Volume II Part 22 (1/2)

”I remain, yours truly,

”GEORGE J. RYERSE.

”Rev. E. Ryerson.”

_Historical Memoranda by Mrs. Amelia Harris, of Eldon House, London, Ontario, only daughter of the late Colonel Samuel Ryerse, and sister of the late Rev. Geo. J. Ryerse, writer of the foregoing short letters._

The husband of Mrs. Harris was an active and scientific officer in the Royal Navy, having been employed with the late Admirals Bayfield and Owen in the survey of the Canadian lakes and rivers, by the Admiralty, during the years 1815 to 1817. It was during the progress of this survey that Miss Ryerse married. After a few years' residence at Kingston, Mr.

and Mrs. Harris returned to a beautiful homestead on Long Point Bay, intending to reside there permanently. In the days of the early settlement, a more refined and cultivated society was to be found in the country than usually in the towns and villages. Mr. Harris was at once selected by the various Governments of the day to be the recipient of various Government offices. During the years 1837-38 he took an active part in quelling the rebellion, and is believed by many to have been the head and front and organizer of the expedition which sent the steamer _Caroline_ over the Falls. He was the first man on her deck, and the last to leave, having set her on fire.

The late Edward Ermatinger, in his Life of Colonel Talbot, refers to the Harris family as follows:

A.D. 1834. ”By degrees the officers of the Court removed to London, and Mr. Harris was the first to build a house of considerable dimensions on a handsome piece of ground highly elevated above the banks of the River Thames. This house was long the resort of the first men in Canada, and in this house the venerable founder of the Talbot settlement lay during his first serious illness, while on his way to England. Every man of rank or distinction who visited this part of Canada became the guest of Mr. Harris--the late Lord Sydenham, the various lieutenant-governors and governor-generals, and the present Lord Derby, were among the number.”

In the following memoranda, which Mrs. Harris wrote more than twenty years since, at the wish of her children, but not for publication, she gives a graphic and highly interesting account of her father's early settlement in Canada, and the circ.u.mstances of the first settlers, and the state of society of that time:

”Captain Samuel Ryerse, one of the early settlers in Canada, was the descendant of an old Dutch family in New Jersey, and both his father and grandfather held judicial appointments under Kings George II. and III.

When the rebellion commenced in 1776, and the British Government was anxious to raise provincial troops, they offered commissions to any young gentlemen who could enlist a certain number of young men; sixty, I think, ent.i.tled them to a captaincy. My father, Captain Ryerse, being popular in his neighbourhood, found no difficulty in enlisting double the number required, and on presenting himself and men at headquarters, New York, was gazetted captain in the 4th Battalion New Jersey Volunteers, in which regiment he served with distinction during the seven years' war.

”After the acknowledgment of American Independence by England, and the British troops were about to be disbanded, the British Government offered them a free transport to New Brunswick, and a grant of land.

When there, little choice was left to those who had sacrificed all for connection with the mother country. On my father's arrival in New Brunswick he obtained a lot of land in or near Fredericton, the present seat of government; and there he met my mother, who was a refugee also, and they were married.

”After remaining there several years, his friends entreated him to return to New York, holding out great inducements if he would consent to do so. He accepted the offer of his friends and returned, but he soon discovered that the rancorous, bitter feelings which had arisen during the war were not extinct, and that it was too soon for a British subject to seek a home in the United States. My mother loved her native city, and might not have been induced again to leave it had it not been for domestic affliction. She brought from the healthy climate of New Brunswick four fine children, all of whom she buried in New York in eight weeks. She gave birth to four more; three of those had died also, and she felt sure if she stayed there she would lose the only remaining one. Therefore she readily consented to my father's proposal to come to Canada, where his old friend, General Simcoe, was at that time governor.

In the summer of 1794 my father and a friend started for Canada. The journey was then a most formidable one, and before commencing it wills were made and farewells given, as if a return was more than doubtful.

”On his arrival at Niagara he was warmly greeted by his old friend, General Simcoe, who advised him by all means to settle in Canada, holding out many inducements for him to do so. He promised my father a grant of 3,000 acres of land as a captain in the army, 1,200 as a settler, and that my mother and each of her sons should have a grant of 1,200, and each of her daughters a grant of 600 acres.

”My father was pleased with what he saw of the country, and heard a favourable account of the climate, and decided at once to return as early the ensuing year as possible. On his return to New York he commenced making arrangements for his move the ensuing spring.

”It would be much easier for a family to go from Canada to China now, than it was to come from New York to Canada then. He had to purchase a boat large enough to hold his family and goods, with supplies of groceries for two or three years, with farming utensils, tools, pots, boilers, etc., and yet the boat must not be too large to get over the portage from the Hudson to the Mohawk. As there were no waggon roads from Albany to the Niagara frontier, families coming to Canada had to come down the Mohawk to Lake Ontario, and enter Canada in that way. My father found it a weary journey, and was months in accomplis.h.i.+ng it.

”On my father's arrival at Niagara, at that time the seat of government, he called on his Excellency General Simcoe, who had just returned from a tour through the Province of Canada West, then one vast wilderness. He asked General Simcoe's advice as to where he should choose his resting-place. He recommended the county of Norfolk (better known for many years as Long Point), which had been recently surveyed.

”As it was now drawing towards the close of summer, it would require all their time to get up a shanty and prepare for the winter. Consequently, arrangements were made immediately for continuing their journey. The heavy batteau was transported from Queenston to Chippawa, around the Falls, a distance of twelve miles. Supplies were added to those brought from New York, and they once more started on their journey, bidding goodbye to the last vestige of civilization. They were twelve days making 100 miles--not bad travelling in those days, taking the current of the river and lake, adverse winds, and an unknown coast into consideration.

”When my father came within the bay formed by Long Point, he watched the coast for a favourable impression, and, after a scrutiny of many miles, the boat was run into a small creek, the high banks sloping gradually on each side.

”Directions were given to the men to erect the tent for my mother. My father had not been long on sh.o.r.e before he decided that that should be his home. In wandering about, he came to an eminence which would, when the trees were felled, command a view of the harbour. He gazed around him for a few moments and said, 'Here I will be buried,' and there, after fourteen years' toil, he sleeps in peace.

”The men my father hired in New York all wished to settle in Canada, and were glad to avail themselves of an opportunity of coming free of expense, and promised to remain with him until he had a log-house built, and had made himself comfortable. He had paid them a great portion of their wages in advance, to enable them to get necessaries in New York.

Immediately on his arrival at Niagara they left him, with one exception, and went in search of localities for themselves, very little regard at that time being paid to engagements, and there being no means to enforce them; consequently, he had to hire fresh hands at Niagara, who were men, like the former, on the look-out for land. After one day's rest at Ryerse Creek, they re-embarked, and went fourteen miles further up the bay, to the house of a German settler who had been there two years, and had a garden well stocked with vegetables.

”The appearance of the boat was hailed with delight by those solitary beings, and my mother and child were soon made welcome, and the best that a miserable log-house, or rather hut, could afford was at her service. This kind, good family consisted of father, mother, one son and one daughter. Mr. Troyer, the father, was a fine-looking old man with a flowing beard, and was known for many years throughout the Long Point settlement as 'Doctor Troyer.' He possessed a thorough knowledge of witches, their ways and doings, and the art of expelling them, and also the use of the divining rod, with which he could not only find water, but could also tell how far below the surface of the earth precious metals were concealed, but was never fortunate enough to discover any in the neighbourhood of Long Point. Here my father got his goods under shelter and left my mother, and returned to Ryerse Creek, intending to build a log-house as soon as possible. Half a dozen active men will build a very comfortable primitive log-house in ten or twelve days; that is, cut and lay up the logs and c.h.i.n.k them, put on a bark roof, cut holes for the windows and door, and build a chimney of mud and sticks.

Sawing boards by hand for floor and doors, making sash and s.h.i.+ngles, is an after and longer process.

”But soon after my father returned he fell ill with Lake fever; his men erected a shanty, open in front like an Indian camp, placed my father in it, and left him with his son, a lad of fifteen years of age, the son of a former wife, as his only attendant. When my father began to recover, my half brother was taken ill, and there they remained almost helpless, alone for three weeks.

”My mother hearing nothing of or from them, became almost frantic, as some of the party were to have returned in a few days. She prevailed upon Mike Troyer, the son, to launch his bark canoe, and to take her and my brother, then a year and a half old, in search of my father. On approaching Ryerse Creek, after a many days' paddle along the coast, they saw a blue smoke curling above the trees, and very soon my mother stood in front of the shanty, where my father sat with a stick, turning an immense turkey, which hung, suspended by a string, before a bright fire. The day previous, a large flock of wild turkeys had come very near his camp, and commenced fighting. Without moving from his shanty, he killed six at one shot. He afterwards, at single shots, killed eight more, and the united strength of him and my brother was scarcely sufficient to bring them into camp. My mother used to look back upon that evening as one of the happiest of her life. She had found her loved ones, after torturing her mind with all sorts of horrors--Indians, wild beasts, snakes, illness, and death had all been imagined. The next day, Mike Troyer's canoe was laden with wild turkeys, and he returned alone, as my mother refused to separate herself again from my father. A few days after, a party of pedestrians arrived, on the look-out for land, and they at once set to work and put up the wished-for log-house or houses, for there were two attached, which gave them a parlour, two bedrooms, and a kitchen and garret. On removing from the shanty to this house, my mother felt as if in a palace. They bought a cow from Mr.

Troyer and collected their goods, and when cold weather set in they were comfortable.

”My father found it necessary to return to Niagara to secure the patent for the lands he had selected, and also to provide for wants not previously known or understood. The journey was long and tedious, travelling on foot on the lake sh.o.r.e, and by Indian paths through the woods, fording the creeks as he best could. At the Grand River, or River Ouse, there was an Indian reservation of six miles on each side of the river from its mouth to its source, owned by two tribes of Indians, Mohawks and Cayugas, whose wants were well supplied with very little exertion of their own, as the river and lake abounded with fish, the woods with deer and smaller game, and the rich flats along the river yielded abundance of maize with very little cultivation. They were kind and inoffensive in their manner, and would take the traveller across the river, or part with their products for a very small reward.

”On my father's application for the lots he had chosen, he was told by the Council that the two at Ryerse Creek could only be granted conditionally, as they possessed very valuable water privileges, and that whoever took them must build both a flour and a saw-mill. My father accepted the conditions, secured the grant for his own lands, but left my mother's for a future day, and at once made arrangements for purchasing the necessary material for his mills--bolting cloths, mill-stones, iron, and screws, etc.--and then with a back load of twine, provisions for his journey, and his light fusee, he commenced his return home, where he arrived in good health, after an absence of twelve days.