The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 23
"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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 ent.i.tled 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 sh.o.r.e. 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.
"A tree sometimes un.o.bserved would fall across the fence, and the sheep would stray into the woods, which was fatal to them; or, the fastening to their pen would be left just one unlucky night not secured, and the morning would show a melancholy remainder of the fine flock that had been folded the night before. All of these mishaps were serious vexations to the early settlers. The mill was a constant draw upon my father's purse. A part of his lands had been sold at a very low price (but not low at that time)--one dollar the acre--to a.s.sist in building it, and now it had to be kept in repair. The dam breaking, machinery getting out of order, improvements to be made, bolting cloths wanted, and a miller to be paid--to meet all this was the toll, every twelfth bushel that was ground. During the summer season the mill would be for days without a bushel to grind, as farmers got their milling done when they could take their grists to the mill on ox-sleds upon the snow. Few grew more than sufficient for their own consumption and that of the new-coming settler; but had they grown more, there was no market, and the price of wheat, until the war of 1812, was never more than half a dollar a bushel; maize, buckwheat, and rye, two shillings (York) a bushel. The flour mill, pecuniarily speaking, was a great loss to my father. The saw-mill was remunerative; the expense attending it was trifling, its machinery was simple, and any commonly intelligent man with a day or two's instruction could attend to it. People brought logs of pine, oak, and walnut from their own farms, and my father had half the lumber for sawing; and this, when seasoned, found a ready sale, not for cash (cash dealings were almost unknown), but for labour, produce, maple sugar or anything they had to part with which my father might want, or with which he could pay some of his needy labourers. There were some wants which were almost unattainable with poor people, such as nails, gla.s.s, tea, and salt. They could only be procured in Niagara, and cash must be paid for them. There was not yet a store at Long Point.
Great were the advantages of the half-pay officers and those who had a little money at their command, and yet their descendants appear not to have profited by it. It is a common remark in the country that very many of the sons of half-pay officers were both idle and dissolute; but I am happy to say there are many honourable exceptions. At the head of the list of these stand our present Chief Justice (Sir John Robinson), and Dr. Ryerson, the Superintendent of Education, and many others who deem it an honour to be descended from an United Empire Loyalist. From a multiplicity of care, my father had postponed, from time to time, going to Toronto, or Little York, as it was then called (where the seat of government had been removed), to secure the grant of land which had been promised to his family, until after the departure of his friend General Simcoe, who was succeeded as Governor by General Hunter.
"When my father made application to General Hunter, he was told that an order from the Home Government had limited the grants to the wives and children of the U.E. Loyalists to 200 acres each; but said that if the Order in Council had pa.s.sed for the larger grants, of course my father should have the lands he had selected; but he, not foreseeing the change, had not secured the order, and General Simcoe's verbal promise could not be acted upon.
"The autumn of 1804 found us still in the original log-house. It had been added to and improved, but the stick chimney had not been replaced by brick, as my father looked forward from year to year to building a better house in a better situation; but he found so many improvements actually necessary, and so much to be done each spring and summer, that although a great deal of material had been prepared, the house was not yet commenced. One fine bright morning, as some visitors were taking their departure, there was an alarm of fire, and, sure enough, the stick chimney had caught and communicated to the garret, and in a few minutes the whole of the upper part of the house was in flames. Our visitors, who had not gone beyond the threshold, joined with the family and labourers in getting out the furniture as fast as possible. Nearly everything was saved from the lower part of the house, but all that was in the garret was lost. The garret had been used as a store-room, and contained cases which had not been unpacked since they came from New York, but were left until a better house could be built. These things--linen, bedding, and some nice little articles of furniture, and various little nicknacks which were prized beyond their value--were a great loss: but the greatest loss was a box or two of books. These were not to be replaced this side of New York, and to a young family the loss was irreparable. A part of Pope's works, a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, Buchan's Family Medicine, and a Testament with commentaries, were all that were saved. A small quant.i.ty of plate also, which had not been unpacked, was found in a very unsatisfactory state. The family took shelter in a house built for and occupied by the miller and his family, sending them to a smaller tenement. The situation was airy and beautiful, and, with a few alterations and improvements, was more comfortable than the first log-house. This my mother rather regretted, as discomfort would have hastened the new house. Although allusions were made to New York, no time had yet been named for their return. My father used to a.s.sure my mother and friends that he would go as soon as she said the word; yet these remarks were always accompanied by a particularly humorous expression of countenance.
"About this time the London district was separated from the Western, and composed what now forms the counties or districts of Middles.e.x, Elgin, Huron, Bruce, Oxford, and Norfolk. The necessary appointments were made, and the London district held its own courts and sessions at Turkey Point, six miles above us on the lake sh.o.r.e. The people, in a most patriotic manner, had put up a log-house, which served the double purpose of court-house and jail. The courts were held in the upper story, which was entered by a very rough stairway, going up on the outside of the building. The jail consisted of one large room on the ground floor, from which any prisoner could release himself in half an hour unless guarded by a sentinel. The juries for some years held their consultations under the shade of a tree. Doubtless it was pleasanter than the close lock-up jury-room of the present day. My father, in addition to his other commissions, was appointed Judge of the District Court and Judge of the Surrogate Court. Turkey Point is a very pretty place; the grounds are high, and from them there is a very fine view of the bay and lake. General Simcoe had selected it for the county town, and the site of a future city. Now it boasted of one house, an inn kept by Silas Montross. There was also a reservation of land for military purposes. But the town never prospered; it was not in a thoroughfare, and did not possess water privileges. Twenty years afterwards it contained but the one solitary house. The county town was changed to a more favourable situation, Vittoria. My father's young family now gave him great anxiety. How they were to be educated was a question not easily solved. Schools there were none, nor was it possible to get a tutor. A man of education would not go so far into the woods for the small inducement which a private family could offer.
"Magistrates were not allowed to marry by license, nor could the parties be called in church, for there were no churches in the country. The law required that the parties should be advertised--that is, that the banns should be written out and placed in some conspicuous place for three Sundays. The mill door was the popular place, but the young lads would endeavour to avoid publicity by putting the banns on the inside of the door; others would take two or three witnesses and hold it on the door for a few minutes for three successive Sundays, allowing no one but their friends to see it. In many places marriages used to be solemnized by persons not authorized, and in a manner that made their legality very doubtful; but the Legislature have very wisely pa.s.sed Acts legalizing all marriages up to a certain date. The marriages that took place at my father's used to afford a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. Some very odd couples came to be united. The only fee my father asked was a kiss from the bride, which he always insisted on being paid; and if the bride was at all pretty, he used, with a mischievous look at my mother, to enlarge upon the pleasure that this fee gave him, and would go into raptures about the bride's youth, beauty, and freshness, and declare that it was the only public duty he performed that he was properly remunerated for.
"Application had several times been made to the Rev. Mr. Addison, the only clergyman in the country, who was living at Niagara, entreating him to come to Long Point and baptize the children. All who had been born there remained unbaptized. This summer his promised visit was to take place, and was looked forward to with intense anxiety by both parents and children. I used to discuss it with my elder brother, and wonder what this wonderful ceremony of christening could mean. My mother had explained it as well as she could, but the mystical washing away of sin with water, to me was incomprehensible, as was also my being made member of a Church which was to me unknown. I wondered what G.o.d's minister could be like, and whether he was like my father, whom I looked up to as the greatest and best of anyone in my little world. At last Parson Addison arrived, and my curiosity was satisfied on one point, and in my estimation my father stood higher than the clergyman.
"The neighbourhood was notified, and all the children, from one month to eight or nine years old, were a.s.sembled to receive baptism. The house was crowded with people anxious to hear the first sermon preached in the Long Point Settlement by an ordained minister. Upon my own mind I must confess that the surplice and gown made a much more lasting impression than the sermon, and I thought Mr. Addison a vastly more important person in them than out of them; but upon the elder part of the community, how many sad and painful feelings did this first sermon awaken, and recall times long past, friends departed, ties broken, homes deserted, hardships endured! The cord touched produced many vibrations, as Mr. Addison shook hands with every individual, and made some kind inquiry about their present or future welfare. The same G.o.d-hopeful smile pa.s.sed over every face, and the same 'Thank you, sir, we find ourselves every year a little better off, and the country is improving.'
'If we only had a church and a clergyman we should have but little to complain of.' But it was a hope deferred for many long years. A Baptist minister, the Rev. Mr. Finch, was the first clergyman who came to the little settlement to reside. His meetings were held in different parts of the settlement each Sunday, so that all might have the opportunity of hearing him if they chose to attend. He preached in houses and barns without any reward, labouring on his farm for his support. He, like all the early Dissenting ministers who came to the province, was uneducated, but possessed and sincerely believed a saving knowledge of the Gospel, and in his humble sphere laboured to do all the good in his power. Many of the young people joined his Church. He was soon followed by the Methodists. Too much cannot be said in praise of the early ministers of these denominations; they bore every privation and fatigue, praying and preaching in every house where the doors were not closed against them--receiving the smallest pittance for their labour. A married man received $200 a year and a log-house for his family; an unmarried man had half that sum, the greater portion of which was paid in home-made cloth and produce. Their sermons and prayers were very loud, forcible and energetic, and if they had been printed _verbatim_, would have looked a sad jumble of words. They encouraged an open demonstration of feeling amongst their hearers--the louder the more satisfactory. But notwithstanding the criticisms cast upon these early preachers, were they not the cla.s.s of men who suited their hearers? They shared their poverty and entered into all their feelings; and although unlearned, they taught the one true doctrine--to serve G.o.d in spirit and in truth--and their lives bore testimony to their sincerity. In this world they looked forward to neither preferment nor reward; all they expected or could hope for was a miserable subsistence. Nor was it surprising that in twenty years afterwards, when the path was made smooth, the church built, and the first clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Evans, came, that he found a small congregation. Every township had one or two Methodist and Baptist chapels. I do not recollect one Roman Catholic family in the neighbourhood. Although the Long Point Settlement was in existence thirty years before we had a resident clergyman of the Church of England, yet I cannot recollect one member who had seceded from the Church. Many had died, and many communed with the Methodists, who did not belong to them."
POSTSCRIPT.--At the author's request, Mrs. Harris, in June, 1879, brought down her recollections to the close of the war of 1812-1815. The following pages are the result--written by Mrs. Harris, twenty years after writing the previous memoranda, in the eighty-first year of her age, containing some interesting particulars of the war, and stating the cause of the loss of the British fleet on Lake Erie, and the disasters which followed.
The author has not seen cause to alter a sentence or a word of Mrs.
Harris's ma.n.u.script, written by herself in a clear, bold hand, notwithstanding her advanced age:
"In 1810 my father showed signs of failing health. A life of hardship and great exertion was telling upon a naturally strong const.i.tution. He decided upon resigning all his offices, and his resignation was accepted upon this a.s.surance, that from ill-health he could no longer fulfil the duties they involved. The Hon. Thomas Talbot was appointed his successor as colonel commandant of the militia, and the late Judge Mitch.e.l.l succeeded him as Judge of the District and Surrogate Courts. At this time there were strong rumours of war between America and England, and the militia antic.i.p.ated being called into active service. At the close of 1811, a large body of the militia which my father had organized waited upon him, and urged him to resume the command, as in him they had confidence. Colonel Talbot was a stranger amongst them, and lived at a distance. My father at that time was in the last stage of consumption, and died in the June following, in 1812, aged sixty years. In six days after his death war was declared, and then came troubles to my widowed mother in various shapes. My father in seventeen years had seen a lonely wilderness changed into a fruitful country. Most of the original log-houses had given place to good frame buildings, and the inhabitants generally seemed prosperous and content. Immediately after the declaration of war, the militia had to do military duty and neglect their farms. British troops pa.s.sed through Port Ryerse, on their way to Amherstburg and Sandwich, and every available building was used as barracks. All merchant vessels were converted into ships of war, and they, with one or two small ships belonging to the Provincial Navy, were placed under the command of Captain Barclay, of the Royal Navy; Captain Finnes, R.N., was second in command. His ships were all of light tonnage; there were several transports, which were in constant use conveying troops and army supplies to Sandwich and Amherstburg. The lake was clear of enemies, as the Americans were blockaded within Erie Harbour, where they had two or three large ships on the stocks. They could not cross the bar at Erie without lightening their ships and taking out part of their guns. This they could not do in the presence of Barclay's fleet. When the weather was too rough for the blockading squadron to remain outside the harbour, it was too rough for the American fleet to get over the bar; consequently we felt very safe. This was during the summer of 1813. During this summer General Brock called out the militia of Norfolk, and asked for volunteers to go with him to Detroit; every man volunteered. He made his selection of the strong and active young men. Right gallantly the militia throughout the province behaved during the three years' war, casting no discredit upon their parentage--the brave old U.E. Loyalists. During the summer, Captain Barclay used to have private information--not very reliable, as the result proved--of what progress the ships were making on the stocks. He used occasionally to leave the blockade and go to Amherstburg and come to Ryerse. The Americans took note of this, and made their plans and preparations for his doing so. There was a pretty widow of an officer of some rank in Amherstburg, who was very anxious to go to Toronto. Captain Barclay offered her a pa.s.sage in his ship and brought her to Ryerse, and then escorted her to Dr. Rolph's, where he and some of his officers remained to dinner the following day. When they came in sight of Erie, they saw all the American fleet riding safely at anchor outside the bar.
The Americans had everything in readiness; and as soon as the watched-for opportunity came, and the British fleet left the station, they got their own ships over the bar, their guns in, and all things ready for defence or attack. They far outnumbered the British fleet, and were of heavier tonnage. Captain Barclay consulted his senior officers whether it would be best to come into Long Point Bay to winter, where they could get supplies across the country from Burlington Bay of all the munitions of war, and leave the ship on the stocks at Amherstburg (the _Detroit_) to her fate, as neither the guns to arm nor the men to man her had yet been forwarded, and now could not unless by land, which for heavy guns and the munitions of war was the next thing to an impossibility. It was with great difficulty that food and clothing could be forwarded, where there was little more than an Indian path and no bridges. The wisdom of the fleet decided upon going to Amherstburg and trusting to arming the ships with the guns from the fort, and manning them with sailors from the fleet, and with soldiers and volunteers. They landed Captain O'Keefe, of the 41st Regiment, who was doing marine duty at or near Otter Creek, to find his way to Ryerse, and to tell the militia commandant that the whole frontier on Lake Erie was now open to American invasion, the new ship was launched, imperfectly armed and manned; and without a sufficient supply of ammunition for the fleet, and with little more than a day's rations for his men, Commodore Barclay was necessitated to risk an action. The result is too well known. Nearly all the officers were killed or severely wounded. Captain Barclay, who had already lost one arm, was disabled in the other arm; but they did not strike their colours to Commodore Perry's superior force until their ammunition in some ships was all exhausted, and in others nearly so. No one could have fought more bravely than Captain Barclay. At the same time, those who knew of his leaving the blockade could not help feeling that all the disasters of the upper part of the province lay at his door. In May of 1814 we had several days of heavy fog. On the morning of the 13th, as the fog lifted, we saw seven or eight ships under the American flag anch.o.r.ed off Ryerse, with a number of small boats floating by the side of each ship. As the fog cleared away they hoisted sail and dropped down three miles below us, opposite Port Dover. Of course an invasion was antic.i.p.ated. Colonel Talbot was then in Norfolk, and he ordered all the militia to a.s.semble the next day at Brantford, a distance of thirty miles, which they did with great reluctance, as many of both officers and men thought that an effort should have been made to prevent the Americans landing; but no resistance was offered. On the 14th, the Americans burnt the village and mills of Dover; on the 15th, as my mother and myself were sitting at breakfast, the dogs kept up a very unusual barking. I went to the door to discover the cause; when I looked up, I saw the hill-side and fields, as far as the eye could reach, covered with American soldiers. They had marched from Port Dover to Ryerse. Two men stepped from the ranks, selected some large chips, and came into the room where we were standing, and took coals from the hearth without speaking a word. My mother knew instinctively what they were going to do. She went out and asked to see the commanding officer.
A gentleman rode up to her and said he was the person she asked for. She entreated him to spare her property, and said she was a widow with a young family. He answered her civilly and respectfully, and expressed his regret that his orders were to burn, but that he would spare the house, which he did; and he said, as a sort of justification of his burning, that the buildings were used as a barrack, and the mill furnished flour for British troops. Very soon we saw columns of dark smoke arise from every building, and of what at early morn had been a prosperous homestead, at noon there remained only smouldering ruins. The following day Colonel Talbot and the militia under his command marched to Port Norfolk (commonly known as Turkey Point), six miles above Ryerse. The Americans were then on their way to their own sh.o.r.es. My father had been dead less than two years. Little remained of all his labours excepting the orchard and cultivated fields. It would not be easy to describe my mother's feelings as she looked at the desolation around her, and thought upon the past and the present; but there was no longer a wish to return to New York. My father's grave was there, and she looked to it as her resting-place. Not many years since a small church was built on a plot of ground which my father had reserved for that purpose; in the graveyard attached are buried two of the early settlers--my father and my mother. A.H."
The writer of the following paper seems to have been perfectly acquainted with the subject on which he writes, but is entirely unknown to the author of this history. The paper appears to have been written shortly after the decease of Colonel Ryerson, and was enclosed to the author on a printed slip. It throws much light on the history and character of the times of which it speaks:
"_Last of the Old U.E. Loyalists._
"Died, at his residence, near Vittoria, county of Norfolk, on Wednesday, the 9th of August, 1854, after a short illness of three days, Colonel Joseph Ryerson (father of the Rev. Messrs. George, William, John, Egerton, and Edwy Ryerson), in the ninety-fourth year of his age.
"Colonel Ryerson was born near Paterson, New Jersey, about fourteen miles from the city of New York, the 28th of February, 1761. His ancestors were from Holland; he was the seventh son; he lost his father in childhood. At the breaking out of the American revolution, two of the brothers entered the British army. Samuel (father of Mrs. Harris, Eldon House, London) was nine years older than Joseph, and was the first in that part of the country to join the Royal standard. On arriving at New York, he was informed by the British commander that if he would raise sixty men he would receive a captain's commission. He returned to his native place, and raised the complement of men in a few days. Joseph, who was then only fifteen years of age, entered the army the 6th of May, 1776, as a cadet. He was too small and weak to handle a musket, and received a light fowling-piece, with which he learned the military exercise in a few days. In the course of a few months an order was received to embody a portion of these New Jersey volunteers into a corps of Light Infantry, to go to the South to besiege Charleston. Joseph Ryerson was one of the 550 volunteers for this campaign. When Colonel Ennis (the Inspector-General of the troops at New York) came to Joseph Ryerson, he said, 'You are too young and too small to go.' The lad replied, 'Oh! sir, I am growing older and stouter every day.' The colonel laughed heartily, and said, 'Well, you shall go then.' These Light Infantry volunteers were attached at different times to different regiments; and Mr. Ryerson was successively attached to the 37th, 71st, and 84th Regiments. Such was the hard service performed by these Light Infantry volunteers, that out of 550 men, rank and file, exclusive of officers, only eighty-six of them returned, three years afterwards, after the evacuation of Charleston.
"The Light Infantry corps having been broken up, the few remains of the men composing it returned to the regiments out of which they had volunteered. About eighteen months after leaving New York, before he was seventeen years of age, Mr. Ryerson received an ensign's commission, and he was, in the course of a year, promoted to a lieutenancy in the Prince of Wales' Regiment. His first commission was given him as the immediate reward of the courage and skill he displayed as the bearer of special despatches from Charleston, 196 miles into the interior, in the course of which he experienced several hairbreadth escapes. He was promoted to his lieutenancy for the manner in which he acquitted himself as the bearer of special despatches by sea to the north, having eluded the enemy in successive attacks and pursuits. He was in six battles, besides several skirmishes, and was once wounded. At the close of the war in 1783, he, with his brother Samuel, and many other Loyalists and discharged half-pay officers and soldiers, went to New Brunswick, where he married in 1784, and settled and resided in Majorville, on the River St. John, near Fredericton, in 1799, when he removed to Upper Canada and settled in Charlotteville, near his brother--they both having drawn land from the Government for their services.
"While in New Brunswick he was appointed captain of militia; on his arrival in Canada he was appointed major, and a few years afterwards colonel. On the organization of London district in 1800 (including the recent districts of Talbot, London, Brock, and Huron), he was appointed high sheriff--an office which he resigned, after a few years, in favour of his son-in-law, the late Colonel Bostwick, of Port Stanley.
"During the late war with the United States, in 1812, Colonel Ryerson and his three eldest sons took an active part in the defence of the country. He was for many years a magistrate and Chairman of the Quarter Sessions; but he would never accept of any fees as a magistrate.
"Some ten years since he resigned whatever offices he held. In 1850 he lost his wife, aged eighty-four years--a woman of sound understanding and rare excellence. He continued healthy and vigorous to the last--having the Friday before his decease rode several miles, and walked from Vittoria to his own house--a distance of nearly two miles--after which he conversed with much animation and cheerfulness.
"Shortly after his attack on Sunday night, he expressed his belief that he should not recover, and stated his entire trust in G.o.d, through the merits of Jesus Christ, in whom he felt that he had good hope of eternal life.
"His funeral was attended by a large concourse of people--especially of the old inhabitants. Six of his old neighbours acted as pall-bearers--namely, Colonel Potts, F. Walsh, Aquilla Walsh, Abner Owen, Joseph Culver, and S. Ellis, Esquires--whose joint ages amounted to almost 400 years. The Scripture lesson was read, and prayers offered up at the house by the Rev. Mr. Clement, Wesleyan minister; and the service was read at the grave by the Rev. George Salmon (an old friend of the family), in the absence of the Rev. Mr. Evans, rector of Woodhouse, to the erection of the church of which rectory Colonel Ryerson had been the largest contributor.
"Colonel Ryerson is probably the last of the old United Empire Loyalists in Canada who joined the British army in 1776--a race of men remarkable for longevity and energy, and a n.o.ble enthusiasm for British inst.i.tutions."[140]
_Interesting piece of Local History by the Rev. Dr. Scadding._
"NIAGARA, Aug. 3rd, 1861.
"DEAR SIR,--
"I have deferred acknowledging the circular announcing your intended work on the U.E. forefathers of the Canadian people, until now, from not having had before a moment of leisure to prepare the contribution which I intended to offer for your acceptance and use. I only hope that my delay may not have rendered the communication too late.
"Such a work as that which you propose to bring out is a desideratum, and cannot fail to be interesting, and increasingly so as years roll on.
I am glad that you have been moved to this undertaking, as I feel sure that it will be executed with vigour and thoroughness, in a patriotic spirit, and with a real affection. Our neighbours in the United States have long since seen the propriety of collecting and permanently recording the otherwise rapidly evanescent memorials of their past. The volumes put forth by their Historical Societies and State Government and by individuals amongst them, on this subject, possess extraordinary interest not only for United States' citizens, but also for the general reader, and particularly for the inhabitants of the existing British North American Colonies. I have often wished that we could have for Canada some such publication as Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, to preserve for the eye, by woodcuts worked into the text, sketches and plans of historic places and buildings as they were in their primitive state--objects which, in a country like this, from the perishing nature of materials in many instances, from the levelling of streets, straightening of roads, railway excavations, esplanades, building and other processes and causes, are being so rapidly obliterated.
"As you invite information in regard to early settlers generally, I have thought it simply a duty to send some memoranda--which I hope may be deemed not unworthy of use--respecting my father, whom I have supposed you might, perhaps, find an occasion of noticing in connection with a mention of Whitby, in a note or otherwise.
"I am, dear Sir,
"Very truly yours,
"H. SCADDING."
"The Rev. Dr. Ryerson."
"This town was, at its commencement, about the year 1819, named Windsor, by its projector, Mr. John Scadding, the original grantee of a thousand acres in this locality. On a natural harbour of Lake Ontario, popularly known as 'Big Bay,' Mr. S. laid out the town, built the first house, and named the streets, three of them, after his three sons--John, Charles, and Henry. The appellation 'Windsor' had no reference to the world-renowned royal residence, but to a very humble property so designated, once possessed by Mr. S. in the parish of Luppitt, in Devonshire, from which neighbourhood, viz., Dunkeswell, he first emigrated to Upper Canada in 1793. Before this transplantation, his family, with numerous kith and kin, had had their home in these old Wess.e.x regions for many a generation. Local registries, tombstones, and other records constantly exhibit the name, which will also be found in the minute Ordnance maps of England, attached to a small hamlet in the vicinity of Wellington, in the closely adjoining county of Somerset.
Through the instrumentality of Governor Simcoe, to whom he was personally and in the most friendly manner known in Devonshire before his emigration, Mr. S. was also the owner and first cultivator of a section of land watered through its whole length by the River Don, from the second concession to the lake's edge, in the township of York. It was while putting off trespa.s.sers on a portion of this last-mentioned property, which is now to a great extent included within the limits of the city of Toronto, but which was at the time, for the most part, in its primitive natural state, that he was, at the age of seventy, unfortunately killed by the falling of a tree in 1824. His widow, Mrs.
Melicent Scadding, survived until 1860, attaining the age of ninety-three years. In 1854, the town of Windsor was incorporated by the Act of Parliament 18 Vic., c. 28, on which occasion its name was changed to 'Whitby,' ambiguities and inconveniences having arisen from the existence of another Windsor on the Detroit river."
_Loyalty and Sufferings of the Hon. John Munroe, of Fowlis._
"Born in Scotland, in 1731; came to America in 1756; married in Albany Miss Brower, of Schenectady, in 1760; lived at Matilda, U.C., and died at d.i.c.kenson's Landing in October, 1800, aged sixty-nine.
"During the revolutionary war he resided near Fort Bennington, where he possessed considerable property, which was confiscated by the United States' Government. He was captain in Sir John Johnston's regiment, and his son Hugh was a lieutenant. The appended certificates state his services, sufferings and merits."