It is hardly possible for us to conceive the difficulties that beset the first settlers, nor the hardships and privations which they endured. They were not infrequently reduced to the very verge of starvation, yet they struggled on. Tree after tree fell before the axe, and the small clearing was turned to immediate account. A few necessaries of life were produced, and even these, limited and meagre as they were, were the beginnings of comfort. Comfort, indeed! but far removed not only from them, but from the idea we associate with the term. I have in my younger days taken grist to the mill, as the farmers say. But I can assure you I would prefer declining the task of carrying bags of wheat upon my back for three miles, and then paddling them in a canoe down to the Kingston Mills, [Footnote: This mill was built by the British Government in the first settlement of the Province for the benefit of the settlers.] and back again to Adolphustown—about seventy miles—after which resuming the pleasing exercise of backing them home. [Footnote: This was an early experience of my grandfather, which he liked to relate in his old age to young men.] Such things do not fatigue one much to talk about, but I fancy the reality would fit closer to the backs of some of our young exquisites than would be agreeable. Nor do we, when we stick up our noses at the plainer fare of some of our neighbours, remember often what a feast our fathers and mothers would have thought even a crust of bread. How often—alas, how often!—were they compelled to use anything they could put their hands upon, in order to keep soul and body together. Could we, the sons of these men, go through this? I am afraid, with one consent, we would say "No."
But time rolled on. The openings in the forest grew larger and wider. The log cabins began to multiply, and the curling smoke, rising here and there above the woods, told a silent but more cheerful tale. There dwelt a neighbour—miles away, perhaps—but a neighbour, nevertheless. If you would like an idea of the proximity of humanity, and the luxury of society in those days, just place a few miles of dense woods between yourself and your nearest neighbour, and you will have a faint conception of the delights of a home in the forest.
There are persons still living who have heard their parents or grandparents tell of the dreadful sufferings they endured the second year after the settlement of the Bay of Quinte country. The second year's Government supply, through some bad management, was frozen up in the lower part of the St. Lawrence, and, in consequence, the people were reduced to a state of famine. Men were glad, in some cases, to give all they possessed for that which would sustain life. Farms were given in exchange for small quantities of flour, but more frequently refused. A respectable old lady, long since gone to her rest, and whose grandchildren are somewhat aristocratic, was wont in those days to go away to the woods early in the morning to gather and eat the buds of the basswood, and then bring an apronfull home to her family. In one neighbourhood a beef bone passed from house to house, and was boiled again and again in order to extract some nutriment from it. This is no fiction, but a literal fact. Many other equally uninviting bills of fare might be given, but these no doubt will suffice. Sufficient has been said to show that our fathers and mothers did not repose upon rose-beds, nor did they fold their hands in despair, but with strong nerves and stout hearts, even when famine was in the pot, they pushed on and lived. The forest melted away before them, and we are now enjoying the happy results.
The life of the first settler was for a long time one of hardship and adventure. When this Utopia was reached he frequently had difficulty in finding his land. He was not always very particular as to this, for land then was not of very much account, and yet he wished, if possible, to strike somewhere near his location. This involved sometimes long trips into the forest, or along the shores. After a day's paddling he would land, pull up his canoe, and look around. The night coming on, he had to make some preparation for it. How was it to be done in this howling wilderness? Where was he to sleep, and how was he to protect himself against the perils that surrounded him? He takes his axe and goes to work. A few small trees are cut down. Then he gathers some limbs and heaps them up together. From his pocket he brings a large knife; then a flint and a bit of punk. The punk he places carefully under the flint, holding it in his left hand, and then picks up his knife and gives the flint a few sharp strokes with the back of the blade, which sends forth a shower of sparks, some of which fall on the punk and ignite, and soon his heap is in a blaze. Now, this labour is not only necessary for his comfort, but for his safety. The smoke drives the flies and mosquitoes away, and keeps the wolves and bears from encroaching on his place of rest. But the light which affords him protection subjects him to a new annoyance.
"Loud as the wolves in Oroa's stormy steep
Howl to the roaring of the stormy deep,"
the wolves howled to the fire kindled to affright them away. Watching the whole night in the surrounding hills, they keep up a concert which truly "renders night hideous;" and bullfrogs in countless numbers from adjacent swamps, with an occasional "To-whit, to-whoo!" from the sombre owl, altogether make a native choir anything but conducive to calm repose. And yet, amid such a serenade, with a few boughs for a bed, and the gnarled root of a tree for a pillow, did many of our fathers spend their first nights in the wilderness of Canada.
The first settlers of Upper Canada were principally American colonists who adhered to the cause of England. After the capitulation of General Burgoyne, many of the royalists, with their families, moved into Canada, and took up land along the shores of the St. Lawrence, the Bay of Quinte, and the lakes. Upon the evacuation of New York at the close of the war a still greater number followed, many of whom were soldiers disbanded and left without employment. Many had lost their property, so that nearly all were destitute and depending upon the liberality of the Government whose battles they had fought, and for whose cause they had suffered. They were not forgotten. The British Government was not tardy in its movement, and at once decided to reward their loyalty. Immediate steps were taken to provide for their present wants, and also to provide means for their future subsistence.
These prompt measures on the part of the Government were not only acts of justice and humanity, but were sound in policy, and were crowned with universal success. Liberal grants of land were made free of expense on the following scale: A field officer received 5,000 acres; a captain, 3,000; a subaltern, 2,000, and a private, 200. Surveyors were sent on to lay out the land. They commenced their work near Lake St. Francis, then the highest French settlement, and extended along the shores of the St. Lawrence up to Lake Ontario, and thence along the lake, and round the Bay of Quinte. Townships were laid out, and then subdivided into concessions and lots of 200 acres. These townships were numbered, and remained without names for many years. Of these numbers there were two divisions: one, including the townships below Kingston in the line east to the St. Francis settlement; the other, west from Kingston to the head of the Bay of Quinte. They were known by the old people as first, second, third, fourth town, etc. No names were given to the townships by legal enactment for a long time, and hence the habit of designating them by numbers became fixed.
The settlement of the surveyed portion of the Midland District, which then included the present counties of Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings, and the county of Prince Edward, commenced in the summer of 1784. The new settlers were supplied with farming implements, building materials, provisions, and some clothing for the first two years, at the expense of the nation, "And in order," it was stated, "that the love of country may take deeper root in the hearts of those true men, the government determined to put a mark of honour," as the order of the Council expresses it, "upon the families who had adhered to the unity of the Empire, and joined the royal standard in America, before the treaty of separation in the year 1783." A list of such persons was directed in 1789 to be made out and returned, "to the end that their posterity might be discriminated from the future settlers." From these two emphatic words—The Unity of the Empire—it was styled the U.E. list, and they whose names were entered therein were distinguished as U.E. Loyalists. This, as is well known, was not a mere empty distinction, but was notably a title of some consequence, for it not only provided for the U.E. Loyalists themselves, but guaranteed to all their children, upon arriving at the age of twenty-one years, two hundred acres of land free from all expense. It is a pleasing task to recall these generous acts on the part of the British Government towards the fathers of our country, and the descendants of those true and noble-hearted men who loved the old Empire so well that they preferred to endure toil and privation in the wilderness of Canada to ease and comfort under the protection of the revolted colonies. We should venerate their memory, and foster a love of country as deep and abiding as theirs.
In order further to encourage the growth of population, and induce other settlers to come into the country, two hundred acres of land were allowed, upon condition of actual settlement, and the payment of surveying and office fees, which amounted in all to about thirty-eight dollars.