Name/Title
PaperEntry/Object ID
RF3,PerthHistoryDescription
RF3 - Reference Paper 3:
EARLY SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE PERTH SETTLEMENT
by
Mary A. B. Campbell
November 12, 1897
The social conditions of the inhabitants of a newly settled country is very different from that of those in old lands, so when the first settlers of our County Town of Perth and the surrounding district arrived from Britain's shores, after a long and fatiguing journey, they realized that only by courage and industry could they ever overcome the difficulties that lay before them - and these were great. It required the indomitable energy for which these pioneer ancestors of ours were noted to begin making home for themselves and their families in the midst of primeval forest. They stuck manfully to their task, however, of felling trees and cleaning the land of the underbrush and stumps, preparatory to seeding. They saw with prophetic eye, in the future fields waving with golden grain, comfortable dwellings, good roads, excellent educational advantages for their children, comfort and plenty and the refinements of a long settled country. And much indeed came to pass, industry and perseverance had their reward, and after a few years of toil and hardship, brighter days dawned on the emigrant bank.
The long voyage by sea was mostly one of continued hardship and exposure to weather, nor was the trip inland on the St. Lawrence, by Durham boats or bateaux, accomplished without danger. On reaching Brockville, ox-teams were hired to bring all luggage to Perth, while the families themselves went either on foot through almost impassable forests and swamps, or else in the heaviest of rough wagons, jolting along at an extremely slow pace over the forty miles to their stepping place. Here they found a little clearing containing tents occupied by those in charge of the Settlement and a number of retired officers, a few log dwellings and a Government store, from which were dispensed to all settlers supplies of tools, blankets, and other necessaries, together with the ordinary supply of rations. Those who took up land in the District beyond Perth mostly just located it and returned to the village for the first winter.
In the first summer - of 1816 - there were almost no clearings, so the few settlers who remained on their lots during the first winter lived in rough shanties, many of them having from the rood inside. These rude huts had no chimneys, simply a hole in the roof to allow the escape of smoke. This was not always a success and much suffering entailed thereby to the eyes of the inmates, coming most of them from Scotland, where the privations of living in a hitherto uninhabited region of country, were comparatively unknown, these early settlers found the first few years one of continuous work and often a struggle for existence. Many families this first winter, not finding the rations allowed by Government sufficient to sustain life, had to eat leaves and buds and the succulent roots of many plants, some of them being considered an especial delicacy. In the end of winter, the first yoke of oxen was bought for the District, the owner having gone to Glengarry to buy it, at the same time purchasing butter, flour, peas, meal and other necessaries, including a sugar cooler for the boiling of sap, and these he brought home with his oxen and sleigh. His family, as a consequence, were never in want. The first cow to arrive in the Settlement was ferried over the Rideau on a raft.
The second summer, houses of log were built, all chinked and occasionally plastered on the inside with clay, even ashes having at times been used for this purpose. The floors of these houses were made of split basswood logs, split side up. Some of the settlers had saw-pits and so ha sawed boards, mostly of hemlock and basswood, for flooring and partitions. Even in those homes sometimes just a hole in the roof did service as a chimney, the fire being built at one side of the house, on the round where a space was left unfloored. Large flat stones were set up against the logs in the wall to keep them from burning, other stones being laid at the sides like dog irons, to raise the wood a little and allow a circulation of air underneath. The big back logs were very hard tonoll in and burnt very slowly, while in front the fire was built up with split logs.
The first chimneys were made of four poles, one at each corner, and through these branches were woven in and out thus forming a sort of basket work, while the inside was plastered with clay, the heat in a short time causing it to become quite hard.
The cooking in those early days was rather an arduous undertaking before the use of the crane. The dinner had to be cooked on the top in the kitchen fireplace, a contrivance often vey annoying. Sometimes a large potful of food, nicely passed on the burning top, would be just ready to be taken off, when suddenly down would go the pot and its contents into the ashes, some of the wood underneath having given way. The use of the crane simplified matters. The first of these consisted simply of a pole running from the ground to the roof, having fastened or hinged to it the wooden rod on which hung the pots, some these hooks being suspended from chains. Very soon iron cranes came into use. These could all be swung directly over the fire. The earliest baking had to be done in an iron pot, with embers placed underneath and on the lid, and set in front of the fireplace. This required frequent turning so that all sides would in turn come in contact with the fire. Scones of cornmeal and suppone were made in frying pans, or griddles which were hung over the fire. Very shortly after this tin bake bottles and ovens came into general use, the coals being employed in much the same manner.
Dwellings were heated by the large fireplaces, usually there being first one in the kitchen, the other rooms being hosted from it, or occasionally, if it were an especially cold night, or the rooms needed airing, a cooler of hot coals might be lifted into them for a short time, till the temperature became somewhat higher. At night the only way to keep warm was by using quantities of bed coverings. Box stoves, for heating purposes, did not become general for some length of time, some of these having been specially manufactured in Dumfries for the early Canadian settlers. One of the very oldest of the box stoves is to be seen in the office of the Division Court Clerk in the Court house in Perth. It is not over sixty years since cooking stoves were rather looked on with disapproval by the good wives, they for a long time preferring their bake bottles and Dutch ovens. The first of these stoves that we could hear of were manufactured at Three Rivers and were very expensive. Large and round they were usually supplied with two long shaped side pots and a large boiler for the back. The door opened in front, and the oven was placed directly over the fire.
The earliest roads were simply blazed tracks through the woods, then came the rough corduroy, which in time gave place to plank and macadam. In the spring of the year the roads became almost impassable, the wheels often sinking to the top of the hubs in the mud. Occasionally too, at this time of year the roads were completely washed away by the spring freshets, the water having overflowed from the bush and swamps. When wheels stuck fast in the mud holes, rails from the nearest fence would have to be taken to hoist them out. Very often the gaps themselves having to be filled from the same source, before the roads became passable for travelling. Swamps were usually crossed on corduroy roads. These were constructed of trees cut in length and laid side by side, their ends resting on the trunks of others placed lengthwise. These logs were not by any means always even in size, more often a small one coming next to a giant, so that travelling over these places was not always a pleasure. The driver often had to get out and lead the way with a lantern, as the slightest swerving on the horses' part to one side or the other, might be the cause of an unpleasant spill of the occupants in the deep water and boggy soil on either side of the road.
Ox-teams were in use the first years of the Settlement, they being employed for ploughing and other farm work. No harness was necessary and a long willow wand did service as reins. After a time, it became a common thing for the Canucks to come up from Montreal with loaded trains of goods for the different merchants. They very often disposed of their horses and sleighs before their return, so in this way many of the settlers secured their first horses. The first cows in the village used to roam at will and find their own pasture fields.
In the summer of 1818, small patches of potatoes and corn were planted and the year following, some fall wheat, considerable clearings have been made by this time. Indeed, the early settlers had wheat before there was any means of having it ground. Coffee and spice sills were employed by some, while others took the long walk to Brockville for their purpose, and later on to Murphy's Falls, now Carleton Place. Mills at length were built and the wheat was ground at home. When it was a failure the settlers used to have porridge of peas and Indian meal and peas meal brose. There was no oatmeal for some length of time unless brought especially from Montreal. A man by the name of McCabe, on the Tay, was one of the first who made oat meal, while in Lanark in the Fall of 1834, a mill was built for this purpose, some being offered for sale in Perth that winter, the first many of the settlers had tasted for nearly eighteen years.
The life of the early settlers was of necessity very simple and a frugal one, no luxuries were theirs. Feed and clothing were very expensive for many years, and such of the latter as could be get at the small stores of the village, were not such as would meet the requirements of the new country. All whose means would admit of it, had brought from the old land a good supply of warm comfortable clothing, suited to the climate and the rough work to be undertaken, but when this gave out they had to depend on the resources of the new country. As soon as sufficient land was cleared to enable them to have pasturage, sheep were procured, and when the time came for their fleeces to be shorn, the wool thus obtained was washed, picked, carded and spun by the good wives on their little wheels, many of which had been brought out from their old homes. This wool was then woven into durable homespun by some of the emigrants, who had been weaves in Scotland and had brought their looms with them. The men wore gray homespun for rough working suits, with grown for gala days, while the women and girls had gray flannel gowns and skirts with ones of checked woollen goods woven into tasteful patterns, for better occasions. The dyeing materials used were mostly of Nature's providing, golden-rod making a fast yellow, and this re-dipped in indigo, a gold green, while hemlock boughs made a pretty brown and sumac a soft gray. The men wore linen shirts of home spinning, sometimes checked blue and white ones for working. All the better suits were made by a tailor who went from house to house to apply his trade, the commoner ones being cut by him and made by the female members of the household. Some of these industrious women even manufactured their husband's and son's Sabbath clothes by spinning the wool very finely and dyeing it black, for it was considered very unbecoming for any man to wear anything but a black suit on Sundays or to funerals. All this sewing, having to be done by hands as it was before the days of sewing machines, was no easy task. Hats were plaited of fine straw and made up by the women for the different members of the family. Later on there were these who took up the trade as hat makers, much of the head gear being re-blocked and re-trimmed each season, many of the original hats and bonnets thus being in use for a number of years. A shoemaker always came once a year to every home, going from house to house, carrying the necessary tools and implements with him, the father of the household, as a rule, providing the leather. This shoemaker stayed till the whole family were provided with new foot wear, each grown person or child usually getting one new pair of shoes each fall.
At this time any of the settlers in the different parts of the District outside the village, who owned clocks, used to ride into Town, perhaps once in two years, to get the watchmaker to repair them. This personage was a Sandy Stewart, his successor in the business being Mr. Cornelius Neilson. He would take the horse, ride out to the country and repair the clock and return to Town, the owner meanwhile remaining there to take his horse home. The usual charge for this was $1.00.
The streets of the village were to first years almost impassable with mud, especially at certain seasons of the year, Drummond Street being always considerably the driest. Wilson and Gore were simply puddles, and one old lady told us of how they had to jump from stone to stone over all the worst places, one in particular being in front of the present Express Office and Allan House. Between Drummond and Wilson Streets, towards the West end of the town, there was a large bog and frog pond, the music of the grogs being distinguishable a long distance away. It is said there were trees planted on Foster Street as long ago as 1821.
The first furniture was made by the settlers themselves, rude tables and benches being constructed of boards, with rough posts for legs. Chests were used for dining tables before any of the latter were made. The beds were somewhat in the style of the present shanty beds; poles being laid across stakes that had been driven into the ground, and on this foundation was placed the bed; made at first of wild hay, then of chaff and straw, and in later years these again surmounted by a bed of feathers. The daughters, on getting married, usually received a feather bed along with a plentiful supply of linen and blankets, much of it their own spinning. In these times there were no easy chairs, the nearest approach being wooden ones with arms, and if desired to be very luxurious a thin cushion was placed on the seat. Latter on came the wooden rocking chairs, with their high back, of our grandmother's days. Infants, in the country districts, during the first few years were not treated to this luxury of cradles, but were rocked in a basket, or more often in a sugar trough. The early settlers who brought any furniture out from the Old Land had, as a rule, left it in Brockville, or later, in some house in the village till their own dwelling should be completed. Very often a chest of drawers - of all articles of furniture that was most often brought from across the seas - had to be carried on a man's back, across miles of swamp and bush to its final resting place in the new and palatial house of logs. The grandfathers' clocks seemed another favourite with these early settlers, quite a number of families bringing these out with them clocks that had frequently been in these same families for several generations. They were very highly prized, and we hear of one that had been left in Brockville for the first winter, and for the second with a family in the village, for which the owner had been offered any amount of money, but he declined to sell it, saying he would part with anything but his wife or his clock.
In some of the settlers' homes they would not have a Doctor inside their homes for fifteen or twenty years. If affected with ague, then so prevalent, they came into the village and got Peruvian bark, usually taken in rum or whiskey, and later on, quinine.
In these early times, light from the fireplace was considered amply sufficient for lighting purposes. Pine knots were gathered and stored away for use in the evenings, these containing so much resin and gum that they cast a much stronger glow than the ordinary wood. Candles were made of resin, then of tallow and later on of wax. In making tallow candles, the wicks were dipped in the hot tallow till enough had adhered to have them sufficiently thick. In time moulds were used, but however done, their making was quite an operation, and one requiring skill and care. Cruses of oil were in use almost before the time of candles, then came the burning fluid, perhaps forty years ago or so, but this soon gave place to the general use of the coil oil lamps of the present day. Housewives were very wary of the kerosene lamps for some years after their introduction, considering the candles a much safer method of lighting. The streets were not lighted in any manner whatever, but the common practice of carrying lanterns at night, did away with much of the discomfort of going about in the darkness.
In the old houses cupboards were always built in the sides of the chimneys, some of them coming to the floor, and others just to a level with the top of the fireplace. The doors at first were made of plain boards, not being panelled for some years. Outside doors were not locked, but were fastened by a latch on the outside. The string passed through to the outside and this when pulled, lifted up the latch. This method was the original of the saying, "the door was left in the latch". The string was not left on the outside at night. Knockers next came into general use, first of iron, then of brass, and housewives vied with one another as to who should keep them in the brightest condition. Bells were placed in all the best houses in the early days and were then in more general use than at the present time. All the first shutters were inside the windows and made close of panelled wood, shades or window blinds were for many years made of white cotton, and the present day roller was a thing unknown, they being rolled up and tied with a window cord. The windows were usually small and square, containing nine panes of glass, and as a rule opening hinges from one side. Cellars were so low tht when in them a person could not stand upright. They had earthen floors and had as an entrance, usually an inconvenient trap-door opening in the floor above.
Travelling was not considered a thing of pleasure by the first inhabitants, walks of thirty and forty miles being every day occurrence. Horses were very scarce, and the roads so poor, that even to those who had them, they were of very little use. An axe was usually carried when on a journey of any length, to have in readiness any fallen tree that might be impeding the road. People indeed mostly rode at first, this being a much easier mode of travelling then going in a vehicle of any kind, for many years' rough wagons and carts were the only modes of conveyance, and in these the farmers in the outlying districts would drive their families in to the village church services. Before the railroads made their appearance, stage coaches were the only means of getting to a distance, and these were by no means comfortable, the passengers having often to slight and walk on reaching any hilly or rough places on the way. These journeys were long and tedious, the horses being changed at intervals along the road. When steamboats came into use on the Rideau Canal, people would often drive to the Ferry and there take the steamer on its way, either up or down the canal.
Children had not the expensive toys of the present day, nor were they less happy for having to originate and make most of these themselves. They had many games, hide and seek among the numerous stumps being a favourite. The children often used blue clay for making marbles, baking it in the sun. Little girls' hearts were gladdened by whole sets of tiny dishes, cups, saucers, tea pots and all of their own manufacture, being made in this manner. In the town and near vicinity there was much hospitality displayed, dinner parties being of frequent occurrence, and evening parties of all kinds as well. At these latter the guests assembled, at what we now would consider a very early hour, sometimes mothers taking infants along, as it was a choice between doing this or remaining at home. This seldom being done because of such a small impediment. At one evening party we heard of, there was a room set apart to receive these mall personages, with an attendant in full charge. The custom of paying formal visits was practised here seventy years ago or over, the cards in use at that time being much smaller in size than those of the present day. Christenings and weddings were occasions of much festivity, there being present as a rule a large gathering of friends. At one country wedding that we heard of that took place about fifty years ago, the house of the bride's father consisted of only one room, this being filled with people, all standing, as there was no room to sit down. After the marriage ceremony, when congratulations had been offered to the newly wedded company and those present had partaken of cake and wine, the whole party drove to the home of the bridegroom, where they were to dine all together besides a number who walked by a nearer road. There was a long procession of seventeen sleigh loads crowded with people. These drove on at a rapid rate, till when about half way, when the foremost horse began to race and in a few moments the whole line was in full gallop, all keeping this up to the end of the journey. No accidents occurred, however, and the night was passed very pleasantly, eating, drinking and dancing occupying the time till morning. Another early wedding party had quite an adventure. A very fine collection of wild beasts was visiting the town at the time. When a few miles out of town, the procession belonging to this, met this wedding party going home from Perth, when suddenly an elephant attacked the latter and sent one of the waggons over the fence into a field beyond. The wedding guests were more frightened that hurt, and control of the elephant being gained, the procession moved quietly along. In the infancy of the Settlement great numbers of couples came to the clergymen's houses to have the marriage ceremony performed. At that time posts for fastening horses were placed at regular intervals on the streets in front of a great many properties, and to these often a dozen sleighs would be drawn up and the horses fastened, before the minister's house. While the occupants were taking part in our witnessing the interesting ceremony. The horses on these occasions were always bedecked with many flying streamers of white, and when all in line made quite a gay appearance. No could their object have been mistaken. New Year's Day was the one holiday most generally kept, Christmas not being much regarded by the Scotch Settlers. To the funerals of long ago the men usually rode, and one old settler told of one that occurred on a very stormy and disagreeable day, the long line of men riding, each with an umbrella over his head, this forming a very curious and interesting sight. Wakes, such as were common among the Highland and Irish, were not usual, the nearest approach to them being the habit of some of the settlers of keeping an open house from the time of the death to the funeral.
Corn-husking and apple paring parties were of frequent occurrence on the farms, and were the scenes of such jollity and merriment. The good wives used to have teasing and spinning bees, when each carried with her the little wheel brought out from "home". Then came the quilting parties, where all busily applied the needle, in and out, in the most intricate patterns, called each by its own name. At all these gatherings the female members of the community vied with one another as to who should have the best laid table, these literally groaning with viands of every description. Chopping, logging, barn and house raising, also reaping and thrashing bees were common among the men, and as in the other cases, the good wives provided beautiful repasts. At all of these gatherings, the evening was spent in dancing, this very often taking place in large barns.