mmmmf. n V^SSS MHXStiWiW® fflBMili'E linwii } R K E l E Y LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA , Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/canadianpeninkskOOfrasrich CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES, By JOHN FRASER, MONTREAL. MONTREAL : GAZETTE PRINTING COMPANY. 1890. Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety, by John Fraser, of Montreal, in the Office of » the Minister of Agriculture. r/o/s PREFACE. . «• . THE LA SALLE HOMESTEAD, LACHINE RAPIDS, CANADA, October, 1890. At the request of many friends, I have con- sented to have niy " Canadian Pen and Ink Sketches " collected and published in book form. Every man owes a duty to his country, and to his fellow-citizens, to state publicly what he knows respecting the early history of his country ; thus placing before some future historian or sketcher matter to build upon. Therefore, I place these, my Canadian sketches, before the public. JOHN FRASER. 4J4 Drummond Street, Montreal. 715 CONTENTS. Chapter I. PAGB The Massacre of Lachine, two hundred years ago, 4th of August, 1689 3 Chapter II. The Canadian Home'of Kobert de'la Salle 25 Chapter III. The March of the Six Hundred McDonnell Men, dur- ing the war of 1812 39 Chapter IV. The Great Scare in Montreal, 13th of December, 183*7 53 Chapter 3 V. John Giant's Inn, the old Scotch House in Montreal... 65 Chapter VI. Fifty Years Ago — Opening of the Second Eebellion in Lower Canada, Sunday Morning, 4th of Novem- ber, 1838 73 Chapter VII. Reminiscences of the Canadian Rebellion, 1838 8f Chapter VIII. Reminiscences of the Canadian Rebellion, 1838 93 Chapter IX. Reminiscences of the Canadian Rebellion, 1838 101 CONTENTS. Chapter X. PAG& A Visit to the Canadian Glengarry Forty Years Ago.. 113 Chapter XI. A Gl engarry Double Sleigh Fifty Years Ago 1 23 Chapter XII. Canadian Arbor Day, 1889 13? Chapter XIII. A Fiftieth Anniversary Visit to the Home of My Youth 149 Chapter XIV. A Visit to the Falls of Niagara Over Forty Years Ago 15? Chapter XV. The Battlefield of Lundy's Lane, fought 25th July, 1814 169 Chapter XVI. Our Antiquities, r a Visit to La Salle's Home 185 Chapter XVII. The Blue Bonnets — near rLachine, on the Grand Trunk Railway 195 Chapter XVIII. Ah Historical Canadian Burying Ground and its Neg- lected Graves 203 Chapter XIX. A Visit to the Battlefield of Stoney Creek, fought 6th June, 1813 211 Chapter XX. The "Old Bunk" of a Canadian Farm House 229 CONTENTS. Chapter XXI. PAGB- First Summer Morning Walk Around Montreal 235 Chapter XXII. Second Summer Morning Walk Around Montreal...... 249 Chapter XXIII. Third Summer Morning Walk Around 7 Montreal. 261 Chapter XXIY. Fourth Summer Morning Walk Around Montreal 2*73 Chapter XXY. Fifth Summer Morning Walk Around Montreal 285 Chapter XXVI. Sixth Summer Morning Walk Around Montreal 299 Chapter XXVII. The Hospitality of a Canadian Farm House of the Olden Time. 315 Chapter XXVIII. The "Canadian Glengarry," a pen and ink sketch 325 Chapter XXIX. A Canadian Log House of the Olden Time 335 Chapter XXX. La Salle's Homestead at Lachine, where was it ? 347 Chapter XXXI. The "Battle of Queenston Heights," fought 13th October, 1812 3T1 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. CHAPTEE I. THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. A Summer morning walk along the Lower Lachine Koad, from the Wellington Street bridge up to the old Windmill at Lachine, is the most charming one to be had in all Canada, ex- cepting one on the Canadian bank of the Niagara River, from old Fort George to the ruins of Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo. Every spot here is storied ground. The early explorers and Chris- tian missionaries of Old France found their way westwards along this road. This was the first road in Canada travelled by European foot west of Montreal. Just as the sun is rising we cross the Welling- ton bridge of the Lachine canal ; on the left of us, near the Victoria bridge, is the spot where thousands of Ireland's almost forgotten dead, victims of the dread cholera of 1832 and the ship fever of 1847, lie buried ; without shroud and without coffin — in their hurriedly-made pits. 6 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. or St. Paul's Island, beautiful for situation, well wooded to the water's edge. Farther on — above the Nuns' Island — is Isle Heron, right in the centre of the St. Lawrence ; noted at the present day for its immense water power - going to waste, which is intended shortly te be utilized for electric light and other pur- poses. Facing Isle Heron is " Verdun," the home of our old friend Mr. John Crawford, the veteran fox hunter of Montreal, who, when mounted on his spirited charger, although four score, sits his horse like a boy of eighteen. SUBERCASE'S STOCKADE, 1689. The next spot of interest are the ruins in and around "Knox's Mills," with water-power, which, if utilized, might supply power for one- half the mills and factories in Canada. Near by the old mill may still be seen the ruins of " Subercase's Stockade," in which he was sta- tioned with two hundred men on the night of the 4th of August, 1689. The far-famed Lachine Rapids are facing us, rolling, tossing, and tumbling in the self-same course as for untold centuries ! We may be per- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. f mitted to say : " Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now ! " Four acres above Knox's mill, in front of the Somerville House, is the spot where the shad- fishing is carried on during the passing up of the shad about the first week of June in each year. Farther up, at the six-mile post, is the eastern boundary of what was known as the " LaSalle Common," of 200 acres, set apart by LaSalle in 1666 ; when Seigneur of Lower Lachine. This common was parcelled out amongst the neighboring farmers in 1835, and is now covered with orchards and comfortable cottages. THE KING'S POSTS OF 1812. Next to the old common, just at the present water works bridge, was the eastern boundary of the English " King's Posts," the most celebrated post in Canada during the war of 1812. Every British soldier, every British regiment sailed westwards in bateaux from this place and landed here on their return from Upper Canada at the end of the war ; this was before the building of the Lachine canal. The writer saw the last soldier, bag and baggage, leave this post over sixty years ago. 8 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. LA SALLE'S CANADIAN HOME OF 1666. Adjoining the "King's Posts" still stands the Canadian home of Robert de La Salle, now crum- bling down — soon to mingle with the dust of ages, with no Canadian patriotic enough to do honour to the memory of La Salle — the brightest picture either in Canadian or American history, by saving and restoring what remains of his old home ; although the writer's family have offered to the public 3,500 square feet of land, as a gift, say, seventy feet fronting on the Lower Lachine road, by fifty feet in depth, to enclose the old home. La Salle needs no monument along our mountain slope! — no storied urn nor animated bust ! — to perpetuate or transmit his name to future generations. This whole northern conti- nent, boundless and vast, bears unmistakable traces of his footsteps. But his home — his old Canadian home — every rubble stone thereof should be held sacred by Canadians and Ameri- cans to the latest generation. THE WRITER'S BIRTHPLACE. With the profoundest reverence the writer uncovers his head as he passes this old spot— his birthplace. He was born within the old walls CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 9 that at one time surrounded LaSalle's home ; and with a silent prayer: — "That justice and judg- ment may yet meet in our family estate." This estate of about 1,000 acres of land, on this Lower Lachine road, has been wrenched from our family by a dastardly act of u Man's inhumanity to man." Contrary to the laws of God ! Contrary to the law of England ; and in direct violation of the civil laivs of Lower Canada, as declared by the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench for Lower Canada : " That this whole estate belongs to the family under the law of this province." But their lordships of the Privy Council were led to think — u That our French law, forbidding bequests to non-existing corporations, or for their foundation or creation, without the permission of the Crown, was abrogated by the Code." The question now rests with the legislators of Quebec to pronounce upon and to declare what is the law of Lower Canada on this point. The old u Penner " farm, now Mr. Doran's, is next to LaSalle's home. This farm, three- quarters of a century ago, was known all over Canada for its hop-fields and for its fine stock of imported English cattle, particularly sheep ; and " Penner's cider " was known beyond the bounda- 10 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. ries of Canada. The writer remembers Mr. Penner having seventy acres under hops, and of his having made four hundred puncheons of cider in one year — in 1831. Mr. Penner served in the Montreal cavalry during the Avar of 1812, and was captain of the Lachine Troop during the rebellion of 1837. Next to the " Penner " is the Newman farm, famed for its orchard of about fifty acres, valued from $5,000 to $8,000 per annum, according to the year. We must hurry on, the Windmill is within a mile distant. THE OLD WINDMILL. A writer has said : — " If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright; go visit it by pale moon- light." But, reader, if you would view the old windmill at Lachine aright, you should take a carriage drive or a morning walk by the Lower Lachine Road, as the writer has done, and arrive at this historical spot about half an hour before sunset. What a magnificent view there presents itself to the eye ! Lake St. Louis, stretching westwards twenty miles, is spread right before you as a mirror, without a ripple on its broad CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 11 surface of over two hundred square miles — a thing of beauty — all ablaze, with the rays of the setting sun dancing in gorgeous colours over its silvery waters. There are few sights in Canada to be compared with the view to be had there. Suppose you take your seat with us on the hill side, close under the wings of the old mill ; you have, right opposite to you — on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, the old Indian town of Caughnawaga, a relic of departed days ; this spot, on which the present mill stands, is the spot on which the old mill of 1689 stood. This was known as the Windmill point from earliest days; and this is the very identical spot from which the early French explorers had their first full view of Lake St. Louis, impressing upon them the belief that the large body of water spread out before them was the opening of a water-way through Canada to China which called forth the exclama- tion—" La Chine ! " hence the name u Lachine " given to this place. Two hundred years ago, in 1689, the windmill and its surroundings must have been the centre of the ancient village. Three acres from the mill stood Fort Remy, and close by the Fort stood the first little Catholic 12 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. chapel of Lachine, built in 1676, and the first church — the old parish church of Lachine — was afterwards built in 1701, inside the walls of Fort Reray. The present novitiate of the u Fathers Oblats " stands on the ground of the old church and within the walls where Fort Remy of 1689 stood. This is truly " storied ground ! " Therefore, this old windmill and its surround- ings was the centre of the Lachine of two hundred years ago. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MASSACRE. This is a charming evening in August, 1889 ; as we sit by the old mill and attempt to draw a picture of two hundred years ago. The St. Law- rence flowed quietly past as at present ; Lake St. Louis was then wooded down to its very water's edge; Caughnawaga point was then as now ; all else unchanged. Let us suppose this to be the evening of the 4th of August, 1689 ; the small bell of the little Catholic chapel had tolled the hour of Vespers; the devout worshippers had offered up their prayers of thankfulness to the God of Heaven ; and then " arm in arm," or "hand in hand," many Evangelines and many Gabriels, might be seen wending their way home- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 13 wards ; pouring forth their simple tales of love, and arranging to meet at an early morning matin ; but, God ! what a change before the morning's dawn ! They had all, priest and people, appeared before the great altar on high, to celebrate their first matins in heaven ! THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE, 1689. In the year 1688 the inhabitants of French Canada, particularly those living on the Island of Montreal, were in constant dread of an Indian raid. It was known that year (1688) that two bands, amounting to about 1,500 Iroquois, had formed camps on the Upper St. Lawrence, one encampment being near Frontenac (Kingston), the other, farther down, on Lake St. Francis, pre- paratory to a descent on Montreal, to take revenge for some wrongs, real or imaginary t suffered by them at the hands of the French. During the first days of August, 1689, the people of Lachine could have seen from this Windmill Point stray Indian canoes darting across Lake St. Louis, from the neighbourhood of Isle Perrot to the Chateauguay shore. Such a sight in those early days was a common thing, of every day occurrence, and caused no alarm, and was no 14 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. indication that at that very time there lay hidden nearly two hundred Indian canoes and about fifteen hundred wild Iroquois, in concealment behind those small islands along the south shore of Lake St. Louis, between the Caughnawaga point and the mouth of the Chateauguay river. On the night of the 4th of August, 1689, a heavy storm of thunder, hail and rain passed over Lake St. Louis, and during the prevailing dark- ness that followed the storm, this band of 1,500 Iroquois crossed over to Lachine, a distance of about five miles from their hiding place, and landed between the WindmiirPoint and the pre- sent Lachine Canal. In those early days there was a large bay or inlet between where stood the old Grammar School of sixty years ago, and the first locks built on the Lachine Canal ; this was just at the entrance of that great marsh which then passed between Cote St. Pierre and Cote St. Paul. This was the actual landing place of that savage band of Iroquois. From their landing place they spread right and left ; quietly surrounding every house and ham- let ; this was about ten at night. The unsuspect- ing inmates had early retired to rest ! The dread Indian war-whoop was raised about midnight ; CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 15 a sound too well known in Canada in early days. Then commenced the work of death ! No u door posts nor lintels " were sprinkled with the blood of the passover lamb, as in the days of Moses, to stay the hand of the destroyer ; for within the space of one hour, over two hundred persons fell victims to the uplifted tomahawk and the un- sheathed scalping knife of those dread savages ! THE MORNING AFTER THE MASSACRE. The thunderstorm is over — the death scene of the past night is ended ! And the morning of the 5th of August, 1689, witnessed, as usual, a glorious sunrise shedding his first rays across Lake St. Louis, and smiling, " as if earth con- tained no tomb ! " But the silence of death reigned supreme along the whole front of the Lachine shore ! There was not one living soul left to tell the dread tale of the past night ! There were no mourners there ! No Eachel weeping for her lost ones— all were dead ! Nor man, nor child, nor thing of living birth. No ! not the dog that watched the household hearth escaped that night of blood ! All perished ! The mangled bodies of grey-haired sire and grandchild ; victims of the tomahawk and scalp- 16 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. ing knife, lay thick around ; while the blood- thirsty Iroquois, the only witnesses of this scene of blood, were holding high carnival over their work of death ! And naught was heard there save the wild chant of the dread Indians' dismal song — all else was silent ! THE INDIAN CAMP OF 1689. The Iroquois were not wanting in military tactics ; to conceal their whereabouts from their enemy — the French, they hauled up their canoes about a mile into the deep forest, where they established their camp or headquarters ; their plunder was carried there. They found in the trading stores at Lachine a large supply of French brandy and wines, of which they supplied them- selves freely, and became beastly drunk for days. The exact position of this u Indian camp of 1689 " is not known to the present generation ; but to the boys of the old grammar school of Lachine of sixty years ago it was a familiar spot. The boys then, with their bows and arrows and fishing lines, with hooks made from pins, used to fish there for brook trout and minnows in that branch of the St. Pierre which ran back of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 11 Lachine and crossed the Upper Lachine Road near by the present Blue Bonnets. It was then a large stream, having a depth of two or three feet of water in midsummer. It has since disappeared — dried up — by new water- courses having been cut. This camp was over a mile from the river shore, close by the present Dominion station, on the Lachine railway, and extending back to the foot of Cote St. Luke. The branch of the St, Pierre passed through the centre of the camp ; to this place, in the then deep forest, the Iroquois hauled up their canoes. It is not improbable that in those early days scouting parties from this camp found sufficient depth of water to use their canoes to pass on close to Montreal through that deep marsh, between Cote St. Paul and Cote St. Pierre, which was a lake in early days ; if so, their camp was wisely selected for offensive operations, being difficult of approach or finding out. If the reader will take a seat with us on the brow of Cote St. Luke, behind the present Fashion race course, above the Blue Bonnets, he will have a full view right below him, stretching over to the Dominion station, of the very identical spot 2 18 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. of this historical Indian camp of 1689 ; on which this band of 1,500 savage Iroquois had their headquarters for over two months ; the plunder of the Island of Montreal was carried there, and such of the inhabitants as were reserved for future torture were held there as captives. SUBERCASE'S ADVANCE. On the 5th of August, 1689, the day after the massacre, Subercase, a young French officer, who had about 200 regulars under him in a stockade on the Lower Lachine Koad, some three miles from the Windmill Point, advanced to this scene of blood ; the ruins of this stockade are still to be seen ne ar Knox's mills, and which is stated in the history of that time to have been six miles distant from Montreal. When Subercase with his band, now increased to about 300 men, had reached late in the day that scene of death, a horrible sight met their gaze — the houses still burning, and the bodies of their former inmates strewn about or hanging from the stakes on which they had been tor- tured. They then learned that the Iroquois were all encamped about a mile farther on in the deep ' CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 19 forest, and that they were then beastly and hope- lessly drunk from the brandy taken from the storehouses of the traders at Lachine. This was the time to strike a decisive blow ! The opportunity was lost ! The drawn sword of the avenger was stayed ! Sword in hand, at the head of his men, this daring young officer, Subercase, entered the deep forest, resolved on deadly revenge, and had he been allowed to proceed, the vengeance he would have dealt out would have rivalled in story the " Relief of Lucknow " of our own day ! But at that moment a voice was heard from the rear, commanding a halt ; it was that of the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, just arrived from Montreal, by the Lower Lachine Road, with positive orders from Denonville, the Governor, to run no risks, and stand solely on the defensive. Subercase was furious. High words passed between him and Vaudreuil, but he was forced to obey. The sword of the avenger was sheathed, a grand opportunity was lost, and lost forever. THE CLOSING SCENE. It is not our intention to chronicle the bloody deeds of those dark days during the two months 20 THE MASSACKE OF LACHINE. the Iroquois held possession of the island, rav- aging the whole country for a circuit of about twenty miles, even up to the palisades and gates of Montreal. The reader will find a full account in the history of Canada at that time. They finally took to their canoes in the middle of October ; crossing over to the Chateauguay shore, carrying with them over one hundred captives or prisoners reserved for torture there. On the night after those fiends in human form had left, there were gathered on the Lachine shore, groups stricken dumb through terror, of speechless, stupefied men, women and children, gazing in breathless silence — the silence of despair ! — on the fires that shed their lights across Lake St. Louis, in which their captive friends, their wives, their parents and children agonized — suffering death in forms too horrible to dwell upon. The closing act of those savage demons on the Chateauguay shore was even more appalling than the opening one at Lachine on the night of the 4th of August, 1689. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 21 LANDING OF GENERAL AMHERST'S ARMY. Seventy years later, in the early days of Sep- tember, 1760, the people of Lachine saw another sight, but not " at dead of night." This was the approach of Amherst's army of about 10,000 men, advancing on Montreal. Their boats of all kinds — canoes, bateaux, barges and scows, must have amounted to thousands, and literally speaking, covered Lake St. Louis. This armament was prepared on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, below Kingston, on the present American shore, then British. They descended the rapids of the St. Lawrence and anchored in front and above Lachine. The army advanced in the rear of Montreal by the roads leading to the back of the mountain. In the writer's young days there were a good many old men living at Lachine who had been eye-witnesses of the landing of this army, being, we believe, the largest British army ever landed at one time at any one place in America. The writer will, further on, give a fuller account of this army. Suffice it to say that Montreal was captured, or, rather, capitulated, by which the whole of Canada became at the time of the cession a British colony. 22 THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE. THE OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL OF LACHINE. This was a celebrated school sixty years ago ; it had a Government grant of £J00 a year, and there were usually eighty boys attending it. The boys of the North-West and the Hudson Bay Company were sent down to be educated there, and there were always some twenty boys from Montreal as boarders there. We could name a long list of North-West boys — the McKenzies, Keiths, McLeods, Seivewrights, McMurrays, McGillivrays, Rowands, &c. Dr. Rowand, of Quebec, was a scholar there; also the Lieut.- Governor of Ontario, Sir Alexander Campbell, was one of the boys there for two years. The most noted teacher was David Jones ; he retired to Quebec in 1831 and died there. THE CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. CHAPTER II. THE CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. Sometime between the years 1609 and 1615, Champlain, then Governor of French Canada, established three fur-trading posts, one at Tadousac, one at Three Rivers, the other at the head of the Rapids, at Lower Lachine, eight miles above Montreal. This was done thirty vears before the foundation of Montreal in 1642, by Maisonneuve, and a dozen to fifteen years previous to the formation of the company of the " One Hundred Associates." The post at Lachine, being just below the junc- tion of the Ottawa with the St. Lawrence, became the most important trading post in the colony, and was periodically visited, spring and fall, by the various tribes of Indians living on the shores of the Upper Ottawa and the lakes emptying into the St. Lawrence, to sell or to exchange their furs. 26 CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. About fifty years after the establishment of the post at Lachine, there landed, sometime dur- ing the year 1666, on the spot where the found- ation of Montreal had been laid some twenty-five years previous, a youth from old France, in his 24th year, of manly form and noble bearing, whose calm exterior bespoke one who would shrink from no danger, and who would cling with unflinching tenacity to any cause he might espouse. This youth was Robert de La Salle, who for twenty-one years acted a most conspicuous part in the early history of Canada. La Salle, in quest of new discoveries, and with the hope of finding a water-way through Canada to China, travelled and re-travelled over the then unbroken forests of the great West, and traversed and re-traversed — or rather coasted — in his frail Indian canoe, all of our vast inland lakes, and westward and southward by the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the then other unknown rivers, in search of the great object of his ambi- tion, until he met his death in March, 1687, somewhere, we believe, on the banks of the Missouri. The present is not to deal with La Salle's dis- coveries or explorations — these are matters of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 2t history — but simply to point out a spot, an old landmark, nearer our own home, of which few, probably not one in a thousand of the inhabitants of Montreal, is aware. It is the Canadian home of Robert de La Salle — the home in which he lived for some four years of his early Canadian life, and in which he planned and matured the great schemes which engrossed the last sixteen years of his life. Champlain died in 1635, and about the year 1644, the gentlemen of the Seminary of St. Sulpice acquired, or had granted to them, the Island of Montreal, as Seigneurs. La Salle, shortly after his arrival, acquired from the Seminary of St. Sulpice a grant of land at Lower Lachine, as seigneur, which included the trading post established by Champlain. On the Lower Lachine Road, two miles above the Lachine Rapids, just at the head of the u new inland cut" of the Montreal Water "Works, on the " Fraser Homestead Farm," adjoining the old " English King's Posts," (which was also part of the La Salle estate), stands an old stone building, sixty feet fronting on the road, and some thirty feet deep, one storey and a half high. The inside has a cellar, two floors and a garret, 28 CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. the walls are pierced for over thirty gun or loop holes, which are quite perfect inside, but the out- side of them (the gun-holes) has, from time to time, been plastered over to keep out the cold, to protect it for the uses to which this old building has been turned in later years. The first floor is a good deal broken up, having been used for many years as a cider-house ; the old mill and cider-presses are still there. The outside walls still present a fair appearance, except the east gable-end, which is a little separ- ated at the top from the main building. The inside timbers are nearly as sound to-day as when built, except where rain has reached them. This was the home of Robert de LaSalle, a name dear to all Canadians. How few now know of its existence, and fewer still of its whereabouts ! Its walls have withstood the rough blasts of nearly three centuries. The waters of the St. Lawrence still glide quietly by it as of old, but the rich fur-laden fleets of Indian canoes no longer visit that spot, nor is the merry song of the Canadian voyageur now heard there. Those days are gone ! This post at Lachine was the semi-annual resort of the Indian tribes from their far-distant CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 29 hunting grounds to exchange their furs with LaSalle, and it is on record that a band of Seneca Indians, with their chief, spent a whole winter with him at his home. The tread of passing armies, French or English, with their contingents of Indian warriors, " all painted and feathered," on their march west- ward or homeward to Montreal, was a familiar sound there, and of frequent occurrence in the olden time. This was the point of embarkation by bateaux or canoe westward, and resulted in the establishment of the English " King's Posts " in later years. Connected with his home, LaSalle reserved 420 acres as a u Homestead " for himself. This com- prised the present " Fraser Homestead " and the two adjoining farms. He also reserved a common of 200 acres. This common remained intact until the year 1835, when it was divided among the neighbouring farmers. As a protection from the Indians, a stone wall was built ten to twelve feet high, three acres in front and five acres on the east side of his home. The remains of this old wall may yet be seen. Within this enclosure there was planted an orchard of the choicest pears and other fruits 30 CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. from old France. This orchard only fell into decay within the past fifty years ; its final des- truction only occurred in 1859, during the intense cold of that winter. The foregoing is a short description of one of the most interesting old landmarks of Canada. It is the oldest building now standing in Canada. The writers grandfather visited this old place over one hundred years ago, and some twenty-five years later became the purchaser of the " Fraser Homestead Farm," on which the old home of Robert de La Salle still stands and may be seen. There are few now of the earlier landmarks of French Canada remaining. Those in the towns and cities are, one by one, fast disappearing before the march of modern improvement. It appears to be the rage now-a-days to tear or slash down every relic that reminds us that Canada has a history, and that she had pioneers centuries ago, outstrippers of all in tracing the outlines of trackless western wilds and the shores of then unknown rivers, to whose almost romantic ex- ploits the historian, Parkman, has devoted nearly a lifetime, by writing volume after volume, to instruct the Canadian reader in the history and lives of our early explorers. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 31 La Salle needs no monumeut along our moun- tain slope. " No storied urn nor animated bust/' to perpetuate or to transmit to future generations the great deeds of his purely unselfish life ! This whole northern continent, boundless and vast, bears unmistakable traces of his footsteps. His life was devoted to, and finally sacrificed, in the endeavour to extend the boundaries of his native land — Old France ! His discoveries and explorations were all made in the interest of the land of his birth, the country he loved ; there- fore, so long as the noble St. Lawrence winds its course seaward, and our vast inland lakes exist as feeders thereof, or the great and broad Mississippi rolls its mighty waters to the main, these river banks and those lake shores — if all else were mute — will ever silently testify to the memory of that youthful explorer, La Salle, who first trod or traced their far western or southern shores. Even over one hundred years ago, when these two cumbrous boats or rafts, as pictured by Longfellow, were floating upon the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, laden with the wrecks of a nation — the Acadians — one bearing Evangeline with her guide, the Father Felician, 32 CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. in full pursuit of the fleeing and wandering Gabriel, even a full century before that time, the youthful La Salle had traced those shores and marked the course of that great river. Wonder- ful man ! Truly, he has left his footprints on the sands of time ! Carriages full of American and other tourists every day during the summer travelling season roll along that splendid turnpike, the Lower Lachine Road, pausing arid admiring the grandeur of the Lachine Rapids — the old Sault St. Louis — and reaching the quiet waters above ; then passing the unknown and almost forgotten and totally neglected home of the most remarkable explorer recorded in Canadian or American history — the Canadian home of Robert de La Salle, which still stands at the foot of the " Fraser Hill," two miles above the Lachine Rapids. Imagination carries me back through the dim mists of over two centuries. A scene is pictured before me. It is the primeval beauty of that now historic spot selected by La Salle for his home, which I fail in words to paint. Take that part of the road from the foot of the Fraser Hill along the river bank westward two CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 33 miles to the present Windmill Point. The river bank is over two hundred feet high between these two points. How often, methinks, perhaps thousand of times, had the young, the learned La Salle — learned in all the deep and sacred learning of the Jesuit Fathers — walked or paced, com- panionless and alone, in deep meditation, over these two short miles of road during his four year's sojourn there ? Directly opposite to the Windmill Point, on the south shore of the St. Lawrencej at the foot of Lake St. Louis, stands the old Indian town of Caughnawaga, a relic of the past ! This is truly " storied ground " ; La Salle lived there some twenty years before the " Massacre at Lachine," by the Iroquois Indians, on the night of the 4th of August, 1689, when, within the space of one hour over two hundred persons were put to death in the neighbourhood of Lachine. To his home, at the foot of the Fraser Hill, the first greeting borne on the early morning air would be to him the familiar sounds from the roar of the rapids, two miles below._ Then we might infer that his daily stroll would be west- ward to the Windmill Point. What a magnifi- cent view there presents itself. It was there, 34 CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. and there only, where La Salle could have had the first full view presented to him of the broad smooth surface of Lake St. Louis stretching far to the west, pointing the road for some daring spirit like himself to lead the way in search of a water channel to China through Canada — hence the name Lachine. The question now is : What ought to be done with this historic old building ? It has been in our family for four generations. It is the inten- tion of the writer to set apart 3,500 square feet, say seventy feet fronting on the Lower Lachine Koad, and fifty feet in depth, to enclose the old building, as sacred to the memory of LaSalle. Therefore, we may ask, is there not patriotism enough remaining in Canadians to come forward and assist in having this old building restored, and to preserve the home of Robert de LaSalle from falling into decay, or from being blotted out of existence ? It is due to LaSalle's memory that something should be done, and that speedily, by his admir- ing thousands on this continent. They have now a fitting opportunity to show their respect by giving him a " local habitation," as well as a name ; and where can be found a more suitable CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 35 place than the home in which he had lived during the four years of his early Canadian life ? The place can never be disturbed, being eight miles above Montreal, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and would be sacred for all time, free from the calls or the encroachments of modern improvements. Three of the LaSalle elm trees, venerable with years, still stand on the river-bank, at the head of the old stone wall, as silent sentinels of a bygone age. Note. — During the thunder-storm on Monday night, the 4th of August, 1890, one of the old " La Salle Elms," on the " Fraser Homestead Farm," Lower Lachine, was badly damaged, a large limb was broken and thrown across the road, completely stopping travel, until it was cut up. This tree is over two hundred years old, and measures twenty feet in circumference half a foot from the ground. THE MARCH OF THE SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. CHAPTER III. THE MARCH OF THE SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN During the War op 1812. The march of the Macdonnell men ! They were not all Macdonnells ; neither were they all Glengarrians, nor even Scotchmen, in that brave little band of six hundred, led by Eed George — Colonel George Macdonnell, of the Glengarrians, the hero of Ogdensburg. The officers were nearly all Scotchmen, or, at least, bore Scotch names ; but fully five-sixths of the men were sturdy young French Canadian voyageurs and hardy shanty men ; the woodman's axe and the boatman's oar or paddle were as playthings in their hands. They were just such kind of men as had lately served in the Canadian contingent under Lord Wolseley in the land of the Pharaohs. Come, young Canadian reader, let us go back nearly four score years — to the month of October, 40 MAKCH OF SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. 1813; to those dark but glorious days in the past history of our country — to those days when our noble and brave ancestors had to defend a fron- tier over one thousand miles in length, against the assaults of an enemy ten times their number - r manfully facing every invasion, and finally driving the enemy from our borders. The story or the sketch of some of the gallant deeds of our forefathers will, assuredly, strike some chord in the " peace-bound pulses " of the young Canadian heart. The celebrated march of sixty-two English miles in twenty-six hours, by the Light Division, under Crawford, to reach the field of Talavera ; to cover and protect the retreat of the British army under Lord Wellington, after that terrible fight, which Wellington had won, but was after- wards obliged to retreat or fall back and take up another position, is familiar to every one the least acquainted with the marches, the counter- marches, and the battles of the Peninsular war. The writer, as a boy, was intimate with many of the men of the 95th Rifles, one of the regi- ments of that Light Division, and he now recalls the delight with which he had listened to the stirring stories of the old soldiers. Only seven- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 41 teen men we believe, fell out of the ranks during that long march of sixty-two miles. Crawford, with his division, was posted high up among the Spanish hills, nearly three ordinary days' march from the scene of the conflict. He, like the war- horse of old, " had scented the battle afar," and his anxiety for the safety of his chief caused him to decide, in a moment, to strip every man to the lightest marching order, and to march directly on Talavera. At nearly every league of their advance caval- rymen from the field of Talavera met them, reporting progress of the battle, and then con- veying back to Lord Wellington the welcome news of the steady and sure advance of Crawford and bis men to his support. The excitement pervading all ranks was intense. Every man in the ranks knew the distance ahead to be reached, and he could count, almost to a certainty, the very hour of the arrival of the division on the field to join in the fight, or to cover and protect the rear of the now retreating British army. The formation of military camps close by the Canadian frontier, extending from Plattsburg to Detroit, during the summer and autumn of 1813, gave evidence of impending coming events ; the 42 MARCH OF SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. sum and substance of which was to strike a decisive blow for the reduction of Canada before the close of that year. The Americans had made themselves masters of the whole Western Am- herstburg frontier, having dispersed the British force serving under General Proctor. Only a few hundreds of Proctor's men escaped by falling back and retreating through the then dense forests of Western Canada by way of Ancaster to the entrenched position at Burlington Heights. Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara, was still in the possession of the Americans. To our story or sketch — " The March of the Macdonnell men." It was not altogether a march ; it was partly a march and partly a sail — a sail of one hundred and seventy miles down the rapids of the St. Lawrence from Kingston to Beauharnois, and a march of twenty miles from Beauharnois through the backwoods to join and support the rear of DeSalaberry's small force ; then facing, watching and disputing the advance of Hampton's army of twenty times their number. This extra- ordinary sail and inarch of 190 miles was per- formed in the almost incredible short space of time of sixty hours of actual travel after leaving CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 43 Kingston, until they reached the battle-field of Chateauguay. Sir George Prevost, the commander-in-chief of the British army in Canada, was at Kingston on the 20th of October, 1813. The American army of some 10,000 strong was then concentrating in the neighbourhood of Kingston, under General Wilkinson, making preparations for a descent of the St. Lawrence to attack Montreal. Hampton's army of about the same strength, watched by DeSalaberry, was advancing on Montreal by way of Chateauguay, to form a junction with Wilkin- son on the shores of Lake St. Louis, above Lachine. Those were dark days for the fate of Montreal. Sir George Prevost mounted his horse at Kingston, to proceed by relays of horse with all possible speed to the threatened points in Lower Canada. Before starting he sent for Macdonnell (Red George), who had lately been appointed to the command of a battalion of French Canadian Fencibles. Macdonnell was then at Kingston organizing and drilling that newly-raised regi- ment. Prevost asked him if his men were fit to proceed to Chateauguay, and how soon ? Macdounell's reply was that his men would be 44 MARCH OF SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. ready to embark so soon as they had dinner. Plucky boys, such was the material our Canadian army of 1812 was composed of. Prevost gave him carte blanche, simply enjoining on him to throw his whole force in front of Hampton's advance. If we may use a vulgar term, Macdonnell found himself in a "fix." He had not only to find boats, but to secure pilots to conduct his force down the dangerous rapids of the St. Law- rence. These preparations, fortunately, did not take much over half a day ; there were then plenty of bateaux and other boats at Kingston ; every man was on board that night to sail the next morning. That sail of one hundred and seventy miles down the St. Lawrence from Kingston to Beau- harnois, in open boats, was quite a different undertaking to a sail now-a-days in one of our well-built and well-equipped lake steamers. Macdonnell and his six hundred men had only bateaux and common flat-bottom boats or scows, row-boats, with paddle and oar to propel them, to face the dangers of the Long Sault, the Coteau, the Cedars and the Cascade rapids ; the breaking of an oar or the loss of a paddle would be a serious matter to them. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 45 But those boats contained not only brave men, but men skilled in the dangers of the navigation through which they had to pass. A goodly number of them were old voyageurs, having many times previously faced the dangers then ahead of them. It was just fifty-three years before that time, in 1760, when General Amherst passed down these same rapids from Oswego, with his army of about 10,000 men, advancing on Montreal, losing in one of these rapids, the Coteau, sixty-eight bateaux and eighty-eight men. Macdonnell did not lose one boat or one man in his descent. Besides the dangers of the rapids, this little force, after leaving Kingston, had to work its way through the gunboats and the armed schooners attached to Wilkinson's force ; and on their onward course through the Thousand Islands and down the St. Lawrence, they were exposed at all points to the enemy's marksmen and to the guns at the various fortified posts as they passed, causing them to be on their guard the whole way, and to hug closely the Canadian shore, out of reach of the enemy's bullets. They reached Beauharnois on the evening of the 24th of October, 1813, having encountered a 46 MARCH OF SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. heavy storm on Lake St. Louis after clearing the Cascade Rapids ; thence from Beauharnois, by a midnight march, in Indian file, of twenty miles, through the backwoods, arriving at DeSalaberry's rear at early morning of the 25th — the ever to be remembered 25th day of October, 1813 — in advance of Sir George Prevost, who had ridden down by relays of horse. On Prevost meeting with Macdonnell, he ex- claimed in a tone of great surprise : " And where are your men, Macdonnell '? " " There," said Macdonnell, pointing to six hundred wornout men sleeping all around on the ground, not one man missing. Thus accomplishing the distance from Kingston to the battle-field of Chateauguay, 170 miles by water, and 20 miles by land, in sixty hours of actual travel. What a timely arrival was MacdonnelFs force to DeSalaberry, whose whole force previous to this did not exceed four hundred men. That same day, the 25th October, Hampton's advance was arrested, and then began a retreat, an igno- minious retreat, before a force now increased to about one thousand men, not one-tenth of the invading army — that is, counting all their ranks, regular and militia. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 47 It is not our intention to chronicle the many daring feats of DeSalaberry's little band of Cana- dian Voltigeurs, and the hardships they had to endure for weeks in watching and in disputing the advance of Hampton's army, but simply to record, as at the head of this article, " The March of the Six Hundred Macdonnell Men," and we have done this to the best of our humble ability. The advance of Wilkinson's army was arrested at Chrysler's Farm, and there forced to take to their boats and cross the St. Lawrence ; thereby relieving Montreal from the joint attack of those two American armies. Seventy-five years have come and passed away since the meeting of Macdonnell and DeSalaberry on the battle-field of Chateauguay. This was a meeting of two kindred spirits — brothers in arms ; Macdonnell was a true representative of the Highland gentleman of the old time, de- scended from a family of soldiers ; war, for centu- ries, had been their calling or profession. The same might be said of all Highlanders at the beginning of the last century. Scotch names could then be found in every army of Europe. France can boast of her celebrated Marshal Mac- donald. DeSalaberry was a true type of a French 48 MARCH OF SIX HUNDRED MACDONNELL MEN. nobleman, a worthy representative of an old French family. The DeSalaberrys were early settlers in French Canada. The most striking historical feature of these two Canadians is this : They were representatives of two noble families which, seventy years before the meeting of these two men at Chateauguay, were in arms against the Crown of Great Britain. The Macdonnells were all out in the rebellion of 1745, closing with fatal Culloden. DeSalaberry's ancestors were then soldiers of Old France. We may here add that in religion they belonged to the same church — the Church of Rome. If we mistake not, there were two DeSala- berrys at the storming and fall of Cuidad Kodrigo, in January, 1812, one in the British, the other in the French army. We, as Canadians, are allowing our old land- marks to pass out of remembrance^ or to fall into decay. Would it not be a fitting tribute of respect to the memories of those two noble Canadians to mark the spot where they first met ? If nothing better, let us erect a simple u May- pole," or a cross, after the Canadian custom ; or. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 49 better still, a Scotch cairn, composed of loose stones, headed with the following inscription: — " This is the spot where DeSalaberry and Mac- donnell met on the 25th of October, 1813/' Stoney Creek and Chateauguay will ever be noted as important turning points in the war of 1812. Harvey, with his seven hundred and four unloaded muskets and flintless locks, checked the advance of Dearborn's army at Stoney Creek on Sunday morning, the 6th of June, 1813. Harvey's force was composed of fully three- fourths regulars. DeSalaberry,. with his small force of voltigeurs, consisting of nine-tenths of young French Canadian boys and voyageurs, watched for weeks, and finally arrested and checked the advance of Hampton's army, then in full march on Montreal. This is a bright feather, gracing for all time the bonnets of our young French Canadian boys — lea bonnets rouges and the tuques bleu of Lower Canada. FIFTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER IV. FIFTY YEARS AGO. THE GREAT SCARE ON THE 13th OF DECEMBER, 1837. " There was a sound," but not of revelry, through the dark and narrow streets of old Montreal, on the night of the 13th December, 1837. It was the sound of armed men, mustering and hurrying in wild confusion, and under fear- ful excitement, all concentrating to a rallying point, the old "Champ de Mars," or parade ground. In the early morning of that eventful day, Montreal was all astir to witness the departure of Sir John Colborne, the Commander-in-Chief, at the head of his little army of about 2,000 men, to disperse the rebel force encamped at the village of St. Eustache, about twenty miles to the north. The whole northern district was then in open rebellion. The city of Montreal 54 FIFTY YEARS AGO. was left that day almost entirely to the protection of the volunteer force. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF 1837. That grand old soldier, Sir John Colborne, was one of the few then living who had stood by the side of Sir John Moore on Corunna's fatal strand, where : — " Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried, Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot O'er the grave where our hero we buried." And among the last words spoken by the dying hero was a recommendation for Colborne's promotion. And again, at the closing hour of the great Napoleon's downfall, when the Old Guard, com- posed of veterans of Wagram and Austerlitz, with Ney, the bravest of the brave, at their head, were advancing to an assured victory, our Colborne was there, right in front of that mighty mass of living valour as they advanced. He stood at the head of his old regiment, the 52nd, which, with the 71st and 95th, formed part of " Adams' Brigade,'* posted on the right centre of the British position. This brigade was the first CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 55 to arrest and check the advance of the Old Guard. Readers of the Battle of Waterloo will recall Colborne's position on that field. The reader of this day will appreciate this small tribute of respect to the memory of our Commander-in-Chief of 1837. Now, to our story. Such of the citizens of Montreal as were on the street that night, at about eight o'clock, would have seen a horseman, one of the Lachine Troop of Cavalry, so well known by their BEAR-SKIN HELMETS, dashing along our streets at a mad gallop. That trooper was Alexander Fraser, the writer's brother, now in his seventy-first year, hale and hearty, and living at No. 6 Mance Street, Montreal. The guard at the city gate, at Dow's brewery, was no hindrance to his wild speed. The crossed bayonets of the four sentries posted there were cleared at one bound, consigning the sentries to a warmer spot than that on which they stood that cold December night. His uniform being known to the sentries, saved him from a passing shot. Then down old St. Joseph and Notre Dame streets at the same wild pace, causing terror to 56 FIFTY YEARS AGO. the small groups congregated at every street corner, until he reached the MAIN GUARD, which stood nearly in front of the present Court House. And there, without dismounting, delivered his verbal despatch from Major Penner, commanding officer at Lachine, to the officer of the day in command at Montreal, nearly as follows : — " The rebels have escaped from St. Eustache, " and are reported advancing in force on Lachine, " to capture the arms stored there for the frontier " volunteers." This despatch was delivered at the Main Guard within thirty minutes after the trooper had mounted his horse at Lower Lachine, the dis- tance being over eight miles. Then there was wild hurrying on the streets of Montreal. " To arms ! " was the cry, " the rebels are at hand. The alarm bells rang ; the news flew like lightning, reaching every nook and corner of the city in a few minutes. The city was confined within small limits at that time. The wild excitement of that night can never be forgotten by the living ones. The boys CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 5T of that night are now approaching their three score years and ten. There were hurried mountings of staff officers and orderlies. The rallying words were, every man to his post, the headquarters of his company or Kegiment, and within the space of two hours nearly 4,000 men, volunteers, old and young, merchants, professional men, clerks, mechanics and labourers, stood side by side in their ranks, shoulder to shoulder, ready to do their duty. It was a grand sight to see the mustering squads fall in and take up their double-quick march to the rallying point, but it is regrettable now to think that so dire a necessity ever existed in our country. The different Regiments took up their line of march to the outskirts of the city* and proceeded as far as the top of the Tan- neries Hill, the high road to Lachine, halting there for orders from the front to direct their onward course. THE ALARM AT LACHINE AND ITS CAUSE. About seven o'clock that night, the writer was sitting beside Major Penner, in his house at Lower Lachine, when a trooper, Richard Robin- son, arrived, almost breathless, with the news, 58 FIFTY YEARS AGO. brought to the village by Paul Lebert, a French loyalist, living near St. Genevieve, that the rebels were advancing in force from St. Eustache, to capture the arms stored at Lachine for the frontier volunteers. Major Penner was on his horse within five minutes, and galloped off to the village, a dis- tance of three miles, leaving orders with the writer to summon the foot companies to muster and reach the village with all possible speed, and if the small force in the village had to retreat, the mustering companies would endeavour to join them at the foot of the Coteau Hill, the present Blue Bonnets. THE MUSTERING AT LOWER LACHINE. The second company of foot, Captain Thos. A. Begley's, mustered at the old barracks, the " King's posts " ; every man was there by half- past eight. By that time the excitement was greatly added to, by the women and children of the village having fled their homes, and every farm-house on the Lower Lachine Road was filled by them, they actually declaring that the rebels had already reached the village. This looked very serious to us as we were falling in. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 59 By ten o'clock every man was in front of Lafiamme's Hotel, the headquarters of the Lachine Brigade, presenting a front of about two hundred and forty bayonets and nearly sixty swordsmen, as fine a body of men as could be found in the Province. Word having been sent to Caughnawaga. over two hundred Indian warriors crossed the river and joined the Bri- gade. By advice of old Colonel Wilgress, a Penin- sular veteran, then living at Lachine, who assumed the direction of affairs, the troop of cavalry and the village company of foot (Captain Lepensee's) were sent to the front, half-a-mile above the village, to ivatch and report the advance of the rebels. The three other compa- nies of foot arrived shortly afterwards. The first to arrive was Captain Begley's, from Lower Lachine. The writer was with this com- pany. We came up at the double-quick, nearly a run, and formed opposite Lafiamme's. Such a cheer as greeted our arrival ! It rent the very air. Then came Captain Carmichael with his Cote St. Paul company, by the way of the canal bank, and lastly, Captain Charles, with his com- pany from Cote St. Pierre and the Tanneries, '60 FIFTY YEARS AGO. arrived and formed in line, amid a deafening cheer. ARRIVAL OF THE INDIAN WARRIORS. But let us turn our eyes to the river front — to the St. Lawrence. What a cheering sight was there ! The river was literally covered with Indian canoes ; every warrior in Caughnawaga was crossing to join the Lachine Brigade. The cheer of welcome from that little band of volun- teers, which greeted the arrival of the Indian warriors, and their wild war-whoop in response, was a sound, a sight, and a scene, the like of which will never again be seen or heard in this Province. By ten o'clock fully 500 men, of all classes, stood in the old village. The night passed over without any enemy putting in an appearance. There were no telegraphs in those early days. All communication was made and kept up by the cavalry. The Lachine Troop was then over- worked, carrying despatches and keeping up and open the lines of communication with the scat- tered outposts. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 61 THE MORNING OF THE 14th DECEMBER, 1837. The next morning the old village presented the appearance of a military camp, with it& varied costumes, every man in his own dress,, and early that morning hundreds of the Montreal volunteers had come out. There must, at least, have been fully 1,500 men congregated that morning at Lachine. It was a grand sight to see the Lachine Troop and the four companies of foot form line — about 300 men — with their old Major, mounted in front, thanking his " boys," as he called them, also the Indians, for having turned out so well and so loyally. The roll was then called ; cheer after cheer went up as boys and grey-headed men answered " here " to their names. What, if that roll were called to-day L Not 30 out of that 300 would be found to answer. They have long since responded to a higher roll- call. Peace to their memories ! Thus ended the great scare of the 13th Decem- ber, 1837. The rebels were dispersed from St. Eustache, and the troubles in Lower Canada ceased for that year. The following winter passed over quietly. Seed time came, and a bountiful harvest crowned 62 FIFTY YEARS AGO. the year, but instead of the usual autumn thanks- givings of a grateful people, the standard of rebellion was again raised in November, 1838. Roofless walls and ruined homes marked its deso- lating tracks, leaving a dark blot on the pages of our country's history. JOHN GRANT'S, THE SCOTCH HOUSE. CHAPTEE V. JOHN GRANT'S, THE SCOTCH HOUSE. AN OLD LANDMARK OF MONTREAL. u Walk about Zion, tell the towers thereof, " mark ye all her bulwarks, consider her palaces, " that ye may tell it to the generation follow- a ing." Such was the command to preserve and hold in everlasting remembrance the landmarks of Jerusalem. Let us attempt to follow in the footsteps of old, and restore or point out from among the ruins of time and the wreck of surrounding matter, the whereabouts of some old spots in our own city, now nearly forgotten. John Grant's " Inn " or " Tavern " — the name " Hotel" was not known in those early days. This old house is still standing, and bears the number " 47 St. Henry street." Fifty years ago this house was a noted place. It was then the Scotch head centre of Lower Canada. There was 66 JOHN grant's, the scotch house. not a Scotchman or Scotch family then living within a radius of one hundred miles, embracing the Scotch counties of Glengarry and Argenteuil, and the Scotch settled parts of Chateauguay, but had at one time or another slept within its walls, or had partaken of its old-time hospi- talities. Not to have known John Grant, or not to have been known by him, was ignorance which no Scotchman of that day would like to acknowledge. Those now living who knew him will never forget his kindly smile and the true Highland greeting of our old host. The old hostess, Mrs. Grant, died in this city during the month of August, 1885, in her ninety-first year. " We shall meet at Grant's," was an appoint- ment often made by parties then living at the extremes of the Scotch counties. This old house was well known in the Scotch Highlands, and it was a common practice in those early days for friends in Scotland having relatives living in Canada to address letters for them to "John Grant's, Montreal." Such letters never failed to reach their destination. The home or the where- abouts of nearly every Scotch Highlander or Scotch family settled in the Scotch Canadian CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 67 counties, or serving in the Hudson Bay Company, was known at this old house. During the troubles of 1837 and 1838, "John Grant's " was the Montreal headquarters of the two Glengarry regiments then serving on the Phillipsburg and Napier ville frontier, and also of the Lachine Brigade, and during the winter of 1838 it was the most noted military resort in Montreal. The writer recalls one night; it was, we believe, the 13th of February, 1838, during the illumination to celebrate the installation of Sir John Colborne as Governor-General. About midnight, just as the members of the Lachine Troop were leaving for home, an order reached Grant's for ten of the troop to start immediately for St. John's. Within an hour they were on the ice, to cross to Laprairie, to be stationed by twos, every nine miles, to carry despatches. The last two reached the fort at " Isle aux Noix " the same evening by six o'clock. This was quick work, and a hard, cold ride, the thermometer being below zero, and the roads heavy with snow. This old house was the town meeting place of the gentlemen of the Hudson Bay Company, and old Sir George Simpson's gig, or caleche, during 68 JOHN grant's, the scotch house. his stay at Lachine, could be seen twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, entering the " inn-yard " regularly at ten, and leaving punctually at three. This was also the Montreal headquarters or meet- ing place of the Scotch lumberers from the Ottawa. They were noisy boys, and made things lively on their annual escape from their backwoods to civilized life. They were known in those early days as the u Grand River Roarers." On the opposite side of the street, on the corner of St. Maurice, a noted and rising young Glengarrian had his Montreal headquarters for many years, in the front room, in the second storey, just above the present number " 36," St. Henry street. The place was then known as " Anderson's grocery." This was John Sandfield Macdonald's " club room " or meeting place for his political friends in Lower Canada, and many a deep subject in politics was discussed in that room. Sandfield afterwards, in later years, trans- ferred his quarters to the St. James' club, but the old room and his favourite arm-chair were held sacred for him by Mrs. Anderson until his death - y she always called it " Sandfield's room." Some of our older politicians may remember this place. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 69 Time has changed everything in and around that old house. The dignity and the military bearing of the veteran officers of the Glengarry Highlanders, the dash and the swagger of the young bloods of the Lachine Troop of cavalry, with their fierce looking bearskin helmets, and the noisy but innocent revelries of the Scotch lumberers, fresh from their backwoods, are not now heard or seen there. Those days are gone, and have passed away for ever. How changed is all around ! This old house, for several years past, until very lately, was the resort and the headquarters of horse dealers. The Canadian trader in horses and the American buyer met there. The language in around the old u inn yard" was changed. A frequenter of that old place of fifty years ago, were he to have stepped in there on one of those busy days during the horse trading season, would hardly have appreciated the " horse slang phrases " that would have fallen on his ear. And should we visit that old house at the present day : — " Its echoes and its empty tread Would sound like voices from the dead." This short sketch may meet the eye of many old Scotchmen, now scattered far and wide apart, 10 over the whole Dominion of Canada, who, perhaps, will heave a sigh while they call to mind the times of old and the days of other years when they and we were young ! Let us close this by adding : Peace to the memory of John Grant ! He was a good man, a good man of the old time ; a true Highlander, a loyal subject, and a staunch supporter of the <( Auld Kirk " of Scot- land. FIFTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER VI. FIFTY YEARS AGO. SUNDAY, THE FOURTH OF NOVEMBER, 1838. Fifty long years have passed away since that ever to be remembered Sunday morning, the 4th of November, 1838. Few of the men, and even few of the boys of Montreal of that day are now living ; they have long since been gathered to their fathers. Not ten in a hundred of those who took an active part in the exciting scenes of that stirring week ending the 11th of November, 1838, can now be found here. The present gen- eration will, no doubt, appreciate a pen and ink sketch of the opening day of the second rebellion of Lower Canada by one who was an eye-witness and shouldered his musket at that time. The rebellion of 1837 had closed, and the winter of 1838 passed over quietly, so far as Lower Canada was concerned, and the volunteers were called upon to pile their arms and to lay 74 FIFTY YEARS AGO. aside their warlike apparel. It was, literally speaking, " turning their swords into plough- shares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and to study war no more." The boys did not alto- gether relish this, for, it must be admitted, they were spoiling for a fight. Springtime came, summer passed, a bountiful harvest crowned the year, and the chill blasts of November had again made fields and forests bare. Low, murmuring sounds of discontent were then heard, here, there, and everywhere, over the whole length and breadth of the land, something like a smouldering volcano, ready to burst forth at any moment ; and instead of the usual autumn thanksgiving of a grateful people for a bountiful harvest, the standard of rebellion was a^ain raised in November, 1838. Roofless walls and ruined homes marked its desolating tracks, leav- ing a dark blot on the pages of our country's history. On Sunday morning, the 4th of November, 1838, the standard of rebellion was again raised in Lower Canada. The whole south side of the St. Lawrence was once more in open rebellion. The principal camps were at Beauharnois and Ohateauguay. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 75 The first actual outbreak of this second rebel- lion occurred at Beauharnois on Saturday after- noon, the 3rd. The patriots, as they styled themselves, seized the mail steamer si Henry Brougham," while on her way down from the Cascades to Lachine. The passengers were de- tained as prisoners, among whom were Sheriff Mclntyre, of Cornwall, and Duncan McDonald, now of Montreal. In the early morning of Sunday, the 4th, the patriots of Chateauguay marched in force on Caughnawaga to disarm the Indians. The In- dians were then attending early mass in a small chapel half a mile behind their village. The chapel was surrounded by the patriots. They said they came as friends to have a parley. The Indians expressed surprise that friends should come armed, and asked them to pile their arms preparatory to a friendly talk. The innocent patriots piled their arms; they were immediately taken possession of by the Indians. Sixty-four of the patriots were made prisoners ; eleven more were secured during the day; making in all seventy -five prisoners. The rest of them escaped through the woods to their camp at Cha- teauguay. Y6 FIFTY YEARS AOO. The arrival of the prisoners at Lachine was the first intimation there of the outbreak of the second rebellion. The Indians of Caughnawaga crossed the river with the first lot of sixty-four prisoners, and landed them near the Windmill, close by the old Parish French Church, just at the foot of the cross road leading through Cote St. Paul. This was about ten o'clock. The people of Lower Lachine were then on their way to attend morning service at their different churches. Fancy their surprise ! Here was new work for them. It did not take long to muster Captain Begley's company of foot and twenty of the cavalry, who took the prisoners in charge. The line of march was soon formed. Instead of taking the high road to Montreal by the way of Cote St. Pierre — the Upper Lachine Road — the march was taken by the cross road through Cote St. Paul. It was a hard tramp of three hours ; it had been raining most of the previous week ; the mud was ankle deep. The men would not hear of any conve}^ances being provided ; the prisoners must walk it, they said ; the men also walked. The march of this escort and their pris- oners through Cote St. Paul and the Tanneries caused great excitement. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 77 By the time it reached the Tanneries fully one hundred stragglers had joined, but not exactly comprehending what it really was, as perfect silence was maintained in the ranks. News of the incoming prisoners, with their escort, had early reached town. Their numbers were swelled by hundreds of stragglers on their onward course. There were no telegraphs in those early days to transmit the news, and the report had reached Montreal that the Lachine Brigade was marching in, in full force, having the whole rebel camp of Chateauguay as prisoners. Such was the actual report that reached the city that Sunday morning, the 4th November, 1838. The reader of this day may picture to himself the excitement, hurry and bustle on the streets of old Montreal caused by this report. Far out in the outskirts of the city, towards the Tanneries, the escort was met by thousands of the citizens. The sight that met their astonished gaze was strange and new to them. Here was a large body of men advancing, having been largely supplemented by stragglers. Ten of the Lachine Troop rode in front, and ten in the rear, and on both sides were thirty men of the Lower Lachine company of foot, having the sixty-four prisoners 78 FIFTY YEARS AGO. in the centre. The stragglers who had joined were totally ignorant of the whole affair, except the fact of seeing the prisoners and their escort. The writer was one of the escort. There have been, time and again, many programmed proces- sious on our streets, but never before or since that day has so remarkable a procession passed along the streets of old Montreal. In front and in rear, as steady as regulars, rode the young boys of the Lachine Troop, with their bearskin helmets and drawn swords, and the foot company on both sides, with fixed bayonets, guarding and protecting the prisoners from the surrounding excited and enraged citizens. They moved along steadily and in perfect silence. Come, young Canadian reader, and take your stand with us on the front steps of the old French Cathedral ; let us suppose the time to be about three o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, the 4th of November, 1838 ; and, in retrospect, let us cast our eyes up Notre Dame street. An im- mense crowd, reaching back to McGill street, having no flags waving nor drums beating to announce their approach, is slowly, solemnly advancing in funeral-like procession ! What is it, and who are they ? It is this escort from CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. ^9 Lachine with their sixty-four prisoners wending their way down to the then " new gaol," with thousands of the citizens lining the streets and following in the rear. It was a sad day, and truly "a funeral-like procession " for the poor prisoners, all young men in the prime of life and manhood. They had marched out from their camp at Chateau guay in the early dawn of that Sunday morning, in high hopes and full of life and vigour , ^hey were now in the afternoon on their way to be enclosed within prison walls ! The writer remembers well the imploring and anxious looks of those poor young boys ; and although fifty years have passed away, he can hardly now restrain the " welling tear " as that picture rises vividly before him. A few of them were afterwards liberated ; others of them suffered the extreme penalty of the law for the crime of high treason. It were well if we could draw a dark veil over those dark days and darker scenes, and blot them out of memory. We cannot ! On our arrival at the new gaol, and during our short stay there, cabs and caleches were arriving filled with prisoners to be locked up, having some notable characters among 80 FIFTY YEARS AGO. them. The sun had gone down, and that never- to-be-forgotten Sunday night closed in darkness over the unlighted streets of old Montreal. The Lachine escort, after handing over their pris- oners to the gaol guard, reformed for their ren- dezvous at Grant's Hotel, on St. Henry street, the Montreal headquarters of the Lachine Bri- gade, to partake of refreshments preparatory to their return march home. The escort, after leaving the gaol, had over ten miles to reach home ; rain was then pouring down in torrents. That return march is as fresh in the memory of the writer as if it were yesterday. The tramp up old St. Mary and Notre Dame streets was a tiresome one of two miles over muddy roads to Grant's Hotel. The streets were crowded with armed men ; all was excitement. Guards and pickets were being posted at every exposed part of the city, and cannon placed at every avenue or road leading into the country and facing the river. After leaving Grant's Hotel, our return march was up old St. Maurice street. We had in charge a large quantity of ammunition and other sup- plies, which we found waiting us at Grant's, to CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 81 be conveyed to Lachine. The city gate at Dow's brewery closed behind us with a death-like sound, allowing us to grope our way as best we could through the thick darkness ahead. There were no macadamized roads in those early days ; it was mud underfoot ; mud to the right ; mud to the left of us ; mud everywhere, and thick darkness all around. Worse still ; a concealed enemy might be met with at any moment. At nearly every mile, a cavalryman dashed past, hailing us, with despatches to or from Montreal ; it was an exciting march, Tired, wet and hungry, the escort reached its head- quarters, Laflamme's Hotel, Lachine, by ten o'clock that night. The writer is one of the very few now living of the three hundred of the Lachine Brigade, who did duty at Lachine during the week end- ing the 11th of November, 1838. The brigade was composed of four companies of foot and one troop of cavalry, commanded by Major Charles Penner. The brigade and the Caughnawaga Indians marched on Chateauguay on Saturday night, the 10th, under command of Captain Campbell, of 6 82 FIFTY YEARS AGO. the Seventh Hussars, then on particular service at Lachine, late of St. Hilaire, at which place he died a few years ago. A small portion of the brigade, the writer among them, was at the burning of Beauharnois on Sunday morning, the 11th of November, 1838. THE FRUITS OF THE REBELLION OF 1837 AND 1838. Fifty years have passed away, and from the seed sown broadcast over the land during the rebellion, there arose high and above the ruins of the patriots' visionary republic, the grand structure or foundation of Canada's present res- ponsible government, entombing or casting to the winds all family compacts, or other obstruc- tions, and securing to Canadians their rights as free-born British subjects ; and, in truth, it must be said, that Canadian liberty had not its birth- right under the sunshine or the smile of heaven, but was nursed and cradled amid the rage and the strife of fratricidal foes. THE REBEL DEAD OF '37 AND '38. The time will come when the memories of Canada's rebel dead of 1837 and 1838 will be revered and held sacred in every British colony, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 83 distant or near, as the fathers of colonial respon- sible government, under which every British colony is now governed. And on the pages of Canadian history — yet to be written — the rebel dead of Canada of 1837 and 1838 will be classed in comparison and held up side by side with the great Barons of Eng- land, who, on Runnymede, demanded and ob- tained from King John the great charter of English liberty. REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. CHAPTEE VII. REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. Lachine, Monday, the 5th of November,^ 1838. — The morn is up again ! But not " the dewy " morn with breath all incense and with cheek " all bloom." It was a dull, cold November one. The old village presented a grand and cheering sight. The Brigade of three hundred men was in full force ; not in the same rig as in the pre- vious December. They were now in full mili- tary costume, having comfortable pilot cloth overcoats, grey trousers with red stripes, all able-bodied men, farmers, farmers' sons, and farm hands, well fitted for any hard or rough work. The words, " the might that slumbers in " a peasant's arm," might be fittingly applied to them. Besides the Brigade, the village was filled with Indians from Caughnawaga, and there were sev- eral hundred of the Montreal men who had 88 BEMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. joined. It was expected the order would be issued at anv moment to advance on Chateau- guay. It was with difficulty the men were restrained from making an attack on their own hook, without orders. This would have spoiled the whole affair, and might have proved disas- trous. One dear to all was missing ; their old leader, Major Penner, was not there. He had gone over to England that summer to pay a visit to his old Hereford home. The men missed him sadly. Sir John Colborne supplied the vacancy by send- ing out Captain Campbell, of the 7th Hussars. The boys soon took to their new leader. Sir John Colborne's plan was to place his regu- lars between the rebel camps at Chateauguay and Beauharnois, and the frontier, to intercept succour and prevent escape, leaving the Lachine force to watch their front and prevent their escape to the northern district. His, Sir John's, headquarters were at St. Johns. Orders were sent for the Glengarry Highlanders to cross the river at Coteau du Lac, and to march down the south side of the St. Lawrence on Beauharnois, to arrive there on Saturday night, the 10th. The Lachine Brigade, with volunteers from Montreal, to cross CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 89 to Caughnawaga the same night, Saturday, to join with the Indians, and to march on Chateauguay. The duties of the Lachine Brigade were severe and trying during the week. They had to watch, patrol and guard the whole lake shore from La- chine to Pointe Claire. The two rebel camps ( Chateau guaay and Beauharnois) were on the south side of the lake, and at any time a night attack might be expected. There arrived at Lachine during the week a large quantity of arms, ammunition and blankets for the Glengarries. They were placed on board a small steamer, to be conveyed to the Cascades, but for want of communication to ascertain where the Glengarries were, the steamer was detained at Lachine until Saturday. Saturday night came. The Brigade knew nothing of the intended advance on Chateauguay until Captain Campbell issued his orders ; bateaux were collected, of which a goodly number were then at Lachine, and the order given at dead of night to embark. This looked as if some real work was to be done before morning. The horses of the Lachine Troop stepped into the bateaux as steadily as if entering their stalls. The embark- ation was soon completed. The river was crossed 90 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. to Caughnawaga, where the Indians joined. The force amounted to about 800 men of all arms. At midnight, or early on Sunday morning, march was made through the woods on Chateauguay. The whole of the brigade was not in this ad- vance on Chateauguay. Captain Carmichael, with part of his Cote St. Paul Company, had been placed in charge of a steamer early in the week, to go up the Ottawa, and Lieutenant Carmichael had left that Saturday, at noon, in charge of the steamer, for the Cascades, having on board the arms and clothing for the Glengarries ; the writer was one of the guards on this steamer. Early on Sunday morning, the 11th November, the force from Lachine and Caughnawaga, under Captain Campbell, reached Chateauguay. The patriots having, doubtless, learned of the arrival of the Glengarries at Beauharnois during Satur- day night, as we shall relate in another chapter, deserted their camp on the first approach of the Lachine force. It is well they did, and that his- tory has not to record the loss of valuable lives. A few stray shots were exchanged, but they fell short of their mark. It would be well if we could say that this ended the day. Then commenced the work of destruction. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 91 Fires broke out here, there, and everywhere around. It had the appearance at one time as if the whole village and the surrounding homesteads would fall a prey to the devouring element. No one seemed to know the origin of the fires, or by whom started ; all pretended ignorance on that point- The ringleaders, however, were found out, and instantly ordered by Captain Campbell to leave the village and return to Caughnawaga. This was Captain Begley's company, from Lower Lachine, to which the writer belonged ; but he was absent that day at Beauharnois. The men became unmanageable, whether through drink or the disappointment of not getting a fight, the writer could not learn, but in their madness, it was said, they set fire to ten houses alone, before they could be stopped, placed under arrest, and ordered back to Lachine in disgrace. Before order was restored, fully a score of houses, with barns and homesteads, fell before the devouring flames. It was a sickening — a heart- rending sight, to see poor, helpless women and children, in utter grief and stricken dumb with terror, begging for protection ! Their little trea- sures—their household goods — the homes of their youth — all vanishing before their very eyes ! 92 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. Their fathers, their husbands, their brothers — the assembled patriots of yesterday — now scat- tered wild through the woods, homeless, friend- less, seeking shelter where they may. Reader, young reader, this is a true picture of a dark day in Canadian history. It would make your very heart's blood run cold, were you to wit- ness such a scene as this. Pardon us, if we exclaim: Thy ruined homes, Chateauguay ! and thy burning homesteads, a sad remembrance bring ! CHAPTEE VIII. The preparation of bateaux and barges at the village of Lachine on Saturday morning, the 10th of November, 1838, was evidence of some impor- tant move to advance either on Chateauguay or Beauharnois. The men looked to their guns and accoutrements, to be ready for any sudden call. These bateaux were used that night to cross to Caughnawaga, as stated in the last chapter. The bugle sound to muster was a daily call. At the muster this morning a demand was made for twenty-five volunteers to take charge of the steamer to the Cascades, with the arms and cloth- ing for the Glengarries ; every man in the ranks stepped forward to go. The requisite number was soon selected and marched on board ; the writer among them. During the previous few days, news had reached Lachine of the gallant affairs by the frontier volunteers at Lacolle and Odelltown. Stray reports had come that the American sympathizers were collecting in force at Ogdensburg to cross 94 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. to Prescott, when they heard that the Glen- garry Highlanders had left Upper Canada. The next week brought news how our Brockville and Prescott boys acquitted themselves so nobly at the battle of the Windmill Point, at Prescott. Men of the present day know very little of the suffer- ings and hardships endured by the volunteers of those days. Every man bore himself proudly, as if the fate of the Empire rested on his good old musket and his well-filled cartridge-box. " All on board," was the order given at noon. It was a puffing little steamer, not much larger than one of those small tugs to be seen on our canals during the summer. There were many anxious eyes cast after us as we left, and many good wishes, an^d even silent prayers, expressed for our safe return. The reader will remember that it was on the previous Saturday that the steamer " Henry Brougham ' was captured by the patriots, and our little steamer, with its precious load of arms and clothing, was just starting to pass over the same waters, with enemies every- where around us. This was our first sail over Lake St. Louis ; in fact, it was our first sail on a steamer. The water was smooth, without a ripple. The boys being CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 95 up for sport, having learned that the patriots had no cannon, prevailed on the captain to run close into the Beauharnois shore, just out of gun- shot reach. Had the patriots known the value of our cargo and the weakness of the guard, they would — being from 3,000 to 4,000 strong — have captured the whole of us. We passed within a mile of the town. Hundreds of the patriots were seen on the shore. They remained silent specta- tors of our onward course, doubtless wondering who or what we were. Poor fellows ! They were ignorant of our mis- sion and of our weakness, and also of the fate awaiting them, and which befell them before the dawn of the next morning. Indue course, just about dusk, we approached the Cascades, slowly and cautiously steaming up to the old mail steamer wharf. We did not know who were there ; on nearing it we recognized the bonnets of the Glengarries. To our cheer, theirs in response came. We then learned that a com- pany of them had been left in charge of the vil lage. It appears now nearly incredible that these men were there for over two days without hearing a word from Lachine ; communication was inter- rupted. 96 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. We learned from them that the Glengarries had been looking for us ever since the previous Thursday, and on that morning (Saturday) had crossed the St. Lawrence at Hungry Bay, above Coteau du Lac, to march down on Beauharnois. The captain of the company would not receive the arms and clothing from us, his force being too small, he said, to protect them. We were, there- fore, obliged to keep them on board. Night closed in. It was clear and cold. Our position was not a very comfortable one. We had to keep a strict guard all night; no sleep. We were within a few miles of the patriot camp. What if they had known our position, and had had pluck ? In preparing to make ourselves com- fortable for the night, fancy our surprise to find that we had left Lachine without laying in provi- sions of any kind, not even, as our old drill ser- geant said, having one ration of grog for him. He was an East Indian soldier. Poor old John Murrills ! Peace to his memory ! There was not a loaf of bread, nor even a biscuit, to be had in the village ; the Glengarries had eaten them clean out. Some of us did not get a bite for thirty -six hours, not till after our return to Lachine the next after- noon. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 91 The little steamer's deck was our home that night, hungry but not cold, for we had plenty of firewood. Bye-and-bye, as darkness set in, our eyes were strained to catch any movement on the Beauharnois side of the St. Lawrence. Moving, flickering flashes were to be seen here and there on the opposite shore. What were these ? It was soon discovered ; or, at least, we believed those lights, imaginary or real, to indicate the line of march of the Glengarry men, nearly 2,000 strong. The flashes we attributed to the reflec- tion of the moonlight on their guns. Nigh on fifty years have come and gone since that eventful night, when we paced the deck of our little steamer close by the old wharf at the Cascades. The writer only knows of one now living besides himself of that little band of twenty -five Lachine boys. The others have long since been gathered to their fathers. Let us try and picture our then dangerous position, which at the time, and under the consequent excitement, we did not seriously realize. Within a few miles of us was the chief patriot camp of about 4,000 men. They had it in their power, had they had courage, to capture our boat, cargo, and the whole of our little band of twenty -five. We ought not 98 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. to have remained there over night. with our valu- able cargo, in so dangerous and exposed a position. We should have steamed back to Lachine. As night grew on apace, our gaze was constantly directed to the march of the Glengarry men. At times their line of march would-be lost to view by some curve or other obstruction of the road ; thence emerging they marched steadily onward, in regular order, or apparently so to us, from our distant midnight view point. The sight or scene was grand beyond description. Our knowledge that they were the Glengarries was gathered from the guard in the village ; otherwise we would have put them down as a body of the patriots on some midnight expedition. We passed a sleepless, anxious night, constantly on the watch. Nothing worthy of note occurred, except that a small boat twice appeared near us by the shore with a couple of men in it. This gave us no concern at the time, as they pretended to belong to the village. After the dispersion of the patriot camp, we learned, to our astonishment, that our position had been visited that night, and that an attack was planned and would have been made on us early on Sunday morning by a body of picked CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 99 men from the patriot camp. The march of the Glengarry men and their arrival in the neighbour- hood of Beauharnois, about midnight of Saturday, diverted the attention of the patriots to matters nearer their own home, and saved us from falling into their hands. The return home, and our visit to Beauharnois on Sunday morning, appear in the next chapter. The company of the Glengarries stationed at the Cascades that night was commanded* by Simon Fraser, of St. Andrews, the discoverer of the Fraser River. CHAPTER IX. Sunday morning, the 11th of November, 1838, found us still safe on board our little steamer at the Cascades. The morning was bright and clear, and the day turned into one of those warm Indian summer days, nowhere to be met with, at least to such enjoyable perfection, as in this Canada of ours. Such was that Sunday morning. It was the first time in the lives of most of us to realize that no breakfast was awaiting us. We resigned ourselves philosophically to our fate just because we could not help it. We knew nothing of what had taken place at Beauharnois during the night, nor did we know where our Glengarry friends on the opposite side of the river were. However, we resolved to get up steam and feel our way down the lake. We may here state, that it was with difficulty the young boys were prevented from breaking open the arms in our charge and taking out one hun- dred muskets, and loading them, so that each 102 BEMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. volunteer would have five guns instead of one ! This was overruled by our old drill-sergeant, who called us " mad young fools," and said u thnt one musket and one bayonet was as much as any British soldier could handle. This just rebuke from an old soldier silenced the "young bloods " and restored order. In due course Beauharnois was reached. We noticed clouds of smoke rising here, there, and everywhere around, giving evidence that some work was going on. As we approached the shore, it was quite perceptible that the town had changed hands since the previous afternoon. The uniform of the Glengarries and the red coats of the 71st Regulars along the shore satisfied us of our safety in steaming direct to the wharf alongside of the captured mail steamer "Henry Brougham." The sight of our little steamer making direct for the town attracted the attention of the whole force on the shore. They were as curious to know who or what we were, or whence we came, as were our friends, the patriots of yesterday. As we neared the wharf, the staff officers of the Glengarries and the officers of the 71st were con- gregated on the deck of the " Henry Brougham n CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 103 to meet us, to get what news we had. The first person the writer met on landing was his uncle, Colonel Fraser, and with him was Major Mac- Martin. Our story was soon told. We knew nothing of the advance on Chateauguay, having left Lachine on Saturday before the force crossed to Caughnawaga. They were anxious to know the fate of Cha- teauguay, just eight miles from them. The writer found himself among old friends in the Glengarries — not only friends, but kindred of the nearest ties. These grand old men, the Colonels of the Glengarries, Alexander Fraser, the two Macdonells, and Alexander Chisholm — in short, half of their officers were old veterans, having served their king and their country on many a hard fought field on our country's fron- tier — at Lundy's Lane, Queenston Heights, Chip- pewa and Chrysler Farm, during the war of 1812. Colonel Fraser, of the 1st regiment, was well known in Montreal; he was every inch a soldier, just such another, and of the same height and build, as our own old landmark, Colonel John Dyde. We stole away from our steamer for half an hour to see the sights in the town. Fires were 104 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. still burning, and the greater part of the place was in ashes. The streets were crowded with armed men. They had been on the march since the previous Monday, and were spattered with mud, bearing evidence of the roads they had passed over. These Glengarries were grand men ; fully one half of them stood over six feet, and well built in proportion. They were nearly as efficient in drill as the regulars, having been in barracks on the frontier at Napierville and Phillipsburg most of the previous winter. There were none but Highland bonnets there — the Glengarries and the 71st Regiment; and had there been any real work to do, they would have proved themselves worthy sons of Old Scot- land — of that storied land where a Fingal fought and an Ossian sang. The language that morning in;Beauharnois was altogether Gaelic, our mother tongue, though we did not understand it. As for music, there was none, save the soul- stirring notes of the pibroch, " which Scotland's hills " have often heard, and heard, too, have her " Saxon foes — how in the noon of night that "pibroch thrills, savage and shrill ! But with " the breath which fills their mountain pipe, so " fill the mountaineers with the fierce native CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 105 " daring which instills the stirring memory of a " thousand years, and Evan's, Donald's fame, " rings in each clansman's ears ! " And right royally did the pipers do their duty. Take it all in all, Beauharnois presented a strange, wild scene on that Sunday morning. The fires were not the work of the Glengarries ; they were started by the loyal inhabitants of the place, in revenge for what they had suffered. It must, however, be admitted that several hun- dreds of the Glengarries returned home as cav- alrymen, mounted on stray French ponies, which they said they found loose and untied by the wayside. These, however, had all to be ac- counted for ten years later in the Rebellion Losses Bill. We had not much time to ramble before the order was given to collect us on board, to leave with despatches for Montreal. This was a great disappointment ; we would have preferred remain- ing. But, hark ! A wild cheer is heard from the Chateauguay side; it is taken up and con- tinued by the armed men through the town. All eyes were turned in that direction. What is it 1 The tramp of advancing horse is heard. Yes, there they come, as the well-known bear- 106 REMINISCENCES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. skin helmets of the Lachine Troop appear in sight, at a full canter, and draw up right in front of the wharf where our steamer lay. There were only four of them, with a guide, who had led them through the woods from Chateauguay with news from Captain Campbell's force. We recognized our troopers from Lachine, and they us, but we could not leave our position to speak to them. Their horses and themselves were covered with mud ; they had been in their saddles for over twelve hours, over hard country roads. But how they came there was a mystery to us, as we had left them at Lachine the pre- vious morning. Our position was equally puz- zling to them ; they had seen us leave Lachine on Saturday at noon, and now they saw our boat alongside of the captured steamer " Henry Brougham." Had we, they enquired, fallen into the hands of the rebels yesterday, and were now being released ? We learned that Captain Campbell, after reach- ing Chateauguay that morning, wishing to com- municate with the Glengarries, to find out where they were, called for four troopers to ride through the woods to Beauharnois. Four of them, all young men of about nineteen years of age, stepped CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 107 to the front and volunteered to go. It was a perilous ride; the woods were swarming with the scattered patriots from the two camps of Cha- teauguay and Beauharnois. We could select one from that little band of four young troopers, as he proudly sat on his noble charger in front of the assembled staff of the Glengarry Highlanders. He afterwards figured prominently and successfully in commer- cial circles in Montreal, without leaving one blot on his commercial integrity and honesty. He has long since been gathered to his fathers. But his living relatives, the noble men of Glengarry, one of whose proud names he bore, will ever point the withering finger of true, biting, Scot- tish scorn — Nathan-like — " Thou art the man ! " to the head of that body of " five professing Christians of the Protestant faith " in Montreal for the wreck of that young trooper's estate, and the ruin of his family. Silence has a tongue ! The writer's family was represented by about a dozen of its members in the force at Beauhar- nois that Sunday morning. There were his three uncles — his mother's brothers — namely, Colonel Fraser and two of his brothers, besides several younger members of the Glengarry fami- 108 REMINISCEECES CANADIAN REBELLION 1838. lies, and then the writer and his brother from Lachine, the young trooper above referred to. Having handed over the arms and clothing to the Glengarries, we bade them farewell, and then started on our homeward trip. The Chateau- guay shore, as we steamed down, was all in a blaze ; or, rather, clouds of smoke rising from the burning homesteads, as described in our last chapter. We were ignorant of the advance on Chateauguay until we reached Lachine that Sunday afternoon, except what we saw and heard at Beauharnois. As we neared Lachine, the whole shore was alive with people, armed men, women and chil- dren. Large numbers had come out from Mont- real ; in fact, every man who could hire a conveyance was there. They were all excite- ment to learn the news we brought ; there were no telegraphs in those days. It soon spread round that Beauharnois was in the possession of the Glengarries. We were not allowed much time to rest, being immediately ordered, with all the other spare men in the village, to proceed to Pointe Claire to guard the lake shore above La- chine, so as to prevent the escape of the patriots to the northern districts. Carts were provided CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 109 to convey us. The roads were in a horrid state. Some of us were so used up that we actually fell asleep in the carts on the road. We were kept for a week picketed by twos and threes in the farm-houses along the lake shore. It was fully three weeks before the scattered fragments of the old Lachine Brigade had returned to headquarters at Laflamme's Hotel, without one accident occurring, full of stories and little incidents connected with their differ- ent movements and various positions since the morning of Sunday, the 4th. On Saturday, the 5th of September, 1835, the writer paid a visit to old James Davidson, at the Tanneries. He served as a sergeant in Captain Carmichael's company of foot in 1837. We found the old man, then approaching his four-score years, hale and hearty, sitting by his own vine, and under his own apple tree. The storms of forty-eight winters had passed over our heads since we first met on the 13th of December, 1837. CANADIAN GLENGARRY OVER FORTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER X. CANADIAN GLENGARRY OVER FORTY YEARS AGO. Glengaery! Home of fair women and brave men ! Home of Canada's fairest and bravest ! This is their memorial for all time. They may have been poor, so far as the world's wealth goes ; but they were not wanting in that dignity of character which marks the Scotch Highlander, meet him where you may, no matter in what position of life. He is dignified and soldier-like in his bearing. He prides himself on belonging to a nation of soldiers, and that he can claim as his own those stern Scottish highlands, behind whose mountain barriers Roman eagles still found unconquered foes. At the time of which we write, the old martial feeling prevailed and predominated in Glengarry. Both old and young took more delight in recount- ing or listening to the stories and the glories of 114 CANADIAN GLENGARRY FORTY YEARS AGO. past wars than in " venerating the plough," and many a young Norval then lived in those back- woods of Canada ready to follow to the field some warlike lord, but fortune or misfortune forbade. It is now a little over forty years since our first visit. This happened a few years after the troubles of 1837. and 1838. We had seen a good deal of the Glengarry Highlanders before that visit, but we were ignorant of the homes in which they lived. To tell the truth, we had formed very curious notions of them. The writer, as a boy, had ridden among the staff officers of the 1st Kegiment (Colonel Fraser) in February, 1838, on their entrance to Montreal, preparatory to their being sent to the frontier. That was a grand reception and entrance ; there were over one hundred double sleighs conveying the regiment. It was a perfect jam all the way from the Tanneries, where Major (afterwards Colonel David) met them with a guard of honour, and escorted them down to their temporary bar- racks in some old warehouses then standing near the present Custom House. We again met the same regiment at Beauharnois in November, 1838. Therefore, we knew a little of what manner of men they were. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 115 But, to our visit : It was early in the month of March. The winter roads were in good condi- tion for sleighing. There were no railways in those early days in Canada, except that short line between Laprairie and St. John's. Our con- veyance was a single cutter and a smart horse. There were two of us ; the distance was about eighty miles, which took two days to perform by easy stages, halting the first night at the old stage house at the Cedars. Tn the early afternoon of the second day we reached the old inn at Lancaster, and informed the host that we were on a visit to Fraserfield, the residence of Colonel Fraser, and obtained from him all information as to the roads. The coun- try was then new to us. We followed his direc- tions, and reached our destination, about three miles above Williamstown, a little after dusk. We had often heard that Fraserfield was one of the finest country residences in Upper Canada, but, really, we had no idea that so grand a build- ing was to be found in the wilds of Glengarry as the one before which we drew up. It was a large two-storey, cut-stone, double house, situate in the centre of a block of land of 1,000 acres, and on our arrival was all ablaze, lighted up from "top to 116 CANADIAN GLENGARRY FORTY YEARS AGO bottom" ; evidently a gay party was there assem- bled. We feared we might be looked upon as unwelcome guests, as we had not announced our intended visit. A large party had just seated themselves to dinner. We felt taken aback, and wished our visit had been delayed a day later. A true Highland welcome greeted us, which soon made us feel at home. They were all Highlanders, including the ladies, seated around that festive board. Every one, although personally strangers, appeared to know of us and all about us, or, rather, they all knew the Lower Canadian home whence we came ; therefore, as the saying is, we were soon put at our ease. The merry-making at the time of our visit was to do honour to the meeting of old friends — North-Westers, Hudson Bay Company traders, and old military men. Glengarry could then boast of a goodly number of the latter — veterans of the war of 1812. There were, in fact, at that time nearly one hundred commissioned officers living in the county who had served in the two regiments during the rebellion ; therefore, the tone was military. There had been several dinner parties and balls previous to our arrival, and a few followed. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 11? Let us try to picture and re-people that old dining-hall at Fraserfield, as we entered and took our seats among that noted and dignified assem- blage. There was the old colonel himself at the head of the table doing the honours, as he well knew how. He was known far and near in Can- ada, even from Sarnia to Gaspe. We shall try and give the names of the assembled guests as correctly as we can. There were the Hon. George McTavish, of the H. B. Co., and Miss Cameron, afterwards Mrs. McTavish; old Dr. Grant, father of Sir James Grant, of Ottawa ; Dr. Mclntyre, now Sheriff at Cornwall ; Col. Carmichael, of the Regular Army, then commanding on particular service at the Old Fort at the Coteau ; old Hugh McGillis, of Wil- liamstown, uncle of the late John McGillis, of this city ; old Mr. McGillivray, father of Dunmaglass ; the two McDonnells (Greenfield and Miles), we believe, were there, at least some members of these two families were present, and, if we mis- take not, old Captain Cattanach was present, and several other gentlemen, not forgetting the ladies of the different families. Every Glengarrian will recall and bring to mind those old names, and if they were not per- 118 CANADIAN GLENGARRY FORTY YEARS AGO. sonally known to him, still he will recognize them as landmarks of his native county of the past generation. The ravages of forty years have left but few remaining of the old, or even of the young, who had joined in that merry-making. The writer can only call to mind three living besides him- self, namely : Sheriff Mclntyre and his wife, and Mrs. Pringle, wife of Judge Pringle, of Cornwall. These two were daughters of Colonel Fraser, being the only living members of his family. There may possibly be some of the younger mem- bers of the other families still living who were in that company, but the writer is not aware of such. We spent a few days with our kind friends, and paid many visits to old friends of our family who had often visited our paternal home in Lower Canada. Among others, we paid a visit to Father Mackenzie, of the Kirk, at the Wil- liamstown Manse, also to old St. Kaphaels, to pay our respects to Father John Macdonald. By the way, all Glengarrians will remember that Colonel Fraser belonged to the Catholic Church. There was a spot very dear to the writer, close by old St. Kaphaels. It was the early childhood CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 119 home of his mother. It was the spot on which his maternal grandfather had pitched his Cana- dian tent, and erected his Glengarry Log House. This old Log House was raised close by the home and the church of that good old priest, the late Bishop Macdonnell, whose first charge, we believe, was at St. Raphaels. Those dear old Log Houses of Canada ! Those early homes of the fathers of an empire yet to be ! Few of them now remain. They, like their occupants, have vanished, or have gone down to dust ; but we trust that the spots on which they stood will be held sacred by succeeding generations of Canadians. That dear old Glengarry Log House! The writer's maternal grandfather and grandmother, and his mother, once lived there. Pause, reader, old or young, you may drop or withhold the welling tear. Just fancy yourself standing on or close by a spot so sacred and hallowed by the same kindred ties to you as was this dear old Glengarrjr Log House to the writer. What spot on earth could be more sacred ? The old grandmother of that Glengarry Log House lived there till about her ninetieth year. She was the mother of Colonel Fraser. We saw her old spinning-wheel, one of those grand old 120 CANADIAN GLENGARRY FORTY YEARS AGO. spinning-wheels of early Canadian days, and the knitting-needles with which she had knitted pair after pair of warm stockings and woollen gloves for her two soldier boys, while they were doing battle on the Niagara frontier for their king and their country, during the war of 1812. The same might be said of hundreds of other Glengarry mothers. Many of those Glengarry boys were laid low on Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, Chippewa, and at the evacuation of old Fort George, and other lesser fights in 1812. This short sketch of a visit may prove interest- ing to many young Glengarrians, who have come to the front within the past forty years, to read of a social gathering of a past generation in their native county, and they may recall the scenes which gladdened their young days. Old Montrealers will remember the return of the Glengarries from the frontier in the spring of 1838, and to have seen that u big Glengarry Highlander" shoulder the cannon of the regi- ment a three pounder, and present arms with it while passing in review before Sir John Col- borne. A GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH FIFTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER XI. A GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH FIFTY YEARS AGO. The old people of Montreal may have some faint recollection of a Glengarry double sleigh of half a century ago, but to the young of this generation, and even to young Glengarrians of the present day, it will be quite a novelty to them to learn how their worthy grandfathers used to come to town. Therefore, we shall bring them back to those good, quiet old times before the introduction of railways into this Canada of ours. There were two noted annual arrivals in those early days, which caused more talk and created greater excitement on the streets of old Montreal than the arrival now-a-days of an ocean steamer. One was the arrival of the first Indian canoe from the North-West, carrying the news and the letters of a past year from those then nearly Polar regions. The other was the first 124 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. batch of Glengarry double sleighs to reach " John Grant's/' or some other of the Scotch inns or taverns of Montreal, about Christmas week, loaded with all good things to replenish the cel- lars of the citizens, and to place before the traders in pork, butter, cheese, etc., an oppor- tunity for profitable investment. Glengarry was then, as now, some seventy or eighty miles from Montreal, but travelling was quite different. You could not then take an early morning train at Lancaster or Alexandria and come to " town," as Montreal was then called, and spend some six hours and get back the same night. To undertake a journey in the old days in winter was a matter of a week — two days to come down, three days here, and two days to return. A contemplated visit in the old time by a Glengarry farmer was known from one end of his concession to the other. It was spoken of for weeks at kirk or chapel as an event, and many and various were the little commissions imposed upon him to execute. Since the construction of railways, the farm- houses are stripped, nearly weekly, by traders purchasing everything the farmer or his good wife has to sell, such as eggs, butter, cheese, etc. ; CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 125 therefore, doing away entirely with the Glen- garry double sleighs to Montreal about the Christ- mas week. The present is to picture one of those old double sleighs with which the writer was so familiar in his young days. The County of Glengarry, at the time of which we write, was fairly an agricultural one. The land had not yet been overworked nor impover- ished. The farms were well stocked, having from ten to fifteen head of horned cattle, some half a dozen of good horses, a team or two of oxen, some fifteen to twenty pigs, and about fifty sheep on each farm, besides a well-filled poultry yard of hens, turkeys, ducks, geese, &c. From such resources at hand, the reader may fancy, the people lived in great comfort. The only scarce thing was ready cash. The young men of the county usually went to the shanties during the winter months, with their teams of oxen or horses, to haul the square timber from the woods in which it was cut, to the nearest stream bank, thence to be floated in the spring. The hospitality of the people was un- bounded, particularly to strangers, just such as existed in the Acadian land of old time, and, unmolested by visits from revenue inspectors or 126 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. guagers, Donald and Evan " plied the beverage from their own fair sheaves, that fired their Bighland blood with mickle glee." A great change has taken place since those primitive days. The young men, during the past forty years, have almost entirely left the county, a goodly number of them to follow the occupation of contractors on public works in the United States and Canada. Many of them have prospered. Not one-half, we believe, of the young men could now be found in the old County of Glengarry as were there at the time of the rebellion of 1837, when nearly two thousand fighting men were mustered in one week. We invite the reader to come with us, in retro- spect, to a farm house in Lochiel, in the then backwoods of Glengarry. There is a large home- made sleigh standing empty under the barn shed. It is some ten to twelve feet long, four to five feet wide, with sides three to four feet high. The runners were cut from a large birch or elm tree. The whole is " home-made," except the iron on the runners and the necessary nails and bolts. The whippletrees and traces may be the same as used for plough or harrow. This is the old Glengarry double sleigh, all home-made, strong and well built, of which we write. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 12Y Now, to the loading — let us take a peep at its contents : Some ten or a dozen small tubs or kegs of butter in the bottom, a dozen or two small cheeses, a few bags of timothy seed, then much prized, a few fowl, turkeys, geese, etc., to fill up gaps, then eight to ten well-fed dressed hogs (Glengarry pork was nearly equal to Irish), besides many little odds and ends, such as home- made socks and mits, then much prized in Mont- real, and, maybe, a few extra hides and stray furs collected at the farm-house during the year. This is something after the fashion a Glengarry double sleigh was loaded in the old time before leaving for Montreal ; the whole, we suppose, to weigh about 2,500 to 3,000 pounds, representing a cash value from $200 to $250. The time is the second week of December, with good sleighing ; the delay in starting is waiting to hear if the ferries are frozen over ; all is now ready. Food for man and horse had to be added to the load. This was some dozen bundles of hay and a few bags of oats for the horses, and a small kist or box containing a good-sized boiled ham and a couple of loaves of bread, with a few other small items, such as a select cheese and a little " croudie " for the men on the road, not for- 128 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. getting a little half-gallon brown jug, containing something to keep out the bitter cold. By the way, this top load of hay towering high, some- thing like a loaded elephant, served as a nice protection for the men from the cold winds, by making a cozy seat in the centre of it. And if the good wife made up her mind to go down to town, she would be nearly as comfortable as at her own fireside. The reader might suppose the cost for such a trip of eighty miles would be very expensive. It did not cost over a dollar and a half to reach Montreal. Here it is, an actual fact. The end of the first day found them at the Cedars, a halt having been made at mid-day to water and feed the horses. This cost them nothing ; they were fed out of the sleigh supplies. The men also had their food with them, but we shall allow them to indulge in a few pots of beer on the road during the day, costing about a quarter of a dollar. Beer was then cheap — three to four cop- pers a glass. This was the actual outlay in cash the first day until they reached the Cedars. The horses had to be stabled at the Cedars, costing a quarter of a dollar for a double stall for the night. The men fed their horses from their CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 129 own supplies, costing nothing. As for the men (there were always two with a double sleigh) a double bed would cost a shilling, but Glengarrians of that day were accustomed to rough it ; and in- variably made beds for themselves in a corner of the large old-fashioned bar-room, by using their buffalo robes and blankets, thereby saving a little. We shall, however, suppose they spent a quarter each for beer, or something else, to wash down the food from their supply box. The first halt the second day was at the Cas- cades, to water the horses, and sixpence for beer. The next was at St. Annes, to water, and another sixpence for beer. The third was at Pointe Claire, for an hour, to feed horses and men, and we shall allow them a shilling for beer. Lachine is the next halt, to water, and sixpence for beer. The charges for beer on the road may not have been actually indulged in by the men, but they had to pay about sixpence at each halting-place to the country innkeeper for the use of his shed to water and feed the horses, and for this pay- ment were each entitled to a glass of beer — take it or not. About sunset, the second day, a long string of double sleighs (Glengarrians always came in 130 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. squads of twelve or fifteen) might be seen be- tween Dow's brewery and the Tanneries, jogging along at a slow pace of about five miles an hour. If their approach was slow, they made noise enough announcing the coming of the Cameron and the Macdonald men to town. The reader of to-day never heard the merry cling-clong of the loud-sounding, large Glengarry bells of those days. They could be heard fully half a mile distant. Those Glengarry bells were as characteristic of the people as were their own bagpipes. Highlanders always make a noise by making themselves heard and felt when they come to the front, be it at market town, in the legislative halls, or on the battle-field. Just as the shades of evening are closing over the unlighted streets of old Montreal, the sleighs are passing down St. Joseph street, some wend- ing their way to John Grant's, on St. Henry street, others to Sandy Shaw's, at the corner of Wellington and Grey Nun street, a few to Widow McBarton's on St. Paul street, opposite to the centre of the present St. Ann's market, and a portion of them finding their way to Jemmy Cameron's, the Glasgow tavern, on the Main street. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 131 There were then a goodly number of Scotch taverns in Montreal, having large stabling. These were the resort of the Glengarrians ; they could stable their horses for a quarter of a dollar a day, while they fed them out of their sleigh supplies ; therefore costing them a mere trifle for the two or three days they spent in town. The men could live like princes, as they thought, at a cost of half a dollar a day each. This was the charge per day at any of those Scotch taverns. The morning talk the next day at every break- fast table, rich or poor, was of the arrival of the Glengarry sleighs. People now-a-days, when we have railway trains arriving every hour, can hardly conceive the importance such an arrival was to the old inhabitants of Montreal. Per- haps for a full month previous, the whole out- side country had been cut off, waiting the freez- ing of the rivers and ferries, many articles of country produce becoming scarce and dear, and sleigh loads of good things from the TOWNSHIPS ARGENTEUIL AND GLENGARRY were anxiously looked for. An early visit to the Scotch taverns by the thrifty housewives of old Montreal, was the first duty of the day. There they found Donald, 132 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. Evan and Sandy prepared, with all the native dignity of Highlanders, to greet their town cus- tomers, and to allow the ladies to inspect their good things, and tubs of butter, cheese, turkeys, etc., soon found ready sale. Glengarry butter had a special character of being good in those early days, and the first arrivals found ready sale to private families ; the traders and merchants picked up the balance. Some of the older Glengarrians who had visited town several times before had learned that sides of pork cut into nice " roasting pieces " found a ready sale; therefore, they had prepared them- selves for this demand, by which they profited largely. Our Glengarry friends soon found their sleighs empty, and their pockets full of good hard silver. We shall allow them to prepare for their return home, after purchasing such needed articles as they required for their houses and their farms, these being mostly in the hardware line, such as axes, saws, nails, etc., but one very common arti- cle, " Liverpool salt," took up most of the sleigh ; nearly every sleigh carried half a ton of salt home. This article was cheap, about a shilling a bushel, but one of the most expensive for a CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 133 farmer to buy from the country merchant, owing to the heavy charge of transport in those early days. The old Glengarry double sleigh, like the once far-famed mail coach of Old England, is now an institution of the past — a relic of de- parted days. We shall never again see one on the road. We might use the vulgar phrase, " Their usefulness is gone." Never again shall their loud-sounding bells, once so familiar here, be heard on the streets of Montreal, announcing their welcome arrival during the Christmas week. Those days are gone, never again to return ! Relic of departed days, farewell ! The writer has endeavoured to picture one of those sleighs, and its usefulness, to the best of his humble ability. Although not a Glengarrian, he was as familiar in his young days with a Glen- garry double sleigh as most Glengarrians. He has seen squads of twenty-five, and some- times fifty, on the road at one time, and he is one of the very few now living in Montreal who rode in from Lachine with the 1st Regiment of the Glengarry Highlanders, on their entrance to Montreal in February, 1838, when there were 134 GLENGARRY DOUBLE SLEIGH 50 YEARS AGO. nearly two hundred double sleighs conveying the two regiments on their way to the Napier- ville frontier, where they were stationed during the winter of 1838. CANADIAN AEBOR DAY, 1889. CHAPTER XII. CANADIAN ARBOR DAY, 1889. The people of Lower Canada have decided of late years to celebrate their Arbor Day in the fall of the year — in the month of November. This change of putting off our spring work to the autumn is something like a neglect of the duties of our youth, and crowding those duties upon our declining years. This is not quite natural ; spring is the time to plant, the autumn the season to gather in that which is planted. Come, gentle spring ; ethereal mildness, come ! The softening air is balm, echo the mountains round; the forest smiles, and every heart and every sense is joy ! Thus sang the poet of u The Seasons." Spring is the time of the singing of birds — the opening of flowers, and the bursting forth of buds. Let Canadians, then, join in the Univer- sal Hymn to the " God of Seasons " as they roll, by celebrating our Arbor Days. 138 CANADIAN ARBOR DAY, 1889. u I planted me vineyards ; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits." This we believe to be a true account of an Arbor Day nearly three thousand years ago in the Holy Land, in and around Jeru- salem, as recorded by King Solomon. We learn from the teachings of the past our lessons of to-day, and we can never know too much of the good done in the times of old and in the days of other years. What a beautiful picture ! A lesson for all generations of men. Behold the great king cast- ing aside for a day his royal robes and joining with his people in the good work of making gar- dens, planting trees, decorating and beautifying the land, and then proclaiming to all peoples and lands, as recorded in Holy Writ, " I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits." Therefore, Arbor Day, in this and every land, is just a following in the footsteps and adopting the lessons as laid down by the wisest and greatest of men — by King Solomon. Canada owes much to two men — the late James Little, formerly of Caledonia, in the County of Haldimand, Ontario, where the writer first met CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 139 him in 1846. His particular study or hobby, during his long lifetime, was the preservation of our forests, and no man in Canada, from long experience, was so well fitted to write on the subject. And the Hon. H. G. Joly De LotBiniere has devoted much time and study to forestry, and the planting and renewing of our forests, and we believe it was through or by him that Arbor Day has become an established thing or fixed institution in Lower Canada. Those Arbor Days, simple and primitive though they be, will have a decided and perma- nent effect for good, and will create a taste in the rising generation for the making of gardens and orchards, and the planting of forest trees. A noble taste, and worthy to be encouraged ; it ins- tills a love of country, a love of home. Trees planted in our young days around the home of our youth stand like sentinels ; beacons that ever live and are always fresh in the memory of the wanderer. They grow on and flourish, and when the wanderer returns in after years to visit the home of his youth — the scenes of his childhood — the members of his family may all be dead or scat- tered, as in the case of the writer, the trees 140 CANADIAN ARBOR DAY, 1889. alone, which he planted in early life, are there — blossoming, as of old, in spring time — bearing tempting fruit in summer, and crowned in autumn with their frost-tinged leaves, closing the year in gorgeous colours, a prelude to a coming spring. The school boys and girls of the present day, who have their tastes fostered and encouraged both by precept and example, will not only grow up having a practical knowledge of tree planting, but they will never suffer the trees so planted by them to languish or be destroyed. From every point of view, the observance of Arbor Day is good, both in its practical effects and its educating influences on the future. The time is not distant when every parish or township in Canada will recognize the importance of tree planting, and will celebrate Arbor Day with enthusiasm, thereby elevating the tastes by creating a noble rivalry in the rising generation to beautify our country. The roots are generally planted too deep by our city amateurs, far below their original posi- tion in the nursery or the forest; and, again, the trees selected are, in most cases, too large for planting. Select young trees, and plant them as CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 141 near the surface as they formerly grew. Go look at our forest trees ; the roots, in most cases, will be found running on the surface, or slightly below. In many cases, in city planting, the trees are stuck down deep like telegraph posts into the cold clay ; forcing their roots, if they grow at all, to grow upwards in search of good soil. A young tree is a tender thing, therefore handle it ten- derly — plant it carefully; better to plant a dozen well than a hundred carelessly. Our worthy forefathers found this country an unbroken forest ; their duty was to level the forest — to make food-producing farms for us, their children. The giant trees fell before the sturdy blows of their axes, giving place to cleared farms, to smiling wheat fields and rich meadows ; theirs was not the duty to heed the cry of u Woodman, spare that tree " ; all shared the same fate. The duty, however, of the present generation is to decorate and beautify those now treeless farms by planting portions of each, by ditch and fence side, with trees, which will not only be pleasing to the eye, but will afford shade to the farm cattle, and will also add value to the farms, for which a coming generation will thank us. Be always sticking in a tree on the farm ; it will grow while you sleep. 142 CANADIAN ARBOR DAY, 1889. OUR OWN ARBOR DAY. The writer has kept to the old standard, and has made the spring of the year — the month of May — his planting season ; and celebrated his Arbor Day of 1889 by completing a young orchard of about thirty acres. This planting was made on the family homestead at Lower Lachine, better known as the " La Salle Home- stead." La Salle had reserved 420 acres of land as a homestead for himself. (See Parkman's LaSalle.) This comprised the present Fraser homestead and the two adjoining farms to the east, bordering on the " LaSalle Common " of 200 acres, which LaSalle had set apart ; this common was parcelled out to the neighbouring farmers in 1835. These two adjoining farms formed part of the Fraser Homestead until very lately. It is a disgrace to Canadians that this old Cana- dian landmark should be allowed to go to ruin, and to be blotted out of existence. This historical Canadian homestead has be- longed to the writer's family for five generations. It came into his possession a few years ago, and is all of a wreck of a family estate of about one thousand acres, on the Lower Lachine Road, that now belongs to the family. The first orchard CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 143 planted in Canada was planted on this old farm, over two centuries ago. The apples and the pears were the choicest from old France. The writer made a solemn resolve, when the old homestead came into his possession, to plant a new orchard on the ground where the old one stood, and he has carried out that resolve under difficulties and without means, which will be an example for the young men of Canada to copy and to mark that where there is a will there is a way. TO PLANT NUT-BEARING TREES. The writer has resolved to try a new kind of planting next fall. He intends to take a field, on the farm above the young orchard — the fields contain fifteen acres, say three acres broad by five acres long — and to plant nuts six to eight feet apart, about an inch deep, by the fence side, all round the field, which would be sixteen acres round, mixing the nuts, a butternut, an oak, then a hickory, and so on ; they could easily be thinned out in after years. He has resolved on this for his future Arbor days ; taking one field each year. This is a simple way to propagate our nut- bearing trees, and they would require no after- 144 CANADIAN ARBOR DAY, 1889. transplanting. The boys of Canada should make a note of this, and give it a fair trial. Trees, groves and forests have, in all ages of the world, received the particular attention and study of the sacred writers, and have added grace and beauty to the poet's lines, notably, the Psalms of David. Who has not read of the " goodly cedars " — the cedars of Lebanon, and the stately oaks of Bashan ? Some of those giant cedars on the sunny slopes of Lebanon, which had with- stood the storms of a thousand years, may have been twigs or mere saplings on the rise of one or other of the great empires of the East, and were, centuries afterwards, still green in middle age on the downfall thereof. How delightful, supremely delightful, just as the opening buds are bursting forth, and stray flowers— wildlings of nature — are peeping up, here and there, by ditch and fence side, to have a stroll during the silence of an early Sabbath morning in May, through an old orchard in Can- ada, with blossom and bloom overhead, and the song of birds from every tree around. This is a picture which no pencil can trace ; this is u Nature's Picture Gallery," free to all, without price and without money ; affording a rich treat CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 145 to him who has an eye to see and a taste to appre- ciate the beauties of nature scattered around in wild profusion. Let Canadians, then, join in the universal hymn to the " God of Seasons " as they roll, by celebrating our Arbor Days. 10 A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY VISIT TO THE HOME OF MY YOUTH. CHAPTER XIII. A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY VISIT TO THE HOME OF MY YOUTH. On Sunday, the 18th of October, 1885, the writer paid a visit to the home of his youth. It was just fifty years before that day, on Sunday, the 18th of October, 1835, that his mother died at the old homestead. Few men living have been privileged to visit the home of their youth on the fiftieth anniversary of a day so full of sad memories. The echoes and the empty tread of the old farm-house sounded in his ears like voices from the dead ! How changed was all around ! Its ruined walls and its almost roofless home a sad remem- brance bring. Not one of kith, kindred or of name to be found there. Not one of the many playmates of our youth. They are all gone. The greater number of them have been gathered to their fathers. Others of them have found other 150 A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY VISIT, ETC. homes. We felt as a stranger, a desolate stranger, at the home and amid the very scenes of our youth. We stood beneath the same clear, blue sky, unchanged — such as gladdened our young days. We trod the very same ground as of old ; but, nevertheless, a change, a great change, had been wrought. This was the old home in which grandsire, grandame, father and mother lived, laboured and died. This was the home where sisters and brothers were born and grew up " side by side," but now " their graves or their homes are severed far and wide." The living remnant have been driven from their home by hard oppression, by wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled. We sought the old garden, where the pear, the plum and cherry of Old France were choicest of fruit, but nothing remains to mark where a garden had been ; a green sod covers the whole spot. Even the old hawthorn, which stood at the foot of the garden, with its seats beneath the shade, where, fifty years ago, we studied our lessons, or pondered over some favourite author, has suc- cumbed to the ravages of time, or fallen beneath the leveller's axe. . CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 151 We sought the old seat by the roadside, at the corner of the old stone wall. Nothing remains to mark the spot except the two supporting stones. This old seat was the summer evening resort of old and young — u for talking age and whispering lovers made." Many a tale of the old time, Scotch or Canadian, was told and re-told on that old seat. It was the family out-door seat. Old men now living, who were brought up in the country, will, on reading this, recall and bring to mind just such another seat close by the homes of their early youth. And, perchance, they may re-people those dear old seats with faces from the dead — with forms which are ever present in their memories. Wander where we may, voices from the dead will ever ring in our ears, rejoicing the heart, or maybe, filling it with deep sorrow in dwelling upon the wrongs and ravages of time. This is where the old orchard stood, partly en- closed by a stone wall. Over five hundred trees were standing there fifty years ago. Not a score of them now remains. They were of the choicest kinds imported from old France. Some of them planted in the days of Champlain by the early Jesuit Fathers, and added to by LaSalle and his 152 A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY VISIT, ETC. successors. This old orchard was long known as the oldest in Canada. A feeling of deepest sad- ness crept over us as we paced, in solemn silence, the old orchard ground. We could mark the spot where this and that old tree stood, bearing tempt- ing but not forbidden fruit. " This was the home of our youth," we said, but what a change ! Changed in all save the same clear blue sky above, and the same almost hallowed earth beneath, on which we stood ! It still bears the family name, but not one of the family is there. u Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." Shall the wicked prevail '] we asked. Then the words of the Psalmist, the sweet singer of Israel, came forcibly to mind : " I have seen the wicked in " great power, and spreading himself like a green 4t bay tree, yet he passed away, and, lo ! he was '• not ; yea, I sought him, but he could not be u found." Such, we said, might happen in God's providence in this very case. We strolled along to the parish Scotch church, the church in which we sat over fifty years ago, on its first opening in September, 1833. We walked silently, solemnly and alone to the old family pew. As we entered the church, the minister CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 153 was giving out the old Scotch paraphrase, the 20th : " How glorious Zion's Courts appear. The city of our God," &c. This called forth memo- ries of past days. Those grand old paraphrases of the Church of Scotland are not much used now. What a change has taken place in that quiet, old church ! Not over four were present of those who were at the opening in 1833. On conclusion of the Scotch service, we called on our friend, the Rev. Father Pich6, whose grand new church, the parish church of Lachine, is close by the Scotch church. The good priest was delighted to see us, and doubly so when we explained to him the anniversary of our visit to his parish. We spoke over all the wrongs con- nected with our family troubles. He assured us that his prayers, the prayers of his congregation, and the prayers of the good nuns were constantly before the Throne of God on behalf of our family. This simple sketch of a visit to an old Cana- dian home may meet the eye of many a grey- haired wanderer, whose early home is, perhaps, thousands of miles away, and may awaken in him u ties that stretch beyond the deep, and love " that scorns the lapse of time." This is a true picture of many an old home. What home is 154 A FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY VISIT, ETC. there without its tale of sorrow, by which fami- lies have been wronged, ruined and scattered to the four winds of heaven ? The wrong-doer is to be pitied. Mark him well, as he walks the public path : " He ever bears about a silent court " of justice in his breast. Himself the judge and "jury, and himself the prisoner at the bar, ever "condemned," This old home is not only dear to the writer as being his birthplace, but it will ever be held sacred by Canadians of all coming generations as being the spot on which the home of the most noted character in Canadian history still stands. This was the Canadian home of Robert de LaSalle, as described in chapter second. We wandered back to our city abode, ponder- ing over the anniversary which had induced us to pay a visit to the home of our youth. Truly, life is but a dream, a shadow ! The death that occurred fifty years ago, and the faces and forms of the then living ones of that quiet old Canadian farm-house, were fresh in the memory of the writer, and the whole sad scene was before him, life like, as it were, in an unpainted picture, as if it had occurred but yesterday. Such is life ! THE FALLS OF NIAGARA OVER FORTY YEARS AGO. CHAPTER XIV. THE FALLS OF NIAGARA OVER FORTY YEARS AGO. " Did you ever do the Falls ? " asked an American tourist the other day of the writer. " No/' we replied ; " but the Falls once did us in a way that cleaned out our then little purse." We, how- ever, at that time, in our young days, had the pleasure of enjoying a most delightful visit or sojourn — not as a guest — of two weeks at the Falls of Niagara. That visit, and how it was accomplished, is now as fresh in our memory as if it were yesterday ; of which the following is a true and faithful account : — This was over forty years ago. It was spring time, in the month of April, 1845. We were then at Toronto, better known a few years earlier as "Muddy Little York." We had what we supposed a well-filled purse of English shillings and half-crowns, amounting, all told, to 158 FALLS OF NIAGARA FORTY YEARS AGO. fifteen dollars and fifty cents; cash was then scarce in the West. All was " store pay." Fifty to seventy -five pounds a year was then a fair salary for a young clerk, very little of which was paid him in cash. His board cost him ten dollars a month, paid in store pay. Then his clothing was charged to his account in the store ; so that a young clerk in those days in the West, after his board and clothing were paid, had not much over five to six dollars a month left him for pocket money ; therefore, we considered ourselves as passing rich in having fifteen dollars and fifty cents in our purse. We had given up our old situation, and had made a new engagement, to be entered upon on the first of May following ; and having a little over two weeks' spare time, and, as we thought, a well-filled purse, the question was, where to go and how to spend it to the best advantage in sight-seeing. Fortunately, we found a companion, a genuine young Hibernian, well informed, about our own age, having a little spare time, too, and equally rich, our two united purses amounting to a little over thirty dollars; so we joined hands, and a visit to the Falls of Niagara was decided on. The vulgar term of " doing the Falls " was not CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 159 known in our young days. Our baggage was not heavy; besides the clothes we wore, a small carpet bag, containing a change of linen, socks, etc., a Mackintosh and a walking stick, comprised our whole baggage. Travelling was cheap in those early days. It was on a Saturday morning, in the month of April, 1845, that we walked on board the steamer at Toronto, to cross Lake Ontario to Queenston, from which place there was a horse car to Drummondville, within a mile of the Falls. The trip from Toronto to Drummond- ville cost us three dollars. We entered the Head Inn in the village, an unpretending place, and arranged for two weeks' board and lodging at half a dollar a day each. This amounted to fourteen dollars for both of us for the two weeks, by which our purse was light- ened one-half. We had comfortable quarters ; there were no visitors but ourselves at that time at the Falls. Our host was ignorant of our wealth or standing. We kept that secret to our- selves, maintaining a dignified reserve ; no doubt putting on a few little airs, as most travellers do. No personal in the local papers announced our arrival, but our appearance being respectable, 160 FALLS OF NIAGARA FORTY YEARS AGO. commanded the respect of the villagers. We had the place all to ourselves. The next morning, Sunday, an April morning, we strolled down after breakfast to have our first view of the Falls of Niagara. The constant and continuous roar— or rather thunders, from the tumbling rapids, rang in our ears the whole of the previous night. Tt was music grand and wild. It chimed in, and was in accord with our youthful tastes. It was a charming morning, with blossom and bloom overhead; there was silence all around, the silence of a Sabbath morn- ing in a quiet country side. Nothing was heard save the song of birds the early spring notes of those little choristers of the woods ; and the thunders of Niagara ascending high and far above, made us feel somehow as if we had been transported to fairyland. We cannot, even at this lapse of time, find words to express fittingly our feelings — the feel- ings which crept over us as we approached the mighty cataract ; where the waters of Lake Erie and the other Upper Lakes find their outlet into Lake Ontario over a space less than half a mile in width. Our thoughts, our feelings, expressed in deep- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 161 est silence, rose upwards, as it were, from " NATURE UP TO NATURE'S GOD." Such were our thoughts, our feelings, as we strolled down from the village of Drummondville on that April Sunday morning, over forty years ago, with the song of birds and the thunders of the cataract sounding in our ears, and blossom and bloom overhead, to have our first full view of the Falls of Niagara. " Proud demon of the waters ! " we exclaimed, " Thou, around whose dark and stormy brow cir- " cles the rainbow's varied gem ! " There we stood for the first time, gazing in wonder and in silent admiration on that mighty mass of water as it rolled in majestic splendour over its rock- bound summit, in an almost unbroken wave into the yawning whirlpool below ! " Come," we said, " expressive silence, muse its praise ! " There have been many accounts descriptive of the Falls of Niagara and the surrounding coun- try, but the best is that contained in the journal of Captain Enys, of the 29th Regiment, written over one hundred years ago, in 1787. It gives a true account, from Fort Sclosser, on the Ameri- li 162 FALLS OF NIAGARA FORTY YEARS AGO. can side, two miles above the Falls, down to the foot of the Falls, and for four miles down on the Canadian shore. The whole river bank, on both sides of the Niagara, was then an unbroken forest. Captain Enys' journal was obtained from his son in New Zealand, and is now deposited in the Canadian Archives, Ottawa. [See Dou- glas Brymner's Report for 1886, page ccxxvi.] There were no guide-books in those early days to instruct the visitor HOW TO DO THE FALLS, as it is vulgarly termed. We were entirely guided by our former limited reading, and by our open eyes ; and we did them — the Falls — to our entire satisfaction, and, perhaps, better than the thousands who annually visit them. We often smile when we hear people ask : Which is the best season to visit the Falls? We have often heard the expression of disappointment : — •' That few people were there — nobody of note." What did they go for? Was it to see and to meet with CONGREGATED SHODDY, or was it to view one of the grandest sights to be seen on this continent ? CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 163 The Falls of Niagara are the same at all sea- sons — spring time, summer or winter. We have since visited them at all seasons, and were we asked the best time to do so, we would, without hesitation, say winter. We, at one time, visited them during the month of March, when the whole mass of ice from Lake Erie came r ashing over the Falls in such quantities, that the river from the town of Niagara upwards got jammed, forming a bridge of ice for miles. Few visitors have seen this grand sight. At another time we saw, on an early spring morning, the whole of the surrounding trees covered with icicles, caused by the spray from the Falls, hanging and swing- ing from the branches, and glistening and disap- pearing under the rays of the sun, affording a sight which no pen can describe nor pencil paint. The whole neighbourhood has many attractions besides the Falls. It was springtime on our first visit. The surrounding country is famed for its old Canadian homesteads and its fruit orchards and flower gardens, being the earliest settled parts of Western Canada by the U. E. Loyalists. The whole country was then in bloom. The apple, the pear, and the peach orchards, with plum gar- dens in the old Niagara district, the then garden 164 FALLS OF NIAGARA FORTY YEARS AGO. of Canada, were in full blossom. Couple this grand sight with that of the Falls, and the reader of this day will say that we, two young Canadian tourists, were more fortunate in our time of "doing the Falls" than most visitors. After the first few days, still keeping Drum- moudville for our headquarters, we arranged to visit the different battle-fields on the Niagara frontier. The field of Lundy's Lane is within ten minutes' walk from Drummondville; Queens- ton Heights, a little over an hour's walk ; Chip- pewa, about the same distance ; old Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, some six or seven hours' walk upwards along the banks of the Niagara ; and Stoney Creek, about seven miles from Hamilton, on the Grimsby road. All these Canadian Battle Fields were laid down in our programme of this visit, which we faithfully carried out. Truly, this is storied ground ! Every footstep recalls the bygone history of early Canadian days. Long before a British drum was heard, or a Union Jack of England Heated in those once far Western wilds, the daring explorers of ( dd France had visited the Falls, and were familiar with the banks of the Niagara. LaSalle, over two centuries ago, established a CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 165 trading post on the very spot where Fort Niagara now stands ; and a few miles above the Falls, near Navy Island, he (LaSalle) built his little schooner, the " Griffin," the rude pioneer of those magnificent floating castles which have, since that day, passed over the rough waters of old Erie, while hundreds of them, like the " Griffin," now lie buried deep beneath its untrodden sands •' During the three years of the war of 1812, the Canadian bank of the Niagara river, from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, down to Fort George, on Lake Ontario, was one continuous battle field. There was a constant and continued march and countermarch up and down its banks, of armed men, cavalry, artillery, infantry, besides a large contingent of Indian warriors. There were fought on those banks the several affairs around the walls of old Fort Erie, besides the battles of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, Queenston Heights, and old Fort George, not counting those on the American side, all occurring within a stretch of some thirty miles, rendering those banks pre-eminently historical and truly storied ground for Canadians and Americans of all coming generations to pause, meditate on, and ponder over the gallant deeds of their forefathers. 166 FALLS OF NIAGARA FORTY YEARS AGO. Before closing this sketch, imagination fondly stoops to trace and to draw a picture of those far- off by-gone days, when the red man, Lo, the poor Indian ! was lord and master of this whole con- tinent. We cannot but think, and reasonably so, that the land around this proud demon of the waters was held sacred, as neutral, consecrated ground? for the many, far-separated, warlike tribes ; and on its banks they could enjoy their calumet of peace and cup of joy, and here, too, in perfect security, u the wild deer arched his neck from " glades, and then, unhunted, sought his woods " and wilderness again." We shall, in another chapter, fight over one of our Niagara frontier battles of 1812. BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. CHAPTEE XV. BATTLEFIELD OF LTJNDY'S LANE. On our return from a Sunday morning stroll to the Falls of Niagara, we found a card from a Mr. Anderson — or rather Captain Anderson, by which title he was better known, — waiting us at our inn at the village of Drummondville. Ander- son was a noted character at the Falls, and acted as guide to strangers. He had served in the British artillery on the field of Lundy's Lane on the night of the 25th July, 1814. This card was an intimation that he was at our command, and as a recompense for his ser- vices, our host informed us that he had arranged that matter. The captain, it appears, liked his dram, as all old soldiers did and do, and our host satisfied him that he and a friend of his would have the honour of drinking to our health every day during our stay. The captain proposed a walk to the field of 110 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. Lundy's Lane, within a mile of the Falls, being close by and bordering on the village of Drum- mondville. Although it was Sunday, we could not resist the temptation, remembering that Waterloo was fought on a Sunday. We noticed that the captain had fortified himself by a visit to the bar before starting. " This is the field of Luudy's Lane," said our guide, as he took his stand on the front steps of the old church in which the country people were then at morning service. " There," said he, directing our attention to a certain part of the field, " was General Sir Gordon Drummond's position, and there," pointing to another part, " was where our artillery was posted, on the hill, close by the church where we were then standing. " There/' pointing to the right, in front of the hill, he said, " was the way, or road, by which the American Colonel, Miller, advanced with his regiment at a bayonet charge and cap- tured our artillery, bayonetting most of our men and making prisoners of the rest." " Hurrah, boys ! " he cried, forgetting, under the excitement of the moment, that he was stand- ing on the steps of a church filled with worship- pers. The old man was actually carried back CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 1^1 some thirty years to the real dreadful struggle of that desperate bayonet chprge, of which he was an eye-witness on that very spot. u Hurrah, boys! " he cried, " there," pointing to the left of the British position, "there come the 89th red coats at. a mad charge, with a wild, ringing British cheer." This outburst of enthusiasm soon emptied the church ; the country people were anxious to learn what was going on outside, and to hear the old man fight Lundy's Lane over again. The country people appeared to enjoy it very much ; so did we. The whole scene was some- thing new and strange to us. Across that road, Lundy's Lane, Colonel Miller, elated by his first success, advanced to meet the British 89th Regi- ment, bayonet to bayonet. It was a short but bloody struggle ; the Americans were repulsed with dreadful slaughter, and our artillery recap- tured. There were three battles fought during the war of 1812,— LUNDY'S LANE, STONEY CREEK AND CHATEAUGUAY. Their very mention will ever strike a chord in the " peace-bound pulses " of the young Canadian heart. A pride of country will ever be associated 112 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. with those Canadian battlefields. The writer had relatives on nearly every field during the war of 1812. It was over thirty years before our visit that the battle of Lundy's Lane was fought on this spot during the evening and night of the 25th July, 1814. To make this chapter more interest- ing to the young Canadian reader of this day, we shall give a short account of the several affairs ; the movements and the positions of the two armies on the Niagara frontier during the month of July, 1814, preceding Lundy's Lane. They will bear in mind that at that time there were no telegraphs, no railways, and no steamers. All communication between Fort George, at the head of the lake, and Kingston at the foot, had to be made by land, all the way round Lake Onta- rio, nearly 300 miles, or by schooner down the lake. The small British force under General Rial had full possession of the Canadian side of the Niagara frontier, from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, down to Fort George, at the mouth of the Niagara river, on Lake Ontario, with Fort George as headquarters. The British also held Fort Nia- gara, on the American side, opposite Fort George. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 1*73 The American army, of about 6,000 men of all arms, under General Brown, crossed from Buffalo and Black Rock, three miles below Buffalo, on the 3rd of July. Part crossed above Fort Erie ; the main body below, at Black Rock, completely surrounding and cutting of all communication between the small body of British (less than 200 men) in Fort Erie, and the British advanced post at Chippewa. On learning that the Americans had crossed the river, General Rial immediately advanced his headquarters to Chippewa, three miles above the Falls; and on the 4th, the day after the Ameri- cans had crossed, marched up the Canadian bank of the Niagara to relieve Fort Erie. It was then he learned of its surrender. General Rial was forced to fall back on Chippewa before superior numbers, having less than 1,500 men. There, at Chippewa, on the afternoon of the 5th of July, he made a halt and took a stand to arrest the onward progress of the Americans, but after a desperate fight was repulsed with the loss of about five hundred men. After the battle of Chippewa the British re- treated or fell back to Fort George. The Ameri- cans advanced as far as Queenston, having made 174 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. themselves masters of the whole surrounding country, which they held for three weeks. During this time they committed ravages which remain as a dark blot and a lasting disgrace to the American army ; the remembrance of them has descended from father to son, and are not for- gotten even at this day by the old families in the Niagara district. Besides plundering the farm- houses and country homesteads, they wantonly set fire to and burned the whole village of St. David's, containing about forty houses. These three weeks, from the 3rd to the 25th of July, 1814, was the darkest period for the British arms during the whole war of 1812 to 1815. The people of the Niagara district were almost driven to despair. Their dreaded and bitter enemy had possession of their homes. General Sir Gordon Drummond was then at Kingston, about three hundred miles distant, by land route, from the scene of conflict on the Nia- gara frontier. On the first intelligence of the reverses on the Niagara frontier reaching Kingston, Sir Gordon Drummond posted for York (Toronto), from which place he sailed on Sunday, the 24th, reach- ing Fort George on Monday, the 25th July, 1814. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 1^75 Previous to his arrival, the Americans had re- treated from Queenston to Chippewa ; Gen. Rial had also, after leaving a force in the two forts, Forts George and Niagara, retreated or fallen back to form a junction with parts of the 103rd and 104th regiments, then advancing from Bur- lington Heights. Having met with the expected reinforcements at the TWENTY-MILE CREEK, he, General Rial, faced about and took up his line of march on Lundy's Lane, having learned on the road of the American retreat from Queenston to Chippewa. The American General having also learned, through his scouts, of General Rial's retreat, or falling back from Fort George, advanced again that afternoon, the 25th, from Chippewa to Lundy's Lane. Hence the meeting of the ad- vanced bodies of the now two advancing armies on Monday evening, the 25th July, 1814, on the field of Lundy's Lane. Lundy's Lane ! ever to be remembered battle- field ! " Is the spot marked with no colossal bust, nor column trophied for triumphal show? None ! " Reader, young Canadian reader, have 176 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. you ever stood on a battlefield of your country — one on which you could claim to have had rela- tives doing battle for their king and country ? The writer could claim this, and prided himself, as a boy, while standing on the field of Lundy's Lane, of having had two of his mother's brothers foremost in the fight on that ever-glorious Cana- dian battlefield. These two then young soldiers were afterwards, during the Rebellion of 1837, Colonel Alexander Fraser and Major Donald Fraser, of the 1st Eegiment of the Glengarry Highlanders. General Sir Gordon Drummond, immediately after his arrival at Fort George, took up his line of march by way of Queenston to support the advance of General Rial from the TWENTY-MILE CREEK on Lundy's Lane (the heat under the broiling July sun was excessive), but on his ( Drummond' s) arriving within three miles of the field, he found that Rial had already decided on a retrograde movement before superior numbers. He had not forgotten his disastrous stand at Chippewa on the 5th. This backward movement was arrested by General Drummond, who ordered a face about CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. Ill and a return toLundy's Lane. The British force was now increased to a little over 3,000 men. The American force amounted to about 5,000. The meeting place of General Drummond with General Rial was somewhere close by where stood, some two weeks previous, the pretty little village of St. Davids, surrounded by its orchards and cornfields, then a smouldering pile ; the fires in some places were still burning. This savage deed of the American army met the gaze of the newly -arrived British soldiers, a sight so unusual in civilized warfare ; coupled with which, the assembled women and children, now rendered houseless and homeless, clinging around the sol- diers, and pointing to their ruined homes, and crying for revenge, whetted the bayonets and nerved the arms of both regulars and militia, as they passed onwards to the field of Lundy's Lane, vowing vengeance, to conquer or to die on that field. It was just seven months before that time when that small band of determined British soldiers and Canadian militia crossed at midnight from Fort George and captured Fort Niagara; then took and burned the towns of Lewiston, Man- chester, Black Rock and Buffalo, in revenge for 12 178 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. the burning of Newark (Niagara) by the Ameri- cans in December, 1813. It was evening — about sunset ! Then began in earnest that dreadful struggle on Lundy's Lane. The Americans fought with a sure cer- tainty of victory. They had been successful in every affair during the month. The Canadian militia fought with desperation. They were goaded on nearly to madness by the outrages per- petrated on their homes by the Americans. Revenge I was their battle cry. We shall not attempt to describe that fearful hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot deadly struggle — the giving and the taking of death. Every man in the British ranks fought as if the fate of the Empire rested on his bayonet. Scattered bands, fighting independently here, there, and everywhere over the field, were blazing at each other within pistol-shot range, and bayonetting or clubbing with the butt- ends of their muskets or rifles in the dark. "It was bloody, butchering work," said an old soldier. There, within a small compass, and in some places in heaps, over 1,700 men lay dead or dying on that bloody field, being over one-fifth of the CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 179 combatants engaged. Every fifth man went down ! The Americans being worsted at all points, withdrew about midnight to Chippewa, their headquarters, three miles distant, leaving the little British force masters of the field— of a field covered with the dead and dying of both armies, and on which the victors sank down, totally ex- hausted after their six hours' hard fighting, and their long march during the early part of the day from Fort George and the Twenty-Mile Creek. Who can picture that bloody field ! The fol- lowing words, descriptive of how a British soldier fights, to be found in Napier's account of the battle of Albuera : — " They closed on their terri- ble enemy, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights ! " may be fittingly applied to this desperate hand- to-hand struggle on Lundy's Lane. The thunders of Niagara, silenced or drowned during the rage of battle, were once more heard, and the still nearer sounds, the groans of the wounded and the dying, rang in the ears of the survivors, as they sank down exhausted on the won field to seek repose. 180 BATTLEFIELD OF LUNDY'S LANE. At early sunrise on the morning of the 26th of July, 1814, the field of Lundy's Lane presented a ghastly sight ! The dead and the dying lay thick around. The heat was so intense that the bodies had to be disposed of without delay. The dead were collected and placed in two heaps to be burned — the British dead in one; the Americans in the other. The fires were then lighted, and what remained of that mass of " living valour " of yesterday was soon reduced to a smouldering pile of ashes. A fearful necessity ! It had to be done. Putrefaction had set in ; a terrible stench arose from all parts of the field. Long before break of day of the 26th, and even before the crowning cheers of the victors had reached the camp followers, the field of Lundy's Lane presented another sight, perhaps the sad- dest — the most affecting one, full of hopes and fears, connected with a battlefield. Close by, in the rear, as camp followers, listening in fearful suspense to every volley and cheer from that fearfully contested field, were hundreds of women and children — the mothers, the wives, the daugh- ters, the sisters of the brave men of the Niagara district. These were early on the field, searching among the living, the dying and the dead, for CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 181 loved ones. Even these forgot for the moment their dead in the general rejoicing of a great national victory. The victors were not allowed much time for rest. The sun arose, a glorious July sun, shed- ding his first beams over this field of death, and " smiling as if earth contained no tomb." The bugle sounded the muster call ; then sprang up, as if by magic, from all parts of the field, about 1,500 unwounded but nearly exhausted men, and quickly forming in new ranks beside new com- rades — theirs of yesterday being dead — prepara- tory to an advance to follow after the enemy. The Americans had retreated during the night to Chippewa, but the next day they continued their retreat to Fort Erie, throwing all their artillery and heavy baggage into the Niagara. The greater part of them crossed the Niagara at Black Rock and Buffalo, leaving a strong force in Fort Erie on the Canadian side of the river. OUR ANTIQUITIES. CHAPTEE XYI. OUR ANTIQUITIES, A RECENT VISIT TO THE CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. On a bright morning during the month of Octo- ber, 1887, the writer was induced by an intelli- gent stranger, of French extraction, from the United States, to join him in a walk to pay a visit to the old home of Robert de la Salle, situate on the banks of the St. Lawrence, two miles above the Lachine Rapids, eight miles from Mont- real. It was a charming morning, clear and bracing, not cold. Autumn was then in her full glory, the frost-tinged leaves of varied hue, which no pencil can paint nor pen adequately describe, affording a sight to the admirer of nature to pause and meditate upon, nowhere to be met with to such enjoyable perfection as in Canada — fittingly pictured by an old writer as : " Sober autumn fading into age." 186 OUR ANTIQUITIES. The ruins of the Canadian home of Robert de la Salle still stand on the banks of the St. Law- rence, two miles above the Lachine Rapids, close by the head entrance of the Montreal water works. There are three ways of reaching it : First, by the Lower Lachine road ; second, by a walk along the banks of the water works ; and third, along the Lachine Canal to the Cote St. Paul bridge ; thence by cutting through the rear of the Cote St. Paul farms, taking a direct line south, about five miles, through the woods by an old Indian trail known to few. This brings you to the river front, just at the old home. We took the latter route. The walk across the rear of Cote St. Paul is a charming one, its cultivated farms, with young thriving orchards on most of them, and snug looking dwelling houses and substantial farm buildings, denoting comfort. This walk is sel- dom taken. On your right, beneath, you have the Lachine canal, and far away, above, you have the high land of Cote St. Pierre, and then, be- tween the canal and Cote St, Pierre, there is that broad deep valley, a lake in former days, but now it is the highway for railways, and since it was CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 181 drained it has become the vegetable garden of Montreal, In due time, after a walk of two hours and a half, we reached La Salle's old home — the home of the most noted character in Canadian or Ameri- can history. Few know of it, and fewer still are aware that this old home — this historical Cana- dian landmark — is within so short a distance of the city of Montreal. It is not now " a thing of beauty." It is crumbling down, and will soon mix with the dust of ages. " And this is the home of Robert de la Salle !" exclaimed our friend, bowing low with deepest reverence, and exhibiting feelings of the pro- foundest veneration as he approached the old building. It was to us a familiar spot, as being enclosed within the old stone wall that at one time surrounded the home of our youth. To satisfy the curiosity of our new friend, we entered the building and explored the inside ; in doing so, we had to be careful of our footsteps. Its echoes and its empty tread called forth thoughts of the noble dead who had lived there over two centuries ago, nearly as : — " Monarch of all I survey,'' in what was then known as those far „ Western wilds of French Canada" We 188 OUR ANTIQUITIES. thought of the time when the " forest primeval " stretched down to the very river shore — when the wolf, the bear and the wild deer roamed nearly undisturbed around this then solitary abode of Canada's — even of America's, most daring explorer ! As we stood in. that old building, our thoughts were wandering over the by-gone centuries of early Canadian days. Not only did we think of La Salle as having lived here, but we recalled the long list of noble men, representatives of old France, who, from time to time, had slept within these venerated — yes, sacred walls ! While we were standing and enjoying a peep out of the old window in the second storey, in the west end of the building, gazing on all around, taking a present and retrospective view of what is and what had occurred in and around this old home during the by-gone centuries, just at that time one of our large lake steamers was passing down the St. Lawrence, right in front of us, filled with tourists, to run or jump the Lachine Rapids —the old " Sault St. Louis." We then pictured in imagination the time in those far-off days when Champlain, then Governor of French Canada, was induced by the Indians to come up CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 189 from where Montreal now stands, to this spot, to have his first run or sail in an Indian canoe over those now far-famed rapids ! What a change has taken place since that day ! Those rapids still roll on unchanged! Such as creation's dawn beheld, they roll now, in the self-same course; but this old building, the wit- ness stand of many a dark tragedy during the Indian massacre of 1689, and the' cradle home of many a grand scheme for the aggrandizement of old France, planned by La Salle within its old walls, still stands. This was the place, and within its old walls or palisades, where Vaudreuil with his 500 men sought shelter on the night after the massacre of Lachine on the 5th of August, 1689. We turned our eyes to the river front, to what was in the writer's young days a quiet bay — stretching down to where the water works bridge now stands. The primeval beauty of this once romantic river shore is now destroyed by the water works basin. This is the spot where the old English " King's Post" stood during the war of 1812. Although Canadians apparently forget, or do not care, to do honour to one of their noblest dead, 190 OUR ANTIQUITIES. still the name and memory of La Salle is pre- served and honoured in nearly every town and city from Detroit to the mouth of the Mississippi. Streets and squares in every city, and even counties and villnges bear his name, testifying to the respect in which his memory is held. Mon- treal, alone, has nothing commemorative of him. We lift the curtain and take a peep into " dim futurity" — to the time— perhaps, centuries to come, when the name and the memory of La Salle will be held in greater veneration than by the people of this generation, when some student or students of history will pass along this storied, Lower Lachine Koad, seeking the spot on which La Salle's home stood, and other historic spots on this road, such as the English King's Posts of 1812, the old Windmill, and the spot where Fort Remy stood. We may. state that Fort Remy stood on the ground where the Novitiate of the Fathers Oblats now stands, close to the Windmill. There may not then, in the coming future, be a stone left standing of this old landmark, (La Salle's) to mark the spot, unless Canadians of this day arouse themselves and restore the old build- ing, by taking advantage of the writer's offer o* setting apart 3,500 feet of land, say 70 feet fronting CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 191 on the Lower Lacbine Road, by 50 feet in depth, to enclose the old home, to be held sacred for all time ; or to erect a monument thereon. This old building has a history stretching far into and over the bygone centuries of early Cana- dian days. Long before the foundation stone was laid in the queenly city of Montreal, with its now noble structures and princely mansions bask- ing under the shade of our stately Mount Royal — long before a parish church bell was heard in the ancient town of Ville Marie, summoning the little bands of devout worshipers to their early matins — long before those early days of Canadian history, did this, old building stand, as it now stands, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, two miles above the Lachine Rapids. THE BLUE BONNETS. 13 CHAPTER XYIL THE BLUE BONNETS. NEAR LACHINE, ON THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY. The present article does not relate to the Blue Bonnets of Old Scotland, nor to their raids over the border, in former days, to chastise their Saxon foes, but simply to point out a place where an old French village once stood, within some five miles of the city of Montreal. This is not the story of a deserted village, but of a village which has entirely disappeared within the memory of living men. Not a vestige of the old place now remains. It lives only in name. The Blue Bonnets is still a familiar name among railway men, and is also well known in sporting circles, the old spot being close by, and connected with, the present Fashion Race Course. Few of them, however, know the origin of the name, but the name and place were well known to Montrealers forty years ago. Very few of the 196 THE BLUE BONNETS. present generation can recall the days of the old stage coaches, four in hand, between Montreal and Lachine, to catch the mail steamer leaving Lachine every day at noon. The completion of the Lachine railway, over forty years ago, put an end to stage coaching. The stage office was on McGill street, near the old Ottawa Hotel, corner of St. Maurice St. This was then a busy spot between the hours of nine and eleven every morning. It required two coaches every day, some days, four, to carry all the passengers. There was something pleasing as well as exciting in the bustle of preparation to start, and to hear the last horn blow and the words — All aboard; then the graceful sweep of the coachman's whip and the rattle of the wheels as they moved off and turned into St. Joseph street on their way to Lachine. Besides the mail coaches, it required from twenty to thirty caleches or cabs, some days, to carry all the passengers. Many an old Montrealer will recall those days of other years. Let us follow those stage coaches, caleches and cabs on their way to Lachine. There were few houses then, not over half a dozen, between Cantin's shipyard and the Tanneries. The most CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 197 noted building was the City Powder Magazine, which still stands, but hidden from view by houses built in front of it. The coachman's horn announced their approach to each stopping place. The first halt was at Desch amp's, the stage house at the Tanneries, to water — both horses and pass- engers seemed to be often drouthy. Such was the custom in those old davs. Then up the Tanneries Hill and along the high road of Cote St. Pierre ; a charming drive of three miles; bordered with orchards and market gar- dens, as at the present day, overlooking what was then a lake — the present lowland stretching over to Cote St. Paul. The next halting place was at the foot of the Coteau Hill, at the present crossing of the Grand Trunk Railway. There was then a considerable village at that place, having from thirty to forty houses, with some half a dozen taverns or inns. Not a vestige of the old village now remains. There was no business to be done there in the tavern way after the completion of the Lachine railway, by which the stage coach was superseded. The old village was, we believe, afterwards destroyed by fire. About the year 1842, a Scotch soldier, a ser- geant in one of the Scotch Regiments, then 98 THE BLUE BONNETS. stationed in Montreal, Alexander McRae by name, or rather " Sandy McRae/' by which name he was familiarly known, opened a tavern in this old French village, at the foot of the Coteau Hill, three miles from Lachine, which he named the " Blue Bonnets," having a full-sized Highlander, plaided and plumed in tartan array, painted on his sign. From this tavern and sign-board the village got its new name of the Blue Bonnets, before this it had a French name which we can- not recall. To stop at the Blue Bonnets to water the horses and refresh the travellers was quite an understood thing — to pass the Blue Bonnets was the exception. Sandy McRae, of the Blue Bonnets, was a real host in himself, a jolly good fellow, full of stories of old Scotland, and of the old wars in which his regiment had served. It was pleasant to have a crack with him and to enjoy a mug of his old ale, not forgetting a pinch of real Scotch snuff from his big mull. " Low lies this old house, where village " statesmen talked profound, and news much older "than their ale went round." And who that ever enjoyed it can forget u the parlour splendours of that once festive place." Sandy was known far and near, at Kirk and CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 199 Market, the country round, the name he gave to that place lives after him. But where is poor Sandy now ? He may be gathered to his fathers — whither we are all journeying ! or, may be, is an outcast or a wanderer over the wide world. The place that once knew him knows him no more ! The writer met with him some twenty -five years ago, a wanderer, changed in all save his broad, honest, open Scotch face ! That old village was a noted place during the troubles of 1837 and 1838, being three miles from Laflamme's hotel, the headquarters of the Lachine Brigade. A report came to headquarters that some mischief was brewing out there, and on the night of the 7th November, 1838, a raid was made on the village by a body of the Lachine Troop and some of the foot. The villagers were disarmed ; some fifty stand of arms — old French fowling-pieces — were collected; no disaffected persons were found and no prisoners made. The writer was in that raid. It is well to collect and to preserve these old reminiscences. There are many interesting old historical spots in and around Montreal, of which very little is known at the present day. AN HISTORICAL CANADIAN BURYING GROUND. CHAPTER XVIII. AN HISTORICAL CANADIAN BURYING GROUND. ITS NEGLECTED GRAVES. The writer recently paid a visit to the old Protestant burying ground on the Papineau Road, the last resting-place of many of the Protestant dead of Montreal and of Canada of a past genera- tion. It is now over four score years since this old burial place was first opened. It was then far out on the outskirts of the city, being fully two miles distant from the Parish Church of Notre Dame, but at the present day the city has stretched over a mile eastward of it. It is now over forty years since the new Protestant burying Ground — Mount Royal Ceme- tery, — was opened, and a large number of the bodies have been removed to it, but the remains of those who had or have no living friends here still lie neglected in the old ground. 204 HISTORICAL CANADIAN BURYING GROUND. On entering that old home of Montreal and Canada's almost forgotten dead ones, the words of the poet came forcibly and appropriately to mind : — u Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed ; Or wake to ecstacy the living lyre." This place, doubtless, seventy years ago, was a spot of beauty, a well-attended to home of the dead, having flower-decorated graves, carefully looked after by living, loving relatives, with handsome headstones and costly tablets erected to perpetuate their memories, and neat iron railings enclosing many of the graves. What a sickening sight now presents itself! It has the appearance of an " earthquake's spoil," as if it had been the scene, on some past day, of a battlefield ! Tablets displaced ! Headstones and railings broken and scattered here, there, and everywhere around, reminding one of the ravages of hostile artillery ! Opened and still unfilled graves, from which the remains have been taken and removed to Mount Royal Ceme- tery, presenting a ghastly sight ! This old neglected spot is very dear to many of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 205 the present generation, particularly to Scotchmen ; two-thirds of the sleepers there bear Scotch names ; many of them have now no relatives in Montreal, being scattered all over Canada; many others of them never had relatives living here, being young men— Scotch lads, who came over at that early day to seek their fortunes in Canada, lie buried there ! No kind eye to watch or look after their last resting place. Their friends or families in Scotland hold burial certificates, show- ing that this or that one of their friends lies buried in the Protestant burying ground, on the Papineau Road, in the city of Montreal, Canada. But were such relatives to visit Montreal at the present day it would be a sorrowful sight for them to witness the desecration there! They might as well seek the burial place of Moses on Nebo's mountain slope as to find the spot of earth covering their dead here. The writer's family was early connected with the destinies of Canada, and while searching amid the surrounding desolation and desecration of this old burying ground, he came across the headstone erected over the last resting place of his paternal grandfather and three members of his family, bearing the following inscription : — 206 HISTORICAL CANADIAN BURYING GROUND. SACRED TO THB MEMORY OF HUGH FRASER, A NATIVE OF INVERNESS- SHIRE, SCOTLAND, AND FOR MANY YEARS A RESIDENT AT LAOHINE, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, 6TH FEBRUARY 1823, AGED 70 YEARS. — AND OF — ISABELLA FRASER, HIS WIFE, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, 4TH NOVEMBER, 1831, AGED 72 YEARS. — AND OF — ALEXANDER FRASER, HIS SOV, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, 24TH OCTOBER, 1816, AGED 25 YEARS. — AND OF — JANET FRASER, HIS DAUGHTER, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 24TH AUGUST, 1818, AGED 15 YEARS AND 6 MONTHS- This headstone records the death of four of his family — the writer's family, but of this family, paternal and maternal, bearing the same name, it may truly be said of them:— u Their graves are severed fkr and wide." Some of them are sleep- ing on battle fields in far India. Several fell during the American Revolutionary war. One died around the lost but recaptured cannon on Lundy's Lane. Another, a West India planter, fills a grave never seen by any of his family. And still another, a Chief Factor in the Hudson's Bay Company, lies buried on a Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, the spot being only known CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 207 to a few hunters of the buffalo and traders in fur. The whistle of the railway may now be heard near his last resting place, but he heeds it not ! The Canadian head of the family, as recorded on this headstone, visited Canada over one hun- dred years ago, in 1774, then quite a youth. This was while the United States were colonies of Great Britain. He was in Boston Harbour the next year (1775) on board of a British man-of- war during the battle of Bunker's Hill, and was an eye-witness of that battle. Twenty-five years later he became a permanent settler in Canada, and was one of the first Scotchmen to cut down a tree in the then wilds of Argenteuil. Hugh Fraser, the sleeper in that lone grave, far away from his native hills, no blooming heather nor blue bells of old Scotia to mark the spot ! was born about the year 1750, in Inverness, Scotland. This was a few years after the Scotch Kebellion of '45. His father and all his father's relatives were in the Fraser Regiment on fatal Culloden, fighting for Royal Prince Charlie ! His mother, with hundreds of other Scotchwomen, was in the Fraser camp, following the fortunes and the misfortunes of the clan. The dread echoes of Culloden sounded in her ears ! She 208 HISTORICAL CANADIAN BURYING GROUND. was an eye-witness of the sweep and the tramp of Cumberland's proud horse as they pursued and unmercifully cut down the broken and scattered clans. We may here note that a relative of his father's was the standard bearer of the Fraser flag on Culloden. He saved his banner by leaping a dyke which a pursuing Cumberland horse could not clear ; but receiving from the dragoon a sabre slash on his right leg as a farewell parting. That same man, thirteen years later, carried that same banner under Sir Simon Fraser, in the same Kegiment, in Wolfe's army, and planted it in the Eoyal cause on the Plains of Abraham, at Quebec, on the 13th of September, 1759. A VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. 14 CHAPTER XIX. A VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. It is now over forty years since our first visit to the battle field of Stoney Creek. This place is seven miles distant from the city of Hamilton, and is celebrated in Canadian story as being the scene of a night surprise, one of the most daring and gallant affairs which occurred during the war of 1812, and of which the men of the Niagara District and the descendants of the old York militia naturally pride themselves as having had relatives representing nearly every old family of Lincoln and York then serving in the little British force on the Niagara frontier. There were two surprises, turning points, at most critical periods of the war of 1812, by which the advance of superior American armies was arrested. The first occurred at Stoney Creek on 212 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. the early morning of Sunday, the 6th of June, 1813; and resulted in checking the advance of General Dearborn, then in full pursuit of the British force under General Vincent in his retreat from Fort George. The second was that of Chateauguay on the 26th of October, 1813 ; by which De Salaberry and his small force of Cana- dian Voltigeurs arrested and turned the advance of General Hampton on Montreal into a disastrous retreat. The people of Upper Canada claim Stoney Creek as their own. The militia of Lower Canada, De Salaberry and his little band of Cana- dian Voltigeurs have the undisputed honour of the Chateauguay affair; supported, however, on the last day by the timely arrival of Eed George — Colonel George Macdonnell, the hero of Ogdens- burg; with his six hundred Canadian Voyageurs from Kingston. ITS REAL IMPORTANCE. Stoney Creek in itself was but a small affair j that is, in so far as the numbers of the British force engaged, but in its result it proved the most important action of the whole war ; by checking the advance of a comparatively powerful army, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 213 flushed with recent victory, and turning that advance into an almost ignominious retreat, cer- tainly a disastrous one. To make this article more interesting to the young Canadian reader of the present day it is necessary we should give a short account of the positions, relative forces and the various move- ments of the two armies on the Niagara frontier during the early spring of 1813 ; previous to the evacuation of Fort George and the retreat of the British force to the entrenched position on Bur- lington Heights; close by the present city of Hamilton. General Vincent had command of the British force on the Niagara frontier, amounting to about 1,800 regulars and 500 militia; scattered over thirty miles, extending from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, down to Lake Ontario ; with headquarters at Fort George. During the winter of 1813, the Americans had made great preparations to strike a decisive blow for the reduction of Upper Canada. Their plans were well laid, but failed through the incompetency of their generals. The reader will bear in mind that at that time (1813; Great Britain was en- gaged in war all over the world, in Europe, Asia, 214 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. Africa and America; and could spare but few regular troops for Canada. The spring of 1813 found the Americans in full control of Lake Ontario, having comparatively a powerful fleet under Commodore Chauncey. Their first move was an attack on York ( Toronto) on the 27th of April, 1813 ; the place, being ill-prepared for defence, was easily taken. All the public stores, public buildings and ship- ping were taken and destroyed ; besides this, very little respect was paid to private property. The British Commander, General Sheaffe, being- unable to resist the attack, was forced, after a brave defence, to evacuate the town and to take up his line of retreat on Kingston ; thereby wise- ly (although blamed at the time) saving his regulars, then few in Canada, leaving the Ameri- cans masters of the place which they held for five days, and then sailed for the reduction of Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara river. FEARFUL ODDS. The attack on Fort George was commenced in the early morning of the 27th May, 1813. The Americans, besides their shipping, had an army of about 6,000 men of all ranks; the British CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 215 force at Fort George, all told, was about 1,000 men. Criticizing it at the present day it would have been wiser in General Vincent to have adopted General Sheaffe's plan, and to have taken up his line of retreat at once on Burlington Heights, than to have resisted the American attack with such fearful odds against him ; by which he would have saved hundreds of his best soldiers who were sacrificed in a useless defence. After a spirited defence of some four hours, the British loss of all ranks having amounted to about four hundred, between killed, wounded and miss- ing, General Vincent, to prevent his being sur- rounded and cut off, decided upon a retreat to the head of the lake and fell back across the country in a line parallel with the Niagara river, reach- ing the position at the Beaver Dam that night, at which place he was joined about midnight by Colonel Bisshop's force from Fort Erie and the other outlying posts on the Niagara. The next morning, the 28th, the now retreating British force of about 1,500 men, continued its retreat until it reached the entrenched position at Bur- lington Heights. The position of Burlington Heights was in the neighbourhood of Dundurn Castle, the residence 216 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. of the late Sir Allan Macnab, and we believe the Hamilton Cemetery now covers the ground on which the entrenched works (earth works) could be seen on the writer's first visit to that place in 1844. It was an important position during the war of 1812, being close by the road leading up to Ancaster, by which communication was had and kept up with the army of the west under General Proctor, then serving on the Detroit frontier. It was distant, midway, about fifty miles from Fort George and the same from York. On Saturday, the 5th of June, 1813, the ad- vance body of the Americans, consisting of two brigades of foot, amounting to 3,500 men, with eight guns, under Generals Chandler and Winder, and 250 cavalry under Colonel Burns, reached Stoney Creek, driving in the rear of the British. The Americans had in all about 6,000 men be- tween Stoney Creek and Fort George, besides their shipping. General Vincent had taken his stand that Saturday night on Burlington Heights, determined to hold it. The sun had gone down that night, closing a week, the darkest for the British arms during the war of 1812. The whole of the Niagara District, extending from Fort Erie to CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 217 Stoney Creek, was that night in possession of the enemy. A deep gloom pervaded every farm house and hamlet. It was nearly with the " silence of despair " that the women and children had witnessed during the previous week our country's brave defenders, among whom were their husbands, their fathers, their brothers, pass by in full retreat from Fort George, before supe- rior numbers. But let us turn our eyes to that determined little band as they stood that night on Burlington Heights. Their resolve was : — u To do or die !" and before the dawn of the next morning they played havoc in the enemy's camp. General Vincent's position on Burlington Heights was a most critical one; York on one side and Fort George on the other had both fallen ! His ammunition, which he had been forced to aban- don or destroy before evacuating Fort George, was reduced to about NINETY ROUNDS OF BALL CARTRIDGE for each man, and had he been forced to continue his retreat, unless the British fleet under Sir James Yeo could reach the anchorage near the Brandt House, some four miles distant from his position, and carry off his small force, he would 218 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. have had to continue his retreat by way of York, thence to Kingston ; over two hundred miles of hard country roads, not such roads as we have at the present day. The reader will bear in mind that York was then at the mercy of the American fleet. Vincent's position, as we said before, was a critical one, having a comparatively powerful army in full pursuit, seven miles distant, at Stoney Creek, following closely on his tracks. He had to decide between making A MOST DESPERATE STAND THERE, and abandoning his post with all its stores, &c, or continuing his retreat on Kingston. Such of our readers as have travelled over the line of Vincent's retreat from Fort George to Burlington Heights will call to mind that narrow neck of land between the Barton Heights and the head waters of Burlington Bay, on which the British force stood that Saturday night, the 5th of June, 1813. There were many young Canadians serving in that little British force, plucky boys, whose names will ever live cherished as household words in many a Canadian home. Some of them CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 219 afterwards rose high at the Bar, on the Bench, in the Legislative Halls, or as colonels of the Upper Canada Militia. We may here note that at a Queenston Heights annual dinner, nearly forty years ago, the late Sir Allan Macnab gave as a toast : "THE FIGHTING JUDGES OF UPPER CANADA." There were at that time five of those judges still living who had served through the whole war. The young Canadian reader of this day may thus form his estimate of the men who stood in the ranks of our Niagara frontier army of 1812, doing battle for their king and country. During the day, Saturday, the 5th of June, 1813, Colonel Harvey (afterwards Sir John Harvey, Governor of New Brunswick) had ac- quainted himself with the American position. Some say he had visited their camp at Stoney Creek during the afternoon disguised as a farmer selling vegetables. This we can hardly believe, because his commanding, soldierly appearance could not have escaped detection. Be this as it may, Harvey made himself thoroughly acquainted with the American position, and proposed a night attack, which General Vincent approved of. The advanced guard, or, rather the rear guard 220 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. of the British that afternoon was stationed about two miles in rear of the entrenched camp, near the present court house and square in the city of Hamilton (Hamilton was then nowhere, not even a village). On that spot, half an hour before midnight, the attacking party of 704 men was formed and took up its line of march on Stoney Creek, under Harvey. The writer had a near relative, his mother's brother, in the advance, close by Harvey. Before starting, every flint was taken out of their muskets so as to prevent the possibility of an accidental alarm. Silently they moved ; not a whisper was heard ; there was silence deep as death in the ranks during that midnight march of seven miles ! So silently did they move that not a sound was heard ; save now and then the crack- ing of a stray dry branch under foot ; some of Upper Canada's brightest youths were foremost in the leading files. Let us follow this Forlorn Hope with their seven hundred and four unloaded muskets and flintless locks on their midnight mission into THE VERY JAWS OF DEATH ! Every man, however, had his well-filled cartouche box containing sixty rounds of ball cartridge and CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 221 his trusty bayonet by his side. Not a British drum was heard, nor a Union Jack of England floated that night throughout the whole length and breadth of the old Niagara district, extend- ing from Fort Erie to Stoney Creek ! The fate of Upper Canada depended upon the success or failure of that night surprise ! Have you ever, reader, walked at midnight along a country road of Upper Canada in the old time, with towering trees — walnut, elm or oak overhanging — adding to the darkness ? If you have, you can picture the road over which this Forlorn Hope had to travel. Thence emerging from the thick darkness of their midnight tramp, they had to face an enemy's camp having six to one to greet their early unexpected Sunday morn- ing visit. iC Hush I" said Harvey, to a young man near him, the late Judge Jarvis ; " Hush, we are on them." In a moment the bayonets of two of the leading men pierced the first sentry - the second shared a like fate — the third escaped ; discharg- ing his gun and alarming the camp. BAYONETS TO THE FKONT. were the words passed quickly through the ranks ; and our leading files were soon in front of the 222 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. camp fires ; bayonetting many of the' sleeping enemy. The men then prepared to adjust their flints. During this operation a volley came from out of the darkness, from behind the camp fires, striking down a number of our men. To load was a work of time. It was first : — Handle car- tridge, prime, load, draw ramrods, ram down car- tridge, return ramrods (all this had to be done with the old musket) then, ready ! fire ! — Volley after volley followed, but with little execution, as they fired into the thick darkness behind the camp fires, not seeing the enemy. Harvey ordered two companies of the 49th Regiment to the right to attack; or, rather, to throw into confusion the left and centre of the enemy. Three of their guns, posted in the centre on the main road, were captured ; scarcely a gun- ner escaped. The late Colonel Fraser, of Perth, Ontario, then serving as a Sergeant in the 49th, having twelve men with him, crawled along the ground with his men, was one of the first among the guns, bayonetting seven of the gunners with his own hands. He was present at the capture. In fact, it was he, with his men, who captured the two American Generals, Chandler and Winder, ANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 223 near the guns, by which gallant act he obtained his commission on the field. There was fearful confusion in the American camp ; being ignorant of the strength of the at- tacking party, they fell back in great disorder ; numbers of them scrambled to the heights on their left. Colonel Burns, on whom the com- mand of the Americans now devolved, was among the first to mount his horse and clear off, with great speed, with his two hundred and fifty brave cavalry, reaching the Forty Mile Creek in a few hours on their way to Fort George. It is not our intention to particularize or to chronicle the many daring encounters during the darkness of that ever memorable Sunday morning, the 6th of June, 1813. Suffice it to say that Harvey's surprise was most successful and complete, causing the breaking up of the American camp and their immediate retreat. Sunday morning, before break of day, the now scattered parties of this Forlorn Hope fell back to return by the road over which they had advanc- ed ; they had suffered fearfully. They were not now the SEVEN HUNDRED AND FOUR of the previous night ; over one hundred and fifty 224 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFIELD OF STONEY CREEK. of them — between killed, wounded and missing — did not answer the Roll Call that morning. Let us take a peep at the shattered remnant as they muster and re-form for their return march to Burlington Heights. They are gathering and coming in from all parts of the field, some in small squads, some in twos, some in threes, others singly, and some bearing wounded comrades. OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ARE MISSING. But they have, swelling their ranks, two Ameri- can Generals, Chandler and Winder, seven officers • and one hundred and sixteen men, with three guns as trophies of war, gracing their blood-stained bayonets, thus rendering Stoney Creek the most gallant affair for the British arms during the war of 1812. There was but one mistake made that night, a fatal one ; that of our men placing themselves in front of the camp fires as living targets for the bullets of the unerring American rifles. Thus ends our visit to the battle field of Stoney Creek ; a spot which will ever be held sacred in the memory of Canadians in all coming genera- tions. But it is necessary to show its results. Two days later, on Tuesday, the 8th of June, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 225 1813, Sir James Yeo pushed into the shore with some of his smaller vessels near by the FORTY MILE CREEK and played havoc among the retreating Ameri- cans, capturing twelve of their bateaux and destroying five others, capturing all their tents, stores, etc. Four weeks later — early in July, 1813, General Vincent had his headquarters at Chippewa, three miles above the Falls of Niagara; being again master of the whole Canadian frontier on the Niagara, except Fort George ; and within its lines the American force of about four thousand men was cooped under the protection of its guns and the guns of their shipping, and also covered by the guns of Fort Niagara on the American side side of the Niagara river. The Americans evacuated Fort George on the 12th of Deceember, 1813, having on the 10th, two days previously, wantonly set fire to and destroyed the pretty little town of Newark (Niagara) con- taining about 150 houses, leaving but one stand- ing ; rendering houseless and homeless FOUR HUNDRED WOMEN AND CHILDREN to seek shelter where they could amid the storms of that unprecedentedly cold December ! 15 226 VISIT TO THE BATTLEFELD OF STONEY CREEK. Revenge for Newark was soon to follow ; the Americans, in great terror of the coming storm, evacuated Fort George so hurriedly that they left all their tents standing, with all their guns and stores behind them. Before the end of the month (December, 1813) the British had captured Fort Niagara by a mid- night attack; which they held until the end of the war. They also took and burned the Ameri- can towns of Lewiston, Manchester, Black Rock and Buffalo in revenge for Newark. And on the first day of January, 1814, not only was the Canadian Niagara frontier cleared of every American soldier, but the Union Jack of England floated proudly above the ramparts of Fort Niagara, on the American side of the Niagara River. This was the crowning glory of Harvey's successful night surprise at Stoney Creek. THE OLD BUNK OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. CHAPTER XX. THE OLD BUNK OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. si Pray, sir, can you inform me what a bunk is ? " asked a city lady of the writer one day. She had fixed her eye upon a nice, cosy little cottage in the country, some thirty miles from Montreal, delightfully situated on the bank of a romantic stream, a charming spot to spend the summer months, far away from the dust, the noise and the bustle of the city. This cottage was every way suitable, beautiful for situation, except in size, having merely a Butt and a Ben, a back kitchen and two small attic rooms which could be used as sleeping ones. The whole just large enough for two, or, as the lady said, " for love in a cottage." She had had a letter from the farmer's wife suggesting that she should get a couple or three bunks to make up for sleeping room. And, * What is a bunk ? " she asked. 230 THE OLD BUNK OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. A bunk ! Knowing this lady to have sprung from an old Canadian family, we rather astonished her by saying that her grandfather was born in a bunk, or, at least, was cradled and nursed in one as most of our Canadian grandsires were. A Canadian farmhouse bunk is a most useful article of furniture, and is sometimes made to be very ornamental, when cushioned and placed in the Ben, or best room of a Scotch house, it serves for a seat by day and a bed by night. The kitchen ones are turned to similar uses, " seats by day and beds by night." To describe a bunk for the information of our country readers, or for those brought up in the country, would be unnecessary, because they are to be found in every house, more particularly in the French and Scotch farm houses. They are in shape something like a long box, some seven feet long, made up from boards two feet wide, two feet bottom board, two feet side, and two feet top board ; the bottom and sides are fastened by hinges to close up. The back of the bunk and the two ends are some two feet higher than the body. When this bunk is opened it has a sleeping surface of four feet, capable, on an CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 231 emergency, to give sleeping room for three ordin- ary sized persons. On looking at our small French farmhouses, strangers naturally wonder where all the inmates find sleeping room. This is where the old farm bunk comes in and its usefulness is seen. These bunks are always nicely painted in one of the standing colours of the country, red or blue, which fact may have given rise to the distinctive names of Bleu and Rouge of the two political parties in Lower Canada. " Heads and thrawers." The writer as a boy lived in an old farm house two miles from the village school. The village boys were always delighted to get an invitation to spend a night. Sometimes four to six of them would find their way to the farm house to enjoy fruit, milk, etc. The difficulty was to find sleeping room. Here comes in the old bunk in " heads and thrawers" fashion — that is, three boys at the head and three at the foot. This would dispose of half a dozen in one bunk. There might be a little kicking and skylarking at the first, but they would soon be in the land of nod. The fun and merriment of the boys at one end would cause their feet to wander about the heads 232 THE OLD BUNK OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. and faces at the other end ; those wandering toes were disowned by all until a sharp bite from some opposite teeth called forth a yell as an acknow- ledgement of ownership as to whom they be- longed. SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTER XXL FIRST SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. " Falsely luxurious, and will not man awake ; and springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy the cool, the fragrant and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song ? When every muse and every blooming pleasure wait without to bless the wildly devious morning walk f 9 It is said the above beautiful lines from Thomson's '* Seasons," on early rising, were written by him when in bed at noon-day. The writer purposes giving a few summer morn- ing walks in and around Montreal, simply to point out spots that may have escaped the eye of the careless walker, also to impress upon our young pedestrians to think as they pass along, and to mark every apparently trifling circum- stance that meets the eye ; not for the purpose of printing it, but just to make a note of it in mem- ory's notebook. There is much to prize in our 236 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. every -day familiar scenes of life ; little incidents of the present passing day may be regarded as trifles, but a coming generation will value them. The time will come when homely sketches, such as the writer intends, will be used as a foundation by some future sketcher to enlarge upon. Let us suppose this to be the month of June — the brightest month of the whole year in Canada; there are, scattered in rich profusion, all around us, bright pictures, nature's unpainted pictures; photographed and held sacred in that unseen Art Gallery, in memory's wide waste ; to be met with on all sides by him who has an eye to see and a taste to appreciate such. The earlier blossoms of the plum, the cherry and the apple orchards, are just beginning to fade and to fall ; and the scent of the hawthorn, the latest of Canadian spring blossoms, is perceptibly felt, borne on the early morning breeze. Who would then, with such a treat before him, remain in bed longer than nature craves ? The morn is up again — the dewy morning, with breath all incense and with cheek all bloom. The trees, on either hand, are clothed or decked with new foliage, teaching man a lesson of the great coming spring ; when man, too, shall awake from CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 237 his slumbers, after life's long winter, crowned with a glory far outshining the beauties of na- ture ! The poet of the " Seasons " says : — " Forth in the pleasing spring Thy beauty walks, the softening air is balm, the forest smiles, and every sense and every heart is joy !" On such a morning our inward feelings natur- ally rise from nature up to nature's God. The meadows and the grain fields have just put on their summer verdure ; and stray flowers — wild- lings of nature, are peeping up here and there, by brook and hedgeside, arrayed in a glory far sur- passing that of Solomon ; affording a rich treat — yes, a golden feast, free to all, without price and without money. Who would not enjoy such a treat ? There is unspeakable pleasure and a deep study known only to those who avail themselves of it — while Mount Royal is still sleeping in its own great shadows, and before the first gleam of sun- rise has snuffed out the stars — to pace at early morning the deserted streets of our city, when silence reigns supreme ! and naught is heard save the sounds of one's own footstep on the stone pavements, or the shrill chirp of some disturbed sparrows nestled in the house eaves. 238 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. We shall leave the streets of the city alone for the present ; our first tramp is to the country — far away from the dust and the turmoil of the town. Here we are, standing at the foot of McGill street, inhaling the fresh morning air from the noble St. Lawrence as it flows silently but majes- tically past the sleeping city, and taking a bird's eye view down our magnificent harbour front at the different vessels, from the mammoth sea-going steamers to the small coal barges and bat- eaux in the Port of Montreal ; suppose we take the Lower Lachine Eoad for our first walk. The former beautiful river front of the harbour of Montreal is now destroyed by the present un- sightly but useful dyke, which we think when ultimately carried up to the two-mile post on the Lower Lachine Road, will save Montreal from future spring and fall inundations. When look- ing at this unsightly dyke, we venture to throw out the hint, that a promenade should be erected on the top of it, some ten or twelve feet wide, from the foot of the Lachine Canal to the C. P. R depot. This would be the most charming prome- nade for morning and evening walks to be found on this Island. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 239 The sun is j ust rising as we enter upon Well- ington street. We remember the time when there was not over a score of buildings between Grey Nun street and the Lachine Canal bridge. Griffiintown was then known and famed for its brick yards. We believe this old road to have been the first travelled road in Canada west of Montreal, by European foot. This was the road by the bank of the St. Lawrence, by which the early French explorers, led by their dusky guides, found their way to the head of the Lachine Eapids — the old Sault St. Louis, and had a full view of Lake St. Louis, the supposed water-way through Canada to China. Standing on the Canal bridge, what thoughts arise ! We recall the old canal, some four feet deep, with its bateaux and Durham boats passing up and down, towed by horses, and by which the whole transport business of the country was done. What a change to-day ! to see one of those large lake steamers pass through this now enlarged canal, drawing from 10 to 12 feet of water, and with a carrying capacity of nearly one hundred of the old bateaux. The old canal was so narrow that a man might jump over it ; this was actually done by Frederick Penn, now Major Penn, of Wales, 240 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. England, he jumped over between the old locks at the entrance of the canal, a width of about 20 feet. He was then fifty years younger than to- day. "We remember the time when there were not over half a dozen of buildings between this canal bridge and the river St. Pierre, a distance of about two miles. It was then open fields to the right and open fields to the left, stretching from the St. Gabriel locks to the River St. Lawrence. The priests' farm was on the right hand going out, and the nuns' on the left, next to the river. There was a large space of open ground, about twenty acres, called the " Commons,'' between the canal and the city — that is, between Wellington street and the great Forwarding houses doing business on the bank of the canal. Some of those warehouses are still standing. Those fields or farms betwen the Lachine Canal and the River St. Pierre were used in the old times for grand Reviews or sham fights. On those fields, in our young days, we witnessed many a grand military display. We remember a Water- loo sham fight ; this was in 1839. There must have been fully 10,000 troops on the field, and the spectators equalled in number the troops. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 241 The spectators took possession of the scattered trees. We got perched high up on the limb of a tree and had a grand view of the whole field- The writer's companion on that tree was Thomas A. Begley, afterwards Secretary of the Board of Works. Those days have passed away, and those fields are now no longer fields, but form two large suburbs of the city of Montreal. Casting our eyes first to the right hand, then to the left ; what a change has taken place during the past thirty years ! On what were then open commons or grazing fields, two large villages or towns have sprung up— Point St. Charles on the left hand, next to the river, and St. Gabriel on the right hand, bordering on the canal — and are now large and growing municipalities, and form part of the suburbs of the city of Montreal ; and instead of a long and lonesome road of about two miles from the canal bridge to the River St. Pierre, the whole road is now one continuous village or town street — being a continuation of Wellington street. The old house on the priests' farm, enclosed by a high stone wall, which stood near by the pre- sent St. Gabriel locks, has disappeared. The nuns' buildings on the left, on the river bank, 16 242 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. facing the nuns', or St. Paul's Island, having a large and valuable frontage on Wellington street, with its old roadway of over a century ago, lead- ing up to the home of those good ladies, lined with Lombardy poplars, the fashionable or popu- lar tree of by-gone days in Lower Canada, still stands, a notable landmark of early Canadian days. The offices and the workshops of the Grand Trunk Eailway of Canada are on the left hand going out, between Wellington street and the Kiver St. Lawrence, joining with the Victoria bridge, and covering a large space of ground. The rapid growth of Point St. Charles and St. Gabriel was, and is, chiefly owing to the Grand Trunk works giving employment to thousands. Let us pause here for a short time, to point to the spot where stood the cholera sheds of 1832 ; near by the Victoria bridge, where sleep, without shroud and without coffin, in their hurriedly- made pits, thousands of Ireland's almost unknown and nearly forgotten dead ! A writer has said : u There is a tear for all who die, a mourner o'er the humblest grave !'' Few men now living in Montreal can recall those days — fifty-eight years ago, when the pesti- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 243 lence that walketh in darkness, and the destruc- tion that wasteth at noon-day, was abroad in our land, cutting down its thousands ! The Irish immigrant families who arrived on our shores during the cholera of 1832 and the ship fever of 1847, now scattered over all Canada, will ever point to this spot, beneath whose turf lie buried dear ones belonging to them. Their names are cherished ; while the silent sigh arises, and the unseen tear is shed, not alone in Canada, but at many a corner and in many a cabin in the far-off Green Isle, in memory of those dead ones ! " There came to the beach " — thus wrote Thomas Campbell, the Scotch poet, on meeting with a lone Irish exile in Holland, in 1801 — " There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin ; the dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill !" We may add that not only one, but tens of thousands of Irish exiles or immigrants came to our beach or shore during the perilous times of 1832 and 1847. While thousands of them fell victims to the dread pestilence that walketh in darkness, and found a last resting-place in this home of Ireland's almost forgotten dead ! They had, however, every attention paid to them by dear ones of their church, when dying in a strange 244 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. land, by those Sisters of Mercy, the Good Nuns, from their sacred home near by. We shall pass on — leaving the dead of 1832 and 1847 to their peaceful slumbers. The clanking engines and the freighted cars of living men roll- ing over them unceasingly, from early morning until midnight, from week to week, and from year to year ; but those silent sleepers of the cholera pits heed them not, they are at rest and forever from their labours until the great trum- pet's blast shall awake them to new life. These morning walks are written for the bene- fit of our young friends. We would advise them to retire early — or rather go to bed early during the summer months and be up with the sun, and enjoy an hour's walk in the early morning ; do not walk too hurriedly to tire, but quietly, so as to enjoy " the cool, the fragrant and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song." By this means our young business friends would find themselves refreshed and strengthened for the labours of the day. Try it, young men, and you will find it a greater treat than late hours spent at a club or at any other place of evening amuse- ments. We have now reached the bridge which crosses CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 245 the little river St. Pierre, we shall quietly sit down here, light our pipe and take a rest and in- dulge in a present and retrospective view of the changes that have taken place around this spot within the memory of the writer, and here close our first summer walk before entering upon the country where, " One heart free, tasting nature's breath and bloom, is worth a thousand slaves to mammon's gains.' ' SECOND SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTER XXI. SECOND SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. This is the River St. Pierre, where we rested at the close of our first walk. It is some two miles from the canal bridge. In the old days this was a romantic little stream, meandering, in its curves and windings, through meadow, wood- land and marsh ; but a stranger would now naturally ask : Where is the river 1 There is now no river to be seen here ; it has disappeared — dried up. Even its old bed can hardly be traced. The bridge alone remains. Before the Lachine Canal was built, and even in later days — in the memory of the writer — the River St. Pierre was a noted landmark, or, rather, a noted water mark on the Lower Lachine Road. It was a running stream the whole year, except for a short time during winter. It had a depth of several feet at its mouth, where it emptied 250 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. into the St. Lawrence. This was a favourite resort in other days for the sportsmen of Montreal, where they found good shooting and excellent fishing in season. The mouth of this river was a noted place half a century ago for duck shooting ; but the march of modern improvement having encroached upon their hatching grounds, forced the wild duck to seek a quieter home, far away from the noise of railway and the abodes of busy man. It had its source or fountain head supply somewhere at the head of the Island of Montreal ; its course or channel was through the lowlands in rear of the village of Lachine, crossing the Upper Lachine Road at the foot of the Coteau Hill, near by the present Blue Bonnets. Then through the centre of that low land or marsh, once a lake, which lies between the high lands of Cote St. Pierre and Cote St. Paul. This low land or valley is now the highway for rail- ways from Montreal to the West. In its onward course it crossed the road be- tween the Cote St. Paul bridge and the Tanneries, as may be seen at the present day by that deep water cut, made of late years, in the bed of the old channel, which has served to drain the old CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 251 lake or marsh, rendering it, from its deep and rich deposits of centuries, the best producing vegetable garden of Montreal, and is now famed for its cabbages, turnips and celery. Drains and new water courses made of late years, since the building of the Lachine canal, and more especially the tail race of the Montreal water works, have cut off the supplies of water which, in the old times, found their outlet by the channel of the St. Pierre into the St. Lawrence, leaving it as at the present day, a river of the past, known only by name, with nothing to mark where a river had been, except this old bridge. Come, young reader, let us sit down on this old bridge and endeavour to draw a picture of past days — centuries ago ; and paint this once romantic woodland stream in its primeval beauty. We presume you know this spot, and you can, in your mind's eye, follow up the curves and windings of this little river through meadow, woodland and marsh, to the rear of the village of Lachine. You have read of the Massacre of Lachine by the Iroquois in 1689. After the massacre, the Iro- quois, about 1500, drew up their canoes into the then deep forest, over a mile in rear of Lachine, and established their camp on the bank of the St. 252 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. Pierre ; this was close by the present. Dominion station on the Lachine Railway, and remained there for over two months, holding possession of the whole Island, even up to the gates and palis- sades of Montreal. We cannot but think that the "St. Pierre was then used by the Iroquois as their war path in their approaches to the town, in which the whole French force had taken refuge from the dread Indian. In those early days — two centuries ago, before the disappearance of the forest, — there must have been several feet of water in this river, even at mid-summer; sufficient to allow scouting parties of the Iroquois in their canoes to approach quite close to the outskirts of Montreal ; therefore, we think, the channel of the St. Pierre was used by the Iroquois, from their encampment in rear of Lachine, to approach close by and strike terror into the enclosed inhabitants. When we reach Lachine, in our morning walks, we shall fully describe the position of the Indian camp of 1689. ( See page 16.) On the river bank, just where the St. Pierre emptied into the St. Lawrence, stands an old building known in the early days of this century as " Chapman's brewery." The King's highway CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 258 then passed in front of the Brewery ; but the present Lower Lachine Road runs some two acres inland from it. This old building has been used for several years past by Mr. Mooney in connection with his wool business. We may state that Mr. Dawes, the founder of the celebrated Dawes' Brewery at Lachine, was employed in Chapman's Brewery for several years after his first arrival in Canada. The pavilion — the old race course of Montreal — is about a quarter of a mile from the St. Pierre bridge; bordering on the road that now runs from Lower Lachine to Cote St. Paul. This old race course was a celebrated place between forty and fifty years ago. The annual races were held during the second week of September. The races were conducted under the strictest rules of English horse racing, and attracted sports- men with their horses from all parts of the United States. The large number of officers of the British army then stationed in Canada, patronized those races with their presence, which gave them altogether an English character. This race course was finally closed up over forty years ago. The old house known as the Pavilion still stands, and is now used as a private dwelling. 254 . SUMMER MORNINO WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. This old house could reveal tales of many a for- tune, or large sums of money, made and lost here during those old horse-racing days . It was also a celebrated carousing place, just outside the city limits for the townspeople during the whole year, having excellent roads leading back to town by way of Cote St. Paul and the Tanneries. There was always plenty of sport for gun and rod to be had here during the duck shooting and fishing seasons. The celebrated Hadley farm, on which the father of the Hadleys first settled, lies between what was the old race-course and the Kiver St. Pierre. Their old homestead which stood near by Chapman's Brewery, on the river shore, is now a ruin, having been burned down some four years ago. Old Mr. Hadley was a fine stamp of an English farmer, and was famed for his stock of cattle. This farm stretched out to near Cote St. Paul, and is now laid out in village lots and largely built upon. On this farm, between Cote St. Paul road and the St. Pierre bridge, occurred a fatal duel on the 22nd of May, 1838. This was the duel fought between Major Ward, of the 1st Royals, Col. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 255 Wetherall's regiment, and Captain Sweeney, of the volunteer force. Major "Ward was instantly killed. His death cast a deep gloom over the whole city. Major Ward was a great favorite both in military and civil circles. Poor Sweeney fled the country and suffered a thousand deaths for the death he had caused. They had been, we believe, sworn or close friends before the unfortunate cause which gave rise to that fatal meeting. The Lower Lachine Road from the Wellington street canal bridge to the Pavilion, runs inland from the St. Lawrence nearly a mile in some parts. The road and the river approach each other in front of the Pavilion. Opposite the Pavilion, about a mile, midway in the St. Law- rence, is that beautiful island, the '• Nun's," or St. Paul's, having a magnificent sheet of smooth water all the way up from Point St. Charles, be- tween the island and the river shore, up to the head of the island, a distance of about two miles. This island (the Nun's) was pointed to some years ago, and then spoken of as at some future day becoming a suburb of Montreal, or a west end park for the people of Point St. Charles and St. Gabriels. This may yet happen. The island 256 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. offers every inducement of becoming a favorite summer resort, the only drawback being the spring and fall inundations to which it is subject. The large body of smooth water between the island and the river shore would make a suitable regatta or boating place. It has, in fact, been used in a small way for several years past for boat racing. On the river shore — just above the Pavilion, between the road and the river, stands the country house" of Mr. Joseph Rielle, architect. The grounds are tastefully laid out ; it is a charming spot. The day will come, and is not distant, when there will be many such cosy, comfortable country villas on the Lower Lachine Road, which offers so many inviting spots to build upon. We cannot pay Mr. Rielle a higher compliment than by saying he has displayed good taste without extravagance. This charming residence was oc- cupied by Mr. W. W. Ogilvie during the year 1887. The bank of the St. Lawrence and the old road which followed the windings of the river shore for about five miles upwards, from this spot, to where stood the Old King's Posts of 1812, is truly storied ground ; though the history thereof may CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 25 1 be unwritten. When we reach the King's Posts we shall picture it as we remember the spot over sixty years ago. This was the road by which all the early French explorers, French mission- aries and the armies of Old France found their way to the place of embarkation, westward, in their canoes, at the head of the Lachine Rapids. The late James Somerville, over forty years ago, told the writer that on one day during the war of 1812, he saw about 1,000 British soldiers (red coats), march up this road, past the Rapids, to the King's Posts, to take bateaux there on their way to Upper Canada to join the army on the Niagara frontier. This was the highway for the armies of Old France, and also the British armies, before the Lachine Canal was built. Nearly three centuries have passed away since Champlain, then Governor of French Canada, found his way by this road to the head of the Rapids — the old Sault St. Louis, and had his first sail, in an Indian canoe, down those now far- famed Lachine Rapids. This visit of Champlain to the head of the Lachine Rapids occurred some thirty years before 17 258 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. the foundation of Montreal by Maisonneuve in 1642. Champlain then established a fur trading post some two miles above the Lachine Rapids. This old trading post was occupied some fifty years later (in 1666) by Robert de la Salle. He remained there some four years, and then left on his celebrated exploring expeditions westwards and southwards to the mouth of the Mississippi, never again to return to that place. When we reach that place we shall give a full description of it. We have now reached what may be at no very distant day an important boundary outside of Montreal. This is the two-mile post on the Lower Lachine Road, the proposed limit of the extension of the embankment or dyke to be built from Point St. Charles to this point for the pre- vention of future floods, and under the shade of that stately old elm, which has stood there be- yond the memory of living man, we shall close this, the second part of our Summer Morning Walks. THIRD SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTER XXII. THIRD SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. Every traveller along the Lower Lachine Road, whether in a carriage and pair, or trudging it on foot, will remember that old elm which stood alongside of the second mile-post, where we rested at the close of the second part of our " Summer Morning Walks." This old tree, half a century ago, was a noted landmark on the Lower Lachine Road. It is now only a wreck or a skeleton of what it once was. Few men now living can recall that destructive rain and hail storm which occurred in the early spring of 1838, wrecking and, in some places, totally destroying forest trees and orchards. It rained almost incessantly for a whole week. The rain froze on the trees as it fell, causing ice to form on the branches of the larger trees, in some places to the thickness of a foot. A strong wind then sprang up, causing the 262 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. branches and larger limbs of the largest trees to snap and fall to the ground, snapping and break- ing off as if they had been dry rotten branches. The highways, orchards and forests were strewn with fallen limbs and in some places whole trees. It was a dangerous task for over a week to ven- ture out on the public road. The sharp reports of snapping branches was something like a continuous discharge of small guns from morning to midnight. This old tree then stood — before that destruc- tive rain storm — "A thing of beauty'' — spreading its branches far and wide into the adjoining field and down to the river shore, affording shade to the weary traveller, and nestling places for the birds of the forest ; even the red squirrels, al- though it was not a nut-growing tree, loved to disport themselves in playful pranks through its branches. u A thing of beauty " it really was, towering high and spreading far and wide, and might have stood there ' c A joy forever " and a noted land- mark during many generations, had it not suffered from that rain and hail storm of 1838. The trunk of this old tree looks the same now as it did fifty years ago. It may be a century or CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 263 more old. We fancy, in the old time, its position being a mile below the Lachine Rapids, that it was a favourite halting place for the old voyageurs before entering upon their great tug to pull up and past the Rapids. Be this as it may, it is even now a noted land- mark, being just opposite to the head of the Nun's Island We feel it a duty to note every incident how- ever trivial. Here comes a veritable habitant of other days. He has not the tuque, the sash, nor the moccasins, of the old Canadian, but he has not forgotten that native politeness which marks the habitant of the French parishes. He does not greet you with a stiff, awkward, vulgar nod of the head, his hat is lifted in a grace- ful manner, and you are greeted with a profound bow, in which none in this country can equal or compare with a French-Canadian. Here is a farmyard near by '.; it has the appear- ance of being a large dairy or milkman's farm ; there are some thirty cows, and as it is about milking time, we shall step in and have a chat with the pretty milk-maids. Degenerate days, dirty loons ! we exclaimed as 264 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. we entered the yard; instead of the pretty milk- maids of other days, we found some half a dozen men doing the duty which properly belonged to the girls. This work of milking cows, assumed by men, has knocked all the poetry out of the pictures associated with the pretty milk-maid of yore. What a contrast ! Just look at those fellows ; some of them half-washed, one leg of their trousers or pants inside — the other outside of a pair of dirty long boots, with a black cutty pipe in mouth, exchanging slang phrases, one with the other, as they perform their unmanly task. Compare this picture with what we were so familiar in our young days on this very road. The milk- maid was then a reality, just such as have been pictured by poet or painter. Let us try and picture one of those farm yards of the old time. The number of cows we shall suppose to be about twenty. It is an early morning in sum- mer. Here come three young girls, lasses, as they were called, Scotch, of course. They are dressed in neat calicoes, with white aprons and jaunty little sixpenny straw hats, with ribbons, having pails as clean as new, and a small three- legged stool to sit upon. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 265 As they sit down to their morning work you would fancy the cows knew and recognized their milkers. The rule was that each girl had her set of cows, and they knew each other. The fair milkers join in some merry chant or song, most likely a Jacobite one, rendered in Gaelic. Therefore, pardon us, when we recall this picture of other days, while beholding the present one before our very eyes, in exclaiming, degenerate days, dirty loons ! Every spot as we pass along is familiar ground ; but the faces of old do not greet us, nor we them ; a new generation has sprung up, even the old names of the farms have given place to new ones ; and we feel ourselves a stranger, almost a deso- late stranger on this old road, amid the very scenes that gladdened our young days. All is changed and changing along this river shore, save the broad, the unchangeable St. Law- rence, flowing rapidly along, as of old, at our very side. The rapids are near, rolling tumbling along in the self-same course as they have rolled during untold centuries. Shall we say : " Such as crea- tion's dawn beheld, thou rollest now !" We must recall some noted names of the past — not to point a moral, nor to adorn a tale, but 266 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. simply to preserve the memories of some worthy men. Near by lived the three Archys. Old Archi- bald Ogilvie, young Archy, and the other Archy — called " Bauldy/' young Archy's cousin. Old Archy departed this life about a quarter of a century ago ; he served as a trooper in the Montreal cavalry in 1812. Young Archy died in 1887. beinsr nearly four-score years. Bauldy is still to the fore. These three 6< Archys " were noted members of the far-famed Lichine Troop of Cavalry during the troubles of 1837 and 1838. This troop could boast of being the finest riders — the most graceful horsemen in Canada. To have seen those boys sit their horses fifty years ago, headed by their dashing leader, Captain Penner, was a sight for any Canadian to be proud of. We have no such riders nowadays. Old Archy, we believe, succeeded Charles Penner as Captain, then followed young Archy. The last meeting we remember of the Troop, headed by young Archy, was at the reception of the 39th Regiment, after the Crimean war. The troopers were hurriedly mustered from their ploughs for the occasion. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 267 Some of the Montreal men remarked that it would be dangerous to place the raw horses of the Lachine Troop too near the cannon. Young Archy replied : — ts If his horses would not stand the fire, that his men would sit and keep their saddles !" — being a sharp cut to those town riders who had been spilt out of their saddles on the first fire ! The other Archy, " Bauldy," was a merry, rollicksome fellow in 1837 — the pride of the troop, full of fun and devilment, and would be so now were it not for his rheumatics, which have stiffened him somewhat. By the way, we shall give a little story how two drunken men were sobered by Bauldy, which caused many a hearty laugh at headquarters of the troop in 1838. After a hard ride of some twenty miles, in those days of despatch carrying, Bauldy arrived late one winter night at a country inn at a small village on the frontier, having but one spare bed. This bed had been occupied for nearly two days by two men, with their clothes on, being on a big spree. Bauldy requested to be shewn to the room — then blew out his candle and sprang into the bed, 268 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. fully accoutred as he was, with sword, long boots, spurs, etc., just as he had dismounted from his horse, and placed himself, pretending to be drunk, between the two drunken men. A prod to the right, then a prod to the left, from his heavy cavalry spurs, soon roused the two drunken men to consciousness, uttering sacres and la diable. A. few such prods left Bauldy in full possession of the bed, while the two partly sober- ed but really terrified men found their way down in the dark to the bar-room, declaring that the devil was upstairs, to be greeted with the merri- ment and the loud laugh of the assembled villagers, who were already in the secret of Bauldy's sobering appliances. We are jogging slowly along; our readers, however, will pardon us if we pause over many a a well-remembered scene or spot, and linger to depart. These are but homely notings, but may be appreciated by many at a distance who have, at one time and another, passed over this old road. We are approaching Verdun and other noted places, of which we shall have something to say in a future number. By the way, we are at the La Tortue steamboat CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 269 wharf, near by the three mile post, and as the little steamer has just arrived, laden with market carts full of country produce. We shall take our seat on the old wharf and note the habitant farmers as they land, mount their charette and drive off to the Montreal market, and close this third part of our " Summer Morning Walks." FOURTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTER XXIV. FOURTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. The La Tortue steamboat wharf, on which we closed our third summer morning walk, is close by the three-mile post on the Lower Lachine Eoad. The little steamer that calls here plies between this and the village of La Tortae, a few miles above Laprairie, near about the foot of the La- chine Rapids, on the south shore of the St. Law- rence. The country roads from Caughnawaga and the French back parishes centre at La Tortue and supply a large traffic in country produce, such as hay, etc., during the open season of navigation. We purpose some day to take a morning sail on this jDoat and walk up by the south shore of the St. Lawrence, through the Indian reserve, to the old Indian town of Caughnawaga, the home of the Iroquois, and make a few notes of such things a& may come under our eye. 18 214: SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. A writer has said : — " There is a pleasure in " the pathless woods ; there is a rapture on the " lonely shore !" This is not altogether a lonely shore, but in comparison with the old time it is almost a deserted one. A century ago, before the Lachine Canal was built, this river shore and this old road was the busiest place and the most travelled road in Canada. It was the highway of an empire yet to be. Just at the very spot where we are resting, at the foot of the Lachine Rapids, is an inlet, or small bay, where the ascending bateaux and barges sheltered or moored in the old time pre- paratory to pulling up and past the rough shore of the Rapids. It was at this spot where the immigrants de- barked and walked up past the rapids, and the bateaux and barges were lightened of their cargo to make the ascent e asier. On this road and by this river shore, nearly a century ago, all the first sturdy Scotch Highland settlers of Glengarry and Argenteuil passed up- wards in search of their forest homes ; to lay the foundation of an empire, and to plant and to main- tain inviolate, as they have done, in these Cana- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 275 dian wilds, the standard of a greater Britain than the little Britain they had left. The merry song of the Canadian voyageurs broke forth as they commenced their rowing and poling upwards ; but the song of the nearly ex- patriated Highlanders was doleful ; full of sorrow for the homes they had left. It was " Lochaber no more.'' Everything was new and strange to them; even the language around them was foreign — it was French; but still those French voyageurs were subjects of the same crown and loyal defenders of the same flag. They had a feeling in common : Canada, their country. Those Scotch Highlanders had left their bleak mountains and their barren hills to found homes in the wilds of Canada. Thus far on their jour- ney — after their ten to fourteen weeks of a sea voyage, which was a common thing in those early days, they had as yet walked very little on the shore or land of their adopted country until they reached this point — their first portage of four miles upwards, to pass the Lachine Rapids, to the old King's Posts. We fancy a cheering sight met their eyes in this short walk which must have gladdened their hearts. 276 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. The families of the writer's grandfathers, pa- ternal and maternal, bearing the same name, passed up by this river shore in bateaux, nearly a century ago, branching off and separating at the meeting of the waters at St. Anne's, at the head of the Island of Montreal, one family to the right hand — to the wilds of Argenteuil, the other to the left, to the Canadian Glengarry. This old road was celebrated in early days as abounding in fruit orchards, the apple, the pear and the cherry of old France were choicest of fruit. Some of the old orchards along this road were planted in the early days of the Jesuit Fathers. The sight of apple orchards, a novelty to Scotch Highlanders of those days, bearing tempting fruit hanging by the wayside, must have cheered the hearts of the new-comers, reassuring them that their lot was cast in a land not only capable of producing the finest of grain, but the fairest and choicest of fruit. This was also the highway of armies during the three years of the war of 1812. Every soldier, every regiment of the^British army on their way westward to Upper Canada, passed upwards in CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 2*7*7 bateaux and barges by this river shore with their cannon and baggage. The men all debarked at the foot of the Eapids and marched over this portage of four miles to the barracks at the King's Posts. This is truly storied ground ! This was the military highway during the French days as well as the British. 6i It is an ill wind that blows nobody good.'' The inundations that have caused so much destruction, spring and fall, to property at Point St. Charles and St. Gabriel, and retarded the growth of Montreal westwards, have pointed out the only remedy to avert such floods in the future. This is by building an embankment, a very sim- ple work, from the Victoria bridge up to the second mile-post on the Lower Lachine Road, a distance of some three miles. This embankment, when completed, would offer inducements to one of our great railways, most likely the Canadian Pacific, to extend their road by the harbour and river front ; the only obstacle would be the crossing of the Grand Trunk at the Victoria Bridge, up to the foot of the Rapids; thence to connect with the St. Lawrence Bridge ; this could easily be done by a detour up the Knox farm, crossing the rear of the King's Post 2*78 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. farms and the other farms above the King's Post, and connecting with the track of the C. P. R. on the rear of Mrs. Conway's farm leading to the bridge. Such a track will, sooner or later, be built when that time shall come, the land on the Lower Lachine Road, which can now be had at less than one cent per foot, will then command five cents. The necessities of the great railways centering at Montreal demand extensive grounds for the workshops, factories, etc., and stock yards for cattle. The present large and annually increas- ing supply of cattle for shipment points to the necessity of having ample accommodation to handle such a trade. The farms lying between the Pavilion and Knox's mills, and between the Aqueduct and the St. Lawrence, offer every inducement to establish, in the near future, workshops, &c, and stock yards to meet the demand of the cattle trade, now only in its infancy. And when pointing to this, we must not omit to point to a scheme the writer has long pondered over : —That is a West End Park for the poor people of Point St. Charles and St. Gabriel. Our mountain Park is the rich man's park. We want CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 279 a poor man's park, and the people of this day should not allow this opportunity to slip. THE LA SALLE PARK. The proposed West End Park should be named the " La Salle Park," in memory of Robert de la Salle who, at one time, over two hundred years ago, was seigneur of Lower Lachine. La Salle is the brightest name in Canadian his- tory, he once trod the same ground we now tread, and while his name and his memory are preserved and perpetuated in every American town and city from Detroit to the mouth of the Mississippi, Montreal alone has nothing commemorative of him. Have you ever, reader, as you have passed along the Lower Lachine Road, cast your eyes on that block of land — those three farms — between Ver- dun, the property of John Crawford and the Somerville property, having a frontage of one mile on the Lachine Rapids and a breadth of half a mile in the rear on the Aqueduct— the whole containing about six hundred acres ? and then pictured to yourself what a magnificent west end park this block of land would make. You may travel the whole Island of Montreal and not find another spot to compare with this *or the purpose of a public park. 280 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. Having a mile frontage on the Lachine Rapids and a half mile on the .Aqueduct in the rear, it would compare favourably, for beauty and grandeur of situation, with the great Interna- tional Park at the Falls of Niagara. The time is not distant when a carriage road, connecting with the Atwater avenue, will be built along the bank of the Aqueduct, then a horse ear track would soon follow, affording easy access to the proposed park, not taking into account the almost certainty of a railway by the river front. These hints are thrown out with the hope that decided action will be taken by the people of Montreal to secure that block of land referred to, for the purpose of a West End park. KNOx'S MILLS. We have reached a spot which, half a century ago, promised to be the Manchester of Canada ; it had, and still has, flowing wastefully past, water power capable of turning one-third of the mills of Canada, waiting only to be profitably utilized. The opening of a railway by the river shore may yet call this power into actual work. Fifty years ago this place had its flour mills, its carding, spinning and weaving mills, its nail CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 281 factory and its barley and oatmeal mills. All these are now closed up and silence reigns here. Nothing but wreck and ruin meet the eye ! This is a deserted place ! Amid these ruins and wreck, so full of promise in the days of our boyhood, we shall close this, the fourth part of our Summer Morning Walks. FIFTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTEE XXV. FIFTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. Knox's Mills, where we closed our fourth Sum- mer Morning Walk, is about six miles from the city of Montreal, and near by the five-mile post on the Lower Lachine Road, just facing the Lachine Eapids. The late William James Knox, a young Irish gentleman, possessed of considerable means, about the year 1835, then a member of the firm of Begly, Knox & Co., of Montreal, purchased from the gentlemen of the Seminary of St. Sulpice all the mills and milling privileges owned by them on the Lachine Rapids. Besides the Seminary property Mr. Knox pur- chased the farms of Archibald Ogilvie and William Hannah. He also purchased a part of the priests' or Seminary property bordering on the River St. Pierre. This purchase of the Ogilvie and Hannah farms and the seminary milling property, was made for 286 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. the purpose of growing flax and for the establish- ment of mills for the manufacture of linen. At the time Mr. Knox made these purchases, there were in active operation there, Mr. Lacha- pelle's flour mills, Mr. Weaver's carding, spinning and weaving mills, Mr. Cutter's nail factory and Mr. Goudie's barley and oatmeal mills. These mills then did a large and profitable business. Somehow or other those parties were all driven from, or, rather, were forced to close up their mills and leave the place. The reason — at the time — assigned for this was Mr. Knox's desire to get rid of them so as to afford him scope or room for his intended flax mills. Be this as it may, they all left — leaving Mr. Knox sole master of the situation to carry out, uncontrolled, his then grand schemes. These grand schemes all failed! or, rather, were never entered upon. Whether this was caused by the disastrous times in commercial circles during the troubles of 1837 and 1838, we know not ; but the mills were all closed, and the millers all left for other parts, leaving this then promising manufacturing place gradually to fall into decay ! and to present to the eye, as it does CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 28T to-day, nothing but wreck and ruin ! A deserted place ! COUNTRY VILLA RESIDENCES. A stranger from the United States remarked one day to the writer that it was singular there were so few villa residences on the Lower Lachine Road, and added — If such a river shore was with- in ten miles of the city of Boston, it would be studded with neat country homes, surrounded with flower gardens and orchards. Two obstacles have operated against the growth of this river side. The first was, and is, the semi-annual floods, spring and fall, inundating the land as far out — and even farther— than the River St. Pierre. The second was the building of the Grand Trunk Railway, the track of which crosses the road leading out, making a carriage drive a rather dangerous enjoyment at certain hours of the day. From the two-mile up to near the six-mile post on the Lower Lachine Road is the most invit- ing spot to select five or ten acre lots on which to build country villas now or at some future day. The bank is sufficiently high and dry, being fully fifteen feet above the highest known floods. This part of the river bank is not unlike, in 288 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. height and appearance, the Canadian bank of the Niagara river from Chippewa up to old Fort Erie, and no more charming retreat can be found in the whole of Canada for quiet summer residences than this, having excellent fishing spots; the land, too, is of the best quality for the making of gar- dens and planting of orchards. The only drawback at present are the roads, the Grand Trunk track, as above referred to, hav- ing interfered with the carriage drive; but the day is coming when a rail track will be laid upon the embankment to be made, up to Knox's mills, thence to connect with the St. Lawrence bridge, three miles further up. Besides this railway by the river shore, there will sooner or later be made a carriage road on the north bank of the Aqueduct, all the way out to the entrance of the " new inland cut," to connect at the city limits with the At water avenue run- ning up to Sherbrooke street. When such con- nections are made, this river front will become the most favourite summer resort for the citizens of Montreal. SAILING UP THE LACHINE RAPIDS. Most travellers know what a sail down the Lachine Rapids is, and thousands from all parts CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 289 of the world have, at one time or another, enjoy- ed such a sail. But to propose a sail up the Eapids would be a novelty, — it would be de- nounced as an impossibility, it would be laughed at ; such, however, was a frequent occurrence, a common thing, in the old days of Bateaux and Durham boat sailing up this river shore. In the old days the Durham boats, when not in too great hurry, moored below the Rapids, wait- ing for a favourable strong easterly wind to hoist their sails to sail upwards. And the writer has it upon the authority of Mr. Alexander Somer- ville, who was born opposite the Rapids in 1812, and still lives there, to state that he had often seen as many as a dozen Durham boats pass up in: one day under sail, and continue their course up to Lake St. Louis, except such of them as had to* call at the King's Posts to complete their cargo. SHAD FISHING. Shad fish may not be a novelty, but shad fish- ing would be to most of our readers. About four acres above the Knox mills, directly in front of the Somerville House, is the spot where the shad is caught, not killed — the term which most peo- ple use now-a-days for catching fish ; we presume to say that when fish are taken by a line and 19 290 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. hook, or by a net, they are caught — not killed ; but when speared or shot, as some people do with their rifles — they are then u killed." The shad pass up here within ten to fifteen feet from the shore, during the first week of June, some years a week earlier or later. The fishermen, the Frenchmen living along the river front, watch the time of the passing up of the shad ; then with their nets, made of twine somewhat in the shape of a two-bushel bag, fixed on poles about ten feet long, take their positions, standing to about their waists in the water, and make a sweep of their nets, immersing them so that they reach the bottom, scooping along down with the stream, then hauling in, sometimes empty, at times one, two and three ; we have seen six taken in at one haul. This is unusual. The passing up of the shad was first noticed about ninety-four years ago, in 1796. They were then noticed by the people living near by. The shoal then passing up was so great that the fish forced themselves out and above the water. They would not take the hook, and pails and tubs, etc., were used to catch them. It is said that one man alone caught nine hundred in one day, but two or three hundred was a common day's catch. We CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 291 have known them in a plentiful season to be sold as low as two dollars for one hundred fish. This was in the old time. The question is : Where do these fish go? How far up our rivers and lakes ? We have never heard of shad being taken further up than this point. They certainly have a season — a set time to return to the ocean whence they came ! By the way, we found the old fishermen this year bitterly complaining of being compelled to take out a license to fish. This should not be ! They have had this right undisturbed for one hundred years ! And, again, the Seminary of St. Sulpice when selling their property, provided in the deed of sale that the right of fishing should not be interfered with. THE SOMERVILLE HOMESTEAD. The Somerville Homestead is close by the five- mile post. The late James Somerville died about a quarter of a century ago He was widely known all over Lower Canada, and highly esteemed for his intelligence. He was a well-read man ; there was hardly a subject of the day but he was familiar with. He was at home in the history of this country and of his native land, Scotland. He 292 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. was one of the Government Appraisers for Lower Canada. Peace to his memory ! THE 2ND COMPANY OF THE LACHINE BRIGADE. We had almost forgotten to note that it was in the Somerville House the second company of the Lachine Brigade was organized, being the first " new company " of volunteers to receive their arms during the Rebellion of 1837. This was on the first Monday in November, 1837. The neigh- bouring farmers and farm servants met there that day. The farm servants were mostly composed of Irish Roman Catholics, being then in the em- ploy of the late Charles Penner. Thomas A. Begly, an Irish Catholic, afterwards secretary of the Board of Works, then mana- ager of the Knox mills, was proposed by Mr. Somerville and the other officers of the militia to be the Captain of this new company. This was accepted by the Irish labourers as a special com- pliment to them. The men marched to town (Montreal) the next day and received their arms. The writer joined this company, and he believes himself and Mr. Samuel Twose, of Sherbrooke, to be the only living members of it. heron's island. This island is in the middle of the Rapids, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 293 opposite Verdun ; it can be reached by water at the lower end. The thought struck us as we passed, of which we made a note, that this island would be a suit- able place for the manufacture of explosives, such as gunpowder, dynamite, &c. It would be a safe place for the storage of such material, far away from farm buildings and farm houses. It is mid- way in the St. Lawrence, and the water power in and around it could be utilized for manufactures, therefore, we throw out this hint. THE DEVIL'S ISLAND. This island is in the roughest part of the Rapids, and can only be reached from the Lachine shore when the Rapids are frozen over, or, rather, jam- med up. This seldom happens. The last time we remember was about thirty years ago. We then saw three venturesome young men, namely, James Somerville, Richard Robinson, and Daniel Carmichael, run over to the island. They were thankful to get back, but really terrified at the risk they had run. The ice bridge gave way half an hour after their return ! They described the island as cold and as barren as "Greenland's icy mountains," having noue of the warmth associat- ed with the fiery abode of His Satanic Majesty ! 294 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. THE LA SALLE COMMON. It is recorded in history that Robert de la Salle — the seigneur of Lower Lachine (about 1666} had set apart 420 acres of land for a homestead for himself: we refer our readers to our account of the Canadian Home of Robert de la Salle, as contained in chapter thirty. He also set apart 200 acres adjoining his home, as a common. The eastern boundary of this common was just where the six-mile post now stands. It had a frontage on the river of about half a mile, between the six- mile post and the entrance of the new inland cut of the Montreal Water Works. The common ran back to a narrow point at the high land in the rear — something in shape like a half moon. This was the pasture land for the sheep of several farms for about a mile above and below it. It was a common thing in early days to see 1,000 to 1,500 sheep feeding there during summer. It is singular how few sheep are now to be seen on this road. Not as many now on the whole road as could then be found on one farm. This common was parcelled out in 1835 among the neighbouring farmers, and is now covered with small cottages and all planted with orchards* CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 295 THE KINO'S POSTS. The day is far spent and the shades of evening are gathering around us as we reach this old spot — the home of our youth ! This was an import- ant position during the war of 1812. The writer feels it a duty to state what he remembers of this old post and of the buildings standing there, sixty years ago, at the time of its evacuation. This may induce others having ad- ditional or corroborating facts to place them be- fore the public. At this old place, near the home of his youth, the writer will close this, the fifth part of his Summer Morning AValks. SIXTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. CHAPTER XXVI. SIXTH SUMMER MORNING WALK AROUND MONTREAL. THE KING'S POSTS OF 1812. We closed our Fifth Summer Morning Walk at this old post, and we now enter upon the task of picturing it — the old post — as we remember it, at the time of its evacuation, over sixty years ago, in 1826 or 1827. The writer saw the last soldier leave — bag and baggage— and he remembers and was at the " Vandue," as the Scotch farmers call- ed the sale by the Government of all the build- ings, land, etc. We do not know the date when this was first established as a British military post, nor do we know if it was a French post at the time of the cession. But we do know that it was an import- ant British post during the war of 1812, being the point of embarkation westward by bateaux, barges and canoes before the building of the Lachine canal 300 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. This was the headquarters of our little army of defence during the American advance by way of Chateauguay, under Hampton, in October, 1813. And every farm house from this place up to near Pointe Claire was billeted with regulars or militia. La Salle's old home near by, had sixty men billet- ed in it. This was, we believe, Captain Moffat's company of Montreal militia. The late Mr. Ernest Idler once told the writer that he, as one of the sixty, was stationed in that old house for six weeks. The eastern land boundary of the King's Posts was just where the New Inland Cut of the Mon- treal Water Works enters inland. It had a front- age on the King's highway of three arpents, be- ing the whole front of one of the farms, up to where the old powder magazine still stands ; the eastern and western boundaries were marked by large stone posts with " G. R/' and the broad arrow. The depth was about two acres, making about six acres in superficies. THE BUILDINGS. Commencing at the eastern end, next to the Water Works' entrance, was the bake and cook house, partly still standing ; next to it is an old stone building, still standing, about sixty feet CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 301 fronting on the road, one storey and a half high, and about thirty feet deep. This building, we believe, was used as the officers' quarters. THE FINLAY HOUSE. Adjoining the old stone building is the " Finlay House." John Finlay was the head officer of the King's post, and acted as commissary general there or something in that way. He attended to the receiving and forwarding of the government stores. It was he who engaged the voyageurs and boatmen to man the boats going west. . He was looked upon as King of the King's posts. The Finlay House was built at the commence- ment of the war of 1812, and still stands — but a mere wreck of what it once was ! It was built of heavy timber, a double house, two storeys, about 50 by 50, lined with brick and clap-boarded out- side. It was a grand house — the rooms were large and roomy. This house was the resting place of all the general officers passing up or down during the war. There were several houses of the same description built by the government at that time, notably at Coteau du Lac and at Chambly. 302 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. This house had a beautiful front — tastefully laid out, and planted with flowers, &c, and lined in front and by the side with Lombardy poplars, the fashionable tree of old days in Lower Canada. It had its coach house and stabling ; these are all gone. There was also a garden in rear of about two acres, planted with all kinds of choice fruit, &c, and carefully attended to. There is nothing now left to mark where a garden had been. Since Mr. Finlay's day, this house has had many occupants. A Mr. Price, an English gen- tleman, lived there a few years and died there about 1833. The late Colonel Wilgress occupied it for a short time on his arrival in this country. Mr. Davidson, late of the Bank of Montreal, had it for a summer residence for a few years. Then, among many others, the most noted of whom, the Rev. Wm. Bond (Bishop Bond), lived there five years, and it has ever since been known as the " Bond House." Next to the Finlay House there stood a long wooden building about 70 feet front by 30 to 40 deep, having a stone foundation. This building, we believe, was the soldiers' barracks. Next to this is an old stone building, still standing, and now used as a horse stable. We do not know what CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 303 this building was used for. It may have been for a canteen, or a place to serve out the soldiers' rations. Adjoining this is the old powder maga- zine/ partly standing. A notable military relic of departed days ! On the river shore, opposite the powder maga- zine, was the military wharf; it had a frontage on the river of about 200 feet, with a revetment wall made of heavy timber, having a depth of five to six feet of water at low water mark. There stood on this wharf, the whole length of it, two long large warehouses built of heavy tim- ber, capable of storing an immense quantity of warlike stores They had a second flat for lighter goods, which could be utilized as barrack quarters in an emergency. At the east end of these buildings was the main guard. The writer remembers seeing some of the last soldiers on sentry there. The Water Works basin has entirely destroyed this old wharf. Farther down, on the river shore, just opposite to where the old bake-house stands, was the " Black Hole." A little farther down, on the river bank, about the centre of the Water Works entrance, stood another large wooden ware- 304 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL, house. In this building a room was set apart for Divine service for the troops. The Rev. Brook Bridges Stevens was chaplain to the forces there. THE STAFF CORPS BARRACKS. There was another frame building which stood inland, on the commons, just where the commons joined the eastern King's post boundary. This building was a square of sheds, about, or over, one hundred feet square, some twenty feet high and twenty-five feet deep, having double tiers of sleeping berths, and in the centre, in the inside of the square, was a cook house. These sheds or barracks went by the name of the * Staff Corps Barracks.'' We suppose they were used by the old settlers passing up when detained at the post waiting for a boat. We have given, to the best of our ability, a true description of the buildings standing at this old post at the time of its evacuation. At the vandue, or sale, Mr. Penner purchased the land belonging to the Government, and later on he acquired the rear of that farm. The two large buildings on the wharf stood there until within the past forty years, and were CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 305 used by Mr. Penner as a sleeping place for his hop-pickers. There would be at times fully two hundred of them during the hop-picking season. THE CANADIAN HOME OF ROBERT DE LA SALLE. La Salle's home is close by the King's Posts. As we stood in that old building our thoughts were wandering over the bygone centuries of early Canadian days! Not only did we think of La Salle as having lived there, but we recalled the long list of noble men, representatives of old France, who, from time to time, had slept within those venerated — yes, sacred walls ! In retrospect — as in the days of La Salle — the river front seemed covered with Indian canoes, from their far off hunting grounds, come to ex- change their furs. We fancied we saw that band of Seneca Indians with their chief, arrive, and La Salle, robed in his best and most imposing attire, bearing in his hands, aloft, that sacred symbol of his Church — the Cross, in his descent to the river shore, to greet and to welcome the new comers ! This was that band of Senecas, with their chief, who remained all winter with him at his home. And, we believe, it was from the information ob- tained from that Seneca chief which induced La 20 306 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL, Salle to enter upon those extended explorations westwards and southwards in the Spring of 1669, never again, we believe, to return to this place. The writer's birthplace was within the old wall that at one time surrounded La Salle's Home, now known, and for the past eighty years, as the " Fraser Homestead.'' We shall pass it by in silence ! These walks were not intended by the writer that sorrows of his own should intrude ! but merely remarking in passing : — that its ruin- ed walls and almost roofless home " A sad remem- brance bring." An etching of the old farm house was taken by " Sandham " a few years ago, and is now in pos- session of Mr. George Hague of the Merchant's Bank. THE PENNER FARM. The Penner farm adjoins La Salle's old house. It is now the property of Mr. Doran. The late Charles Penner, a native of Herefordshire, Eng- land, came to Canada before the war of 1812, and was instrumental in organizing the first troop of Montreal cavalry. After the war he settled at Lachine on this farm, and was the father of the Lachine troop of cavalry. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. SOI PENNER'S HOP FIELDS. Very few of the present generation would hardly realize that over sixty years ago there was a farm within eight miles of Montreal having seventy acres of hops growing on it. This will be interesting news to Englishmen from the hop growing counties of England. The writer remembers when Mr. Penner had twelve fields under hops, each field of about six acres. Not a weed nor a blade of grass could be found on the whole fields, so perfect was the culture, penner's cider. Every Canadian has heard of " Penner's Cider," so famed all over Canada, but few know or would believe of the extent of his manufacture and the quantity of apples produced in early days in Lower Canada. In the autumn of 1831 apples were so plentiful that Mr. Penner purchased sufficient apples to make four hundred puncheons of cider, equal to about fifteen hundred barrels. Besides his hop field and his cider business Mr Penner was known far and near for liis fine stock of imported cattle, particularly his sheep, which found purchasers even in the United States, 308 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. After disposing of his property at Lachine he moved to Kingston, Ontario, where he died ten years ago, aged eighty-seven. Peace to his memory ! THE ST. LAWRENCE BRIDGE. At the MacMartin point, half a mile above the Penner farm, we have our first full view of the St. Lawrence Bridge, a thing of beauty as it spans the St, Lawrence between the Windmill Point and the Caughnawaga shore. A shudder of fear, somehow, creeps over us as we behold those tiny looking pillars supporting the bridge. Will they withstand the mighty shock of ice from Lake St. Louis and the Ottawa ? The pillars of this bridge are, we learn, cement- ed on the rock foundation of the river, capable of resisting the force of the water, because no greater force of water will be felt in the future than dur- ing the past few years since these pillars were placed in position. The piers or pillars of the Grand Trunk bridge were the work of years ; the foundations were sunk deep, nearly 30 feet below the river bed, and again, the Lake St. Louis ice is all broken by the Lachine Rapids before reaching the Vic- toria Bridge. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 309 THE LAKE ST. LOUIS ICE. Our readers may not be aware that there is over two hundred square miles of solid ice on Lake St. Louis and the Ottawa to find its outlet every spring down the St. Lawrence, and to force its way through that narrow gorge of about two miles between Caughnawaga and the Windmill Point, just where the lake narrows into the river, and very few of them, our readers, have ever witnessed a grand shove of ice there, crashing, jamming, and roaring like thunder, forcing up boulders, tons weight, from the bed of the river placing them high and dry on the shore, even as far down as the Penner farm, a mile below this. A GRAND SHOVE. The writer has witnessed many grand shoves there, but one in particular, in his young days when attending the old grammar school at Lachine. This was a morning about the end of April — he forgets the year — just as he was passing the Windmill Point on his way to school. The ice in the distance, up Lake St. Louis, was seen to be on the move, floating majestically down, gathering speed from the increasing cur- rent, a white mist or foam denoting its near 310 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. approach. The body of ice was large, must have been from twenty to thirty square miles, a solid, unbroken mass, until it reached the Caughnawaga Point. Then with a thunder-like crash it struck the Caughnawaga shore and the Windmill Point on this side ! The very shore trembled with the rebound ! For a minute or two the ice came to a standstill, then with a mighty crash it gave way, heaving halfway up the river bank at the Wind- mill Point ! This is the exposed spot where those tiny pillars of that beautiful structure— the St. Lawrence bridge — stand, bidding defiance to the onward march of the Ice King of some coming spring ! The question is : — if ever such another grand shove occurs again, will these tiny pillars with- stand the shock ? We doubt it ; time will tell ! If they do stand, we shall simply say that these pillars will be standing monuments for all time to M The march of genius and the powers of man ! " FLEMING'S WINDMILL. This old windmill is a standing mounment to the memory of a determined, stubborn Scotch- man — " that indignant spirit of the North," — in CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 311 resisting the pretentions of the wealthiest, the greatest corporation in Lower Canada, to prevent him building his mill. When the late Mr. Fleming commenced the building of his mill for the manufacture of oat- meal, the gentlemen of the Seminary of St. Sul- pice, as Seigneurs of the Island of Montreal* claimed that they alone had the right of building mills of any description. Mr, Flem- ing thought differently ; he admitted if they controlled the water' privileges their charter gave them no control over the " winds of Heaven " nor of any other power a man may utilize for the purpose of running his mill. A long lawsuit was the result, the late Mr. Buchanan, K.C., was Mr. Flemings legal adviser. We forget exactly how this case ended. It is all in the law Reports. We believe, however, that the Seminary, after a long contest, allowed the matter to drop, and permitted Mr. Fleming to finish his mill. The old mill stands firm and solid, with its four wings, but without any sails, as it has not been much used for the past thirty years. It looks like a Martello tower, and may stand for centuries ; a monument to the memory of a determined Scotchman ! 312 SUMMER MORNING WALKS AROUND MONTREAL. If you take a seat on a calm summer afternoon near by this old mill you will have a full view of the broad, smooth surface of Lake St. Louis, stretching far to the west, and the old Indian town of Caughnawaga, the home of the Iroquois right opposite to you. THE HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE OF THE OLD TIME. CHAPTER XXVII. THE HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE OF THE OLD TIME. " Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, seats of my youth, when every sport could please. How often have I paused on every charm, the sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, the never-fail- ing brook, the busy mill, the decent church that topt the neighbouring hill " : — Let us attempt to picture in its primitive simplicity and unbounded hospitality one of those plain old Canadian farm houses as they existed over fifty years ago. Those old homesteads were to be found at con- venient stopping places all over Upper and Lower Canada, and were noted for their hospitality. Their stables were always open for the traveller's horse, and the best from their cellars, pantrys and poultry yards was spread before the self-invited, but ever welcome guest. Every Lower Canadian 316 THE HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. has heard of the open houses of the French seig- neurs in the old time. It is to be regretted that those old families have been so much broken up and scattered. Those old halting places were not only useful but necessary in early days in Canada, when money was scarce and few inns stood by the wayside. The hospitable open farm house was a recognized institution over a century ago in the New Eng- land States and along the banks of the Mohawk, by which the farming community extended their hospitality to brother farmers when travelling, and they looked for a similar return when they in their turn had to travel on business or for pleasure. In those early days, when a farmer had to travel from fifty to one hundred miles he could calculate to a certainty his midday halt, or his resting place for the night, and he could also count upon the warm reception he would meet with. There was a kind of Oddfellowship — or something dearer — existing among the scattered farmers of old Canada, by which the visitor and visited were mutually benefited. This was a means of conveying and receiving the year's news from widely separated friends at very little cost. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 3 If This was usually done during the winter months. The old farmers of Canada looked upon each other as of the same family — as brother Cana- dians. They were proud of the country of their birth or adoption. They had a common aim — to make homes for themselves and their families. A farmer in those early days might travel one hun- dred miles with his cutter in winter, for instance, from the Dutch settlements in and around the Township of Markham, behind Toronto, to visit his friends on the Niagara, without spending five shillings in cash, if he wished, because every farm house on the road was open to him, and it was then considered a slight for a traveller to pass by the open doors and spread tables. The people of the present generation know very little of the old time hospitalities. The writer can recall many of his early tramps, on foot, over forty years ago, through the Niagara and Home Districts, and, in retrospect, fancy himself again entering some one of those old U. E. Loyalist farm houses of Upper Canada, to make some sim- ple enquiry as to the road. The reception was different then to what it is now. Railways have changed everything in the country parts. The days of Acadian simplicity have passed away and 318 HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. new manners have supplanted the old. All is now changed ! You would be informed on entering such a house : — That it was near the midday meal, or thafnight was approaching, and a pressing invita- tion would be given to partake of food and rest for the night ; or you might be informed by the good wife of the house that the good man was out in the fields, and that he would be greatly disappointed if he missed the news from town. The country people of those days were anxious to get news about markets, etc., and they extend- ed their hospitality in return. Our old readers will recall those days of primitive Canadian hos- pitality. The writer, in one of his early tramps, chanced to visit an old U. E. Loyalist settlement, and met with so kind a reception as induced him to spend a week. It was in the autumn, a charming sea- son. There was plenty of hunting, and being a good shot he enjoyed it to his heart's content, so much so that his sojourn was extended to nearly a month. Deer, partridge, duck, &c, were then plentiful. How often we think of those by-gone days spent in the backwoods of Upper Canada. Besides outdoor sports were many inside ones. CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 319 Were you ever, fair reader, at a " Husking Bee V 1 If not, let us give you an inkling as to how such things were done in country parts in the old days. The corn (Indian corn) with the husks on was gathered and piled in a large heap, like a stack, on the barn floor. The neighbouring girls and boys were invited — or rather invited themselves to a Bee, a " Hus- king Bee," to husk the corn. Then tea and a dance followed on the barn floor after the work was finished. There was great sport at these gatherings. The loud glee that followed the finding of a red corn, which entitled the finder to a kiss from the fairest girl, and sometimes a kiss all round, that is if he had nerve enough to do so. This was a standing custom in the country, as old as our grandfathers. We often detected some fair finder slyly slip her prize into the lap of her favorite boy — as much as to say — Do your duty. There were also " Paring Bees," to peel and slice the apples preparatory to stringing them for drying, also, " Quilting Bees," &c, but we must not forget the old " Spinning Wheel Bee." The young girls — pardon us — the young ladies of the present day know nothing except by hear- 320 HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. say of the " Gossipping Wheels " — the grand old spinning wheels of early Canadian days. We remember the time when from four to six of those old wheels could be found in some of the larger farm houses, and plenty of work they had to do. In those early days in Canada, the men wore home made grey and women stuff gowns, all home made. In some of the farm houses the wool of one hundred sheep was carded, spun and woven or knitted at home. The gathering to a spinning bee would be a novel sight to-day. This was the gathering of the young girls from both sides of the concession road to assist a poor neighbour, very likely a widow. The boys of the neighbourhood were sure to invite themselves there for the evening, to close with a dance, or rather what was then called a " hop." It was none of your bows and scrapes, but real dancing — such as old Scotch reels and other country dances. The girls and boys and even the old men and women could dance a Scotch reel to perfection, but all this is now changed ! Fash- ion, imperious fashion, has discarded those old farm house dances for new ones having foreign names. Just fancy yourself, fair reader, on a concession CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 321 road of Upper Canada fifty years ago. On a fine autumn morning, you would observe, tripping gaily along, fair girls in neat homely attire with a something strapped on their shoulders. What is it ? It is one of those neat little spinning wheels to be used at the spinning bee, to which the fair ones are wending their way. Do not laugh, fair reader ; your mother or your grand- mother, if brought up in the country, would substantiate this. The fair daughters of Upper Canada — three generations back, — venerated the old spinning wheel, and were lovely in their home made stuff gowns. They needed not the aid of foreign ornament, but were, " when unadorned, adorned the most.'' It was a jolly time to be there in the evening, to meet the youth and beauty of a coun- try side. These country people, with their apparent want of knowledge of the outside world, were the keenest of critics of what was proper. You could not pass or pawn on them the sham for the real in good breeding. " Ride and Tie " — an instance of old time hos- pitality. The writer found himself in one of his rambles some twenty miles off Yonge Street Road, and was desirous to catch the morning stage at 21 322 HOSPITALITY OF A CANADIAN FARM HOUSE. Eichmond Hill, at ten, on his way to Toronto. The old farmer suggested a " Eide and Tie " as the only way to do so. This was something novel. A farm horse was saddled, on which we mounted, to ride five miles and then tie the horse to a tree or leave him at a farm house. A farm boy was sent ahead on foot to mount the horse at the end of the first five miles and then to ride five miles and tie. We walked the next five miles, and then mounted the horse again, and rode the last ten miles to. Eichmond Hill, leaving the horse at the inn there, with a quarter of a dollar for the boy to pay for his dinner ; thus making the tramp of twenty miles in this "ride and tie " fashion in about three hours. This " ride and tie " through the deep forest of a " concession side-line " was not only a novelty, but very enjoyable. Some of our old readers will recall such another ride. The old-time hospitality of the farmers of Canada was unbounded ; visitor and visited felt themselves mutually benefited. Such were some of the primitive customs then existing in the times of old and in the days of other years in this Canada of ours. THE CANADIAN GLENGARRY. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CANADIAN GLENGARRY. A PEN AND INK SKETCH. 0, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, where rumour of oppression and deceit, of successful or unsuccessful war, might never reach me more ! Such may have been the prayer of the first set- tlers in the Canadian Glengarry, a century ago in 1783, as they cast a last sad lingering look behind them, and bade a farewell adieu to the homes they were for ever leaving in the old English colonies, the present United States ; for their new home, hundreds of miles away in the far North, in the then unbroken forests of Canada Every Canadian reader is familiar with the exile of the Acadians, an exile without an end and without an example in story. The first set- tlers in the Canadian Glengarry were British Loyalists from the old colonies-— the present United States. These men had followed the for- tunes and the misfortunes of the Royal cause durinS 326 THE CANADIAN GLENGARRY. the Revolutionary war, and when the Union Jack of England was lowered from hundreds of towers and battlements in the old colonies, they decided to follow, as exiles, the now furled flag and the muffled drum of the vanquished, to that land of promise in the far North, in this Canada of ours, in which they were promised new homes under the flag they loved and had fought for. This was a loyalty to a lost cause that has no parallel in history — j ust fancy thousands of able- bodied men voluntarily exiling themselves, for- saking their homes on the Mohawk, the Hudson and the far-off Susquehanna, for the ice-bound banks of the St. Lawrence ; leaving behind them their flocks and herds and their cultivated farms, which they might have retained by submitting and swearing allegiance to the conquerors. This they would not do, prefering exile to the scorn and the sneers that would ever attach to them had they submitted ;and accepted the terms of the victors. A land of promise ! Not a land flowing with " milk and honey," but a land abounding in great forests, having a rich virgin soil, inviting the wanderer to make his choice ; and here, in the CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 32*7 wilds of Canada, in this Canadian Glengarry, Scotland's exiled mountaineer found a home and glad relief, where, if not under his own " vine and fig tree " he had his own primitive log cabin, and could sit by his own fireside, none to make him afraid ; and here Donald and Evan could ply the beverage from their own fair sheaves to fire their Highland blood with mickle glee. And here, too, those Scottish exiles could, as in former days, in their other now deserted homes, exclaim with true Highland loyalty, God save King George ! Glengarry ! this name called forth hallowed associations — buried deep in the inward recesses of every Highlander's breast. It carried him back to the home of his early days — to the land of the " mountain and the flood/' — to that storied land where a Fingal fought and an Ossian sang # Glengarry was to those Scottish exiles the land of promise, such as was the land of Canaan to the Israelites of old ; and their hearts yearned within them to reach and to take possession of this cor- ner of the British Empire specially set apart for Highlanders. Canada, land of mighty lakes and noble rivers ! land of boundless prairies and far stretching 328 THE CANADIAN GLENGARRY. forests ! What other land can compare with this — our country — this Canada of oars? Breathes there a Canadian — be his present home on some Californian Pacific slope, or far away in Australian wilds, or some other distant corner of the world, who does not to himself say, in pride of heart, when he hears the name of Canada named — " This is my own, my native land." The sons of Glengarry are now scattered the world over, many of them filling high positions in distant parts ; from all such the response comes, with a pride of country— " Glengarry was my childhood's home." Who can picture the sufferings of our Scotch wanderers ? Our fathers have told us — yea, even the writer himself, in his young days, had met with and listened to the stories of some of the old men who were children when their fathers journeyed through the wilderness to reach their new homes in the Canadian Glengarry. Onward they journeyed by land and by sea — their faces ever pointed northward to this land of promise : no pillar of cloud by day, nor pillar of fire by night to guide or to direct their course, steadily but slowly they moved. Hope was their guiding star, and they had firm faith in the God CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 329 of their fathers — that His watchful eye was con- tinually on them, and that He would not forsake them in that their dark day of trial and suffering. Those wandering Scotch exiles were God-fearing men ; they had their Scotch Presbyterian chaplains and their Scotch priests with them to encourage and to minister unto them in holy things. The first settlers of Glengarry from the old colonies were chiefly, we believe, Scotch Presby- terians, but when the glad news reached old Scotland of this Scotch home in Canada, there came, a few years later, a large body of Scotch Catholics under the guidance of that good old priest, the late Bishop Macdonnell ; the Bishop was a brother of Red George— Colonel George Macdonnell, the hero of Ogdensburg. We may here note that the father of the late Doctor Bethune, Dean of Montreal, and grand- father of our respected townsman, Mr. Strachan Bethune, Q.C., was chaplain, we believe, in a Scotch regiment — the 84th, which had served in the old Colonies during the Revolutionary war ; came over among the first settlers to Glengarry, and, if we mistake not, was the first occupant of the old Scotch manse and Scotch Kirk at Williamstown, Glengarry. 330 THE CANADIAN GLENGARRY. The greater portion of those who came over with Bishop Macdonnell had been soldiers, or the families of those who had been connected with the army, and some of the older ones had been out in the rebellion of 1745 ; such also was the com- position of those who came as exiles from the old Colonies. Therefore, Glengarry was the nur- sery and the home of soldiers, and the old County was looked to and relied upon for the defence of Canada in after years ; and nobly did her sons do their duty in the Royal cause on many a hard fought field on the Niagara frontier during the war of 1812 Many of those Glengarry boys were laid low on Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, Chip- pewa, and at the evacuation of Fort George, and other lesser fights during the war of 1812. Scotchmen, more than all other men, have great veneration for the land of their fathers. They venerate its bleak mountains and its barren hills above all other lands, and Scotchmen, and the descendants of Scotchmen, wander where they may like the Israelites of old ever point homewards — these to the Holy Land, to the ruined walls of Jerusalem — those to the storied CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 331 glens and to the hillsides of old Scotiaj rendered almost sacred by separation and distance ! Truly has the poet (Campbell) said in his " Ode to Burns : " And see the Scottish exile, tanned by many a far and foreign clime, bend o'er his home-born verse and weep in memory of his native land, with love that scorns the lapse of time and ties that stretch beyond the deep." Glengarry ! Home of fair women and of brave men. Home of Canada's fairest and bravest. This is their memorial for all time. The bravery of the Glengarry men is chronicled on the pages of Canadian history. Brave men, however, and soldier boys are not so plentiful now in the old County as during the war of 1812, or the rebellion of 1837 and 1838, when about fifteen hundred fighting men were mustered in one week in No- vember, 1838. But beauty still is there, fair women abound. A CANADIAN LOGHOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. CHAPTEE XXIX. A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. There is a land, a spot of earth supremely blest ; that land our country and that spot our home. Sacred and dear memories ever cluster and cling around the home of our early days. That home may have been humble ; it may have been an English cottage, shaded by its stately oaks ; a cabin at some obscure corner in Erin's Green Isle ; a rude dwelling on some romantic hill-side, or deep in some storied glen in old Scotland; or, perchance, it may have been a bright New Eng- land farmhouse, surrounded by its orchard and flower garden ; but dearer still and more sacred than all these to Canadians, are the old log houses of Canada ; those early homes of the fathers of an empire yet to be. There is now a pride arising in old Canadian families, French and English, to seek out and point to the spots where the heads of their families 336 A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. first pitched their Canadian tents and built their primitive log houses in the then Canadian wilder- ness. The writer has been more fortunate than most Canadians in having had the pleasure, nearly fifty years ago, of visiting the spots and seeing the remains of the first log houses built by his paternal and maternal grandfathers, nearly a cen- tury ago, on their first settlement in the back- woods of Canada. One was close by St. Raphael's Church, in the Canadian Glengarry, — the other on the River Rouge, about four miles from the town of St. Andrews, in the Scotch settlement of Argenteuil. Our first visit to the Canadian Glengarry was in the year 1840 ; this was about sixty years after the first settlement of that county. The primitive log houses of the early settlers, had, by that time, nearly all disappeared, and were replaced by sub- stantial frame buildings, and in a good number of cases by stone houses; just as may now be seen throughout the length and breadth of the old County. Few, very few, of the present generation ever lived in, or even ever saw one of those primitive log houses, and fewer still ever witnessed the CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 337 building of a Canadian log house after the old fashioned style. We were present, by chance, at the building of a log house in a remote corner in the backwoods of Canada. The description of this particular one will serve as a sample as to how they did things in the old times in Canada ; therefore, this sketch is given so that young Canadians of this day may recall — or, rather, picture to themselves the hum- ble dwellings, yet happy homes, of their grandsires. This was in the fall of 1844, near the end of October, in that delightful season of the year known in Canada as " Indian summer." The leaves of the forest were just beginning to be tinged by the first frosts of autumn, presenting- to the eye a picture which no pen can adequately describe nor pencil trace — it is " Nature's picture gallery." We chanced to be in the backwoods of Canada, that year, some fifty miles distant from Toronto. A Scotch immigrant family lately arrived in that neighborhood, consisting of father, mother and two children, had selected a lot of land of 200 acres to settle upon. A log house had to be erected. There was a good custom then prevailing amongst the early settlers, which was to give a helping hand to a new comer. 338 A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. This was done by what was then known — and, we trust, is still known — in country parts as a " Bee." In those primitive days, there were bees of many and various kinds, such as logging bees, chopping bees, spinning bees, husking bees, etc. ; each and all to assist their less fortunate neighbours, or to cheer and welcome the new comer Long may this good old custom exist in Canada. The day set apart for the building of this lo«- house, was a Tuesday, near the end 6f|| — ' All arrangements had been made. It .^ ^puKen of at the meeting house the Sunday before, and on the appointed day, the country people for some five miles around, to the number of about thirty, young, stalwart backwoodsmen, were arriving a little after sunrise at the spot where this building was to be raised. This " Log House Bee " was something new and strange to us, and doubtless would be to most of our readers. Let us picture it as it actually took place. Here were assembled able-bodied young men, the pride of the countryside, pro- vided with axes, saws, etc., some of their teams loaded with boards, planks, etc., to supplement the very articles needed to complete the house. The spot is selected close by the concession road, then CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 339 in the deep, unbroken forest, with towering trees all round ; but now there is a railway statiori not far distant, the size of the house has been decided upon, then to work. We fancy, although forty- six years have passed away, we are standing as a chance spectator, with fowling piece in hand, looking upon that merry, busy band of backwoods- men as they enter upon their morning work. Those of our readers who have heard the sound of the woodman's axe, with its deep echoes through the dark woods, breaking the death-like silence of early morning and giving thousands of tongues to the forest, will appreciate this. Twenty axes are at work ; the rivalry to have the first tree down is exciting. Crash ! here it comes ; as the tall reaching pine or cedar bends its head and comes down crashing through the branches of the surrounding trees to the ground with a thud, greeted by a loud cheer from the assembled choppers. The first tree down — then to breakfast, followed by a dram of pure unadulterated Upper Canada whiskey of the olden time. This was the pre- vailing custom of those early days ; sometimes, and too often, too many drams were indulged in at bees ; such, however, was not the case at this one. 340 A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. We forget the exact size of this house, but think it was about twenty feet front by twenty- five deep, and fifteen to eighteen feet high. Four large sills were laid in place for the foundation — then the cross-cut saws were called into requisi- tion, to saw the logs into the required lengths ; a slight scoring was made on two sides of the logs so as to fit, one on the other. This scoring did not take long ; the men were accustomed to such work, and could handle their axes to perfection. As the logs were thus rough- ly prepared they were placed in position, one above the other, the full length of the building, except in such places where a door or window had to be placed, the logs there being cut shorter, just to fit. The logs at the corners were firmly secured by being notched or dovetailed into each other — they were thus made to fit as firmly as if bolted down. It was astonishing how rapidly the logs were placed in position, one above the other, and to see this future abode of man rise, fairy like, as if by the stroke of the magician's wand, and to assume shape and form before our wondering gaze. These logs were cut from medium sized trees of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 341 about a foot to a foot and a half in diameter ; a dozen to fifteen such logs would reach to the top of the building. THE MID-DAY MEAL. About half an hour before noon, a novel sight presented itself. This was the arrival of some half a dozen young girls — Scotch lassies — neatly dressed in plain calicoes, mounted on horseback with home made saddles, loaded with good things —some with tea kettles, coffee pots, baskets of pies, cold ham, partridges, turkeys, etc. The novelty of such a spread in the deep forest, on tables formed by placing planks across two fallen trees, was a sight seldom to be witnessed. The older settlers living near by, being aware of what was expected, were finding their way to the spread feast. Among others came the " local preacher/' whose appetite, from a long walk, was keen, and, with reverence be it said, a blessing was asked not only for the good things spread before them, but for the future inmates of the rising house. We may, very appropriately, with a slight alteration, use the words of Burns : — u From scenes like these Canadian grandeur springs, that makes her loved at home, revered abroad." Foreign readers, when they hear the name 342 A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. " backwoodsmen," will naturally picture them as wild, uncouth characters, such as they may have read of in United States border tales, but the backwoodsman of Upper Canada was never a " rough character.' ' It is well known that one- half of the first settlers belonged to the British army or navy — these gave a stamp and a polish to the settlers around them. There was scarcely a township in Upper Canada fifty years ago which had not its group of retired military men, or the younger branches of old English families. These, if they did little work in the way of clear- ing the forest, did good by their example and manners, which were copied by their rougher neighbours ; therefore, at the time of which we write, very little slang was used in conversation in country parts in Upper Canada. Early in the afternoon the house had assumed shape in so far as the logs were concerned. The next thing to be done was to lay a rough floor with two-inch plank. This was short work, then the ceiling, and, to complete the whole, was to fit a few rafters to enclose the roof and to cover the same with boards just sufficient to keep out the rain. Here was a complete " loghouse " finished in one day, except a chimney, doors and windows CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 343 and the necessary partitions to make a (i butt " and a " ben." This could be done in due time. We have described the actual building, as we saw it, of " a Canadian log house." It should not only interest young Canadians, but every other intelligent reader of this day, to have a peep into the humble dwellings of the founders of this Western British-Canadian Empire, whose boundaries are : " from sea to sea, from the At- lantic to the Pacific, and " from the river unto the ends of the earth," even from the St. Lawrence unto the North Pole ! With its great railway of over five thousand miles crossing a continent, from Halifax to Vancouver ; opening to British commerce, and to British armies if required, a short • and safe road over British territory, to Japan, China, the East Indies and Australia. Long may this grand link or chain, linking and binding the Mother Land with her colonies, be unbroken. The primitive log houses of Canada of earlier days were not all so comfortably built as this one ; Canadians at one time were all dwellers in log houses : all the earlier settlers had to build and to live in such houses. The writer's grandfathers, paternal and maternal, on their first settlement 344 A CANADIAN LOG HOUSE OF THE OLDEN TIME. in the wilds of Canada, nearly a century ago, had to build their log houses, one in the Canadian Glen- garry, the other in the Scotch settlement of Argenteuil. Those dear old log houses of Canada ! Those early homes of the fathers of an empire yet to be ! They, like their first occupants, have vanished, or have crumbled down to mingle with the dust of ages. LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. CHAPTER XXX. LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. WHERE WAS IT ? A question has arisen : Where is that block of land of 420 acres on the Lower Lachine Road, which was reserved in 1666 by La Salle as a home- stead for himself? In 1884, I gave a full account of all I knew of the " Canadian Home of Robert de La Salle " ; (see chapter second). That letter was printed by most of the leading papers of Canada, setting forth that Champlain, when Governor of French Canada, established, between the years 1609 and 1615, three fur trading posts — one at Tadousac, one at Three Rivers, and the other at the head of the Lachine Rapids, the old Sault St. Louis. This post at Lachine was, for nearly fifty years, the most important trading post in the whole colony. This was about thirty years before the found a- of Montreal by Maisonneuve in 1642, and fully 348 LA SALLE'S homestead at lachine. fifty years before the appearance of LaSalle at Lachine. This post, established by Champlain at the head of the Sault St. Louis, was built upon the present Fraser homestead farm, on the very spot where the ruins of " Fort Cuillerier " now stand. These ruins of Fort Cuillerier were point- ed to in that letter as being the ruins of La Salle's home. Close by those ruins stood the old Eng- lish King's Posts, the most celebrated military post in Canada during the war of 1812. This was the transferring post of navigation before the building of the Lachine canal ; every British soldier, every British regiment sailed westward in bateaux from this post, and returned here at the end of the war. I gave a full account of this post, and of every building on it at the time of its evacuation in 1826, in my "Sixth Summer Morn- ing Walk Around Montreal." This is truly storied ground, though now nearly forgotten and almost blotted out of local memory. THE PRIMEVAL BEAUTY OF THIS RIVER SHORE. The writer is one of the very few now living who can recall and picture in its primeval beauty that almost romantic river shore, for two miles upwards, from the foot of the La Salle Common to the Windmill Point ; embracing, in these two CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 349 short miles, the La Salle Common of 1666, the English King's Posts of 1812, the intended home- stead of La Salle, the ruins ^f " Fort Cuillerier," the site of Champlain's fur trading post of 1615, the old Penner farm, the St. Lawrence bridge. The present Novitiate of the Fathers Oblats, built on the spot on which Fort Bemy of 1689 stood, and being within the ground of the palisaded village of Lachine laid out by La Salle in 1666. There is not another such two miles on the whole river front of the noble St. Lawrence, from Gasp6 to Kingston, to compare with this in. having so many historical spots connected with the early histor}' of Canada ! Scenes of my childhood, home of my early days ! I love to dwell on each familiar spot and linger to depart. All Canadian readers and others who take an interest in anything relating to La Salle, will do me the justice to say that when I placed before the public my account of the u Canadian home of Eobert de La Salle " in 1884, that I then made an offer which is still open to public acceptance, namely : — Of 3,500 square feet of land, say seventy feet fronting on the Lower Lachine Road, by fifty feet in depth, to enclose and restore the old building; but should only a monument be 350 LA SALLE'S homestead at lachine. required, less land would do ; 1,000 feet would suffice for a monument. My offer, however, is still open. Will others who now pretend to take an interest in La Salle do something equivalent, and purchase a lot of land near by the Old Wind- mill upon which to erect a monument ? This will be a sure test of their sincerity in the La Salle question. A MONUMENT TO LA SALLE. Canadians should bestir themselves and do something worthy the memory of La Salle. La- chine is the only place in Canada in which he had a home, and the present generation at Lachine appeared to take very little interest in his history until after my letter of 1884. La Salle is the brightest figure either in Canadian or American history. J ust fancy, two and a quarter centuries ago, a young Frenchman — an adventurous youth — starting from Lachine in his bark canoe, on a voyage of discovery almost romantic ; traversing, or rather coasting, in his canoe, all of our great inland lakes, then over and through dense forests, untrod before by civilized man, down turbulent and unknown rivers, even reaching the mouth of the great Mississippi ! Where does history ex- hibit another such a character ? Canada should CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 351 be proud to do honor to her La Salle, and Cana- dians should vie with each other in paying a tribute of respect to his memory. Truly, La Salle has left his footprints on the sands of Canada. Will Canadians allow them to be blotted out. La Salle needs no monument along our river shore ; no storied urn, nor animated bust, to per- petuate or to transmit to future generations the great deeds of his life. This whole northern con- tinent of America, boundless and vast, bears un- mistakable traces of his footprints ; his discoveries and explorations were all made in the interest of old France — the land of his birth — the country he loved; therefore, so long as the noble St. Lawrence winds its course seawards, and our great inland lakes exist as feeders thereof, or the great and broad Mississippi rolls its mighty waters to the main, these river banks and those lake shores, if all else were mute — will ever silently testify to the memory of that youthful explorer, La Salle, who first trod or traced their far western or southern shores ! TRADITIONS OF OLD. Scotchmen, above all men, are very jealous of family traditions, holding them nearly as sacred as Holy Writ. When this old homestead came 352 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. into the possession of my grandfather in 1814, the traditions then handed down to him through the former French occupants — the Cuilleriers — the Laprpmnades and others — pointed out that on the site where then stood, in 1814, and still stand, the ruins of "Fort Cuillerier," was the very spot on which Champlain's fur trading post of 1615 stood, and that those three farms of the present Fraser estate, having a frontage on the Lower Lachine Road of nine acres by a depth of forty-six and two-third acres, making 420 acres of land, bordering on and adjoining the La Salle common of 200 acres, was the actual block of 420 acres which was reserved in 1666 by La Salle as a homestead for himself. These three farms of 420 acres of the present Fraser estate are still there intact. The common ground of 200 acres, adjoining these three farms > is still well-known, and the ruins of "Fort Cuil- lerier," built on the site of Champlain's fur post, are still standing to mark the spot. These three farms, comprise the actual block of 420 acres selected in 1666 by La Salle as a homestead for himself. There is not another block on the Lower Lachine Road, between the eastern boundary of the old English CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 353 King's Posts, up to the present windmill, a dis- tance of about forty acres fronting on the St. Lawrence, that can be pointed to as having any pretentions to be called "La Salle's intended homestead'' except that block. It is not neces- sary that La Salle should have lived on his in- tended homestead during his short residence of three years ; he was merely preparing it for his permanent home ; In the meantime he lived in his little log house in his palisaded village — being only a walk of fifteen minutes distant. THE LA SALLE HOMESTEAD AND THE LA SALLE COMMON. Our best authority on Canadian history, par- ticularly on old French Canada, is Parkman, and in his La Salle, at page 7, we find : " La Salle set apart a common, two hundred arpents in ex- tent, for the use of the settlers, on condition of the payment by each of five sous a year ; he re- served four hundred and twenty arpents for his own personal domain ; he had traced out the cir- cuit of a palisaded village and assigned to each settler half an arpent, or about the third of an acre, within the enclosure." These are facts respecting the homestead and common of La Salle which cannot be disputed ; and the " reserved 23 354 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. homestead " must have been as well known to La Salle himself as the common ground is now pub- licly known. And to a man of La Salle's taste for the beautiful, what more beautiful spot could he select than the nine acres of the Fraser estate adjoining the common, fronting on the St. Lawrence, a mile and a half above the Lachine Rapids? And on this spot, be it remembered, that fifty years before La Salle's day there was a trading post — Champlain's — the most important post in the whole colony. "OLD LACHINE." This is the title of a neat little book of seventy- six pages, edited by D. Girouard, Q.C., having originated at the celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the massacre of Lachine, of 4th August, 1689, containing valuable local informa- tion, and will be a standard reference on all mat- ters relating to old Lachine. I offer my humble congratulations to Mr. Girouard for his collected facts. I differ with him only on one point, a par- ticular historical one, namely : he has located La Salle's intended homestead of four hundred and twenty acres as being in the rear of the pre- ent Novitiate of the Fathers Oblats, and behinds the " palisaded village," which had a frontage of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 355 seven arpents by two in depth, being between the cross-road and the windmill. I cannot accept this as the block of land of four hundred and twenty acres which was reserved by La Salle in 1666 as a homestead for himself, for the reason that there is not, and there never was, in the parish of Lachine, a block of land of four hundred and twenty acres between these two points. There must be some mistake in this. THE PALISADED VILLAGE OF OLD LACHINE. Between pages four and five of Mr. Girouard's book there is a drawing, made in March, 1689, of La Salle's palisaded village. This was made twenty years after La Salle had left. That drawing or picture is deceptive, misleading, causing the reader of the present day to accept it as a true picture of the village as it stood in La Salle's time. It is no such thing. There were no buildings inside the palisades when La Salle left in 1669, except his own small log house, which was afterwards enlarged by Jean Millot, and used by him as a place of trade or business. The question is : Where did La Salle live when he was planning and laying out his " palisaded village," which must have taken him fully two years to complete ? Unquestionably he 356 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. lived in Champlain's old trading post, about a mile distant, on the Fraser estate — his reserved homestead — because there was no other building at Lachine, at that time, except that old post, to live in. The principal buildings, as shown inside the palisades, such as Fort Kemy, the chapel, the barracks, the windmill, &c, had no existence in La Salle's day ; they were not built for several years later. Jean Millot's house, with its flag, is said to have been the log house erected by La Salle, but afterwards enlarged by Millot for the purposes of his trade. Therefore, I maintain that La Salle's intended homestead of 420 acres was not behind and in the rear of the Novitiate of the Fathers Oblats, two acres back from the bank of the St. Lawrence. The land is not there, and I cannot believe that a man La Salle's decided taste would place the front of his homestead two acres hack, shut out from the river bank, when he had a frontage of over a mile, the most beautiful on the bank of the St. Lawrence, to select from, and when we find there did exist at that time, and does exist at this day, a mile from the palisaded village, a block of land, the Fraser estate of 420 acres, bordering on the La Salle common, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 357 which exactly tallies with Parkman's account of the homestead and the common. FORT CUILLERIER. Between pages sixteen and seventeen of Mr. Girouard's book a correct picture is given of old "Fort Guillener,'' as it stands to-day on the Fraser homestead. This is, without question, one of the most interesting spots, in all Canada. It was to this spot, in 1609, that Champlain came up to embark in an Indian canoe to have a sail down the old Sault St. Louis, the present Lachine Rapids. This is the first spot of smooth water from which a canoe could shoot out to reach the channel of the river above the Eapids. It was here, fifty years before La Salle's day, that Champlain's fur trading post was established; and between the years 1673 and 1676 Cuillerier converted that old fur post into a fort, construct- ed of wood, and later on, between 1689 and 1713, the present stone building, now named " Fort Cuillerier," was constructed and used as a trading post by the Cuilleriers. This must have been an important place in 1689, because Vaudreuil, on his return from the scene of the massacre of La- chine, rested here with his 500 men on his way 358 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. back to Montreal. This spot was famous thirty years before Maisonneuve's day. NEARLY THREE CENTURIES AGO. Imagination fondly stoops to trace and to draw a picture of those far-off days, when Champlain stood at the foot of the Fraser hill, at the head of that once beautiful little bay, now destroyed by the Water Works basin, which stretched down to the eastern boundary of the English King's Posts, surrounded by his escort band of wild Iroquois, with their canoes hauled up on the quiet shore beneath the shade of the far-spreading primeval elms, ready to embark, to sail down the Sault St. Louis — the Lachine Rapids. There was not a foundation stone then laid in this now great city of Montreal. This spot should be held sacred by Canadians for all time. Fancy Champlain's feel- ings as he embarked in his canoe to be paddled out to reach the channel of the river leading down through the centre of the great Rapids. The ex- citement and the novelty of the sail would almost make him forget or be oblivious of the danger. I place this sketch before some young rising artist or painter of this day to revive it on canvas. LA SALLE AND MILLOT. La Salle was Seigneur of Lachine and the CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 359 Founder of the palisaded village, consisting of four- teen acres ; say, seven acres front by two in depth ; being between the present * Cross Road" and the •' Windmill." To this palisaded village La Salle transferred the fur trading business which had been carried on, for about fifty years, at Cham- plain's fur post on the Fraser estate, about one mile from the palisaded village. It appears from all we can gather that La Salle was not a man of business or of trade; and that Jean Millot, a trader of Ville Marie (Montreal), was the leading spirit of trade in La Salle's village, and that he afterwards purchased La Salle's rights to the village, etc., as we shall hereafter show. But it is a singular fact, that after La Salle had left, and the attempt by Millot to establish the fur trade in the palisaded village had failed, that Rene Cuillerier, between the years 1673 and 1676, re-established the fur business at Champlain's old post, and the Cuilleriers and their successors carried on an ex- tensive business there for nearly a century after La Salle's day in that old building now standing on the Fraser estate, and known at the present day as the ruins of " Fort Cuillerier." La Salle became restless in 1669 to get off. To do this he required money for his outfit of men, 360 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. canoes, etc. Millot had the money, and Millot wanted to secure the whole trade of the village to himself, therefore La Salle proposed to sell his interest, which Millot accepted. La Salle then conveyed to Jean Millot by deed, passed before Basset, notary of Ville-Marie, on 3rd of February, 1669, a block of land of 420 acres, " seven acres front by sixty deep." This block, as per page 73 of Mr. Girouard's book, is shown to be behind the palisaded village, and in rear of the present Novi- tiate of the Fathers Oblats, and between the cross road and the windmill. This sale is the only foundation for Mr. Gir- ouard to locate La Salle's intended homestead as he has done. Now, I maintain, the land is not there ! was never there ; and there is not and there never was a block of land in the whole parish of Lachine having a depth of " sixty acres." The cadastral plan of Lachine, taking in all the little lots on the river bank, shows only about 350 acres of land behind the Novitiate, while the two adjoining farms, Belanger's on the east and Reed's to the west, have only a depth of thirty acres each. Where then are those farms having a depth of " sixty acres ? " Where, may I ask, are they to be found in the parish of Lachine ? '* CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 361 If that block of land, having seven acres front by sixty in depth, ever existed between the windmill point and the cross road, it still exists, and can easily be pointed out at the present day. There has been no earthquake, nor any volcanic eruption since La Salle's day to have disturbed the surface of the land and to have wiped out all trace of that block of 420 acres, with the additional ninety-eight acres, as shewn on Mr. Girouard's plan at page seventy-three of his book. There can, if the land was ever there, be no difficulty in tracing out the subsequent disposals of those five hundred and eighteen acres — how they have passed down through the successive holders. Records of all sales or transfers of pro- perty at Lachine exist. Let us have them. The 420 acre block of La Salle's intended homestead on the Fraser estate is still intact and easily traced, and the additional ninety-eight arpents, as shewn on Mr. Girouard's plan, can also be accounted for as comprised in that farm at the head of the La Salle common on the Fraser estate. Mr. Girouard should have examined the ground before placing his misleading statement before the historical world! His plan, in fact, at page 362 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. seventy -three, shews only a total depth of twenty- five acres and two perches, being less than one hundred and eighty acres on the whole. Where then is that block of 420 acres ? Where are those sixty acres in depth to be found ? Not there ! I have tried to unravel this sale of " seven acres front by sixty deep," and have consulted others who know the ground and have come to the following conclusions: La Salle had reserved 420 acres for his homestead — Millot knew this, but Millot considered the land bordering on and around the village as of more value to him — in the event of the village extending and becoming a town — than the same amount of land a mile distant would be. Therefore, I suppose, he would reason in this way with La Salle : You are leaving, and it makes no difference to you to grant me the land close by the village, instead of that block a mile distant. I cannot in any other way account for this deed of land. La Salle, as seigneur, had the power, and it made no difference to him where he granted it, so long as he got the money and Millot was satisfied. The Seminary and Millot, I believe, about a quarter of a century later, had CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 363 the measurements adjusted. This deed of sale in no wise does away with the fact that La Salle's real intended homestead was a mile farther down, on the river bank, on the Fraser estate. There is not, and there has not been for the past hundred years, a vestige remaining of the pali- saded village of 1666 ! Buildings and palisades were all constructed of wood, and have long ago crumbled down and mingled with the dust of ages ! Who planted those almost giant pear trees that were said to be two hundred years old in 1814, when my grandfather got possession of this old homestead ? These trees were planted fifty years before La Salle's day ; they must have been planted by the people who had charge of Champlain's trading post long before the days of the Cuilleriers. I can myself mark the spots on which fifty- two of those pear trees stood in my young days ; one of them so large and so open in the heart that the largest man on the farm could stand up- right inside. I never saw such pears since — French pears — as that tree bore ; they ripened about the middle of August. And the pomme gris were double the size of any growing now, 364 la salle's homestead at lachine. and the fameuse and the Bourassa, with its leather like skin, was a treat in midwinter ; and the bon chretin pear, — it will make the teeth of old Canadians water to recall that pear. Those pear trees must have been in their prime — about fifty years old — when La Salle came to Lachine in 1666. This place, with its pear or- chard, was on his seigneury, and unquestionably this was the spot of 420 acres that he reserved as a homestead for himself. AN OLD SCOTCH HOME OF CANADA. During my grandfather's and my father's day, our old home was known to every Highlander in Canada and the far North. It was the resort of the Scotch gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, and the Simpsons, the Raes, McKenzies, McKays, Keiths, Rowands and McTavishes, for some years during my mother's lifetime used to walk down to the old farm-house on a Sunday afternoon, after service in the old Scotch Kirk, to enjoy a real Highland treat of " curds and cream and oaten bread," with pears and apples in season, and those young gentlemen could there expatiate freely over the scenes of their early homes in the Highlands of Scotland — in their own mother-tongue — the Gaelic. Those days are CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 365 gone, but they have left pleasant memories. My mother was kind to them, because she had a brother, Paul Fraser, then in the North- West, who afterwards became a chief factor in the Hud- son's Bay Company. Sir Donald A. Smith, now of Montreal, was one of the young gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company, stationed at Lachine about the year 1837. Captain Allan, the father of all the " Allans," for several years paid annual visits to the old farm, and got his supplies of portime gris, which he carried to Glasgow, then to the West Indies, back again to Glasgow, then to Montreal the fol- lowing spring, the apples keeping quite sound. Mr. Andrew Allan has informed the writer, that when he first came to Montreal, as a boy, in 1839, that he spent two days on the old farm for amusement, and, as a novelty to him, in picking pornme gris for his father's vessel. THAT QUAINT OLD FARMHOUSE. There are few people now living who saw that quaint old farmhouse sixty years ago, before the west end kitchen addition was built in 1 829, with its Normandy stairway — outside — at the west end, and its old French window, or door, opening 366 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. out into the pear orchard and flower garden. The old slave house stood within thirty feet of the farmhouse, to the west; and that old stone building, used for many years as a barn, which stands about 100 feet behind the house — walls still standing. This old building has been a mystery to all visitors ; it had gun holes on the front rear and sides. What was it used for ? A storehouse, no doubt. But why the gun holes ? There were remains of palisades behind that old building, which ran down to the rear of the ruins of Fort Cuillerier ; the front of the farm, three acres by two in depth, must have all been pali- saded in 1689. When Vaudreuil encamped there with his 500 men, after the massacre of Lachine, the old stone wall, ten feet high, three acres on the front by four acres deep on the east line, must have been built in the days of the Cuilleriers. The front of this old historical farm, with its now ruined walls and almost roofless home, a sad, but a pleasing remembrance brings ! This is written for the benifit of students of history, and for all admirers of La Salle. I have placed La Salle's intended homestead on the Fra- ser estate ; this agrees with the traditions which came down to our family, and tallies exactly with CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 367 Parkman's account of the "Homestead of 420 acres and the common of 200 acres," reserved in 1666 by La Salle, and, again, there is not another block of land of 420 acres on the Lower Lachine Koad having any pretentions to be called La Salle's intended homestead but this; and, again, by referring to Mr. Girouard's book at page 54, the student of history will find that this block of land — the Fraser estate — was not allotted to any one during La Salle's time, it was held in reserve, even until 1673 or 1676, when Rene Cuillerier got it, whereas the next farm, Penner's, was allotted in 1668. I have done my duty, and I now leave it to the students of history to decide where that block of land of 420 acres is on the Lower Lachine Road, and to join with me in paying a tribute of respect to the memory of " Robert de La Salle," and not allow ourselves to be outdone by Chicago and other American cities. MY RETURN TO THE OLD HOME. This one farm of 160 acres, part of the old homestead, is all that now remains to the family out of an estate of about one thousand acres on the Lower Lachine Road. In the spring of this year, 1890, although aged and poor, I purpose to return to the old 368 LA SALLE'S HOMESTEAD AT LACHINE. farm, to seek a shelter within its ruined walls and almost roofless home, and to live under the shadow of its far spreading ancestral elms, and to watch, even to luxuriate, over the growth of my young pear orchard, just like some of the exiled Acadians of old, who returned to live and to die amid the scenes of their young days upon the shores of the Basin of Minas. THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. CHAPTER XXXI. THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. The battle of Queenston Heights and the name of General Brock are Canadian household words, associated with the war of 1812, which will ever live and be held sacred by Canadians to the latest generation. This battle was fought on the 13th of October, 1812. The village of Queenston is on the bank of the Niagara river, at the foot of the heights, about seven miles above where stood old Fort George, of 1812, and is dis- tant some four to five miles from the Falls of Nia- gara. The battlefield of Lundy's Lane, fought on the 25th of July, 1814, is close by the Falls, bordering on the old village of Drummondville. General Brock was at Fort George that morn- ing, and mounted his horse on the first alarm and rode at full speed to the threatened point. On 372 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. his arrival, he found the Americans on the Heights above the village. Brock was killed at the very opening of the fight, while heading a company of the 49th Eegiment to retake the Battery of one gun on the slope, which the Amer- icans had captured ; but in the afternoon of the same day, as will be hereafter shewn, the scat- tered bodies of the little British force were mus- tered from Fort George, Chippewa, and the other outlying posts, and attacked the Americans, and after one volley and a bayonet charge, they forced nearly one-half of them over the Heights into the Niagara, and captured over 500 prisoners on the very verge of the precipice ; thus avenging the death of their almost idolized commander, by a glorious victory. A RETROSPECT. Come, young Canadian reader, and let us go back, in retrospect, nearly fifty years, to a Sunday morning in the month of June, 1845, when the writer took a seat high up on Queenston Heights, close by where Brock's monument stands. Come and be seated with us. Let us, if you will permit, light our pipes, and enjoy our u calumet of peace/' while we take a panoramic view of hill, mountainside, river, lake CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 373 and the magnificent landscape spread out below us. There, on the right hand, we have the Lewiston Heights on the American side, sepa- rated from the Canadian or Queenston Heights by that deep, narrow gorge, of some 600 feet, of the channel of the Niagara river, cut out at some far-off day by the force of that mighty mass of water from the Falls of Niagara, over which the whole waters of Lake Erie and the other upper lakes find their outlet into Lake Ontario. Just below us, at the foot of the heights, is the quaint old town or village of Queenston, rendered famous in Canadian history by the battle fought in, around, and above it, on the 13th day of October, 1812. This mountain range or high table land on which we are sitting is the same range of heights that passes all along around the head of Lake Ontario and in rear and above the city of Hamilton. Between the lake shore and the foot of this range of heights the finest fruit in America is grown. The peaches there equal those grown on the most favoured spots in the United States. Far away beneath us, seven miles distant, we have a full view of the deep blue Ontario, stretching about 200 miles to the 3*74 THE BATTLE OF QUEENST0N HEIGHTS. eastward, down to Kingston ; and from forty to sixty miles broad in some parts, and between our stand-point view and the lake shore, on our left hand, is the rich plain of the Niagara, studded with orchards, gardens and the old homesteads of the U. E. Loyalists, surrounded by smiling wheat fields and rich meadow land, extending as far as Stoney Creek. This is the most charming view spot in the whole of the old Niagara district and rendered doubly interesting as embracing a " bird's eye view '' of the WARPATH OF BOTH ARMIES during the war of 1812. On our right hand, on the American side of the Niagara, stands the old town of Lewiston, nestling beneath the shades of its own heights. Then about seven miles down, on the American side, stands old Fort Niagara, on Lake Ontario, directly opposite to where Fort George stood during the war of 1812. The writer thus gives a " pen and ink sketch " of his stand-point view on the top of Queenston Heights, as it appeared to him in 1845, which; will serve as an index, or guide, to future visitors to that far-famed spot. Truly, this is storied ground. On and around those Heights, and along the whole river bank of CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 3*75 the Niagara, from Fort George up to the ruins of old Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, a distance of over thirty miles, every footstep recalls the bygone history of early Canadian days. Long before a British drum was heard, or a Union Jack of Eng- land floated in those once far western wilds, the daring pioneer explorers of Old France had visited the Falls, and were familiar with the banks of the Niagara. WAR WAS DECLARED by the United States against Great Britain on the 18th day of June, 1812; as all Canadians know, or should know. General Brock was then in command of the British force in Upper Canada ; General Hul^was Governor of the State of Michi- gan, and had his headquarters at Detroit, from which place he issued flaming proclamations to the people of Canada to induce them to join the American cause or to remain neutral. General Brock decided to surprise Hull by a rapid move- ment westwards, and for that end gathered what regulars and volunteers he could, with whom he started for Detroit, and reached Maiden, opposite Detroit, on the 15th of August, 1812. The next day General Hull surrendered Detroit and the whole State of Michigan, with all his army, guns, 3*76 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. stores, shipping, etc., without firing a shot, as recorded in the history of that date. Brock lost no time, after the taking of Detroit, but sailed immediately for Fort Erie, with the prisoners, guns, stores, etc., captured from the enemy. His intention was to attack Buffalo and Fort Niagara, and to destroy all the American posts on the Niagara frontier ; but to his disappointment and disgust, when he reached Fort Erie, on the 22nd of August, 1812, he found that an armistice had been concluded the week before his arrival. The Americans had taken advantage of the armistice to concentrate large bodies of troops, guns, stores, etc., at their various posts on the Niagara; so that by the middle of September they had fully 8000 men of all arms concentrated between Buffalo and Fort Niagara ; there were between 4000 and 5000 men collected at Fort Niagara and on the Lewiston Heights, opposite Queenston, while over 400 bateaux, laden with guns and stores, from Sacket's Harbor and other places, had reached the mouth of the Niagara, and were safely moored UNDER THE GUNS OF FORT NIAGARA, During the first week of October, the Ameri- cans were prepared to attack, — having a force four CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 377 times as large as the British, and having provided themselves with a large number of boats of every description, — bateaux, scows, etc., not only at Fort Niagara, but at Buffalo, Black Rock, and other places above the Falls of Niagara, ready to transport troops across the river at any point they choose. General Brock had his headquarters at Fort George, seven miles below Queenston, and he had to garrison a line of outlying posts for over thirty miles up to Fort Erie, opposite Buff- alo. Brock's scattered forces, stationed above the Falls at Chippewa and Fort Erie, and the out posts between these two places, required fully 600 men to sruard them, which weakened his main point of defence. The Americans were acting on the offensive, and they might invade Canada by way of Buffalo or Black Rock, or at the mouth of the Niagara at Fort Niagara. Brock thought the main attack would be on Fort George, his headquarters. Even on the 9th of October four days before the battle of Queenston, early in the morning, a large body of marines from Buff- alo crossed the Niagara, and captured two armed vessels, the " Caledonia " and the " Detroit," richly laden with furs, etc., moored under the guns of Fort Erie. The " Caledonia " remained 378 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. a prize in the hands of the Americans, but the " Detroit" was burned in an attempt to retake her. This called Brock to Fort Erie, where he arrived before sunset that day, but having satis- fied himself that this was merely a surprise, and that the Americans would not attempt to cross the river there, he returned to headquarters at Fort George the next day. This hurried journey of Brock's to Fort Erie, thirty miles distant, caused the American General, Van Renselaer, to take advantage of his absence, to prepare to cross the Niagara at Queenston early on the morning of the 10th, but a furious storm of wind and rain passed over their camp while the troops were drawn up in readiness to embark, by which the ATTACK WAS DELAYED THREE DAYS. During the whole day and evening of the 12th, the Americans could be distinctly seen from the Canadian heights — battalion after battalion, con- centrating in and around Lewiston, and on the Heights above, to the number of fully 5000 men, and it was believed on the Canadian shore the crossing would be made during the night; but whether the landing would be made at Queenston or at Fort George, was uncertain. Brock himself was of opinion it would be at Fort George. Their CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 379 boats were all ready, some to carry thirty, others eighty men, and they could as easily float down the current of the river and land above Fort George, when the guns of Fort Niagara could open upon Fort George, and at the same time cover the landing of an attacking party from Fort Niagara. This was Brock's opinion, even after he had mounted his horse to leave Fort George for the last time, to reach the threatened but real landing at Queenston. On the 13th day of October, 1812, a day never to be forgotten by Canadians, long before sunrise, the first of the American boats reached the Cana- dian shore. They were met by Captain Dennis' company, who poured several volleys into them with fatal effect. The flash of their muskets in the dark pointed out their position to the Ameri- can gunners on the Lewiston Heights, who were standing by their guns with lighted matches, and who opened fire, causing Dennis to withdraw his men under shelter. The gunners at the one gun battery on the slope of Queenston Heights, and those at the one gun battery at Brooman's point, opened fire on the Lewiston landing with the hope of disabling the boats. It was a random fire, being quite dark. These two guns continued 380 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS; all morning to throw shot and shell through darkness and distance, and, if doing little execu- tion, created a panic in the ranks of the Ameri- cans, and deterred hundreds of the boldest of them from crossing the river. THE BRITISH FORCE at Queenston, being an outpost of Fort George, did not much exceed 200 men, composed of Dennis' and Cameron's companies of the York militia, with the light company and the Grena- diers of the 49th Kegiment, stationed in the vil- lage, with two other companies of the York militia, some three miles distant, besides a few of the local militia, and the gunners to man the gun on the slope and the gun at Brooman's point. This was the whole force at Queenston that morning to dispute the landing, while on the American side, right opposite, stood 4000 to 5000 men, prepared to cross to support their advance body ; but their courage failed them on beholding the warm reception their vanguard met with, and in the afternoon of that day fully 3000 of them stood, panic-stricken, on their own Lewis- ton Heights, as they beheld, right opposite on the Queenston Heights, the wreck and ruin of their brave companions of the morning, who had CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 381 crossed the river, now being driven over the Heights into the Niagara, or surrendering them- selves as prisoners of war. Those three thousand Americans stood on their own shore, not a mile distant from the scene of conflict, having plenty of boats to convey them across, with folded arms and gaping mouths, as silent spectators of the defeat, capture, and destruction of their brave vanguard. Brock reached Queenston before break of day, splashed all over with mud from his hard ride, and at once rode up to the one gun battery on the slope ; but, shortly after reaching it, a loud shout or cheer came from the hillside above, fol- lowed by a volley of random bullets whistling over their heads, while a body of the Americans came charging down the heights upon the battery Brock and the gunners had to make an immediate retreat, spiking their gun, but, on reaching the lower end of the village, Brock found the light company of the 49th drawn up in line awaiting orders ; then wheeling his horse in the direction of the Heights, he exclaimed : " Follow me, my boys,'' and led them at a run to the foot of the Heights, supported by the Grenadiers of the 49th, and a company of the York militia, who were detached to the right to attack the 382 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. LEFT AND REAR OF THE AMERICANS. Brock halted at the foot of the hill, behind a stone wall, and dismounted, saying to his men : " Take breath, boys ; you will need it in a few moments." Shortly after, observing that his skirmishers on the right had reached the left and rear of the Americans, causing confusion in their ranks around the battery, he sprang over the stone wall, waving his sword, and calling upon the Grenadiers of the 49th to follow him. He then led the way up the steep ascent towards the battery. The ascent was difficult. The late rains had caused the fallen leaves to be treacher- ous footholds. The men slipped at nearly every step, some falling to the ground, causing the ranks to be much broken, so much so that Brock angrily exclaimed : " This is the first time I have ever seen the 49th turn their backs." Colonel McDonnell then came up with two com- panies of the York militia, increasing the attack- ing party in front and on the right to nearly 200 men. The American force was now increased around and above the battery to about 500 men. Brock called on Colonel McDonnell to push on the York volunteers. At that moment he was struck by a bullet in the wrist of his sword arm, CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 383 to which he paid no attention, continuing to wave his sword. In the dull, gray mists of that October morn- ing, half-way up the Heights, could be seen the tall, portly form of General Isaac Brock, standing in front and far in advance of the Grenadiers of the 49th, a living target for the bullets of the unerring American rifle, waving his sword, and calling on his men, and encouraging them, both by word and gesture, to hasten their steps. He did not long stand there. The fatal bullet sped its way, striking him near the heart, causing almost instantaneous death ! Colonel McDonnell then spurred his horse to the front and assumed command. Everything now was in disorder. The men became dispirited at the death of their almost idolized leader. After repeated attempts to rally and to keep his force together, McDonnell also was killed. The British then gave way and retreated to the foot of the Heights, carrying the bodies of their General and McDonnell and most of their wounded with them. This closed the morning fight on the slope of the Heights, leav- ing the Americans in possession of THE ONE GUN BATTERY. By this time fully 1500 of the Americans had 384 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. landed, and several hundreds of them made their way to the top of the Heights, increasing their force there to about 900 men. The arrival of Captain Derenzy from Fort George, with four companies of the 41st Regiment, Holcroft's Bat- tery of Royal Artillery of two six-pounders, and a few Indians and militia, forming a junction with the retreating force from the Heights, held the Americans in check, and with well-directed shots from Holcroft's guns, placed at first below the village, and afterwards within the walls sur- rounding the " Hamilton homestead," played havoc among the boats and silenced the Ameri- can guns at the Lewis ton landing, so that from that time few boats attempted to cross the river. The British force around and below Queenston held possession of the road leading to St. David'h and in rear and on the left of the Heights, thus keeping open their communication with Chip- pewa, above the Falls, and also with Fort George ; the Americans holding possession of the Heights, while hundreds of them remained below at the landing, under protection of the river bank, ready to find their way back to their own shore when opportunity offered. THE AMERICAN POSITION. The very spot on which we sat was about the CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 385 centre of the American position on the Heights, overlooking the town of Queenston. They were preparing themselves for an attack, straight up the Heights. Their general and engineers must have been mere novices in military tactics. They took up a position, having the precipice of the Niagara on their right and rear, without pro- viding for a line of retreat or escape, in case of disaster. The first duty of an experienced general, after getting possession of the Heights, would be to have detached 150 to 200 riflemen to his left through the woods (afterwards taken possession of by the British Indians), and to have secured the roads leading from Queenston to Chippewa, thus cutting off all communication between Queenston and Chippewa. This was the key to the Americans' position, but their general did not see it. But the more intelligent British general at once detached his Indians, about one hundred, to hold the woods and secure the roads leading to Chippewa. This was the real cause of the American defeat on Queenston Heights. By noon all the men that could be spared from Fort George had assembled around Queenston. General Roger Sheaffe arrived and assumed com- - 25 386 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. maud. The force there consisted of Holcroft's two guns (six pounders) of the Royal Artillery ; Swayze's two guns (three pounders), Provincial Artillery ; four companies of the 41st Eegiment ; James Crooke's and McEwen's companies of the 1st Lincoln Militia ; William Crooke's and Nelles* companies of the 4th Lincoln, Applegarth's, Hatt's and Durand's companies of the 5th Lin- coln ; a few of Merritt's Provincial Dragoons, and the remnants of the two companies of the 49th, and the three companies of the York Militia engaged in the morning — in all about 800 men. The Indians in the woods on the Heights, on the left of the Americans, under John Norton and John Brant, made up about one hundred more. The Canadian reader will see and be proud to know that fully one-half of the British force on Queenston Heights was Canadian Militia, composed chiefly of the brave FIGHTING BOYS OF LINCOLN AND YORK. General Sheaffe left Holcroft's Battery, with a small body of militia in support, to guard the village of Queenston, and to prevent the Ameri- cans landing more men, and then ascended the Heights on the left flank of the Americans, in rear of the woods held by the Indians. The CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. SSI Americans had expected the British attack would be straight up the slope and prepared to act accordingly. But they were now forced to change their front by throwing back their left and advancing their right, so as to face the British line advancing on the rear of their left. The force from Chippewa, consisting of the light company of the 41st Regiment, under Lieut. Mdntyre, and Hamilton's and Rowe's companies of the 2nd Lincoln, with a few volunteers, formed a junction with the main body from Queenston, at about two o'clock in the afternoon, increasing their numbers to about 950 men. The line of attack was formed, haying the light company of the 41st, and the two companies of the 49th, under Captain Dennis, on the left of the line, next to the Indians, supported by a battalion of militia, under Colonel Butler. The centre and right were composed of the other four companies of the 41st, supported by the rest of the militia, under Colonel Thomas Clarke. Swayze's two (t three pounders," drawn by men with ropes, preceded the advance of the line. The actual numbers of the Americans facing General SheafFe's advancing column was between 900 and 1000, the rest of them being around the 388 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. Battery on the slope, while hundreds of them remained below at the landing, under cover of the river bank. Therefore the actual numbers on both sides engaged on the Heights were about equal. The battle was opened by the light com- pany of the 41st on the left, by firing a single volley, then charging with fixed bayonets upon the riflemen on the right of the American line, who gave way in great confusion, having no bayonets to their rifles, leaving that flank ex- posed. General SheafTe then gave the signal for A GENERAL ADVANCE. The gun in front of the American position was carried almost without resistance, and the whole body of the Americans was forced steadily back upon the river to the very crest of the precipice in their rear. The fight was short, rapid, and decisive ! The advance of the British line, hav- ing assumed the form of a crescent, overlapping the Americans on both their flanks, General Wadsworth and Colonel Christie, with over 500 men, surrendered on the very verge of the cliff. Many of the fugitives scrambled down the sides of the Heights towards the landing, with the hope of escaping to their own shore ; but Hoi- CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 389 croft's Battery below, in rear of the village of Queenston, had rendered the passage of the river so dangerous that the boatmen refused to cross. Many plunged into the river and attempted to swim across. Half of them were drowned, while the remainder secreted themselves among the rocks and bushes along the shore. During this time our Indians lined the cliff or perched them- selves high up in the trees above, firing at the fugitives whenever opportunity offered. The American general, Scott, to preserve the rest of his command from utter destruction, raised a white flag, and surrendered his whole remaining force of about 300 men. Some evaded by secret- ing themselves, but surrendered the next day, making the whole number of prisoners over 950 officers and men, thus closing a glorious victory and avenging the death of General Brock. The American loss in killed, wounded, drowned and missing has never been correctly ascertained, owing partly to the immediate dispersal of a large portion of their militia. Some accounts give their killed and drowned at one hundred, others placed the drowned alone at one hundred, and THREE HUNDRED KILLED AND WOUNDED. Another American account stated that 1600 390 THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. Americans were engaged, of whom 900 were regulars, and the number Jof killed and drowned were estimated at from 150 to 400. Take it all in all, it was a great victory, the Americans los- ing nearly one thousand prisoners, and from two to three hundred in killed, drowned, and missing. The British loss was small — sixteen killed and sixty-nine wounded. The returns are missing, and this may not include the Indians. The total casualties, however, it is thought, in killed and wounded on the British side may be set down as under one hundred. The writers stand-point view on Queenston Heights of 1845, is still there. The monument erected to the memory of General Brock by a grateful people still stands. The waters of the Niagara still roll silently but swiftly by as of old. All is now quiet and peaceful around those Heights, and the dread conflict of the 13th of October, 1812, is almost forgotten by the people of Canada, except when aroused by the uncalled- for braggadacio of the American press as to how they could " gobble up Canada." Then Cana- dians proudly point to those " Queenston Heights," and the glorious victory won by their little army of 1812, and so long as breathes a CANADIAN PEN AND INK SKETCHES. 391 patriotic Canadian, or Canada remains a portion of the British Empire, the Battle of Queenston Heights, and the name of General Brock, asso- ciated with the war of 1812, will ever be held sacred as " Canadian household words."