Part 5 Beatrice Scovell's, "The Muskoka Story"

PART FIVE

Beatrice Scovell Writes About Pioneer Artist Ada Kinton and Her Family of Huntsville

By Ted and Suzanne Currie

     Suzanne and I, on a chilly autumn day, soon after a light dusting of snow the evening before, stood on the spot where Ada Florence Kinton was buried in the Huntsville Cemetery. I've written numerous feature articles on this pioneer artist, published in numerous magazines and newspapers since I first found her book, "Just One Blue Bonnet," for sale in a Bracebridge used book shop.
     Ada Kinton painted historically important scenes in Muskoka, while staying with her brother Ed Kinton, in the pioneer settlement of Huntsville, in the 1880's. Her brother Mackie was also living in Huntsville at the time. She came for a visit from England and some years later, would return to live in Canada, after the death of her father, and the dispersal of the family holdings. She became a respected artist, and art instructor, but would come to choose a life in the service of the Booth family, in the missions of the Salvation Army. She would also become a writer / illustrator with the Salvation Army's magazine, "War Cry."
     We have previously published biographical sketches of Ada Kinton on this facebook page, so you can archive back if you wish, to learn more about the artist. I wish, at the time I was writing these feature articles, that I had known about Beatrice Scovell's wonderful chapter on the pioneer artist and her family, in her 1980's book, "The Muskoka Story." I have only recently come to own a former reference copy of the Muskoka history, that was published in small numbers in 1982, leaving few to be sold to the public. As a great admirer of folk historians such as Beatrice Scovell, kin of the Huntsville Casselman and Ware families, and an eager hunter of stories about Ada Kinton, you can then imagine my delight, at finding the section in her book entitled, "The Kintons and William Randleson, Early Huntsville Residents." The best part? Beatrice Scovell actually met, and sat with Ada Kinton, who was staying with her brother in Huntsville, only a short time before the artist-missionary's death. Here now in the words of this wonderful story teller, Beatrice Casselman Scovell:
     "In 1880, Sara and Florence Kinton left England and came to visit their brothers, Edward and Mackie Kinton, who had settled in the Village of Huntsville. Edward (Ed) Kinton had the Post Office in his General Store. At this time, there was no plan for the sisters to make this their home. But two years later, after a short illness, their father J.L. Kinton (a teacher in England) died. Edward came back to England, and it was decided Florence was to make her home with her two bothers in Huntsville. Sara went to Paris, France, to work in an evangelistic mission.
     "(Ada) Florence kept a diary, and from this, and letters she wrote to her sister, in France, I got some information about Muskoka. I spent many afternoons on the verandah of Sara (Kinton) Randleson's home, reading about Huntsville and the people who were there in the years from 1882 to 1900. This from a diary written in 1885." The journal entries include the following information:
     "Huntsville in 1883 was a tiny village with not more than three hundred inhabitants. It had one street, there were no sidewalks. Most of the houses were made of logs, and if another room was needed you made a lean-to at the side. Edward Kinton and James Hanes had the first brick houses." From a letter written to her sister, on February 6th, 1883, while travelling on the steamship S.S. Sarmation," the following is noted:
     "You will be sorry to hear that we had a very rough voyage. The Captain said it was the stormiest the Sarmation has ever had. It was greatly amusing to hear the sea coming over the deck and down the stairs and past the cabin door, hissing and seething and fizzing like champagne in a passion. Once the stewardess could not get to me unless she waded knee-deep in water. The doctor was taking a mustard plaster to a patient, and he fell and dislocated his knee, and a passenger slipped on deck, and knocked himself insensible."
     Huntsville, February 12th, 1883: from a letter to Sara: "I am happy to say that we have safely arrived at last, after being on the journey from Tuesday evening until Sunday morning. We have been two days short of three weeks since we left England. We landed at Halifax on Tuesday and got straight into a Pullman. At Montreal we changed cars and from there to Toronto we met all sorts of  trouble. We were caught in a snow storm and had to wait to be dug out. Then there was a freight train off the track, and then there were two freight trains that collided; we had to wait for the track to be cleared. The we got to Gravenhurst, and I had my first sleigh ride. The horses frisked and skipped along like kittens, their long tails and manes waved about so prettily. I don't suppose I shall ever forget this trip to Muskoka. The 'tintinnabulation the the sleigh bells,' and the forest and the quiet midnight."
     Beatrice Scovell writes, "Most of the stories I heard from early settlers did not tell about their travel to the Grant Lands. I would have liked to hear more of their life before they came here, and why they left their former home; but the people who came across the ocean did not say much about it. More from the Kinton diary:"
     "I spent the day down in the office with people waiting for the mail. Mackie calls out the names as he sorts the mail. It is great fun shopping here in my brother's store, because you cannot get anything you want, and have to go away without, or make something quite different instead, and it is in the contriving and scheming and arranging that the pleasure comes in. Commenced to draw Mr. Hooie's premises and the cows and sheep. The doctor goes by a 'cutter'. It is like a perambulator on light runners. The cutter has a row of bells. Funeral procession of a young man from Fairy Lake passed the store, about fifteen sleighs following, chief mourners had large scarfs of some white material tied around the right arm.
     "I will sketch the view of the river disappearing in the bush and the steamer Northern still sleeping in the snow and ice. Also if I can get a large piece of paper I will make a drawing of the village. Mr. Crompton came into the store, a white-haired man with bright sharp eyes, formerly a Bible reader in London and Liverpool. He came out and settled on Grant Lands. Being a man of education and an eloquent speaker, at the wish of the Bishop, he was ordained and is now a travelling missionary in Muskoka. Yesterday we went to Allan Shay's plantation on the hill-top, where the Virginia Creeper grows so lovely and heard the birds sing, 'Hard Times in Canada, Canada,' over and over; or, as some say, they sing 'Sweet, Sweet Canada, Canada.' Had afternoon tea in Mrs. Godolphin's shanty, an odd little wooden house. It seemed quite a change to have tiny cups of pink china and tiny slices of bread to nibble. It seemed like home to me. Then on the way back to the store there were several sleighs drawn by oxen with broad backs and rough, long haired, tawny hides and big rolling eyes. The sleighs are mere boards on runners close to the ground.
     "Florence Kinton accepted a position as art teacher at Malvern, in England, in June 1883. During the Christmas holidays we went with her sister, Sara, to the home of General Booth, of the Salvation Army. Sara was acting as Visiting Governess to the Booth children. Visits were paid to the Army Training House, where Sara also taught a class of children. This proved to be the work Florence wanted, and eventually she joined the Salvation Army to work with General Booth. Later she came to Toronto and helped with the editing of the Salvation Army paper, 'The War Cry.' From there she went to Australia with the Booth family. Florence returned to Huntsville in poor health. She was in Dr. Hart's Hospital, suffering from rheumatic fever. I remember talking to her on the Randleson's verandah, when I had taken her some pansies. She died in 1905 and is buried beside her brother Edward and her niece Florence."
     It is known from Ada Florence Kinton's journal, that the stay in Australia had been difficult on her overall health, and the long hours expected of her, to work for the Booth mission, diminished her resistance to illness. When she contracted rheumatic fever, she was already in a weakened physical condition, and the destructive nature of the fever, was too much to survive. Her hands had been so swollen at the end, that she couldn't even attempt sketching the view from the Randleson's verandah. It is known, that despite her suffering at the end, she very much enjoyed her final days overlooking the small town that had grown so much since her first visit in the early 1880's.
     One of her close friends, Agnes Machar, one of Canada's early historical novelists, knew her as a talented artist who could have made considerable fame and money as both a painter and educator in the field of art. She pointed out, when invited to comment in the book published by Sara Randleson, that there was an occasion, when Ada Kinton was invited to attend a special art exhibition and prize presentation, in Toronto, I believe, where a number of her students were about to be awarded prizes for their work. By this time Miss Kinton was a member of the Salvation Army, and was wearing her uniform when she attended the event. When she saw the formally attired guests and artists, and judged her faded, worn uniform as being inappropriate for such public display, she hid near the doorway refusing to enter the hall for fear of being considered unworthy and unwelcome because of her outfit. Yet there were students who had achieved artistic excellence, and were being recognized, who she had tutored in the past; students who gave considerable credit to their kind teacher Ada Florence Kinton.
     There is another story of Ada Kinton working at a Toronto soup kitchen, run by the Salvation Army, and rescuing a young boy delivering newspapers for the local daily. The boy was suffering from the intense cold, having been poorly attired, and suffering from malnutrition. The wee lad fell down on the sidewalk, a short distance from the Salvation Army Mission, and she was profoundly disturbed to watch as passersby stepped over and around the child, dying in front of them. She helped carry him into the warm hall, where he was revived with hot tea and a warm lunch. This was the story of Ada Kinton throughout her life, and she had no regrets about the hardships suffered in this pursuit of looking out for the welfare of humanity.
    For more on "The Muskoka Story," written by folk historian Beatrice Scovell, please join Suzanne and I for another chapter on this facebook page tomorrow.