Life in Canada

by Thomas Conant

But Roger Conant shook his head. He had made up his mind to go to the north shore of the lake, eastward, and there he ultimately went. When Governor Simcoe found that he was determined, he told him that when he had fixed on a location he was to blaze the limits of the farm on the lake shore he would like to have. When the survey was completed, he, the Governor, would see that he got his patents for the area so blazed. And in justice to the Governor, the author is pleased here to set down that he faithfully kept his word. The patents for the land blazed by Roger were duly and faithfully made out. But the author must express strong disapproval of his ancestor’s ultra modesty in not blazing at least a township in Durham County to compensate him and his heirs for the 13,000 acres which he had lost in Massachusetts.

Roger blazed but some 800 acres. For one thing, blazing involved a large amount of very heavy work. The intervening trees of the unbroken forest had to be cut away. A straight line must be made out from blaze to blaze. Besides, the emigrant to those silent and pathless forests appears to have had small thought of any future value of the land thus acquired, and as he would have said, colloquially, he was not disposed to bother with blazing over eight hundred acres.

Realizing the difficulty the incomer would have in getting across the fords at the head of Lake Ontario, between Niagara and Hamilton, Governor Simcoe sent his aide-de-camp to pilot the cavalcade. No waggon road had been constructed along the shore. But the sand was the only obstruction, and after several days’ travel he arrived at Darlington, where was the unbroken forest, diversified only by the many streams and rivers of undulating central Canada. It was a fine landscape that lay around the emigrant, with the divine impress still upon it. The red man had not changed its original features. He had contented himself with the results of the chase among the sombre shades of the forest, or, floating upon the pure blue waters in his birch-bark canoe, he took of the myriads upon myriads of the finny tribe from the cool depths below.

The whites had only just begun to obtain a livelihood in the broad land. Not more than 12,000 persons of European descent then dwelt in all Upper Canada, now forming the peerless Province of Ontario, with its 3,000,000 of inhabitants. Roger Conant had chosen a beautiful location, and here with a valiant heart he started to hew out a home for himself and his family. Although he had brought to this province from Massachusetts £5,000 in British gold, he was unable at the first to make any use of it, simply because there were no neighbors to do business with, and manifestly no trade requirements.[A] But we find him, about the year 1798, becoming a fur trader with the Indians. He invested some of his money in the Durham boats of that day, which were used to ascend the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, being pulled up the rapids of that mighty river by ropes in the hands of men on shore. Canals, as we have them now around the rapids, were not then even thought of. Nor was the Rideau Canal, making the long detour by Ottawa, which did so much afterwards to develop the western part of the province. With capital, and possessing the basis of all wealth robust health, Roger Conant pursued the fur trade with the Indians to its utmost possibility. Disposing of the goods he brought from Montreal in his Durham boats, he accumulated, by barter, large quantities of furs. To Montreal in turn he took his bundles of furs, and gold came to him in abundance, so that he rapidly accumulated a considerable fortune. While doing so, and pursuing his trading with the red men, his home life was not neglected. Rude though his log-house beside the salmon stream at Darlington was, it was spacious and comfortable, and in its day might even be termed a hall. It had the charm of a fine situation, and it had Lake Ontario for its adjacent prospect. Conant had brought a few books from his Massachusetts home at Bridgewater, and while he conned these ever so faithfully over and over again, the great book of nature was always spread before him in the surpassingly beautiful landscape that included the shimmering waters of the lake, the grass lands upon the beaver meadow at the mouth of the salmon stream, and the golden grain in the small clearings which he had so far been able to wrest from the dark, tall, prolific forest of beech, maple and birch, with an occasional large pine, that extended right down to the shingle of the beach. Of his sons it may be said that, although capable men, they were handicapped in the race with the incoming tide of settlers so soon to come to the neighborhood of that rude home at Darlington, in the county of Durham, Upper Canada. They were at a grievous disadvantage because of their lack of education. Education could not be obtained in Ontario in the early days of the nineteenth century. There were no schools, and had there been schools there would have been no pupils. Consequently we find Roger’s sons possessing grand physical health, and pursuing the vigorous life of that day, with but little education. They felled the forest, and obtained from the soil the crops that in its virginity it is always ready to give. Eliphalet, who was only a very small boy when his father brought him from Massachusetts, attended to the business affairs of the family as his father got older, and we find him making, after Roger Conant’s death, a declaration as to his father’s will, in which he states that he is especially cognizant that the will should be so and so. That instrument was admitted as a will by the court of that day, 1821, the date of Roger’s death. To us such proceedings seem crude, particularly as the document referred to conveyed an estate of great value.

With regard to this will a singular circumstance must be noted. Roger died a very large real estate owner. This part of his possessions is duly scheduled. But of his hoard of gold no mention is made. The author’s paternal uncle, David Annis, who lived with the family till his death in 1861, frequently said in the author’s hearing—it was a statement made many times—that Roger Conant had gold and buried it. Why he did so is a mystery. It is also certain that no one has yet unearthed that gold. On the farm at Darlington on which he resided, a few days before his death he took a large family iron bake-kettle, and after placing therein his gold he buried it on the bank of the salmon stream of which mention has already been made. The bake-kettle was missed from its accustomed position by the open fireplace, but search failed to reveal its whereabouts. Thereafter, and many times since, persons with various amalgams and with divining rods and sticks have searched for this buried treasure, but always in vain.

Of Eliphalet, the son, who did the business of the family, being the elder son, all trace is lost, and there is no one known to-day who claims descent from him.

Abel, another son, had an immense tract of land in Scarborough, on the Danforth Road, near the Presbyterian Centennial Church of that township. His son, Roger, left a most respectable and interesting family in Michigan, of whom the best known and most intelligent is Mrs. Elizabeth West, of Port Huron, in that State. It does not appear that Abel Conant ever disposed of his Scarborough estate by deed or by will, but simply lost it, so lightly in those days did the inhabitants value accumulated properties.

Barnabas, another son of Roger, disappeared, and all trace of him is lost. Jeremiah—still another son—died about 1854 in Michigan. Of him, also, nothing is known. Lastly Thomas, the youngest son—grandfather of the author—as will be seen later in this volume, was assassinated when a young man during the Canadian Revolution of 1837-8.

Roger Conant’s daughter, Rhoda, became the wife of Levi Annis. From this union sprang a numerous and most progressive family, who are to-day, with their descendants, among the foremost of our land.

Polly, another daughter, married John Pickel and left a small family, descendants of which still reside in Darlington in the vicinity of the ancestral home.