known as the old Ronson homestead.   He built a shanty thereon, using a large, fallen pine for one side of the shanty, with other timbers on it.   For a bedstead and table he bored holes in the pine for the width of the bed and slipped a pole on the end of those pegs, with holes bored in it to match with a leg under each end – the table the same – with boards on top for covers.   For chairs, he made benches; for a fire-place, he laid down a few stones in one corner for a hearth, then built up a back-wall with a few more stones and the fire-place was complete and ready for a fire.   I have heard him many times tell to build a fire as follows:

" A back log and a fore stick, and a stick on behind;
A middle stick, a top stick, then the fire and pine."

As floors in shanties in those days had not come into fashion and considered an expensive luxury, they moved in on the "ground floor" – where a great many wealthy speculators try to get to-day, although not exactly of the same kind of a ground floor.   Father built a little stable by the side of another pine tree for his oxen, bought a little feed for them and then went to chopping.   He chopped a couple of acres, he said, with as good courage as he ever chopped in his life.   He burned the brush and then started in to log it up, so that he could plant some potatoes and corn.   He took his oxen out, hooked on to a big pine log and turned it around so as to give himself the advantage of down - grade; he drew another log parallel to it and rolled them together.   They made a booming sound that almost startled him.   He stood as if awakened from a dream.   He looked around and began to think almost aloud.   He said to himself:   "It will wear out one life to clear off these Pines, then another life to get rid of the stumps and, when done, the deed will not hold the sand from blowing away.  " He made up his mind, right there and then, that he never would do another stroke on the place.   He at once drove up to the stable, hooked his oxen to his homemade sled, drove up to the shanty and told mother to pack up what things they had, for he was going to get away from the place just as far as the oxen could drag them that day.   He was not going to wear himself out clearing out those miserable pines.   Mother tried to persuade him out of his notion; it was no use.   They soon packed what few things they had, a bed and a few dishes, and moved back to Walsingham.   He then took his step-father-in-law’s farm for three years to work on shares.  

During the winter of 1819-20, when his time was about out on the farm, father and his brother-in-law, Abram Smith (who married mother’s eldest sister, Annie), and a young man by the name of Burnham drew one hundred acres of land each on the River St. Clair, in the Township of Sombra, Lambton Country (sp.).   They built what they

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called a "Durham Boat," canvassed over the front part of it like a covered wagon, put a floor in it about one foot or so from the bottom of the boat so as to keep their beds and provisions dry and made a room large enough for them to sleep in.   About the first of June, 1820, they loaded up, their boat with their goods and provisions, their wives and children - - father had two and Abram Smith had three, the youngest in each family being about one year old – and started from Port Rowan on their perilous journey.   They rowed and sailed (they had a small sail) up along the shore of Lake Erie, up the Detroit River and along the shore of Lake St. Clair to the Township of Sombra, Lambton County, some fifty miles north of Detroit, a distance of nearly three hundred miles from where they started.  

During their journey they tried to make some port or stream to run into and tie up for the night.   They got along very well by keeping near the shore and watching the weather.   If they saw a storm coming up they would slip into some place and tie up until the storm was over, and then go on.   When they drew near to the mouth of the Detroit River they saw a very black, heavy storm approaching, and seeing a house on shore near the water’s edge they thought they would run in to shore, leave the women and children at the house and then get some place to tie up until after the storm was over.   When they drew near to the shore the water was so shallow that they could not let get within several rods of the land, so father had to get out into the water and carry the women and children one by one to the shore.   He told them to go up to the house while they would try to get the boat into some place where the storm would not injure it.   Just as they turned out to go a little farther up, the storm became so violent from the northwest that, in spite of all they could do, they were driven out into the open lake, and were absent until the second morning.   The women saw the men driven out into the lake supposed, for almost a certainty, that they would be drowned.   In the meantime the women obtained shelter in an old stable covered with straw, and as the storm was very violent and it rained very hard the old stable leaked like a riddle.   The man who owned the place was a French-Canadian Catholic and, because the women were Methodists, would give them no better shelter.   The women would take turns in watching along the shore for the boat, in their anguish of suspense, while the Frenchman would curse them.   Father said, after the storm caught them all they could do was to run with the wind.   The other two men, when they saw they were being driven right out into the open lake, became frightened or sea-sick, or both, gave up to die, laid down in their bunks and left father alone to manage the boat.   He stood at the helm and seeing a small island in the distance, almost directly ahead, he steered straight for it.   He ran the boat behind the island, into a little cove, which made a capital shelter, and tied it up.   The next day the lake was a little rough, but

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he could not get the other two men to venture for shore with him.   The women had kept up the watch on shore all the next day and, when night came on and no sign of the boat or men, they gave up almost in despair and began to consider the seriousness of their situation.   Over two hundred miles from their people, with five little children (two of them unable to walk) and no money – what little they change they gave to the woman of the house for some bread, butter and milk for the children and themselves.   They almost wished they had stayed on the boat and taken their chances with the men.   The whole country was then a dense wilderness, excepting a few scattered houses or shanties along the lake shore.   There were no roads at that time, the steams were not bridged, and as there was no possible way for them to get back to their people but to walk through the wilderness and carry those two little children they saw that it was impossible for them to do it.   They might better stay where they were and perish tan to die in the woods and be devoured by the wild beasts.   They gave up in despair and wept, committing themselves and their little ones to Him who hath said, "I will be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless." However, the next morning the lake was as calm and smooth as a mill pond.   The men stared for shore as soon as they could see.   The women were out watching for them; they saw a small speck away out on the lake, it soon became larger and nearer; in a short time they saw that it was their own boat.   Their feelings can better be imagined than described.   The boat was soon at the place where they unloaded.   The women and children were at the water's edge, waiting for them; the women crying for joy; the eldest clapping their hands and saying:   "I see my pa!"   "I see my pa, too!"   Father had to take them aboard the boat the same way he unloaded them, by carrying them on one at a time.   When they were all aboard, they had quite a reunion and a happy time.   They soon proceeded on their journey, feeling very thankful that they had been providentially spared from a watery grave.   They soon turned into the Detroit River, where the wind or storm did not affect them, and finally arrived at Sombra all right and well, without any further accident.  

valleys, fording streams and sleeping in the wagon nights when they could not get to a house or shanty.   After a very tedious and tiresome journey, of three or four weeks, mother and the children completely fagged out, they finally reached Walsingham.   Father stayed there about two years – they had another daughter born to them there (Phoebe Almira).   He then went up to Southwold, on the Back Street, at Kettle Creek (now Paine’s Mills), where he bought a two hundred acre farm from Eli Brown, his brother-in-law, for $900, and had his own time to pay for it.   There was a log house, log barn and about forty acres of a clearing on the place.   He had a yoke of oxen and wagon, three or four cows, a few sheep and a pair of good mare colts.  

Now commenced the tug-of-war with father.   A young, growing and helpless family to support, and nine hundred dollars in debt for his land.   He was a man of splendid physique, strong and well built, weighing from 180 to 200 pounds, with a constitution like a lion and could do as much labor as any one man that I ever knew.   With great determination and force of character and indomitable perseverance, he generally accomplished whatever he undertook.   He was a fine type of a noble race of the early pioneers of Ontario, who felled the trees, let the sunlight into the forests, drove out the wild beasts, cleared the fields, introduced the plough share into the virgin soil, built the roads, bridged the streams, causewayed the swamps, established the schools, built churches, planted orchards and was a leader of civilizing and refining influence amongst his associates.   He possessed in an eminent degree the traits and characteristics which distinguished that large body of early who led the tide of emigration into the wilderness.   These men were in a class by themselves, being pre-eminent among the pioneers of all preceding and succeeding times for the special qualities of hardihood and adventure, united with intellectual powers and capacities of the highest order.   They not made the wilderness bud and blossom like the rose, but brought the Bible, the preacher, the school, the teacher, the spelling book and the artisan as co-ordinate parts of their enterprise.   A common man, with the ordinary muscular ability, courage and inherent traits of his race, without possessing intelligent attainments, cannot be the pioneer of intelligent and refined social life, neither a civilizing influence among his associates.   Hence the first pioneer settlers that came into this country brought with them the seed of that intellectual development that has made Ontario what it is to-day:    "The pride of the Empire and the admiration of its neighbors.  " When we stop and look back, say sixty or seventy years, and consider the almost insurmountable difficulties and hardships that our fathers and mothers had to labor under – no good roads, mostly sled roads; no markets, poor mail service; no labor saving machines of any kind; the axe, the hand-spike, the logging chain, the grass

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scythe, the grain cradle, the hand rake and the pitch fork were about all the tools they had to use; everything had to be done by main strength, sweat and muscle.   Such were the very unfavorable conditions under which our fathers and mothers toiled.   We inherit the fruits of their hardships and privations, their unfaltering courage, their dauntless determination; they braved the loneliness of pioneer life that we might enjoy the bountiful harvest of their hard toil; they slept on the ground in the Indian wigwam in the forest, and they built the log shanty with lonely toil and lived in them that their children might live in frame houses, and their grandchildren might live in brick mansions furnished with all the modern appliances of civilization.   When we consider the advantages, the privileges and the comforts that we have at the present time – good roads, good markets, cleared up farms, good buildings, carriages, railroads, electric cables, electric lights, telegraphs, telephones, self-binders, mowing machines, threshing machines that cut the bands and stack the straw, hay loaders, horse rakes, horse forks, hay tedders, corn harvesters, corn huskers, sewing machines, and all kinds of labor saving machinery to save manual labor, sweat and muscle; good churches, good schools, with all the advantages of the higher education; daily mail, daily papers, electric appliances, gas, coal oil, and a thousand and one little conveniences to make life easy and comfortable, pleasant and happy – we can never pay one tithe of the debt and gratitude we owe to our fathers and mothers for the sacred and noble heritage handed down to us, and for the watchful care, tender love, advice and their hard earned substance.   May we ever emulate their example and hold their memory sacred and fresh in our hearts’ core, and be thankful that we have been permitted to live in this progressive age of the world.  

Miss Louise Gilbert, in her history of the early settlers of Southwold, on the Back Street, writes that  "Eli Brown, one of the first settlers on the Back Street, sold his farm, lot 33, to Brinton P. Brown, a Methodist minister, who, after a number of years, sold it and moved to Dereham, where Brownsville was named in honor of him.   It was during his stay here in this section that he married Mr. Amasa Wood and Miss Fowler of Fingal.   Knowing that Mr. Wood was coming to get married, he invited a number to see the ceremony performed, which took place in the evening.   After they were married Mr. Wood and his bride drove to Fingal, where he resided for a number of years.   He afterwards moved to St. Thomas, built the Amasa Wood Hospital and presented it to the city.  " As regards schools, Miss Gilbert writes that "The children had to go two miles either way, to ‘Five Stakes’ or to Frome, as Kettle Creek was the dividing line between the two sections.   Brinton P. Brown and William Sells agitated for a school house nearer home.   So in 1832, those having children joined and built on lot 34, south, known as the Wade

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school house.   The money to buy the nails and shingles was raised by subscription; James Jackson prepared the lumber, as he had a sawmill on Kettle Creek, and Jonathan Wade did the carpenter work.   As a play ground was all unusual thing, the children had to use the highway for a play ground.   Andrew Boyd was the first teacher; he was paid so much per scholar and boarded around with his pupils.   The books he used were the Bible, the English Reader, Cobb's Spelling Book and Daybald's Arithmetic.   Although there never was a church built in this section, the school house was used as a place of worship in the early days, and Brinton P. Brown, a Methodist, was the first preacher." Miss Louise Gilbert died in 1895.  

Father lived in Southwold seventeen years.   He was an ordained New Connexion Methodist minister.   He obtained his license to marry from a Government official in London before the New Connexion Methodists had any legal authority to marry.   He married a great many couples in those early days, and attended most of the funerals for miles around.   Besides, he generally preached once or twice every Sabbath, and his house was always a home for the preachers.   He had a pretty hard struggle in those early days to support, educate and clothe his family and pay for his land.   The way he clothed them:    He grew flax, rotted, broke and hetchilled it, and mother spun, wove it into linen cloth and made it up into clothes for the children’s summer wear.   For their winter clothes, father kept plenty of sheep on hand; he would get the wool carded into rolls; mother and the girls would spin it, then mother would weave it into flannel and get that fulled for father and the boys’ clothing; for herself and the girls, she would color the yarn into different colors, and then weave it into nice checked flannel for her own and the girls' dresses.   The way father managed to get shoes for the family:   He would take some cow hides and calf skins to the tannery and have them tanned on halves, then in the fall he would get some sole leather and a shoemaker would come into the house and help him to make up enough boots and shoes to last the family a whole year.   Father always kept a shoemaker’s kit to do the mending with.   He could make a good shoe or turn his hand to almost anything.   He was a good brick maker, he could build brick chimnies, lath an plaster houses, build a sleigh and make a first-class ox-yoke, which was a very necessary article in those days.   Some years he would put a brick kiln on his own place, make from 35,000 to 50,000 bricks and burn them, then sell them to his neighbors for brick chimnies and brick ovens, and then put them up for them.   As for groceries there were not many bought or used.   Father made maple sugar sufficient for the family's use; about one pound of tea would last them nearly a year; for coffee they would scorch beans or peas; for soda or saleratus would burn cobs, then make a lye from the ashes and use it for biscuits, etc.   They ran no store bills in those days.   By hard work,

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strict economy and perseverance, father managed to get along, support and educate his family very comfortably; cleared up about one hundred acres more land; built a good frame house and frame barn, paid for the farm, bought fifty acres more land near by and paid for it.   I have heard him say what helped him pay for his land was:    When his colts were old enough to put them to breeding, raising thirteen colts in seven years from those two mares and sold them all for good prices; one he sold for one hundred and fifty dollars.   He also raised a good many cattle, and "broke" the steers and sold them for oxen.  

By this time father had seven sons and four daughters.   He made up his mind that he would sell out and go to some newer country where he could buy land cheaper for his boys.   About that time there was quite a craze for selling out and moving to the United States.   Every few days we would see covered wagons going past with large letters printed on the sides of the wagon, "Hurrah for Michigan!" Some for Indiana; some for Illinois.   So in the fall of 1839, father and a neighbor, by the name of John Fletcher, made up their minds that they would take a trip out through that country and see it for themselves.   Before they would sell out and take their families out there, they would try and see some of their old neighbors that had sold out a year or two before and moved out into that country, and see how they were satisfied.   They each put in a horse and got a good strong two-horse covered carriage, then drove out through Michigan, Indiana, by way of Chicago, and on through to Illinois to Dubuque, on the Mississippi River.   They found quite a few of their old neighbors during their travels.   They were all pleased to see them (Mr. Fletcher and father), but would not advise them to sell out in Canada and bring their families out there, as it was so very sickly in that region at that time.   Most every person had the fever and ague or some other sickness; some of them had died, and some of them were homesick and sorry they had left Canada.   Some places they would travel over eight or ten miles of prairie and not see a living person.   When they were stopping for dinner of over night, people would say to them:    "Gentlemen, you do not belong tot this country?" "No, we belong to Canada!" "I thought so, you look too fresh and healthy for this country.  " They went into a cemetery near a large town and counted thirty graves that never had been rained on.   That settled the matter with them.   They concluded that they would not take their families out there, although most of that land was a beautiful country to look at.   However, they turned around and came back through another part of the country father south.   They were pleased with the appearance of most of the country, but it was so unhealthy just then.   They came on home pretty well satisfied to stay in Canada, and were gone on their trip about six weeks.   After father cam home, quite few of their neighbors came in to see

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him and inquire about the Western country.   He told them that the most of it was a fine country to look at, but seemed to him so very bare and open without any timber for miles.   He believed he would rather have good timbered land as had always been used to it.  

Among the neighbors who came to see him was an old hunter, a particular friend of father's, by the name of Crippin.   After talking; about the west for a time, he said:    "Mr. Brown, if you want to get good timbered land, I can tell you where you can get plenty of it for your boys.   I have been hunting this fall since you were away out West, about thirty miles east of here, and traveled over some of as fine timbered land as I ever saw in my life.   In the Township of Dereham the timber is mostly beach and maple, with a few scattering pine; the finest kind of pine, from three to four feet through.   And I know where you can buy four hundred acres in a block, very cheap.   The man wanted me to buy it.   He gave me the description of it; here it is, ‘Lots 22 and 23 in the ninth concession of Dereham, one mile north of the Dean settlement.  ’ I can give you the man’s name that owns it; he lives in Port Stanley.   His name is Samuel Mason.   I could not buy it, because he wanted most of the money down and the balance in a short time.   Now, if you can manage to buy it, you are welcome to it.   For I would rather see you have it than any one else I know of.   You can go in on horse-back from the south, through the Moss settlement.  " After a short time, father and my brother (Brinton Paine) got on their horses, went down to see the land and found it just as good as his old friend, the hunter, had told him.   He was delighted with it.   After he came back he did not lose much time until he went to Port Stanley to see the man that owned the land.   He bought the four hundred acres for one dollar per acre, paid some down on it and agreed to pay the balance that winter.   In a short time he sold his odd fifty acres of land to a neighbor, by the name of William Sells, for the cash down.   As it lay by the side of Sell’s farm, he had been trying to buy it for some time.  

Father then went to Port Stanley, paid the man the balance on the land and secured his deed.   He stayed in Southwold the next summer and offered his farm for sale.   He went down to Dereham during the summer and bought a right from a man by the name of Vanwaggoner, who had taken up lot 22, concession 10, copped about half an acre and put up the body of a log house.   He gave the man one hundred dollars for his right.   He then to London to see the agent, Col.   Hamilton, a man he was well acquainted with, had it entered in his own name, made a payment on it and agreed to pay for it when he sold his farm in Southwold.   There were several parties after the Southwold farm that summer, but could not pay enough down on it to suit father.   Late in the fall an Englishman, by the name of Joseph Always, came along saying he was looking for a farm to buy and said to father:    "I understand you are offering your farm

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for sale?" Father said, "Yes, I have offered it for sale.  " Alway inquired, "What is your price?" Father told him, "$3,000.  " The buyer then said, "I would like to look over it" So they went all over the farm and examined the buildings.   Alway appeared to be well pleased with the farm, but thought it was a little too dear.   After a good deal of talk and bantering, they struck a bargain at $2,800, the purchaser to have possession about the 10^th of April.   Always said he had $10,000 coming from England, and he could not pay him until his money came; it might be six months or longer; he wanted to give himself plenty of time.   He would agree to pay him positively inside of one year; he would pay him as soon as it came.   Father was very anxious to sell, as he thought he could do so much better with that amount of money in Dereham, where he could buy land so cheap for all of his boys near together, which he thought would be nice; he had six hundred acres there already.   So they drew the writings in accordance with the bargain.  

Father soon commenced to move his grain, what he wanted for his bread, seed and feed, down to Dereham and store it in Mr. Dean’s granary.   He also took down what implements he had and all the household furniture they could spare – especially the parlor furniture, which consisted if eight or nine pieces; a loom, two wool spinning wheels, a flax spinning wheel, a quill wheel, a distaff, and a pair of warping bars – these were the musical instruments that my mother and sisters practised on most of the time, summer an d winter.   My brothers, Brinton Paine and Edward Foster, went down to Dereham with father about the first of February to build a shanty on lot 22, concession 9, for father had intended that lot for Brinton Paine, as he was married and going for himself.   They built a shanty about 12 by 20 feet, made the floor of split basswood, covered it with basswood troughs, chinked it with moss, built a little heart and backwall in one corner and left a hole in the roof above for the smoke to go out.   They came home about the last of March to take the cattle down, as the green feed, leeks and adder tongues had started up in the woods, they thought sufficient for them to live on.   So on the first day of April, 1841, father and the two boys started down to Dereham with the cattle, consisting of about twenty-five head of cows, steers and young cattle.   They went as far as Uncle Eli Brown’s, near Aylmer the first day.   The next day they went in by the way of where Springfield now is.   That was the end of the settlement, excepting one man by the name of Jacob Neff, who had gone in about two miles farther east and chopped out a sled road that far in.   Neff had also chopped about one acre and put up a small log house (which stands there yet).   That was the end of the road; nothing then but a foot path through the woods to the Dean settlement, which was four miles.   Father hired Mr. Neff to pilot them through the woods, which he did all right in good time.   Father and

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the boys stayed all night at Mr. Dean’s.   He left the boys there to look after the cattle and chop.  

Father came home and in a few days he loaded up one wagon with the bedding, dishes, a few other things and the family, consisting of mother, eight children and brother Brinton Paine’s wife; to this load he hitched the horse team, putting me on as teamster.   The balance of the furniture, father had loaded up on another wagon, drawn by an ox-team, which he drove himself.   The roads were bad.   We stopped at Blackwood’s store, St. Thomas, under the hill at the west end – then about the only store of any account in St. Thomas.   Father bought a cable logging chain, the first one I had ever seen – they had always used a log link chain before that – and he also purchased a cow bell.   We managed to get as far as Uncle Samuel Harper’s that night, two miles east of Aylmer.   The next day we came on down the Talbot Street within about two miles of Richmond, turned north into the wood and came out on the townline between Malahide and Bayham at Peter Laur’s, eight concession.   We then came on that townline to the Moss settlement, stopped at old Daniel Moss’s and had our dinner.   We then came on to where Corinth now stands turned north into the woods and came through swales – the horses sometimes would be nearly up to their bellies in the water and mud.   At last we came to the big catfish marsh, over one hundred rods wide.   It had been causewayed a year or two before.   The marsh was full of water and part of the causeway was afloat.   Although the horses were a very steady team, when they came on the causeway, where it was afloat, they were frightened and wanted to go.   I held them up as well as I could.   When we came to a place that was not afloat we would stop until father came up.   However, before we got over, mother and some of the children were crying.   When we finally got over, we stopped until father came over with the ox-team.   Mother said to him:    "Father, where in the world are you taking us to?" "Why, mother," he said, we are just crossing Jordan; Canaan is just ahead, full of milk and honey; there may be some Anaks and Amalekites, but we will drive them out; the giants I do not mind, we will soon slay them with the edge of the axe and burn them up body and branch.   Drive on, Enoch!" We had only one mile to go until we would be at Mr. Daniel Dean’s, the man the settlement was named after.   We came on and drove a little west of Mr. Dean’s to the next lot – 23, concession 11 – to a little house that father had rented from Joseph Conrad, about twenty feet square, with one room below and one above.   We unloaded our wagons, built on a good fire in the old fashioned fire-place (there were no cooking stoves in those days), got our suppers, made our beds on the floor, up-stairs and down, and slept the sleep of the just.  

In a few nights we heard the wolves howling.   Mother said to father:    "What noise is that?" Father said, "Those are the Anaks

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and the Amalekites that I told you about after we crossed Jordan; we will soon drive them out and have peace in the land.  " That summer father put in some spring wheat and oats on shares in the neighborhood, partly enough to make his bread and feed.   That fall (1841) he got a good Methodist friend, John Loucks, from Malahide, to come in and buy the north half of lot 24, concession 11.   After he had bought it he said to father:    "Now, I will have to go home and tell my folks what I have done, then come back and build some kind of a place to live in.  " Father said to him:    "you go home, load up your goods and family, bag and baggage, and move right in here with us; there is plenty of room here until we can build something for you to live in.  " So Mr. Loucks went home and in a few days he moved in with his family of ten, making twenty-two in the little house.   Those were the days of good neighborship.   About the same time another Methodist friend came in a bought the north half of lot 20, concession 10, by the name of James Dennis, also from Malahide.   Father was very anxious to get in good neighbors of the right kind.   He turned in with Mr. Loucks and they built a small log house in a few days, finished it off and he moved into it.   Mr. Loucks then turned in with father and helped him finish off his log house on lot 22, concession 10.   Father and three of us boys ( Edward Foster was fifteen, I was eleven and Walter nine years of age) underbrushed and chopped that winter (1841-2) twenty-four acres of that heavy timber, besides the road allowance as far back as we chopped, sixty-four rods.   Father also let a job out of sixteen acres - - eight acres to John Murdaw for a pair of three-year-old steers and eight acres to William Crane for a cow and ten sheep – making forty acres, besides the road allowance ( a little over one and one-half acres).   We wintered twenty-four head of cattle on the browse with a few loads of straw.   I might say, right here, that Walter and I became very ambitious during the winter.   So we measured off half an acre for ourselves; we underbrushed, chopped down and piled the brush and chopped the bodies up into logging lengths all that needed cutting, some maples and beeches being from one to two feet through.   We worked like beavers, from day-light to dark, and finished in thirteen days.  

Coming on spring father went up to Southwold to see about getting his money for the farm that he had sold.   When he arrived there he found everything wrong.   The man had sold everything off the place that he had, by an auction sale, had his notes cashed and put the money in his pocket; refused to pay father for the farm or pay him anything for the use of it; would not give up possession or even the writings, unless father would pay him one hundred dollars.   Alway had fallen out with his neighbors and been fined for his conduct.   Father went to London to see Lawyer Wilson and showed

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him his writings.   He advised father that, if he wanted to get the use of the place that year, he had better give the man the hundred dollars if he would move off at once without any further trouble.   So father went back and gave the man the hundred dollars and go home to move off at once.   While in London father also saw Col. Hamilton about lot 22, concession 10, that he had bought from him the year before and had agreed to pay for it when he got the money for his farm that he had sold in Southwold.   Father told him his disappointment, that he had to take his farm back instead of getting the money and that he could not pay him as he had agreed to, also that also that he had chopped forty acres on it and that he did not like to lose it.   "The Colonel said :   "You can go home and rest contented; we do not hang for debt in this country.   Clear off your fallow, put it into wheat and when you sell your wheat pay me what you can spare, but do not cramp yourself too much.   All our company cares for is the interest.   Father came away feeling extremely grateful to the Colonel for his kindness.  

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large scholars coming three and four miles.   They hired Mrs. Matthews the next summer and Mr. Hewitt the next winter.   After that the new frame school house was built, and there has been a good school kept here the year round ever since.  

I might say, right here, that the wolves were quite troublesome in those early days.   We would hear them howling very often at nights in tile woods.   We had to keep our sheep in a tight pen at nights.   They came one night and worried a calf only a few rods from the house.   The next year (1842) they came and killed a sheep in the barn yard; we had neglected to put them in the pen that night.   The next day father took the dead sheep and us boys with him down into the woods near the marsh and built a small pen about the size of a wagon box out of poles, top and bottom, with the top fastened together so that one end could be raised up like a lid; then he put the dead sheep into the pen near the back end of it, with a sharp stick or spindle drove into the dead sheep and the other end sticking out through a crack between the poles in the side of the pen, with a pole fastened to the front end of the cover and brought back over a pole laid on two crotches stuck or drove into the ground on each side of the pen, about two or three feet back from the front end of pen, and slipped under the end of the spindle, so that when the sheep was disturbed or moved by the wolf the spindle would be loosened, when the cover would drop.   We went down the next morning and found Mr. Wolf in the pen all right.   He looked rather "sheepish".   Father slipped a rope through a crack in the side of the pen with a crotched stick, got it around the wolf's neck and choked him down.   Then he raised the cover sufficient to bring his head out, when he put a gag into the wolf's mouth and tied it secure, then let him out on a rope, led him tip to the house and kept him most of the day.   A number of people came to see the wolf.   Father killed him and received a bounty of six dollars from the government for its scalp.  

That summer (1842) father worked the Dean farm, and logged and cleared off the forty acres that he chopped and hired chopped on lot 22, concession 10.   In those early days men would not go to logging bees unless there was plenty of liquor furnished.   Father said:    "Before I will furnish liquor, we will do it ourselves," and we did it ourselves.   The way he managed it was this:   He had two good yoke of oxen.   Father took one yoke of oxen, Walter and I went with him to hook the chain, place the skids to roll the logs up on the heap and to help the logs into the heaps.   Father hired a young man by the name of John Kipp to drive the other yoke of oxen, and Edward went with him to do the same as Walter and I did with father.   We did all the rolling up of the logs with the oxen.   When we came to a roll-pile where there were whole trees that needed swinging in we would put on both yoke of oxen to do it.   We would go on in that way for a week or so, then let the oxen rest for a few days, while we

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would proceed to straighten up the heaps and pick up what we had logged.   When we would get ten or twelve acres logged and nicely picked up, if there came a few days of dry weather and a little wind, we would set fire to all that was logged and picked up, then attend to tile heaps and keep them well rolled in and punched up.   When they were done burning there would be but a few brands left on the ground.   In that way we cleared off the forty acres and put it into wheat, excepting the swales.  

One day during the summer while we were branding and burning off, a rather seedy looking man came into the fallow and asked father if he was Mr. Brown.   Father said, "Yes, sir." The man said, "I understand the log house over there (pointing to it) where the little school is, belongs to you?" Father said, "Yes, sir." The man asked, "Could I get it to hold a meeting in it to-night ?" Father asked, " What denomination do you represent?" The man said, "The Latter Day Saints, commonly called Mormons." Then father said:    "Yes, on one condition." The man asked:    "What is that?" Father answered:    "I am told you people profess to have had a new revelation, that you call and do preach by the Spirit in an unknown tongue, and that no person can understand until you by the Spirit interpret it." The man said, "Yes, frequently." Father told him:    "You can have the school house; you can tell the scholars to tell their parents that there will be preaching there to-night at eight o'clock; we will all be there to hear you; but I want to tell you, right here, that if you commence any of your gibberage and not interpret it properly I will bring this ox-gad with me (father had a long blue beech ox-gad in his hand)and I will wear it up around you; I will make you jump higher than a toad."   The mail said, "You are an unbeliever.  " Father said:    "I will make you believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," and started towards the him with the ox-gad in his hand as if he meant business.   The man wheeled and ran out of the fallow; we could scarcely see his coat-tail for dust and ashes.   He did not stop at the school or give out the meeting.  

Father had a good crop of wheat the next year.   Of course he had to cut it with a grain cradle, bind it by hand, thresh it with a flail or tread it out on the barn floor with the horses and oxen, and then clean it up with an old fashioned fanning mill.   There were no threshing machines here in those days.   He teamed the most of that wheat to Vienna, to supply the lumber camps that winter, as Vienna was quite an extensive lumbering centre at that time.   The next year a man by the name of Peter Moyer, from Mount Elgin, came in, late in the fall, with an open-cylinder threshing machine and threshed out most of the grain in the neighborhood.   That was a great improvement, and highly appreciated.   The way they managed was this:    They would place the machine just inside of the barn door, then com-

Page 16

mence to thresh; the straw and wheat would go through the machine, falling on the floor together; then it would take four or five men, with forks and rakes, to shake the wheat out of the straw and pitch straw out of the opposite door; then men enough outside to stack it.   They would thresh about an hour or so, when they would have to stop and shovel the wheat to one side under the swing-beam.   One day’s threshing was about all they could do at one barn until the wheat was cleaned up with a fanning mill.   The next year father traded some wheat and young cattle for a new open-cylinder threshing machine of his own.   He then did his own threshing and sometimes for his neighbors.   As horse teams were very scarce in here at that time, they would generally put on two spans of horses and two yoke of oxen on the horse-power to thresh with.   One day he was threshing at home in the fall of the year, and having changed work with a neighbor, Mr. Rueben Andrews, father got him to come with his oxen to help thresh.   They were a young, wild pair and were afraid of the band-wheel when they came around to where it was; they crowded in so far that the near ox stuck his hind foot into the spur-wheel of the horse-power when one half of it was cut off.   The ox was fat; they butchered him, each neighbor took a part and paid for the owner about enough to buy another ox.   In a year or two a neighbor, Lambert Jones, bought a new separator that threshed and cleaned the wheat at the same time; that was considered a wonder and people went for miles to see it thresh.   The roads were so bad that he drew separator around on a sleigh for a year or two.  

By this time (father had his eight hundred acres of land all paid for, and was raising from eight hundred to one thousand bushels of wheat per year and other grains in proportion.   My brother, Edward Foster, got married that spring (1847) and went for himself.   Father gave him two hundred acres, lot 23, concession 9.   That fall father bought two men’s rights on lot 19, concession 9, the west half from William Bowden and the east half from Alexander Moore, for one hundred dollars each.   He then went to the Clergy Reserve office, near Woodstock, had it entered in his own name and made a payment on it, having bought it for two hundred dollars and seventy-five cents per acre.   In 1848, he bought a new separator machine, attached it to his own horse-power, did his own threshing and some for his neighbors.   In 1851 father bought out another man’s right on lot 25, concession 11, from Hiram Steinhoff for one hundred dollars, with a very small improvement on it.   It belonged to a wholesale firm in Montreal by name of Scott, Anderson & Co.   Father applied to them, bought it for eight dollars per acre and had his own time to pay for it.   In 1854 father bought out another man’s improvements, by the name of Thos. Alum, on lot 27, Con.   11, consisting of a log house and about fifty acres cleared and fenced.   As there was a dispute about the title and what he had paid on it – he (Alum) had paid to the wrong man

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and was likely to lose it – father gave him the one hundred acres of land he still owned in Sombra, Lambton County, and three hundred dollars in cash for his chance on the place.   They called the improvements nine hundred dollars.   The man that sold Mr. Alum the land lost it in a suit over the title; Mr. Andrew Heron, of Niagra, became the owner of it.   Father then bought the two hundred acres from Mr. Heron for ten dollars per acre, paid him four hundred dollars down and had five years to pay for the balance.  

In 1855 Walter and I got married.   Father gave me the deed of lot 22, concession 10, and Walter the deed of lot 27, concession 11.   Then father, Walter and I entered into an agreement that we would work together until the land was all paid for, and the younger boys were educated and settled for themselves.   Benajah Malery got married in 1856 and went for himself.   Father gave him lot 19, concession 9, with about thirty acres cleared on it, a pair of horses, harnesses and wagon, four or five cows and a pair of colts.   We raised that year seventeen hundred bushels of wheat; we sent Isaac Wesley to Victoria College at Cobourg to educate him for the medical profession and Peter Johnson we sent to the Ingersoll High School to educate him for the legal profession.   We sent them both to school and college until they obtained their diplomas – Isaac Wesley for medicine and Peter Johnson for law.   Father, Walter and I worked on together in company until we had our land all paid for, had one hundred and thirty acres cleared on my place, one hundred and twenty acres cleared on Walter’s place, Isaac Wesley was practising medicine in Vienna and Peter Johnson was married and settled in Ingersoll, pratising law.   Father said to Walter and me one day:   "Now, boys, we have got our land paid for, we might as well divide up our teams, stock and implements, and each one work his own farm on his own account.   We have got along nicely together without a word.   We have plenty of teams, stock and implements for all of us.   I want to put John Addyman to the front.   He and I can manage the old place here all right.   He will feel more responsibilty and it will learn him the farm and do business.   There is a time always when the best nurseries have to be planted out into orchards.  " So in 1865 we divided our teams, wagons, implements and stock about equally and satisfactorily, when each one worked his own firm for himself.   After we had dissolved partnership, I bougth lot 25, concession 11, from father for $4,000.   We never had made any improvements on that lot.   John Addyman got married in 1868 and moved in with the old people.   In about 1870, they rented the old homestead to George T.   Brown, a nephew of father’s, for $500 per year, and bought out William Watson, east quarter of lot 23, concession 11, right along by the side of the old place, for $3,000, with a good house and barn on it mostly all cleared.   Father thought he and John Addyman could work that place easier than they could the old place.   In a

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year or two he bought out Richard Fewster, west half of lot 23, concession 11, one hundred acres, for $1,000, and rented it to David Magahey, Sr.;, for $300 per year for five years.  

In politics father was a Liberal and brought up his sons in the nurture and admonition of those principles, and they never have departed from them.   He was a loyal British subject, and loved his country and Queen.   He had no sympathy with the MacKenzie rebellion, further than the principle advocated, or anyone that took an active part in it.   When the authorities called for volunteers to guard the prisoners in London, he had his eldest son, Brinton Paine, then sixteen years of age, volunteer at once, who served in the militia until the rebellion was put down.   In the year (1853 – 4) Sir Francis Hincks ran for member for South Oxford, he and Col. Benjamin VanNorman (of Tillsonburg) stopped at father’s for dinner one day.   After talking over the political questions of the day, father spoke to Sir Francis about a postoffice at Brownsville.   Father told him we had to go to Tillsonburg for our mail and that it was a great inconvenience.   He thought that the settlement now was large enough to support a post office and that we were entitled to one.   Sir Francis said:    "If I am elected I will see that you get a postoffice here, and who do you want appointed postmaster?" Father told him that "his son, E. F. Brown, was keeping a little store here and could attend to is nicely.  " Sir Francis took note of it, he was elected and we soon got the postoffice at Brownsville.   The Hon. George Brown was afterwards running in South Oxford for member, called at father’s and had dinner.   Although father was a strong Liberal, he never would take an active part in an election contest.   He believed that a man’s franchise was his own sacred right, and that every legal elector should cast his vote as a public duty and privilege without being canvassed or hoodwinked by political heelers, and that the law should be so amended that every legal elector should be required to cast his vote or furnish a legal excuse for not doing so.   For a number of years father was on hand at the polling booth by the time the poll opened to cast the first vote; I do not know of his ever neglecting to cast his vote at a general election.   At one general election he and his sons cast their votes for one man, the Liberal candidate.  

Father and mother were both large, strong and healthy people.   They had eight sons and four daughters, who all grew up to be men and women, but the eldest one who died at four years of age.   There was not another death in the family for sixty-one years and five days, when mother died.   Mother was a tall, large-framed woman, weighing about two hundred pounds and sometimes more; was one of the best women I ever knew, strong minded and firm, yet as kind as could be.   Her children would mind her at the word.   On the day of their golden wedding, fifty years from the day they were married, January 1, 1867, the eleven of us children were all home to the an-

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niversary with our families of about thirty-five grandchildren.   The eight of us sons were a pretty strong and healthy lot and, together, weighed about seventeen hundred pounds; one brother (Peter) weighed 256 pounds.   Father was always very fond of his grandchildren and was pleased to have them visit him.   They would have a great time.   He would be telling them funny stories:    That the big bull-frogs used to hollow out as he went past the swails in the spring of the year, "Old Brown, Old Brown!" The little frogs would say, "All his boys, All his boys!" and that the mosquitos were so large and thick that they would sit on the logs and bark.   Then the children would have a great time, until he would tell them that the bark was on the logs instead of the mosquitos.  

Mother died April 12, 1882, at the age of eighty-three years and ten days.   There were ten of her children at her funeral; one son was in the States.   Her sons acted as pall bearers at the funeral.   Father lived about one year and eight months after mother.   Like a shock of corn fully ripe for his Master’s granary-having done as much to build up the neighborhood, the country, the church and the school as any other man that came into it.   About the year 1878 he made his will, and willed to John Addyman  the old homestead, lot 22, concession 11, and the Watson lot (east half of the east half of lot 23, concession 11, fifty acres).   He willed to mother and my eldest sister (Marilla) the Fewster lot (west half of lot 23, concession 11, one hundred acres) during their natural lives; after their deaths it was to go to John Addyman, making him three hundred and fifty acres, the rest of the family having had their portions before.   At the advanced age of eighty-six years, four months and eight days, on December 9, 1883, father laid down his life, surrounded by most of his family, revered and esteemed not only by his family and intimate friends and acquaintances but by that large circle of active and influential men of the day who helped to lay the foundation of this great and grand Province of Ontario.   His sons acted as pall bearers at his funeral.   Who could lay the old people away as nice and tender as their sons? God bless their bones! After father died, John Addyman bought the west half of the east half of lot 23, concession 11, fifty acres, from William Williamson, making him a homestead of four hundred acres all in one block.  

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Page 21

Also a short account of the beginning of the Temperance Cause and some of the good solid men who did the pioneer work in building up the Church and Neighborhood.  

MISS NELLIE GIBSON AND MR. ANDREW BAXTER, PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE EPWORTH LEAGUE AT BROWNSVILLE:

DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS, -

In complying with your request to write a short history of the beginning of the Methodist Church, in the early days in Brownsville, and the founders of it, I feel I have accepted a task that I will not be able to fulfil to your satisfaction, or to the satisfaction of others, as I have no record to consult or to copy from.   What I have written is entirely from memory.   If you consider it worthy to be read at the coming Wesley Bicentennial Meetings you can do so; if not you can give it an exit by way of the stove-pipe.   I have also given a short sketch of the beginning of the temperance cause here and some of the good solid neighbors we have had, and still have, who were the pioneers of the Church and the builders of this beautiful neighborhood and grand people.  

Brinton Paine Brown, my father, settled in the Township of Southwold, Elgin County, on the Back Street (now Paine's Mills), in the year 1824.   He was a local preacher at the time.   About the year 1830he was ordained as a minister of the Methodist Church.   He and the Rev. James Jackson were neighbors and very intimate friends and co-workers together.   They organized a church at the Five Stakes (now Talbotville), one on the North Street at Captain Little’s school house, and one in their own neighborhood, the Wade school house.   They were the founders of Methodism in that part of the country.   Father obtained his license to marry from a government official in London before the New Connexion Methodists had any legal authority to marry.   He married a good many couples in those

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early days; among them, Mr. Amasa Wood, of Fingal, who afterwards moved to St. Thomas, built the Amasa Wood Hospital and presented it to the city.   Father also attended most of the funerals of the neighborhood.  

In the spring of 1841 father moved into Dereham and settled on lot 22, concession 11, now Brownsville.   At that time there were only about ten settlers on the tenth concession line between Delmer and Dorchester, and they did not seem to have but very little regard for the Sabbath.   If they did not work they would go hunting.   Father soon commenced to preach in the neighbors’ houses or barns.   There was no school house in the settlement, nor ever had been.   He also preached in the Chauncey Smith settlement, now the Bayham Church; the Jones’ settlement, now Corinth, and the Degroat and Best settlements on the eighth concession.   He generally preached once or twice every Sabbath.  

In the fall of same year (1841) Father got two good Methodist friends to buy land and move into the neighborhood from Malahide – Mr. John Loucks, an exhorter, and Mr. James Dennis, a class leader.   They turned right in and helped father at his meetings.   They were both active workers in church matters.   In the fall of 1842 father and they held what was then called a protracted meeting for a few nights in father’s empty log house on lot 22, concession 10.   After the meetings closed they organized a little class and put it into working order, consisting of the following persons:    Brinton Paine Brown, Sr.;, as minister, and wife; John Loucks, as exhorter, and wife; James Dennis, as class leader, and wife; Abel Collins and wife, Mrs. Rueben Andrews, Eurania Matthews, Edward Foster Brown and Brinton Paine Brown, Jr.  , thus laying the foundation of Methodism in Brownsville.  

They were not only established in the little church, but during the same winter (1842-3), believing that temperance was the handmaid of religion, they inaugurated the cause of temperance by getting a temperance lecturer, bv the name of John Wheaton, to hold a temperance meeting in the same log house and organized an old fashioned Temperance Society.   The influence of that humble beginning was very forcibly demonstrated by the Referendum vote in 1902, when only four votes out of 136 polled was cast against the Act, exceeding all other polling subdivisions in the county in favor of the Act.  

In the spring of 1843 father applied to the officials of the Malahide Circuit and succeeded in getting them to let their minister, Rev. E. Bailey, come every four weeks and preach.   He came on horse back and carried his saddle-bags on his horse’s shoulders in front of

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him, and preached in father's house that year; the school house was not finished off yet.   That year the first quarterly meeting was held in father's barn, some people coming five or six miles through the woods on foot to the meeting-old Father Malcolm and wife, John Malcolm and wife, Chauncey Smith and wife, and John Benstead, from Bayham; Peter Johnson and wife on horse back from Norwich, and others.   Most of those people stopped at father’s for dinner; he told them there was room for as many as there were boards in the floor.   Those were the days of true friendship and hospitality.   The next year William Rammage came in from the Malahide Circuit and preached in the school house occasionally, as it was finished off then.   John Shilton came in from Malahide Circuit in 1845 and preached.   My brother, Brinton Paine, was licensed to preach about this time.   He was a great help to the Church, not only here but in other neighborhoods.  

In the fall of 1846, father, my brother (Brinton Paine), John Loucks, James Dennis and Matthias Millard held an old fashioned protracted meeting for four or five weeks in the school house – a wonderful and successful meeting – and gathered a large number, forty or fifty new members, into the church.   Francis Weaver came from the Norwich Circuit and preached a few times that year.   By this time or soon after quite a number of good solid men had moved into the neighborhood and bought land, such as John Loucks, Mattias Millard, Edward York, Joel Nims, Lewis Wolley, Daniel and Gideon Hawkins, Lineus Ford, Joseph Cook, old Father McDowell (a local preacher) and his son Joseph, Henry Downing and others, on the tenth concession line; Benjamin Hawkins, James Dennis, David Phelps, Andrew Baxter, John Petch, John Allison and others, on the 9^th concession line; Edward and Josiah Livingston, on the 11^th concession line; Jas. D. Freeman, Chauncey E. Smith, on 12^th concession line.   Most of them were Methodists, many of whom joined the church, which greatly strengthened it – not only the church, but soon built up a fine neighborhood and as fine a class of people as there is in Ontario.   They still held the meetings in the school house.  

About the year 1855-or-6, they built a new frame church at a cost of about $1200.   H. Helmka had the contract, and father gave the land to build it on.   The church grew and prospered until the frame church became too small for the congregation.   They then built the present brick church and parsonage at a cost of about $7,000, Benjamin Hopkins giving the land to build them on.   The church has been fortunate in having good able and earnest ministers who labored for the upbuilding of the church and people.   Several of them, since they were here, have been elected president of the conference, and I hope that our present minister, Rev. D. E. Martin, may yet in the coming years have the same honor.  

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May the present and future generations ever emulate and hold in sacred remembrance and tender gratitude the lives of the old pioneers - of the church and neighborhood for the sacred and noble heritage handed down to them, and may their influence and memory ever be as fresh and fragrant as the rose.  

The rose has one powerful virtue to boast
Above all the flowers of the field.  
When its leaves are all dead and its fine color lost,
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield.  

E. B. BROWN.

Brownsville, June, 1903.

Since foregoing paper was read at Wesley Bicentennial meeting I have procured the Cyclopedia of Methodism (Vol.   I.   And II.  ), form which I have been able to record the dates and names of all the ministers we have had up to the present time.   Elias Williams was on the Malahide Circuit in 1847.   James Jackson was on the circuit with him as a supply.   They came in here and preached regularly.   James Jackson was president of the conference in 1848.   John Wilkinson was on the Malahide Circuit in 1848-9.   James Jackson was on with him as a supply in 1849.   John Wilkinson was on the Norwich Circuit in 1850-1.   James Jackson was on with him in 1850 as a supply.   James Jackson died July 6, 1851, aged 61 years.   Benjamin Haigh, in 1852-3; Thomas Rump, in 1854-5; Edward Holmes, in 1856-7.   Dereham was set off from the Norwich Circuit in 1858; it had always been supplied from Malahide, Norwich or Bayham.   Henry Wilkinson, in 1858-9; Edward Kershaw, in 1860-1; Henry Wilkinson again, in 1862-3; James Hill, 1864-5-6; John Shuttleworth, in 1867-8; Joseph R. Gundy, in 1869-70-1-2; John Kay, in 1873-4; John Saunders, M. A.;, in 1875-6; William Birks, 1877-8-9; Thomas W. Jackson, in 1880-1-2; Walter Rigsby, in 1883-4-5; Thomas Crews, in 1886-7-8; George Jackson, in 1889-90-1; John Veal, in 1892-3; W. H. McAllister, in 1894-5-6; George Buggin, in 1897-8-9; Daniel E. Martin, in 1890-1-2-3; George J. Kerr, in 1904.  

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Written on March 1^st, 1855.   Revised 1904.

With paper and quill,
Without any ill will,
I'll begin at the Dorchester line;
My neighbors and friends
I do not wish to offend,
As I pen them along down the line.

Joseph Cook, lot 28, concession 11:

Now, Mr. Joseph Cook
Is the first I will book;
He lives on lot number twenty-eight,
He owns a good farm
With a new house and barn
That was built by Ebenezer the Great.

Daniel Hawkins, lot 28, concession 10:

The next is Daniel Hawkins,
Without any further talking,
He came up from the River St. John;
He is clearing up his farm,
He has built a new barn,
Although a great man to talk, he seems to get along.

Joseph Degroat, lot 28, in D. Hawkin’s shanty:

The next is Degroat Joe,
We all know he is slow
At his work and in all other matters;
His wife she is white,
Although black he is polite;
Their children, of course, are mulattos.

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George Smith, lot 27, concession 10:

George Smith is the next,
I don't wish him to vex;
He has built a new house with much labor,
He has an artesian well,
That through the dry spell
He devotes to his friends and his neighbors.

George and Rosa Brown, lot 27, concession 11:

Just across over the way
There lives George and Rosa;
They live on one of B. P. Brown’s farms;
He is a good man to work,
She is an excellent cook;
She can get up a meal to a charm.

Nicholas Hopkins, lot 26, concession 11:

The next is Hopkins Nick,
His house is partly brick,
He came from old Erin go Bragh;
He must work just for fun,
Because he'll never have a son
To leave his farm to when lie goes awa'.

Stephen York, lot 26, concession 10:

Just across we will walk
To see old Stephen York,
Just to see what the old folks are doing;
The old lady is very fat,
She is none the worse of that,
She is as jolly an old soul as there is living.

William and Thomas Williamson, lot 25, concession 10:

Just a little farther down
There lives Billy and Tom;
They are very quiet, hard working lads;
Although they are all alone,
They have a very good home,
That was left them by their honest old dad.

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Lewis Wolley, lot 24, concession 10:

We will call on Mr. Lewis Wolley,
He has a wife and two babies,
He has things very tidy around him;
He's a very civil man,
According to my plan,
I'll leave him just here as I found him.

Henry Topping, lot 24, concession 11:

Just across within call
He has lived there since fall,
A man by the name of H.   Topping;
As near as I can learn,
They say he lost in a firm,
In the business called tin shopping.

George Lish, Sr., lot 23, concession 10:

Now we have come to the man
Right from Scotland Sands;
He says, there he was the father of railroads;
He must have been beguiled
Or he'd never left his child,
For in Canada he has done himself no great good.

Widow Moss, Pt lot 23, concession 11:

Now, we will just go across
And call on Widow Moss;
Besides her there are Martha and Eliza,
Her boys they sit about,
They must surely have the gout;
I would not like to say they are lazy.

Daniel Hillaker, Pt. lot 23, concession 11:

Now the blacksmith is next,
I hope he is not vexed;
When he is he is a wonderful fellow;
As near as I can learn
He works some on his farm,
Then takes a turn at his bellows.

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B. P. Brown and boys, lots 22, concessions 10, 11:

The next is all the Browns
With their little town,
It is about the centre of gravity;
From east and from the west
Folks come there to get dressed
And to get some things for their cavities.

Bradley Hollenbach, Brownsville Village:

There lives in it a lad,
They call him little Brad,
He lives by his hammer, awl and thread;
His time devotes the whole
In preparing of soles,
He had aught to go up when he is dead.

John Wood, Brownsville Village:

Now the next is John Wood,
Does no harm, but does good,
By providing well for his wife and his bairns;
He has built a new house
With one side to the south
And a roof that sheds off all the rains.

Jacob Glover, lot 21, concession 10:

Just ahead is Glover Jake,
He is always wide awake,
He generally sleeps with one eye open;
Talk to him when you will
He's as smooth as a quill,
Thinking where he can make a good bargain.

Thomas Wood, lot 21, concession 11:

Just a little down the road
There lives Mr. Thomas Wood,
He came last summer from the West,
He is a smart business man,
Owns a two hundred acre farm,
Still he loves the rye that has been pressed.

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Frederick Nims, Pt. lot 20, concession 11:

The next is Frederick Nims,
He keeps things in good trim,
He takes the time easy as it goes along;
Although minus an eye,
We will not pass him by,
For he always provides a good home.

Reuben Andrews, Pt. lot 20, concession 10:

The one we are at now
We'll try and not have a row;
Sometimes he gets as mad as a wet hen,
But if you use him all right
He won't show any fight,
And it is a good time to leave him just then.

Robert Cheeseman, Pt. lot 20, concession 11:

Just over in the field
Our way we will wield,
There we will see Betsy and Robert;
They have three little boys,
The chief of their joys;
I think they will need a long family record.

Abel Collins; Pt. lot 20, concession 10:

The next is "By jocks!"
His new house sets on rocks;
He does like the rest of his friends,
He works while its light,
He sleeps through the night,
In the morning he's up and at it again

Widow Dean, Pt.   lot 20, concession 11:

Just over on the green,
There lives the Widow Dean,
She has lived there since the country was new;
How well she could tell,
That the Deans knew right well,
What people in new country had to go through.

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Gideon Hawkins, lot 19, concession 11:

At Gideon's we'll call next,
If his wife is not vexed,
And say:  "Mr. Hawkins, how do you do;
As I came down the line
And have a little time,
I have called your new house to go through."

Edward York, lot 19, concession 10:

The next is Edward York,
He is most always at work,
Although he has a poor constitution;
He has cleared up his farm,
Built a new house and new barn,;
He has done it through pure resolution.

Linaeus Ford, Pt. lot 19, concession 11:

We have come to Linaeus Ford,
A man of few words,
Although he is a candid, fine neighbor;
He owns a fine little farm,
Would do no one any harm,
He lives by his own manual labor.

George Sponenburg, Pt. lot 18, concession 10:

We will call on Uncle George,
He used to work at his forge,
He has a smart wife, she's a driver;
He works now on his farm,
Moulton built him a barn,
He farms now like the rest of his neighbors.

Edward Gray, lot 18, concession 11:

Just across over the way,
There lives Edward Gray;
I have noticed his movements -
He has cleared up his farm,
Built a very large barn,
Made on our line a nice improvement.

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J. Sponenburg, Pt. lot 18, Con. 10:

Next is Uncle David,
Sure he’ll be saved,
He’s as honest as the day he was born,
There is Jim and there is John,
The way they both get along
Raising good wheat and good corn.

Philip Teed, Pt. lot 18, concession 11:

Just a little ahead
Lives old Philip Teed,
We all know he is a hard working man,
It was not my intention,
The old lady to mention,
We’ll get along with her as easy as

John Hudson, lot 17, concession 11:

A little farther on
There lives Hudson John,
He is a man very much respected;
He lives at his ease
By selling apple trees,
Then other men sees it collected.

Joseph Woodrey, lot 17, concession 10:

Just across, we will go
And see Mr. Woodrey Joe;
Although with him we’ll not stay long;
According to my plan
He is an honest old man,
So, of course, he’ll help make up my song.

McDowell and his sons, lot 16, Con.   10:

The next are the McDowell’s,
We will lump them as a whole,
And say they are all honest men;
The old gentleman is a preacher,
Joseph a Sunday School teacher,
Will do their neighbors good in the end.

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William Moody, lot ??, concession ??:

The Moodys, without fail
Will do for a tail
For my ryhme that’s four miles a
Now, I will say here again,
I do not wish to offend,
With your permission, I’ll here end.
Now my kind reader,
If business should lead yon,
And you ever should stop in our town
And inquire for the man
That drew up this plan
There is no one would suspect E. B. Brown.