Received from: Eileen Bashak - [email protected]
Ottawa
Valley Days
Saturday, October 26, 1935
Epic
Story of Four Townships
Pioneer
Origins of Bathurst, Drummond, Burgess and Elmsley—Only
One Yoke
McIntyre—Wilson-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
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.