_THE WHITE CHIEF._
1800.
The hero of our sketch, Philemon Wright, was a man forty years of
age. In appearance he was of a strong, broad build, and stood six
feet in his stockings. A wealth of flaxen hair was brushed straight
back from a high and noble brow. His face was profoundly meditative.
Thick eyebrows shaded the eyes, which were wonderfully quick,
observant and penetrating. His features indicated goodness and
energy, strength of will and determination. His muscles were the
envy of all who felt them.
Like all superior men, Philemon Wright nourished long his projects,
but decision once made he set himself to realize them with ardor,
obstacles only serving to intensify his energy, for he employed all
the resources of his spirit and inflexible will to triumph over them.
He was a worthy descendant of the men of Kent who followed Harold to
victory through difficulties which to others would have been
insurmountable.
His father, Thomas Wright, having sold his estates in Kent, settled
in Woburn, twenty miles from Boston, in 1760, where Philemon, the
fifth and youngest son, was born shortly afterwards. While a mere
lad of fifteen he saw active service in the Revolutionary War, in the
vicinity of Boston and New York, taking up arms as a British subject
against the short-sighted rulers of the Motherland in the vain hope
of wresting from them the rights which the revolutionists considered
were their due.
Philemon married, at twenty-two, a Miss Wyman, of Irish descent,
whose grand-nephews, Rufus and Joseph Choate, have since played so
conspicuous a place in the drama of American history, and had seven
promising children, who were known familiarly as Phil, Bearie,
Chrissy, Abbie, Christie, Mary and Rug.
Philemon Wright was a man of indomitable courage, enterprise,
industry and perseverance, and had acquired considerable property in
the neighborhood of Boston. Finding a better market in Canada for
farm produce, he went every fall to Montreal, and in 1796 determined
to go on a tour of exploration on the Grand River, or the Utawas, as
the Ottawa was then called.
A few settlements then existed for the first forty-five miles, up to
the Long Sault Rapids, but beyond this point the seventy-five or
eighty miles was a complete wilderness. He found that this part of
the country was entirely unknown to the inhabitants of Montreal,
excepting, of course, to the employees of the two great fur-trading
companies, though its immense resources of fine timber were, he said,
"sufficient to furnish supplies for any foreign market, even to load
one thousand vessels."
Prominent members of the fur companies in Montreal drew his attention
to their printed report, which stated that there was not five hundred
acres of arable land on the extensive banks of the whole river.
"It may be to your interests to keep the Grand River from becoming
settled," he said, "but you may bet your best beaver-skin on this,
that there is at least five hundred thousand acres of uncleared land
fit for cultivation on the banks of the Grand River."
In 1797 he again visited Canada, and examined the country from Quebec
to Montreal, on both sides of the St. Lawrence, and then up the
Ottawa as far as the Chaudiere Falls, studying carefully the
navigation of the Ottawa, and its fitness for settlement.
In 1798 this enterprising but cautious man paid his third visit to
his future home, and returned to Massachusetts with a full
determination to commence a settlement. He failed, however, to
inspire his neighbors with his own confidence in the scheme, and he
therefore selected two respectable men from among them, and hired
them to go with him the following summer to examine and report on
what they saw. Their report, which was afterwards published in the
_Canadian Magazine_ of September, 1824, is as follows:
"We spent twenty days in October in exploring the Township of Hull.
We climbed to the top of one hundred or more trees to view the
situation of the country, which we accomplished in the following
manner: We cut smaller trees in such a way as to fall slanting and to
lodge in the branches of the larger ones, which we ascended until we
arrived at the top. By this means we were enabled to view the
country and also the timber, and by the timber we could judge the
nature of the soil, which we found to answer our expectations. After
having examined well the nature of the township, we descended the
river and arrived, after much fatigue, at Montreal."
The report was so satisfactory to the people of Woburn that Mr.
Wright was able to hire as many as he wished for the new settlement.
It was fully five hundred miles from Woburn to the Chaudiere, but the
nineteenth century was hardly a month old when the little band braved
the journey. Their leader assumed all risks himself, and with
twenty-five men, five families, having a membership of thirty,
fourteen horses, eight oxen, and seven sleighs loaded with mill
irons, agricultural implements, carpenters' tools, household effects,
provisions, left the quiet New England village. The route taken was
the old stage road from Boston to Montreal, which passed through
Woburn to Haverhill, thence to Concord, thence north-westward along
the shore of Lake Memphremagog to Montreal, which was reached on the
ninth day.
Montreal at that time was a very gloomy-looking little town, with a
population of about seven thousand. It was surrounded by an old wall
about fifteen feet high, with battlements and other fortifications.
The houses were mostly built of grey stone, with sheet-iron roofs and
iron window shutters, which gave them a prison-like appearance. The
streets were narrow and crooked. Traineaux drawn by French ponies,
and toboggans loaded with furs and drawn by several dogs in tandem,
were frequently seen in the streets when this brave little band of
New Englanders gazed in wonder upon the old historic French town.
The caravan then wended its way towards the north shore of the
Ottawa. Its progress at first was slow, making only fifteen miles a
day for the first three days, owing to the sleighs being wider than
those used in Canada. On the third day they had reached the foot of
the Long Sault and the terminus of the road. They were eighty miles
from their destination, in a wilderness of snow and ice, and with no
trace of a road.
"We proceeded to the head of the Sault," said Mr. Wright, in relating
their experiences in the House of Assembly in 1820, "observing before
night came on to fix upon some spot near water to encamp for the
night, where there were no dry trees to fall upon us or our cattle.
Then we cleared away the snow and cut down trees for fire for the
night, the women and children sleeping in covered sleighs, the men
with blankets around the fire, and the cattle made fast to the
standing trees; and I never saw men more cheerful and happy, having
no landlord to call upon them for expenses and no unclean floors to
sleep upon, but the sweet ground which belongs to our Sovereign. We
always prepared sufficient refreshment for the following day, so as
to lose no time on our journey when daylight appeared. We kept our
axemen forward cutting the road, and our foraging team next, and the
families in the rear. In this way we proceeded on for three or four
days, observing to look out for a good place for our camp, until we
arrived at the head of the Long Sault, from whence we travelled the
whole distance upon the ice until we reached our destination. My
guide was unacquainted with the ice, as our former journeys were by
water. We went very slowly lest we might lose our cattle, keeping
the axemen forward trying every rod of the ice, which was covered
with snow.
"I cannot pass over this account," continued Mr. Wright, "without
referring to a _sauvage_, from whom we received great kindness. We
met him with his wife drawing a child upon a bark sleigh. They
looked at us with astonishment. They viewed us as though we had come
from the clouds, walking around our teams and trying to talk with us
concerning the ice, but not a word could we understand. We then
observed him giving directions to his squaw, who immediately left him
and went to the woods, while he proceeded to the head of our company,
without promise of fee or reward, with his small axe trying the ice
at almost every step. We proceeded in this way without meeting with
any accident for about six days, when we arrived safely at the
township of Hull. We had some trouble in cutting the brush and
ascending the height, which is about twenty feet from the water. Our
_sauvage_, after seeing us safely up the bank, spent the night with
us and made us to understand that he must return to his squaw and
child, and after receiving presents for his great services, took his
departure."
What must have been the feelings of the pioneer settlers when they
beheld for the first time the magnificent scenery of the Chaudiere,
before its wild beauty was defaced by the woodman's axe or its
sparkling waters used in slides and mill-races?
Three openings loomed up before them--the most distant one, to the
left, a broad half-rapid, half-cascade, sweeping down among islands
of pines; the middle passage seemed very narrow and carried away in a
sort of creamy foam the waters of the Chaudiere proper; while the
nearer or right passage led by a winding route to a rocky cove at the
beginning of the portage road. Surely never had they beheld anything
so picturesque, so indescribably grand, as it appeared to them on
that bright and frosty evening! The precipices and rocky gorge of
the opposite shore, green with pine and cedar to the river's brink,
and covered with a mantle of beautiful snow; the volume of water,
tossed, broken, dashed into foam, which floated down like miniature
icebergs on the mighty rushing current till the natural ice-bridge
was reached, made a scene not soon to be forgotten. The turrets,
domes and battlements of the Dominion House of Parliament, which in a
few short years was destined to crown the opposite cliffs, were a
dream beyond the wildest imagination of our Pioneer.