjugating Latin verbs he will not dig any more ditches.” We do not know why it should be so, but it would appear generally to be true. Again, there is a tendency among our young women not to entertain matrimonial ideas, but to try to be wholly independent of the sterner sex.

Our young women go off to some training hospital, get a diploma after three years’ voluntary service, and set up as trained nurses. As such, when they get employment, they make from ten to twenty-five dollars per week, with their board and lodging. There is no manner of doubt but these nurses are exceedingly useful in the sick chamber. More of our young women, too, become telegraph operators, type-writers, ticket sellers and stenographers, all very much detri{190}mental to woman’s proper sphere as the “queen of the home” and the wife of a faithful husband.

Chicago, Ill., alone contains one hundred thousand Canadians. In our very, very free schools and colleges we educate young men and women by the tens of thousands, very many of whom, as in the case of those in Chicago, leave us for the United States. Such expatriated young men and women are lost to us forever after, much to our sorrow.

In a former chapter it is said that our two great railways in Canada—the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific—were built by capitalists. While that remark is quite true, let us look about a moment and see how some of these large fortunes have been made at a stroke. Here is an instance: A manager of a Canadian bank, which commands many millions of dollars of capital, was once a Hudson’s Bay Company factor. Well, one day a brother Hudson’s Bay factor, happening to be in St. Paul, Minnesota, discovered that the St. Paul and Manitoba Railway, which ran from St. Paul to the boundary line, was at low ebb—that is, its stock was selling at exceedingly low prices. On arriving in Montreal he reported this to the bank manager. They then borrowed some five millions of dollars from the bank, and the ex-Hudson’s Bay factor made his way to New York.{191} On the open stock market he and his brokers bought all the St. Paul and Manitoba railway stock in sight, at an almost ridiculously low figure. Back to Montreal he came, and then a railway from Winnipeg to the boundary line, to meet the St. Paul and Manitoba railway, was proposed and arranged. Such news naturally quickly spread, and the St. Paul and Manitoba railway stock became in immediate demand. The quotation went up higher, began to boom, got to par, and soon went away beyond, netting some millions of dollars for both the factor and the bank manager. To repay the bank loan was a very easy matter, and everybody was happy. Such cases are, however, rare in Canada. Canadians are a slower, surer-going people, without the “slap-dash” of their American cousins, though now and again they will take some chances. An incident will serve to show this:

At one time when gold in New York was at a premium, the manager of a wealthy Canadian bank went to New York and bought all the gold that was offered. A steamer was about sailing for Europe. Publicly this gold in kegs, as is the usual manner, was carted from the banks to the steamer. Gold went up and up, for there was none in sight. It was apparently all gone. Next morning the astute banker began to sell gold in small lots, and gradually allowed{192} himself to be cleaned out. How did he get the gold? Why, easily enough. Not a keg went on board the out-going steamer. Every one was returned by unfrequented streets, and safely lodged in the vaults. New York was tricked and mad. But the manager made his money—away up in the hundreds of thousands. There was no risk, in fact, for the bank was and is still one of the soundest and strongest financial institutions in this country. So much for the speculative side of Canadians.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE burdensome tax which the people of England pay for the support of the poor we know nothing of in Canada. True, we have a poor-rate, but it sits so lightly upon us we do not heed it very much. For example, in the rural township of East Whitby, in the county of Ontario, there is a population of three thousand. The township is assessed at one and one-half million dollars. Among these people an annual tax is levied of about $8,000; for the poor, $400 out of the total tax levied. There is no poor-house in this locality. The really deserving poor are given an allowance of money weekly for{194} their maintenance—what would be called “out-door relief” in England. It is not to be supposed this sum is ample for all relief, but in this land of greatest abundance the people give and give liberally, and no further charge is made upon the authorities. Again, we take the ground that when food is cheap and fuel plentiful scarcely any should be so poor as to be unable to support themselves, where the opportunities have always been sufficient to enable all to earn enough from which to save a small competency. There are, of a truth, cases of unfortunate and honest poverty, and such we do not demur at relieving. Unfortunately, however, in Canada, as in the United States, people will congregate in towns and cities and be hard pressed to gain a livelihood, when they should be upon the farms in the country as tenants or as owners. It is not difficult to become the latter, for the Government of Ontario is supplying homesteads to all applicants on very easy terms. For the lazy, however, it is easier to walk about paved, electric-lighted streets, and drink water supplied by costly waterworks systems brought to their doors, than to work and clear the soil. Hence the assertion that there should be no tramps in Canada is not without tangible foundation.

It has been a mooted question in Canada whether we ought to erect county poor-houses for the care{195} and provision of the poor and infirm, or leave such matters to the ordinary township councils to deal with. In a land of plenty like ours, where there is abundance of food and constant demand for work-people, there should be no need for such persons to become a charge upon the bounty of the public; and it is absolutely certain that if we erect poor-houses there will always be poor to fill them. Such a class of population will come to us, if not already here, and having provided a place for them in the erection of poor-houses, we shall never get rid of them.

There are, of course, objects of charity scattered throughout the country, but they bear an infinitesimal proportion to the whole population, and can be provided for at small cost to the local community. In a country where everyone who will can provide for an inclement season or against the needs of age and infirmity, it becomes a very serious question whether the hard-working and thrifty ought to be taxed to provide for the lazy and thriftless. Or again, is it wise to foster the growth of a class of persons whose filth and foul diseases are the result of laziness and their own vices? Charity rightly bestowed is the very essence of man’s best nature, but I do not think it charity to give indiscriminately to those asking alms.

The genus tramp has developed only lately among us. Prior to the American war no such stamp of man{196} existed in Canada. To-day he is here, and apparently here to stay; but as there is no possible excuse for these fellows begging through the country, it is not charity to give them money or clothes, or even food. The following is a case in point:

An old fellow residing in Scarboro’, who owns a comfortable house and lot, leaves home in the spring, clothed in rags, for an all summer’s begging tour. He goes from house to house, and says he can make more by it than he can by working. From the result of his summer’s begging he can and does live in comfort during the winter at home. And those who give to that man do a positive harm to our country by encouraging vagrancy.

Last winter a clergyman wrote me from the neighborhood of Peterboro’, saying that a colored man who was begging about the country from door to door had exhibited a paper declaring him to be a worthy object of charity, and purporting to have my name attached as a guarantee of good faith. This generous and gentlemanly clergyman wrote me that he had his doubts about the genuineness of the man’s need, for he found he had been drunk. By telegram I repudiated the man and his paper, and asked for his arrest. Persons who gave to that man committed an injury to our country, and not an act of charity. I am only mentioning this case as an{197} illustration. Perhaps a good many of us may not yet know or realize the fact that many tramps in our Province are using the names of prominent or well-known citizens to help them to defraud the public. It is just as well for gentlemen to know, if their names have been brought considerably before the public, that in many instances these are used without their knowledge by tramps to further their impostures. Tramps have indeed called upon me, exhibiting what purported to be “a recommend” signed by one or more of Toronto’s prominent citizens, when I knew at a glance that such signatures were forgeries. The proper plan would be to have them arrested, but no one individual wants to fight the battles for the general public, and usually these fellows get off.

From the last tramp who honored me with a call I wormed out his story. He was a strong, hearty, broad-shouldered young man of twenty-eight or so, born in Ontario, the son of assisted immigrants. During the past summer he had worked for a couple of months in a brickyard near Toronto. His wages were $1.50 per day, but the proprietor, according to his rules, kept back one-third until the end of the season, when this, too, would be paid in a lump sum along with the last week’s pay. “But I could not stand that, you know,” the tramp said. He must have his money, all of it weekly, or quit. And quit he did,{198} for he could not subsist on the single dollar a day and buy his whiskey! Until the following winter he simply “bummed” around the city, spending the balance of his brickyard money. As winter came on he made his way to Ottawa and Pembroke—just how did not appear quite clear. He worked about Pembroke in the lumber woods for a couple of months; was discharged because he would not be driven by the gang boss nor be ordered to keep up; bought a C.P.R. ticket for Toronto, but before setting out must have a few drinks. Took a few glasses, and then a few more, and fell into oblivion. Next morning he awoke in a hotel stable, minus his railway ticket and $25 which he had in his pocket, and then he had no resource but to tramp it back to Toronto. He had no difficulty, for any of the farmers would feed him and keep him overnight, so that it was just a question of slow marching with him from house to house, with a full stomach and a stop whenever cold. But as he got nearer Toronto he found the farmers not so hospitable; they refused generally to feed him, and invariably declined to lodge him. He said those near Toronto had been called upon by so many tramps that they had become wise, and no longer considered it charity to give to tramps. In a small village near Toronto, overtaken by night, he could find no refuge, and had to apply to the village{199} constable to be confined in the ordinary lock-up. In this he was accommodated. But the constable did not relish the idea of sitting up all night for any such specimen of humanity, and so left him alone in the lock-up, where there was a stove and supply of wood. The night was cold, and the tramp fired up himself. On leaving him the constable had cautioned him to be careful of fire, and the tramp said that he was only careful for fear that he might get burnt himself. The lock-up stood beside other buildings, and had he set it on fire a good part of the village must have been consumed. Thus was this village placed in great jeopardy on account of this worthless fellow who became a charge upon them for the night, and the whole community thereabout was in great danger of losing many thousands of dollars worth of property, and possibly precious human life, by this wretched scamp, who was too lazy to work in summer and too fond of whiskey to keep him off the road in winter. Now if there be any charity in giving to such persons, I fail to see it. If we construct county poor-houses just such fellows will want to get into them. There is no excuse for any such persons. In the summer they can easily earn sufficient money to keep them during the winter if they will. In this tramp’s case he could have earned good money in the winter if he chose. He said he would get on to Toronto, and if nothing turned up{200} he would go on west towards Woodstock and about Berlin, for the tramping fraternity told him that the German farmers thereabout have big barns and cellars and great abundance, and feed all tramps. In case they would not feed or lodge him readily, he said most of those about Berlin possessed stone base stables, which were always warm, and that he could sleep as warm in them as he could in the house.

Here is a great danger—greater in fact than the risk which the people ran when the tramp was in the village lock-up all by himself with a red-hot stove. During the summer these idle vagabonds go about the country in twos and threes, and camp at night in barns and stacks. No one ever saw a tramp yet who did not smoke. Lodging in a barn or stack is to him no valid reason why he should not indulge in his pipe. Consequently, many barns are burned throughout our country, and the only explanation ever given for such fires is simply “tramps.” This tramp nuisance is one of the growing evils in our Province, and it is just as well to stamp it out now, before it gets greater, by absolutely refusing to give aid. If we build county poor-houses, our poor-rates will go up, and no one ever heard of such rates coming down if once put on. The British farmer to-day is ground down with poor-rates, but perhaps in densely populated England there may be an excuse for such rates.{201} With us there is not, then let us not have them. Giving to tramps is fostering a lazy, whiskey-drinking, shiftless class, who beg because it is easier than to work. Indiscriminate giving is worse than not giving at all. Let us generally, throughout rural Ontario, take warning and look closely to our charities, and see that they are rightly bestowed. Let us stamp out this tramp nuisance before it becomes fixed. If there be worthy objects of charity in our midst, I know I am safe in asserting that the big hearts of Canadians will relieve them, and there is always the township council to fall back upon in any event.

There is another class of persons in Canada who are always in search of “the loaves and fishes” in the shape of public offices. At first sight these persons would not appear to be numerous, but there are a very great many of them in various capacities—many offices, no doubt, created for the men, and many of them, too, of no adequate good to the community. As a class these persons will bear well a comparison with the turtle—opening their eyes and sitting in the sun, Micawber-like, “waiting for something to turn up.” Our labors to bring our young country to the fore they do not share in. They “toil not, neither do they spin,” notwithstanding they are always well arrayed. Manifestly a certain number of public servants are necessary, but the{202} general feeling is that there are two where one would be enough. More, when these public servants once get foisted upon us we can never get rid of them. “Superannuated” is the political term; but they get pay until the grave opens for them.

AFTER THE OFFICES.

Whatever other faults Canadians may have, they are certainly willing, with all possible alacrity, to serve their countrymen in the way of filling offices, small or more important, throughout the country. At the time of the municipal elections the aspirants for municipal honors come to the front in shoals. This particular feature of our people is, in a way, highly commendable. And yet one cannot cease to wonder at the immense number of persons in any community in Canada who are willing to sacrifice (?) themselves for the public good (?).

It is held by patriots and sages that it is a citizen’s duty to serve the public wherever his services are required, whether it be in the tented field or in the civic chair. So far as the matter of the civic chair is concerned, many of us—and the writer among the number—are quite content to let those who are so supremely anxious to serve their fellows have the offices as long as they can fulfil the duties fairly well.

Unquestionably, the public have a right to the{203} individual’s services, but until the public really need them I hold it not to be a real neglect of one’s duty to let those who are so very anxious to serve do so, so long as they serve well and without public pay. The public will seek out the individual if they really require his aid. When Rome was in her palmiest days Cincinnatus was made consul, and received all the honors the Roman people could confer upon him. When his consulship had expired he retired to his farm beyond the Tiber, and went to cultivating the soil with his own hands. About 458 B.C., while engaged, it is said, ploughing in his field, five horsemen galloped up and informed him that he had been elected Dictator of that mighty empire republic—Rome. He left his plough and put on once more the royal purple.

George Washington, upon resigning his commission to Congress at the close of the war of the Revolution, retired to his lands at Mount Vernon on the Potomac, and is credited with having said, “I’d rather be among my fields at Mount Vernon than be emperor of the world.”

As might be supposed, there are often curious incidents and characters which appear in this connection. We have scarcely a county—I had almost said township—in which there is not the history of some one or other eventful election or polling day.{204}

All sorts of objections are raised to throw doubt upon the suitability of each candidate by his opponent in politics or rival in local popularity, each side waxing eloquent in favor of its own man, or even resorting to means that are in some degree beyond the limits of wit or repartee to confound the tactics of the opposition candidate. In a recent contest a meeting called in the interests of one side by invitation cards was packed by their opponents through the medium of a card, a fac-simile in all except the hour, which, being a few minutes earlier than the bona fide invitation enabled the holders to secure the seats in advance and in good order. The old-time stories of two-thirds of the “free and independent electors” going to the poll on crutches that later they might be used as shillelahs, with broken heads as the result, are not more absurd than some of the stories of incidents in the back-country contests for municipal honors at the present time.

A candidate during recent municipal elections had been charged with religious unbelief, and consequent unfitness for the office. He was a farmer who owned and cultivated his one hundred acres—worth, perhaps, farm and stock, about $11,000. During his younger days, when sowing his wild oats, he had strayed from home and had been a sailor before the mast on our great lakes, and had thus mixed con{205}siderably more than his fellow farmers with the outside world. When on the rostrum, making his speech, urging the people to vote for him as councillor, he was dressed in a Canada pepper-and-salt tweed suit, shooting coat, with large lapels to his pockets overhanging them, a red scarf about his neck, and a pair of thick cowhide boots, the tops of which were too large, with the legs of his trousers stretched tightly over them. His tout ensemble would denote a good plain, practical farmer, in fair circumstances, and having a mediocre amount of brain power or gift of penetration. Once getting upon the rostrum his speech ran on about thus:—“Gentlemen, I am accused as not believing the Bible. I tell you that ain’t so, for I believe the Bible as well as you do. There are some verses in the Bible I do not quite believe, for I don’t believe Jonah was three days in the whale’s belly, and that he would come out alive. Well, I don’t believe that Samson set 3,000 foxes’ tails on fire, and set fire to green wheat. The rest of the Bible I believe, and I think you ought to elect me. Gentlemen, I ask for your votes,” and with this brief address he bowed and left the platform. A hum was heard about the room, the general conclusion being that his explanation was worse than the charge; that he did not better it any, and would have done as well to have said nothing. It would be almost superfluous{206} to add that this novel candidate was defeated, and, so far as I can learn, in Ontario at least, never before was religious belief made a test of fitness for municipal office.

Another candidate comes before my mind who wanted to sacrifice himself on the altar of his country by filling some civic office. He had, it seems, been jocularly accused by someone with being a clodhopper and not sharp enough for a councillor. For the first time in his life he mounted the rostrum, and eager as he was to speak when among the crowd, up there it was quite another affair. A great big, hulking fellow he was, who had just attained his majority, and whose father had set him up on a hundred-acre farm. Never since his youthful days, when he recited at the common school—

with all the declamation the piece could possibly stand, had he stood up before the public. He chokes, makes a squeak, tries it again, swallows rapidly, and after a most painful suspense of a minute or so gets out: “Gentlemen, I am a clodhopper, and I’m not ashamed to own it. But I am fit for the office of councillor, and if you will vote for me I will serve you well and faithfully. I promise you I will keep down expen{207}ditures, and I will do my best to look after the roads and bridges. Gentlemen, I ask for your votes.” And he gets off that rostrum as quickly as if he were standing on hot coals. He is in a profuse glow of perspiration, feeling down in his heart, “What a fool I made of myself.” This time the religious belief was all right, and he got in.

In our towns and cities throughout Ontario, nearly seven out of every ten men are looking for municipal offices. Let one attend a town nomination and he will find as many as ten applicants for every single office, and the mutual recriminations which these would-be-immortalized townsmen make upon one another are to the listener, to say the least, rather disgraceful and disgusting. It is a fact that very ordinary persons in our towns and villages—men of very moderate ability or means—will come as near calling their fellow-townsmen liars as they dare go, and all for the sake of sitting at a council board for one year. Let the roads in that town, for instance, be pretty bad during an open winter, and one may hear such municipal councillors holding an open-air meeting of the council, and it is quite refreshing to find that every single one of that devoted council is responsible for the bad streets of the town. To get municipal honors in towns it may be necessary to act in this way, but then I am pleased to think there are{208} some few persons in every community who are content to jog on through life and do without such honors, and who do not find it necessary to call their fellows liars. It is said the real safeguard for the liberty of the English-speaking people is the town meeting. If that be so, our liberties in Canada are fully assured.

CHAPTER XV.

A GLANCE at the outline map in this volume will show how this Province is surrounded by the Great Lakes, or tideless oceans, the peers of any in this world.

Now, with a fertile soil, a most salubrious climate, the best form of government, and a working, thrifty,{210} sober people, success and the goal of wealth being ours is not to be marvelled at. Our working habits and abstemiousness are so strongly inculcated that our young men have always had the best places given them when they have gone to seek work in the great neighboring Republic.

I have called the Great Lakes tideless oceans, and they are. Still, sometimes one would almost think they had tides. That the surface of Lake Ontario very frequently and very suddenly rises and again falls, within one or two hours, is very well known to close observers.

Indeed, the records of the Jesuit fathers, who were the first real observers of Lake Ontario, have frequent accounts of sudden rufflings of the water, and of waves on which by some unknown cause their canoes were rocked. As a pointed illustration of this fact, my father, who was one of the earliest shipowners on the lake, had a large vessel ashore about Frenchman’s Bay. They had kedged the anchors and drawn the cables as taut as it was possible to do, and still the ship would not move. After making every effort to move it they lay down upon the beach by the ship exhausted, wondering what next to do. Suddenly, from a perfectly calm surface, there came a swell and a rise of two feet of water, when the vessel imme{211}diately, with the strain upon her chains, slid off into deep water.

Here, without a doubt, was a tide, but I feel certain that at some remote part of the lake a heavy thunderstorm was passing, with a high wind, or there was some such local cause to produce this swell and apparent tide. No one has yet been able to prove that there are lunar tides upon Lake Ontario. It is unfortunately true that no very close and persistent observations have been made, yet even casual observers who live upon the lake-side know positively that these tides are not regular, are governed by no fixed law, and can never be foretold as are the lunar tides upon the ocean. I would designate these Lake Ontario tides “barometrical waves,” as they are truly caused by sudden barometrical changes at different points upon the lake; for we must never forget its great size, and that a storm or a gale may be raging over one area and at the same time the lake be perfectly calm in another.

Upper Canadians are a generous, liberal-minded people, and I fearlessly assert that they are among the most liberal in the world. In fact, I am not sure but they really are the greatest givers in the world—givers for good purposes, I mean—and I am going to show unmistakably that they voluntarily submit{212} to a tax far greater than any Government dare try to impose upon them.

Take Oshawa, for example—not because it is any better or worse than other towns in Ontario, but let it stand for an average town; I cite it simply because I know it more intimately, and therefore use it as a basis of comparison.

There are, in round numbers, about 5,000 persons in the town of Oshawa. Within its boundaries are ten worshipping bodies. That is, there are that many different congregations who, at stated times, meet separately for worship. I get it from one of the deacons of these churches that last year his church raised $4,400 for religious purposes. But, of course, that would not be a fair assumption for the rest, although some two or three others would come pretty near that amount. Upon closest inquiry I find that it can safely be taken, on an average, that every one of these ten worshipping bodies raises at least $1,500 yearly for religious purposes. This is putting it at a very low estimate, and is safely within the mark. Then, ten churches at $1,500 each per year gives the grand total of $15,000 raised yearly by 5,000 people for religious purposes alone. Or, taking the whole sum, and apportioning it pro rata, it will yield about $3 per head for every man, woman and child per annum, voluntarily given for these purposes,{213} which is indeed more than any government dare levy as a tax. Of course, I know that persons outside the town attend some of the town churches and contribute, but I think this is fully offset by the extremely low estimate of $1,500 per church or body, for I am quite certain, if the real truth were known, it would be far more than that amount. Some of the churches will not in any way divulge the facts, and of course the amount of their contributions can be got at only approximately.

I submit that the people of Ontario are the most generous in the world, and give most voluntarily, for, as I remarked at the outset, I am not claiming more nor less for Oshawa, and think I must be safe in coming to the conclusion that other towns of a similar population do likewise.

Very few of us, I am sure, ever stopped before to think of what we do voluntarily in this our banner Province. It is only because we are a frugal and industrious and prosperous people that we can make this annual contribution for religious purposes. It is far greater than that for educational purposes, and yet we feel sure we are doing as much for education as any people under the sun.

There is one more tax which our people voluntarily subject themselves to, which I think might well be referred to. So far as I know, no one has ever touched{214} upon the subject, and since it is becoming so general, it ought, I think, to be spoken of, to give us some idea of what we are voluntarily doing in another direction. Life insurance has become so common, and is so fast increasing, that it bids fair to be one of the great questions among us. I have been at considerable pains to get as near the truth as I can, but insurance men, however, do not care to give too many figures, and I must get all I can from policyholders and then draw an approximate estimate. Take Oshawa again for a comparison, with its 5,000 people. For the same reason as in the former case, I use Oshawa for comparison solely because I know it best, and not for any particular merit or demerit so far as it is concerned. There are three hundred policies of life insurance in Oshawa among 5,000 people. This number is certainly within the mark, as insurance men reluctantly admit. Pursuing the inquiry further, I find, as near as may be, these policies will average $2,000 each, making thereby a total of $600,000 life insurance now carried by this people. With the gross amount I am not particularly concerned, but it is the sum they yearly voluntarily tax themselves to pay to keep these three hundred policies in force that I want to discover. It is difficult to get at the sum the people pay annually, for there are so many kinds of life insurance that{215} they vary, some policies being on the plan of annual payments for life, while others are only for a stated term of years, so that it is difficult to get at the average amount. Five thousand dollars per month one insurance company has been known to receive from here. But I take it that this was a special month, and that more policies were renewed that month than usual, so it will not be safe to take those figures for any average. It is certain, however, that these three hundred policies average a cost of $30 per annum. Now, this $30 per annum is well within the mark, and I feel quite warranted in using that as a basis for comparison. This will give us $24,000 per year which the people here pay for life insurance, and I am quite right in classing these payments as among the generous acts and givings of the people, because the persons assured by these policies cannot ordinarily be expected to be benefited themselves, but are doing it and making these annual sacrifices for those who remain after their decease. Hence, these payments are charitable donations. If 5,000 people pay $24,000 per annum, that means very nearly $5 per head for every man, woman and child yearly paid in this town for life insurance to benefit those of our friends who succeed us. Now, add this $5 per head for life insurance to the $3 per head, as before instanced, annually raised for religious purposes, and{216} we have $8 per head annually paid by the people of Oshawa, voluntarily and spontaneously. Again I say, taking Oshawa as an index of the Province, one can begin to form some idea of the vast sum annually contributed for these purposes. Verily, there are no more generous people on this globe, This $8 per head is almost equal to the annual drink bill of the greatest drinking nations of the world. But then, of course, one must expect, unfortunately, that men will pay more for vices, taking the world at large, than they will for commendable objects. Ontario comes perhaps quite as near paying as much per head for commendable objects as for vicious ones as any people existing to-day. Hence, one can form no other opinion than that Ontarioans are really as moral, as well educated and thrifty, and as generous a people as there are anywhere to be found.

People of the Old World cannot realize the conditions of life in America, the peculiar freedom of pleasant informal intercourse common to it, without reading closely or unless they come and see us.

The following incidents of a railway journey will serve for illustration. Remember that Upper Canada is covered by a very extensive network of railways, hence such scenes are always possible.

An old gentleman in passing from the smoking-car{217} to the first-class coach behind, while the train was under full speed of forty miles an hour or so, had in some way been thrown or blown or jolted from the platform to the ground.

He is injured somewhat badly, but not seriously. In obedience to a telegram an ambulance of the city of Toronto meets the incoming train at the Union Depot, and the injured man is gently raised in a huge blanket from the baggage car, where he had been placed after his fall, and deposited in the ambulance. A doctor gets in and sits by his head. A crowd has gathered, and, seeking to know what the trouble is, I make enquiry of a man standing near me. The man, whose sable complexion plainly betokens his African origin, without any visible admixture of white blood, courteously replies:—“Don’t exazactly know, sah, but ’spects some man fell off de kears.” And the ambulance slowly moves off to the hospital.

Reaching my train, I deposit my things in the first-class coach and make for the “smoker.” About one-half of all the gentlemen do likewise. My observation is that about one-half of all Canadians, taking them “by the large,” as the sailors say, burn the fragrant weed. In Britain three-fourths would, I think, be the proportion; in Holland and Belgium eleven-tenths is, I imagine, almost within the mark. If our medical{218} men can convince us that Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco is decimating the human family, we may safely conclude that three-fourths of Canadians will soon pass over to the great silent majority. Well, if our medical men were to tell us so, I don’t believe we would accept their ipse dixit—at any rate, we would go on smoking, regardless of consequences.

To the honor of Canadians be it said, they as a rule do not belong to the light-fingered gentry class, and our grip-sacks and great-coats left unguarded in the car are comparatively safe. It is only around the depot that any real danger of pilfering exists. There one may expect some “artful dodger” lying in wait for just such opportunities. The journey once commenced there’s no danger at all, and “traps” may be left about promiscuously.

But my smoke is done, and I will return to my seat. Ah! I see someone has taken it—a lady. Of course, I cannot ask her to vacate it, although that seat by the ordinary courtesies of travel is mine by right of pre-possession and as the receptacle of my belongings. The next seat behind is occupied by a single lady, and there’s room for another person. “Is this seat occupied, madam?” in as polite a voice and gesture towards the seat as the occasion demands. “I think not, sir,” and I sit by her side. Some one of her “uncles, or her cousins or her aunts” may possibly{219} be known to me. Just how the ice is broken one can scarcely tell, but it is broken, and we chat away as the train clips off the usual thirty miles an hour.

Who, I ask, ever thought of speaking unintroduced to a lady in a first-class car in England? I tried it once when a green boy, and received such a stony stare as froze me for all my subsequent railway journeys in the old land. But we do things differently in Canada. My companion chats, and so do I, and so do all my neighbors, and the car is just an incessant hum of pleasant, softly intoned voices. Such seems to be the almost universal custom in Canada, and the millionaire (we have a few) sits down beside the schoolmaster or the drummer, and it would take a keener eye than Canada has yet produced to tell “which from t’other” without previous knowledge or having been duly informed.

Were I an M.P. or an M.P.P., or possibly a Cabinet Minister (with or without a portfolio), I suppose it would be among my prerogatives not to talk to my seat-mate. But not being so fortunate, I can enjoy my freedom and talk with decent, respectable people, though they are strangers.

Just across the passage are seated an ancient maiden lady and an attenuated, pale, thin-whiskered merchant who has been up the city to make some purchases for his store. Now this ancient maiden lady has seen her fifty-and-two summers at least, and is{220} strong in church government, and church soirees, and church donative entertainments, ostensibly for the benefit of the poor. Just now, however, I must leave her, for the conductor has entered the forward door of the car, wearing his sombre but neat railway uniform, and is shouting out “Tickets!” Without exception everyone in my coach has the required pasteboard, and he has quickly passed us. Conductors evidently can get along well with such a class of passengers, for there’s no quarrelling or unpleasantness, nor questions for him to answer, nor anyone for him to eject from the train. It is manifest from his facial expression that he is in good humor with us, his passengers, and that his dinner likewise has agreed with him.

This lady opens conversation with the merchant sitting near her, and without waiting for a reply to the opinions she expresses, continues an unchecked stream of talk on her favorite subject. Resignedly, patiently, meekly, Christianlike, this helpless merchant submits. And it is poured on, over, twisted, every side brought forth, while he calmly folds his long white wasted hands over his breast. Some young city men are coming down to a country town to attend a ball, and they make a lively party of themselves. Their fun and mirth and overflowing spirits do not annoy us, but we cannot help catching the contagious infection of mirth, and we are all goodnatured

in this car, except possibly aforesaid ancient maiden lady, who is still too deep in “church government” for the contagion to catch her.

With questionable zeal a young Salvation Army fellow and a couple of Salvation Army lasses, seated near the farther end of the car, boldly strike up. The tune may be melodious, suggestive of piety, musical, well-rendered, and withal nicely done, for one of the female voices is really sweet. It gets monotonous, however, at the beginning of the third verse, and we cannot enjoy our conversation. “Will you kindly stop?” Perhaps the word kindly is not suggestive enough—at any rate, it does not produce the desired quietus, and the hymn-singing goes bravely on.

Our uniformed conductor has come in again with his cry of “Tickets!” Someone suggests to him “Will you be good enough to ask those persons in the rear end of the car to cease their singing?” It has the desired effect, even if the “kindly” aforementioned did not. Yes, Canada is pre-eminently a free country, but the wisdom of such efforts among a mixed assembly of promiscuous railway passengers is just questionable. No doubt there would be in that coach Catholics as well as Protestants, agnostics as well as saints—and heaven only knows but Moslems and Greeks may have been there as well—so I think I am right in saying that their zeal is quite{222} right, but its peculiar manifestation just a little questionable.

The next seat behind mine contains two young men who have so far on this journey pored with eager interest over the Globe’s columns. Church government, city boys’ ante-ball merriment, nor Salvation Army songs have as yet distracted their attention from these columns which they seem to be devouring. They explain, however, that they are Toronto University students on their way home, and have not for some days had an opportunity to find out what this world has been about.

Did you ever in your peregrinations encounter a veritable “talking machine?” Well, I did once, and I must ask you to allow me to leave this coach for a moment to describe that machine.

A few seasons ago I had occasion to go to Britain in the month of January. Now, it’s a long ride down to Halifax, and let the Pullman be ever so comfortable, one feels now and again like walking forward and seeing what the others are doing. In the smoker I found a long-featured, cadaverous, wizened, pinched, saffron “bag of bones,” with a wrinkled parchment cuticle drawn over them, made in the form of a “talking machine.” He was talking the first time I went into the car, and talking every time I entered it. There is just a dim recollection with{223} me, that I went some ten times into that car on the way down to Halifax, and the “machine” was always in order, and always going. He went into the steerage, and I heard him several times when on the steamer, from the cabin deck, still in order, and always talking. At Londonderry he got on the tender with me. As he came down the gang-plank his voice was still raised, and for three mortal long hours I had to endure his idle “clack,” while the tender took us ashore. Next day, when purchasing a railway ticket, again I encountered him—still talking. I think I could with clear conscience take my oath that he talked all the way home (Belfast) while in that train. In fact, he had talked himself poor—poor in flesh, I mean, for I do not know what may have been his possessions in the coin of the realm.

This was my first real observation of a genuine “talking machine.” In this coach to-day we had another, but of the feminine gender, which, under ordinary acceptances, would seem to be more in the general fitness of things, when coming from the sex to whom speech is so easy.

This old lady sat in the corner at the forward end of the car. She had come from Ohio, and her talk ran equally as well upon ordinary sublunary things as upon those of more elevated character. The Sphinx,{224} or the Delphic Oracle, or who was Junius?—it made no difference, for she was equally at home on all these. Our ball-going city chaps quickly saw a place and time for fun. First, they chaffed her, and squarely they got their answers back, rather to their discomfiture. They hit upon politics finally. Just what hers were I did not make out, but at this subject she rose in her might, and standing with the index finger boldly extended, laid it down right volubly—rather more than the ball-going boys bargained for, and to the infinite amusement of all the other passengers.

Our uniformed conductor touched her gently upon the shoulder and requested her to sit down. Silence for a few moments followed, but the fun was too much for the boys to lose it, and she as a talking-machine ran too easily to quit. Again upon her feet, again the index finger, and another request to sit down. Her station reached at last, the conductor and brakeman with alacrity help her off and deposit her parcels with her on the platform. The conductor raises his hand, a “toot” from the locomotive, and away. The conductor jumps aboard, heaves a great sigh, and almost audibly says—if not in words, at anyrate in thought and action—“I’m glad to get rid of that talking-machine.”

“Supper! Twenty minutes for supper!” and for fifty cents we get a substantial, good meal and are{225} not particularly hurried. That reminds me to say that those places where they give the traveller a good meal are always known and commented upon and sought after. Cornwall, for instance, is noted in many travellers’ memories for its pies. So the traveller who happens there at the time of blueberries—ye gods, he’ll have a feast for a king! Then again, of some railway restaurants I am sorry to defame our our fair country by saying that they consume very much of the traveller’s precious twenty minutes before they wait on him, and he pays his fifty cents for a sight of the empty dishes and the seductive odor of cooked meat in the room behind the screens, but not yet served up to the pilgrim having only twenty precious minutes. The eating-house at Orangeville did not on some former occasions strike me as being particularly alert to save the traveller’s precious lunch time.

The ancient maiden lady has gone; so has my single lady, and as most of us now remaining in the car are passengers for destinations far away, we have gradually settled down for a really comfortable journey. Most of the seats are now occupied by only one person, and he or she can lounge at ease. But hold! there’s a woman crying bitterly. What’s the trouble? Word soon goes around the car that this poor woman has been robbed of her purse and her{226} railway ticket as well, and she weeps deeply and unfeignedly, as if her heart would break. There are whisperings among the ladies, and soon one of them has interviewed her. A gentleman approaches and consults with the weeper and the lady. Result, this gentleman gets into the passage in the middle of the car, and makes a little speech. Assures us he’s from Illinois, and has seen this woman on his train all the way. Knew she had a ticket; in fact, saw her with it. Says she had a through ticket from Chicago to some place away down in Maine. Had a little money besides, but while crossing the river at Detroit and Windsor some mean thief stole ticket and purse. Had only a few quarters left in a pocket, which the thief did not get. With these quarters has paid her fare since the robbery so far, but now her money is all gone, and she has not a friend in this part of the world. “And now, look a-here, ladies and gentlemen, let’s give the poor woman a lift; a dollar a piece won’t hurt any of us, and here goes.” Taking off his soft felt hat and putting a dollar greenback in it, around the car he goes with the hat extended. Dollars and half-dollars fall into the hat as the tour of the car is made, and he comes to the weeping woman and unceremoniously dumps the whole lot into her lap. “There, there, now; dry up your tears—you’re all right now, and you can pay your fare through.{227}” This woman’s sudden change from bitter weeping to smiles through her tears was a pleasure to see, and I can fancy something kept rising in the throats of many of the passengers, which it took a good deal of swallowing to keep down. So the world is not so bad after all, and Canadians have hearts and open purses when assured that the need is a true one.

“Did you say the next station is mine, conductor?” Well, I will put on my great-coat and go out into the darkness, for it is eleven o’clock, and I leave this coach with its peculiarities of human nature, not doubting but the next one I step into will contain its quota, peculiar enough, though possibly in other ways.{228}

CHAPTER XVI.

IN early days the great majority of the men in Upper Canada partook more or less—usually more—of ardent spirits or beer. Fifty years ago there were three distilleries in Oshawa, and they continued to do a flourishing and paying business, as most distilleries did in those days throughout the country generally. The operative who could extract the most alcohol from a given amount of grain was then the great man, one whose services were most sought in that business, and who likewise commanded the largest pay.

Connected with or near to the distilleries in this part of Ontario a custom milling was generally done. Sometimes the farmer brought his grain to the mill, and sold it out there; but this was not the usual course, for ordinarily then the miller could not pay for much grain. The usual course was for the farmer to bring his grain to the mill, and get it ground or chopped on the tolling system.

After cleaning up a load of wheat, there would ordinarily be a bag of tailings remaining. These tailings would consist mostly of small grain, which the farmer generally traded for whiskey, usually getting in exchange his ten-gallon can pretty nearly filled—whiskey then being considered a necessary of life as much as ordinary food was. To buy it for cash cost fivepence per gallon. This style of doing things went on until the Government began to put a tax on it. Then when the big distillery of Gooderham & Worts, Toronto, got better machinery, enabling them to extract more alcohol from the grain, the small distilleries could not compete, and one by one closed up, until now there are none about the country.

“Tuppence” per glass was the price for whiskey at the hotel bars in those days, and one could fill the tumbler quite full or take only a sip, at will, for this price.

Treating in those days was far more common than{230} now, and the man who would not treat was generally considered “mean,” as they expressed it then. So freely did the people at large at that time partake, that the individual who did not indulge was made the subject of curious comment.

Drinking bouts for the whole night were then very common. Usually a party of boon companions—say eight or ten of them—would assemble in the sitting-room of the hotel, next the bar, and someone would at once “stand treat” all round. This having been partaken of, one of the number would sing a song, and then someone else would provide a drink all round. Probably a story would follow, succeeded by another drink; then another song and another treat, as a matter of course, and so the song, story and glass passed around, until everyone had treated, and if, like Robert Burns,

Midnight has come, and though one or two of the weaker ones have already succumbed, and are lying prone upon the floor, still the song goes bravely on. And now is the landlord’s time to make his money. As a matter of business form or semblance, change must be returned after every treat has been paid for,{231} and they are now all so “fou’” that not one of them can count straight. Perhaps out of a one-pound note ($4) given the landlord for a treat, only three shillings or so are returned; or out of three or four shillings handed him for the next treat, only a few pence are returned for change; and so the landlord dilutes his whiskey and keeps the cash, until daylight comes upon the bouters, when they disperse, with sore heads and stomachs, while the landlord has the money.

This is a fair representation of an ordinary drinking bout of fifty years ago, as told me by those who then participated in them. And they were so common that one was usually going on at one of the hotels every night of the week—but, let us hope, excepting the Sabbath night. During the day these men were about their ordinary avocations, for even if they did drink, they worked. Were this fact not so, our country would not be what it is to-day, for downright hard work alone has made it.

Those drinkers and midnight revellers were young, or not more than middle-aged men, and often lived fast lives. The consequence was that not one in a hundred of them lived to be sixty, and hardly one to any advanced age.

It is usually supposed that delirium tremens can only be produced by long years of constant and excessive drinking; but authentic information comes{232} to me of a widow woman who, about the period of which I write, began keeping hotel near the village of ——, and who had two or more sons, young men. These young men, strong and burly up to that time, now spent most of their time drinking. As soon as the effects of one glass of whiskey had in a measure passed off, they would ask their mother for more.

“Indeed, you shall have all you want to drink, for you are your mammy’s own boys.” And this was said in the spirit of the greatest kindness. So the boys drank, and drank again, keeping themselves stupid from day to day. In six months those two boys, who had never before drank to any excess, had the delirium tremens and died. All this in six months!

Allow me to here describe one of my most vivid boyish impressions of thirty-five years or so ago:—

At the rear of a hotel in Oshawa was a garden enclosed by a high tight-board fence, in which black currant bushes mostly were planted. A young Englishman had been boarding about two months at the hotel, drinking constantly and spending money freely. It is only fair to add that this young man had been drinking just as heavily, apparently, before he came to this hotel; and it is more than probable that a fond father and loving mother had sent him out from England in the vain hope of reforming him, for from{233} his dress and manner he had evidently belonged to a good family. It was noticed that he had the “blues” slightly, and got to spending considerable of his time in the stable. From the stable he finally made his way into the garden enclosure, and somehow possessed himself of a club.

It was summer time, and I remember most vividly, as a little urchin, looking through a knot-hole of the fence, and seeing this poor fellow, after remaining quiet for a moment, with his eyes fixed, make a sudden bound and strike with his club with all his might, killing imaginary snakes among the currant bushes. A period of rest would follow, when he would sit or stand in a contemplative mood for a few minutes, and as suddenly almost as gunpowder explodes, strike behind him with his club at some snake which would persist in stealthily approaching him from the rear. Perhaps it is superfluous to add that all this was fun for us boys, with the stout board fence between us and the man with the club.

It was known in the hotel what the trouble was with him, and it was also generally recognized that nothing could be done for him. For four days he ran his course, killing snakes, demons and hobgoblins in that garden, and finally died, literally while engaged in the imaginary battle with the enemy out in the garden. To-day he fills a nameless grave.{234}

Indeed, so common were cases of delirium tremens in those days that I might go on and multiply instances—tell, indeed, of a man climbing up into a hayloft in the dark, catching the teamster who came for hay, frightening him into a fit of sickness, and dying there before morning, curled up on the hay like a dog. Again, I might instance the case of another unfortunate, who started and ran from the “Corners,” then constituting Oshawa, directly in the course of the mill-ponds, with the whole village chasing him, making past the ponds and into the woods a mile and a half away, before being caught—like a man running amuck. But perhaps I have said enough on so unpleasant a feature of early life in Ontario.

The “One-Thousand-and-One Society” of those days was an organization formed among those who habitually drank and spent nights at bouts, and was a recognized order among them. Probably there never was any written constitution or by-laws to govern them; still the rules of the society were as well known and as fully recognized as if there were such. The fundamental rule which they were to observe in their drinking was that no one must drink more than two gallons at one sitting without rising and reporting the matter to the recognized chiefs of the order.

We must, in all charity, believe that the liquid in{235} this case would be beer—in any case it could hardly be spirits; still I am led to believe, in many instances, before the great goal of the two gallons was reached, the beer would be frequently mixed with spirits.

The landlord in those bouts of the Thousand-and-One Society never forgot to make his quota, not only in the matter of change, as before enlarged upon, but some of them used to boast that a landlord ought to be worth $5 per day to his own house by his own drinking—that is to say, he would take all the treats the company would offer him, and thus imbibe his own liquor and keep the pay therefor at twopence per glass to the amount of $5 per day.

Those were the days of pugilistic Ontario. Let there be a ploughing match, for instance, a fight was sure to take place at it. Indeed, a “raising” or a bee of any kind was never complete without a fight. It would appear that persons would take that plan of settling old feuds or grudges, and whiskey-fights were considered as much a matter of course as it was for men to assemble.

Annually during one day in June all the able-bodied men of military age had to assemble for drill in Toronto, and I have it from some old men who used to go from these parts, that at every such training there were fights in the morning before they commenced and likewise in the evening when they were{236} dismissed from drill. They tell of a big bully at one training in Toronto who boldly dared any one to fight, and who finally succeeded in arousing a small but plucky man to stand before him. A ring was formed, and the bully punished his small opponent shamefully. There was a man from this locality who had his feelings irritated by the unequal and harrowing spectacle. He happened to remark, “I wish he’d serve me so,” and the bully took him up. It is needless to add that they had all been drinking more or less. Our man quickly pulled off his coat and stepped before his big antagonist. This time the bully had aroused the wrong man, for our hero possessed the strongest arm and hand anyone was known to have in the locality, and in a few blows he thrashed the bully clean and fair, felling him to the ground, and giving the prostrate man a vigorous kick as a parting salute. But this was a fair fight, whereas generally in those days they did not scruple to “strike below the belt,” while gouging, biting and kicking were common accompaniments.

But the picture is not a pleasant one, and I shall not further dwell upon it. Surely we should be thankful that our Province has improved in its ideas of temperance and conduct, as the world at large has in the great march of reform ideas.

In this fast nineteenth century, in these days of divorces and of free love, it is really a pleasing spectacle to be able to point to one of our elderly Canadian couples, who had been companions, one and inseparable, for sixty years. They were married at twenty-two, and at once began clearing a Canadian forest farm. During the previous fall the expectant bridegroom alone had chopped and cleared some five or six acres out of the dense forest, and erected a log-house in the clearing.

In due time he brings his bride to his home—a home as yet in embryo; but there are four willing hands to work together, hard but contentedly, to make it a home in reality.

The wife has got as her portion the usual Canadian portion of that day, and, for that matter, very much of this day as well. A feather bed, some chairs, a table, some bedding and a cow made her simple dowry. Alone and almost unaided they work honestly and faithfully day after day, subduing the “forest primeval.” Crops are gathered annually, and they are on the high road to prosperity. Children have come to grace the household, and the loneliness is broken. As the roads become improved around the settlement, Sunday morning finds them both arrayed in their best, and, with their span of horses hitched to the waggon, on their way to the nearest{238} church. With all their eagerness to get on they do not at any time forget to worship God, and their place at the little church is seldom vacant unless it be exceptionally stormy or the roads exceedingly bad, as is frequently the case in the spring and fall.

The farm is cleared and a new house built, and he is now among the well-to-do of the locality. Another farm has been added to the homestead, but the good pair never so much as think casually that they might cease their arduous labors. No family jars occur to disturb their serenity, but day succeeds day in right good fellowship, and each performs his and her individual part faithfully and earnestly. Divorce forsooth! The thought of such has never entered their minds in the most remote degree.

Time steals imperceptibly but surely along, and the eldest girl has arrived at marriageable age. Neighbors’ sons call in occasionally, and it takes many such calls before the good parents really get it into their heads that the daughter has suitors. A few months roll around, and there is a rural wedding. The minister from the near village has been called in. He comes before dinner, and after partaking of it, chats gaily with the neighbors who begin to assemble. Four o’clock has arrived, and it is time for the ceremony to proceed. The young couple join hands, a few words are spoken, the assent is given, and they{239} are man and wife. As the mother got her dowry, so she (the daughter) gets hers. And the household goes on again in the ordinary way; only one member less sits around the family board and assists at the daily tasks.

The eldest son has taken a fashion of being out at nights a good deal of late. Not content with this, he must have a smart buggy, and his horse must be well groomed, as he goes away with his rig solitary and alone. But if he goes away solitary and alone, his lonesomeness is soon broken and dispelled by the presence of a neighbor’s daughter. For a few months this process goes on, when the youth announces to father and mother that he is about to marry. The good couple can scarcely realize that they have a son old enough to wed. Their lives are spent in downright usefulness and whole-souled earnestness; time has literally stolen a march upon them, and it almost dazes them to think that their son is to marry and leave them. This time something more than ordinary is expected and given. An outlying farm must be given to the son, and horses to work it with, as well as stock and some seed-grain. Thereupon the son and his young bride begin their life’s journey in rural Canada; but whether they will accomplish as much as the father and mother, or whether they will imbibe the roving notions of many{240} of our younger people, is a question that remains to be solved.

At last, and not until now, the old couple, who have never yet had a thought separate and apart from the other, realize they are growing old and must soon cease from hard work. To their honor, and to the credit of our country, be it said, in order that their other children may contract good marriage alliances, the family gathering is still kept up, the family board is ever open, and a place always is ready for the worthy neighbors. To the utmost of their physical abilities they perform all the manual labor they can about the farm and homestead. The dollars have accumulated, and there are sundry loans here and there in the neighborhood, both on mortgage security and notes of hand as well. Their money-making has been by no speculative risk in any sense, but, like the even tenor of their united lives, has simply flowed along, gradually accumulating, and not being made by any lucky stroke.

A few years more and the scene shifts—shifts materially—for the family are all married and gone, and once more the old couple are where they commenced years and years ago, in the first days of their young manhood and womanhood—alone again in the world, but still faithful to each other, and still doing their duties daily and faithfully. But the old farm is{241} yet on their hands, while their strength is not equal to the task of attending to it. Reluctantly they consider it best to rent the home farm and purchase a neat and commodious cottage in the adjacent town. It was a “corners” not many years since; some time later it became a village, and some four or five years ago it grew ambitious and took upon itself the name of a town. Here they purchase a little home in which to quietly spend the last years of their lives. They are free from worry, free from anxiety, and, as during the years long past, they have no thought that is not shared in common. Old neighbors, as they come to town, call upon them, and their lives are diversified and enlivened two or three times a week by such visits. Their children, most of whom reside within driving distance of their parents, drop in upon them at any time, and thus in perfect happiness and serenity they pass down the sunset slope of life. Their lives and individual characters are towers of strength in the neighborhood for rectitude and uprightness, and the community without a dissent recognizes their true worth. One is almost tempted to wish that their already long lives might be yet prolonged for many years, that they may continue to be as bright and shining lights in the community. But the dreaded day comes at last. The good wife and {242}mother has fallen ill. Daily the town doctor visits her and does all that medical skill can do in such a case, but no resource of science is able to renovate the worn-out human body. Perhaps the most affecting sight one could view in these days would be to see the old husband and partner of sixty long years sit hourly and daily by the bedside, disconsolate and lost, as he sadly views the daily emaciating face of her whom he had chosen in the bloom of youth.

The inevitable comes at last, and the spirit forsakes its worn house of clay. At the funeral gather the whole country-side about the former home. The carriages fill the road and the yard, and the cottage is packed to the doors. From the town church the minister has come. He stands in the hall, reads from Sacred Writ, admonishes, gives a few words of solemn warning; the procession moves on, and in a few minutes all is over. Back to the cottage home comes the aged man, alone in this world—literally alone, for no one but persons of such advanced age can so keenly feel the absolute loneliness. Forty years ago he might have thrown off his grief and faced the world again, but for him now the day is gone beyond recovery. His eyes have suddenly dimmed, his one-time firm lower jaw relaxes, his step grows feeble. Evidently his days are numbered, and the reader must allow me to kindly draw the veil over him and leave him, as we see him, tottering{243} down to join his companion of the past sixty years, who has preceded him but a few months.

But is there in our country any more pleasing example of success than this old couple present? Successful they have been in a most eminent degree. They may not have accumulated any great store of wealth, but they have raised to Canada a family of sons and daughters who are a credit to our beloved country—sons and daughters whose families are working their farms and fields and helping to make our Province what it is to-day.

Before closing these somewhat random sketches of life in the early settlements and country districts of Upper Canada, I would wish to thank my readers for the courtesy of perusing these pages. May I also indulge the hope that they have given them some pleasure and profit in the reading, and add that it is my most earnest desire—may it also be yours—that our country, which we all love, may be guarded and led by the great Omniscient in the future as it has been in the past.

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	PAGE
Roger Conant’s Mill, Devon, England	Frontispiece
Thomas Conant	6
Mrs. Thomas Conant	7
Map of Upper Canada (Ontario)	9
Roger Conant’s house, Salem, Mass.	18
Roger Conant’s first settlement in Upper Canada	33
Typical Logging Scene	40
Durham boats ascending River St. Lawrence	48
David Annis	52
Indian trading scene	65
Maple sugar making	78
Indian wigwams of birch bark	84
Potash making—the “melting”	97
Hauling cannon in the war of 1812	104
Moode Farewell’s tavern	122
Daniel Conant’s lumber mill	135
Meteoric shower (1833)	144
Daniel Conant	152
Mary Eliza Conant	153
Loading lumber on schooners, Lake Ontario	160
Refugees escaping over the ice at Oswego, N.Y. (1837)	172
Crossing Lake Ontario in a canoe	186
Assassination of Thomas Conant (1838)	193
Camp-meeting scene	209
A Millerite’s attempt to fly	220
Mormon attempt to raise the dead	228
Awkward squad—Fenian raid, 1865	236

Upper Canada Sketches