Norman Paul– True Lover of Soil Clippings

Newspaper clippings from Lucy Connelly Poaps

Mr Paul is second from right. this is another photo of the New Horizons group that started the Lanark & District Museum

Bev Fergusson

Mr Lowry on left, then Alex Stewart.

Brian Munro

Grant Smith on right. Also some of Faucett family

Norman Paul Talks About the Little Red School House- The Buchanan Scrapbook

Sarah Duff McPherson and John Paul — Mount Blow Farm

Ken Manson– 1986 Interview with Helen & Jimmie Dodds –Side 1B — Bill Croft and Farm Machinery

The Wondrous Life of Norman Paul

The Amazing Mr. Paul

The Mysterious 5th Line ?????

Recollections of Bert Hazelwood 1973

Norman Paul Talks About the Little Red School House- The Buchanan Scrapbook

There was no more to the articlein the book

S.S. No. 5 Ramsay – Galbraith School

Daniel Galbraith purchased land on the West half of Lot 11, Concession 5 in Ramsay township in 1855. He sold half an acre to the trustees in 1870 for $1.00. The first teacher was Nell Forest. Ratepayers became enraged when the Ramsay Township School Boarded voted to close the school, so in 1958, S.S. No. 5 became a separate school section. Ratepayers donated two cords of wood per family. A new piano was purchased and a music teacher was hired. In 1969, the rural pupils were bussed to Almonte or Carleton Place. The school was moved across the road to become Bert Hazelwood’s cabin in his bush. It was later used as sleeping quarters for retreats. Read- Recollections of Bert Hazelwood 1973

Jennifer E Ferris There are two Galbraith’s on the old maps. One very near Hazelwoods farm(now Arlee Sheets), and the other North of Middleville /Clayton area.

Lila Leach-James S S#5 was built on a piece of property given by the Leach family …The Leach property surrounded the school. I believe my Dad owned 200 acres at one time from the 6th Line to the 5th Line, plus bush in the Wolf Grove on the Old Perth Road. He took polio in 1952 at which time he sold Sutherland’s to Fred Toop where Ruth Boyce now lives…. I believe it was called Galbraith as they owned farm prior to the Leach in 1800’s…. When the school was closed in the 1960’s, Alex Hazelwood purchased land and school and moved school to their convention grounds! Mount Blow Farm was between the 7th and 6th Line of Ramsay! Galbraith Road is on the Clayton side of Taylor/Clayton Lake and use to join up with Floating Bridge! The two have no connection!

Sarah Duff McPherson and John Paul — Mount Blow Farm

Ken Manson– 1986 Interview with Helen & Jimmie Dodds –Side 1B — Bill Croft and Farm Machinery

The Wondrous Life of Norman Paul

The Amazing Mr. Paul

The Mysterious 5th Line ?????

Recollections of Bert Hazelwood 1973

The Wondrous Life of Norman Paul

From the moment of his auspicious birth the first day of the last century, Norman Paul has worked and lived out history. It’s clear history has worn him well. Paul’s Scottish Presbyterian great-grandfather, an impoverished but courageous 33-year-old weaver, rafted down the Mississippi River to harvest the bounty of 100 acres of wilderness between Almonte and Carleton Place, where he began a dynasty of his own, fathering ten children.

Generations later his great-grandson still is raking hay in the summer and ploughing the same fields in the fall alongside his own middle-aged son. Paul and his son were the fourth and fifth generations to work the fertile land of Mount Blow. They lived in homes built in the 1840s and 1850s, caring for dairy cattle and hogs in outbuildings that include a barn built in 1897.

The farm Paul took over from his father in 1925 had been the site of many operations besides farming. Paul’s grandfather and father had operated a booming lime business hauling quarried white limestone to a lime-kiln that still exists today.

Account books still kept in Paul’s home, the main part of which was built in 1848, show the finished lime was hauled by wagon or shipped to such communities as Brockville, Merrickville, Carleton Place, Arnprior and Carp where it serves to bind together historic stone buildings to this day. There’s also a prized medal in the same house honouring its recipient for the quality of lime provided for competition in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886.

Paul is blessed with an almost total ability to recall events since his childhood and has always had a close and unique acquaintance with early farming practices in the area. He recalls as a child seeing the lime kiln in action and remembers climbing a steep wooden ladder to oil the galvanized iron wheel powered by wind that pumped the families’ water from the ground. And by simply stepping out his front door as a child to work in the barn he recalls touching and sometimes working with equipment as rudimentary as flails, scythes and winnowers wooden instruments used to separate grain Paul has whittled a series of mounted miniature displays that faithfully and painstakingly demonstrate everything from potash and lime making to a pioneer method of barn construction and the windmill powered pump of his childhood.

Products of thousands of hours of labor, the works also include a much-travelled rendition of Mount Blow’s farmyard filled with figures representing Paul’s ancestors and another demonstrating the old art of producing maple syrup. Paul says he originally made the exhibits, mostly from memory, for display at gatherings of his contemporaries.

However, as word of his works spread, many of the several hundred displays and innovative lectures he has given have been moved into school libraries. “I’ll tell you there is nothing more satisfying then talking to these kids with their eager faces,” Paul says. “They are really interested in learning and that’s wonderful for me.” “They used to want me to go into the classrooms, but now I tell them to send them all into the library and pack them in there on the floor at my feet. Ill keep their attention.” Paul says he has never regretted leaving school at sixteen, though he genuinely intended to return. “My life has been hard work and it has been good. “If I had it all to live over again I’d live it exactly the same in exactly the same era. It has been a good century, good times to be alive.”

CLIPPED FROM

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
14 Nov 1986, Fri  •  Page 4

If you travel past Mount Blow farm where I often go to to remember Norman Paul

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
20 Aug 1989, Sun  •  Page 19

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
03 Feb 1959, Tue  •  Page 9

Sylvia McMillan Brown Norman Paul graciously spent time with my class at Caldwell in the mid 80s explaining pioneer life in Lanark County using his miniature carvings. Wayne Rostad heard about the upcoming talk and asked if he could film it for his TV show, On the Road Again. What an exciting day that was for my students and me!

John Edwards Norman Paul was a true gentleman of Ramsay. Patient, respectful, intelligent, honourable.

 

The Amazing Mr. Paul

Nov 1975

How Did Settlers Make Their Lime?

Making Lime was a huge process often connected with the logging bees in the early days. Large quantities of lime were necessary for filling cracks in the walls, and building chimneys for the log house. The timber from at least half an of land was formed into an immense pile, on the top of which was constructed a frame on which to place the limestone. Some 20 ox carts loads of stone  were then drawn and thrown on top of the heap, after being broken into small pieces by a sledge hammer. The pile was then fired and would be consumed over the night and though its red coals remained hot for a week when the white lime could be covered and collected.

 

I found this illustration in the Delmer Dunlop (Carleton Place) Collection  at Archives Lanark. This is obviously a local area kiln. Anyone have any idea? Thanks!

 

 

Carleton Place

The Ottawa Journal
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
14 Feb 1901, Thu  •  Page 3

Mississippi Mills

Norman Paul’s grandfather and father had operated a booming lime business hauling quarried white limestone to a lime-kiln that still exists today. Account books still kept in Paul’s home, the main part of which was built in 1848, show the finished lime was hauled by wagon or shipped to such communities as Brockville, Merrickville, Carleton Place, Arnprior and Carp where it serves to bind together historic stone buildings to this day. There’s also a prized medal in the same house honoring its recipient for the quality of lime provided for competition in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886.

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
06 Jun 1911, Tue  •  Page 4

Ottawa Daily Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
15 Jul 1895, Mon  •  Page 3

The Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
31 Oct 1974, Thu  •  Page 3

So What Happened to the Lost Colony of St. Armand?

Explosives Go Missing! Stories From Old Photos

Looking for the Artist of this Carleton Place Painting-The Lime Kiln

Archie Guthrie’s Notes on Lanark Mines Hall’s Mills and Cheese 1993

A Giant’s Kettle in the Middle of Lanark County

The Amazing Mr. Paul

 

Photo from the Carleton Place Canadian files from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

When I first moved to Carleton Place in 1981 I joined the Carleton Place Historical Society. Each month when I attended their meetings at the Carleton Place Library Mr. Paul would tell me stories that kept me coming back each month just to see him. There is no doubt that Mr. Paul became an inspiration years later to tell stories about Lanark County. He once told me that if I heard a story about the local area to keep passing it on so no one will ever forget.

 

Mount Blow Farm- donated by Norman Paul to the North Lanark Regional Museum

 

Norman,  was a fixture of Lanark County more than anyone I had ever met at the time. His father came from Scotland in 1821 and settled in what was called  the Mount Blow farm on the Rae side just a bit south-west of Almonte. Norman was born January 1, 1900 on the farm that is said to be situated on a *narrow round strip of white limestone.

Norman Paul’s great grandfather was the first Assessor in Ramsay in 1836 and when I knew him Norman still had the Census Sheet for the southwest half of Ramsay Township for the Census taken in 1837.

What people remember most about Norman besides his stories was that he was a whittler. His wooden creations are still in the North Lanark Museum in Appleton today and these dioramas were made in the 1980s depicting local pioneer life.

Norman used to travel to schools, fairs and other events to display his dioramas and give presentations on pioneer life. When the North Lanark Regional Museum opened in Appleton in 1970, Norman donated the majority of his pieces to the museum where they continued to be on display for the public. Unfortunately the museum burned down in 1979 and the collection was destroyed. Fortunately Norman Paul decided to remake the dioramas and again donated them to the rebuilt museum in the 80s.

I consider myself blessed to have known Norman Paul, and it isn’t often I don’t remember the smile of the 1987 “Maple Man of the Year”. In fact I never want too– he was that important to me and the rest of Lanark County.

 

Perth Courier, March 27, 1868

Leckie-Paul—Married, at Mount Blow Ramsay, by the Rev. Wm. McKenzie, on the 20^th inst., Mr. John Leckie to Miss Marion Paul, both of Ramsay.

June of 1905. This school photo features teachers, Miss Ida Paul and Miss Lizzie Spears, who are located second and seventh from the left in the back row–North Lanark Regional Museum

 

*Many of the stone structures built in Almonte depended upon the Paul kiln for limestone. Lime was shipped as far as Merrickville from the “Mount Blow” kiln, as it was called, and old account books list buyers from Innisville, North Gower, Franktown, Smiths Falls, Prospect, Ashton, Huntley, Richmond, and other outlying points. The kiln was built of black iron stone on the site of a steep hill. It was barrel-shaped with an arched entrance, lined with fire brick and the front covered with dressed stone. Gum woods such as hemlock, tamarack, pine, spruce and cedar were used for firing. The manufacturing season began generally in mid February and ran to mid December. There were 12 or 14 such kilns in operation on the Paul farm by 1866 and the greatest production year was 1885 when they sold 9000 bushels. John Paul & Sons were awarded a bronze medal at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886 for their sample of lime.- Jean S. McGill book ‘A Pioneer History of Lanark County’ on the settlement of Ramsay Township

PAUL, FRANK YUILL – In hospital, Ottawa, Ontario on Tuesday, March 7th, 1989. Frank Yuill Paul – beloved husband of Eleanor Jean Clapp. Loving father of Geoffrey at home; Nancy, Sudbury; Allen, Whitehorse, Yukon and David of Toronto. Dear son of Norman Paul, RR 2, Almonte and the late Caroline Bowland. Dear brother of Ruth (Mrs. Arthur Armstrong), Burks Falls, Ontario: Jim, RR 2, Almonte and Norma Paul of Akron, Ohio. In his 49th year. Friends called at the Kerry Funeral Home, 154 Elgin Street, Almonte on Wednesday and Thursday. Funeral service was held at Almonte United Church on Friday, March l0th. Rev. Clifford Evans and Jack Lougheed officiated. Cremation, Ottawa.

Photo and text- North Lanark Regional Museum

James P. Paul -Interviewed November 4, 2013 by Sarah Chisholm
Catalogue No.: 2013.43.1
Duration: 42 minutes
Photo: L-R: Sarah, Jim

James P. Paul (Jim Paul) comes from a long line of farmers. He grew up on Mount Blow Farm in Ramsay which was started by the Paul family in 1821.

Mount Blow Farm operated as a mixed farm until the early 1900s and was well known for its lime kiln business which ran from the 1860s to 1908. In 1925 the farm began the transition from mixed farming to dairy farming, building a purebred Holstein herd. In 1951 Jim Paul officially joined his father and his brother on the farm. Mount Blow Farm continued to expand and evolve. The farm improved with the addition of milking machines, a bulk tank and a pipeline all added by 1970.

Jim speaks about the history of the farm, the equipment changes and also speaks about his father, Norman Paul. Norman Paul is well known in Lanark County for his whittlings and dioramas.

This is a great interview for anyone interested in the history of Ramsay, agriculture, in particular the dairy industry.

 

The Paul Family–Learn more about the Paul family at the North Lanark Regional Museum-The Story of the Paul Family at Mount Blow Farm (Yellow Duotang) — — Four Page typed information on the Paul Family at Mount Blow Farm #73

 

 

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 Hometown News and now in The Townships Sun