A MUSKOKA HISTORY LESSON THAT HAS NEARLY BEEN FORGOTTEN
WHAT HARDSHIPS DID MUSKOKA RESIDENTS FACE - WAY BACK WHEN
I CAN REMEMBER BEING HUGELY OFFENDED BY A MANAGEMENT INDIVIDUAL, AT THE FORMER HERALD-GAZETTE, WHO LAUGHED WHEN I SAID I WAS PREPARING A FASCINATING STORY ABOUT GRANNY BOWERS FOR THE NEXT ISSUE. HE LOOKED AT ME WITH A SMIRK, AS IF TO SAY, DON'T BOTHER.
"I HAVEN'T THOUGHT ABOUT OLD GRANNY BOWERS IN YEARS," HE SAID, ''SHE HAD QUITE A REPUTATION YOU KNOW." CONTINUING TO HIGH STEP DOWN THE HALLWAY, I ASKED HIM TO EXPLAIN, BECAUSE "HAVING A REPUTATION" WAS IN MY MIND, SUGGESTING SHE HAD SOMEWHAT LOOSE MORALS. ABOUT THE LAST APPRAISAL I WOULD HAVE AFFORDED THIS STALWART, GOD FEARING WOMAN, WHO SPENT MOST OF HER LIFE ALONE, DESPITE HAVING A LARGE FAMILY. HE JUST SAID SOMETHING LIKE, "SHE WAS WELL KNOWN IN HER DAY," FROM HER LITTLE SHACK ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD, IN BRACEBRIDGE. "SHE DID WHAT SHE HAD TO DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE I GUESS," HE ADDED, TURNING HIS BACK ON OUR CONVERSATION. I WAS STUNNED BY THIS STATEMENT, AND WANTED TO CHALLENGE HIM FURTHER, BUT BECAUSE I DIDN'T BELIEVE THE ALLEGATION, I JUST LET IT GO. WOULD HE AGREE TO RUN THE FEATURE? WHETHER HE AGREED WITH MY STORY OR NOT, HE DIDN'T SAY ANOTHER WORD TO ME ABOUT IT, AND IT BECAME ONE OF MY MOST COMPLIMENTED PIECES. HEARSAY CAN BE SO CRUEL. IMAGINE HOW SHE WOULD HAVE FELT, HEARING THE SAME KIND OF COMMENTS FROM NEIGHBORS WHO SHE THOUGHT WERE FRIENDS?
AS I DID MOST OFTEN, I DIDN'T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT MANAGEMENT, AND DID MY OWN THING. TO THIS DAY, I'VE NEVER FORGOTTEN THOSE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE RECLUSIVE MRS. BOWERS, AND WHETHER OR NOT SHE DID WHAT THE MAN CLAIMED, DOES NOT ALTER MY OPINION THAT SHE WAS A SURVIVOR OF GOOD FAITH, AND A LOT OF SCHOLARLY FOLKS THOUGHT THE SAME. IN FACT, IT'S A STORY I WANT TO SHARE WITH YOU, FROM A BOOK PUBLISHED IN THE NINETEEN FORTIES, BY THE SOCIETY OF SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST, IN BRACEBRIDGE. IT IS A STORY ABOUT PERSONAL HARDSHIP IN THE MUSKOKA WILDS, AND FAITH IN GOD. IT IS ALSO THE HISTORY OF A LITTLE LOG CHURCH ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD, THAT GRANNY BOWERS HAD A HAND IN ESTABLISHING. THE BOOKLET IS VERY RARE AND MY COPY IS STARTING TO FAIL. IT'S A STORY I DON'T WANT LOST IN THE SEA OF NEW LOCAL HISTORIES, BECAUSE IT IS AN IMPORTANT SOCIAL AND MORAL HISTORY, AND A REFLECTION OF JUST HOW DIFFICULT IT WAS TO SETTLE IN SUCH ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES, WHERE THERE WAS MORE FOREST THAN OPEN GROUND FOR GROWING CROPS. HERE IS A START TO THE STORY OF GRANNY BOWERS. THE BOOK WAS PURCHASED AT A CHARITY AUCTION IN GRAVENHURST A FEW YEARS AGO.
THE INTRODUCTION HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY THE SSJE, PUBLISHERS OF THE BOOK, AND THE FATHERS WHO CONDUCTED THE SERVICES AT ST. PETER'S ANGLICAN CHURCH, ON THE FRASERBURG ROAD. IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LITTLE LOG BUILDING, MAKE IT A POINT TO VISIT SOME TIME SOON. I'LL GET YOU STARTED ON THE GUIDED TOUR, BY FIRST VISITING THE BIOGRAPHY OF GRANNY BOWERS.
1942 BRACEBRIDGE
BY FATHER ROLAND PALMER, SSJE.
"One day, soon after we came to Bracebridge, one of the Fathers was walking out to Purbrook, a Mission, about twelve miles away. It was snowing hard. Presently a team of horses and sleigh caught up with him. A pleasant voice called out ' Want a ride, Father?' He looked up to see Mrs. CPreriddiford, who drove the mail from Fraserburg to Bracebridge and back three times a week. With her was Mrs. Leslie Leeder, a neighbor. The Father replied that he would like a ride, but wondered where he could sit. With all their coats the two good women seemed to fill the only seat. The back of the sleigh was full of mail bags, lengths of stove-pipe, bags of flour and cans of coal oil for people along the road. The kind women pushed over and made room, so that. by putting a timid arm around one of them the Father could stay aboard.
"We talked of many things as we jogged along, everything from cakes to cancer operations. Every now and then Mrs. Criddiford would blow and blast on her whistle and a youngster would run out from a farmhouse to claim the groceries that she had bought for the family in town. Presently we drew in from the road to a tiny one roomed shack. It was almost dark. The door opened and in the faint light we saw a dear little old lady with apple cheeks and a little round straw hat on her head. 'I haven't got anything for you, Granny, but I just wanted to be sure you were all right.' We drove on. That old lady is Church of England,' said Mrs. Criddiford.
Father Palmer continues, "It did not take us long to get to know Granny Bowers. She had recently moved to the tiny shack after being burnt out of her home near Falkenburg (north of Bracebridge). She was a churchwoman and missed the services she had attended so regularly at Falkenburg. We began taking her the Holy Communion from time to time. You would arrive with the Blessed Sacrament, which she liked to receive at an early hour, fasting. She had no clock, so sometimes you would knock on the door and she would reply, 'Bless Me! Is it eight o'clock already? You'll have to sit on the step, my boy, until I get my clothes on.' She would dress and open the door. The one room contained a bed, two chairs, a table, a stove and an old cupboard. She spread her only cloth and took her seat at the North end. The Priest laid out the Communion things. Granny followed the service in her big Prayer Book. She read it all aloud - Absolution, Consecration, and Blessing. It meant a lot to her.
"She depended on water from the roof or from the bottom of the gravel pit. A neighbor boy brought her a pail of drinking water each day. She had a neat little garden where she raised her potatoes and other vegetables. When her son was very ill she begged the fathers to go and annoint him. She had read about it in St. James Epistle. She often said, 'I wish there was a little church I could go to.' At that time no one else in the neighborhood was friendly toward us. 'I have an idea,' said Granny. 'That some day there will be a church on that there rock.' Only once did she get to go to Church. We took her to Vankoughnet for the Confirmation. She was most impressed at 'All those young things giving themselves to God.' She saw the Bishop's staff and asked, 'What was that there pole he carried?' One day dear Mrs. Criddiford, who is the mainstay of the United Church in Fraserburg, came to tell us that Granny was very ill. Father Serson hurried out with the reserved Sacrament. Granny's daughter, herself an old woman, who had come to care for her, said, 'I'm sorry, Mother cannot take the Sacrament. She don't know nobody.' But Granny could. As Father Serson gave her the Sacrement and a few minutes later she died. She knew we would come and she had waited for her viaticum, her food for the journey.
"Only a few weeks had gone by after her death when quite suddenly the district opened up to us. Mr. Herbert Shire, offered his house for services. Soon a church had to be built. On Granny's rock a lovely little log building was erected and called St. Peter's. It cost very little, for it was made out of an old log stable that the men took down and moved. A generation of children had grown up in that little Church. Many of them are in the King's forces (Second World War) today. There is a very faithful congregation and a fine band of communicants. We believe that as soon as Granny saw her Savior she began to talk about 'That there rock. There should be a church on it.' And we think the Master said, 'Well, if the good soul wants it so badly, give it to her.'
"We had often heard Granny tell of her experiences. Last winter (1941), her favorite grandchild came to live near St. Peter's. She produced an exercise book in which was written down Granny Bower's own account of her life." (Reverend Roland Palmer)
Granny Bowers' biography in her own words, begins with the paragraph, "I was sitting here in my little cottage in peace and quietness, and I thought to pass the time, I would write my little story. My thoughts go back to my early life and I wondered if you would like to hear of my hardships, I had to endure in the early pioneering days of Muskoka."
She writes, "Young people today do not believe these things and so I feel it's not much use telling them. But old folks like myself love to talk over old times together and I sometimes long to be someone of my own age for a really good talk. I am eighty-three years of age. I have six children living, about thirty grandchildren and twenty-five great grand children. I will tell you first about my father. He lived in England when he was young with his parents and one brother, and his father worked in the coal mines. When father was seventeen years old his parents put him to learn the lawyer business. He was three years at that when his boss was shot while fighting a duel and was killed. He went home then and remained there till he was twenty-one.
The journal continues, "About this time his father died and the property was divided. My father took his portion in money and soon after crossed over to the state of Maine where he completed a course of learning in the doctor's business. Not long after this the Napoleonic War broke out. Father was called upon to offer his services and was with Lord Nelson when he died. In the year 1815 was the Battle of Waterloo and Father also was doctor there. It was not long then till England sent out a band of explorers to explore the North West and father went with them also. He was about forty years of age then and about that time he was married to my mother, a farmer's daughter. They lived there out West till the lower Canadian Rebellion broke out then moved to Quebec, where they stopped a short time. By this time they had twelve children.
"From Quebec they went to Alliston and drawed farms. The remainder of their children were born there, having twenty in all, eight sons and twelve daughters, of which I was the next to the youngest. The four eldest boys soon were settled on farms of their own. Then father died in 1879 being 83 years old and mother managed the farm till her death eight years later. When she died the place went to the three youngest sons. As was stated in my father's will that any who left the farm, would forfeit any claim to the estate, so when one of the boys left, there was just two to share it. Father gave two sons property in Nebraska near Elkhorn City and one of the remaining boys went to them, leaving one on the homestead. He was married to a fine good woman and had seven sons and four daughters who were reared in plenty. The sons received good trades and two of the girls became high school teachers. Several of the boys went west and settled on good farms and were very thrifty."
I will continue the biography of Granny Bowers in tomorrow's blog. Please join me for more of this remarkable pioneering story.
THE JOURNAL OF GRANNY BOWERS - A LIFE OF HARDSHIP - A LIFE OF FAITH
A MUSKOKA HISTORY GEM, FEW KNOW ABOUT TODAY
ON ONE OF THE FIRST LOCAL SIGHTSEEING VENTURES, SHORTLY AFTER OUR FAMILY MOVED TO BRACEBRIDGE, BACK IN THE WINTER OF 1966, MY FATHER ED, DROVE US A SHORT DISTANCE OUT THE FRASERBURG ROAD, FOR A STOP AT ST. PETER'S ANGLICAN CHURCH. IT'S UNMISTAKABLE, BECAUSE OF ITS LOG CONSTRUCTION, AND THE FACT THE STRUCTURE IS PERCHED ON A ROCK KNOLL SITUATED SO BEAUTIFULLY AMONGST THE EVERGREENS. I IMAGINE IT IS ONE OF THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED SITES IN THE WHOLE REGION. MY DAD TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS OF MY MOTHER AND I, ON THE STEPS UP TO THE TINY CHURCH, WITH OUR OLD BROWNIE CAMERA......THE BOX WITH FILM THAT TRAVELLED THOUSANDS OF MILES ON OUR VACATIONS.....AND THANKS TO MY FATHER'S LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SUCH THINGS AS COMPOSITION, AND PROPER HANDLING OF THE CAMERA, THERE WAS ALWAYS A TELL-TALE SILHOUETTE OF A THUMB IN THE CORNER OF ALMOST EVERY IMAGE.
THE STORY OF GRANNY BOWERS IS TIED INTO THIS LITTLE LOG CHURCH, AND IT WAS BUILT FOLLOWING HER DEATH, FROM TIMBERS SCAVENGED FROM AN OLD FARM SHED. TO HER LAST BREATH, SHE HAD HOPED FOR A CHURCH UP ON THE HILL, ACROSS FROM HER HUMBLE ABODE. YOU CAN ARCHIVE BACK TO YESTERDAY'S BLOG TO CATCH-UP ON THE JOURNAL ENTRIES BY GRANNY BOWERS AND FATHER ROLAND PALMER OF THE SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, THE PUBLISHER OF THE SMALL BOOKLET IN 1942. WE RESUME THE STORY:
"I can remember when I was a young girl long years ago. I was one of a happy family who lived on a farm in Alliston. I was healthy and strong. I could enjoy life. I remember when I used to get up at five in the morning to watch the sun rise and in the cool of the evening I liked to go to the little river and fish. It was more for a pastime as I never cared for fish to eat. After father died, mother took his place in doctoring and nursing the people. She freely gave her help to all suffering humanity and was always ready to go whenever called. She used to drive to Toronto about three times in the winter to buy her summer's provisions. She would take loads of pork, butter and fowls all the way to sell. Pork at that time was $4.50 a hundred weight for the best. It took one day to go from our home in Alliston to Holland Landing, stop there and return home the next day. My brothers hauled their wheat to Bradford in winter along with the other farmers. That was the nearest market. They would take about three loads a week and about forty bushel a load. The trip from Alliston to Bradford was a distance of about 36 miles so they had to rest the horses every other day.
She writes, "I used to help my brothers clean the wheat for market. We had a good farm and grew a great quantity of grain. The people in those times had big tin horns to call the men to dinner. When the women would blow the horn the men would hear at the far end of the farm about a mile away. I would take great pride in being the first one to blow my horn, which was usually 11:30 and was generally thought to be the smartest girl but am not much use now at the age of 83. The people in those times used to plan to have land cleared, and cut down acres of trees and underbrush. In the fall of the year at home, they would cut down about twelve or fourteen acres at a time and all with the axe. Wood was of no value then when the country was just opening up, so they piled it in the fallows and burnt it. They generally left about one acre of standing timber on each farm for wood and the rest was all cleared.
"The farmers each year cleared land for the next year. In September and October they piled all the underbrush in winrows and left the gib trees to be felled in the winter. The next spring about the 24th of May or 1st of June when the brush was dry, they went with a torch on the windside of the winrows and lit up the brush heaps. In about half an hour the whole thing would be in flames as high as the tree tops. Then when the fire cooled down the men came with the oxen and piled up the logs, and in the evening they burnt them. These they would burn two or three days before they cooled down, then the remains were branded up again and continued in this way till all was burnt and the earth was nice, soft clay loam. Then about the 15th of September they planted their fall wheat, with grass seed. Next year they cut the grain and the following year had a good crop of high timothy hay. They had fires all over the country then as all the farmers were doing the same. We had a log barn to store our hay and grain until the last summer, I was at home when they put up a good frame barn and that year both were well filled.
"Two years after father died when I was little more than sixteen years of age, I was married. Then my misfortunes commenced. We had five sons and three daughters and had to work very hard to support them. My husband could drink all the money he and I both earned. He wanted children but would not provide for them. This made it very hard for me after being used to plenty. When we were a year and ten months married, our first child was born. About that time pioneers were settling in Muskoka, and my husband went to see the country too, thinking he would make a home for us there. He liked the country fine and so came home to get us. His brother drove us out there with his horses. It was the 21st of January when we started. We went from Alliston to Price's Corners the first day. From there to Michael Bowers near Severn Bridge, about noon the next day, and to Gravenhurst that day and stopped there for the night. We lived in with some other settlers till our shanty was put up. The virgin forest stood at that time untouched by the hand of man. Huntsville was a trading post and there was no railway accommodation north of Barrie. We were not long hewing out a site for our home and we soon settled. That spring my second child arrived and that summer and fall my husband got work helping to cut a road through five miles of bush. The job lasted three or four months, the men were very glad to get the work then as they needed the money to hep them along, but they didn't get much. It was ninety cents a day and board themselves.
She records that, "As there was no more work when that job was done, we decided to go back to Alliston as the best thing to do, so we started next morning. We walked to Gravenhurst the first day, about 20 miles, and carried the two children and two small bundles and stopped at a hotel for the night. The next morning there were cadge teams returning from a trip up north so we had a ride with them as far as Orillia, about three miles. There were two teams, one to a market sleigh, the other a jumper sleigh. The man who drove the jumper was drunk and not able to manage his horses so he offered my man a free ride if he would drive the team. The other man was boss of the two teams and he charged me $1.50 for myself and the children to ride with him. We got to a half way roadhouse near the Kashe (River). When we arrived here they had to stop and feed the teams. The men also refreshed themselves with a few glasses of beer. My man was feeling pretty good and was not able to manage the horses; as a consequence the horses left the jumper and men sprawling in the snow. The boss left the jumper by the side of the road and assisted the men to get on the horses's backs, and they came along behind us. But the horses were very poor and they had no saddles, and the men were shouting that they wanted a drawing knife to cut the hubbles off the horse's backs.
We arrived at the next town near night and put up at a hotel. In the morning the children and myself went in the stage to Barrie. My husband said he would walk and arrive there about 3 p.m. He told us where to stay at a hotel till he came along, and he paid the stage driver $1.50 for our fare. It happened the hotel keeper had left and another (stranger to me) was keeping it. Well, I went into the bar room and told the keeper, if a man called inquiring for a woman and two children that he was able to tell him I was waiting in the sitting room. But as it happened there was another man in the bar room when my man arrived, and when he asked for us, the man knew nothing about us. My man then went to another hotel to enquire but could get no word, so he walked the streets till night and gave up looking. He thought I had got a good chance of a ride and went on, so he engaged a room for himself in a hotel and went to bed. I didn't know what could have happened. I thought he must have been drinking again. I had no money and could not get a bed anywhere, so waited in the sitting room till midnight. I began to think we would soon be turned out when they locked up for the night. We were both tired and hungry as we had not had anything to eat, and to think my man was sleeping peacefully in the hotel across the corner. One of my neighbors was at the hotel and was passing the sitting room door when he saw me. He said my man was alright as he had seen him, so he went across the street and found him for me, and he came over so we went to his hotel for the night. We had a bite to eat and a good rest as we were very tired. In the morning we had another lunch in our room and left Barrie carrying the children to Thornton which took all day. We were short of money so had to walk. We went in to get warm and got permission to stay all night but the mistress was very cross and ugly so we travelled on, and didn't stop till we arrived at Cookstown and it took us till bed time."
I will rejoin the journal penned by Granny Bowers, in tomorrow's blog. Please join me for the conclusion of this compelling pioneering tale. It gets much more interesting. She was a tough lady, with strong convictions and enduring faith in God's goodwill.
THE STORY OF GRANNY BOWERS SHOULD ATTRACT OUR ATTENTION
HARDSHIP AND POVERTY WERE THE TRIALS OF DAILY LIFE IN MUSKOKA
LAST CHRISTMAS I CHASTIZED A LOCAL PUBLICATION FOR INSENSITIVE EDITORIAL COMMENTS, MADE ABOUT THE PREVELANCE (VIA STATISTICS) OF POVERTY IN MUSKOKA. WHETHER IT WAS A PROBLEM WITH WORDSMITHING AND EDITORIAL OVERSIGHT, IT SEEMED TO REPRESENT POVERTY AS A CUMBERSOME, DEPRESSING REALITY THAT WAS INTERFERRING WITH OUR "BRAND" PROMOTION, BEING PITCHED IN AND ABOUT MUSKOKA. HEAVEN FORBID THAT THE REALITY OF FAILING PERSONAL ECONOMIES SHOULD TARNISH OUR IMAGE HERE IN "GOD'S COUNTRY," AS A LUXURIOUS OASIS FOR ALL THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD TO COTTAGE OR LOUNGE AT A LAKESIDE RESORT. SO I GAVE THEM A LITTLE HISTORY LESSON. ONE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN EASILY GIVEN BY GRANNY BOWERS, FROM THE LITTLE 1942 BOOKLET, PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY OF ST. JOHNS THE EVANGELIST, IN BRACEBRIDGE.
THE MUSKOKA WILDS WERE FULL OF DESPERATE STORIES OF THE POOR AND DESTITUTE, WHO ALTHOUGH PENNILESS AND HUNGRY, STILL WORKED AT CLEARING THEIR HOMESTEAD GRANT LANDS, ATTEMPTING YEAR AFTER DISCOURAGING YEAR, TO GENERATE CROPS FROM THE THIN, ROOT AND ROCK STREWN SOIL. MANY OF THESE COURAGEOUS SOULS DIED TRYING TO CARVE OUT SUCCESSFUL FARMSTEADS, AND ARE STILL BURIED IN UNMARKED GRAVES ACROSS THE COUNTRYSIDE. THE SUFFERING WAS EXTREME, AND SO MANY OF THESE SETTLERS WERE RECRUITED BY UNSCRUPULUS EMIGRATION AND STEAMSHIP LINE AGENTS, WHO PAINTED THE FRONTIER OF CANADA, IN MUCH GRANDER TERMS THAN WERE WARRANTED. WARNINGS AND ADVISORIES WERE FEW, AND USUALLY BURIED WITHIN THE GLOWING REVIEWS, PUBLISHED IN SETTLERS' GUIDE BOOKS. THUS, SO MANY ILL PREPARED SETTLERS ARRIVED IN THE HARSH ENVIRONS OF CANADA, AND MUSKOKA IN PARTICULAR, THAT FAILURE WAS OFTEN IMMINENT. GRANNY BOWERS' STORY IS PART OF THIS UNFOLDING TRAGEDY, THAT IS MOST OFTEN OVERLOOKED, WHEN WE'RE CELEBRATING THE HERITAGE OF OLD BOATS, STEAMSHIPS, RESORTS, AND OUR COMMUNITIES. GRANNY BOWERS' STORY IS HONEST BUT DEPRESSING. SEEMS A LOT OF FOLKS DON'T LIKE BEING DEPRESSED BY WHAT THEY READ. AS AN HISTORIAN, I WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH. NOT THE GLOSSY OVERVIEW, AND POPULAR, "FEEL GOOD" HISTORY, WE MOST OFTEN RECEIVE, IN OUR HERITAGE PUBLICATIONS TODAY.
THE POWERFUL STORY IN THIS TINY, UNASSUMING LITTLE BOOK, IS PRECIOUS TO ME, AND IT IS WHY I DECIDED TO RE-PUBLISH THE MATERIAL IN THIS BLOG. IF YOU ARE JUST JOINING THIS FOUR PART SERIES, YOU CAN ARCHIVE BACK TO THE FIRST AND SECOND CHAPTERS, BY GOING TO THE BLOG HISTORY. THE BOOKLET WAS PRINTED IN SMALL QUANTITY, AND THERE ARE VERY FEW LEFT FOR PUBLIC VIEWING.
IN GRANNY BOWERS' WORDS
(MRS. BOWERS' AND HER HUSBAND, WITH CHILDREN, ARE IN THE COOKSTOWN VICINITY, WITHOUT MONEY OR LODGING, AT PRESENT IN THE TEXT)
"We told the hotelkeeper there that we had no money but would like to stay all night; we told them of our hard times, and one man wanted to take up a collection for us. He started with ten cents. But my pride was hurt and I decided to move on. But a rich lady and gentleman came in and persuaded them to keep us all night. In the morning we had a bit to eat in our room and started again to Carlooke and arrived there about noon and went into a boarding house to warm ourselves and found they were old neighbours of ours. They used us good and we had a good dinner; all we could eat. And when we were refreshed we continued on to Alliston and stopped awhile at my sister Annes, where we left our little girl and then went on to my mothers. Once there I was settled for the winter. Then he went back to Allandale to cut wood. He worked here till the 20th of March with Squire Little and all he saved in that time, from Xmas to March was $1.00. The rest went for board, tobacco and drink. With the dollar he bought enough calico fro a dress for myself and the little girl.
Granny Bowers writes, "Somewhere the middle of April, he sent me a letter with 15 cents. He said for me to try and get up to Angus and pay the 15 cents for fare on the train from there, down to where he was. I thought he must be pretty hard up if that was all he could spare me. And I was too independent to use it. I would have to walk twelve miles anyway to take the train. In about five days I made up my mind to go to him, about 25 miles, and I walked all the way. I started at 8 o'clock in the morning and arrived when the five o'clock train was coming in. He met me about a mile from his work. The man he was working for had paid him some wages to come and get me. He took the baby I had been carrying and carried it into camp. When we got in he kindled the fire and put the kettle on for tea. He went about three miles to Allandale for bread, butter and eggs and we had supper. But I was too tired to eat and wanted to lie down and rest; I was not well for a week. I was so sore from carrying the child. Then about a week later he went to Alliston and got the little girl that we had left with my sister Anne.
"In the shanty was a heap of straw in the corner for a bed and an old quilt and old stove, and cracked stove pot. This was all we had to make a start with. I had to take my white undershirt to make a sheet. It made a good sized sheet too for skirts were made very full in those days. Then we had the quilt to put over us. We had to do with this till fall and we had all summer to get a few more things together. The woodcutting wasn't much of a job so we had to go in for haying and harvesting for Squire Little. We did four or five acres of wheat for him and eight acres of oats for another man. He cradled it with the grain cradler while I raked and binded. Then we pulled nine acres of peas for the Squire, the pea-vines were seven feet long and a very heavy crop. Then we did odd jobs such as digging vegetables and the like till fall set in. I got my share of the wages for all the work I did. In the fall we went to Barrie to do our shopping. I got some hay ticking for a bed and some flanellette for sheets and he got groceries and provisions. Then we were more comfortable. We stayed there that winter and bought some land from the squire, where we moved to a little shanty near-by in March. Then we stayed there all that summer while he put up a small house on his own property. Here in August, my third child was born.
She reminisces that, "My husband and another man had been making shingles and a few days before my baby came, I packed twenty-one bunches. He got a man to haul them out to the station and should have got $1.25 a bunch for them. He did not get home till the next day and came in shivering with cold and could not give any account of the money but 37 cents. He had been drinking and it had either been lost or stolen. We were out of bread at the time and when the baby came ten days old, I carried him a mile to pick berries to earn the bread with the other two children toddling after. When another load of shingles was made, he had to take the money he got for them, to pay the man for hauling them out, so we had nothing that time. It happened when we were living there in Inisfil near Barrie in the year 1867. About that time my husband's father died and his mother wanted us to go to Mulmur and live near her, and so we went. His brother had a job chopping, so my husband helped him from March till May. It was about three miles from his mothers so my husband thought we might as well live in the shanty with his brother where they were chopping, and I went in for sugar making and when the work was done, we moved back near his mothers. We remained there all summer and winter and it was here my 4th child was born. My husband received five acres of the farm, as his portion of the estate, so he built himself a nice house on his own land. At that time his mother was bothering us a lot and we could not do as we liked on our own property and so after my fifth and sixth children arrived, we decided to go to Muskoka again."
She penned in her journal, "In the spring of the year, 1873, when my youngest child was five months old, we moved and started in with the other pioneers. He sold his property in Mulmur and bought a good yoke of oxen, a good cow and ten hens for a start. The oxen carried us to Muskoka. When we arrived there, we found some other people had settled on the land we had when we first came out, so we had to find another homestead, and build another log house. We found a spot in the wilderness and cut logs and put up our house the first year in a temporary way. It was ready to live in on the 4th of November and it was a very bad winter, with four feet of snow. The place had a good beaver marsh and my husband cut a stack of beaver hay for the animals for the winter but they would not eat it as they had been used to better, so we had to sell the oxen and wagon for $40, and the cow for $18.00, so we just had the hens left. There was no work for men in the country then....only cutting cordwood at 40 cents a cord, and not very much of that unless you went three or four miles looking for a job. We made snow shoes that winter from basswood bark and a broad runner hand sleigh and started to make shingles. He went a mile and a half to get the timber. He had no saw like there is now, just common cross-cuts (old style)....no lance teeth. He used to get the tree down the first day, and two shingle cuts off and hauled home on the hand sleigh. He would cut away at the tree till it was all hauled home, and then he made a saw horse and riving block, and made shingles all winter in the house. He rived them and I shaved them, and our eight year old boy packed them; about thirty one or thirty two thousand that winter."
We will re-join Mrs. Bowers' journal in tomorrow's blog, for the conclusion of her story of survival on the Muskoka frontier, during the pioneering era of our regional history.
Thanks so much for joining me for today's blog. Please join me tomorrow, for the final part of Granny Bower's incredible story.
No comments:
Post a Comment