HomeMy WebLinkAbout549"Hardbound book, 21 x 28.5 cm, 13 pages, prepared by Miss Elizabeth Richardson for
presentation to the Pickering Swastika Club,* December 4, 1934.
*In 1937 the name was changed to Pickering Woman's Club."
"PIONEER YEARS IN PICKERING
prepared by Miss Elizabeth Richardson
for presentation to the Pickering Swastika Club'
December 4, 1934
*In 1937 the name was changed to Pickering Women's Club,
"
"In consideration of this subject, we must go back thro' the years to a world and a way of
life utterly different from our own.
We have only a few records of the earliest pioneer years in this district,
and such as we have are brief and incomplete. But much is transmitted from each
generation to the one following, and we do have a picture of those days,
even tho' it may be somewhat dimmed by the passage of time. And the story is one of such
courage and endurance under almost unbelievable hardships and privations that we may
justly be proud of it.
To begin, then, with the first occurrence in this Township of which we have any record,
about 275 years ago.
Here stood a dense forest, thro' which the Indians roamed, with a trail running from East to
West, where our No. 2 highway stretches out, and following the curve of the lake
(as does our highway) to their village called Teyoyagon (later York and now Toronto)
which meant in their language ""a place of meeting"". Other trails converged here also,
notably one from the far North.
At Frenchman's Bay was another Indian village called Gandatsetiagon, and here in the
winter of 1669-70 two Roman Catholic priests of a Jesuit order conducted a school among
the Indians, and secured quite a number of converts to their faith.
This was part of a wide-spread missionary effort of the Roman Catholic Church to
Christianize the Indians.
At Frenchman's Bay then, is the site of the first school in the Province of Ontario.
From this time, about 120 years passed before this part of the Province was again
invaded by the white man, but this time he had come to stay.
In the later years of the 18th century, settlers to the number of about 20,000 were
established in some other parts of the Province which was then called Upper Canada.
But on account of the great difficulty of travel thro' the woods these settlements were all
along the banks of waterways — the St. Lawrence River, Bay of Quinte, and the Niagara
and St. Clair Rivers. There was a tiny
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"village and a fort at York, another at Kingston, and almost a necessity — perhaps a
couple of pigs, or sheep or a cow.
The Indians in this district, who were of the Seneca tribe, appeared friendly to the settler
who ventured into the wilderness to chop out a little clearing and with the logs to build a tiny
cabin, chinked with mud and covered with bark, or troughs made of logs, for roofing.
It is unfortunate that circumstances forced the settler to burn great piles of wonderful logs of
pine and oak, in order to clear the land for cultivation.
Some of these little clearings were miles apart, and the only path between them,
a blazed track thro' the woods, which was at first only a foot-path, but was later widened
to a wagon track, when ox-carts and sleds could be used.
In later years a horse-drawn lumber wagon was the newest thing in the way of travel.
Each log house had of necessity its fire-place, with a kettle for cooking, hung on a crane
above the fire. And bread was baked in pans set among the coals and ashes.
Their furniture was of very crude construction, home-made, as was their clothing.
It was almost impossible in those early days to procure shoes,
and when deerskin could be secured, moccasins were a substitute.
A gun and an axe were a necessary part of every settler's equipment.
At one time in the very early days, this whole community boasted only one needle and it
was a darning needle. And with this, a woman named Charity Webster made a pair of
wedding trousers for a young man in the neighbourhood. Another incident is that of a
pioneer woman, who walked, with her three young sons from the 7th Concession of
Pickering to Port Whitby to procure six kitchen chairs, and carried them home.
It would seem that the women of those early days, as well as the men, were of strong
character as well as sturdy physique; and made of sterner stuff than most of their
descendants of to-day.
But while the work of clearing the land was very hard and
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"laborious, our settlers found it not too hard to make a living, such as it was.
Our little river teemed with salmon and until the advent of Mr. Duffin,
was called by the French ""La riviere Saumon."" Wild rice grew in some marshy places, and in the woods was plenty of meat and wild fowl for the hunting. And there were always more than enough logs to burn in their big fire-places, the light from which was sometimes their only light.
The soil here was exceedingly rich, and a very little cultivation, practically on the surface,
with a home-made wooden harrows or drag, produced abundant crops.
During the earliest years the corn or wheat was beaten out in a hollow hard wood stump,
or carried to York on the settler's back or taken by boat to Port Hope, to be ground.
The early settlement of this district was attended with some danger as well as hardship
and loneliness. There was always the possibility that a bear might loom up unexpectedly,
and there was a constant danger of becoming lost in the woods by straying from the blazed
track. Tin horns were much in use for the settler to sound an alarm in an emergency;
and a series of signals were arranged, to indicate when all was well.
A man might be forced up a tree in winter cold, and sorely need help.
But when the snow lay deep in the woods, and sometimes could be heard the baying of a
hungry wolf pack, then the settler would bar his door and be thankful for a safe shelter and
the warmth of his fireside.
Duffin's Creek was so named, as has been indicated, because an Irishman named Duffin
lived in very early times (we have no date) in a cabin near the East bank of the Creek on
the North side of the Kingston Road. Unlike most of the settlers Duffin was not interested in
farming but he did have his potato patch, and there was plenty of fish in the creek and meat
and wild fowl in the woods. He was a hospitable soul and gave a warm welcome and true
Irish hospitality to the chance traveller who came along. Whisky was 25 cents a quart and
whether some was included in his hospitality we do not know. One day a traveller knocked
at his
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"door and receiving no response, entered the cabin, to find it empty, and blood-stains on
the floor. And from that day ""Duffin"" has been only a name. But for long over a century the
little river has borne his name, and the village was called Duffin's Creek for 50 years.
An effort was made, probably in the 1820's, to call the creek ""The Meander"" and the tiny
village ""Monodelphia,"" but nothing came of it. And in the 1850's the village was called
""Canton"" for a time. But popular opinion gradually swung to ""Pickering""; and the name
was officially confirmed when we became the ""Police Village of Pickering"" in 1900.
Now to return to our records —
By the year 1804 enough settlers had come in, to organize a Township Council, with all the
necessary officers, including fence-viewers and a pound keeper — these two apparently
the most important, as their by-laws deal almost exclusively with the matter of animals
running at large, and the erection of suitable fences to keep them in, or out as the case
might be. Year after year the bylaw is confirmed that ""Hogs is not to be free commoners.
"" And a later one provided that any hog at large must wear a yoke, or poke around its neck,
of a prescribed size to keep it from getting thro' fences. ""A pig in a poke"" is a common
saying, but these people really had them.
This continued to be a burning question for about 20 years, until in 1824 a by-law to sum
up the whole matter, reads as follows: ""That any unruly creature of any description either
horse, cow, bull, mully, or young creature of any sort or size, shall not be a free commoner
but shall be liable to be taken up and put in the pound by any person, either man or woman
or boy; and the owner shall pay all damages, poundage and costs, whether said creature
was found doing damage or not.""
By the year 1809 this Township had a total population of 187 persons, including children.
But the following year, in 1810, a considerable immigration took place when Timothy
Rogers of Vermont, a member of the Society
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"of Friends, secured from the government sufficient land for about 40 families,
Quakers mostly from Vermont, who settled just South and East of the village.
Timothy Rogers built a grist-mill here in the same year, which must have been a great
relief to the settlers who had been carrying their bags of grain for many miles.
He also gave a piece of land to the Friends for the erection of a meeting-house,
on the site now owned by the Masonic Lodge.
Immediately upon their arrival the Friends began to hold their religious meetings or
Church Services, and many others met with them until considerably later,
when Churches of their own denomination were organized. But before this time
various itinerant ministers travelled long distances to visit or hold services in the homes
of members of their Church.
The war of 1812-13-14 completely checked all immigration from the U.S.A. and settlement
appeared to be at a stand-still. Because of ill feeling engendered by the war,
some American settlers left their farms and returned to the U.S.; and some of this land was
confiscated under what was then known as the Alien Act, creating wide-spread discontent
for years afterward. Scarcely was peace restored when our pioneers were faced with the
summerless year of 1816. Spring began in the normal way and planting was done as usual.
But in June it began to snow; and until the following Spring, every month had snow or killing
frosts. There was no harvest. They had no flour and no vegetables, and the people lived on
meat — venison, ground-hog and porcupine, perhaps varied with some thin beef where
there was no hay to keep the cattle alive thro' the winter.
Some hay was sent from Ireland, but its price of $45 a ton was prohibitive for most of the
settlers.
It is heartening to learn that the next year was a particularly good season and some settlers
came in from Nova Scotia bringing with them some seed potatoes, which saved the potato
situation here. These potatoes had a blue point and Ontario people called them blue-noses.
And from their potatoes the name passed to the Nova Scotians themselves.
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"But before many years the extreme hardships of the very early days became a thing of the
past. Every member of the family worked to make the home self-sustaining. As has been
said, they were a sturdy industrious people, and the women developed great skill with their
spinning wheels, needles and knitting needles when such became available.
Even by the 1820's the long narrow strip along the lake-front became a place of what was
then considered comfortable living. But until after 1820 there were no schools,
no post-office nearer than Hamar's Corners, no doctor nearer than York,
no nursing services except what they could do for one-another,
and medicines were mostly concoctions of herbs, in the preparation of which some of the
women became very skilful.
The first considerable immigration from overseas began during the 1820's,
induced probably by depressed conditions in Great Britain and Ireland,
following the Napoleonic wars, and failure of the potato crop in Ireland.
And quite a large number of Irish Friends were attracted to this little settlement where
already some of their faith were established, thus making the South-East part of this
Township predominantly a Quaker Settlement. Quite a number of Scotch and English
immigrants came a few years later. The Scotch settlement being mainly about Dunbarton
and the English more to the North and West.
The voyage across the Atlantic was made in sailing vessels, which took anywhere from 5
to 13 weeks to make the crossing. Most of the travellers landed at Quebec, then came by
small steamers to Montreal, or perhaps as far as Cobourg. If stage-coaches were running
at that time, the rest of the journey may have been by stage-coach. But in the Spring and fall,
or during a rainy spell, the Kingston Road was ""a bottomless sea of mud."" Frequently the
coach would become bogged down in the mud and the passengers forced to alight and
help to pry it out, by means of hand-spikes or rails.
With the advent of a regular coach line, somewhere in the 1830's, taverns were soon in
evidence every few miles. Duffin's Creek appears never to have had less than three,
which did a
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"roaring business in their bar-rooms at least. While there was a majority of sober-minded
people in this district, there was also a rough hard-drinking element, which caused some to
call the Village, ""Ruffians' Creek"".
By the late (18)20's some of the hastily built log-houses and sheds were being replaced by
frame houses and barns. The clearings were larger and closer together and there was
more opportunity for social activity. The settlers had their logging bees and barn raisings.
Sometimes there would be a quilting in the afternoon with a husking bee for the young folks
in the evening. At these the young men and girls sat in a circle alternately on the barn floor;
and as the husking proceeded a game of forfeits was usually carried on at the same time.
A boy who husked a red ear was entitled to take a kiss from the girl beside him.
There were also many parties and sleighing parties; the young people in their homemade
clothing of rough woollen cloth perhaps more happy than ours of to-day with all their luxuries.
Thro' years of experience each pioneer family had learned to be self-contained.
Because there was so little market for food they had an abundance.
The smoke-house had its cured hams and bacon.
They were skilled in making cheese and stored quantities of it,
and every house-wife dried all available foods for winter use.
Their sugar was made in moulds or blocks from maple sap,
their candles from mutton tallow, their starch from potatoes, their medicines from herbs.
Bear's grease was a popular dressing for the hair, and dyes were made of various barks
of trees. And every man was his own carpenter, blacksmith and architect.
It is probable that there was nothing worthy of the name of (the) village here until sometime
in the 30's. But with the growing importance of the Kingston Road it began to take form.
A tiny village at first close to the creek, it grew Eastward up the hill.
A post-office for Duffin's Creek was opened in 1829, with Francis Leys as postmaster.
This was on the Kingston Road half a mile East of our Church St. Corner.
Mr. Leys kept the only store
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"in the place for some time, and there the post-office remained for 24 years.
In 1853 the post-office was removed to the West end of the village,
at the East corner of Elizabeth St. and the Kingston Road, where it remained until 1897.
But the prosperous years of the 1830's were shadowed by political events.
The struggle for responsible government was being hampered by the unjust actions of the
Governor and an irresponsible Executive Council, known as the Family Compact,
who earned that title by giving all lucrative government positions to their relatives and
friends. This together with the fact that the clergy reserves, which kept so much of the land
from settlement, had not yet been secularized, caused open rebellion in 1837.
Pickering Township had many advocates for the cause of freedom and secret meetings
were held throughout the Township, some with William Lyon Mackenzie as the fiery
speaker.
When action was finally taken in an uprising or rebellion, a Pickering man, Peter Matthews,
an active member in the Councils of the Township, was captain of a company in the action
at Montgomery's Tavern, North of Toronto. Here the rebels were defeated, and while many
escaped into the woods, some were taken by government troops, Peter Matthews being
among them. He was later hanged as a traitor, with Captain George Lount, at Toronto.
In the light of after events this has been judged an unjust sentence.
Others of the rebels who escaped were forced to live in hiding for a long time,
or make their escape to the United States.
In 1832, this locality in common with all settlements from Quebec Westward suffered a
serious epidemic of cholera. The situation was made worse by the refusal of many lake
and river steamers to operate their vessels; and by the action of people everywhere in
barring their doors against the immigrants then streaming into the country,
who were blamed for bringing in the cholera. Many of these died of exposure and were
hastily buried in unmarked graves. the death toll was very heavy, especially among the
keepers of public houses whose business of entertaining the
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"public doubtless caused them to be more exposed to the disease.
There was one bright spot in a situation which otherwise was one of universal gloom.
While the plague was at its height, a delegation came over from New York to assist the
stricken. The most picturesque figure among them was a doctor, with a beard like that of a
prophet of old, and driving a ramshackle light wagon to which a team of ponies was
attached by rope harness. This doctor made but one request as he journeyed over the
plague-smitten land, that he be shown where the worst cases were to be found,
His remedies were powdered charcoal, maple sugar and lard taken internally;
with lye poultices made from wood ashes and as strong as the patient could stand,
applied externally to relieve cramps.
In no case would this father of mercy accept a fee, but after his service was ended,
a fund raised by public subscription was forced upon him.
Practically nothing is known of school life in the Township until the period of the (18)30's.
It is known that small gatherings of children were under instruction before that time;
but the formal building of school houses and their maintenance began then.
The first school-houses were rough log buildings, crudely chinked and plastered.
No maps, no blackboards, no globes, no modern equipment of any kind.
The desks, always home-made, were usually placed around the walls and the pupils
sat on backless benches facing them. The centre was occupied by a big box stove,
about which sometimes were placed benches for the smaller children.
On those days instruction was largely given by means of fear and a long stick.
A school superintendent is mentioned as early as 1854, and it seems likely that conditions
began to improve about that time. The first brick school-house in Pickering Village was
built in 1867.
While not a pioneer institution here, Pickering College was a continuation of a
co-educational school established by The Society of Friends, near Picton in 1842,
and transferred 35 years later to a new and larger building in Pickering, on what is now
known as
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"Ruddy's hill. It was recognized as one of the foremost educational institutions of its time,
in the Province until the building was destroyed by fire in 1905; and was re-built four years
later at Newmarket.
The 1840's may be remembered by the number of well-constructed churches which were
built during that period.
The oldest church building now in the village is the Anglican church which celebrated its
100th anniversary in 1941.
No record is available of the time when the first frame meeting-house of the Friends was
erected on the site of the present Masonic hall, as all records were lost in the fire which in
1908 destroyed the large brick building which had replaced it. This was re-built by the
Friends the following year.
For many years the Roman Catholics had no Church nearer than Toronto until in 1849 a
frame building was erected for that purpose on the East side of our Station road,
beside their cemetery, to be replaced about 20 years later by the present one for which
Church St. is named.
The first Presbyterian Church here was called ""The Auld Kirk"" and it stood just South of
the present United Church (on Kingston Road). It was built in 1845.
Our town hall was originally a Presbyterian Church, probably of another branch,
and has a date of 1857.
The first Methodist Church in the village, a frame building, stood in what is now the old
cemetery on Elizabeth St. It also was built during the (18)40's, and served until replaced
by their brick one on Main St.
The B.A. Station is the site of yet another Church, a branch of Methodists called Bible
Christians, but its date has disappeared with the building.
And a Salvation Army barracks once stood at the North end of the little street past the
drug store.
Another church of the (18)40's was the Disciple Church, about a mile west of the village,
built of brick, which had a large attendance in its early days. But the building has been
removed
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"and the well-kept little cemetery on the South side of the Highway (at Brock Road)
marks the site.
The 1850's were called the boom years when farms were rapidly being cleared and
prices were good.
The village continued to grow Eastward up the hill and beyond tho' the post office
remained for many years at its old location near the foot of the hill.
The village now boasted a mill, a tannery, a brewery, a carpenter, a doctor,
four stores and two hotels.
The days of real pioneering in Pickering were drawing to a close and may be said to
have ended with building of the Grand Trunk railway in 1856. The inhabitants crowded
along the railway tracks to watch the first train go thro', the beginning of a new era.
* * *
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"The Pioneers
O'er every modern luxury there lies
The shade of ancient hardship. He who flies
Across a continent on wings of gauze
Threads the thin paths of meteors because
His fathers, wingless, earthbound, as they groped
Thro' marsh and jungle, upward gazed and hoped.
The cars that roll so ceaselessly to-day
On velvet wheels along the concrete way
Would find no highways spanning hill and vale
Had not the drudging ox-carts blazed the trail.
Though poverty awaited where the vast,
Stark prairie and horizon met at last
Yet was their goal — how priceless still it seems!
Unhampered freedom and untrammelled dreams.
Hovels are mansions, homesteads broad estates,
And settlements are cities now. The Fates
Caught up their severed flaxen threads and spun
With magic art the patterns they begun —
Caught up chimeric hopes, abandoned schemes,
And made a world more wondrous than their dreams.
The pioneers who broke the virgin soil
Ne'er garnered half the harvest of their toil.
To them the wearing days behind the plow!
To them the aching limb, the sweating brow!
To them the weary seedtime! Others reap
To-day where'er they sowed. To them is — sleep.
Oh, aviation, conquering realms of blue,
A haunting specter flies along with you.
And vague-seen covered wagons bear strange loads
Of ghostly pilgrims down the long, paved roads.
— Miss Elizabeth Richardson
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