"According to his fancy"

In his 1829 publication, Three Years in Canada: An Account of the Actual State of the Country in 1826-7-8, John MacTaggart dedicates a whopping three (of his 347) pages to informing his readers on the domestic architectural landscape in the colony. He begins his description by warning the reader that “the orders of architecture baffle all description: everyone builds his cottage or house according to his fancy….” (308) MacTaggart is clearly not a fan of the vernacular. That’s OK, neither was Vitruvius.

It is to MacTaggart’s credit that he is able to discern between these various fancies; how else would he be able to tell if he were walking up to the plain dwelling of an honest English farmer or the showy, yet charmless abode of a former American with at least one loose daughter? (309)

Here are the six most popular types of homes (and their corresponding occupants) as described by MacTaggart. An initial on-line search of extant period homes revealed a number of close matches to his brief descriptions. My search also revealed that MacTaggart might have some seriously crippling author-bias. 

The house of an "honest English farmer" (308-309)

The house of a “wealthy Lowland Scotchman” (309)

The house of a United Empire Loyalist from the United States (American) (309-310)

The house of a “wild pushing Highland-man” (310)

The house of a French Canadian (310-311)

The homes of the Dutch (311)

Sources
John MacTaggart's 1829, Three Years in Canada: An Account of the Actual State of the Country in 1826-7-8
Many older buildings reside in relative safety within historic "villages": Westfield Heritage Village, Upper Canada Village, and Black Creek Pioneer Village.

Further Reading
John Mac Taggart (b.1791, d. 1830) was a Scottish engineer and author; you can learn more about him (and his prejudices) online at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Do some house hunting of your own: Ontario Architecture, Ontario Heritage Properties Database,

Galt and the Grand River Lands

After the Revolutionary War with the United States (1775-1783), the British Crown provided its Native allies with numerous land grants in its northern colonies. One such grant was provided to the Six Nations Indians (who had relocated from Ohio, and other Northern US states as refugees), and was comprised of the land six miles along each side of the Grand River from Lake Erie to Elora. (OHT)

Thomas Ridout's 1821 Survey of the former Six Nation Lands

On February 5, 1798, Colonel Brant, on behalf of the Six Nations, and acting as their legal attorney, sold to one Philip Stedman of the Niagara District, that portion of their lands known as Block number one, comprising 94,305 acres, and which, by an Act of Legislature of the Province, became known as the Township of Dumfries. The stipulated price was £8,841. (Young, 12) 

The township of Dumfries would later be home to the village of Galt. This sale was only one of six large transactions in 1798 in which the Indians sold off 352,707 acres for a total of £44,867. (Young, 13) This acreage included most of the Six Nations northern holdings along the Grand River, while they retained control over the southern portion. (See note below)

At the time, Mr. Stedman could do little with the land. The newly created province of Upper Canada (1791) had a population of only 20,000, and many residents were  located in the Kingston and Niagara areas. (Young, 14) Any plans that Stedman may have had are unknown, for after receiving the patent from the Crown for the land, he passed away. (Young, 14-15) With no heirs, the property was inherited by his sister, who along with her husband sold the deed to the Township in 1811 to the Hon. Thomas Clarke. (Young, 15)

Subsequent to his participation in the War of 1812 as a loyal British subject, the Hon. William Dickson decided that the time had come for him to purchase some land and open more of the province to settlement. After a conversation with Mr. Clarke in the summer of 1816, it was decided that Mr. Dickson would purchase, for the sum of £24,000, the entirety of the former Mr. Stedman’s lands along the Grand River. (Young, 17) Mr. Dickson immediately began his work advertising for settlement and assisting in developing Galt until his death in 1846.

*Here is what became of the other Six Nations properties sold in 1798. Waterloo County has been known as the Region of Waterloo since 1973. The Township of Dumfries was divided in half in 1852 with North Dumfries becoming a part of Waterloo County, and South Dumfries a part of Brant County.

Block No 1 – Township of Dumfries

Block No 2 – Waterloo Township, Waterloo County

Block No 3 – Pilkington Township in Wellington Country, and Woolwich Township in Waterloo County

Block No 4 – Nichol Township in Wellington County

Block No 5 – Moulton Township in Haldimand County

Block No 6 – Canborough Township in Haldimand County

Sources:

James Young's 1880, Reminiscences of the Early History of Galt and the Settlement of Dumfries
City of Cambridge, Cambridge Archives and Records Centre, 2014, "Honourable William Dickson"
A decent "Map of Southern Ontario Including Counties and Townships" can be found here
Ontario Heritage Trust (OHT) plaque dedicated to the Haldimand Grant of land to the Six Nations in 1784
The Waterloo Region Museum has a great collection of sites on the history of Waterloo, Wilmot, North Dumfries, and Woolwich Counties.

Further Reading:
Grand River Branch of the United Empire Loyalists, Website
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, "Clark (Clarke), Thomas"
Government of Ontario, 2014 "Six Nations of the Grand River"

Pioneer Pergola, Galt (Cambridge)

I recently visited the Pioneer Pergola in Cambridge last week. I have visited the site more times than I can count, but it's only as an adult that I can truly appreciate the lives of the people represented by these tombstones, and really visualise the world in which they lived.

The pergola is located in a small and peaceful park on St. Andrews Street in Cambridge Ontario, right across from Dickson Public School. During my elementary years at Dickson (built in 1876 and also attended by my grandmother in the 1940s), my class would often visit the park to practise snowshoeing, or to learn about the natural environment. The tombstones were something to be respected - or marginally feared if you happened to find your first or last name on one of them.

Today, they are a slowly vanishing reminder of the people who created a thriving village out of a forest. Many of the tombstones date from the 1840s-50s, and indicate the individual's place of birth. Inverness-shire, Perthshire, Roxburghshire, and Aberdeenshire were all major counties in Scotland which contributed eager settlers to the Township of North Dumfries.

Further Reading:

Canada's Historic Places, "Pioneer Pergola"
Plaque Text can be found, unofficially, here.
Canada's Historic Places, "Dickson Public School"

Photos were taken by myself, May 2014.

View of 1820

I always find it interesting to compare images of cities and places at a particular point in time. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let these two speak for themselves.

Galt in 1820, population: Approximately 40 families in North Dumfries Township

Rough Sketch of Shade's Mills (Galt) In the year 1820, by Homer Watson to be found in James Young's Reminiscences of the Early History of Galt and the Settlement of Dumfries in the province of Ontario.

Edinburgh in 1820, population: 138,255.

Edinburgh from the Carlton Hill, 1820, After Joseph Mallord William Turner, Tate Collection

Lions, Monkeys, and Cholera in Galt

Every so often I come across a story or an historical event that just seems so bizarre, or so unbelievable, that I can’t believe that I haven’t heard of it already – such is the excitement of research. This is the story of how a travelling menagerie did or didn't bring cholera to Galt in 1834.

One of the showmen arrived in the village a couple days ahead of the menagerie, and claiming to feel ill was seen by a local doctor and determined to be suffering from “Asiatic cholera”. (Young, 99) Dr. Miller had had some experience with the disease in Montreal in 1832, and was concerned that it had spread further into the Canadas. Authorities in the village were loath to cancel the upcoming event despite the showman’s illness as the promise of increased revenue and heightened community stature was just too sweet to pass up.

1830 Advertisement for a similar attraction (minus the cholera) from Illinois, United States.

The exhibition took place as planned on Monday July 28, 1834. Despite the reportedly malodourous conditions of the animals and their cages, crowds were drawn from across Dumfries Township, as well as from “Waterloo, Beverly, Woolwich, [and] Blenheim”. (Young, 98) Once arrived, visitors became privy to the gossip regarding the ill showman. One attendee mentions in a letter bound for Hamilton that such talk was “hushed down lest it might injure the Show, or hurt the stir of the tavern”. (Young, 101)

On Tuesday, the exhibition, as well as village life seemed to go on as usual; however, by Wednesday it was clear that something was terribly wrong. The doctor was reportedly much busier than usual, and by sundown five persons were dead and many more were complaining of symptoms. On Thursday the village effectively shut down – businesses were closed, and people remained in their homes, save for the 33 who were now buried. Occurrences of the cholera pandemic began to subside by the end of the week, and survivors were giving the rest of the community further hope that the pestilence had passed. (Young, 101-102)

In 1834, the village of Galt had approximately 200 residents – nearly 1/5 of which fell victim to the disease. (WREM) Modern claims that the village was nearly depopulated as a result of the outbreak seem a little exaggerated (Kohn, 58), especially considering that the population not only bounced back but grew to 1000 people only six years later (Campey, 139).

This story certainly deserves, and needs, more research. How is a disease that is spread through contaminated food or drinking water brought to a small village by a single showman? What was the fate of that showman? Was it simply co-incidence that cholera hit just as the menagerie was arriving, and that a contaminated water source is really to blame? A year later (1835) it was released that there were cholera-related deaths as close as 12 miles southwest of the village, four days prior to the showman’s arrival (Stimson, 12). I will note as well that in 1835, it was believed that the pestilence was spread through the foul and hot airs circulating within the enclosed menagerie tent, and was made worse by the stench of the animals on display.

Sources

James Young's 1880, Reminisces of the Early History of Galt and the Settlement of Dumfries in the Province of Ontario.

Waterloo Region Emergency Management (WREM), 2011, "History Book"

George C. Kohn’s 2008, Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present.

Lucille H. Campey’s 2005, The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada, 1784-1855: Glengarry and Beyond.

Elam Stimson’s 1835, The Cholera Beacon: Being a Treatise on the Epidemic Cholera: As it Appeared in Upper Canada 1832-4.

Further Reading

Marian A. Patterson’s 1958, “The Cholera Epidemic of 1832 in York, Upper Canada”