=Source.=--_The Autobiography of John Galt._ London, 1833.
On the 22nd of April, the day previous to the time appointed for
laying the foundations of my projected polis, I went to Galt, a
town situated on the banks of the Grand River, which my friend,
the Honourable William Dixon, in whose township it is situated,
named after me long before the Canada Company was imagined; it was
arrived at the maturity of having a post office before I heard of
its existence. There I met by appointment, at Mr. Dickson's, Dr.
Dunlop, who held a roving commission in the Canada Company, and was
informed that the requisite woodmen were assembled.
Next morning we walked after breakfast towards the site which had
been selected. The distance was about eighteen miles from Galt,
half of it in the forest, but till we came near the end of the road
no accident happened. Scarcely, however, had we entered the bush,
as the woods are called, when the doctor found he had lost the
way. I was excessively angry, for such an accident is no trifle in
the woods; but after "wandering up and down" like the two babes,
with not even the comfort of a blackberry, the heavens frowning
and the surrounding forest sullenly still, we discovered a hut,
and "tirling at the pin" entered and found it inhabited by a Dutch
shoemaker. We made him understand our lost condition, and induced
him to set us on the right path. He had been in the French army,
and had after the peace emigrated to the United States; thence he
had come into Upper Canada, where he bought a lot of land, which,
after he had made some betterments, he exchanged for the location
in the woods, or as he said himself "Je swapé" the first land for
the lot on which he was now settled.
With his assistance we reached the skirts of the wild to which
we were going, and were informed in the cabin of a squatter that
all our men had gone forward. By this time it began to rain, but
undeterred by that circumstance we resumed our journey in the
pathless wood. About sunset, dripping wet, we arrived near the spot
we were in quest of, a shanty which an Indian who had committed
murder had raised as a refuge for himself....
We found the men under the orders of Mr. Prior, whom I had employed
for the Company, kindling a roaring fire, and after endeavouring to
dry ourselves, and having recourse to the store-basket, I proposed
to go to the spot chosen for the town. By this time the sun was
set, and Dr. Dunlop with his characteristic drollery having doffed
his wet garb and dressed himself Indian fashion in blankets, we
proceeded with Mr. Prior, attended by two woodmen with their axes.
It was consistent with my plan to invest our ceremony with a little
mystery, the better to make it be remembered. So, intimating that
the main body of the men were not to come, we walked to the brow
of the neighbouring rising ground, and, Mr. Prior having shown
the site selected for the town, a large maple tree was chosen, on
which, taking an axe from one of the woodmen, I struck the first
stroke. To me at least the moment was impressive--and the silence
of the woods that echoed to the sound was as the sigh of the solemn
genius of the wilderness departing for ever.
The doctor followed me; then, if I recollect correctly, Mr. Prior,
and the woodmen finished the work. The tree fell with a crash
of accumulating thunder, as if ancient Nature were alarmed at
the entrance of social man into her innocent solitudes with his
sorrows, his follies, and his crimes.
I do not suppose that the sublimity of the occasion was unfelt
by the others, for I noticed that after the tree fell there was
a funereal pause, as when the coffin is lowered into the grave;
it was, however, of short duration, for the doctor pulled a flask
of whiskey from his bosom, and we drank prosperity to the City of
Guelph.
The name was chosen in compliment to the royal family, both
because I thought it auspicious in itself, and because I could
not recollect that it had ever been before used in all the King's
dominions.
After the solemnity--for, though the ceremony was simple, it may be
so denominated--we returned to the shanty, and the rain, which had
been suspended during the performance, began again to pour.
It may appear ludicrous to many readers that I look on this
incident with gravity, but in truth I am very serious; for,
although Guelph is not so situated as ever to become celebrated
for foreign commerce, the location possesses many advantages
independent of being situated on a tongue of land surrounded by a
clear and rapid stream. It will be seen by the map of the province
that it stands almost in the centre of the table-land which
separates four of the great lakes, namely, Ontario, Simcoe, Huron
and Erie.