The Masseys/Founding Family
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THE MASSEYS/FOUNDING FAMILY MOLLIE GILLEN THE MASSEYS FOUNDING FAMILY THE RYERSON PRESS TORONTO @ THE RYERSON PRESS, 1965 PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA BY THE RYERSON PRESS, TORONTO ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing this book has been a fascinating experience, and its completion has meant, not the end of the research but merely abandonment of it, with the uncomfortable feeling that so much more is still undiscovered. I am grateful for permission to use the material prepared for and published in Chatelaine in June, July and August of 1964. My thanks must also go to members of the Massey family, who have been unfailingly courteous and helpful, searching albums to dig up the many wonderful photographs from past and present; to Massey-Ferguson, who allowed access to the company's archives; to local residents in the Cobourg area who received me kindly and directed me to new sources of information; to friends and acquaintances who gave me encouragement and help; to my family, who put up with neglected household chores; and to United Church and Anglican Church archivists and staff members of the Ontario Provincial Archives and the Toronto Public Library, particularly the gentlemen in the Toronto Room, who uncomplainingly heaved around for me dusty volumes of early Ontario newspapers. I hope all these people will feel that the final result justifies their efforts. M.G. ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE 86 Daniel Massey 86 Mrs. Daniel Massey 86 Charles, Albert, Jessie, Chester, Eliza Ann, Fred Victor, Hart, Lillian and Walter Massey 86 Jessie Arnold Massey 86 Charles Albert Massey 86 Susan Denton (Mrs. Walter Massey), 7868 86 Walter Massey, 7873 87 Manitoba Colonist Supplement 87 Anna Vincent Massey, Walter Massey, Chester Massey and Susan Massey 87 Bishop Vincent, Lillian, Vincent, Chester and Anna Vincent Massey 118 Winona Grace (Winnie) Massey 118 Bessie Irene and Charles Albert II, Charles Albert Massey's two youngest children 118 Walter and Susan Massey, with Madeline, Ruth and Dorothy, 1888/89 118 Hart Almerrin Massey with his grandchildren Vincent Massey and Ruth Massey 118 Raymond Massey, aged about five 118 Ruth, Dorothy, Mrs. Hart Massey and Denton Massey 119 Massey Hall, with (centre) the Massey box 119 Looking out to the patio at "Susan's Folly" 119 Vincent and Raymond Massey, 1964 119 Denton Massey, 1964 119 Massey College CONTENTS PAGE 1 THE RESTLESS YEARS 19 FARM AND FAMILY 38 THE YOUNG MAN AGER 58 FRUITS OF SUCCESS 75 TRAVELANDTRAGEDY 94 VISITOR'S-EYE VIEW 102 FROM MUSIC HALL TO MISSION CENTRE 118 FAIRS AND A FEZ 132 GOOD WORKS 148 NEW INTERESTS, NEW TALENTS 160 INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Geoffrey m. Ellen Fox Members of the Massey family 1591-76761 mentioned in this book John 1631-1710 I I I 7 other children Nathaniel d. 1739 3 sonsr Daniel m. Abigail Rebecca m. 1733 Jonathan Hart I 6 other children Betsy Woodbury m. Jonathan b. circa 1747-1830 Daniel b, 1766 m. Rebecca Kelley d. 1838 Hart 10 other children I I I I Samuel 7790-1813 Jonatlum 1792-1834 Daniel 1798-1856 m. Lucina Bradley I j Elvira Deborah m. Orrin Powell Hart Almerrin m. Eliza Ann Phelps Eliza Jane William Albert Frances Arletta Alida b. 1821 1823-1896 d. 1908 b. 1829 1832-1849 b. 1835 b. 1843 b. 1847 Charles Albert m. Jessie Arnold Chester m. Anna Vincent Lillian m. John Mill Treble 'Walter Edward Hart m. Susan Denton Fredric Victor 1848-1884 d. 1894 1850-1926 d. 1903 7854-1915 7864-1901 d. 1938 1867-1890 Winona Grace b. 1872 Charles Albert Vincent Raymond Hart l Ruth 1889-1962 Dorothy 1898 1880-1915 b. 1887 b. 1896 Arthur Lyman b. 1874 Madeline b. 1896 Denton 1900 Bessie Irene Jennie Louise b. 187 5 1881 The Restless Years Long ago they were noblemen from France. One of them, Hamon de Macei, came over with William of Normandy to aid in the conquest of England. Then they were younger sons without estates drifting into humbler occupations. Later they were farmers and pioneers, respected citizens in new communities, building their lives in another land across a wider ocean. One of them set himself up as a founder, in a small village workshop that grew into an industrial giant. Today they are prominent in other worlds than those of war and commerce: the worlds of diplomacy, letters, architecture, theatre. The Massey energy and Massey initiative drive them yet. There would have been one precise moment, an exact and definite point of time when the decision was taken by a Massey to leave England for a new land where a man could follow the dictates of his own conscience, but the idea had been growing for years. Twice in 1625 Geoffrey Massy, of Knutsford in Cheshire, had been required to appear before the courts of the church, once with his wife Ellen Fox (of Hunsterson in the parish of Wybunbury) and once alone, and confess to unacceptable behaviour. In an age of religious restlessness, when the devout who chafed under the established discipline of the church were often coerced and persecuted by the devout who were fighting to retain it, an escape route was open. Only five years earlier, in 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers had sailed for the new colony of Massachusetts across the Atlantic. To Geoffrey and his wife Ellen the enormous 1 undertaking of a transatlantic journey began to loom as a growing possibility. Letters of dispensation for the marriage of the young couple had been issued on May twenty-fifth, 1625, to either the vicar or curate of Wybunbury or the curate of Nantwich, with one William Preston standing surety. The date of the subsequent marriage has been lost but there is evidence, since they were required to appear before the ecclesiastical judge on November fo1,1rth, that the church considered them to be living in sin. They were, however, the only couple in the five covered by the general indictment (uncompromisingly headed "Fornicators") who were referred to as man and wife, and it is possible that they were married by a dissenting minister not recognized by the church. This would be offence enough. The church had been deeply disturbed for some time by what it considered the rapid deteriora tion in the moral climate of England (a concern not unfamiliar today, nor indeed in any period of the world's history). Already in the year 1590 a group of "Preachers in the Cowntie of Lancaster" were shaking their heads sadly over the "manifolde Enormities of the Ecclesiasticall state": Divers maried in privat houses withoute any Bandes asked ... or any Intelligence thereof geven to the Minister of the Churche .... The youthe will not by any means be brought to attende the Exercise of Catechizinge in the Afternoone: neither the people to be presentt at the Eveninge Service . Many Commers to the Churche, refuse to Communicat ... Trienniall visitations ... voide of all validitie and good effecte. What may be done for the reformation of these manifold Enormities, knowe we not. It is no wonder that the church had begun to tighten its grip by calling to account recalcitrant parishioners like Geoffrey and Ellen Massy. When he was called to appear Geoffrey pleaded illness and sent a friend to speak for him. In a strange mixture of debased 2 Latin and the English of the day, the ancient records of the church have preserved the story: George Hurst appeared before the venerable ... judge ... and alleged that Geoffrey Massy was so affected by strange airs that he could not conveniently appear, wherefore he sought an order to be decreed as to the said Massy and Ellen Massy his wife. The judge enjoined "that they shold Confesse their falts in their Customed apparrell at divine service tyme some soundaie or hollie daie in Wibunbury or Knuttesford where the said Massy now dwelleth and so Certifie" before the next feast of Purification. A marginal note adds in Latin: "Geoffrey Massy and his wife were dismissed because they confessed the charge according to the order decreed and the order remains with the certificate on the file." Perhaps confessing seemed the easy way out. The second recorded occasion on which Geoffrey was in trouble with the church occurred at the end of the same month. In November he was one of twenty parishioners brought to answer to a charge of "receiving the Communion sitting," when the judge enjoined them "to receyve the holie and blessed Communion reverentlie knelinge att there owne churche and to certefye within two mouthes next." Geoffrey Massy (the name is variously spelled Geffraye, Jeffery, Goffray, and Massey appears as Massy, Massie, even Massyr) was an Elizabethan. He grew up in the age of Shakes peare and Laud when the creative genius of the civilized world that had burst from the dark loam of the Middle Ages was proving too hardy a growth to succumb to the futile cruelty of religious reactionaries. His baptism in December, 1591, is recorded in the parish register of Saint John the Baptist's Church in Knutsford in the Diocese of Chester in the County of Cheshire, only three years after the bonfires had flamed from hilltop to hilltop up the length of England with the news of the Armada's rout. In 1603 a new monarch became king of England, and a distinguished French explorer named Samuel de Champlain made his first voyage to that part of the North American continent called Canada, or "village," by an obscure tribe of 3 Indians. Young Geoffrey was almost twelve when his father, another Geoffrey, died in August of that year, leaving a will listing him as "householder" and bequeathing the bulk of his estate to his wife and children.