Upper Canada life: 1881 - 1891
Welcome back to old Ontario. It's a new decade and much has changed here in Dawn Township. Some times have been good and others less so, but exciting things are happening in this land of opportunity and our neighbourhood has some new families. Let's take a walk and pay them a visit.

1881-1891

Between 1881 and 1891 the country around the Coubroughs has become quite settled. There is now little or no free land left in the township. Any land that is for sale has a much higher price than when we first met Jim and Annie. The country is so crowded that the grown sons of many families sons have moved west to the new settlements in Manitoba. Due to a clerical error in an early document, Jim and Annie seem to have moved up the road a ways but are really still farming the same place they always have: The 1861 census said they occupied the SE¼ of Lot 7, Concession 15. In fact they lived on the SE ¼ of Lot 15, Concession 7. (Dawn Township has no Concession 15.) Jim still farms his ten acres with his three oxen, but is about to lose Matt, his "farm assistant," to marriage and a family of his own. The girls are all grown up, too. Jennie is married and expecting her second child in late August, (1881).

The village of Rutherford has expanded somewhat since the Coubroughs moved there. Rutherford, oldest of the several small communities in the township, was originally known as Dawn Centre because it was the actual centre of Dawn Township before the Western District was split into Lambton and Kent Counties. A small triangle of land, known as the Gore of Camden, is the home of the village of Dresden which had, before 1850, belonged to Dawn Township. When the two new counties of Lambton and Kent were created, the Gore went to Kent. In 1881, most folks still call their village Dawn Centre, and think of Dresden as part of Lambton County, as they will for many years yet.

With the advent of the new steam-powered sawmills large-scale land clearance is at last possible. Until now, the heavy clay soil and the dense oak and elm forests have been too much for the puny efforts of men with axes. Indeed, even in 1881, many of the concession roads are not yet open for their entire lengths. But we came here to build and build we will. Our population is soaring. With only 429 souls in the entire township in 1850, and about 1000 in 1870, we have more than doubled that in the last decade to where we now have 2026 in 1881. Local business is up to the challenge, and our town is growing, too, with now nearly a hundred citizens. Dawn Centre has had a Township Hall since 1850, a school and a post office since at least 1861, and now we have a fine new Presbyterian Church (1879), too, on land purchased from one of our County's leading citizens, Mr. James C. Brown. We have some other successes, too: Mr. Harry Lilly's hotel; the Graham Brothers' sawmill; Mr. Barnes and Company's shingle factory; Mr. John Muir's blacksmith shop; and the new General Store of Mr. C.H. Roberts. Mr. John Brown, father of our Church benefactor, had operated a smithy in town for many years from 1861 on, but has retired.

While Mr. Jim Brown and his family are not new faces in town, there are a few others who are. Matt Coubrough's sister, Flora Jane, has recently returned to Dawn Centre with her husband, William Atwell. Billy, a sawyer by trade, has come back to operate one of the new steam-powered sawmills now so common in the township. He has brought his wife and young family with him. We'll see them all again later, but first, let's take a look at their world. Top of page
 

Politics

In 1881, Sir John Alexander MacDonald is still the Premier of Canada, as he will be until his death on June 3, 1891. Sir John's pet project, a shining steel path to connect Ontario to the west coast of British Columbia is still underway, but it is nowhere near done. (It will be 1882 before a way is found over the great western mountains; 1885 before the last spike is driven. Despite large amounts of cash handed out in the last round of election promises, it will still be several years before the railroad is fully completed to the east coast. Most of the country between Winnipeg and Burrard Inlet (Vancouver) remains a wilderness, full of "wild Indians," fur traders and other uncivilized types. Reports from there say that the buffalo are gone and the Indians and the "half-breeds" are beginning to complain of the mess the settlers are making of their country. Some of our deeper thinkers are warning of disaster if the Government doesn't do something soon, but the alarm goes unheeded. The prairie west is still a raw, sprawling, empty place, though this is changing rapidly as a trickle of white settlers becomes a flood in the quest for new farmland.

An economically-induced spirit of optimism has made the overseas recruitment of immigrants a run-away success. A record number came to Canada in 1881, and the thousands gone to Manitoba are part of the reason for the plight of the Métis, though the coming of the railroad has also put many of the carters and freighters out of business. Winnipeg has gone from a few shacks to a city of 10,000 people in 1883. The West is booming and the tiny province (about its 1998 size) is overflowing. Land speculators are everywhere, trying to make their fortunes from the coming of the railroad. Early in 1883, you could have bought a Winnipeg city lot for only $750 a running foot. Then, in the summer of 1883, the railroad took a more southern route and if you owned some of the now nearly worthless land along the original proposed route, you were one of the lucky ones. There was nothing left to start over with and many, convinced that Ottawa was to blame, demanded that Sir John's government do something--so it did. Many Indians have been forced onto reserves and given food rations while attempts are made to teach them to be farmers. In order to force Indians to co-operate in the venture, their rations were reduced. The buffalo are gone and most other game nearly so, and many people have no choice but to go onto the reserve or starve to death. By 1883, federal revenues have shrunk drastically in the early stages of the depression that will grip the world by the end of the decade, and the "Indian Policy" people have run out of patience, so rations have been cut even further. It is not hard to see what was about to happen, and western area police forces saw. Their warnings go unheeded by a government calling them scare-mongers.

During this same period the "Métis problem" began to heat up. Many Métis had sold their 1870 land-grant farms in Manitoba to the speculators and moved west to the Saskatchewan river. After 1883, in an effort to increase the wealth of the country and pay for the railroad, as well as satisfy the demand for new farmland, Ottawa decided that it was necessary to fill this vast Western emptiness with settlers. These new farmers would grow enough food to feed the more civilized areas of the country and have some left over for export. The prairie west would be the bread-basket of the world, making fortunes for all concerned. When government surveyors went west from Winnipeg, the re-located Métis saw them coming and they were ready. Louis Riel and his lieutenant, Gabriel Dumont, headed a movement aimed at giving the Métis their own country, where they would be free to speak their own language, and follow their own religion. The idea didn't fit Ottawa's plans any better than the Métis' long, narrow river lots fit the new square survey.

On March 16, 1885 police met the Métis at Duck Lake and 12 people died. On March 18, Riel declared his provisional government, and the rest is history. The rebels were eventually quelled, and their leader hanged for treason, but not before there were heavy losses on both sides. On the prairies, the Riel Rebellion was soon forgotten in the need to make a living on land blessed with heat, drought and insects. But in Ottawa, the repercussions were to last somewhat longer: On November 16, 1885, Riel was hanged as a traitor and his death was a catalyst for an explosion of French voices claiming oppression of French Canadians by the English capitalists. MacDonald's coalition government was split by this outcry, which started an erosion of the federal system into a provincialism that has lasted for over a hundred years.

At the same time, there was much noise from Edward Blake's opposition Liberals about the evils of the factory system promoted by the reigning Tories. But among the voters, there was a general feeling that the Liberals would either do the same things or that they would do nothing at all: Sir John A.'s job remained secure. Canadians would eventually learn to condemn the factories and their attendant evils, but in the 1880's business was king. Politicians have economic as well as political reasons for not trying to improve the lot of the worker. Though there is money to be made by both owners and workers, most advantages lay with the owner. (There are no conflict-of-interest laws, and some politicians are also factory owners.) There are no insurance policies to pay the bills when, as often happens, a breadwinner is killed or disabled by unsafe machinery; no unions to take your side when you are fired for taking a sick day or even for being a few minutes late for your shift. There is nothing to stop an overseer from flogging you for not keeping up to the required pace at any time during the 12- or 14-hour day, or for needing to go to the outhouse more than once a day on your 15-minute lunch break. Though there are a few small factories, where progressive owners believe that happy workers are more productive, most are viewed as money makers for the owners. An endless supply of workers from the lower classes means it is easy to replace any that are killed or injured, so there is no point wasting money trying to make them comfortable or to make the machines safe. They aren't smart enough to appreciate it anyway.

There have been a few factory safety laws passed, but most of them are concerned with preventing the employment of women and children, who are paid less and are often hired instead of men for that reason. Usually, wages are so low that a large family has to have as many people in the work force as possible in order for them all to live. Thus, the "safety" laws are just as unpopular with workers as with the bosses. Any laws that deal with the actual safety of the workplace are not commonly enforced because it can be politically expensive to do so. Anyway, what does it matter if a few factory hands are maimed or killed? There are always plenty more. The few idealists who don't agree with this exploitation have made some attempts at organizing the unskilled labourers, but since you can lose your job--or worse--for even talking about organization, they don't attract much support. A few trade unions do exist, but only for skilled tradesmen in construction and railway jobs, or some of the old crafts such as printing.

In the 1880's, Canada has a fairly large middle-class, comprising churchmen, teachers, and other "humanitarians" who do as much as workers to make Canadian cities better places to live. Many women have become very outspoken in their demands for political voice, which they see as essential to their efforts to protect their families from the prostitution, drunkenness, and bad sanitation that ruin their lives. Dr. Emily Stowe, Canada's first woman doctor, is a major engineer of the Canadian Woman's Suffrage movement. While a few clergymen cautiously add their weight to the social reforms, it is really the problems of urban expansion that have forced city councils to create water and sewage systems, improved police forces, and hire health inspectors. Among their motivating forces is the unspeakable horror of urban life in large US cities. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that a businessman who has a monopoly on a streetcar line or a telephone system will find it worth his while, even if a little "present" to certain members of the city council might be needed.

The Canadians who are busily building themselves a new country haven't completely forgotten the old, but they go to great lengths to show that they are independent. For example, many Canadians were flattered when Princess Louise moved to Canada with her husband, the Marquis of Lorne when he came as the new Governor General in 1881. But Lorne, as the head of Clan Campbell, was astonished--and none too pleased--to find that Canadian Campbells refused to take off their caps in his presence.

The national railway that will allow Ottawa, rather than the US, to control the vast western prairie is finally completed in 1885. The last spike is driven into the CPR on November 7, at Craigellachie, B.C., and you can now travel from Montreal to Burrard Inlet in a week. When the railroad was finished, many of the Chinese who had laid the track eastward from the west coast had no where else to go and stayed on to work in the mines and on farms. This set the stage for further unrest as white workers now have an economic excuse for their prejudices. The CPR's prairie freight monopoly, which lets the CPR charge whatever they want, makes Western farmers unhappy. They and farmers everywhere resent the tarriffs applied to manufactured goods that increase the price of everything from farm machinery to hair ribbons while protecting manufacturers from profit-lowering competition. Canada follows the rest of the world deeper and deeper into recession, and the politicians seem powerless to stop it.

In 1889, many tout the advantages of something that would have made them shudder only a few years ago: a "Continental Union" with the United States. Many consider Confederation a complete failure, evidenced by the massive emigrations to the United States and the failure of Premier MacDonald's National Policy. The country is in danger of breaking up and many Canadians are resigned to being annexed by the US. Fortunately, this is still repugnant to many others, including the new young leader of the Liberal Party, Wilfrid Laurier. He advocates a more modest plan of total reciprocity: Both Canada and the US would set their own tarriffs for outsiders, but there would be none between the two main occupants of the continent. By 1890, the reciprocity platform is much less popular: In the Bering Sea, Canadian sealing ships have been seized by American warships in the name of conservation, while American sealers are unmolested; and the McKinley government has proposed a new tariff that will kill the Canadian grain trade to the US, a situation not calculated to make farmers happy.

Things look pretty grim for the first Father of Confederation and his young country as he calls a February 1891 election. His campaign strategy, based on the loyalty of his countrymen, works and Sir John A. is elected again, but the effort has been too much for the old man. He died on June 3, 1891, believing he has saved the country he built--and perhaps he has. Britain has bought all the grain shut out by the McKinley tariff and looks for more. There are signs of a mining boom in the Kootenays of B. C., and talk of a new railway through the Crow's Nest Pass of the Rocky Mountains. The glow is restored to Confederation, and Canadians believe in themselves again. Top of page
 

Economy

The early 1880's is a time of great optimism in most of the country. The economic depression of the 1870's is over and the new decade had brought back some prosperity. Factories and the urban squalor that go with them are too new to be criticized. All most people see is the opportunity for new wealth created by the factories moving out of major cities like Montreal and Toronto, to the smaller places where there are plenty of large farm families looking for jobs and who will work for less money than their city cousins. The spirit of adventure has returned, and the sons of Ontario farmers are moving west in record numbers to be part of the boom in Manitoba.

But in 1883, things are looking a little less bright. The fabled CPR is foundering and nearly bankrupt. The economic slump is back, and no foreigners want to invest either their money or their lives in Canada. In the winter of 1884-85, the country's debt has risen by over 50% due to promises of railway improvements made to Quebec and New Brunswick. The CPR has run out of money. Employees who have not been paid for weeks of back-breaking labour are on strike. The CPR is saved from oblivion only by their promise to move troops over their (still unfinished) track to Batoche, which got them more money voted by Parliament. Some believe this to be political funny business because troops could be moved faster and just as cheaply on lines already existing in the northern US.

In 1889, the trickle of emigration to the US has become a flood and some Canadian towns are depopulated to the point of being ghost towns. The country is deep in a world-wide economic depression again and life does not seem quite as rosy for most folks as it had a decade earlier. Top of page
 

Home

Most work at home is still done by hand, there being no other way to do it. Now that the children are grown, there is less work to do at Annie's house but there are 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. Jennie, Matt, and Barbara have all gone off to homes and families of their own. Perhaps Liz and Jennie come for a visit, but with several young children each, they are pretty busy with their own housework. Minnie is still home, but can't do all the work herself.

Now that the general store has come to town it's much easier to get things like coffee, tea, sugar and dress goods than when Annie and Jim first moved to Dawn Township. Most things for the home are still made there as there is still a shortage of cash money in the area, and most shopping is done by trading eggs, butter and home-made cloth for goods at the store. Manufactured goods are quite expensive due to the tariffs and high freight rates charged on them. Things are pretty tight right now as the prices for grain and other produce are very poor, so we won't have new dresses this year, but we can remake last year's once more. Things are bound to get better soon.

Our general storekeeper is a thoroughly modern man. He has quite a few of the new gadgets that seem to be invented every day. You can buy yourself a whole set of pots made out of an amazing new kind of metal. Aluminum, they call it. Food doesn't stick to it, and they say it never needs polishing. If you buy some of the new canned food at the store now, they put it in a sack made out of brown paper instead of wrapping it in flat sheet of paper or an old flour sack. Many prepared foods are available at the store now, including several varieties of ketchup (mushroom is very popular) and many different types of pickles. Some of them are a great boon for travellers. Tins of peaches in syrup, stewed tomatoes or baked beans are much easier to carry and prepare than fresh ones. Tinned food has been around for nearly 80 years now, but it is only in the last few years that they have become popular. The cans are much smaller and lighter than they used to be, and someone has finally invented a device to open them with. The cans were quite dear and most folks preferred to make their own preserves, but the tins are getting cheaper and more attractive, especially to city folk. Even good quality baking powder is now available in cans so you don't have to track down a chemist to mix it or try to find pure ingredients to mix your own. There is much concern over the quality of the food city folks have to eat. There is even talk of a Pure Food League to make sure that merchants aren't poisoning people in order to make a dollar.

There are some new foods, too. Last week at supper we had corn boiled on the cob--delicious with fresh sweet butter. And last month at the neighbours' house we had a new type of salad made of cold boiled potatoes mixed with chopped cabbage, hard boiled eggs, and salad dressing. Some of the men were not pleased at being fed cold potatoes for supper, but they ate it. Perhaps you would like to try their recipe, though it may be difficult to get it very cold unless you have one of the new ice-boxes in your kitchen. It is a marvellous place to store food. Food lasts longer and the box is mouse-proof and fly-proof, too!

2 cups of mashed potatoes, rubbed through a cullender, ¾ of a cup of chopped cabbage--white and firm, 2 tablespoonfuls of cucumber pickle, also chopped, yolks of two hard boiled eggs, powdered fine. Mix well.

1 raw egg, well beaten, 1 saltspoonful⁽¹⁾ of celery seed, 1 teaspoonful white sugar, 1 tablespoonful of melted butter, 1 teaspoonful of flour, ½ cupful of vinegar, salt, mustard and pepper to taste. Boil the vinegar and pour it upon the beaten egg, sugar, butter and seasoning. Wet the flour with cold vinegar and beat into this. Cook the mixture, stirring until it thickens, then pour, scalding hot, upon the salad. Toss with a silver fork and let it get very cold before eating.

Things have sure changed around the house in the last few years. Not only do we have ice-boxes in the kitchen, but we have seen some streets and even some homes lit by the gas that comes up out of the ground in places like Oil Springs. We have even heard of a whole town in the Northwest Territories that is lit by gas. Medicine Hat, it's called. And some towns have electricity running right to your house where it can do all manner of things from lighting the rooms to ironing your clothes.

There seems to be a machine to do everything these days. The storekeeper even has a machine for writing letters! And we have heard that there places where a young man can get a job as a type writer if he knows how to operate one of these machines. In the cities, there are even young women taking these jobs, though why they won't get married and behave properly, who knows. In the United States, a woman has invented a machine for washing dishes, of all things. You can get machines for sewing your clothes and for washing them. We hear they have some of Mr. Bell's telephones over in Dresden--some people have them in their houses! And there are even machines for sweeping the carpets so we can clean them every week instead of waiting for spring to take them up and beat them outside. Home is a healthier place since Miss Nightingale and Mr. Pasteur shown us how harmful dust and dirt are.      Top of page
 

Travel

In 1884, three-quarters of the township was still under heavy timber. That year a rail line from Dresden--the Dawn Tramway--pushed into the township to haul timber out. By 1898 when the timber was gone, so was the tramway. In 1888, the Michigan Central Railroad, successor to the Canadian Southern, ran a railway into the "extreme woodlands" in the northern part of the township: 1.4 miles from Oil Springs to Edy's Mills, it provides freight, passenger, and timber hauling services (as it will until 1960).

If you must roam further afield, say to Montréal to catch a steam packet home to Glasgow, you can always travel on the CPR. That is, if you don't mind walking or taking the wagon to the nearest train station at Oil Springs or Edy's Mills. Even though in 1891, trains have become the preferred means, long-distance travel is not for the faint-hearted. Some express trains travel at phenomenal speeds of 40 miles per hour or more. The cheapest fares are third-class seats. These are solid wood benches with fixed backs. The entire journey is made sitting up on what amounts to a miniature church pew. Second class seats are padded and covered in plush, which looks something like heavy velvet but whose pile is much stiffer. These seats have moveable backs which can be flipped over so that your seat faces the other way. Very handy if you wanted to face the same direction as the train was going, or if you wish to converse with your travelling companions. The seat backs also fold down flat to make into a sort of bed for sleeping. Not particularly comfortable, especially if you are above the average height of about 5'6" for men and 5'0" for women. Really rich folks can travel first class in a closed compartment with a bed and a sink.

If you plan to eat, you should bring a lunch. Dining car meals, besides being very dear, are not always available and they are sometimes off-limits to third-class passengers. Food along the way is unreliable to say the least. If you can get it, it may not be fit to eat, and the prices are very high. If you stop long enough to go to a café, you may find a bargain by walking a few blocks from the station, though it is generally best to bring your own basket.

If you must travel in winter, you are well-advised to bring a heavy cloak or perhaps a travelling rug or two. Even in first class, the stoves are only at the ends of the cars, while third class may have no heat at all. In any season, wear a linen duster over your clothes as great quantities of smoke, dust, ash and cinders enter at the windows, especially in summer when there is no other method for cooling the air in the cars.

We have seen a monster called a horseless carriage. It was a clumsy thing that couldn't even pull itself out of the mud. They are noisy and they scare the horses. Mostly expensive toys for rich folks, we doubt they will catch on. Anyway only a madman would want to travel that fast on the road (as much as 20 miles per hour!).      Top of page
 

The family

Mr. James C. Brown is one of our most successful farmers. A staunch Presbyterian, he is a member of the Township Council, the school board, and the Sydenham Masonic Lodge, as well as an ardent member of the Reform party. He owns the W½ of Concession 8, Lot 16, of which small parcels have been sold for the smithy and the church. He is also the owner of the W½ of Lot 20 in Concession 4, where his eldest daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, Matt Coubrough, will soon set up housekeeping and begin raising a family of their own. Matt and Liz have known each other nearly all their lives, as Matt's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jim Coubrough, live less than a mile away, straight south on the same road. Mr. Brown's brother, William, another successful farmer, lives nearby.

In the 1881 census, Matt, 27, is still living at home, but by 1891 he was the head of his own household. He had married the daughter of James C. Brown, a farmer who lived about ¾-mile from his (Matt's) parents' farm. Matt and Elizabeth Johnston Brown were almost certainly married sometime between the census of April 1881 and the birth of their first son in November of 1884. The actual date was probably late in 1883. At any rate, by the time the census-taker came again in May 1891, Matt and Liz had their own farm on Lot 20, Concession 4, which was located about 5 miles (by road) from their parents' homes. The one-room log home was 16' x 24'. They were the parents of five children: James, age 6; William, 5; Harvey, 4; Annie, 2; and Flora, 1 year. The title to their land would be retained by Liz's father until 1901, when Liz became the sole deed-holder.

By 1891, Matt's sister, Flora Jane, and her husband, Billy Atwell, have moved back to Dawn Township. They had been married at the Presbyterian Church in Florence on November 21, 1878, but there is no record of them in the 1881 census of Dawn Township. This could mean that they had temporarily moved away or simply that they were not at home when the census-taker called. All of their children were born in Dawn Township, so they perhaps had not gone very far. In 1891, they live in a 10 room house in Rutherford with their four living children: Eliza Jane, born August 27, 1881; William, born November 9, 1883; Barbara Ann, born March 29, 1886; and John Sherman, born May 8, 1887. They lost their first tiny daughter, Annie, on July 8, 1880, just 22 days after her birth. They buried her under a white marble stone in Gould Cemetery on Gould Road, Dawn Township.

Jane and Billy Atwell's neighbours were the Brown family, the senior members of which were John Brown, and his wife, Margaret Henderson Brown. John had been the blacksmith since 1861 but is retired and about to return to the Scarborough area. They had settled there on their arrival in Upper Canada and will go back to live with their daughter, Jenny (Mrs. John) Weir. Margaret and John lived on the SW 1/4 of Lot 16 in Concession 8. Their son, James Charteris, and his family lived in the same house, as they had since the 1860's. Elizabeth, James's eldest daughter, married Jennie's brother Matt, so they were neighbours and relations.

Matt's parents, Annie and Jim Coubrough, still farmed the same land they always had, but with a difference: On May 11, 1887, they would buy the land for $312 from Coll MacDonald, who had held the title all this time. On May 12, 1887, they would also mortgage it for the sum of $300. When they bought the land, the title was only in Annie's name, but the mortgage was in the name of "James Coubrough and Wife." The farm would be mortgaged once more in November 1892 for $600 before they managed to pay it all off in December of 1892. By 1891, Minnie was the only one at home. Jenny and Matt had married and settled in the area. Barbara had also married a man named Laughlin some time after 1881. There seems to be no record of them in Dawn Township after 1881, when Barbara was still living at home, so they may have already moved to the US by this time. Many Canadians moved south looking for work in the lean years of the 1880's.  Top of page

Storyteller

Our thanks to Shirley Ells for this edition of Storyteller.

In the early thirties, Harvey went east to work. He left his suit hanging behind the kitchen door. As was vogue at that time, he said I could have the suit and get one made for myself out of it. Grandpa Matt had also hung his new suit behind the same door. Before I retrieved the suit, someone had moved Harvey's. Grandpa's new suit went to the seamstress and I had a beautiful new suit that I was very proud of. Thank goodness Grandpa was gentle with his grandchildren.   Top of page
 

Question corner

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

1. Still looking for Annie's family. We know she had at least one brother, Ronald, who was living with Matt and Liz in 1901. The Coll MacDonald who sold her the land they lived on may have been another brother. So far, my search has failed to turn up any proof of Annie's parentage, but there is, some circumstantial evidence. I have heard that all the MacDonald's who lived in the same area as Annie and Jim were related to her and to each other. It is also said that one of the MacDonald's was a doctor. (Possibly Dr. H.S. MacDonald of Dresden who signed death certificates both for Annie and for Coll MacDonald?) Also, the Scottish naming practices of the day indicate that Annie's mother should have been named Flora. There was a couple named Neil and Flora MacDonald only a few miles from where Annie and Jim lived. They followed the tradition in naming their oldest son after Jim's father, Mathew, so they may have followed the naming convention and called the first daughter after Annie's mother. Any ideas?

2. Annie was possibly somewhat older than I previously thought. By the way the census records her age, her birth date was 1824 or 1826. She is also listed in Ontario Vital Statistics as being aged 82 at her death in August 1902, which would make her born in 1820. I was also given to understand that she was about 35 when she married, which could have made her born as early as 1818. Of course, until we can find the record of her birth--nearly impossible without knowing her parents' names--we will likely never know the truth.

3. Still looking for the origins of the family in the Stirling area of Scotland. I did find some records for a Mathow Colbrough, married to a Jonet Sheirer. I believe these folks are in our line as it seems to be the only one in which the name Mathew is popular. We have also had a rather severe setback in this area. It seems that the James Cowbrough who was married to Jean Muir was not the great-grandson of John of Ellrig as we had thought. James Cowbrough and Jean Muir were definitely the grandparents of our "Grampa Jim," but after that, we are at something of a loss and we cannot connect our line to anyone earlier than 1755.

5. In January, 1858, Coll MacDonald bought the land where Jim and Annie lived. Their daughter Mary Ann was born March 1858, in Upper Canada. In the 1901 census, Ronald MacDonald, uncle to the head of the house, said that he came to Canada in 1834. Could this have been an error that should really have read 1854? (We know that Ronald's sister, Annie, came in 1854. Also still looking for why they moved to Canada in the first place. If, as I believe, Jim was a British Marine (foot soldiers who travelled by sea instead of walking), he was probably posted to "the colony," which would explain their dallying on the East Coast for four years. It would also explain the apparent conflict between the fact that Jim was said to have been a "sailor" and the fact that Aldershot, where Matt may have been born, was an Army camp. Perhaps, Annie's family, may have already been settled in Dawn before Jim and Annie came?    Top of page
 

Editor's corner

If you can answer any questions in this issue, or if you have some of your own, please write or give me a call. I would love to hear from you, no matter how small you think your detail is. I am still looking for stories and old photos that you might like to share with the rest of the family. All photos can be returned.    Top of page
 
 1. (Editor's note: A saltspoon holds about ¼ teaspoon. In 1998, a stainless steel fork will do nicely in place of silver which was used because the iron forks commonly in use would react with the vinegar and impart an unpleasant taste to the food.) Back to text  

 

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