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CHAPTER VI....continued
Let us now see what were the results of the energy and industry of this colony of Irish settlers in the short space of a single year. Remember, these people were not what it is the strange fashion in some parts of America to describe as, and the shameful fashion to admit as being--`Scotch-Irish;' they were genuine Irish, in feeling as in blood. These 2,000 `Irish Papists,' whose path of exile was tracked by wicked lies, sailed from Cork in May 1825; and in November 1826 they were proved to have done this work:--they had cleared and fenced 1,825 acres of land, and raised off the land so cleared 67,000 bushels of potatoes, 25,000 bushels of turnips, 10,000 bushels of Indian corn, 363 acres of wheat, 9,000 pounds of maple sugar; and they had purchased, by their labour, 40 oxen, 80 cows, and 166 hogs; the total value of the single year's work, literally hewn out of the wilderness, by the sturdy energy of these Celts, being estimated at 12,524l.!
These figures represent amazing energy and marvellous success, but they do not do full justice to the people by whom this work was done; for while they were engaged in the novel labour of cutting down the lofty and ponderous trees of the virgin forest, they were assailed by those enemies to the first settlers--Fever and Ague--that seem to resent man's invasion of the solitudes of nature, and endeavour to drive back his daring footsteps. Dr. Poole, a resident physician, writing of the sufferings of these early colonists, says that the fever and ague assailed them almost from the first moment they arrived in the country; and many strong hearts were unmanned, and many vigorous forms prostrated, during the earlier seasons of their forest life. Scarcely a family escaped, and sometimes entire families were afflicted with the ague for months together; and such was the violence of the disease, and their utter helplessness, that, at times, they were hardly able to hand each other a drink of water! It is a wonderful instance of energy and perseverance; and it may be well doubted if a greater amount of work has ever been accomplished during the first year by an equal number of persons, under equally unfavourable circumstances, in any part of America. It must be also borne in mind, that not one of these settlers had ever felled a tree until he set his foot in Canada.
The immigrants or settlers of forty years since suffered from inconveniences that are comparatively rare in the present day, and among the chief and most serious of these was the want of mills to grind the produce of their fields. The difficulty was not to raise the grain, but to convert it into flour, and thus render it fit for the food of man. It is recorded that, at an interview of a Scotch settler with the Governor, he told his Excellency--`We have no mill, sir, and, save your presence, sir, I have to get up at night to chew corn for the children.' Possibly the settlers from Cork were not subjected to a toil so fearful as that endured by the devoted Scotchman; but the only grist mill within reach being at a distance of between fifteen and twenty miles, it was necessary for the person who desired to get his corn ground to convey it to that distance on his back, and to return with it the same distance when it was converted into flour; and frequently would some sturdy Irishman shoulder his bag of grain, and bear it on his back those long and weary miles, his only food some potatoes which his wife had prepared for his toilsome journey. In the winter a hand-sleigh, that could be pushed over the snow, would afford facilities for taking corn to the mill, or for the transport of provisions; but there were states of the weather when the snow, which at other times afforded an easy track, was a source of impediment and danger. For many years the skin of the hog was made into covering for the feet, the hairy side being turned inwards; and as a substitute for tea, which was then a costly luxury, attainable only by the rich, or those within reach of towns, wild peppermint and other herbs were made to take its place.
What but the manly vigour for which the Irish race are now proverbial in the countries to which they have migrated, could have so speedily overcome the difficulties of a first settlement in the wilderness? Not a few of those who sailed from Cork in 1825 have passed away, after a life of hard and ceaseless toil, and others now stand, as it were, on the brink of the grave; but their sons and their grandsons, their daughters and their granddaughters, flourish in the midst of prosperity and comfort, of which those who went before them were the creators. The shanty and the wigwam and the log hut have long-since given place to the mansion of brick and stone; and the hand-sleigh and the rude cart to the strong waggon and the well-appointed carriage. Where there was but one miserable grist mill, there are now mills and factories of various kinds. And not only are there spacious schools under the control of those who erected and made use of them for their children, but the 'heavy grievance' which existed in 1825 has long since been a thing of the past.
The little chapel of logs and shingle--18 feet by 20--in which the settlers of that day knelt in gratitude to God, has for many years been replaced by a noble stone church, through whose painted windows the Canadian sunlight streams gloriously, and in which two thousand worshippers listen with the old Irish reverence to the words of their pastor. The tones of the pealing organs swell in solemn harmony, where the simple chaunt of the first settlers was raised in the midst of the wilderness; and for miles round may the voice of the great bell, swinging in its lofty tower, be heard in the calm of the Lord's Day, summoning the children of St. Patrick to worship in the faith of their fathers. Well may the white-haired patriarch, as he remembers the sailing from Cork, the passage across the mighty ocean, the journey up the St. Lawrence, the cutting of the road between the two lakes, the difficulties of the shallows, and the dangers of the rapids of the Otanabee, the camp in the wilderness, the fever and the ague that racked his bones in the early years, the hard toil and stern privations; well may he be surprised at what he now beholds--at the wondrous change wrought by the skill and courage of man, animated by the most potent of all incentives--the spirit of hope and the certainty of reward.
Twenty-five miles west of Peterborough, another town has sprung up within a few years--sprung out of the forest, as if by enchantment; and of this town a majority of its inhabitants are the descendants of those who left Cork in 1825, and of their friends or relatives who followed them in a few years after. There is not in Canada a prettier town than Lindsay, in which may be seen a curious structure, rather out of place in the midst of brick and stone. Carefully fenced round, and kept in a state of preservation, is an old log shanty, which is regarded by a considerable portion of the inhabitants with affectionate veneration. This was the temple in which they worshipped God when the soil on which the prosperous town of Lindsay now stands was covered with juniper and pine. Near this 'old church' is seen its successor--a splendid brick edifice of Gothic architecture, erected at a cost of $20,000. And not a gun-shot's distance from the old church is a fine block of shops, equal in style to any buildings in Montreal, which cost their owner some hundred thousand dollars. Twenty-five years ago he was a poor lad, not worth sixpence in the world; but he possessed what rarely fails in the long run--industry, honesty, intelligence, and steadiness.
To finish the history of these Irish immigrants, it may be mentioned that the discovery of gold in their neighbourhood has amazingly enhanced the value of real estate; so that those who desire, in the true American spirit, to push on, and seek a more extended field for their operations, may part with their property at prices which would enable them to purchase whole tracts of land in other places.
Proceeding farther West, we may behold the first hard struggle of people and of pastor, to reclaim the soil from the sterility of nature, and maintain the faith in the midst of the wilderness.
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