CHAPTER VII.
A DIGRESSION.
In the fall of 1831 Chief McNab had become acquainted in Montreal with two young gentlemen of some capital, who had just emigrated. These were Messrs. George and Andrew Buchanan. He had persuaded them to settle in "his Township," and erect mills. He spoke in glowing terms of the rapids at the mouth of the Madawaska, and of the advantages to be derived from an early settlement in that locality. Lavish of promises and protestations, he offered them the mill site free, and timber for sawlogs to any amount for an interminable length of years for a trifling consideration. Further, he claimed them as distant relatives, being descended, as he discovered, from a collateral branch of the Buchanans of Arnprior. The young men accompanied the Chief from Montreal, and proceeded up the river to inspect the place. Impressed with the favorable nature of the locality, they agreed to the Chief's terms and named the place (in compliment to McNab, as well as on account of their origin) Arnprior, which name it bears to the present day. As has been before stated the Chief's grandfather on the mother's side was Buchanan of Arnprior. In 1745 he became connected with the rebellion, and on the final suppression of the revolt by the disastrous defeat of Culloden The Buchanan was arrested, brought to Carlisle, where his offence against the House of Hanover was first committed, tried and beheaded. His estates were all forfeited with the exception of Leney, which he had previously assigned to his daughter. In 1809, Francis, Chief of McNab, uncle to the gentleman whose adventures we are recording, by his influence with Lord Breadalbane and the Scottish nobility, with whom he was a great favorite, owing to his eccentricity and originality, procured a reversal of the attainder, and being the only legitimate heir, succeeded to the possession of the Arnprior estates in Kippin. In 1819, Archibald, the last chieftain of the McNabs, the subject of this narrative, sold the estates to a manufacturer for £80,000, and squandered most of the proceeds in Paris, and paid a small sum of it to Breadalbane, in part of his lordship's wadset against the Kennell estate. So that now a cotton spinner and cloth manufacturer is King of Kippin instead of the descendants of those who rivalled King James V. of Scotland in magnificence and hospitality. The Laird of McNab, in detailing this piece of historical biography to Mr. Andrew Buchanan, suggested the name and it was at once adopted, and a glorious jollification of it they had at Kennell that night. James McNee, in the full glory of a new set of pipes, decorated with beautiful ribbons, performed the part of the Ancient Minstrels at the castles of their lords and blew forth in joyous peals the martial strains of Scotland's music—strains that have led on the sons of the heather and hill to those daring deeds of bravery and dazzling exploits of valor that have adorned the victories and triumphs of Britain in every age, and still have the same exhilarating effects wherever the trump and the drum, the roar of cannon and the clashing of steel, proclaim the strife, the battle and the victory. And thus the Arnprior of Canada was named, thus Arnprior of the Ottawa came into existence, a village which many years afterwards was visited by the eldest son of our gracious Queen, the descendant of that house to which the forefathers of the Buchanans of Arnprior were opposed in deadly strife from pure but mistaken loyalty to an unfortunate race of princes, whose tyranny and violation of constitutional rights drove them from a throne of now the greatest and proudest united nation in the universe.
The arrangement between the Laird of McNab and Messrs. Andrew and George Buchanan was finally concluded. McNab was to give them a free deed of lot No. 3 in concession C of McNab, subject to the reservations in the Patent from the Crown, and permit them to cut all the timber within three miles of the Madawaska river for saw logs, while they or their assigns occupied the mills. On their part they and their assigns were to pay the Chief for this privilege £300 per annum. In January, 1832, McNab procured the Patent from the Crown, with certain reservations of a peculiar nature, which we will treat of hereafter in the proper place, and the Buchanans were making the necessary preparations for bringing up goods in the spring, and of commencing at that season the erection of a grist and saw mill near the very spot where McLachlin's mills now stand. Mr. Rogerson, the manager of the Buchanans' concern, accordingly came up with the goods in the beginning of April, 1832, but he would not open a bale or make the least preparations for the works until the transfer deed of the Arnprior property was placed in his hands. Such were his instructions. It seems that the Buchanans had some suspicious conjectures respecting the Chief's good faith, as he had taken the same lot from Messrs. Dan. and Alex. Ross, after they had begun to improve it, and even after they had made a considerable clearance upon it. The Chief reluctantly gave Mr. Rogerson the required transfer. It was executed on the 27th of April, 1832. The Buchanans gave the Chief a bond for the performance of their part of the contract, and immediately commenced operations. The land was cleared. Workshops built of logs were erected, a store and dwelling-house of the same rude material were speedily thrown up, goods were opened out for sale, and energy and business and work and stir and bustle were in the height of activity. A large dam was thrown completely across the Madawaska, and over the summit of the dam a bridge spanned the river from bank to bank. A grist mill was erected on the small island where now the present bridge rests one of its piers, and the saw mill stood exactly on the site of one of McLachlin's lumber mills, on the east side of the river. By the spring of 1833, all the works were in active operation. The mills were finished, saw logs were driven down the river, cut up into lumber, and sent to market. A gang of eleven saws were kept continually at work, and Arnprior then bid fair to become the nucleus of trade and manufacture for the surrounding country, under the auspices of the Messrs. Buchanan. A medical gentleman named Dr. Higginson, was induced to settle in the neighborhood, but finding the people too robust and the climate too salubrious, he was compelled to "vamoose the ranche." Mr. Andrew Buchanan was appointed a Justice of the Peace, and he sat with the Chief to administer the law, and also acted the part of clergyman in celebrating the marriage ceremony in the absence of the Chief. A number of emigrants from Scotland settled in the township this year (1833.) They were principally from Breadalbane, and it was about this time that Mr. James Morris, father to the High Sheriff of the County of Renfrew, took up his abode in the Canaan settlement of McNab. The settlers had a peculiar penchant for giving scriptural names to the several settlements which continue to this day and are used in common parlance. Thus they have Canaan on the 2nd line, and Goshen on the 4th and 5th, Dan on the East side of the Madawaska, etc., etc. The Chief was now receiving the rents pretty fairly. He had a number of settlers who looked upon him with respect and awe, and they thought that the Flat Rapid people were in a state of sinful rebellion.
The following letter, written by the Chief about this time, shows the kind of feeling that prevailed at the time between himself and the majority of the settlers. It was written to a person then on the most friendly terms with him, who from the force of circumstances five years afterwards, found himself impelled to join the other settlers in a strong remonstrance to the Government.
[Copy.]
Kennell Lodge, October 16th, 1832.
Mr. Matthew Barr:
Dear Matthew,—I again am to trouble with more letters. This will be put into your hands by James Dunlop, his brother accompanying him. He wishes to have 100 acres of land, and if you could show him a half lot of land that you think would suit him, I will thank you to point it out to him. I am certain Donald McNaughton or Donald Fisher will give them a night's lodgings if your house be throng. Excuse this and believe me,
Yours truly,
(Signed)McNab.
There were no taverns in those days, but the people were, as they still are, remarkably hospitable.
The Chief always signed himself "McNab," except in legal documents, and considered it a gross insult to be styled Mr. McNab.
It was in the commencement of 1834 that McNab procured judgment against Donald McNaughton, Sr., John McIntyre and Peter McIntyre, for the amount of their bond. The others of the "black sheep" could not be served with process, notwithstanding all the efforts of the Sheriff and his bailiffs. Donald McIntyre came to the Chief's terms and settled with him. It was about this time too that the Buchanans and McNab had a serious quarrel. Mr John Powell had been member of the Legislature for Lanark, and he had discovered the tenure under which McNab held the township. George Buchanan had married his sister, and the fact came out that he was only an agent for the Government, consequently, when the annual subsidy of £300 became due, the Buchanans refused to pay, upon the grounds that they had been induced to sign the bond under misrepresentations. McNab instantly went to law and invoked the common law courts to his aid. The Buchanans appealed to Chancery for an investigation upon the grounds they had alleged. The Buchanans, on their side, stated that the Chief had allowed Matthew Barr, Mitchell & Sutherland, and other lumberers to make timber on the particular localities set apart for them, viz., within three miles on both sides of the Madawaska, and had therefore broken his contract. The injunction was granted, and both parties were induced by mutual friends to leave the matter to arbitration, which was held at Fitzroy Harbor during the fall of 1835, and the arbitrators decided against the Chief. McNab then appealed to Chancery, and the case was going on when the Buchanans failed in 1836, and handed over the property to Messrs. Gold, Simpson & Mittleberger, and McNab lost the whole. The Buchanans had offered to compromise the matter by giving the Chief £150 per annum. This McNab indignantly refused.