Part 1

[March 11 1853 - Daily British Whig]

[During the whole of the past week, the Editor was absent on one of his customary winter sleigh rides, stopping at the towns and villages of Mill Creek, Napanee, Shannonville, Belleville, Trenton, Frankford, Sterling and Bridgewater; and passing through the Townships of Kingston, Ernestown, Richmond, Tyendinaga, Thurlow, Sidney, Rawdon and Huntingdon. All these places are within sixty miles of Kingston, and may be termed its back country - consequently are well known to everybody, and have nothing therein special or worth the telling. Nevertheless, as Dr. Barker is no Smelfungus and cannot pass from "Dan to Beersheba and find all barren," but on the contrary "makes good use of his eyes and ears wherever he goes, he intends to jot down a few facts and opinions for the information of those, who, when they go from home in winter time, see nothing but the horses' heads before them, and hear naught but the jingle of the sleigh bells. And to avoid the use of the abominable "we", these facts and opinions, under the guise of "Traits of Home Travel," shall be written in the old fashioned first person singular]

It was on Monday night when I reached Napanee, and the next day was the Spring Fair Day, March 1st. The day was fine, and sleighing being excellent, a most prodigious concourse of people came to the Fair. Buyers of Cattle, Clover Seed and Sheepskins were in from all parts; farmers came to meet their friends; and all sorts of people found all sorts of excuses to be at the Fair. In the memory of that antique curiosity, the "oldest inhabitant," Napanee had never been so full as on this day. But there was nothing to sell, and nothing to buy - literally nothing. The American Buyers had been so diligent in picking up all the spare cows, sheep, pigs and other marketable stock, that nothing was left in the country to bring to this Fair. A few Kingston Butchers bought a few yoke of working oxen to fatten, and that was all. So the Fair folks had a merry meeting and parted.

Napanee is a busy stirring little town, and is doing a capital business in the lumbering line. The new Grist and Saw Mills on the estate of the late John Cartwright, Esq., and recently the subject of a Chancery Suit, have been bought up by Mr. John Stevenson, at auction. The old Saw Mill on the same estate was purchased at the same time by Mr. Eli Clark, who leases the large Saw Mill on the Fredericksburgh side of the river. This gentleman is taking advantage of the busy times of domestic lumber, and is doing an excellent trade; as indeed are all the Saw Mill owners in the province. The rage for local newspapers extends to Napanee, and the inhabitants are mad to have a journal of their own, in lieu of the "Bee" which died when the autumn failed. In all probability there will be two papers published here soon, for the Reformers and Conservatives, nearly equally balanced, are determined to have one of their own. God help the printers!

The distance from Napanee to Shannonville, through the Indian Woods, is seventeen miles, but that distance is lessened to 14 miles by going through the concessions straight. A continuation of the Macadamized Road to the extremity of the County of Lenox, was talked of last Fall, to be made out of money to be borrowed on the Municipality Loan Act; but that plan has been abandoned, and if the road is continued as it ought to be, it must be done as a Township, not as a County work. But the minds of the people are now so much set upon Railroads, that everything useful or otherwise must bide its time until that madness had subsided.

The Indian Woods are no longer woods, for the country appears to be as well settled as other parts of the province, though the numbers of the Mohawk Indians here settled are fearfully diminishing. The ill-natured sarcasm of Sir Francis B. Head, that the visits of the Methodist Preachers to the Indians of Georgian Bay had whitened the complexion of the rising generation, cannot apply to the juvenile white faces that I met along the road, for the Methodists do not teach here - the Church of England having the spiritual jurisdiction of the Mohawks; and yet the faces were white or nearly so. I presume this interesting change is owing to climate and the progress of civilization! The very best Country Inn, between Montreal and Toronto, where travellers can always be sure of a good dinner, in the middle of the Indian Woods! That host's name should be recorded - it is Wemp.

I got to Shannonville early on Tuesday evening and put up at my friend Edward Lewis'. The elasticity of some villages in Upper Canada is remarkable. Last summer, Mr. Lewis' new Inn, a very large and handsome structure, was burnt down to the ground, stables, out-houses and all. At the present day, a larger, handsomer, better built and better furnished hotel stands in its place. Let the owners of the vacant lots in Kingston, made vacant by fires years ago blush, if the sense of blushing still remains. They won't sell their lots, and they can't build on them, but suffer them to remain, year after year, blots upon the streets, and a disgrace to the city. Here in Shannonville, a man becomes utterly ruined by fire, as Mr. Lewis was, and yet he sets all his energies and all his industry to work, and in the course of a few months, puts up a better establishment than the one he lost. Such a man deserves to be patronized, and he is patronized; for no traveller, who knows what's what, can pass his door. At least I never do. The great Saw Mill of Mr. Frank Walbridge is the main stay of Shannonville in winter time, but in the summer, the immense quantity of all kinds of lumber brought down the Salmon River, and rafted here, affords good employment for hundreds of strangers, and the little village becomes one continual scene of hurry and good business. The Salmon River is studded with mills all the way to Tamworth and beyond. Those lately leased by Mr. David Roblin are about three quarters of a mile above Shannonville. This gentleman has a Circular Saw making at Belleville for his Mill.

Part 2

[March 12 1853 - Daily British Whig]

Leaving Shannonville early on Wednesday, I drove through Belleville and got to the Trent by noon. The village at the mouth of this river has recently changed its name and become incorporated. It is now called Trenton, and although on the extreme edge of the township of Murray and the county of Northumberland, has been attached to Hastings for municipal purposes. Trenton should long ere this have been a large town, for it possesses many advantages over places of bigger growth; but the Government hand its own evil advised rich landholders have been its foes. The crime of the Government consists in having built a Bridge across the very mouth of the Trent, thereby depriving the infant village of a harbor, wharves and landing places. And this suicidal course was recommended and carried into effect by certain rich men who owned the land on both sides where the bridge crosses the river. Hence the consequence – Trenton is and must remain a poor paltry place until the bridge is either destroyed or removed. Incendiarism has been rife at the Trent for many years past and much valuable property has been wantonly destroyed by concealed enemies; it is however a pity that the vagabonds who destroyed the houses of Messrs. Hawley, Meyers and others had not at the same time burnt up the bridge, for in that case their lawless proceedings might have proved a benefit instead of a curse. Seriously, the people of the Trent must take legal steps to have this bridge removed. While it stands where it is, the village cannot prosper, but must ever remain small, stunted and miserable. Ten years ago I said nearly the same thing in almost the same words, and my prognostications have been verified. Ten years hence I may live to witness the same result and repeat the same advice. That bridge must be removed ere Trenton can flourish!

This is the age of Railroads, Saw Mills, Telegraphs and Plank Roads; at least it is in this particular section of Canada. All these in their turn and Saw Mills first. – Mr. Morton, the eminent Distiller of Kingston, has solved the difficult problem, that steam in Canada is pecuniarily applicable to saw Mills. His large Steam Saw Mill, on an Island below the mouth of the Trent, has proved that money can be made by steam in a land abounding with water power. The Messrs. Gilman, of Quebec have repeated the experiment by building a still larger Saw Mill on a point of land at the extreme mouth of the Trent. Mr. Bogert, of Belleville, has had in successful operation a large Steam Saw Mill at the mouth of the Moira. Mr. Billa Flint is now erecting an immense Steam Saw Mill on the opposite side of the same river. And on a point not half a mile from the site of Mr. Billa Flint’s new Mill, Mr. John Cameron, of Napanee, is laying the foundation of another Steam Saw Mill of the same description as Mr. Bogert’s. And to turn towards Kingston, at Mill Point, in the Indian Woods, (once called Cuthbutson,) a Steam Saw Mill has been put up and been at work for upwards of a year. And I hear that still another Steam Saw Mill is about to be erected on some point between Belleville and the Indian Woods. All these Mills I have looked at and all these mills are the creations of a couple of years. And in Saw Mills, worked by water power, the increase is almost as large. Mr. A.C. Thompson, of the Trent, has recently built a large Mill on the banks of that river, midway between Trenton and Frankford; at Frankford, the Messrs. Roblin have re-built more than one Saw Mill; a large Saw Mill has been erected at Sterling, and a still larger one, called the “Yankee Mill,” on the Moira in Thurlow; Mrs. Henry Corby has a new one adjoining his Grist Mill, near Belleville; and the hon. John Ross is just finishing a Saw Mill within the limits of Belleville, which he has already leased for seven years at a rent of £300. Doubtless there are many other new Mills in this neighborhood, but I only speak of those recent erections at which I stopped to examine or ask questions and which were novel to me since my visit of last year. I am not sufficiently a millwright to write a treatise on Mills, worked by either steam or water power, neither would it be palatable; but I can assure the reader, that all the Mills I saw, and many others of older erection, are large and fitted with the most modern improvements for preparing lumber of the American Market. That of Mr. Billa Flint is to contain one hundred saws; and in every one of the others one or more circular saws are at work. The immense piles of boards ready for shipment in the spring surpass all imagination, though I cannot give the details, lest the reader doubt my veracity. Certainly the lumber trade with the United States is a most valuable traffic and while it lasts, must prove a source of much profit and great revenue to all concerned in it. The Saw Mills of the Trent and Moira, together with those erected on the Bay of Quinte, are objects of the deepest consideration and well worthy of a visit by the rising machinist. It is but fair to add, that all the machinery to work these mills, including steam engines and boilers, are of Canadian manufacture; having been made at the Kingston Foundries, or at the equally large shops of the Messrs. Browns and the Messrs. – of Belleville. But the time is fast approaching when the Pines of Canada will be exhausted and these Mills now cutting Boards, will be more usefully employed in manufacturing Cottons, Woolens, &c., not only for home consumption, but I hope for a foreign market.

Part 3

[March 14 1853 - Daily British Whig]

I left Trenton on Thursday morning went up the right bank of the Trent to Frankford, over a plank road; crossed the Trent at Frankford into Sidney’ and thence along the left bank of the river for six miles; when making a diverge to the right, reached the new town of Sterling about noon. Staid there about an hour; crossed the country into Huntingdon, along the Ridge Road, a noble road made by nature; dined at “Luke’s,” now kept by Mr. Peter Huffman, late of Kingston; and thence into Belleville, distant fifteen miles, partly by a common, and partly by a macadamized road, which town I reached at dark. – This was my day’s work.

This section of the country is studded with macadamized and Plank Roads, - From Belleville to Port Hope, with the exception of the interval between Trenton and Brighton, is one succession of New Roads, owned by separate Companies. Out of Belleville several of these roads issue in various directions and more are contemplated. The tolls on these roads are very high; for instance, in passing from Belleville to Trenton, twelve miles and back, a double team has to pay one shilling and sixpence; and the same vehicle would have to pay half a dollar toll in going and returning from Belleville to Sterling. The plain fact is, these roads were made before the travel on them was sufficient to allow a light toll; consequently those who use them must pay for their use. At any rate, they are a great comfort and convenience to the traveller, always shortening his distance and assuring him of the correctness of his journeying. That the projectors and makers of these new roads are not deriving too great a revenue from the public is evinced by the fact that the stock of the several Road Companies is always in the market and ever at a discount. A man can’t eat his cake and keep it; when there were no good roads in Canada, everybody grumbled; now that they abound, everybody grumbles at the high tolls. Upon no one subject was I more tormented and on no one matter was I asked to write on, than the imposition on the public by those alleged high rates of toll. I wish we had as many and as good roads near Kingston.

The village of Frankford, eight miles from the mouth of the Trent, is no new village. It was formerly called “Cold Creek,” and is about eighteen years old. – Within three years it has made great strides towards eminence; the sons of Mr. J.P. Roblin, of Picton, having located themselves here and become anew its founders. It has two large Saw Mills, a Grist Mill, a Woolen Factory, several Merchant Shops, Taverns and lots of Mechanics; besides a tri-weekly Mail from Belleville. It is altogether a busy stirring place, as indeed are all the towns and villages I saw during my trip. “Ruin and Decay” is not a sign by which any Upper Canadian place can be recognized.

But whatever may be well said of Frankford, ten times better may be said of Sterling, - if you believe what the villagers say. Sterling was unknown and unnamed three years ago. There used to be a tavern and a few houses grouped round about Fiddler’s Mills and some folks called the place Rawdon Village, because it lay in that township. But now, what a change! The village is now called Sterling and is a mile long (at least the Post Office is half a mile from the centre of business) and possesses everything to make a town of. – A Plank Road to Belleville and another projecting to the Trent. A Daily Mail and a Telegraph Station. A fire Company, a Hook and Ladder Company and $300 subscribed towards the purchase of an Engine. A Brass Band and a Volunteer Troop of Cavalry. A Plank Road to Marmora Iron Works and another to Madoc. Some of these fine things are yet in nubibus I confess, but sufficient of them are real and tangible to make Sterling aspire to the distinction of being the little “Ambitious Village,” as Hamilton is proud of the epithet, “Ambitious City.” Sterling contains a population of 700 souls; is well laid out; is handsomely built; has several excellent Merchant’s Establishments; three good Country Inns and is altogether some pumpkins of a place. It flourishes because the country round it flourishes and because it is much nigher the centre of the present extensive Lumbering operations than either Belleville or Trenton.

Between Sterling and Belleville, on the Plank Road are two other growing villages, Smithville and Bridgewater; the former eight miles from Belleville and the latter, once called “Canniff’s Mills,” only three miles. Bridgewater is the most busy and the best located, owing to the abundance of its water power, being built on both sides of the Moira. I have nothing to say of either worth the telling. Bridgewater is almost as well known as Belleville; and Smithville appears to be simply a long straggling village, with more taverns than ordinary houses.

The spread of Telegraph Stations over all this part of Canada deserves a special notice. Every town and village has one station, if not two, either in action or projection and soon they will be extending to the remotest parts of the back country. The establishment of the Trunk Line Company has done an immensity of good, for in addition to what it has done and is doing of itself, it has waked up the old Monopoly to similar deeds. Stations now are located in Merchant’s Shops to save expense and Clerks are instructed to communicate on a percentage of the profits. This is doing the thing cheap and well; profitable to the Companies and useful to the community.

Part 4

[March 15 1853 - Daily British Whig]

Belleville is a great town, not only great in itself, but great in the eyes of its people. There is no town or city in Canada, of which its inhabitants have so immense an idea of its importance, as this same Belleville. Its five thousand souls are five thousand of the vainest souls in Christendom. But they have something to be ain of – that’s a fact. They have a good river, a good harbor, good bridges, good mills, good hotels, good roads, good streets, good merchants, good mechanics, good cricketers, good everything. They are a go-ahead, busy, stirring, enterprising, fuzzy people, fit for everything and daunted at nothing; and much more like the clever folks on the other side of the pond, than resembling the half-dead and alive denizens of some of the Canadian towns I could mention. What they have done is pretty well known to all, for they tell everybody of it; but what they are going to do would fill three columns of the ‘British Whig.’ Only to speak of Railroads. – First of all, the Grand Trunk Railroad, that’s a settled fact; - next, the Peterborough Railroad, that’s another settled fact; then the Railroad to the Georgian Bay, which is almost a settled fact; for the Hon. John Ross is in possession of credentials to conclude a treaty with any English Capitalists who will undertake to build it; after which comes the Railroad to the Marmora Iron Works, which will most certainly be made, so soon as two contingencies are provided against – the one, the sale of the Iron Works to other English Capitalists; - the other, the discovery of the proper flux to fuse the ore and the re-discovery of the old mode of making iron with wood instead of coal! And to crown all, the last new project of a longitudinal Railway and Telegraph combined to the Moon, whereby the inhabitants of the sister plant may have direct and immediate communication with their confreres of Belleville, to the infinite satisfaction and gratification of the latter. These railroad undertakings, to say nothing of Gas Works and Water Companies, Telegraph Stations and Building Societies, form the present topic of the Bellevillians’ table talk; morning, noon and night they discuss nothing else; and if nature compels them to take a little sleep, they awake doubly early the next day, to go over the self-same matter which had occupied the previous day. To say the truth, this satire of mine is scarcely a caricature. – I was bored to death with Railroads during my two days’ stay, and with difficulty avoided two several quarrels, by simply hinting, that although during the time these Railroads were making some folks would grow rich and money be generally plentiful, yet when all was completed, a fearful day of re-action would come. One highly excited gentleman told me, that if such were my sentiments, the sooner I got out of Belleville, the better for my own personal safety. But to assume a more serious tone, Belleville is really a stirring place, doing a great business in agricultural produce, as well as in lumber; and if the good people did not brag so much, both themselves and their own town would stand far higher in the estimation of others.

I have spoken of the Saw Mills of Belleville in another place; but there are fifty others of various kinds, for the manufacture of almost every commodity. Flour, Oatmeal, paper, Woolen Cloths, pails, Rakes, &c., are made in inconceivable abundance. Of these the greatest boon to the people is the Paper Mill of Mr. Jenison, a new comer, who has recently re-fitted the old Paper Mill of Belleville with the most modern improvements and who is making writing and printing paper, in every respect save color, as good as can be procured in Toronto or Watertown. The Hotels of Belleville deserve some notice, for they are far in advance of hotels in towns of similar size. – The “Dafoe House,” kept by Mr. Northup, is a capital, well built and well furnished hotel of class No. 1, as large as the British American and quite as well filled. But in addition to this good house, there is another of the mammoth kind, called the Railroad House (recently the North American), now kept, with greatly enlarged premises, by Captain Sisk, from the United States. This hotel is to have an incredible number of bed-rooms, with every other appendage of the modern New York Hotel; and when I somewhat naively asked the worthy host where he expected his guests to come from to fill these rooms, he curtly answered, “Railroads,” accompanied with a very satisfactory and intelligent look; - but whether he mentally included the expected travellers from the Moon, is more than I can say. Let these latter gentlemen come or not, the hotels of Belleville are a credit to the place and betoken a spirit which says, “let the traveller come to Belleville, he shall be handsomely lodged and well fed into the Bargain” – no bad encouragement for a keen Yankee purchaser to make it his first stopping place. In all things except steamboats, Belleville is ahead, and in that essential alone is it deficient. Instead of owning and controlling a Daily Line to Montreal of First Class Steamers, that would pay in spite of all the Railroads that ever were projected, Belleville only owns one small passenger Steamer and one Freight Boat, and has tamely allowed one of its most industrious inhabitants almost to ruin himself with fruitless endeavors to render its steamboat accommodation equal to that of less enterprising places. One word more and I have done. There are three wholesale establishments now doing good business here. The Dry Goods firm of the Messrs. Bull, one of the largest concerns in all Canada; and the two Wholesale Groceries of Messrs. Gillespie & Co., and Mr. Smith Bartlett. I was assured by the auctioneer who sells for these houses, that in every essential, a greater quantity of goods is disposed of at the periodical Sales in Belleville, that at similar sales at Kingston. This, however, I can scarcely believe.

Part 5

[March 16 1853 - Daily British Whig]

The two days I spent in Belleville passed rapidly away and having all my business well completed, for with all their vanity, the Bellevillians are the most numerous and best paying outlying patrons the ‘British Whig’ possesses, I prepared to leave that busy town on Saturday evening, intending to pass the night at my friend Lewis’ in Shannonville and there go on Sunday morning to the Mohawk Creek in the Indian Woods. A pair of rested horses and a light sleigh took me there in less than an hour, for the sleighing yet continued excellent. The Mail Stage from Toronto came in shortly afterwards and as it contained some gentlemen of my acquaintance who had business in Shannonville, we all contrived to while away the night most pleasantly. Speaking of stages, that business is now overdone on this road and is a losing concern to all but the ungrateful public. – Mr. Weller, of Coburg, has been in possession of the Mail route so long that it became almost a vested right. This winter the Post Master General disputed the validity of the vested interest and by successful tender, Mr. George Mink, o f Kingston, became the mail Contractor between that City and Coburg; and some other aspirant for postal notoriety supplanted Mr. Weller between Coburg and Toronto. But Mr. Weller, though defeated, was not beaten. – Having all his coaches, sleighs, drivers and horses engaged for the season, he continued to use them in their old occupation and the two new Mail Contractors being obliged to maintain equal establishments, there was “the devil to pay and no pitch hot.” Opposition may be the life of trade, but it certainly is the death of a stage proprietor. Here then, three Four-horse Stage Lines have been doing the business of a single Line, successful only in opposing each other and gratifying the public, that would not care a button if one or all of the proprietors were hanged. It is not for me to say who has been to blame in this matter, but I cannot help thinking that things have been badly managed and that the public should not have been permitted to [line illegible] hurt himself much, but that is not the case with the mail Contractors, who cannot fail of being seriously injured by this insane opposition. If two Lines must run along the same road, why not keep up prices? Why allow others to take advantage of the stage owners’ divisions? Look at newspaper people – they quarrel continually and call each other nasty names, but they don’t pull down prices. All the public gain by editors’ rows is a hearty laugh at their expense, and that’s all.

Sunday morning was delightful – it had frozen hard during the night and though the sun was shining brightly, the sleighing was capital. The Mohawk Creek is nine miles from Shannonville, midway between that village and Napanee and in the very centre of the Indian Settlements. The Church is a new building, partly put up by Government and partly by subscriptions diligently gathered by the venerable Archdeacon of Kingston, (Dr. Stuart) whose recent services in behalf of the Mohawks deserve all praise. The Church is served by a resident Missionary (Mr. Anderson) whose time is wholly employed by his multifarious duties among the Indians. As I drove along the road towards the Church, I soon overtook groups of Indians, chiefly women, going towards the Church, some in sleighs and cutters, but mostly on foot, dressed in all their little finery and looking quite as fanciful and dressed as well as the peasantry of southern climates. I took up as many as my sleigh would carry and in this state proceeded to the Church. The Church is a plain, handsome structure, fitted up in the ordinary Church of England style and capable of containing the whole Indian adult population which I regret to say is fast diminishing. The Service was the ordinary Morning Service with one singular addition. An Interpreter stands near the minister and repeats aloud in the Mohawk language, everything which he utters. And another peculiarity was the striking excellence of the Singing, particularly that of the women. It is from the Choir of this Church that the Mohawk Indians came, who have been perambulating the United States for the past three years, giving Concerts. The female Indian voice is peculiarly sweet and melodious, possessing no tones remarkable for compass or strength, but forming in harmony with others, great and exquisite melody. There seemed to be few persons present but Indians, but I was not the only visitor from curiosity, for a party of gentlemen belonging to the Garrison in Kingston were also there. Having to dine early with a friend at Napanee, I did not wait for the Sermon, but drove away when the Prayers were ended, much pleased with what I had seen and heard. I pay the Mohawk Indians but a poor compliment, when I say that their deportment in Church was earnest and thoughtful and quite equal to that of any other professing Christians.

I have but little to add; I staid the remainder of Sunday in Napanee and got home to my usual avocation next day. When the reader bears in mind, that for twenty years successively, I have made this and many other similar journeys and always have had something to say about them, he will not be disappointed that I have exhausted my subject – on the contrary he should feel surprised that I have found ought to say. With this remark I close – at no period of my long editorial career, did I find the parts of Upper Canada I visited in so happy, so contented and so prosperous a condition.