Wolves in Upper Canada—Adventure of Thomas Conant—A grabbing land-surveyor—Canadian graveyards beside the lake—Millerism in Upper Canada—Mormonism.
Wolves in Upper Canada—Adventure of Thomas Conant—A grabbing land-surveyor—Canadian graveyards beside the lake—Millerism in Upper Canada—Mormonism.
Turningto ordinary affairs, we find that at this date our Government helped the settler to exterminate wolves by paying a bounty of about $6 for each wolf head produced before a magistrate. In reference to these ferocious animals, once so plentiful in Canada, an anecdote of the author’s grandfather will be found both interesting and instructive, giving us a true glimpse of the county in 1806. Thomas Conant, whose portrait is found on opposite page, and who was assassinated during the Canadian Revolution on February 15th, 1838 (vide“Upper Canada Sketches,” by the author), lived in Darlington, Durham County, Upper Canada. In the fall of 1806 he was “keeping company” with a young woman, who lived some three miles back from Lake Ontario, his home being on the shore of that great lake. Clearings or openings in the forest were at this time mostly along the lake shore. Consequently, to pay his respects to the young woman, he had to pass through some forest and clearings in succession. It was in November of that year. Snow had not yet fallen, but the ground
THOMAS CONANT.Was born at Bridgewater, Mass., in 1782; came to Darlington, Canada, with his father, Roger Conant, in 1792. On February 15th, 1838, during the Canadian Revolution, he was foully massacred by one Cummings (in Darlington), a despatch bearer, of Port Hope, Ont. The assassin was applauded for the act by the Family Compact.
THOMAS CONANT.Was born at Bridgewater, Mass., in 1782; came to Darlington, Canada, with his father, Roger Conant, in 1792. On February 15th, 1838, during the Canadian Revolution, he was foully massacred by one Cummings (in Darlington), a despatch bearer, of Port Hope, Ont. The assassin was applauded for the act by the Family Compact.
THOMAS CONANT.
Was born at Bridgewater, Mass., in 1782; came to Darlington, Canada, with his father, Roger Conant, in 1792. On February 15th, 1838, during the Canadian Revolution, he was foully massacred by one Cummings (in Darlington), a despatch bearer, of Port Hope, Ont. The assassin was applauded for the act by the Family Compact.
was frozen. Tarrying until midnight at the home of the object of his affections, he left, alone and unarmed, to walk the three intervening miles to his home. Getting over about one-half the distance, he heard the distant baying of wolves. Fear would, it may be supposed, lend speed to his feet, but thinking rightly that he could not outstrip the wolf on foot, he walked quietly along, watching for a convenient tree for climbing. In a very few minutes the wolves were upon him, in full cry, eyes protruding, tongues lolling, and ready to devour him. A near-by beech tree, which his arms could encircle, furnished him with the means of escape. He climbed, and climbed, while the wolves surrounded him and watched his every motion, never ceasing their dismal howls the live-long night. Thus he kept his lonely vigil. To lose his hold for a single second meant instant death. Great, however, as was the tension upon his strained muscles, they held on. Morn tardily came at last, and with its first peep the wolves left him and were seen no more. When they were really gone, he said he for the first time began looking about him, and found, with all his climbing, he had ascended a very few feet from the ground, and but just out of reach of the wolves’ jaws as they made frantic jumps to reach him. We may, however, be safe in assuming that the scare and involuntary vigil did not do him much harm, for in the March following (1807) he married the girl he went to visit that night, and made no complaints of having been maltreated by wolves.
In dismissing Thomas Conant at this time, the author digresses to say that he was born in the United States, and was only a small lad when Roger Conant, his father, brought him here. He was a generous, industrious citizen, and was always noted for being one of the best natured men in Canada, and possessed ability of a very high order. He was liked universally by all who knew him, and he pursued the ordinary avocations of life, such as Canadians then pursued, up to the time of his assassination (as before mentioned) during the Canadian Revolution, on February 15th, 1838. He went down to the grave from the stroke of a sword, wielded by a dragoon, and without any provocation other than accusing the dragoon of being drunk, as he was and had been many times previously when on duty as despatch bearer. But such was the state of affairs in Canada in 1837-8 that no investigation was held, nor was the murderer ever punished even in the mildest degree. The author asks the reader’s indulgence when he says he is very certain that only his grandfather’s (Thomas Conant) untimely death prevented him from leaving a name after him high up in Canadian annals, for he was a man of grand physique (6 feet 2 inches in height) and of commanding talents. He had a well-balanced mind and had wealth at his command.
Surveyors were now at work plotting out the townships, and settlers were coming very rapidly to occupy the lands which were surveyed. Readers will bear in mind that the Family Compact was still in full power.All grants for lands had to come through them. A story of a famous old land surveyor is in order in this place. He had been surveying for many seasons, and, about quarterly, came to York to make his reports and show the plots of the new townships laid out. It so happened that an uncle of the author’s was chain-bearer (whose office Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, has immortalized) to this long-winded surveyor. At the time of his service as chain-bearer this uncle was only a lusty young man, and was not supposed to know the very first elements of surveying. Among other things it was his duty to erect the tent for the nightly bivouac, and make a fire at the tent mouth. Before the dancing, fitful flames, lights and shadows in the forest primeval, he nightly sat with the lordly surveyor, and saw him prepare rude maps of the past day’s work. And, without any sort of knowledge of surveying, he saw him just touch a parallelogram here and there (which would represent 100 acres) with the point of his red pencil; but ever so light was the touch. Night after night he saw dots go down on the parallelograms, and when the quiver was full of sheets of survey, to York he went with the surveyor, to report at the Crown Lands office. He said that in the office he noticed the officials in charge scanning very intently for the red but faint dots. We all now know the result: friends of the government officials had secured hundreds and hundreds of acres of the best lands in the region surveyed, while the surveyor became a mighty land-owner of most choice lands, and died a very, very wealthy man. As may be surmised, he had marked the choicest 100-acre lots with faint red dots, and he and the officials grabbed the very choicest lands in that surveyor’s district. Should a would-be purchaser ask for any certain lot, he was put off for a day in order that they might see in the surveyor’s map if it really was a choice one, as they surmised, since he asked to buy it, in which case some friend immediately entered for it, and consequently that choice lot the settler could not purchase. Using a fictitious name to illustrate, it is said, and truly, too, that Peter Russell, Governor, deeded to Peter Russell, Esquire, many choice lots of 100 acres each of the public domain in Canada, in the days of the Family Compact. But here one can justly remark that the eternal fitness of things comes pretty nearly correct after all, for, although that surveyor was fabulously wealthy, none of the property to-day is in any of his descendants’ possession, nor are there offspring of any of the Family Compact with enough pelf to-day, severally or collectively, to cause any comment. “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,” in Canada just as they did in Greece and Rome in days of yore.
This travesty of the conveying of public lands was one very just cause of complaint on behalf of the people, and the refusal of the authorities to correct it helped materially to cause the Canadian Revolution of 1837-38.
The settlements in central Canada were at this time for the most part close to the edge of the lake. Many very worthy, hard-working, law-abiding menand women of Canada found their last resting places in places of sepulture, as they had found their homes, beside the waters of Lake Ontario. Most pathetically all such graveyards appeal to the tender side of any Canadian who loves his country and his fellows. When we stop to consider all the hardships they had gone through, with unremitting days, weeks, months and years of the hardest and most strenuous muscle-aching toil, and remember, too, that they fought and conquered the forests of Canada, it would not be human to pass by the memory of such a noble race. Their fight had not the spur of excitement to keep up their courage, as in war, but it was a fight, nevertheless—silent, monotonous, trackless, soundless and alone, in forests greater than which earth presents few examples if any.
Noble men and women, pioneers of Canada, who gave us our birthright, you merit our regard and ungrudgingly you shall have it! On earth is no greater or more glittering example of a better, more prudent, loyal, law-abiding, religious and industrious people than were those now asleep in the soil of Canada, and from whom we sprang.
Old Ontario generally is placid and beautiful, ultra-marine blue, and shimmering. But he is not always so. When rude Boreas awakes the slumbering giant, he frets, and froths, and spumes, and roars. As he is in his might he becomes awful to look upon, and doubly so if one ventures upon his bosom. And while he is spurring and warring, his waves continually come upon the shore, each time a littlehigher and higher, searching each nook, cranny and fissure along the bank of the water’s edge. Many such storms, you can easily understand, you who live distant from navigable and great waters, tend to undermine the foundations of the banks, which after a few more beatings fall with a plunge, a roar, and a cloud of densest dust, into the waters below. In this manner does old Ontario encroach at points upon the land. The sequel may be readily seen. Those in their graves must give them up, while their bones whiten the shingle for many a sunshiny day. This is no fanciful picture. With a fowling-piece upon his shoulder the author has passed along the foot of the bank, where a graveyard is, and seen skulls, long hair, ribs, femurs and other larger bones of the human body bestrewing the beach. And he has seen also where the bank has fallen away, only one-half the length of the grave, and where only one-half of the skeleton went down with the submerged bank, while the other half remained in the grave, and the point of severance of the bones was plainly observable on the bank above the beholder’s head. Flesh, of course, there is none. Time has long since decayed and changed that.
Noble men and women, the pioneers of Canada, you deserve better graves, and cushions to lie on of the softest and most enduring velvet!
Pursuing this subject a little further, the author may observe that he personally owns a graveyard on a large farm which has been used by whites since 1798 and by red men before that on Lake Ontario
OLD GRAVEYARD NEAR OSHAWA, THE PROPERTY OF THE AUTHOR.Graveyard on a bluff beside Lake Ontario, at Port Oshawa, overlooking the surrounding country for a radius of ten miles. The red man, with an eye to beauty, first used this for his place of sepulture, and now my tenants plough out skulls, stone pipes, thigh bones, and iron tomahawks with a star on them, which were given to the Indians by the French before the English Conquest of Canada. The waves of Lake Ontario perform a perpetual requiem to the memory of Indians and whites here interred.
OLD GRAVEYARD NEAR OSHAWA, THE PROPERTY OF THE AUTHOR.Graveyard on a bluff beside Lake Ontario, at Port Oshawa, overlooking the surrounding country for a radius of ten miles. The red man, with an eye to beauty, first used this for his place of sepulture, and now my tenants plough out skulls, stone pipes, thigh bones, and iron tomahawks with a star on them, which were given to the Indians by the French before the English Conquest of Canada. The waves of Lake Ontario perform a perpetual requiem to the memory of Indians and whites here interred.
OLD GRAVEYARD NEAR OSHAWA, THE PROPERTY OF THE AUTHOR.
Graveyard on a bluff beside Lake Ontario, at Port Oshawa, overlooking the surrounding country for a radius of ten miles. The red man, with an eye to beauty, first used this for his place of sepulture, and now my tenants plough out skulls, stone pipes, thigh bones, and iron tomahawks with a star on them, which were given to the Indians by the French before the English Conquest of Canada. The waves of Lake Ontario perform a perpetual requiem to the memory of Indians and whites here interred.
shore, where the waves produce a perpetual lullaby and a requiem to the sainted memories of the dead.
In this case there is no particular danger of the graves being washed into the lake, but it seems hardly meet that any private owner should have absolute control of the remains of the forefathers of so many now dwelling in Canada. During his life no one shall be allowed by him to meddle with the spot, but to save it for all time he has made a standing proposition to deed it to any properly organized church that would receive it and look after it. No such body has yet been found to receive the gift in trust, but the author hopes that his only son, Gordon, may keep it and hand it down to his son, and his son, in order that it may never be disturbed.
About the year 1833 Millerism found a lodgment in Canada from the New England States, where one Miller, by his preaching, proved very clearly, to some minds, that on a night in February of that year the earth would pass away. Now, quite as great a proportion of the people in Canada embraced this doctrine as did those of the United States, when populations are compared. These persons had not the slightest doubt that the world would really burn up on the date announced. Hence there were many who during that winter, up to the time, failed to provide themselves with wood for heating their houses. The old Virginia snake fences being all about, they proceeded to take rails from off the fences and burn them in their own houses, for they surely would have enough from this source to last until the 15th February of that winter. But even though they were to die so soon they could not well do without food, and they had failed to provide any. John B. Warren at that time kept a large general store in Oshawa, and was noted for his wide dealings. And we accordingly find that good Millerite farmers came to him with their sleighs and offered him their own notes, endorsed by good neighbors, for as much as $300 per barrel for flour, which they would take home in their sleighs. It was then worth generally $5 per barrel. John B. Warren, to his honor be it said, always refused to trade with them on such terribly unequal terms, but explained to them that they could have the flour and could pay for it if they found themselves alive after 15th February. Warren, it will be understood, did not become a Millerite. Again, it is related that a husband who had for his second wife, Jane, lived near the graveyard in which slumbered his first wife, Elizabeth. As the hands of the long “grandfather’s clock” of those days got around to midnight, this husband said to his wife, “Jane, put on your things and let’s go over to the burying-ground, for I want to die beside my first wife, Elizabeth, so as to meet her the very first one after the great fire.” Jane’s faith, it seems, was not so strong, and she flashed fire at his manifest preference for her predecessor in her husband’s affections, and replied, “If that’s your game, you may go, and I won’t live with you any longer.” And it is added that she did not live under his roof again for several months after the great fire that was to be. Several different dateshave been assigned since that first dread day, and no doubt some earnestly looked-for date is regarded as now approaching by this small but earnest body of people.
One Hoover believed the Millerite doctrine so very strongly that he gradually fancied himself more than human, and not amenable to nature’s laws. He announced that one day in the fall of 1832 he would walk on the water from Port Hoover, across Scugog Lake, seven miles to the mainland. The faithful gathered, and hundreds besides from curiosity. Hoover entered the water, slowly waded from the shore, and sought refuge behind an old pile of the dock, where he remained a few minutes. There were boxes like big boots upon his feet. Soon the crowd called vociferously for him to come out. When he did emerge from behind the pile he turned his face shoreward and gained solid land. The boys began to hoot and laugh at the would-be miracle-worker. Then Hoover made an explanation nearly in these words:
“My friends, a cloud rose before my eyes and I cannot see. I cannot walk upon the water to-day while this cloud is before my eyes. Soon it will be announced when the cloud has been removed, and I will do it.”
The crowd went away, never again to assemble at Hoover’s bidding. Millerite farmers who were usually good husbandmen, as the day approached, failed to turn their stock out of their pens, or to feed their animals, and actually nearly starved them.To-day all that is past, and in almost every instance those who embraced Millerism, and those who then opposed it, have gone to the great silent majority. Millerism is not now known in Canada.
One other sect now, so far as I know, is extinct in central Ontario; it may be worth mention. I say extinct, but I am not quite so certain of that, as there yet may be some isolated persons of that faith here and there in Ontario. I refer to the Mormons. During the summer of 1842 Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter-Day Saints, came to central Ontario and spoke at open-air meetings, camp-meeting-like, as well as in houses. He even attempted to perform miracles by curing sick persons. I get it from persons on the stage of action this day, who heard Joseph Smith in Upper Canada in 1842, and they say he was a good talker and had a very insinuating manner, and they naively add that it is almost beyond belief that any one could fall in with him. It is only fair, however, to say in favor of the sincerity of those who joined him, that polygamy was not then announced. We ought, I think, to make this admission to let off those who did join as easily as possible; and from central Ontario there were Seeleys, McGahans, Lamoreaux and others, with their families, who sold their farms and gave the money to Joseph Smith, and went off to Nauvoo, Ill. It is a little singular, too, that these people were never again heard of directly from their new Mormon homes at Salt Lake, where they no doubt removed after the break up at Nauvoo. All these Mormon convertsvanished from their neighbors with Joseph Smith, and never again sent any word to their friends and relatives left behind. I was at Salt Lake City for a short sojourn in 1879, and upon passing a stonecutter who was at work upon a square building stone for the new great Mormon tabernacle, asked the workman, “Do you know any one called McGahan about these parts?” Instantly the stonecutter dropped his tools and looked me very intently in the eye and replied, “Yes, I do. What do you know about them?” I explained that they came from Ontario, their former home, when the stonecutter urged me to go and see them; said they lived only fifteen miles down the valley south from Salt Lake, were wealthy, and would be pleased to see me, and most earnestly urged me to go. But my faith in Mormon integrity in those days was too low, and I dared not leave Camp Douglas and the protection of United States soldiers as far as fifteen miles away. Never since has any kind of trace been heard of our Mormon converts or their descendants.
Abolition of slavery in Canada—Log-houses, their fireplaces and cooking apparatus—Difficulty experienced by settlers in obtaining money—Grants to U. E. Loyalists—First grist mill—Indians—Use of whiskey—Belief in witchcraft—Buffalo in Ontario.
Abolition of slavery in Canada—Log-houses, their fireplaces and cooking apparatus—Difficulty experienced by settlers in obtaining money—Grants to U. E. Loyalists—First grist mill—Indians—Use of whiskey—Belief in witchcraft—Buffalo in Ontario.
Amongthe doings of the first parliament of Upper Canada there is none on which we can look back with greater satisfaction than the abolition of slavery in this country. Persons who have not looked closely into our early history may be almost disposed to express surprise that such a piece of legislation was passed. The subject is so interesting that I will speak more fully on the point. Great Britain abolished slavery in the British West Indies as late as 1833, and paid twenty millions of pounds for the slaves to their owners. It is difficult at this time to tell why our forefathers in Ontario were so much in advance of the Mother Country as well as the United States, for we find that they abolished slavery from Upper Canada in July, 1793. Of course, there were not many slaves in Upper Canada at the time, still there were some, but it seems that no compensation was ever paid to the owners for such slaves. Just think at what a fearful cost of treasure and precious lives the UnitedStates was called upon in the War of Secession to stand in order to rid their country of slavery. Had they abolished slavery at the time our forefathers did, no doubt the great war of the rebellion would have been averted, and besides, in 1793, when we abolished slavery, they could not have had very many slaves at the most, and even if they were paid for, they would not have cost anything like so great a sum as Great Britain paid for her West India slaves in 1833.
Then I maintain that our forefathers in Upper Canada in 1793 were far in advance in public spirit and true philanthropy of our American cousins, for we do not find that the Americans at this time made any great agitation to rid their country of the curse of slavery. If there were no other fact to be proud of in our early history, this act of our forefathers is one on which we may justly feel gratification. I will insert the Act abolishing slavery in full. In July, 1793, the first parliament of Upper Canada at its first session, called together at Niagara by the Lieut.-Governor, John Graves Simcoe, passed an Act as follows:
“CHAPTER VII.“Section 1—Hereafter no person shall obtain a license for the importation of any negro or other person who shall come or be brought into this province after the passing of this Act, to be subject to the conditions of a slave; nor shall any voluntary contract of service be binding for a longer term than nine years.“Section 2—This clause enables the present owners of slaves in their possession to retain them or bind out their children until they obtain the age of twenty-one years.“Section 3—And in order to prevent the continuance of slavery in this province the children that shall be born of female slaves after the passing of this Act are to remain in the service of the owner of their mother until the age of twenty-five years, when they shall be discharged.“Provided that in case any issue shall be born of such children during their servitude or after, such issue shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges of free-born subjects.”
“CHAPTER VII.
“Section 1—Hereafter no person shall obtain a license for the importation of any negro or other person who shall come or be brought into this province after the passing of this Act, to be subject to the conditions of a slave; nor shall any voluntary contract of service be binding for a longer term than nine years.
“Section 2—This clause enables the present owners of slaves in their possession to retain them or bind out their children until they obtain the age of twenty-one years.
“Section 3—And in order to prevent the continuance of slavery in this province the children that shall be born of female slaves after the passing of this Act are to remain in the service of the owner of their mother until the age of twenty-five years, when they shall be discharged.
“Provided that in case any issue shall be born of such children during their servitude or after, such issue shall be entitled to all the rights and privileges of free-born subjects.”
By this simple Act of our first parliament our country was effectually rid of this pest without the shedding of a drop of blood or the expenditure of a single dollar in money. All honor to our forefathers for their wise act, and a cheer for our banner free province.
Our forefathers at this time, and long after, had no stoves in their log-houses. All cooking, as well as heating, was done by the fireplace. A crane swung on hinges into this great fireplace and could be swung out from the fire at pleasure. Attached to this crane was an iron, having notches therein, and fitting over this pendant iron rod was another shorter iron, with a link as of a chain on the end thereof. This link fitted into the notches on the first-mentioned iron. By this means the lower iron could be raised or lowered into or above the fire at pleasure. Thus our forefathers did their first cooking in Upper Canada. The corn cake, or wheaten cake, when they had it, was baked in the ashes, and wonderfully sweet old persons thought it. The fact that it was covered with some loose ashes did not detract from its sweetness, as they were soon brushed away, leaving the toothsome cake within.
The first improvement in the culinary art of our forefathers came with tin bake-ovens. These were tin trays, as it were, open on one side. They would be set before the fire-place, with the open side fronting the fire. Thus the rays of heat would be collected, and in a measure confined within the oven, and the bread or cakes within were soon nicely browned and baked. It was considered an immense stride by our forefathers when they got these bake-ovens, and for years they did not aspire to anything better.
Ovens out of doors were built by some of stones. They were generally conical in shape and open in the centre. An immense fire would be built in this out-door oven, and when burnt down to real live coals, would be all drawn out. Its stones would thus be thoroughly heated. Into the cavity in which the fire had been, the bread would be inserted and the door stopped up. Enough heat would remain in the stones to thoroughly bake at least two batches of bread. But this was done at a fearful waste of wood, which, of course, was of no account at that time. The advent of stoves changed all that, and now a fireplace of wood in an Ontario home is more a luxury than a necessity, and but few are to be found. But many of my more elderly readers will remember the huge gaping fireplaces of the past when a great “back-log,” two feet or more in diameter, would be drawn in with a horse into the house, and the horse unhitched, leaving the log before the fireplace. Once at the fireplace it was an easy matter, with handspikes, to
FIREPLACE AND HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS IN USE IN UPPER CANADA IN 1813.(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
FIREPLACE AND HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS IN USE IN UPPER CANADA IN 1813.(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
FIREPLACE AND HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS IN USE IN UPPER CANADA IN 1813.
(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
KITCHEN UTENSILS. UPPER CANADA, 1813.(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
KITCHEN UTENSILS. UPPER CANADA, 1813.(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
KITCHEN UTENSILS. UPPER CANADA, 1813.
(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
roll it to the back side of the fire. Since matches were not then invented, the fire was something to be closely guarded, lest it might go out. But this big back-log would usually keep a fire on for some three or four days, being covered up at night with the ashes and embers that it might smoulder all the night.
Wild leeks were then used as an article of food. As soon as the snow disappeared in the spring they would be found in abundance in the forests, and were gathered as the first spring vegetable. Their unsavory smell, or that imparted to the breath of the eater thereof, seemed to be no bar to their use. When all partook of the leek not one could detect the odor from the other. Likewise the cowslip, a little later in the season, which grew in shallow ponds, furnished a dish of greens to our forefathers.
To show how difficult it was at this early day for the poor settler to obtain money, I will relate an anecdote of about 1807. Levi Annis was living at this time with his father, in the county of Durham. During the summer and fall of 1806 they had chopped and burnt a fallow of thirty-one acres, which they sowed with fall wheat. As a preparation for sowing, the land was not ploughed at all, but it was loose and leafy and ashy from the burning. The wheat was sown broadcast by hand among the stumps. It was covered by hitching a yoke of oxen to the butt end of a small tree, with the branches left hanging thereto. The oxen drew this to and fro over the fallow among the stumps, and thus covered the wheat. This was called “bushing in,” and was the first harrow usedby our forefathers among the stumps. However, the fallow upon which the wheat was so brushed in produced as fine a crop of fall wheat as ever grew, falling not much below thirty bushels per acre. Now this wheat could be exchanged for store goods at will, but not for money. Levi Annis, however, took the first load of it to Bowmanville, and was told by his father that he must get $5.50 on account of the whole crop to pay his taxes, for he must have the money to pay his taxes, but the rest he would take store pay for. The merchant with whom he dealt actually refused to advance the $5.50, saying he could get all the wheat he wanted for goods. The young man had to drive to another merchant and state his deplorable case to him and his urgent need of $5.50, and that if he would advance him the money he should have the whole crop of thirty-one acres. Finally the second merchant took pity upon the young man in his dilemma and advanced the money. Thus it was with the utmost difficulty that he could get $5.50 in cash out of thirty-one acres of wheat. This shows us to-day how difficult it was for our forefathers to get money.
Most of the refugees from the United States at the time of the American Revolution of the last century, who sided with Britain, and came to Canada and this section, came by way of Niagara. This north shore of Lake Ontario was then a wilderness, with no clearing or settlements at all. Where Toronto now is was an Indian camp when some of those refugees came through and over its present site. Of course,such refugees are termed “United Empire Loyalists,” and right well they deserve the name, for many of them left lands and houses and goodly heritage in Massachusetts to come over here and live under the old flag. The Royal grants which they received were given to them ostensibly for their loyalty to the Crown, but I sometimes think that our Royal governors at those times used them as a means of peopling the country, and it would almost appear that this consideration had as much to do with the grants for loyalty as for realbona fidesettlers. The United Empire Loyalists came around the head of Lake Ontario, and stopped first beside the various creeks which flow into Lake Ontario, for two reasons: one, to enable them to catch the plentiful salmon in those creeks; and the other, that they might cut marsh grass for their cattle at the marshes formed at the streams’ mouths. There was no grist-mill nearer than Kingston, and these refugees had to go in bateaux with their grists (when they had any) all this way. They skirted close along the shore, and pulled their boats up at night and slept in them. Twice per year was, for many years, the greatest number of times they would go with the grist. Rather hard lines for those who had left the comforts and civilization of the Eastern States for the wilds of Canada.
John D. Smith, at Smith’s Creek, now Port Hope, erected a grist-mill some time after 1800 came in, and his was the first grist-mill between Toronto and Kingston. The boon which this conferred upon the sparse settlers can hardly be realized at this day.Many of these settlers became Indian traders, for the Indians at this time far outnumbered the whites; and semi-annually all the Indian tribes came to Lake Ontario to fish. Their trading was done by barter. A party of traders would set out into the woods with their packs of goods and fire off three guns in succession, which was the signal to the Indians that traders were there. Next morning the Indians would invariably come to the rendezvous to trade their furs for ammunition, blankets and trinkets. The furs were sent by bateaux to Montreal, and were for many years the only commodity which would command the cash in the market.
The next commodity which brought cash was black salts and potash. This was before the square timber began to be exported from this locality.
Just about the time that the settlers began to subdue the forests, the War of 1812 broke out and sadly disarranged all the plans of the settlers. Some of the sparse settlers, known for probity and reliability, got contracts under the Government as despatch bearers between certain stations, and for this received weekly, during the unfortunate time, Spanish milled dollars, in which they were then paid. The military impressment law was, of course, in full force during the war. The cannon and military stores were hauled along the shores from Montreal to Toronto, as the war progressed, as it was not safe to trust them on vessels on the water for fear of capture by the Americans. The mouths of streams had to be forded. The writer can call to mind many anecdotes of hisforefathers of that interesting time in our history. The straggling settler would be ploughing among the stumps with his yoke of oxen, when a squad of British soldiers would come along and make him unhitch from the plough, and hitch on to the cannon without any waiting or time even to go in for his coat. Usually two yokes of oxen were attached to each of the small cannon. On arrival at the garrison at Toronto the owners of the oxen were invariably well paid in cash for their services. Two persons with oxen from this locality were once pressed into the service. One yoke happened to be tolerably fat, and the owner sold them to the military authorities in Toronto for a good price in money, for beef for the troops. The money obtained for that yoke of oxen enabled the owner to buy and pay for 200 acres of as fine land as to-day can be found under the sun.
Nor was it infrequent for the passing soldiers to be billeted upon the inhabitants for a night.
Indians used to spear fish when the first settlers came here, along the lake shore and off the headlands. No matter if the water was rough, the Indian would stand in the prow of the dug-out log canoe, holding some sturgeon oil in his mouth. Now and again he would spit this oil out upon the water, which would so calm it for a moment or two that he could see the fish and spear them. By such sleights the Indian invariably succeeded in procuring food from the forest and flood, while the white man could hardly do so until he learned from the Indian how to take game and fish. It was always the policy of the first settlersto treat the Indians kindly. They did this because the Indians gave them like treatment in return, and also because they far outnumbered the whites and could easily have destroyed them. An Indian was never to be refused something to eat if he came along hungry. My forefathers have told me that an Indian came along one day nearly famished and asked for food. Through some mishap he had been a week without food. A lot of cold meat was set before him and a quantity of corn bread. The old settler sat beside his fireplace and saw with surprise the eagerness and dexterity with which he managed to appropriate this cold meat. And still the Indian ate on, without apparent flagging, until at last the four pounds or so of cold meat was gone. Then he gave a grunt of satisfaction and sat before the fire. Soon he appeared in great distress and began rolling on the floor. To cure the surfeit the settler knew no better way than to grease his abdomen and pull him about. Just what virtue the grease had the settler did not know, but thinking that his body must necessarily stretch to master all that meat, he knew no better way to produce the stretching than by greasing him. And grease him he did, with the Indian all the time roaring with agony. However, after sundry greasings, rollings and groanings, he got relief, and sat once more beside the fire. On going away he told the old man what a good meal he had had, and that he ever would remember him. It is a fact that the Indian in his forest home used many times to be for days without food, when game wasnot secured. When he did get game he gorged himself, but of the manner of relieving a surfeit in the woods the white man does not seem to know whether it was by grease or otherwise.
At a logging bee in those old times whiskey was ever present. All the settlers in the locality would invariably turn out and help at the logging. Wonderful stories they tell of logging an acre of land in an hour and a half by three men and a yoke of oxen. Old men to-day tell me that they were mere lads then, and were the “whiskey boys” at these loggings. Whiskey was partaken of by the bowlful, and no ill effect seemed to follow from it. If a man were to drink one-half the quantity of whiskey to-day he would be more than drunk, and sick on the morrow. It must be that the whiskey of those days was better than the modern stuff. It was not supposed to be at all wrong to drink whiskey in those days, and they tell of an Irish immigrant who settled in Pickering, who had no cows, and had to provide food for his family during the winter. He procured two barrels of whiskey, which he and the family used with the cornmeal porridge during that winter. There were young children in the family at the time. It was not maintained that the whiskey was as nutritious as milk would have been, but yet they all came out in the spring in good condition, none the worse of the thrice daily consumption of whiskey.
Barns were sometimes moved from the manure pile about them. Manure was not considered of any value upon the land, for the land was rich enoughwithout it. In a series of years the manure would accumulate about the barns, impeding access thereto, and they were actually moved away to get away from the manure, and then the manure burnt. Of course, we would not think of such a proceeding now, but there are farmers in Darlington, in the county of Durham, who burn their straw even now. When threshing, the straw is spread over a field, as delivered from a machine, by a boy with a horse-rake. It is then burned, relying for manure upon the ashes which the straw makes. This is not told as an example of good farming, but it illustrates the exceeding richness of Ontario soil.
Since the early American colonists burnt witches at Salem, their descendants, who came to Upper Canada as U. E. Loyalists, brought the belief of witchcraft with them; and many of them who came here about 1800, and before, really did believe in witches. I have heard my forefathers relate a witch story in all seriousness which I think worth repeating, as showing to us that the New England people who burnt witches were really sincere in the belief. About 1800 a settler in the spring of the year did not enjoy very good health. Nothing serious seemed to be the matter with him but a general inertia, or seediness. There was no medical man to consult, so he did the next best thing by consulting his nearest neighbor. The neighbor upon being told his symptoms at once pronounced him bewitched. An old woman in the locality was at once picked out as the bewitcher. Now for the remedy to break the spell of the witchery. Aball must be made of silver, and they melted a silver coin and made a rifle ball of it. An image of dough must be made to as closely resemble the supposed witch as possible. And it was made. Just as the sun rose the bewitched must fire at it with his rifle and the silver ball, and the dough image was set up on a top rail of the fence, and as the sun rose he fired and just grazed the shoulder of the dough image. In about an hour the old witch came to the house in great haste, and wanted to borrow some article. Were they to lend her the article desired the spell would come on again, but refusing, the spell was broken; of course, like sensible men, they did not lend the article. Even they went on to say further that the witch was hit and wounded slightly on the shoulder, where the dough image was struck by the silver ball. However, be that as it may, they asserted that the sick man speedily got well and was never again bewitched by the witch in question nor any other. Of the efficacy of the unerring aim of the silver ball I do not vouch, but I do vouch for the realbona fidebelief of the old narrators of the whole tale.
There were buffalo in Ontario once, without a doubt, and I think I can prove it. When my people first came here, their own and two other families for some years were the only settlers between Toronto and Port Hope. They had cows, but by some fatality their only bull died. Somehow, three cows strayed away one summer and did not return until late in the fall or approach of winter. Next spring these cows had a calf each, and these calves partook partly of themother, with the head and foreshoulders of the buffalo. Having a shaggy mane and long hair on their foreshoulders like the buffalo, they were without a doubt part buffalo. The progeny of this half-buffalo stock increased, but they never became thoroughly domesticated, and when a bull, some years after, could be obtained, they had to be killed on account of their viciousness.
A manufactory of base coin in the Province of Quebec—A clever penman—Incident at a trial—The gang of forgers broken up—“Stump-tail money”—Calves or land?—Ashbridge’s hotel, Toronto—Attempted robbery by Indians—The shooting of an Indian dog and the consequences.
A manufactory of base coin in the Province of Quebec—A clever penman—Incident at a trial—The gang of forgers broken up—“Stump-tail money”—Calves or land?—Ashbridge’s hotel, Toronto—Attempted robbery by Indians—The shooting of an Indian dog and the consequences.
I referredin the last chapter to the Spanish milled dollars in which military services were paid for. Mexican dollars were also in vogue, and a few years previous to the American War of 1812, some enterprising New England counterfeiters, fancying the densely-wooded portion of Lower Canada, near the state lines, would afford a secure base for their operations, emigrated to our lower province. These Mexican silver dollars were used as a currency for small moneys almost to the exclusion of British coins. The reason for this was because these Mexican unmilled dollars were of pure silver, almost without alloy, and were worth, intrinsically, rather more than their face value. In these forests the counterfeiters set up their presses and dies, and succeeded in making Mexican dollars so very nearly like the genuine ones that they passed unquestioned. Indeed, there was no limit to the amount these fellows could produce, or as to the amount of wealth they could accumulate thereby;that is to say, so far as wealth could be accumulated in those early days among forest fastnesses. However, this band had good houses constructed, and as well furnished as they could be at that early day. One of the traditions about them is that they were in the habit of throwing a dollar into the spittoon when they wanted it cleaned, which perhaps shows they had all the hired help that money could in those days give them. They appear to have lived a free-booting sort of life and to have enjoyed such luxuries as money could command. So expert had they become at the business that paymasters in the American army actually crossed over the lines by stealth, through the woods, and bought these Mexican dollars from the counterfeiters to pay the American troops with. This is a fact, anomalous as it may seem, and no doubt these paymasters reaped rich harvests by these transactions. As an illustration of the cleverness of these counterfeiters I will note that at one time they actually passed four thousand of their coins on one of the banks in Montreal.
We may, therefore, assume that as counterfeiters they had arrived at considerable perfection. The flooding of the Province of Quebec with these Mexican dollars somewhat disarranged the even flow of trade transactions.
On the close of the American war, however, these Mexican dollars were gradually taken out of circulation. The genuine ones were mostly taken to England to be recoined into British shillings and sixpences. This altered state of affairs caused these counterfeitersto pause in their career, and they ceased to produce the Mexican dollars for fear they might be traced out. Counterfeiting bank-notes was what they next turned their hands to. In those days the “greenback” had not been invented, the engravings on the bills were not very elaborate, and they found some one among them who could cut the die plate of a bill. Thus far they had got on well, but the signatures to the bills presented an almost insuperable obstacle. That oft-repeated remark, that “the old fellow always helps his own,” was true in their case at least. One of their number was found so clever with the pen that he could imitate the signatures to perfection. It is asserted that this signer claimed as his share for affixing the signatures a full share in all the band’s proceeds, and he was to do nothing else at all. The other members were to do all the work and he only did the writing, and lived like a gentleman in what had then become a small village in Quebec, near the province line. He had a fine house, carriages and servants; held several offices of trust, and had even rare and costly bound books in his library. Indeed, he seemed to be a person of culture in every way, and no one for a moment suspected him of any complicity in such a nefarious business as counterfeiting.
To show how clever he was as a penman, I will tell this anecdote by way of illustration. Some twenty thousand dollars’ worth of promissory notes had been sued in some court in the State of Vermont. The signature on these notes was disputed by the reputed maker, and a defence set up that they wereforgeries. This important case was thoroughly defended by the ablest counsel of the day, and yet the case seemed likely to go against the maker of the notes. Happening to get a hint, this attorney for the defence quietly asked all the attorneys in the court to write their names on a half-sheet of foolscap, which he produced, torn carelessly from the other half-sheet.
Each one wrote his name. Then this attorney for the defence brought the signatures to this person who did the bank-note signing in Quebec. On the other half-sheet of foolscap this more than expert penman reproduced in exact fac-simile the attorneys’ names. Back into court he came with the two half-sheets of foolscap, one containing the genuine signatures and the other the forged ones, but both sheets alike in every respect, even as to jagged edges, where torn asunder, and every other particular.
Each signing attorney was then put in the witness box and asked to swear to his signature. Not one of them could do it. This fact threw doubts in the minds of the jury as to the genuineness of the signature of the notes, and the defendant got a verdict of “not guilty.”
As the country continued to be flooded with these notes, the Government finally began tracing their issue to the fountain head, and suddenly and without warning made a descent upon this respectable citizen’s fine house. Not a scrap could be found to incriminate him, and the searchers were about to leave with apologies, when, happening to look in the attic, they found a single unused die, which one of the gang had thoughtlessly left there.
The finding of this die of course caused his arrest, and he and two others were put on trial for their lives. Forgery in that day in Quebec merited the death penalty of the law. They had moved to Canada, however, for protection, and even in this instance Canada did not fail to protect them still. They had forged only notes of the state banks of the United States, and it seems that our law could not fairly get hold of them for forging the notes of a foreign country, and they got off scot-free. But the prosecution broke them up and they fled, having lost their pseudo-respectability.
It is asserted that this expert penman and cultivated man afterwards migrated to the United States, became an inmate of nearly all the penitentiaries the United States then possessed, and finally died in one of them. So, in this instance, as ever, the way of the transgressor was hard, although seemingly so fair for so long a time.
“Can you tell me where I can buy shingles?” for many years after the breaking up of the gang was one of the formulas which strangers used when coming into the former counterfeiters’ locality to buy counterfeit money. A man of sixty-five now tells that when a lad he once in the spring packed his bundle in his handkerchief, swung it over his shoulder on a stick, and sallied out looking for work. A stylish team passed him, driven by two men, whom he asked for a ride. And they gave him a ride, and asked him while on the way “where they could buy some shingles?” Not knowing, he couldnot tell them, but his curiosity was aroused to know what men, dressed as they were, and with so fine a team and so light a rig, should want with shingles. Finally, after repeated inquiries, some one on the way told them to turn off the road, and back in the woods they would find “shingles.” It is asserted that for some years after the close of the American War of 1812 this counterfeit money had, among those who dealt in it, a certain market value. Sometimes the dollar was worth as much as forty cents, and at other times it had a greater value. Other catch words were used and known among those who dealt in this commodity besides “shingles,” but this term seems to have been most used and most generally known.
A long time it took to rid that part of Quebec of the remaining stamps and dies, and to stamp out the counterfeiting entirely. But as the country became more settled up and the roads improved it was gradually stopped. So far as I can ascertain, this narrative contains an account of the most systematized and successful series of forgeries our country at that time had.
Some of these clever New England forgers knew when to stop. One of them, it is said, moved away to New Jersey and bought a fine farm there from the proceeds of his forgeries in Canada, and lived the life of a country gentleman until his death.
The strangest part of this tale is yet to follow. I got it from the lips of a resident in the West, a close observer and likely to know.
In the early settlements of the Western Statesbordering on the Mississippi River, each state issued bills which were almost valueless in any other state. All sorts of forgeries were committed on these state bank bills. This money came to be known as “stump tail money,” and amidst the general confusion of currencies and hasty settlements the forgers were enabled to reap rich harvests. The forgers began to be caught and driven still further west to the Missouri River, as the States became better settled and things settled down generally. Nearly all of those forgers who were caught acknowledged that they were descendants of the gang of forgers whom I have been speaking of on the province line in Quebec. And more, they said in their confessions, that those who got away were likewise of the same descent. From this it would appear that in the guild of forgers the faculties are transmitted to succeeding generations, like those of caste in India.
I have said that in the early days of the century the settlers in Ontario did not entertain very correct ideas as to the prospective value of lands. The following anecdote of that time will illustrate this: Levi Annis, descended from Charles Annis, already alluded to, when about eighteen years of age had made a little money on his own account by trapping. He had saved enough money to buy himself a couple of bull calves six months old, and calculated to secure them. Just before he got to buying them, it came to his knowledge that for the same sum which he would pay for the calves he could buy outright 100 acres of land. For some days he was in doubt whether to buy the calves or the hundred acres. He asked hisfriends, and they reasoned that there was lots of land, and land he could buy any time, but calves were scarce and he had better buy them when he could. Consequently he bought the calves and let the land alone. To show how lightly land was valued in those days I make the comparison. But this is not at all in relation to the bargain. Had he bought the 100 acres of land, which he thought of doing, even before his death he would have seen a part of the town of Oshawa built upon it. To-day there is upon this land a large manufactory and numerous dwellings, and its value at this time is almost beyond estimating. Had he bought the land and simply kept it, and literally done nothing else, it would have made a rich man of him. But he chose the calves, and it is evident in the light of the subsequent events that his choice was a poor one.
An Indian tale of 1800 comes to my mind which my forefathers have told to me. In the early days the settlers had to devise plans to keep their sheep from the wolves. As their flocks increased their next great difficulty was to keep their sheep from the Indians’ dogs. The first settlements were, of course, along the shores of the great lakes, Ontario and Erie. Twice a year, spring and fall, the Indians would come out from the woods to fish in those lakes and marshes, and at the outlets of the streams. So numerous were the Indians at that time that they far outnumbered the whites, and when they came for the semi-annual fish they would form a regular village, as they congregated in their tents beside the shore of some marsh or bay upon the great lakes.
The settlers’ policy was one pre-eminently of conciliation to the Indians. But they would at every visit be accompanied by a lot of half-starved, ill-favored curs, which would worry the settlers’ sheep. At one visit they had a particularly large gaunt brute of a dog, which badly worried a sheep of my forefather. He remonstrated with the chief, and desired him to keep the dog at the camp, which he promised to do. Nightly he penned his sheep as usual, to keep off the wolves, but during the day this dog continued to worry them when out of sight among the log and brush on the partially cleared fields, and finally killed one. My people resolved to suffer it no longer, and at great risk of their lives and property shot the Indian dog—dead as they supposed. Then they took the dog that the Indians might not find him, and know that they had shot him, and put him in a hollow pine stub, the top of which stood some ten feet from the ground, and which was hollow to the bottom. Bury the dog they dared not, because the sharp-eyed Indian would discover the newly-turned earth and fish it out, and they knew they could not otherwise hide him successfully. That evening about forty Indians came looking for the animal, and searched every place, probable and improbable, indoors and out, and my people dared not refuse them admittance. Without a doubt my forefather will be pardoned for “telling a white one” when he averred that he had not got the dog. At this juncture it became by far too serious to jest or prevaricate, for their lives literally depended upon the Indians’ successful search for that canine. Search as they would, however, theydid not find it, and darkness gratefully set in and put an end to their investigation for that day. But little sleep the settlers were able to take that night through dead fear that the Indians might possibly find the cur. Next morning, just at the first peep of day, my forefather was up and out to the stump, when to his intense astonishment and disgust the dog was barking and scratching within the stub to get out. He had not been effectually killed, and had come back again to life. Now here was a dilemma, and what was to be done? To get up on the stub and fire at the dog again was more than he dared, for it would arouse the Indians only half a mile away.
An expedient he soon hit upon, however, and he resolved that day to go to logging that he might burn the stub without arousing the keen suspicion of the Indians. Yoking his oxen, a pile of logs was soon gathered about the stub and set on fire. The dog’s cries grew fainter and to him beautifully less, and finally ceased. But he did not dare to stop the logging for the day, and worked at it faithfully all day, whether he wished to or not, that no suspicion might rest upon him for the burning of the pine stub. It is needless to add that the Indians did not get the dog, and that they never found out what became of him. At this time this may seem a simple story to tell, but to the participants it was a life-and-death matter, and I have heard my forefathers say that the old man would have gladly given all his sheep, dearly as he prized them, could he have recalled that shot, when he heard the dog howling the next morning in the stub.