Growing up on the Farm – a Cornfield Adventure–Harold McKay

The photo below was taken a couple of years before our “cornfield adventure”.

Harold McKay

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Growing up on the Farm – a Cornfield adventure.

My two brothers and I got along most of the time, and sometimes we fought a lot. With three of us rough housing, it usually ended up 2 against 1. Usually it was oldest and youngest boy, against the middle boy. You guessed it. I was the middle one. Whenever we got into a fight, invariably George won, I would not give up, and Art ended up crying. My dad decided that if my younger brother Art was crying, then I did something to him. That is the background to what I tell you next.

Art and I were playing together one day, and he fell and hurt himself. He started crying, which was all my dad needed to bring out his corporal punishment belt and start coming towards us, yelling my name. Art, to his credit said I did nothing to hurt him, but my dad had his mind made up. I needed a quick escape, so I ran for the corn field, which by this time of year had grown to 6 or 7 feet high. Art was running after me crying, with dad bringing up the rear, with his belt already off his pants and in his hand, ready for the disciplinary mode.

Reflecting somewhat, it turned out to be sort of comical, as Art and I ran down the rows of corn beneath the leaves, and my dad had to keep swatting the leaves out of his way so he could see, as he ran down the rows after us. We were terrified, but smart enough not to cry and make noise. We quietly moved a couple of rows over, between the corn stocks and watched as our dad went by. We heard him moving through the corn field trying to find us, but us being a lot smaller, we were able to move beneath the leaves from row to row, effortlessly and quietly. Well the day dragged on, with us sitting in the corn field, a few rows in so that we could keep an eye on the house and spot anyone that might be approaching.

Dinner came; my mother came out yelling for us, but we remained silent and hidden. We could see that there was a heated discussion between my father and my mother going on, as the evening was starting to approach, and we were still in the corn field. We heard our mother pleading with us to come out, but no way, as I knew that I was going to be strapped and Art knew that as well. We both knew that Art had fallen by himself, and that I was not to blame. We were in this together, and sticking together, us brothers. It was only after my mother’s frantic pleading and her statement that our dad would not hurt us, did we come out, running right to our mother’s protective arms.

Farming Can be a Sticky Situation — Linda Knight Seccaspina

My late mother Bernice Ethelyn Crittenden on the family’s West Brome farm

Farming Can be a Sticky Situation Linda Knight Seccaspina

Maple syrup was just more than a sappy incident in Canada. It marks one of the most distinct eras in seasonable cuisine, and it was the first of the new and home-grown Canadian products. It has a tang of the woods and the open country, and somehow makes you think of spring flowers and the soft rain which rejuvenates the earth. It also paves the way for the rhubarb pie era which follows soon after. The rhubarb season in turn is succeeded by strawberries and cream, but that is another story altogether. 

Early settlers in Canada learned about sugar maples from our First Nations. Various legends have existed through the ages to explain how maple syrup was discovered. One is that the head of a tribe threw a tomahawk at a tree, sap ran out and his wife boiled venison in the liquid. Another version holds that our First Nations stumbled on sap running from a broken maple branch.

Those from the past have been known to declare that the best syrup was made in the “old days”. It was when the sap was boiled in iron kettles, over open fires, the product retained a furtive flavour of sugary bliss and charred wood. Today the syrup is made in patent contraptions with syphons and spigots, often boiled over coal fires, and protected from smoke in the process. The business may be less romantic than in the past, but the quality of the syrup is even higher.

My great grandfather Arthur Crittenden had some fine maples on his West Brome farm and being told about the value of the maple for the making of sugar, he decided to try sugar making. Unfortunately, he had never studied the effects of evaporation and thought the boiling process would be helped by keeping the kettles closely covered. 

Day after day he boiled away and expected the sugar to boil at the bottom of the kettles. Evaporation was partially secured by the steam raising the covers of the kettles and then the contents grew gradually sweeter. Fresh sap was constantly supplied and though the sugar was hoped for – none ever appeared. As they say ”sugar makers don’t die- they just evaporate”. It never dawned on him that to get the sugary results he must stop putting in sap and boil it all down to a certain consistency. He was about to give up until someone saved the day. Some business brought a member of the family forty miles to visit from home. When he witnessed the operation he solved my great grandfather’s mystery almost immediately. Maple sugar was soon produced and my ancestors finally feasted on the delicious product. He told anyone who would listen that he was thankful for a tree so useful in the wilderness.

However, this giant crop of maple trees became a sticky situation and grew where he intended to clear the land for his crops. All other kinds of trees were removed and the corn and potatoes were planted beneath the sturdy sugar maples. However, the ample foliage of their borad limbs was so shaded and it actually dwarfed the growing crops beneath. My great grandfather became convinced the the same ground could not yield at the same time two such crops. With feelings lacerated in a two fold sense his beloved maples were cut down and in their falling so smashed the corn and potatoes. In the end little of either was harvested and thus his first season was almost a loss.

The next season Arthur did well with a new crop on the fully cleared land, but once again he did not have much luck. At the far side of the newly planted field was a thick bush. He looked at that bush for protection for his crop and did not put any fence on that side. He failed to realize that a bush will keep out much of the sun but won’t keep out wandering animals.

In the heat of the summer a large flock of neighbours’ cattle charged through the bush and invaded the unfenced clearing. The final result was painful. As he viewed the damage to his crops he wondered if he should still be a farmer. That summer a fence was built and the following year a crop was grown with success without interference from maple trees or cattle.

I had no idea that forty gallons of sap are needed to make one gallon of syrup, and one barrel of maple syrup is worth more than 30 times of  a barrel of crude oil. I often wonder if my great grandfather ever grew back those maple trees. You have to admit the early farmers were outstanding in their field, and I have always been proud to have had farmers in my lineage. I would smile each time my father told me to close the door properly as I wasn’t raised in a barn. I always told him he had had it wrong, as I’ve never judged anyone by their relatives, and what goes on in the barn stays in the barn!

See you next week!

Oh Dear, William Penfold and my AB Positive Blood

When the Skeletons Finally Come Out of the Closet “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”

Is it all Relative? Linda Knight Seccaspina

I Am Who I am Because of You

Ontario History — What Was Beaver Hay and a Stripper Cow? Lanark Era Classified Ads

CLIPPED FROM
The Lanark Era
Lanark, Ontario, Canada06 Dec 1899, Wed  •  Page 1

A “Stripper Cow” is an old cow well past her prime. A cow that has nearly stopped giving milk, so that it can be obtained from her only by stripping.

Steer
A castrated, male bovine.

CLIPPED FROM
The Lanark Era
Lanark, Ontario, Canada18 Aug 1915, Wed  •  Page 1

Beaver Hay is the rank grass that grows in beaver meadows.

Speaker: Yeah, some places they made them. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Just all round. Interviewer: Quite different. Um- Speaker: Brought them to a peak. Generally went and got a- a load of wild hay from the beaver meadow or somewhere. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: To put on the top because beaver hay turned the water much better than the other. Interviewer: Oh that’s interesting. I wonder why that was. Speaker: I don’t know. At that time, you-know, they, ah- they used to have these big beaver meadows that they had to cut with, ah, the scythe. You’ve seen them?

Speaker: Arnold Milford, Gender: Male, Age at interview: 93, Interview: 1977, Lanark County

Speaker: The loft was above and you put up a hand, you-know? Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: You’d fork it up to the loft and somebody would stack it back and spread it back in the mow. Interviewer: Yes. This was wild hay. Speaker: Wild hay, yeah. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Beaver w– what they call beaver hay. Interviewer: Yes

Speaker: Alfred Starz, Gender: Male, Age at interview: 72, Interview: 1978, Lanark County

Broiler Chicken
A meat chicken raised to the weight of 2.65 kg or under.

Buck
Male goat.

Buck
Mature, male deer.

Buckling
A young, male goat (teenager).

Chevon
Meat that comes from adult goats.

Chick
The term for a baby chicken (male or female) until it is about three weeks of age

Cockerel
A young male chicken.

Colostrum
The first milk that any animal (including humans) produce after they give birth. This milk helps to pass along the mother’s immunity to disease to her offspring.

Roaster Chicken
A larger meat chicken raised to the weight of over 2.65 kg.

Sow
An adult female pig that has given birth.

Wattle
The reddish-pink flesh-like covering on the throat and neck of a turkey. It helps to release extra body heat.

Weaned
This term is used to describe the stage when animals are taken off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods, like grasses.

Wether
A neutered male sheep.

The Farmer is the Man

Eggs 10 Cents a dozen–Farmers Markets of Smiths Falls and Almonte 1880 and 1889

Dating A Farmer — It’s Not All Hearts And Cow Tails

Lanark Farm Life is Not so Bad- 1951

Once Upon a Time on the Farm

Farming Could be a Dangerous Business in Lanark County? Who Do You Know?

She Doesn’t Think My Tractor is Sexy–The Farmer’s Wife 1889

Remembering Haying in Lanark County- The Buchanan Scrapbooks

With files from The Keeper of the Scrapbooks — Christina ‘tina’  Camelon Buchanan — Thanks to Diane Juby— click here..

From Jon Playfair’s album from Laurie Yuill

From Jon Playfair’s album from Laurie Yuill

From Jon Playfair’s album from Laurie Yuill

From Jon Playfair’s album from Laurie Yuill

From Jon Playfair’s album from Laurie Yuill

Related reading

Remembering and Documenting The Loose Hay Loader

It’s Threshing Time! Sid Stanfield –The Buchanan Scrapbook

With files from The Keeper of the Scrapbooks — Christina ‘tina’  Camelon Buchanan — Thanks to Diane Juby— click here..

In the fall of 1929 the threshing mill was trundled down to the 6th line and would be set up for an early start next morning. From the window of our little stone house I watched it as this was something else new for me in this new land. Oh, I had seen them from the roadside, hear the chuff of the old steam engine and the cough of the mill as a tougher sheaf was teased and pounded in its innards and the black coal-smoke was thrust upwards into the sunshine.

Tomorrow, I would be part of it and perhaps meet a lad of my own age. The next few days showed me a different world; peole laughed and joked, played pranks on each other. A young man would remove his shirt as he warmed to his chores. When the noon whistle blew, he would find his shirt tied in a dozen knots and 10 or 15 feetof binder twine around it for good measure. He would come to the table with a sheepish grin, to the roars of merriment from his friends.

Oh the food! I had read of feasts where the table ground from the bounty it held. Yes, it was true– it did happen. Crisp white tablecloths gleamed like snow– two or three kinds of meat, beansm thick dark gravy and such an array of pickles. The women, many from nearby farms, pressed food onto everyone from every angle. Then when you knew you just could not take another bite, in came the pies! Apple raisin, pumpkin and blueberry. How could we do justice to these too? Well, we did somehow.

So dinner over, we would sneak a few minutes in the sun, and I would listen fascinated to the stories and tall tales which I found out would often be repeated the following day at other farms, but no one seemed to mind. I’d go back to that stone house each night, tired dirty and full for at least another day.

The house knew little laughter, held not an atom of happiness for me. The sneering voiceof my employer calling me ‘ the bloody englishman” in his poor attempt at the English accent he thought was funny. Little wonder I hurried through those early morning milkings those mornings and waseager tog et back to threshing.

I recalled a wrinkled gnome of a man who was a great favourite at the threshings. His Irish voice was a joy to hear each day and his speech enthralled me. At noon one day he was really getting ribbed,and I pieced the story together eventually.

The hired girlwho lived on the farm where Billy worked was courting Sam from the nearby farm.What Billy siad to her reamined unsaid but Sam came over and gave Billy a black eye. The thresing gang were egging him on to tellhow he got the black eye.

Billy cleared his throat a couple of times, looked at his waiting audience and began,

“It wus loike this, Oy wuz lighting me poipe and had me poipein one hand and me terbaccy in the other. Now I ask ye whut else could oy do but let Sam lick me”

A wonderful little man he was BIlly Boswell and I know that St. Peter will miss something special if he doesn’t find a spot for him there. I see the huge red combines eat their way around the grainfields. A roar, a clatter, the tall grain totters, is engulfed and disgorged.It is over and done with just like that.

Sid Stanfield

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 4e – Innisville — ‘Neighbours Furnished one Another with Fire’

 

 

There are about 6 huge pages about Innisville written by Thomas Alfred Code so I will do this in parts. This is the last instalment about the village–4d– Tomorrow the family stories begin.

Fish

There are a great many fish stories going, and lest my veracity might be questioned I will not say much. But, I have seen the net in our local waters so heavily loaded with catfish or bull pouts that one man alone could not lift it out of the water, and likewise with suckers in the Spring run. The spear was much in evidence. In the shallows, or under a fence at the head of the rapids, the wader– with a man to hold the bag– would lift them out and put them in the bag.

It was quite an art to pick one out gently so as not to cause a stampede. The people came from all over– say ten miles out– loaded up with a few bags and took them home. After dressing they were put in brine, then dried, and when cured provided the finnan haddie for the Winter; as I remember them they tasted quite as good. Eels were frequently speared, or caught with the hook, but mostly in the mill sluice box– with the mill sluice gate open slightly during the night– you were sure to secure a good catch; but they were not highly prized for food purposes. Pickerel had not been introduced to the Mississippi Lake at that time. Later Bennett’s Lake was stocked and this fish found its way down the Fall River by way of Fallbrook. They seem to have secured the ascendancy over the pike and black bass which were plentiful at one time, but latterly the waters have been very much depleted. I remember being chided frequently by my mother for bringing home so many fish.

Fruit

We had little such as we have it today; but wild strawberries in the new land were different to what we obtain nowadays. Beds were to be found with berries as plentiful as you find them in some gardens today, and I think they were superior in quality.  Like wise with raspberries and thimble berries. Wild grapes and cherries were to be had in abundance, and in many cases were turned into refreshment.

Cranberry and blueberry supplies were ample, and obtained within two miles of the village (Innisville) on the shores of Mud Lake.

Some very good apple orchards were to be found in the district; and where apples would not keep over the winter they were peeled, sliced, cored and strung, then hung over the kitchen stove to dry. We called them “Fly Roosts”.

Agriculture

Of agriculture in the vicinity I need not say much, but the product of the virgin soil– thought the acreage was limited– was much greater per acre than today. The potatoes from the new soil were very prolific and of good quality. Crops were not subject to the pests we have.

Maple sugar was another product that assisted in furnishing the necessities for living, so with all those native luxuries the people were not badly off notwithstanding the primitive tools with which they had to work.

It is said that neighbours furnished one another with fire– taken from house to house. An old method was to strike fire with steel on flint or the back of a jackknife against a piece of dry spunk wood. It is told that some split matches to make it go farther. My experience dates from the tallow candle, and I have witnessed the coming of all modern conveniences as they came on stage since the early days of my time. Had the pioneers been told that those things would come they would have been skeptical. We may think we are near the limit, but are we?

And so..

The Ennis family and the Codes were factors in the prosperity of the village of Innisville. On the north side of the river were the Cramptons, Rathwells, Ruttles and Stuarts were leading settlers, mostly Irish. On the south side most of the settlers were Scotch: the McEwens, McLeans, Robertsons and Rathwells. (the latter Irish)

But few remain– I can only name four living that belong to the early generation, viz., Thomas Carswell, Daniel McEwen, Hugh Robertson and Benjamin Crampton; all men that have lived good clean lives– men of unimpeachable character.

 

Next– The Code Family-Family Stories

 

 

 

Photo- Perth Remembered

History

The first industrial process on the site was operated by the Kilpatrick family beginning in 1842 and established as a tannery shortly thereafter.  In 1882 a new owner, Thomas Alfred Code, established Codes Custom Wool Mill with a range of processes, including: carding, spinning, fulling, shearing, pressing, and coloring of yarns. In 1896, its name was changed to the Tay Knitting Mill, and it produced yarn, hosiery, socks, gloves, sporting-goods, sweaters, and mitts. Another change came in 1899, when a felt-making process was introduced and the mill was renamed Code Felt. The company continued to operate until the closing of the factory in 1998.

 

51 Herriott – The Code Mill is actually a collage of five different buildings dating from 1842. T.A. Code moved to Perth in 1876, and bought this property by 1883. Code spent 60 years in business in Perth. The business started with a contract to supply the North West Mounted Police with socks, and continued for many years manufacturing felt for both industrial and commercial uses.

Code Felt Co today– Click here..

 

In the 1883, Mr. T. A. Code established Codes Custom Wool Mill with a range of processes, including:  carding, spinning, fulling, shearing, pressing, and coloring of yarns. In 1896, its name was changed to the  Tay Knitting Mill, and it produced yarn, hosiery, socks, gloves, sporting-goods, sweaters, and mitts.  Another change came in 1899, when a felt-making process was introduced and the mill was renamed  Code Felt. The company continued to operate until the closing of the factory in 1998. The following year, John Stewart began a major restoration and introduced new uses for this landmark. This impressive limestone complex with its central atrium now has an interesting mix of commercial tenants.-Perth Remembered

How did I get this?

I purchased this journal online from a dealer in California. I made every attempt to make sure the journal came back to its rightful location. Every day I will be  putting up a new page so its contents are available to anyone. It is a well worn journal full of glued letters and newspaper clippings which I think belonged to Code’s son Allan at one point. Yes there is lots of genealogy in this journal. I am going to document it page by page. This journal was all handwritten and hand typed.

How did it get into the United States?  The book definitely belonged to Allan Code and he died in Ohio in 1969.

Allan Leslie Code

1896–1969 — BIRTH 27 MAR 1896 • Ontario—DEATH JUN 1969 • Mentor, Lake, Ohio, USA

 

Andrew Haydon- see bio below–He was the author of Pioneer Sketches of The District of Bathurst (Lanark and Renfrew Counties, Ontario) (The Ryerson Press, 1925) and Mackenzie King and the Liberal Party (Allen, 1930).

 

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (USA)

 

 

The Original Thomas Alfred Code and Andrew Haydon Letters – —Part 1

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 2– Perth Mill

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 3– Genealogy Ennis

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 4a – Innisville the Beginning

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 4b – Innisville — Coopers and “Whipping the Cat” 1860-1870

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 4c – Innisville — Henry York and Johnny Code

The Thomas Alfred Code Journal – Letters-Part 4d – Innisville — “How We did Hoe it Down”!

When Newspapers Gossiped–David Kerr Innisville

Kerr or Ennis? More about the Innisville Scoundrel

What Went Wrong with the Code Mill Fire in Innisville?

Did You Know This? “The Rest of the Story”

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal, 18 Feb 1976, Wed, Page 81

Mr. Stewart Drummond, 60 year-old area farmer and agricultural equipment specialist will spend the next two years in India establishing a 600-head dairy operation that is expected to provide food for thousands of Indian residents. He and M r. Lyle Miller, originally of P akenham , will supervise the use and maintenance of a variety of agricultural machinery on two, adjacent 1000 acre farms, one of which is owned by Mr. Dilawri of Dilawri Motors of S tittsville and the other by the Indian Government. 

Co-funded by the Canadian and Indian Governments, the project is under sponsorship of the Canadian Hunger Foundation. Mr. Drummond has had a life-long interest in and aptitude for agricultural machinery. He has sold and serviced many lines of farm machinery and was working with farm machinery for Difawri’s in Stittsville when Mr. Dilawri approached him last summer about the India project. Mr. Dilawri, who is a native of India, had questioned the sending of powdered milk to India, when he knew India had more fertile land than the United States, and with irrigation could support their own farms and dairy herds. 

Mr. Dilawri is arranging the negotiations between the Indian and Canadian governments. Mr. Drummond and Mr. Miller will be in charge of the assembly and operation of four tractors.

trailer loads of new farm^equipment, plows, discs, tractors, and harvesters, sent for the project as well has two milking parlours. They will also be involved with the installation of irrigation system s. Three hundred of the 600 Holstein cows to be sent to India have arrived. 

Most of these animals have been raised on Canadian farms. Mr. Drummond, before leaving, travelled to the United States where he studied a particular line of machinery at the factory where it was manufactured. Now in India, Mr. Drummond will be involved with the project for at least two years, with expected intermittent trips to Canada during this time. 

The project, which has been in the planning stages for some time, may go on for several years. Mr. Drummond, who flew to India with brief stop-overs in Amsterdam and at the Persian Gulf, is now waiting for the arrival of the unassembled equipment which left Canada by boat and is now temporarily docked at Bombay. 

From there it will be shipped overland by truck to the project site which is in the foothills of the Himalayas; in Punjab province, for assembly. Once the machinery is opera ting, Mr. Drummond will begin to train natives of India in its servicing and operation with the ultimate hope that the farms will provide both employment and a source of fresh milk to Indian residents.

February 26, 1976 Almonte Gazette

Kyla Baron added

I am a granddaughter of Stewart Drummond. My mother is Mildred (Millie), his eldest daughter. I was speaking to her yesterday about his trip to India and she said that it was not a scam and that he was there for many months – almost missing her wedding in Sept. ’76.

In fact, he wrote her a letter to tell her that he wouldn’t be home for the wedding at all. The Dilawri family of Ottawa had a farm machinery dealership at the time and they hired Grandpa to put the machinery back together when it arrived at the Indian farm because it had to be put on a ship all in pieces due to logistics.

There were insurmountable issues with the project though – the machinery sat in pieces at the Indian port for a long time because the infrastructure it had to travel on to get to the remote farm was horrible. Grandpa worked very hard for a long time to figure out how to get it to the farm but in the end, I believe that was what killed the project.

The Dilawri family paid for Grandpa to stay in a very nice house/hotel while he was there but he clearly missed Grandma’s cooking because he lost 20 lbs while he was in India! Anyway, just wanted to clarify the story.

Thanks Kyla for this added information.. I appreciate it

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (USA)

For the Love of Laura Secord — The Rest of the Story

The Story of Caroline La Rose– Charleston Lake

Did You Know we Once Had a Grand Hotel? The Grand Central Hotel

Did You Know They Moved St. Paul’s Cemetery?

Local News and Farming–More Letters from Appleton 1921-Amy and George Buchanan-Doug B. McCarten

 

 

 

Here is a letter from my Grandmother and Grandfather to my Grandfather’s sister and brother-in-law who had moved to Arizona in 1917. I am forwarding it as it provides a snapshot of what life was like on the farm in Appleton in 1921.– From Doug B. McCarten

 

“Hilda is an awful talker–just talks all the time”

Daughter Hilda Buchanan McRostie- the awful Talker 🙂

 

 

 

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  03 Feb 1949, Thu,  Page 7

“Mr. McCreary is a good man”

 

Perth-Expositor-“I think the Espositor is better than the Courier for news outside of Perth.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almonte Gazette in January of 1920.–“I am now president of our local U.F.O.”

 

 

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (USA)

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

 

George Wilbert Buchanan and Amy Luella Buchanan (nee Barnes) 1946

 

What was a UFO rally? United Farmers of Ontario. This was an ad in the Almonte Gazette in January of 1920. If you read it it says’ a woman will be speaking” LOL.. Baby we have come a long way. They also had this rally as the farmers of Cedar Hill were having great difficulty in getting water from “The Water King” Mr Burgess of Carleton Place..

 

The Letters of John Buchanan and Mary Ilan–Appleton– from Doug McCarten

The Appleton Chinchilla House

The McCarten House of Carleton Place

The Witch of Plum Hollow – Carleton Place Grandmother

Some Cold Hard Facts- First Tailor in Ramsay and a Cow Without a Bell

 

In 1822 there was only one Ox in Ramsay owned by James Metcalf of the 9th line and, even worse, there was only one horse.

Mr. Robert Mansel had two cows and the clearings were small and the logging was all done by hand. The harvest was small those first few years and many families were almost reduced to complete distress. Word was in Beckwith those first few years things were not much better, and the deer became almost extinct as there was nothing else to eat.

 

 

 

Crude roads made the transporting of goods almost impossible and wheat had to be ground into flour, trees sawn into lumber — so they had to make sure there was suitability for the erection of a mill or close accessibility to one. Some women in Perth walked to Carleton Place to the Bolton Mill as there was no place else to grind grains for flour. They would walk all the way back to Perth and stop at trees that had been cut off and rest their flours bags on them.

 

 

In the 1850s the train was going to run through Leckie’s Corners but James Rosamond had moved from Carleton Place after an argument with the town council. He knew that to have a successful mill he needed the railroad to run through Almonte. Mr. Rosamond was a director of the Brockville and Ottawa Railway Company. By persuading the owners with the cold hard facts and of course a tasty business proposition he won his wish and expanded his new mill in Almonte.

One the railroad was established of course the business in the communities  of Leckie’s Corners, Appleton and Blakeney was stunted for good. If the railway had not come through Almonte who knows what the town would have turned into and which other hamlet would have become a hub.

 

 

 

Mr. Rosamond of the Rosamond Knitting Mills would often got to Scotland to hire superintendents as they had great experience and were used to the conditions of a woollen mill. The Scots were willing to work for next to nothing with an average pay of 14 cents an hour-working from  6:30 am to 6 pm–six days a week- with only two unpaid holidays during the year.

James Patterson was one of the first tailors in Ramsay. There was only one sewing needle per area and thread was only obtained after a long trek to Brockville. It has been said he used ‘moose wood’ tree bark as a substitute.

 

At one time Leckie’s Corners was the centre of the township until the railroad bypassed them for Almonte. The first local newspaper was ran by Thomas Leckie himself and he ran it for 3 years out of Almonte and it was called “The Examiner”. It was then merged into “The Express” and run by Scott and Kennedy until Mr. Ned O’Donnell took over in 1867 and called it “The Almonte Gazette”.

If you let your cattle trespass within a quarter mile of mills, stores, taverns or churches on preaching days  in 1841 it would cost you a shilling– same with a cow without a bell.

 

 

 

 

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and Screamin’ Mamas (USA)

 

Related reading

Dear Lanark Era –Lanark Society Settlers Letter

Ramsay Settlers 101

Beckwith –Settlers — Sir Robert the Bruce— and Migrating Turtles

What is the Biggest Change in Your Lifetime? Ramsay 1979

 

Falling Through the Ice – Farm Life in the 30s

 

Photo-camera on king

 

 

As a child I always used to try and listen to “grownup stories” sitting on a back staircase hoping no one would ever notice me. This story of growing up on an Iron Hill farm has stayed with me through all my years and I will never ever forget it.

 

 

“I used to hate the Spring,” he said to my parents one afternoon at our home on Albert Street in Cowansville, Quebec.

The ice on the ponds and lakes would grow thin and then one day there was no more give.  Each day that the sun got warmer it got worse and the ice would just break with any sort of weight. Sometimes some of the farm animals would be standing on that very ice and go through and we just couldn’t save them. One day I saw a couple of them out on  the semi-frozen deep pond and I tried to get them to move as my heart could not take anymore loss.

The animals moved off in time, but I did not, and I thought I was going to drown when I went through that ice in no time. Even though there wasn’t a soul around I began to scream for help. All that screaming created pressure on my chest which made things a lot worse, and I just kept beating around in that ice and water until I felt myself begin to sink. In essence the pond wasn’t really that deep–but how do your hoist yourself up on thin ice that got slippery as it became wet.

I began to break the ice away with my hands and grabbed the edge and tried to float. I finally got one arm on the edge of the ice and I wondered how much longer I could last. With one arm out on the ice some how I pulled myself out. I lay on the ice with my face lying flat on the ice exhausted. I got up and ran to the farm and kept running and running so I would not get colder knowing it could have been the final moments of my life.

Stories like this should remind us how fragile life was and still is. Farming was not just a hobby and to those who work in acres and not in hours we thank you.

 

 

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and Screamin’ Mamas (USA)

 

Related reading:

Farming Could be a Dangerous Business in Lanark County? Who Do You Know?

Falling Through the Ice- One Reason Indoor Rinks Were Created

Did Farming Pay in 1879?

Old McRostie Had a Farm in Carleton Place