"Wolves were the pests of the country for many years, and, even after they were partially expelled by the settlers, they used to make occasional descents upon the settlements, and many a farmer that counted his sheep by twenties at night, would be thankful if he could muster half a score in the morning. It was flax, the pedlar's pack, and buckskins that the early settlers had to depend upon for clothing when their first supply was run out. Deerskins were carefully preserved and dressed, and the men had trowsers and coats made of them. Though not very becoming, they were said to be very comfortable and strong, and suitable to the work they had to do. Chopping, logging, and clearing wild lands required strong clothing.
"One part of the early clearing was always appropriated to flax, and after the seed was in the ground the culture was given up to the women. They had to weed, pull and thrash out the seeds, and then spread it out to rot. When it was in a proper state for the brake, it was handed over to the men, who crackled and dressed it. It was again returned to the women, who spun and wove it, making a strong linen for shirts and plaid for their own dresses. Almost every thrifty farmhouse had a loom, and both wife and daughters learnt to weave. The pedlar's pack supplied their little finery, the pack generally containing a few pieces of very indifferently printed calicoes at eight and ten shillings, New York currency, a yard; a piece of book-muslin at sixteen and eighteen shillings a yard, and a piece of check for aprons at a corresponding price; some very common shawls and handkerchiefs, white cotton stockings to match, with two or three pieces of ribbon, tape, needles, pins and horn combs; these, with very little variety, used to be the contents of the pedlar's pack. Opening the pack caused much more excitement in a family then than the opening of a fashionable shopkeeper's show-room does at the present day.
"About this time, 1799, a great number of old soldiers, who had served under and with my father, found their way to the Long Point Settlement. One of these soldiers had been taken prisoner with my father at Charleston, and when they were plundered of everything he managed to conceal a doubloon in his hair. With this he supplied my father's wants, who was wounded and suffering. My father now exchanged with him one of his choice lots, that he might be in the settlement and near a mill; and took his location, which was far back in the woods. My uncle [Joseph Ryerson], and several other half-pay officers, came from New Brunswick to visit my father. The pleasure of seeing those loved and familiar faces, and again meeting those who had fought the same battles, shared the same dangers, and endured the same hardships, fatigues, and privations for seven long years, and had the same hopes and fears, and the bitter mortification of losing their cause, was indeed great. How many slumbering feelings such a reunion awakened! how many long tales of the past they used to tell, of both love and war! Those officers that came from New Brunswick to visit the country all returned, after a few years, as settlers. The climate of Canada was much preferable, and as an agricultural country was very superior. The population was now becoming so great that the Government thought it necessary to have all the male population, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, enrolled in the Militia. My father was requested to organize a regiment, and to recommend those whom he thought, from their intelligence, good conduct, and former service, most entitled to commissions. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of Militia and Lieutenant of the County, a situation that was afterwards done away with. This duty of selecting officers gave rise to the first ill-natured feelings that had been exhibited towards him in the settlement. Every man thought he ought to be a captain at the least, and was indignant that my father did not appreciate his merits. Some threatened to stone him; others, to shoot him. The more moderate declared they would not come to his mill, although there was no other within seventy miles. John McCall did not care for my father; he would be a captain without his assistance. He built a large open boat and navigated her for several years, and gloried in the designation of Captain McCall. But, notwithstanding all opposition, the regiment of militia was formed. They used to meet one day in the year for company exercise, and there was a general muster on the 4th of June, the King's birthday, for a general training. These early trainings presented a strange mixture. There were a few old officers, with their fine military bearing, with their guns and remains of old uniforms; and the old soldier, from his upright walk and the way he handled his gun, could easily be distinguished, though clothed in home-spun and buckskin, with the coarse straw hat. The early settlers all had guns of some description, except the very juvenile members, who used to carry canes to represent guns. Those trainings used to be looked forward to with intense interest by all the boys of the neighbourhood, and afforded subjects of conversation for the ensuing year. It was no easy thing in that day to find a level piece of ground that was tolerably clear from stumps sufficiently large to serve for their general trainings.
"Amongst the early settlers there were very few who could afford to hire assistance of any kind. Those that could pay found it easy to get men as labourers; but women servants, unless by mere chance, were not to be had. The native American women would not and will not, even at the present day, go out to service, although almost any of the other neighbours' daughters would be glad to go as helps, doing the same work and eating at the table with their mistress. My father, for many years, used occasionally to take the head of the table with his labourers, to show them he was not too proud to eat with them. My mother was exempt from this, but the help ate at her table, which was considered a sufficient proof of her humility. Many of those helps of early days have since become the wives of squires, captains, majors and colonels of Militia, and are owners of large properties, and they and their descendants drive in their own carriages.
"In the summer of 1800 my mother had a very nice help as nurse. Jenny Decow had been apprenticed to a relative, and, at the age of eighteen, she received her bed, her cow, and two or three suits of clothing (those articles it was customary to give to a bound girl), and was considered legally of age, with the right to earn her own living as she best could.
"My mother soon discovered that Jenny had a wooer. On Sunday afternoon, young Daniel McCall made his appearance, with that peculiar, happy, awkward look that young lads have when they are 'keeping company,' as it is called. At that time, when a young man wanted a wife, he looked out for some young girl whom he thought would be a good help-mate, and, watching his opportunity, with an awkward bow and blush he would ask her to give him her company the ensuing Sunday evening. Her refusal was called 'giving the mitten,' and great was the laugh against any young man if it was known that he had 'got the mitten,' as all hopes in that quarter would be at an end. But young McCall had not got 'the mitten;' and it was customary on those occasions, when the family retired to bed, for the young man to get up and quietly put out the candles, and cover the fire, if any; then take a seat by the side of his lady-love, and talk as other lovers do, I suppose, until twelve o'clock, when he would either take his leave and a walk of miles to his home, that he might be early at work, or he would lie down for an hour or two with some of the boys, and then be away before daylight. Those weekly visits would sometimes continue for months, until all was ready for marriage. But they did not always end in matrimony. Sometimes those children of the woods were gay Lotharios in their way, as well as in more refined society, and it would be discovered that a favourite Adonis was keeping company with two or three young girls at the same time, and vice versa with some young coquettes. But such unprincipled conduct would furnish gossip for a whole neighbourhood, and be discountenanced by all. Nor must you for a moment imagine that there was anything wrong in this system of wooing. It was the custom of the country in an early day, and I think it is still continued in settlements remote from towns. But the lives of hundreds of estimable wives and mothers have borne testimony to the purity of their conduct. When Jenny had been with my mother about six months, young McCall made his appearance in the middle of the week, and my father and some visitors commenced bantering him why he did not marry at once. Why did he spend his time and wear out his shoes in the way he was doing? He said he would go and talk to Jenny, and hear what she said. He returned in a few minutes and said they would be married. In an hour afterwards they were man and wife. They married in their working dresses—he in his buckskin trowsers, and she in her home-spun. She tied up her bundle of clothes, received her wages, and away they walked to their log-house in the woods. Thirty years afterwards they used to show me some little articles that had been purchased with Jenny's wages; and they appeared to look back upon that time with pleasure. They became rich; he was colonel of militia, and some of their descendants are worth thousands. During their early struggles, Mrs. McCall was in the field with her husband, pulling flax, when she felt what she thought was a severe blow on her foot. A rattlesnake had bitten her. Her husband killed the snake; vulgar prejudice thought that, by killing the snake, the poison would be less severe. He then put his lips to the wound, sucked it, and, taking her in his arms, carried her to the house. Before he reached it, her foot had swollen and burst. They applied an Indian remedy, a peculiar kind of plantain, which relieved her, but she was years before she perfectly recovered from the effects of the poison. Two children that were born during that time turned spotted, became sore and died; but her third child was strong and healthy, and is still living. These reptiles, that are now almost unknown in the country, were then plentiful. They had a den at the mouth of the Grand River, and there was another at the Falls. For many years the boatmen going up and down Lake Erie used to stop at the mouth of the Grand River for an hour or two's sport, killing rattlesnakes. My father and boat's crew, on one of these occasions, killed seventy. The oil of the rattlesnake was thought to possess great medicinal virtues.
"There was a sad want of religious instruction amongst the early settlers. For many years there was no clergyman nearer than Niagara, a distance of 100 miles, without roads. My father used to read the Church Service every Sunday to his household, and any of the laborers who would attend. As the country became more settled, the neighbours used to meet at Mr. Barton's, and Mr. Bostwick, who was the son of a clergyman, used to read the service, and sometimes a sermon. But there were so few copies of sermons to be obtained, that after reading them over some half-a-dozen times they appeared to lose their interest. But it was for the children that were growing up that this want was most severely felt. When the weekday afforded no amusements, they would seek them on Sunday; fishing, shooting, bathing, gathering nuts and berries, and playing ball, occupied, with few exceptions, the summer Sundays. In winter they spent them in skating, gliding down the hills on hand sleighs. And yet crime was unknown in those days, as were locks and bolts. Theft was never heard of, and a kindly, brotherly feeling existed amongst all. If a deer was killed, a piece was sent to each neighbour, and they, in turn, used to draw the seine, giving my father a share of the fish. If anyone was ill, they were cared for by the neighbours and their wants attended to. But the emigrant coming to the country in the present day can only form a very poor idea of the hardships endured by the early pioneers of the forest, or the feelings which their isolated situation drew forth. Education and station seemed to be lost sight of in the one general wish to be useful to each other, to make roads and improve the country.
"I think it was in 1802 that I first saw Colonel Talbot, a distinguished settler, who had a grant of lands seventy miles further up the lake, at a place afterwards called Port Talbot, where he had commenced building mills. People were full of conjecture as to the cause that could induce a young gentleman of his family (the Talbots of Malahide) and rank in the army to bury himself in Canada.
"He and Sir Arthur Wellesley had been at the same time on the staff of the Duke of Buckingham, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and it was said the field of glory was equally open to both. Colonel Talbot afterwards came to this country, and was on the staff of General Simcoe when he made a tour through the Upper Province. At that time he selected his future home. Some said that he left the army in disgust at not getting an appointment that he felt himself entitled to; others, again, said that neither Mars nor Venus presided at his birth. But one thing was certain: he had chosen a life of privation and toil, and right manfully he bore the lot he had chosen. When in the army, he was looked upon as a dandy; but my first impressions would place him in a very different light. He had come to Port Ryerse with a boat-load of grain to be ground at my father's mill. The men slept in the boat, with an awning over it, and had a fire on shore. In front of this fire, Colonel Talbot was mixing bread in a pail, to be baked in the ashes for the men. I had never seen a man so employed, and it made a lasting impression upon my childish memory. My next recollection of him was his picking a wild goose, which my father had shot, for my mother to dress for dinner. Thus commenced an acquaintance which lasted until his death in 1853.
"My father, on his arrival at Long Point, promised my mother that if she would remain contented for six years at Port Ryerse, and give the country a fair trial, if she then disliked it, and wished to return to New York, he would go back with her—that party feeling would by that time have greatly subsided. My mother now claimed my father's promise. He at once acquiesced, and left it to her to decide when they should go, my father well knowing that however much my mother might wish to return, when left to her to decide, her better judgment would say 'Not yet,' as his improvements must all be a sacrifice. To sell his property was impossible. My mother postponed the return for a few years, but could not relinquish the hope of emerging from the woods, and being once more within the sound of the church-going bell. My father's property was fast improving. He had planted an orchard of apple, peach, and cherry trees, which he procured from Dr. Proyer, whose young trees were a year or two in advance of his own, and he had procured a few sheep which were pastured in a field immediately in front of the house. But all their watching could not preserve them from the wolves. If they escaped by the greatest care for a year or two, and the flock increased to twenty or thirty, some unlucky day they would find them reduced to ten or a dozen.