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The Community and the Fair: Vankleek Hill, West Hawkesbury Township and the Agricultural Fair, 1900 to 1950 by Dorothy-Jane Smith A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Carleton University Ottawa, Canada ©2011 Dorothy-Jane Smith Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87785-2 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-87785-2 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non­ support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada The Department of History recommends to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs acceptance of the thesis The Community and the Fair: Vankleek Hill, West Hawkesbury Township and the Agricultural Fair, 1900 to 1950 submitted by Dorothy-Jane Smith, B.A. Hons., B.A. in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Bruce S. Elliott, Thesis Supervisor Dominique Marshall, Chair, Department of History Carleton University 13 January 2012 Abstract This study of social networks and representations of community is grounded in a linguistically bifurcated place—West Hawkesbury Township and Vankleek Hill, in Prescott County, Ontario—and focused on one social space, the Vankleek Hill Agricultural Society and Fair prior to 1950. The Society reflected family and economic relations that underlay local social structures, allowing a few Francophones to be leaders even as Anglophones kept majority control. The Society represented the agricultural community as materially modem and progressive, but ignored issues of rural depopulation and marginalization and only slowly accommodated the wider needs of the town. The Board and its captive local press emphasized the masculine elements of the fair in defining rural life. Children were encouraged at the rural school fairs to accept city-based reformers' view of men as sole breadwinners but, like the fair board, they did not ignore the productive value of women's and children's work. ii Acknowledgements This study would not have been possible without the kind help and interested support of a number of key people. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Vankleek Hill and District Historical Society and in particular, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Michelle Landriault, registrar of the Vankleek Hill Museum and Resource Centre. As well, the staff of the Agriculture Canada Library and the Guelph University Archives were always helpful, whether responding to on-line enquiries or pulling out material for on-site research, while the office staff of the Township of Champlain provided a welcoming place to research township records. All the staff of Carleton's History Department were helpful in every way possible, but I must single out Joan White who steered me back onto the right road on a number of occasions. Most importantly, Bruce S. Elliott was a patient and knowledgeable thesis supervisor who pulled the best out of me and out of this project. I also wish to thank my family. Bruce Laforce accepted its constant intrusion into our lives, while Ruth and Tom McLelland gave me a home to come back to each evening while I was working at the Ontario Archives. My sisters, Deanna Krause, Margaret Goldik, and Bette Smith, encouraged me all the way, with Deanna cheerfully driving me around southern Ontario in my quest for archives, and Margaret reviewing my text. My brother, Edward Smith, also reviewed text as well as taking care of a myriad of jobs that were being left undone while I focused on this project. Last, although not last in my heart, I wish to thank my parents, Edward and Mildred Smith. While they are now deceased, they are still alive in memory and it is their stories of their rural childhood that gave me this pathway to explore. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Table of Contents iv List of Figures and Tables v Introduction 1 1. Looking for Community in Place 11 Where is the Community in the Agricultural Fair? 12 Community and Community Dynamics 16 Community in Relationship with Place 22 Framing the Changing World of the Rural Community 31 Sociability, Socialization, the Press and the Fair 37 Conclusion 45 2. Language and Place, Language and Community 46 Settlement and Soil 48 The Nature and Range of Influence: Vankleek Hill as a Central Place 68 Evolving Patterns of Power 78 Making Community Visible: History-Telling and Social Relationships 86 Conclusion 101 3. The Agricultural Society and Rural Community 103 The Idea of the Agricultural Society and Its Early Manifestations in Upper Canada and Prescott County 105 The Vankleek Hill Agricultural Society in the First Half of the Twentieth Century 121 Participation of French-Canadians and Women in the Agricultural Society 134 Conclusion 145 4. Being Rural 147 Socialization, Community and Being Modern in the Face of Rural Decline 152 The Gendered Rural Community and the Agricultural Fair 166 Developing Rural Skills and Rural Pride: Children at the Fair 180 Conclusion 191 Conclusion 193 Appendix A: Notes on Sources and Family Reconstitution 200 Appendix B: Profiles of Officers of the Ottawa District Agricultural Society 208 Appendix C: Profiles of Prescott County Stockbreeders 212 Appendix D: Family Charts 214 Bibliography 217 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Prescott County 50 Figure 2: Prescott County soils, sketch of early road network, 1839, and population trends, 1841 to 1941 (inset: 1839/1843 road map) 53 Figure 3: Settlement of Hawkesbury Township, 1822 59 Figure 4: Settlement of Hawkesbury Township, 1841 59 Figure 5: Settlement of Hawkesbury Township, 1923 60 Figure 6: Population and Commercial / Industrial Establishments, 1870 to 1941 71 Figure 7: Capitalization of Commercial / Industrial Establishments, 1870 to 1941 73 Figure 8 : Range of goods and services available for sale in Hawkesbury, L'Orignal and Vankleek Hill, 1941 75 Figure 9: Origin and Location of 1837 District Agricultural Society Officers 113 Figure 10: Origin and Location of 1844 District Agricultural Society Officers 114 Figure 11: Location of Vankleek Hill Members 1906 to 1930 124 Figure 12: Municipal and Agricultural Society Positions Held 132 Figure 13: Premium Book Cover, 1895 171 List of Tables Table 1: Population and Growth, Prescott County by Township 1820 to 1845 54 Table 2: Population and Ethnicity, Prescott County by Township, 1881 to 1941 61 v 1 Introduction I came to the agricultural fair in a search for a way into community and the rural. How could I see the lines of belonging and identity being drawn in a rural place? And how could I see these processes in places of linguistic diversity in the early years of the twentieth century? To answer these questions, I have grounded this study in a specific geographical place, West Hawkesbury Township and Vankleek Hill in Prescott County, Ontario and a specific social space, the Vankleek Hill Agricultural Society and Fair. In short, I am using the country fair as a pathway into community dynamics. I have approached community by first identifying who controlled the administration of an agricultural fair and distinguishing this group from passive participants: those who might have exhibited once or twice, and those who simply came to look. From this, I will argue that the agricultural society leadership was dominated by overlapping social networks formed from old families, a few leading livestock breeders, and town politicians. These networks included only a few French-Canadian men. To the extent that individuals among the Francophone population had kinship ties into the Anglophone community or economic or political reasons for involvement in township institutions, to that extent the lines of inclusion drew in those individuals. But community is equally about how social networks define the face of a community to its members and to others. This study will argue that the Vankleek Hill Agricultural Society did this within a hegemonic message of modernity and progressiveness. At the same time, traditional gender roles were made visible at the Vankleek Hill Fair in the contradiction between the invisibility of women producers and the visibility of their production. 2 The first agricultural fair was held in Ontario prior to 1800, but the glory years of the fair were from 1840 to World War I.

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