Tenants and Troopers

TENANTS AND TROOPERS WTWm land farmers took matters into their own Poor Doucette . his sooty forge shall never again . resound to the music of the hammer By Peter McGuigan hands, dismissing traditional associa- and the anvil These harmonious sounds will tions with Liberals or Conservatives. never more... gladden the wife's heart; and the The germ of a new movement was helpless family, within whose circle peace and planted in local meetings such as that plenty once reigned, will be cast upon the cold In 1767, 66 of the Island's 67 townships charity of the world. had been lotteried to people with claims held in the small schoolhouse at Stur- Charlottetown Herald, on the Crown's largess. For various geon, Lot 61, during Christmas 1863, 31 January 1866 reasons — some valid, some not—most and the Tenant League of Prince Edward had failed to develop their properties or Island was formally constituted in f all the protests against the in- live up to the terms of their grants. By Charlottetown during the spring of 1864. Ojustices created by Prince Edward 1860, much of the colony was still held by Its members pledged to withhold their Island's notorious "Land Question" "proprietors" and occupied by tenant rent and to support others who refused duringthe colonial period, none was more farmers. Although by now the whole to pay. Local committees would also be radical than the Tenant League during leasehold system was widely condemned, formed to negotiate "fair" purchase prices the mid-1860s. Frustrated by the inability numerous expedients had failed to pry with individual proprietors. Significantly, — or unwillingness — of officialdom to the land from the landlords' grasp. in an era of bitter religious and ethnic force large-scale proprietors to dispose of During the 1830s and '40s, while "Es- divisions, the League exhorted that their holdings to the tenantry, thousands cheat" supporters argued that proprie- "Scotchmen, Englishmen, Irishmen and of Islanders embarked on an organized tors should forfeit their land to the gov- Frenchmen be one on this question." campaign of civil disobedience. Almost ernment for re-sale to the tenantry, there The League had some initial success in inevitably, passive resistance turned to had been widespread resistance to rent purchasing land from the more liberal bloodshed in a series of incidents that collection in some parts of the colony. landlords, and, encouraged by these vic- reached their climax with farmers from Escheat ultimately failed, but, of course, tories, the movement swept the colony the Hazel Grove Road in the summer and the Land Question persisted. Punitive like wildfire. By the end of the year, it fall of 1865. taxation could not goad proprietors to had a reported 11,000 members. sell out. Voluntary land purchase acts could not force them out. A royal com- The Question of Land mission in 1860 could not persuade the Hazel Grove British authorities to buy them out. An By 1864, when the Tenant League was overseas delegation in 1863-64 could not The Hazel Grove Road was the shortest formally constituted, the Land Question negotiate them out. Disenchanted with and least hilly route between New had been festering for almost a century. failed political solutions, disgruntled Is- Glasgow and the main, or Princetown, 22 <4 A traveller halts his horse and buggy secondly that the present union of tenants want of sufficient food to sustain them along an Island road in this ca.-1860s is the only scheme yet adopted, likely to through our long winters." During the photograph from theDu Vernet Album. relieve usfrom proprietary tyranny, [so] 1875 land commission hearings, Hazel we will join the Union and from Grove physician John MacKay would tes- henceforth pay no rent or arrears of rent tify that the soil in the area was not only road. Its route crossed the divide between light and stony, but also that the land was Lots 22 and 23 and, generally speaking, until the present agitated land question be settled on just and equitable terms." "remarkably hilly." The Irish in Millvale, separated the Irish Catholics to the west he added, faced even worse conditions. from the British Protestants to the east. The meeting then adjourned with the For such people, the Tenant League's By mid-1865, two branches of the traditional three cheers for Her Majesty. promised solution to the Land Question Tenant League had been established in The families from this area in north- must have held a powerful attraction. the area of Hazel Grove Road, one at west Queen's County had, perhaps, more New Glasgow and another northwest of reason than most for joining the move- Hazel Grove in Lot 21. At the founding of ment. Recently, some of them had been The Gathering Storm this latter group, the following resolu- served with writs by their proprietors, tion was passed: including Sir Samuel Cunard (Lot 21), As the Tenant League became strong, but particularly the Hon. Laurence Whereas no government of this Colony the Island government grew worried. By Sullivan (Lot 22), and the executors of the committing themselves to withhold rent, has yet done anything calculated to Rennie Estate (Lot 23). Their land was relieve the tenantry from the leasehold the estimated 11,000 Tenant Leaguers also poor. In his 1861 census report, Lot had agreed to break the law. And while system under which we are groaning 22 resident Jeremiah Simpson stated that and whereas the Tenant Union seems the movement's leaders, people such as the Scots at the rear of the township George F. Adams of Vernon River, were to have the good of the Colony at heart, seemed to lack agricultural skills, had "Therefore be it Resolved, First that committed to passive resistance, the but small farms, and lost "very consider- membership gradually moved from something must be done to extirpate able numbers of cattle and sheep ... for from our land the leasehold system, and words to blows. The area around Hazel Grove in 1859. The Hazel Grove Road branches off to the right just before the Old Princetown Road reaches BagnalVs Inn on its way west. 23 On 17 March 1865, Deputy Sheriff Chief Justice Robert Hodgson (1798- James Curtis foolishly tried to arrest 1880), a former land agent, administered Sam Fletcher, a tenant farmer from the colony during the absence ofLieutenant Alberry Plains, for arrears of rent as he Governor Dundas in the second half of marched in a large demonstration by 1865. Knighted in 1869, Hodgson became Tenant League supporters. In the ensu- the Island's first native-born lieutenant ing melee, Fletcher escaped, and a farci- governor in 1874. cal attempt by a large posse comitatus of local citizens three weeks later ended in muddy failure.* Then, in late May, John and a very loud commotion about a mile Archibald Macdonald of Glenaladale, Lot away across the New Glasgow River. 36 (grandson of the redoubtable Captain Curious, Dickieson decided to find its John MacDonald) had two of his barns source. After a hard ride, he caught up to burned after successfully serving writs the posse and its unwanted escort near against known Tenant Leaguers in his Wheatley River, where h e found his neigh- area. A substantial £500 reward was of- bours and friends "wildly protesting" at fered, but there were no takers. Curtis's seizure of Proctor's property. The mood in the countryside dark- Shortly afterwards, as the group ened as the cold, rainy summer came on, reached Crooked Creek, James Proctor and in July, there was a bloody confron- arrived on the scene with another of tation between the League and the law. Charles' brothers, Andrew. According The incident occurred at Milton Bridge, to Curtis, Proctor requested that he be about nine kilometres west of Charlotte- allowed to offer security in exchange for town. Escorted by his bailiffs—Jonathan sented later in court, Curtis at once or- the return of his property. The deputy Collings, Henry Chowan, and Henry dered Collings to "make no answer or sheriff agreed, but rejected Andrew Swan — Deputy Sheriff James Curtis reply," and the lawmen were able to cross Dickieson as co-signer, accepting instead left his home in Lower Milton on the the bridge, still followed closely by the Proctor's alternative, Wheatley River morning of 18 July. He carried writs crowd of Leaguers, who were yelling and merchant Alexander MacMillan, who "against the goods" of James Proctor, blowing their trumpets. was not present. Proctor pledged to bring who lived on the Hazel Grove Road and Charles Dickieson's version, as MacMillan to Curtis' home the next day. * "against the body" of Charles Dickieson passed down in his family, is quite differ- At this point, the confrontation ap- of New Glasgow, both for arrears of rent. ent. He emphatically denied that he was peared to end. The Tenant Leaguers left While travelling up the Hazel Grove Road at the New Glasgow bridge that day. He the half-deafened lawmen at the old from the Princetown Road, the posse was, he said, at his brother James's farm, Rustico Road, and Curtis and company was spotted by a local resident, John quarrying stone, when he heard horns proceeded to Milton, where they en- MacLean, who began wildly blowing on joyed "ten minutes of refreshments" at a tin trumpet or horn, the League's trade- the Curtisdale Hotel. As they emerged, mark. Curtis later testified that he "at however, eight or ten men galloped past once suspected that MacLean was giv- and blocked the bridge in the hollow ing some signal and this suspicion was with a horse and cart.

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