[Illustration: THOMAS CONANT.]
[Illustration:
LIFE
IN
CANADA
by
Thomas Conant,
Author of “Upper Canada Sketches.”
Toronto
William Briggs
1903]
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
one thousand nine hundred and three, by THOMAS CONANT, at the
Department of Agriculture.
“_If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other
hearts; all art and author’s craft are of small account to that._”
Preface.
In the following pages will be found some contributions towards the
history of Canada and of the manners and customs of its inhabitants
during the hundred years beginning October 5th, 1792. On that date my
ancestor, Roger Conant, a graduate of Yale University, and a
Massachusetts landowner, set foot on Canadian soil as a United Empire
Loyalist. From him and from his descendants--handed down from father to
son--there have come to me certain historical particulars which I regard
as a trust and which I herewith give to the public. I am of the opinion
that it is in such plain and unvarnished statements that future
historians of our country will find their best materials, and I
therefore feel constrained to do my share towards the task of supplying
them.
The population of Canada is but five and one-third millions, but who can
tell what it will be in a few decades? We may be sure that when our
population rivals that of the United States to-day, and when our
numerous seats of learning have duly leavened the mass of our people,
any reliable particulars as to the early history of our country will be
most eagerly sought for.
As a native resident of the premier Province of Ontario, where my
ancestors from Roger Conant onwards also spent their lives, I have
naturally dealt chiefly with affairs and happenings in what has hitherto
been the most important province of the Dominion, and which possesses at
least half of the inhabitants of the entire country. But I have not the
slightest desire to detract from the merits and historical interest of
the other provinces.
THOMAS CONANT.
OSHAWA, January, 1903.
Contents.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Roger Conant--His position in Massachusetts--Remained in the United
States two years without being molested--Atrocities committed by
“Butler’s Rangers”--Comes to Upper Canada--Received by Governor
Simcoe--Takes up land at Darlington--Becomes a fur trader--His life as
a settler--Other members of the Conant family 13
CHAPTER II.
Colonel Talbot--His slanderous utterances with regard to Canadians--The
beaver--Salmon in Canadian streams--U. E. Loyalists have to take
the oath of allegiance--Titles of land in Canada--Clergy Reserve
lands--University of Toronto lands--Canada Company lands 27
CHAPTER III.
The War of 1812--Canadian feeling with regard to it--Intolerance
of the Family Compact--Roger Conant arrested and fined--March of
Defenders to York--Roger Conant hides his specie--A song about the
war--Indian robbers foiled--The siege of Detroit--American prisoners
sent to Quebec--Feeding them on the way--Attempt on the life of Colonel
Scott of the U. S. Army--Funeral of Brock--American forces appear off
York--Blowing up of the fort--Burning of the Don bridge--Peace at
last 37
CHAPTER IV.
Wolves in Upper Canada--Adventure of Thomas Conant--A grabbing
land-surveyor--Canadian graveyards beside the lake--Millerism in Upper
Canada--Mormonism 60
CHAPTER V.
Abolition of slavery in Canada--Log-houses, their fireplaces and
cooking apparatus--Difficulty experienced by settlers in obtaining
money--Grants to U. E. Loyalists--First grist mill--Indians--Use of
whiskey--Belief in witchcraft--Buffalo in Ontario 72
CHAPTER VI.
A manufactory of base coin in the Province of Quebec--A clever
penman--Incident at a trial--The gang of forgers broken up--“Stump-tail
money”--Calves or land? Ashbridge’s hotel, Toronto--Attempted robbery
by Indians--The shooting of an Indian dog and the consequences 87
CHAPTER VII.
The Canadian Revolution of 1837-38--Causes that led to it--Searching
of Daniel Conant’s house--Tyrannous misrule of the Family Compact--A
fugitive farmer--A visitor from the United States in danger--Daniel
Conant a large vessel owner--Assists seventy patriots to escape--Linus
Wilson Miller--His trial and sentence--State prisoners sent to Van
Diemen’s Land 97
CHAPTER VIII.
Building a dock at Whitby--Daniel Conant becomes security--Water
communication--Some of the old steamboats--Captain Kerr--His commanding
methods--Captain Schofield--Crossing the Atlantic--Trials of
emigrants--Death of a Scotch emigrant 114
CHAPTER IX.
Maple sugar making--The Indian method--“Sugaring-off”--The toothsome
“wax”--A yearly season of pleasure 122
CHAPTER X.
Winter in Ontario--Flax-working in the old time--Social gatherings--The
churches are centres of attraction--Winter marriages--Common
schools--Wintry aspect of Lake Ontario 129
CHAPTER XI.
The coming of spring--Fishing by torch-light--Sudden beauty of the
springtime--Seeding--Foul weeds--Hospitality of Ontario farmers 136
CHAPTER XII.
Ontario in June--Snake fences--Road-work--Alsike clover fields--A
natural grazing country--Barley and marrowfat peas--Ontario in
July--Barley in full head--Ontario is a garden--Lake Ontario surpasses
Lake Geneva or Lake Leman--Summer delights--Fair complexions of the
people--Approach of the autumnal season--Luxuriant orchards 145
CHAPTER XIII.
Some natural history notes--Our feathered pets--“The poor Canada
bird”--The Canadian mocking-bird--The black squirrel--The red
squirrel--The katydid and cricket--A rural graveyard--The
whip-poor-will--The golden plover--The large Canada owl--The crows’
congress--The heron--The water-hen 159
CHAPTER XIV.
Lake Ontario--Weather observations with regard to it--Area and
depth--No underground passage for its waters--Daily horizon of the
author--A sunrise described--Telegraph poles an eye-sore--The pleasing
exceeds the ugly 170
CHAPTER XV.
Getting hold of an Ontario farm--How a man without capital may
succeed--Superiority of farming to a mechanical trade--A man
with $10,000 can have more enjoyment in Ontario than anywhere
else--Comparison with other countries--Small amount of waste
land in Ontario--The help of the farmer’s wife--“Where are your
peasants?”--Independence of the Ontario farmer--Complaints of emigrants
unfounded--An example of success 180
CHAPTER XVI.
Unfinished character of many things on this continent--Old Country
roads--Differing aspects of farms--Moving from the old log-house to
the palatial residence--Landlord and tenant should make their own
bargains--Depletion of timber reserves 201
CHAPTER XVII.
Book farmers and their ways--Some Englishmen lack
adaptiveness--Doctoring sick sheep by the book--Failures in
farming--Young Englishmen sent out to try life in Canada--The sporting
farmer--The hunting farmer--The country school-teacher 208
CHAPTER XVIII.
Horse-dealing transactions--A typical horse-deal--“Splitting
the difference”--The horse-trading conscience--A gathering at a
funeral--Another type of farmer--The sordid life that drives the boys
away 219
CHAPTER XIX.
City and country life compared--No aristocracy in Canada--Long winter
evenings--Social evenings--The bashful swain--Popular literature of the
day--A comfortable winter day at home--Young farmers who have inherited
property--Difficulty of obtaining female help--Farmers trying town
life--Universality of the love of country life--Bismarck--Theocritus
--Cato--Hesiod--Homer--Changes in town values--A speculation in
lard 227
CHAPTER XX.
Instances of success in Ontario--A thrifty wood-chopper turns cattle
dealer--Possesses land and money--Two brothers from Ireland; their
mercantile success--The record of thirty years--Another instance--A
travelling dealer turns farmer--Instance of a thriving Scotsman--The
way to meet trouble--The fate of Shylocks and their descendants 244
CHAPTER XXI.
Manitoba and Ontario compared--Some instances from real life--Ontario
compared with Michigan--With Germany--“Canada as a winter
resort”--Inexpediency of ice-palaces and the like--Untruthful to
represent this as a land of winter--Grant Allen’s strictures on Canada
refuted--Lavish use of food by Ontario people--The delightful climate
of Ontario 255
CHAPTER XXII.
Criticisms by foreign authors--How Canada is regarded in other
countries--Passports--“Only a Colonist”--Virchow’s unwelcome
inference--Canadians are too modest--Imperfect guide-books--A
reciprocity treaty wanted 268
CHAPTER XXIII.
Few positions for young Canadians of ambition--American
consulships--Bayard Taylor--S. S. Cox--Canadian High
Commissioner--Desirability of men of elevated life--Necessity for
developing a Canadian national spirit 277
CHAPTER XXIV.
A retrospect--Canada’s heroes--The places of their deeds should
be marked--Canada a young sleeping giant--Abundance of our
resources--Pulpwood for the world--Nickel--History of our early days
will be valued 286
Illustrations.
PAGE
THOMAS CONANT _Frontispiece_
ROGER CONANT 14
GOVERNOR SIMCOE--FROM THE TOMB IN EXETER
CATHEDRAL, ENGLAND 18
COLONEL TALBOT 27
COLONEL TALBOT’S ARM-CHAIR 28
SHOAL OF SALMON, NEAR OSHAWA, 1792 30
FAC-SIMILE OF CERTIFICATE OF OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 33
FAC-SIMILE OF COURT SUMMONS, 1803 35
NEWARK (NIAGARA), 1813 39
BRITISH MILITARY UNIFORMS, 1812 41
AN OLD SPINNING-WHEEL 41
CIVILIAN COSTUMES, UPPER CANADA, 1812 41
ROGER CONANT HIDING HIS TREASURE 43
FAREWELL’S TAVERN, NEAR OSHAWA, AS IT APPEARS
TO-DAY 47
VIEW OF YORK--FROM THE OLDEST EXTANT ENGRAVING 51
BURNING THE DON BRIDGE--FROM A SKETCH BY
ISAAC BELLAMY 56
THOMAS CONANT (the Author’s grandfather) 60
OLD GRAVEYARD NEAR OSHAWA, THE PROPERTY OF
THE AUTHOR 66
FIREPLACE AND HOUSEHOLD EFFECTS IN USE IN
UPPER CANADA, 1813 76
KITCHEN UTENSILS, UPPER CANADA, 1813 76
THE OLD CONANT HOMESTEAD NEAR OSHAWA, BUILT
IN 1811 100
DANIEL CONANT 104
DESK USED IN THE LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER BY W.
LYON MACKENZIE, UPPER CANADA, 1837 113
CANADIAN APPLES AT THE GLASGOW EXHIBITION--“THE
BEST IN THE EMPIRE” 143
SCENE NEAR BOBCAYGEON 172
A CANADIAN VIEW--LOOKING SOUTH-EAST FROM
EAGLE MOUNTAIN, STONEY LAKE 172
A SAILING CANOE ON LAKE ONTARIO 214
LIFE IN CANADA.
CHAPTER I.
Roger Conant--His position in Massachusetts--Remained in the United
States two years without being molested--Atrocities committed by
“Butler’s Rangers”--Comes to Upper Canada--Received by Governor
Simcoe--Takes up land at Darlington--Becomes a fur trader--His life
as a settler--Other members of the Conant family.
The author’s great-grandfather, Roger Conant, was born at Bridgewater,
Massachusetts, on June 22nd, 1748. He was a direct descendant (sixth
generation) from Roger Conant the Pilgrim, and founder of the Conant
family in America, who came to Salem, Massachusetts, in the second ship,
the _Ann_--the _Mayflower_ being the first--in 1623, and became the
first Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony under the British Crown. He
was graduated in Arts and law at Yale University in 1765. At the time of
the outbreak of the Revolution in 1776 he was twenty-eight years old.
His capacity and business ability may be judged from the facts that he
owned no fewer than 13,000 acres of land in New England, and that when
he came to Canada he brought with him £5,000 in British gold. He
appears to have been a man of keen judgment, of quiet manners, not given
to random talking, of great personal strength, and highly acceptable to
his neighbors. In after days, when he had to do his share toward
subduing the Canadian forest, they tell of him sinking his axe up to the
eye at every stroke in the beech or maple. The record is that he could
chop, split and pile a full cord of wood in an hour.
Although he became a United Empire Loyalist and ultimately came to
Canada, leaving his 13,000 acres behind him in Massachusetts, for which
neither he nor his descendants ever received a cent, Roger Conant’s
decision to emigrate was not taken at once. The Revolution broke out in
1776, but he did not remove from his home until 1778. Even then he does
not appear to have been subjected to the annoyances and persecution
which some have attributed to the disaffected colonists. What the author
has to say on this point comes from Roger Conant’s own lips, and has
been handed down from father to son. He has, therefore, no choice in a
work of this kind but to give it as it came to him. It has been the rule
among many persons who claim New England origin to paint very dark
pictures of the treatment their forefathers received at the hands of
those who joined the colonists in revolt from the British Crown. For
instance, words like the following were used soon after the thirteen
colonies were accorded their independence and became the United States:
[Illustration: ROGER CONANT.
Born at Bridgewater, Mass., June 22, 1748.
Graduated at Yale University in Arts and law, 1765.
Came to Darlington, Upper Canada, a U. E. L., 1792.
Died in Darlington, June 21, 1821.
]
“Did it serve any good end to endeavor to hinder Tories from
getting tenants or to prevent persons who owed them from paying
honest debts? On whose cheek should have been the blush of shame
when the habitation of the aged and feeble Foster was sacked and he
had no shelter but the woods; when Williams, as infirm as he, was
seized at night and dragged away for miles and smoked in a room
with fastened doors and closed chimney-top? What father who doubted
whether to join or fly, determined to abide the issue in the land
of his birth because foul words were spoken to his daughters, or
because they were pelted when riding or when moving in the innocent
dance? Is there cause to wonder that some who still live should yet
say of their own or their fathers’ treatment that persecution made
half of the King’s friends?”
Roger Conant, however, during the two years he remained at Bridgewater
after the breaking out of the Revolution, was free from these
disagreeable experiences. He frequently reiterated that such instances
as those of Foster and Williams were very rare, and maintained that
those who were subject to harsh treatment were those who made themselves
particularly obnoxious to their neighbors who were in favor of the
Revolution. Persons who were blatant and offensive in their words,
continually boasting their British citizenship and that nobody dare
molest them--in a word, as we say, a century and a quarter after the
struggle, forever carrying a chip on the shoulder and daring anybody to
knock it off--naturally rendered themselves objects of dislike. It must
be borne in mind that, right or wrong, the entire community were almost
a unit in their contention for separation from Great Britain. Yet Roger
Conant, who did not take up arms with the patriots, was not molested.
His oft-repeated testimony was that no one in New England need have
been molested on account of his political opinions.
As a matter of fact, he frequently averred that he made a mistake when
he left New England and came to the wilds of Canada. To the latest day
of his life he regretted the change, and said that he should have
remained and joined the patriots; that the New Englanders who were
accused of such savage actions towards loyalists were not bad people,
but that on the contrary they were the very best America then had--kind,
cultivated and considerate. Nor was he alone in this conviction. He was
fond of comparing notes with other United Empire Loyalists with whom
from time to time he met. He was always glad to meet those who had come
to Canada from the revolted colonies. And he again and again averred
that their opinion tallied with his own, viz., that they were mistaken
and foolish in coming away. He entertained no feelings of animosity
against the new government who appropriated his 13,000 acres. Neither
does the author. Such feelings were and are reserved for Lord North,
whose short-sightedness and obstinacy were the immediate cause of the
war. A man who could say that “he would whip the colonists into
subjection” deserves the universal contempt of mankind, especially when
it is remembered that at the very moment of his outbreak of ungoverned
and arbitrary temper the colonists were only waiting for an opportunity
to consummate an _entente cordiale_ with the Mother Country, and to
return to former good feeling and peace.
On the other hand, Roger Conant had that to tell regarding some of the
British forces which does not form pleasant reading, but which the
author feels impelled to set down in order to present a faithful picture
of Great Britain’s stupendous folly, viz., her war with the American
colonies in 1776. The first body of irregular troops of any sort that he
saw who were fighting for the King were Butler’s Rangers, which body, to
his astonishment, he found in northern New York State when wending his
way to Upper Canada. For some time he tarried in the district where this
force was carrying on its operations. It would seem as if the very
spirit of the evil one had taken possession of these men. Acts of arson
by which the unfortunate settler lost his log cabin, the only shelter
for his wife and little ones from the inclemency of a northern winter,
were too common to remark. Murder and rapine were acts of everyday
occurrence. Manifestly these atrocious guerillas could not remain in the
neighborhood that witnessed their crimes. They found their way in
various directions to places where they hoped to evade the tale of their
villany. In after years one of these very men wandered to Upper Canada,
and, as it happened, hired himself to Roger Conant to work about the
latter’s homestead at Darlington. An occasion came when this man, who
was very reticent, had partaken too freely of liquor, so that his tongue
was loosed, and in an unbroken flow of words he unfolded a boastful
narrative of the horrid deeds of himself and his companions of Butler’s
Rangers. One day, he said, they entered a log-house in the forest in New
York State, and quickly murdered the mother and her two children. They
were about applying the torch to the dwelling, when he discovered an
infant asleep, covered with an old coverlet, in the corner of an
adjoining bedroom. He drew the baby forth, when one of the Rangers, not
quite lost to all sense of humanity, begged him to spare the child,
“because,” as he said, “it can do no harm.” With a drunken, leering
boast he declared he would not, “for,” said he, as he dashed its head
against the stone jamb of the open fireplace, “Nits make lice, and I
won’t save it.”
It is no wonder that Roger Conant said that many times his heart failed
him when these terrible acts of Butler’s Rangers were being perpetrated,
and that he felt sorry even then, when in New York State and on his way
to Upper Canada, that he had not remained in Massachusetts and joined
the patriots. It is to be remembered that these persons were burnt out,
murdered, and their women outraged, simply because they thought Britain
bore too heavily on them, and that reforms were needed in the colonies.
Nor could these acts in even the smallest degree assist the cause of
Britain from a military point of view.
On October 5th, 1792, Roger Conant crossed the Niagara River on a
flat-bottomed scow ferry, and landed at Newark, then the capital of
Upper Canada. Governor Simcoe, who had only been sworn in as Governor a
few days previously, came to the wharfside
[Illustration: GOVERNOR SIMCOE.
(_From the tomb in Exeter Cathedral, England._)
(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)
]
to meet the incoming emigrant, who, with his wife and children, his
waggons and his household stuff, had come to make his future home in
Upper Canada.
“Where do you wish to go?” said the Governor.
“I think of following the north shore of the lake eastward till I find a
suitable place to settle in, sir.”
“But the land up there is not surveyed yet. Should you not prefer to go
up to Lake Simcoe? That is where I would like to see you take up your
abode.”
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.
It will be noted as a singular fact that even the most ordinary
emigrants from Great Britain, seeking a home here in those early days,
were in some respects better equipped than the sons of Roger Conant,
with their prospect of becoming heirs of large property. For, coming
from Great Britain, the land of schools, the poor emigrant generally
possessed a fair education, which the young Conants did not. Also, they
had, besides, the prime idea of gaining a home in the new land and
keeping it. Not so the Conant sons, who so easily secured an abundance
from the plethoric returns of the virgin soil of that day. Books were
denied them. Of the diversions of society, the theatre or the lecture
room, they knew nothing. Consequently they found their own crude
diversions as they could. “Little” or “Muddy” York, the nucleus of
Toronto, began to become a settlement, and to that hamlet they easily
wended their way to find relief from the humdrum life among the forests
at home. It is told that frequently, when they were short of cash, they
would drive a bunch of cattle from their father’s herd to York and sell
them, spending the proceeds in riding and driving about the town. That
in itself is not very much to remark, seeing that they were the sons of
a rich man, and their doings were no more than compatible with their
conceded station in life. And so far as is known in an age when
everybody consumed more or less spirituous liquors in Upper Canada, the
Conant sons were not particularly remarkable either for their partaking
or their abstemiousness. Their loss of properties cannot be attributed
to their convivial habits, but rather to a want of appreciation of their
possessions.
Daniel Conant, the author’s father, unmistakably inherited the vim and
push of his grandfather, Roger. Thus we find him as a young man owning
fleets of ships on the Great Lakes, as well as being a lumber producer
and dealer in that commodity second to none of his day.[B] It may be
observed, in passing, that Roger Conant during the whole of his life
never seemed to care for office. Offices were many times offered to him
by the British Government, but he steadily refused, and died without
ever having tasted their sweets. His own business was far sweeter to
him, and he was far more successful in it than he could have been in
office. His grandson, Daniel, had this family trait. He did not spend an
hour in seeking preferments, and office to him had no allurements. His
education was meagre. It was, however, sufficient to enable him to do an
enormous business. He not only amassed wealth, but by his efforts in
moving his ships and pursuing his business generally, he did much for
the good of his native province, and for his neighbors. While his lumber
commanded a ready sale in the United States markets, it was also used
very largely in building homes for the settlers in his locality. The
poor came to him as to a friend, and never came in vain. At his burial
in 1879 hundreds of poor men, as well as their more fortunate neighbors,
followed his bier to the grave. Perhaps no more striking token of the
regard in which he was held by the poor can be cited, and the author
glories in this tribute to his memory by the meek and lowly.
[Illustration: COLONEL TALBOT.
(By permission from the J. Ross Robertson collection.)]