Ottawa Valley Days

Received from: Eileen Bashak - [email protected]

Ottawa Valley Days Saturday, October 26, 1935

Epic Story of Four Townships In Early Days of Bathurst District

Pioneer Origins of Bathurst, Drummond, Burgess and ElmsleyOnly One Yoke of Oxen and One Cow in the SettlementWhy Chief McNab Jailed

McIntyreWilson-Lyons Duel Recalled

Written for The Journal by

Harry J. Walker

PROBABLY no organization is doing more to preserve the records of pioneering days in this part of Upper Canada than are the Women’s Institutes of Eastern Ontario which recently held their convention here.  In the accumulation of data and diaries, and the compilation of township and county histories they are themselves pioneers in a rich field and are rendering service of incalculable value in presenting the colorful saga of this district.

For this week’s story we are indebted to Mrs. George Kerr, secretary of Fallbrook Women’s Institute, whose paper on the early settlement of Bathurst township was full of the essence of history.  It was through the splendid address of Mrs. D. N. McLeod, of Dalkeith, efficient head of the historical section of the Eastern Ontario Women’s Institutes, that we were privileged to read Mrs. Kerr’s paper.  As a result, we have put in a request for the loan of more such historic material for the use of this column.

In her introduction, Mrs. Kerr touches on the establishment of the military colony at Perth (which has already been dealt with here) and indicates the locations of settlers in the townships that were subsequently named Bathurst, Drummond, Burgess and Elmsley, all of these being in the same area.

Historic Names

The nomenclature of these townships had a historical significance.  As Mrs. Kerr points out, several of the townships were named after pro-consuls of empire from Downing Street.  Thus Bathurst was called in honor of the Earl of Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and under whose patronage this settlement was formed, and by whose influence the Prince Regent’s sympathies were enlisted, resulting in the issuance of orders whereby the emigrants not only received free passage and land grants, but also free passage for some time.  Drummond was named after Sir Gordon Drummond, who achieved military distinction and was administrator of Upper Canada from 1813 to 1815; Burgess, after the Earl of Burgess, and Elmsley after Helmsley, a village in Essexshire, England (somebody must have dropped an “haitch” in naming it.)

About the same time as the military settlement of disbanded soldiers there also commenced a migration of Scotch families from Perthshire.  This movement has also been reviewed here, but Mrs. Kerr goes into greater detail.  These civilian colonists wintered at Brockville in temporary huts.  An advance party, however, proceeded as far as Perth to investigate the proposed locations.  This party, of whom one member was known to be Thomas Cuddy, camped on the bank of the Tay, south of the present bridge on what is now Gore street.  For many years the stump of a huge elm tree which they used as part of their rude bush camp remained as a memorial to that little expedition.

To each family was given an axe, crosscut saw, whip-saw, grindstone, adze, draw-knife, auger, two gimlets, door locks, scythes, reaping hook, pitch fork, two hoes (that would last for generations) skillot, (sic) camp kettle and blanket and the loan of five pound sterling.  With this meagre working equipment, the men of Burgess, Drummond, Bathurst and many other pioneer sections reclaimed productive land from forest and swamp and built their log cabins, while the women folk helped them in the fields and in making their homes dwelling places of happiness.  In all the township of Bathurst in 1817 there was only one yoke of oxen owned by a settler named Bryce and one cow.  Supplies were “backed” in from the St. Lawrence, it being a common occurrence for a man to carry a bushel of seed corn from Brockville on his back.

The Praying Shepherd


The Government looked after their spiritual, educational, and medical needs to a certain degree.  Rev. William Bell was sent from Edinburgh to minister to a wilderness flock.  But the picture one dwells on particularly of those brave days is that of an elder of “auld kirk” (formerly a shepherd from the Cheviot Hills), who, in the cathedral hush of the sombre and sunlight in the fields, communed with his God and pleaded a blessing upon the preaching of the Word of Life.

Teaching at $250 Per Year

John Halliday was the first school teacher, and he was paid 50 pounds sterling a year to instil fundamentals of education into the next generation.  How well he did it without benefit of conference, department, or inspector is evidenced by the great minds that have made this pioneer district famous.

“IN THOSE early days” Mrs. Kerr proceeds, “there were practically no social advantages except in so far as the pioneers kept up their love of literature, education and religion” Quite true.  They developed within themselves powerful resources of mind and character.  They would have scorned the constant and unhealthy stimuli of modern amusements with their sophisticated sinning to the accompaniment of a crooner’s gibbering idiocy!

With the creation of the judicial district of Bathurst, including the townships of Goulbourne, Beckwith, Drummond, Bathurst, March, Huntley, Lanark, Dalhousie and North and South Sherbrooke, the village of Perth was named as the judicial seat.  To this little wilderness capital were brought all the criminal and civil cases.

 Last Laird o’ McNab

Perhaps there was no more familiar figure at the old Perth court hose than Chief McNab, who dreamed of a Highland kingdom on the banks of the Ottawa but whose dream was often a nightmare because of rebellious clansmen who refused to bow the knee to the last Laird o’ McNab, ye ken!  So he summoned them to Perth and to judgement.  With his bailiffs and henchmen he would put recalcitrant rebels in the “hoose-gow”

Mrs. Kerr, in her splendid paper, gives a life like portrayal of the fiery Chief in action at Perth.  She relates the well known episode of his arrest of John Mohr McIntyre for non-payment of taxes, and to this famous case she gives a version that is new to our knowledge of the Master of Kinnell Lodge.  Mrs. Kerr’s story of the reason for the Chief’s hostility to McIntyre is as follows:

“One person especially whose name stands out clearly is John Mohr McIntyre, whose daughter, Flora, refused to marry the Chief’s son, Allen Dhu, who was not worthy of her, and of whom it is said that he was drowned in the lake at Arnprior by Indians, in revenge for wrong doing some of their tribe.  The chief had taken special dislike to MacIntyre, as he considered it an insult to have his son refused by a poor tenant’s daughter, and he lodged her father in jail for non-payment of taxes on land.”

Reference is also made to the famous Wilson-Lyons duel of 1833 (this tragic episode was reviewed here a few years ago) and to the fact that the duelling party, escaping the jurisdiction of Bathurst district, crossed the “Scotch Line” on the limits of Perth.  That was why the Wilson trial was held in Brockville.  A marble slab in the old Perth burying ground over the grave of the youthful Robert Lyons tells of his death “in mortal combat.”  This was one of the last, if not the lst, actual duel in Upper Canada.  


Posted: 19 February, 2006.