Upper Canada Sketches

by Thomas Conant

Although the Conants probably returned to Normandy during the reigns of William and his sons, they finally settled at East Budleigh, in Devonshire. It is unnecessary here to trace the succeeding generations of the family, as we have to do only with the immediate connections of Roger Conant, known as the Pilgrim, who emigrated to the English Colonies in America in 1623, and from whom all the Conants in the United States and Canada are descended.

The picture which forms the frontispiece to this volume is a faithful one of the mill yet standing on the Conant lands at East Budleigh. This mill was owned and occupied by Richard Conant, father of Roger the Pilgrim. It will be observed that the part of the stone building at the end farthest from the water-wheel is now used as a residence. Whether it was so occupied by Richard Conant the author has been unable to ascertain. There are indications that a residence had been located back from the mill and on rising ground farther from the road. The mill is a long stone structure. In front of the part used as a dwelling is a yard, and at one side farm buildings. Mr. Green, the present Rector of East Budleigh, assured the author that there is no doubt of its being the identical building and mill occupied and used by Richard Conant. The family records (parish register) are in Mr. Green’s care. There are entries of the birth of John Conant in 1520 and of his son Richard, born in Devon in 1548. These are on parchment, the latter yellow, covered with leather, wood-bound and worm-eaten.

Back of the house and mill a small spring creek runs. It has been turned from its bed by the rising ground, so that no artificial dam is needed, and to-day, as in 1560, it runs over the wheel and pours from the flume. In volume it is four inches deep and twenty wide, and is about six feet above the wheel. The latter, of course, has been renewed, being an overshoot about fourteen feet in diameter, but its foundations are now just as Richard Conant originally laid them. The lands owned by Richard Conant probably amounted to about two hundred acres. The glebe land, extending nearly to the mill, which is about five hundred yards from the church, and the Conant lands extending to the farm of Sir Walter Raleigh, we may conclude to be the probable extent of the property.

Roger’s father, Richard, inherited the mill from his father. He graduated at Emanuel College, and was also Rector of East Budleigh. The book of his charities accounts is still extant. On the fly-leaf are the words, “This book was bought in 1600, to mark the amounts of charities,” etc. It is in Richard’s handwriting. Every few pages are signed by him, and the entries are neatly made, not a blot, erasure or scratch upon the well inscribed pages. The amounts vary from one penny to sixpence. All this is evidence of the careful upbringing and piety practised in the home of Roger Conant, the man destined later to exert so beneficent an influence for the well-being of the Massachusetts Colony in America.

Ascending for three-quarters of a mile the little burn whose waters turned Richard’s mill-wheel, one finds it running by the door of the Raleigh homestead, Hays Barton House.

His living near the man who drew so much attention to the New World would suggest that Roger Conant’s ambitions to seek a new home in the wilds had been fired by the tales told by the adventurous knight; and hearing of its wonders and possibilities possibly made the lad restless, and later on willing to sail away to America.

The Raleigh pew in East Budleigh church is at a right-angle from the Conant pew, and not ten feet away. They both face the pulpit, and as these were possessions as hereditary as their lands and homes, there is nothing improbable in the idea that the families were well known to each other.

On the Raleigh pew-ends are carved the armorial bearings of the family, the lower part cut off. This was done when Sir Walter was attainted for treason, and may be a curious instance of the penalties exacted from the families whose head suffered such attainder at the hands of the sovereign. On the Conant pew is the head of a North American Indian. It is well done. The Indian features, high cheek-bones and large nose, are faithfully depicted. On the other pews are negroes, ships’ paddles, tropical trees and foliage. Sir Walter’s father was Rector of East Budleigh when Richard Conant ran his little grist-mill and attended the church.

Roger could not, in the natural order of succession, inherit the mill from his father, so he went early to London. No doubt the seeds sown by the study, as a child, of the quaint carvings in his parish church had an influence in directing his manhood’s steps.

The church is a small stone leaded roofed building. It is dedicated to All Saints, and was consecrated by Bishop Lacy about A.D. 1430. It consists of a nave and chancels, and north and south aisles. It is eighty feet long and forty-eight and a half feet wide. The tower, which contains five bells, is seventy-two feet high. It is a Norman embattlemented tower with a chimney-shaped buttress. (Vide “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family.”) About the church is the graveyard, walled in and the earth dug away, leaving the church and graveyard isolated, and above the level of the surrounding roads and lands.