Upper Canada life: 1891 - 1901
 Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome back to Canada West. To start off this new year I would like to share with you some of the "finds" I have made over the past few months. I have found some "documentary evidence" of Coubroughs past that I hope you will find as interesting as I do. It is another new decade here in Dawn Township, and the dawn of a new century is on the horizon. As always, some times have been good and others less so, but this is still the land of opportunity. Let's hitch up the wagon and go for a drive. We'll go visit some old friends, and some new ones too.
 

1891-1901

Jim and Annie are still in their five-room, one-storey house on the farm at the SE ¼ of Lot 15, Concession 7. Jim still farms his ten acres with his three oxen, but he and his dear wife are getting tired. Her health is not the best, and old age is catching up to them both. In 1891, Jim has passed his sixtieth birthday, and according to her count, Annie is 65.Their second daughter, Minnie [Mary Ann] still lives at home, as she has never married and is unable to care for herself, even though by 1901 she is 43 years old. Jim and Annie see their daughter Flora Jane Atwell and her family often as the Atwells now live in the village of Rutherford (aka Dawn Centre), less than half a mile from the farm. In 1891, Matt and Liz still live in their four-room two-storey house about five miles away on the SW-1/4 of Lot 20, Concession 4. The little house is getting somewhat crowded as their family continues to grow: They will have twelve children by the end of the century. By 1901, their oldest son, Jim, will be living with his maternal grandfather, James C. Brown, and his uncle, John Brown. He will be 16 by then and is likely working on the farm in exchange for his board.

There are other changes in the family's life, too. Technology has revolutionized farming and housekeeping, and prosperity seems to be every where. Society's rules have relaxed somewhat under the influence of the Prince of Wales, soon to be Edward VII, His aging mother is still the Queen, but she will pass on in 1901, and Canada has a new Premier [Prime Minister], following the death of Sir John A. MacDonald in June 1891. Let's have a look at some of these changes.

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Politics

On March 5, 1891, Sir John A. MacDonald won a hard-fought victory over his Liberal enemy Wilfrid Laurier: 121 seats to 94. But his victory was short-lived, and when the old man died on June 3, 1891, the Tories were in turmoil. There was no obvious successor to the "Grand Old Man," and, due to internal politics, the ablest of those available was unacceptable. The old "Manitoba schools" problem has not been settled and a succession of inoffensive--and ineffective old men were appointed as new leaders of the party. Sir John Abbot, Sir John Thompson, Senator Mackenzie Bowell all took their turns before the end of the session in 1895, when a new election was required. Though Sir Charles Tupper was probably the most able Tory of his day, he was not elected leader of the party because many of the cabinet ministers were afraid of his decisive (and some say bullying) ways. Of the men who were elected leader of the party, Sir John Thompson was probably the most decent, and the most widely knowledgeable. He was responsible for the Criminal Code of Canada, and a number of other reforms when he was the Minster of Justice, but he was not able to deal with the problem that most plagued the party: the Manitoba schools.

It doesn't matter that when Manitoba entered Confederation in 1870, one of their conditions of Confederation was the right to retain their Catholic religion and to be educated in French. Why do they want to keep on with those heathen customs and that barbarous language, anyway? Besides, why shouldn't they be the same as us? Letting them stay Catholic and speak in a language we can't understand sounds like special treatment to me. We should force them to speak English and what better way to do that than to outlaw their foreign chatter in all their schools. In the beginning, it was OK for them to be French if they wanted, but now that Manitoba has filled up with civilized people, why shouldn't they take over? In 1894, a Judicial Committee decided that Ottawa had the right to enact remedial legislation in the provinces, but in the finest tradition of Sir John A., nobody did anything, and it would be many years before the question was settled.

For the 1896 election, the Tories finally appointed Sir Charles Tupper as their leader. He was the fifth man in that job sine MacDonald had died in 1891. While Tupper was able to keep the Tories from being completely over-run, he was not able to give them a victory: He lost to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 118 seats to 88. Laurier would hold the job until September of 1911, when he would lose to Robert Borden.

Though we couldn't know it then, 1896 was a big year in Canadian history. A number of things that we thought of as foreign affairs in far-off lands--if we thought of them at all--would have huge impacts on our future. At the time, we didn't care that Washington had decided to end the homesteading of public lands, nor were we worried that Manitoba asked William MacKenzie and Donald Mann to build a railroad from Gladstone to Dauphin, offering them $7000 for every mile. Nobody paid much attention when "Lying George" Carmack and two of his Indian friends found gold near the Klondike River in the north-west edge of the North-West Territory. How can things like these that are so far away have any consequences in our little lives here in dear old Dawn Township?

The gold discovery on the Klondike River that we ignored in 1895 has, in 1898, produced a flood of gold-seekers. At least one of our local boys, Simon [Thompson] Brown, younger son of one of our leading citizens, James C. Brown, set off on the great adventure, but nothing has been heard from him since. The trouble is, unless you have money to get there you haven't got a chance of collecting any of the wealth that is lying around for the taking. We hear that the Mounties in Edmonton won't let you through unless you can prove that you have enough provisions for a whole year. And speaking of Mounties, they are recruiting again. Premier Laurier has sent many Mounted Policemen and military troops west to keep order, and, more importantly, to keep those pushy Americans from trying to take over any project that looks to make a dollar. As with all other things, the "Klondike" has fizzled to a close by the end of 1899. Even though the new Yukon territorial government is pretty well established, many of the 30,000 people who rushed up there are moving out. Many of them now have less money than they did when they went there, so I guess we didn't really miss all that much by staying home.

Now that they Americans have decided that they can no longer give out homesteads, many of them are moving north, to the Last Best West of our North West Territory. Many of them are very good farmers, who have experience at dryland farming, but nobody is really concerned about that. Years ago, Mr. John Palliser travelled through that country and reported that much of it was far too dry for farming. Most people think that is a bunch of hogwash--false propaganda to keep decent citizens out of the savage's territory and protect the rich folks who are running big cattle ranches out there. After all, everybody knows rain follows the plough, and if land is farmed properly, there will always be enough moisture.

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Economy

In 1891 things look pretty bright. The reciprocity⁽¹⁾ question seems to be settled, and Canadians have mostly decided that they want to remain Canadians, so Annexation to the U.S. is not an option. Too bad these good times never seem to last as long as we want them to. By 1893, the economy is a mess once again, though this time it seems to be all over the world. Fortunately, we have our federal politicians and their antics to amuse ourselves.

They say that gold is being mined in South Africa in ever increasing amounts, so those folks can buy more of our grain. This, and cheaper shipping rates have increased our farm income, but it has made food more expensive for city people. Of course, good things never come by themselves without something bad to counter them. The price of grain may be up for now, but President McKinley's high tariffs make it all but impossible to sell grain--or anything else--to the United States. Even dear old Britain has some nasty new quarantine regulations so it is very difficult to sell cattle there now.

In 1895, work started on a huge new hydro-electric project on the Niagra Falls. As soon as they figure out how to keep the machinery from freezing up, it will make millions. The only problem is, all the millions will go to cronies of the Liberal government. We think electricity should be a publicly-owned utility, and that a few men who are already stinking rich should not have a monopoly. We want to use the new technology, but we don't want to be robbed blind in the process.

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The Home

It seems like there are machines to do almost everything at home these days, and books to tell you how to do everything else. I even saw a book about how to run a house. It said how to clean and dust your house; how to nurse people who were sick; how and why you should keep yourself clean; and even how to cook. I don't know what girls are coming to these days, that they need a book to teach them all that. Likely they were allowed to play games and go to school when they should have been learning how to manage a home. But better late than never, I guess, and at least their poor husbands may get something fit to eat once in a while.

Some of the most amazing inventions are improved versions of things that have been around for years, but they are welcome additions to a woman's world for all that. You can buy a bar of white soap that floats, so you never have to worry about losing it in the wash water. It's been around for nearly twenty years, but we made our own soap for many of those years. There is a new type of lotion called Jergens that we can buy for our dry, chapped hands in the winter. Much more convenient than all the cooking and mixing to make your own. There is a new type of soap, too, that is made especially for washing your hair. It is called "shampoo" and it washes away with only water! No more squishing messy lemons to get greasy soap out. There are some amazing new products in the big stores in Dresden, and even here in dear little Rutherford. In the drug store, I saw a new powder called Aspirin that promises to cure nearly anything that might ail you, especially a headache. There are a couple of new creams, too. One is called Ben Gay, and is a marvel at calming muscles that have been strained by too much washing of walls and beating of rugs, or too long a day on your new bicycle. The other is called Noxema and they say nothing beats it for cooling off a sunburn. There is even a liquid called Mum, which you are supposed to put under your arms so you don't perspire!

Even cooking is easier with the wide variety of canned, bottled, and packaged goods now available. Coffee is available already roasted, and even already ground, and they say that it's flavour is as good as that which you roast and grind yourself. This would be a real time saver as coffee requires much care in it's roasting so as not to spoil it by burning, and the grinding is a tedious chore. We mostly drink tea at our house, any way. It is cheaper and doesn't require as much work to prepare. There are more and more packaged foods available every day, it seems. We have had packaged mixes for pancakes for several years, and recently at the general store, we saw some new kinds of packaged biscuits. One of them is a pastry filled with jam, called Fig Newtons, and the other is little biscuits in the shape of circus animals!

Though we haven't seen one yet, we have heard that a man in the US has made something called a "hookless fastener" which is to make boot laces a thing of the past. Some people have been using them in place of buttons on their dresses, but they are a lot of extra work because you have to unstitch them to wash the dress or the fastener will rust. There is also a rumour of a new kind of stove that cooks using electricity! Imagine! No more wood to split, no more coal to carry, no more ashes to take out. We saw in the newspaper the other day where a man in Scotland has invented something called Dewar's Flask which uses a vacuum as insulation to keep a jar of food hot or cold for several hours. And we have it on good authority that an Englishman has invented a suction cleaner [1901] to remove dust and dirt from carpets, draperies, and furniture. They are said to be very large and need two people to operate them, but I think it would still be less work than taking up all the carpets and taking down all the curtains in the house, putting them on the clothesline for a good beating, then putting them all back again. And the other day at the lumber yard, we were given a sample of a new type of advertising: a small paper folder with 50 paper matches inside. They are called safety matches and will not light until you scrape them across a special rough strip on the outside of the little folder. They will be much harder for the mice to set on fire by gnawing on them, and men can carry them in their pockets without worrying about lighting their trousers on fire.

Our technology seems to have no limits. Twenty years ago⁽²⁾ some one came up with a new material that seems now to be used for every thing. We have Celluloid collars, cuffs, and fronts for men's shirts, which don't have to be washed: you just wipe them off with a wet cloth. There are combs, jewelry, hand mirrors, children's toys, and even false teeth made of this astonishing plastic. There are other things made of plastic, too, but they don't work very well. You can buy kitchen strainers and special dishes to store food in your icebox, but the strainers warp and twist from hot foods and even in dishwater. The plastic dishes crack and split in the cold of the icebox, but I'm sure it is only a matter of time before someone thinks up an improvement. And people seem to come up with new uses for it every day. In 1889, Mr. George Eastman invented a camera that uses Celluloid strips, instead of glass plates, to take pictures. Now [1899, ed.], someone has invented has invented a new kind of photographic paper that lets you take pictures indoors under artificial light instead of always having to go outside. We have even heard that Mr. Thomas Edison of the United States has used the Celluloid strips to make moving pictures! We recently saw an item in the Dresden Times where in 1895, a Mr. Guglielmo Marconi made a wireless telephone transmission at his home in Italy. Now, he has sent his wireless signal all the way across the Atlantic Ocean⁽³⁾! Imagine being able to send telegrams without those very expensive underwater cables. What will they think of next?

Many girls are now going to college in the city, and even more are leaving their homes on farms for the excitement of working in the city. They are mostly in search of a life with less drudgery than their mothers had, but nearly all of them will end up marrying and having families of their own. A woman pursuing a career in finance or engineering is too outrageous to even think about. What their mothers can be thinking to even let them go is more than I can imagine, unless they just like to show off how much money they have. Nearly all housework, including cooking and cleaning, is still done by women. In homes where a daughter has gone off to university or to work, Mother and the younger daughters still get to do all the work, but are probably well enough off to afford some labour-saving devices. Most of the sewing still done at home is for the ladies and children, as ready-made men's clothing is cheap and readily available. Home sewing is also easier. Paper patterns for all kinds of dresses are available from magazines and by mail order, and many women can now afford sewing machines. And ready-made clothes for women and children are becoming much more common. There are mail order houses all over the country, and we can even order things easily from the United States.

On the fashion front, the bustle has made a comeback, though it didn't last long. Skirts are narrower than they were a few years ago, but the hour-glass figure is all the rage. Shoulders and sleeves are so wide that they are actually floppy instead of standing up, and very narrow waists are extremely desirable. We hear doctors going on all the time about how tight corsets are very bad for us. So what if you can't breathe deeply, and the bones on the high collars dig into your chin? No price is too high to be beautiful.

Though there is likely much less housework at Annie's house, there are also fewer people to do it and they are not as young as they once were. In 1891, Annie is past 70 and her husband is not far behind. By 1901, Annie's health is failing, and she suffers from chronic bronchitis. Jennie, Matt, and Barbara have all gone off to homes and families of their own. Liz and Jennie visit often, but they have children and houses of their own to tend. Minnie, is still home, but can't do all the work and is unable to look after herself.

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Travel

In 1891, horseless carriages are more common than they were 10 years ago, but they remain a novelty for folks who have too much money. Trains are still the way to travel if you have to go more than a mile or two, but we have a new mode of transport that ordinary people can afford. The new safety bicycle has two wheels the same size so it is much easier to ride and much cheaper than previous models. Some people like them so much that they even take cycling holidays!

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The family

Mr. James C. Brown is still one of our most successful farmers. He is much on his own, now. All but one of his children have moved to homes of their own, and in 1893 his beloved wife, Annie, passed to a better world than this. His father, John Brown the blacksmith, had died in 1883, before he was able to move back to Scarborough. Now by herself, James's mother stayed on in Dawn Twp, until her own passing in November of 1891.

Since her October 1883, marriage to Matt Coubrough, his eldest daughter, Liz, has given him 12 grandchildren, the eldest of whom [Jim] now lives with his grandfather. Mr. Brown's second daughter, Maggie, has married a man named Lachlan McNeill. They live nearby, but have no children yet. The eldest son, John, owns a store at Edy's Mills, a few miles from his father's house. He is courting the beautiful daughter of another merchant. Her name is Ethel Stevenson and she comes from Forest, Ontario.

When the census taker came in the spring of 1901, Matt and Liz still lived on the farm on Lot 20, Concession 4, where they had lived since their marriage on October 3, 1883. They have expanded their one-room log house to two storeys with a total of four rooms. With eleven children at home, they may have needed the extra space.

On January 30, 1901, James C. Brown gave a Bill of Sale, for $1,200, to Elizabeth Coubrough for the 50-acre SW¼ of Lot 20, Concession 4 (i.e., the farm Liz and Matt lived on), making her the sole deed-holder of the land. On April 3, Elizabeth Coubrough and Co. mortgaged the 50-acre SW¼ to the Canadian Savings and Loan Co. for $500. That is, they borrowed $500 against the land, probably to pay for the land itself.

According to the 1901 census, Matt and Liz owned the 50 acres they lived on, and they had leased another 50 acres. Possibly this was his father's farm. Annie and Jim Coubrough, were still living on the old farm, but Jim was now 70 years old, and he had possibly slowed down a bit. He was also likely needed more in the house. Annie, ⁽⁴⁾ now past 80, and suffering from chronic bronchitis, was failing in health. There may have been less housework to do, but even though Minnie, now 43, was still at home, she was unable to look after herself. This being so, she was probably not able to look after the house by herself either, so her father would have been needed. Except for 16-year-old Jimmy, who seems to have moved to his grandfather Brown's farm, all of Matt's sons were still at home. At 15 and 14, Bill and Harve were certainly big enough to do a man's work, though they were still in school. Even Bob, age 8, John, 6, and Simon, 5, were old enough to help out, so there was plenty of manpower. Bill had also had a job somewhere else for a while, being for "3 months occupied in other occupation than Trade or Factory in home," but the census didn't say what the job was.

In the house, the girls were getting big enough to relieve their mother of a lot of the housework. At 12, 10, and 9, Annie, Flora and Maggie were still going to school, but that didn't excuse them from things like feeding chickens, weeding the garden, dusting, cooking, washing dishes, making beds and looking after the younger children: Del, 3, Barbara, 1, and the baby, four-month-old Archie. They also had a houseguest.

According to the census record, there also lived in Matt's house one Ronald MacDonald (yes, really!), who was the uncle of the head of the house. I would think that this must have been a brother of Annie. The census said that he was born February 28, 1823, in Scotland, and that he had come to Canada in 1834. If he really was Annie's brother, he probably didn't come to Canada until 1854. Quite likely, either the census taker misunderstood, or who ever gave out the information told what they thought was right. It seems a bit odd that he would come as a young child, while his sister didn't come until after she was married.

By 1901, Matt's sister, Flora Jane, and her husband, Billy Atwell, have all seven of their living children at home. Fourteen-year-old John now goes by his second name of Sherman. He was followed by Orman, b. 1890; Rhoda Ann, b 1892; Matthew Delbert, b. 1895; and Clifford, b. 1897. The little girl, Barbara Ann, who was born March 29, 1886, only lived until June 3 of the same year. They are still living in their huge 10-room house in Rutherford, and Billy and his business partner, Lachlan McNeill, own a sawmill, which employs one other man full time.

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I had a chance to read some more of The Dresden Times back issues. The paper was founded in 1887, and I found some interesting notes from the 1880's, but I didn't get them until after I had published the last edition of this newsletter. Here is a livestock quote, from October, 1888:

Pork, live $5 75 to $6 00

Pork, dressed 6 50 to 7 00

Flour per cwt 3 00 3 25

Wheat, white, per bush 1 10 1 15

do red do 0 do 0 do

Oats, per bush 0 28 0 80

Barley, 100 lbs 0 90 1 05

Corn, in the ear, per bush. 0 56 0 60

do, shelled, do do 0 58 0 62

Peas, do do do 0 50 0 56

Beans, hand-picked 1 70 1 90

Wool 0 17 0 23

Butter, roll, per pound 0 14 0 19

Eggs, per doz 0 12 0 13

Lard 0 10 0 11

Potatoes, per bus 0 50 0 65

Timothy Hay 10 00 12 00

Timothy Seed per bush 2 75 3 25

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The newspaper type very small, and it is no wonder people suffered eyestrain trying to read them. But it saved paper and kept the cost down. From the front page, Thursday, Sep 13, 1888:

John Dowswell, Architect, Dresden, Ont., Plans and Specifications carefully and practically prepared for all kinds of buildings, town or country. Charges moderate. Jan. '89.

And some social notes. This was in the January 31, 1889 paper, but was labelled "too late for last week":

Mrs. J.C. Brown is recovering from her recent accident. [Editor's note: In the previous two editions there is no mention of what the accident was.]

In the same edition, Mr. Wm. Atwell and Mr. W.H. Brown were mentioned in a list of people who had paid for their subscriptions in advance, until January, 1890.

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Question corner

Here are some of the things I am currently working on:

1. Still looking for Annie's family. I have written to one of the MacDonald families presently living in Dawn Township. They were pointed out to me as having had ancestors in the area since the mid-1800's. I haven't had an answer so I still don't know if they belong to us. Still no other news on Annie's family, though I am almost certain that her parents were the Neil and Flora MacDonald who came to Dawn in 1853. Also almost sure that the Coll who sold them their land, and who was married to Mary Ann Graham was Annie's brother, but still looking.

2. Still looking for the origins of the Coubroughs in the Stirling area of Scotland. I have found some records indicating that Coubroughs may have been around as early as 1550, and that some of them may have moved to England for reasons that remain a mystery. In the early days, the English kept much better records than the Scots. There are very few Scots records from before 1600, so we may never realize our hope of connecting all those bearing the name. Ever optimistic, though, we continue to look.

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Editor's corner

This will be the last edition of this newsletter containing information from the census reports. 1901 is the last available year, and the 1911 reports will not be released for some time yet. I will, however, continue to publish the newsletter, if there is sufficient interest.

1. Reciprocity was the name for a deal with the US that was very similar to what we know as Free Trade. It occupied Canadian Politicians for decades.
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2. This plastic was actually invented in England in 1850, but was ignored until 1868 when a shortage of ivory prompted an American manufacturer of billiard balls to offer a prize for a suitable substitute.    Back to text           Top of page

3. The Morse code letter "S" was sent from Poldhu, Cornwall, England to Signal Hill, in St. John's Nfld., at 12 noon on December 12, 1901.
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4. Editor's note: According to most of the census records, for which she likely gave the information, Annie was born about 1826. Other sources show she was probably born about 1824, and possibly as early as 1820.       Back to text           Top of page

 

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