The Settlers in Canada

by Frederick Marryat

The sites of the four cottages, or log-huts, were soon selected; they were each of them nearly half a mile from Mr Campbell’s house, and while some of the party, assisted by a portion of the soldiers, were getting in the hay, the others, with another portion, were cutting down the trees, and building up the cottages. In a fortnight after they had commenced, the emigrants arrived, and were housed in the tents prepared for them; and as their labour was now added to that of the others, in a short time everything was well in advance. The agreement made by Mr Campbell was, that the emigrants should each receive fifty acres of land, after they had cleared for him a similar quantity; but there were many other conditions, relative to food and supply of stock to the emigrant families, which are not worth the while to dwell upon. It is sufficient to say that Mr Campbell, with his former purchases, retained about 600 acres, which he considered quite sufficient for his farm, which was all in a ring fence, and with the advantage of bordering on the lake. The fire had cleared a great deal of the new land, so that it required little trouble for his own people to get it into a fit state for the first crop.

While the emigrants and soldiers were hard at work, the Colonel paid a visit to Mr Campbell, to settle his account with him, and handed over a bill upon government for the planks, flour, etcetera, supplied to the fort.

“I assure you, Mr Campbell, I have great pleasure,” said the Colonel, “in giving you every assistance, and I render it the more readily as I am authorised by the Governor so to do. Your arrival and settling here has proved very advantageous; for, your supplying the fort has saved the government a great deal of money, at the same time that it has been profitable to you, and enabled you to get rid of your crops without sending them down so far as Montreal; which would have been as serious an expense to you, as getting the provisions from Montreal has proved to us. You may keep the fatigue party of soldiers upon the same terms as before, as long as they may prove useful to you, provided they return to the fort by the coming of winter.”

“Then I will, if you please, retain them for getting in the harvest; we have so much to do that I shall be most happy to pay for their assistance.”

I have said that there were four families of emigrants, and now I will let my readers know a little more about them.

The first family was a man and his wife of the name of Harvey; they had two sons of fourteen and fifteen, and a daughter of eighteen years of age. This man had been a small farmer, and by his industry was gaining an honest livelihood, and patting by some money, when his eldest son, who was at the time about twenty years old, fell into bad company, and was always to be seen at the alehouses or at the fairs, losing his time and losing his money. The father, whose ancestors had resided for many generations on the same spot, and had always been, as long as they could trace back, small farmers like himself, and who was proud of only one thing, which was that his family had been noted for honesty and upright dealing, did all he could to reclaim him, but in vain. At last the son was guilty of a burglary, tried, convicted, and transported for life. The disgrace had such an effect upon the father, that he never held up his head afterwards; he was ashamed to be seen in the parish, and at last he resolved to emigrate to a new country, where what had happened would not be known.

He accordingly sold off everything, and came to Canada; but by the time that he had arrived in the country, and paid all his expenses, he had little money left; and when he heard from Mr Emmerson the terms offered by Mr Campbell, he gladly accepted them. The wife, his two sons, and his daughter, who came with him, were as industrious and respectable as himself.

The second family, of the name of Graves, consisted of a man and his wife, and only one son—a young man grown up; but the wife’s two sisters were with them. He had come from Buckinghamshire, and had been accustomed to a dairy farm.

The third family was a numerous one, with a man and his wife, of the name of Jackson; they had been farmers and market gardeners near London, and had brought out some money with them. But, as I have mentioned, they had a very large family—most of them too young to be very useful for a few years. They had seven children—a girl of eighteen, two boys of twelve and thirteen, then three little girls, and a boy, an infant. Jackson had money enough to purchase a farm, but, being a prudent man, and reflecting that he might not succeed at first, and that his large family would ran away with all his means, he decided upon accepting the terms proposed by Mr Campbell.

The fourth and last of the emigrant families was a young couple of the name of Meredith. The husband was the son of a farmer in Shropshire, who had died, and divided his property between his three sons. Two of them remained upon the farm, and paid the youngest brother his proportion in money, who, being of a speculative turn, resolved to come to Canada and try his fortune. He married just before he came out, and was not as yet encumbered with any family. He was a fine young man, well educated, and his wife a very clever, pretty young woman.