After the stifling heat and blinding glare of a Canadian summer day, it is most refreshing to walk forth as the sun, shorn of its strength, sinks, a glowing ball of fire, behind the forest that edges the landscape. Vegetation, wilted by the day’s glaring heat, revives with the dewy coolness of the hour, and from the neighboring bush comes the song of the greybird. As the glow fades from the sky, nowhere else in the world of tenderer blue or more translucent depth, the stars drop into sight, and should Venus be in the ascendant, she burns with a white flame unknown at any other season. Generally, with the setting of the sun, a light breeze springs up from the west or northwest, refreshing to the farmers who toiled throughout the sultry day, and swaying the heads of timothy until the meadows seem to be swept by billows. The eye of the saunterer takes in the scene, passing over the great flat fields of grain and grass, until ended by the recurring belt of bush; the snug farm-houses set amid shade-trees and orchards; the pond-like reaches of the Chateaugay, sleeping peacefully in the hollows of its rounded banks, unruffled save as the wing of one of the swallows, that skim its glassy surface, frets it for a moment, or from the leap of an inhabitant of its clear waters; and, in the finished beauty of the picture, he finds it hard to realize that he is looking upon the results of the labor of scarce half a century, that underneath a few of the roofs before him still live men and women who saw the country when a wilderness of forest and swamp, and who are survivors of the generation who wrought the wondrous change—men and women who underwent privations the most painful and labors the most exhausting in making the country what it is. To give those who have inherited the fruits of their sacrifices some idea of what the first settlers underwent, I here submit the narrative of one of them, as nearly as may be in the words I was told it:
You have driven a long way to see me, sir, and I am afraid I can tell you little worth the hearing. It is strange you should go to so much trouble to gather these old-time stories, but if I can tell you anything that will be of use to you I am willing. You want me to begin with our leaving the Old Country and go on in order, as you can recollect best that way. Very well, only you will have to come and see me again, for it is a long story, and if you print any of it, you are to change it so that nobody will know who told you. I don’t mind myself, but some of my children might not like it.
We belonged to the Border, and the first sight that met my eyes every morning was the Eildon hills. My husband was a shepherd and we lived well enough until our family began to grow large, and then we thought it would be well for their sake to try Canada. We had a little saved and that, with what we got from the roup of our furniture, paid our passage and plenishing. We sailed from the Solway, into which a big ship from Liverpool called for a party of emigrants. We were rowed out in small boats, and when I got on to her deck my heart failed me, for such dirt and confusion I never saw the like, crowded as she was with 242 emigrants from county Kerry, who had gone on board at Liverpool. This we never expected, but it was too late now, and we had to make the best of it. The sight below was worse than above, and I turned fairly sick when I went down the ladder to our berths; the noise was bad enough but the smell was just awful. The mate, a swearing character, was not without a show of decency, and did the great favor of allotting to us Border folks, who numbered an even six dozen, the row of berths aft the main hatchway, so that we were kept together. We slipped out of the firth that night with the tide, and next morning, which was a most beautiful day, we kept tacking off and on the coast of the North of Ireland. As we got out on the ocean I grew sea-sick, and for a few days I was just in misery; having to attend the children yet hardly able to raise my head. The ship’s provisions were scanty and very bad, which did not matter much to us, for we had taken a good deal with us, but the poor Irish, who had brought nothing, were always wanting to borrow, and as we, not having more than enough to serve ourselves, had to refuse, they abused us for being proud, and tried to pick quarrels, but both the Scotch and English of us kept our tempers and gave them no offence. Their jealousy and ill-feeling grew, and one morning they banded together to prevent our getting hot water at the galley. This we could not stand, for the water was bad and only fit to drink when boiled and made into tea or gruel. The captain refused to interfere, being afraid, we thought, of having trouble with the Kerry men, and when we told the mate he only swore at our lads for a cowardly lot of sheep-tenders. When dinner-time came, our men got out their crooks, and, going quietly on deck, formed in a column and, laying about them right and left, cleared a road to the galley. There were fearful threats made, but nothing came of them, and after that we were respected and left alone.
The ship made little headway owing to the wind keeping in the west, and it was on the eighth day of our voyage that it became known to us that a woman, who had been sick for some time, was ill of the fever. On that day she got delirious and her people could not hide the truth longer. Four of the oldest men of our party were sent to tell the captain. He made light of their news and said they were mistaken about the disease, but he refused to come and see the woman or to erect a partition across the hold to separate us from the rest of the passengers. We took his treatment sore to heart. When ship-owners get his passage-money, they don’t care what becomes of the poor emigrant, and would just as soon he would die on the voyage as land him. We went to sleep that night sad and frightened, for we knew, by reading the papers, what ship-fever meant. Well, next day the woman was worse, and on the evening of the third she died. We were all anxious that the corpse should be buried at once, so that the infection might not be spread by it, and two of our folk, taking some things that might be useful in preparing the body, went over to where it lay to advise that that be done. The poor creatures got angry at once, and drove them back, and cursed us for a set of heretics, who would put the decent woman out of sight without waking her. They laid the corpse on top of some chests in the centre of the ship, surrounded it by candles, and then the keening began, which drove me nearly into hysterics. The captain, hearing what was going on, sent down a keg of rum, and made matters worse. Towards morning, when the drink had taken effect, they began to quarrel, and the noise and confusion was terrible. There being no partition, we could see the whole length of the hold, with the rows of berths on either side, and towards the far end, in the middle of the ship, was the white heap formed by the corpse and lighted by candles, with the women sitting around it, wailing in the most unearthly way, and taking no heed of the men and children who swarmed outside of them, talking, shouting, pushing, and fighting. A candle was knocked down and there was a cry of fire, but an old woman smothered it with her cloak. As we could not sleep, and were afraid they might come to our end of the ship and give us trouble, we went on deck to wait till all was over. It was a cold, raw morning, with not enough of wind to keep the ship from pitching, but anything was better than being below. When the eight o’clock bell struck, the Irish came swarming up, bearing the corpse. They rested it awhile by the bulwarks, when all, even to the smallest child, fell on their knees in prayer. Then it was lifted over and let drop into the ocean. The sailors would not help, keeping by themselves on the forecastle, for they were afraid of the infection. As four days passed without a new case, we were beginning to hope the danger was passed, but on the fifth three children took ill, and before the week was done there were 17 down. After that the disease had its own way, and deaths became so frequent that it was impossible to hold wakes. We pitied the poor creatures, and gave more than we could spare to help them. The worst want of the sick was water and though it smelt so that a horse would not have touched it and not worth the saving, for there was plenty on board such as it was, the captain would not order that the allowance be increased, but he encouraged the steward to sell liquor, in the profit of which he shared. I cannot begin to tell you of the scenes we had to endure; it was of God’s mercy that they did not take away our senses. If the ship was dirty before the fever broke out, it was worse now, and the smell, as you stepped from the deck, was like to knock you down. None of our folk, with one sorrowful exception, took the disease, which was not considered strange by the Irish, for they accounted the taking away of the sick, especially of the young, as a sign of favor by the saints, who carried them to glory. The exception was my husband. When about to raise a tin of tea to his lips one morning, he saw a child looking at him from her berth with such entreating eyes, that he went over and held the vessel to the girl’s mouth. When she was satisfied, he drank what was left. Three days after he complained of a racking headache, which was followed by a chill, after that the fever set in. Just because he was such a lusty man the disease went hard with him, and on the tenth day of his illness I saw there was no hope. It was in the afternoon as I sat by him, listening to his ravings, that he suddenly sat up, and pointing to the shaft of sunshine that poured down the hatchway into the dark and loathsome hold, he said, “It fa’s on the Cheviots and glints on the Tweed e’noo; let me bask in’t once mair.” We carried him over and laid him in the sunlight. The delirium left him, and a sweet smile came to his face. “Hae ye onything to say?” I whispered in his ear. “No, Mailie,” he answered softly, “I am quite happy an’ feel the grip o’ my Saviour’s han’: God will be wi’ you and the bairns.” He never opened his een mair, but the smile lingered on his lips until the sun began to sink, and as he felt the glow leave his cheek, he muttered, “It’s growin’ late and the nicht will be ower cauld for the lammies; I’ll ca’ the ewes frae the knowes,” and so saying he slipped awa wi’ the Great Shepherd o’ the Sheep to the lown valley and the still waters. Though my sorrow was like to rive my head, I kept my composure, for there was work to be done, and nothing can excuse neglect of duty. I prepared him for burial, and when all was ready, an old friend, a brother shepherd of my husband from a boy, gave out the 90th psalm, and when it had been sung, he read the 14th chapter of John, and offered up a most soul-striving prayer, so that, when the corpse was lifted, there was not a dry cheek. We followed as it was carried to the deck. The ship was on the banks of Newfoundland, and the ocean was a dead calm, the new moon lighting up the thin haze of mist that lay upon it. I had wrapped my husband in his plaid, and thrust his crook lengthways through the outer fold. Holding each an end of it, two of the strongest of our men swung the body well out from the ship’s side. As it disappeared I felt that my love for man as wife had gone with it, and such a sense of desolation came over me as words cannot tell.
Five days after we came to quarantine, where the sick were landed, and, just five weeks and two days from the time we left Scotland, we sailed into Quebec harbor. We were a small and heartbroken handful. Our chests had been brought on deck and we sat on them, waiting for the steamer to come alongside that was to carry us to Montreal. None of our folk had asked me what I was going to do, and I knew the reason. It was not that they were unwilling to help me, but because they had more than they could do to mind themselves. They felt for me sore, but they could not take the bite out of their own children’s mouths to give to mine. Indeed, there was hardly one of them who knew what they were going to do, for they had come to Canada to seek new homes on chance. I had had my own thoughts and had marked out what I would try to do.
“There’s the steamer; get yer bairns thegither and I’ll look to yer kists.”
It was a hard-favored man that spoke, a shepherd named Braxton from Cumberland, who all the voyage had hardly said a word. Glad of his help I followed him. He bought milk and bread for us when the steamer called at Three Rivers, but never saying aught until Montreal was in sight.
“What beest thou gaun to do?” he asked. I said I was going to bide in Montreal and try to get something to do. I was strong and had a pair of good hands. He gave a kind of snort.
“Ye canna mak eneugh to keep five bairns; ye’d better come wi’ me.”
“Where till?” I asked.
“I dinna knaw yet, but I’se get lan’ somewhere near and ye’se keep house for me.”
“Are ye a single man?” He nodded. I sat thinking. He was a stranger to me beyond what I had seen of him on the ship. Could I trust him? Here was a home for my children in the meanwhile. For their sake would I do right to refuse the offer? My mind was made up, and I told him I would go with him.
“I canna offer thee wages,” he said.
“I dinna ask any.”
“Very well,” he replied, and no more was said.
By this time they had yoked the steamer to a string of oxen, which helped it up the current into the harbor, and in course of an hour we were in Sandy Shaw’s tavern. In answer to Braxton, the landlord told him of there being bush land easy to be had near to the city. Next day at sunrise he left to see it, and it was after dark on the third day when he came back. He had got a lot on the Chateaugay, and we were to start for it early next day. I had the children dressed soon after daylight, and the three youngest rode on the French cart that was hired to take our chests to Lachine. The rest of us followed on foot. It was a fine morning, but very warm, and the road was deep with dust, which the wind raised in clouds like to choke us. When we got to Lachine we were disappointed to find that the ferryboat was unable to leave her wharf owing to the strong wind blowing down the lake and which had raised a heavy sea. We sat on our boxes and spent a weary day, my head being just like to split with the heat and the shouting and jabbering of the bateau men. There were several hundred emigrants waiting besides ourselves, for the Durham boats could not start until the wind changed. We could not get a bite to buy, for the Canadians were afraid of us on account of the fever, and they had reason, for among those waiting were many who had been sick of it, and there were some who were so white and wasted that you would say the hand of death was upon them. Towards sunset the wind fell and the lake got calmer, so the ferry boat started. Her paddles were not driven by a steam-engine but by a pair of horses, which went round and round. It was going to be moonlight, so when we were put off at the Basin, we thought we would push on to Reeves’s, for it would be cooler than to walk next day, and we might thereby catch the canoes Braxton had bespoke. A cart was hired to convey our chests and the younger children, and we set off. We got along very well for about five miles, when we heard distant thunder, and half an hour after the sky was clouded and we saw a storm would soon burst. We knocked at the doors of several houses, but none would let us in. As soon as the habitants saw we were emigrants, they shut the door in our face, being afraid of the fever. When the rain began to fall, the boy who was driving halted beneath a clump of trees by the river-side, and I got under the cart with the children. It just poured for about half an hour and the lightning and thunder were fearful. We were soon wet to the skin, and I felt so desolate and lonesome, that I drew my shawl over my head, and, hugging my youngest child to my bosom, had a good cry. Those born here cannot understand how castdown and solitary newcomers feel. For months after I came, the tear would start to my eye whenever I thought of Scotland. Well, the storm passed, and the moon came out bright in a clear sky. It was much cooler, but the roads were awful, and we went on, slipping at every step or splashing through mud-holes. Had I not been so much concerned about the children, I could never have got through that night; helping and cheering them made me forget my own weariness. It was getting to be daylight when the cart at last stopped in front of a long stone house, in which there was not a soul stirring, though the doors were all open. The boy pointed us to where the kitchen was and turned to unyoke his horse. I found four men sleeping on the floor, who woke up as we went in. They were French and very civil, giving up the buffaloes they had been sleeping upon for the children. I sat down on a rocking-chair, and fell at once asleep. The sound of somebody stamping past woke me with a start. It was the master of the house, a lame man, whom I found out after to be very keen but honest and kind in his way. It was well on in the day, and breakfast was on the table. I was so tired and sore that I could hardly move. Braxton came in and asked if we were able to go on, for the canoes would be ready to start in an hour. I was determined he should not be hindered by me, so I woke up the children, washed and tidied them as I best could, and then we had breakfast, which did us a deal of good. There were two canoes, which were just long flat boats, with two men in each to manage them. Our baggage and ourselves were divided equally between them, and we started, everything looking most fresh and beautiful, but the mosquitoes were perfectly awful, the children’s faces swelling into lumps, and between them and the heat they grew fretful. For a long way after leaving Reeves’s there were breaks in the bush that lined the river banks—the clearances of settlers with shanties in front—but they grew fewer as we went on, until we would go a long way without seeing anything but the trees, that grew down to the water’s edge. Getting round the rapids was very tiresome, and it was late in the day when the men turned the canoes into a creek and pulled up alongside its west bank. This was our lot and where we were to stay. Placing our boxes so as to form a sort of wall, the canoemen felled some small cedars for a roof, and, lighting a fire, they left us. I watched the boats until they were out of sight and the sound of their paddles died away, and then felt, for the first time, what it is to be alone in the backwoods. There was so much to do that I had no time to think of anything, and the children were happy, everything being new to them. The kettle was put on and tea made, and we had our first meal on our farm—if you had seen it, with the underbrush around us so thick that we could not go six rods, you would have said it never could be made a farm.
We slept that night under our cover of cedar bushes and slept sound. In the morning Braxton and my oldest boy started down the track, for it was no road, that followed the bank of the Chateaugay, to see if the settlers below would help to raise a shanty, and while they were gone I did my best to get things into order. For all I had come through, there was lightness in my heart, for there is a freedom and hopefulness in living in the woods that nothing else seems to give one, and I made child’s play of discomforts that would have disheartened me had I been told of them before leaving Scotland. It was nigh noon when Braxton came back. He had been made welcome everywhere, all were glad to have a new neighbor, and the promise given that word would be sent to all within reach to come to a bee next day. After dinner he took the axe and tried his hand at chopping. He began on a tree about half a foot thick and was nicking it all round, we looking on and admiring.
“Ye’ll kill somebody with that tree,” said a voice behind us, and turning, to our astonishment we saw a tall woman, in a poke-bonnet, looking on. Explaining that it was necessary to know how a tree would fall, she pointed how any direction could be secured by the way it was chopped, and, seizing the axe, she showed how, and, under her strokes, the first tree fell amid the shouts of the children. She was the wife of our nearest neighbor, and, on hearing of our arrival, had come over to see us, “Being real glad,” as she said, “to have a woman so near.” She stayed an hour, and after finding out all about us, showed me how to do a great many things needful in bush-life. Among the rest, how to make a smudge to protect us from the mosquitoes, which was a real comfort.
Next morning six men came and spent the day in clearing space for the shanty and in making logs for it. The day after, Braxton with two of the men went to Todd’s to buy boards and rafted them down the river. On the third day the raising took place, and that night, though it was not finished, we slept in it, and proud we were, for the house as well as the land was our own. It was quite a while before Braxton could finish it, for there was more pressing work to do, and for a month and more our only door was a blanket. The fire was on the hearth with an open chimney made of poles covered with clay. And here I must tell of my first trial at baking. We had brought a bag of flour and, once established in our shanty, I resolved to make a loaf. As you know, in Scotland there is no baking of bread in the houses of the commonality, and though nobody could beat me at scones or oat cake, I had never seen a loaf made. I thought, however, there was no great knack about it. I knew hops were needed, and sent one of my boys with a pail to borrow some from my neighbor, who sent it back half full. I set to work, and after making a nice dough I mixed the hops with it, and moulded a loaf, which my oldest son, who had seen the process while visiting round, undertook to bake. He put it into a Dutch oven, or chaudron, and heaping hot ashes over it, we waited for an hour, when the chaudron was taken out and the cover lifted. Instead of a nice, well-raised loaf, there was at the bottom of it a flat black cake. “Maybe it will taste better than it looks,” says I, thrusting a knife at it, but the point was turned, and we found our loaf to be so hard that you could have broken it with a hammer. And the taste! It was bitter as gall. Well, that was a good lesson to me, and I was not above asking my neighbors after that about matters on which I was ignorant.
No sooner had shelter been provided for us, than we all turned to with hearty will to clear up a bit of land. My boys were a great help, and the oldest got to be very handy with the axe, which was well, for Braxton never got into the right hang of using it, and spent double the strength in doing the same work my boy did. There is quite an art in chopping. It was exhausting work clearing up the land, being quite new to us and the weather very hot. Often had Braxton to lay down his axe and bathe his head in the creek, but he never stopped, working from dawn to darkening, and when it was moonlight still longer. I helped to brush and log, as much to encourage my boys to work as for all I could do. When ready to burn, three neighbors came to show us how to do it and, the logs being large and full of sap, it was a slow and laborious job. The men looked like Blackamoors, being blacker than any sweeps, from smoke and the coom that rubbed off the logs, while the sweat just rolled down them, owing to the heat of the fires and the weather. We came on to our lot on the 29th of May and it was well on in June when the remains of the logs were handspiked out of the way and the ground was kind of clear between the stumps on half an acre. In the ashes we planted potatoes, and a week after, when a bit more land was taken in, we put in a few more. This done, we turned to make potash. Except along the creek there was no timber on our lot fit for making ashes but on its banks there was a fine cut of swale elm. The chopping of the trees was the easiest part of the work, the getting of the logs together and burning them being difficult, the underbrush being very thick and we so short of help in handling the felled trees. A neighbor showed us how to make a plan-heap and skid logs, but from inexperience we did not work to much advantage that summer. We, however, wrought with a will and kept at it, even my youngest, Ailie, helping by fetching water to drink. Young people nowadays have no idea of what work is, and I don’t suppose that one in twenty of them would go through what their fathers and mothers did. Although it was a dry summer, the banks of the creek were soft, so our feet were wet all the time and we had to raise the heaps on beds of logs to get them to burn. Our first lot of ashes we lost. Before they could be lifted into the leaches, a thunderstorm came on and in a few minutes the labor of a fortnight was spoiled. After that, we kept them covered with strips of bark.
The neighbors were very kind. They had little and had not an hour to spare, but they never grudged lending us a hand or sharing with us anything we could not do without. There was no pride or ceremony then, and neighbors lived as if they were one family. One of them who had a potash kettle lent it to us, and it was fetched on a float or sort of raft, which was pushed up the creek as far as it would go. Then the kettle was lifted out and carried by main strength, suspended on a pole. We had thought the chopping, the logging, and the burning bad enough, (the carrying of water to the leaches and the boiling of the lye was child’s play) but the melting of the salts was awful. Between the exertion in stirring, the heat of the sun and of the fire, flesh and blood could hardly bear up. How we ever managed I do not know, unless it was by keeping at it and aye at it, but on the first week of October we had filled a barrel with potash, and Reeves took it away in one of his canoes and sold it in town for us, on the understanding that we were to take the pay out of his store. He made thus both ways, and everything he kept was very dear. I have paid him 25 cents a yard for common calico and a dollar a pound for tea. We could not help ourselves just then.
I should have told you our potatoes grew wonderfully. There is a warmth in newly-burned land or a nourishment in ashes, I don’t know which, that makes everything grow on new land far beyond what they do elsewhere. The frost held off well that fall, and we lifted our crop in good order, except a few that were very late planted, which did not ripen properly. When we landed on our lot, Braxton used his last dollar to pay the canoemen, and I had just 15 shillings left after paying the boards we got at Todd’s mill, so all we had to put us over until another crop would be raised, was the potatoes and what we could make out of potash. We were in no way discouraged. The work was slavish, but we were working for ourselves in making a home; the land was our own, and every day it was improving. The children took to the country and its ways at once and were quite contented. We were cheerful and hopeful, feeling we had something to work for and it was worth our while to put up with present hardship. I remember a neighbor’s wife, who was always miscalling Canada and regretting she had come to it, being satisfied with nothing here. She said to her husband one day, in my hearing, “In Scotland you had your two cows’ grass and besides your wage sae muckle meal and potatoes, and we were bien and comfortable; but you wad leave, and dae better, and this is your Canada for you!” “Can you no haud your tongue, woman,” he replied, “we hae a prospect here, and that is what we hadna in Scotland.” That was just it, we had a prospect before us that cheered us on to thole our hardships.
I counted not the least of the drawbacks of the bush, the lack of public ordinances. There was no church to go to on Sabbath, and the day was spent in idleness, mostly in visiting. Sometimes the young men went fishing or hunting, but that was not common in our neighborhood, where the settlers respected it as a day of rest, though without religious observance of any kind. Accustomed from a child to go to kirk regularly in Scotland, I felt out of my ordinary as each Sabbath came round. To be sure, I taught the children their catechism and we read the story of Joseph and the two books of Kings before the winter set in, but that did not satisfy me. The nearest preaching was at South Georgetown, and tho’ I heard no good of the minister I wanted to go. Somehow, something aye came in the way every Sabbath morning I set. At last, it was after the potatoes had been lifted and the outdoor work about over one Sabbath morning in October, a canoe, on its way down, stopped to leave a message for us. This was my chance, and getting ready I and my two oldest children went, leaving the others in charge of Braxton, and, for a quiet man, he got on well with children, for he was fond of them. I remember that sail as if it were yesterday—the glow of the hazy sunlight, the river smooth as a looking-glass, in which the trees, new clad in red and yellow claes, keeked at themselves, and the very spirit of peace seemed to hover in the air. Oh it was soothing, and I thought over all I had come through since I left Scotland. Tho’ I could not help thinking how different it had been with me six months before, yet my heart welled up as I thought of all the blessings showered on me and mine and thanked God for his goodness. It was late when we came in sight of the church, for the sound of singing told us worship had begun. Dundee was the tune, and as the voices came softly over the water my heart so melted within me to hear once again and in a strange land the psalmody of Scotland that I had to turn away my head to greet. Stepping ashore where the church stood on the river bank, we went quietly in. It was a bare shed of a place, with planks set up for seats, and there were not over thirty present. The minister was a fresh-colored, presentable enough man, and gave a very good sermon, from the 11th chapter of Second Corinthians. While he was expatiating on what the apostle had suffered, something seemed to strike him, and he said, “Aye, aye, Paul, ye went through much but you never cut down trees in Canada.” He spoke feelingly, for he had to work like the rest of his neighbors to earn his bread. One end of the church was boarded off, and in it he and his wife lived. I will say no more about Mr McWattie, for his failing was notorious. When worship was over, it was a great treat to mix with the folk. That I did not know a soul present made no difference, for all were free then and I made friendships that day that have lasted to this. When he heard that I was from the south of Scotland, Mr Brodie would take no refusal and I had to go with him across the river to his house, where we had dinner, and soon after set out to walk home. People now-a-days think it a hardship to walk a mile to church, but I knew many then who went four or five, let the weather be what it might. It was dark before we got home, and that night there was a frost that killed everything. The weather kept fine, however, until December, and we had no severe cold until the week before New Year.
I cannot think of anything out of the common that first winter. Our neighbors wrought at chopping cordwood to raft to Montreal in the spring, but Braxton could not, for he had no oxen to draw the wood to the river-bank, so we went on enlarging our clearance