Pioneer Days in London

co PIONEER DAYS IX LONDON Cl. T. CAMPBELL, M.D. AUTHOR Honorary President of the London and Middlesex Historical Society. Pioneer Days in London \ Some Account of Men and Things in London before it became a City By Cl. T. CAMPBELL, M.D. Honorary President of the London & Middlesex Historical Society. PUBLISHED 'BY Advertiser Job Printing Company, London, Canada l 921 F 5547 1135312 Prefatory N PREPARING these sketches for publication, I have drawn freely on papers I have read before the London and Middlesex Historical Society, and on articles written for the press. I have had the advantage of the recollections of some of our pioneers, such as Sir John Carling, Hon. Freeman Talbot, Judge William Elliott, Mr. V. Cronyn, Mr. Thomas Kent, Mr. A. Syden, Mrs. Gilbert Porte, Mrs. Henry Root, the McKenzie of Hyde Park and others. Among the books consulted have been Bremner's "Illustrated London," Goodspeed's "County of Middlesex," Sir James Alexander's "L'Acadie," Sir Richard Bonnycastle's "Canada and the Canadians," Brown's "Canada and the Colonists," Smith's "Gazetteer," etc. I am indebted to Mr. Justice Riddell, of Toronto, the late Judge Hughes of St. Thomas, and Mr. T. H. Purdom, K.C., of London, for information connected with the Bench and Bar. I have endeavored as far as possible to verify every statement made, and thus give a correct record of the early days of London. Such as it is, this book is given to the public in the hope that it will create greater respect for the past, greater pride in the present, and greater expecta- tion for the future. Cl. T. C. London, May 1, 1921. Contents PAGE Prefatory 9 After The Glacier 13 The Colonizers 17 The Founding of London 22 District Officers 26 The First Settlers 29 At the Forks 34 Pioneer Churches 37 More About Churches 42 Schools and Schoolmasters 46 Newspapers and Libraries 51 Social Life 55 Pistols for Two 60 Pioneer Politicians 63 Gentlemen of the Long Robe 74 Old-Time Doctors 81 Some of the Builders 89 The Postal Service 97 Transportation 101 Troublous Times 105 Military Matters 112 Village Government 117 London Town.... ....122 I After the Glaciers CERTAIN author, under- fy kfa to write the his- f taking ftsssfa tory of his native town, M '/MM. commenced with the creation of the world. I may follow his example to some extent though with a difference. He placed the date of the Creation at 4004 B.C., according to the com- putation of the learned Archbishop Usher. But modern geology places that important event ages upon ages earlier. I will not go back as far as the Creation, but stop some 50,000 years ago. An inhabitant of Mars at that time, supposing Mars to have been inhabited, and possessing telescopes of longer range than ours, might have looked upon the earth and seen a vast cap of ice covering the northern part of this continent stretching Governor Simcoe southward over Canada and the State of Ohio, and of a thickness that none can estimate. Then, after centuries of winter, summer began to dawn. The solid ice began to melt; the water to flow off south; and gradually the dry land to appear. It is assumed by some geologists that, so far as this province is concerned, the London district was the first to peep up above the surface of the engulfing waters. Now great lakes appeared, and vast floods of water coursed over the land, carrying huge boulders of rock, and bergs of ice the beginnings of rivers that are but tiny streams to-day. Such a one flowed along the bed of our modern Thames. As you travel by the Grand Trunk Railway between Ingersoll and Woodstock, looking from the car window you can see away off to the South, the southern bank of the great river that has dwindled down to the little streamlet now flowing through the valley. Then come to London, and stand on the Court House bank, and imagine what happened when two great masses of water met head-on, like railway trains in a collision, swirling around in a huge cauldron, scooping out the hollow where now live the people of London West; then flying off westward in a united stream, winding around clay hills, linking up little lakes, until reaching the less resistant soil of Kent county it cuts its way in a canal-like channel to the lake justifying the name given it by the early French voyageurs of La Tranche the Trench. it PIO.\E/-:R DA vs i\ LOXDOX So in the course of centuries, the waters abated, and the dry land came into view; vegetation began, forests slowly arose and animal life came up from more southern climes. Then at last came man -the Indian inhabited the land. Of his origin we know little, but speculate much. The Hurons have a tradition that they had their beginning in a hole in the north bank of the St. Lawrence river. That sounds as good as some of the theories advanced by more learned men some of whom place the original habitat of this tribe in the regions north of the St. Lawrence. But whether they began in a hole or on the surface only takes us part of the way. Where did the beginners themselves come from? And here we are in an impasse, and had better let the subject drop. When the conquering white man came in the seventeenth century he found the Hurons occupying the northern part of this province; in New York state were the rival nations, the Iroquois; while along the southern peninsula of Ontario, from Niagara to (oderich dwelt the Attiwondiras, or Neutrals, as the French called them, because in the wars between the Hurons and Iroquois they managed to keep out of the fight for many years. They seem to have been a peaceful people, numbering according to the early French missionaries some 12,000, settled in about 3(i fortified villages. These villages were usually located on some of the small tributaries of the main rivers. Through the south-western peninsula the valley of the Thames was doubtless the highway of travel for Indian parties going east or west and the cautious Neutrals kept their villages more in the background. The nearest to the present site of London seems to have been on lot 20, con. 4, of the township of London, on the farm ol Miss Shaw-Wood. Many of the Indian villages became the seats ot mission stations, some of which have been identified. This has been rather a difficult task, because the good fathers in their reports ot their work were not very particular in indicating their line of travel or the villages where they located. And village and mission station have long since ceased to exist. The struggles between the Iroquois and the Hurons ended in the extermination of the latter, and about the middle of the 17th century the Neutrals met the same fate. The conquering Iroquois swept over the southern peninsula, and thenceforth it became only a hunting ground for wandering tribes. Meanwhile the voyageur and explorer were not idle. La Salle, Hennepin, Joliet, Xicolet, Marquette, and others, both priests and laymen, were wandering westward, and mapping out the land. Across the western peninsula only the trapper and the trader blazed their way, doubtless along the valley of the Thames. But of these there is no record, and no permanent settlements were made. The first time the sound of a voice speaking the English language was heard in this vicinity so far as we have any reasonable authority, was when Lord Edward Fitzgerald tripped it across the peninsula in 1789, though there may have been a few wandering pioneers before that time of whom nothing is known to-day. Fitzgerald was a AFTER THE GLACIERS 15 young Irish officer in the British army who made a tour of America from Halifax to Niagara thence to Detroit, up to Mackillimackinack; south to the Mississippi, and to New Orleans. In this long journey there must have been ample opportunity to gain information. But if he saw much, he said little, and wrote little. His letters to his people, gathered up by his biographer the poet Moore are devoid of anything of value. As an example, we learn from them that in the pleasant month of June he left Niagara going westward, touching at Brant's settlement, then on to about where Woodstock is; here he got a boat, and went down the river to Detroit. In this trip of about 250 miles, the only thing he saw worth remembering or recording was the beauty of the dusky maidens he met at an Indian Pow-wow. Just like an impressionable young Irishman! It was about this time that the addition of a large number of English-speaking immigrants to the population of Canada gave rise to considerable confusion in the administration of the affairs of the colony. So the British Government adopted the expedient of dividing it into two Upper and Lower Canada each province with its Lieutenant-Governor, and a Governor-General over all. Lord Dorchester held the latter position, while Col. John Graves Simcoe was appointed to take charge of Upper Canada. He was a British officer, who had served in the Revolutionary war. He had no love for the Yankees and looked forward to another war. His first object, therefore, was to see about the defences of his province. On his way to Upper Canada, in December, of 1791, he studied all the maps he could find in the Surveyor's office in Montreal, and came to the conclusion that La Tranche was a big water way, and that some- where along its course he would find a central spot that would suit him for the site of a capital.

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