Perth Courier

supplied by Christine M. Spencer of Northwestern University, Evanston, Il., USA.

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From the Perth Courier, August 3, 1934

IN THE BEGINNING

The first reference in regards to the settlement of Perth was a communication from the Adjutant General’s office dated Quebec, August 15, 1815 and referred to the appointment of Staff Surgeon Thom to take the medical charge of the “establishment forming on the Rideau.” The date of the first land being taken up in the 10^th Concession Burgess was April 17, 1816 and among those who located on that day were:

John Halliday

Alex McFarlane

James McDonald

William McGillivray

Alex Cameron

John Brosh(?)

William Rutherford

John Miller

Robert Gardiner

James Drysdale

John Allen

John Ferrier

Abraham Ferrier

Thomas Barber

In Bathurst the following settled on the 1^st Concession:

Jas. Miller

John Simpson

William Spaulding

John Hay

John Ferguson

John Flood

William Holderness

William Old

Frances Allan

Thomas Cuddie

Joseph Holdsworth

Alex Kidd

James Fraser

George Wilson

William Johnson

Robert Gibson

Samuel Wilson

John McNee

John McLaren

John McLeod

James Bryce

Samuel Gurdy(?)

Thomas Scott

George Lester

Thomas Barry

John Ritchie Sr. and Jr.

In the Township of Drummond no members of the original “Scotch Settlement” located, but in June 1816 the “Military Colony of Perth” came in.  Among those belonging to that colony who settled in Drummond in that year were:

Ensign Gould of the Veterans

J. Balderson, 76^th(?) 78^th(?) Foot, after whom the village of Balderson was named

Jas. McNice

William Horricks

T. Bright

Henry McDonald

T. McCaffrey

John G. Malloch (who afterwards became a judge)

James McGarry

William Bogs(?) Boag(?)

Peter Campbell

Donald Campbell

Peter McLaren

Henry McDonald was treasurer of Drummond for many years from the first operation of the Municipal Act.  While serving in the British Army he took part in the capture of Copenhagen and Martinique, W.I. and during the Anglo-American War was present at Sackett’s Harbor and most of the battles on the Niagara frontier including Lundy’s Lane where he was taken prisoner by the Americans and remained confined to the end of the war.  Duncan McCormick was also among the earliest settlers of Drummond and the first who ever taught school in the township, the original school house being situated on Lot 5, Concession 7 and build during the year 1817.

At the same time as the military settlers mentioned above came into Drummond, the three border townships also received quite an increase to their populations.  In Bathurst most of the new settlers had belonged to the Glengarry Fencibles, a corps raised for the purpose of the War of 1812-15 from discharged soldiers from various regiments of the line together with a small detachment of de Wattevillites.  The Fencibles were disbanded at Kingston 1^st June, 1816 and at once proceeded to their new location.  Among these were:

Captain Watson, quartermaster

Captain Blair, adjutant of the regiment

Capt. McMillan

Capt. McKay

Sgt. Quigley

John Hoover

Magnus Flett

Benjamin Johnson

And the Trumans

The detachment of the military colony settling at Burgess was composed of members of the disbanded de Wattevillites.  These were originally members of various German corps which had together formed the German contingent of Napolean’s Grand Army but having been captured in battle by the British they accepted an offer of their captors in order to escape prison confinement they took arms against the Americans in the War of 1812-15.  About 700 of them located in Burgess but a great many remained only a short time most of them going to the United States to join the regular American army.

Among the military settlers in Elmsley were:

(note at least one name was illegible due to paper being torn)

Capt. O’Brien

Lt. Alex Fraser

John Smith

Lewis Greenyea(?)

Alex Morrison, all on Concession 10.

After those the next earliest were:

Ewen Cameron

Archie and Duncan Gilchrist

John Robertson

Robert Heddleston

Joseph Cosgrove

In regards to the surveyors of the townships adjoining Perth, the work was under the direction of the Quarter Master General’s Department.  The first official response is a letter from Alex McDonald to Sir Sidney Beckwith, a high official in the Foreign Office, dated Pike River, 27^th April, 1916.  Pike River was the original name of the stream on which Perth is situated.  Later, however, there was another dispatch from Mr. McDonald to Capt. Fowler, Assistant Quarter Master General at Quebec dated Perth-on-the-Tay 16^th May, 1916, both the river and the town in the meantime having acquired new names from the settlers of the Scotch colony, many of whom were natives of that part of the “land o heather”.

The above dispatch complained of the inadequacy of the force of engineers to survey lots as fast as settlers wished to locate them many having to “squat” in the forest before the survey with a probability that their location would be changed when the surveyors work was finished. The whole survey of this section was under the supervision of Capt. Reuben Sherwood, a U.E. Loyalist who had settled after the Revolution at Brockville.   A Sergeant Quigley was a chainbearer with the party who surveyed Bathurst in the autumn of 1816, the party being in command of Capt. Hayes, an assistant of Capt. Sherwood. 

The naming of several of the townships was in honor of British noblemen or gentlemen who had distinguished themselves in war, diplomacy or politics.  Bathurst was so-called for the Earl of Bathurst for a long time His Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Colonies under whose special patronage the Scotch Colony was formed and by whose influence at court the Prince Regent’s sympathies were secured and orders issued whereby these emigrants obtained not only free passage but free rations from the British government for one year and the necessary tools and implements with which to start “life in the bush”.  The township of Burgess was named for the Earl of Burgess and Drummond in honor of Sir Gordon Drummond, an officer who had attained great military distinctions; while Elmsley is said to be a corruption of “Helmsley” a village in Essexshire, England.

In considering the request of the colonists, religion and education were not forgotten by the government; a clergyman and teacher being specially selected and sent out to attend to the spiritual and intellectual welfare.  Rev. William Bell, formerly a Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh sailed from his native country in the Spring of 1817, the government giving him a salary of 100 pounds per annum.  The religious services conducted by him on his arrival were the first ever held in this locality.  John Holliday was the teacher referred to.  He originally came from Glasgow and sailed from Greenoch on the Clyde in 1816(?) with the first settlers and located himself on the north corner lot of Burgess, #A, Concession 10.  The school house in which he taught was on Lot 21, Concession 1 Bathurst and his salary was 50 pounds sterling per annum paid by the government. Rev. Mr. Bell was the father of the late James Bell for many years registrar of South Lanark and father of Mrs. James Armour of Perth.  James Bell was born in Perth in 1817 very shortly after his father’s settlement here and said to be the first white child born within the limits of Perth.

Among the settlers locating in Perth or its immediate vicinity were

Staff Sergeant Thom

 Surgeon Major Reade(?)

 Lt. Col. Powell, Lt. Col Marshall

Capt. Joshua Adams (afterward warden of the old District Council)

Capt. MacMillan (afterwards registrar)

Capt. Leslie (agent of the old Commercial Bank)

Capt. Holmes

Hon. Roderick Matheson

Hon. William Morris

Sgt. Angus Cameron (father of the late Hon. Malcolm Cameron, founder of the Perth Courier)

Lt. Col. Taylor

Major Fowler

Major Greig

Capt. Fitzmaurice

Capt. Ferguson

Capt. Blair

Sgt. Manion

Sgt. Ritchie

Sgt. Naughty(?)

James O’Hara (or O’Hare??)

John Ferguson

And one Stewart, an army school teacher

There was a Roman Catholic priest Rev. Father LaMotte who came at a date just following Rev. Bell and died two years later his place being subsequently filled by John MacDonald, uncle of the late Hon. John Sanfield MacDonald, the latter living to be over 100 years of age, his death taking place at Lancaster, Ontario.

When the Scotch Colony first located, most of them lived in tents or bark huts during the summer and until the cold weather forced them to build log cabins.  The only yoke of oxen in the settlement for a length of time belonged to James Bryce, Lot 12, 1^st Concession Bathurst.

Some idea of the resources of the settlers may be gathered from the fact that the first assessment showed that there was but one cow in the township of Bathurst in 1817.  This was the first year of any kind of township organization in the settlement and Bathurst was the first in which town meetings were ever held.  Samuel Purdy and John Ferguson were the assessors that year.  One of the first undertakings of the settlement (omitted words not legible) the Tay where Gore Street, Perth, now crosses it (presumably now the swing bridge).  William Holderness, one of the hands engaged, took a violent fit of sickness contracted from a cold by being in the water.  He was removed to the nearest house which was that of a Mr. Sly near the Rideau and below the present location of Smith’s Falls.  William and Charles Merrick, sons of Capt. Merrick, the founder of Merrickville, conveyed him to the nearest practical point in a boat and a road was cut through the bush over which he was drawn in an ox jumper to Sly’s house but he died in three days, the first death in the settlement in April, 1816.  In July following, his widow gave birth to a daughter Eliza Holderness, the first child born in the entire settlement.

In the Spring of 1817, when the bridge across the Tay was being built, a melancholy accident occurred when a son and daughter of John Campbell, one of the first settlers on the Scotch Line, lost their lives.  They were crossing on the stringers before the floor was laid when the boy accidentally fell off into the water and his sister having jumped in to rescue him, both were drowned, a fact which cast a deep gloom over the entire settlement.

About the year 1830 a settler in Drummond murdered his wife and four children a their home on the 10^th Concession and was hanged at Perth, having been convicted on the evidence of his little son five years of age whom he undertook to kill also but who (as he afterwards said himself) swerved him from his purpose by innocently laughing in his face.

Posted: 02 March, 2005