north of Toronto, at Thornhill, where he had for some years a large practice.

At that time, the indulgence in whiskey-drinking was carried to unhappy lengths among the rural population. Dr. O'Brien, though hitherto a wine drinker, determined to become a teetotaler. He established a temperance society of which he was President, until he removed to Toronto in 1838. In 1837-8, he was appointed -chief military surgeon at Toronto, where, when the troops were disbanded, he settled down to practice. He held several important public positions in connection with his profession. A religious man, he took a deep interest in the Bible Society, of which he was Vice-President for many years before he died. In 1845, he was appointed to the chair of Medical Jurisprudence at King's College, and lectured until 1853, when the school was done away with. A strong Conservative, he became editor of the Toronto Patriot, which he continued to edit for eight years. If he was responsible for all the articles in that paper during Lord Elgin's time, his editorial labours are not so creditable as his medical. Having lost money through injudicious speculations, he accepted the office of Secretary to the Hon. Wm. Cayley. He subsequently received an appointment in the Finance Department. He died at Ottawa, in 1870, at the advanced age of seventy-five.

We now return for a moment to the County of Simcoe. In 1822, the McConkey family emigrated to Canada from Tyrone, where Thomas David McConkey was born in 1815. The family first settled in the Niagara district, but in 1825 removed to the County of Simcoe. Thomas was educated at a common school, and when he came to man's estate he opened a general store in Barrie, immediately after the new district was set apart and proclaimed. Success beyond his expectation followed, and a few years ago he retired from business.

Like most of his countrymen, he had a capacity for public employment, and was elected a member of the first Town Council of Barrie, where he rendered the county great service. He held the position of Reeve of the town for nine years. In 1860, he was elected Warden of the County of Simcoe, an office he held for two

years.

A strong reformer, he in 1861 unsuccessfully contested North

THE TOWN-LINE BLAZERS.

301 Simcoe with Mr. Angus Morrison. He again opposed Morrison in 1863, when he was elected a member of the old Canadian parliament. He supported Confederation, and at the general election of 1867, he was elected unanimously for the first House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada. He declined a nomination in 1872. In 1875, he was nominated to contest West Simcoe, but was defeated. For nearly twenty years up to his appointment in 1875 to the Shrievalty of the county, he was a justice of the peace. He is a good speaker and a man of convictions and integrity.

The greater part of a township near Streetsville, County of Peel, is settled by emigrants from "gallant Tipperary." They used to be called some years ago the "Town-line blazers." The names all smack of Ireland-the Cooks', the Cantlans', the Millers,' the Coles,' the Waits,' the Orrs.' They were accustomed to come down to town with their guns, a practice which I hope they have discontinued. "One old boy," writes a correspondent, "would come down, and when he took a glass too much he would say: 'Do you think you could box a Cole or a Cantlan? No! nor by you box old Rowley himself.""

could

John Hammond and his wife came out early to Canada. He died at Lachine, of cholera, and his wife with her son William Hammond (now of Yonge Street), went on as far as Brampton. All the relatives of this lady have done well. A brother of Mr. Hammond farms two hundred acres of land at Owen Sound, and is doing "first-rate," whilst an uncle farms 300 acres at Brampton, and is very prosperous. In the neighbourhood of Brampton, the Whiteheads, the Arnots, the Willis's, and a score of other families attest at once the energy of Irishmen, and the scope of Canada for industry.

Already it has been shown that Ireland has sent to Canada remarkable men, and furnished interesting incidents for the historian of emigration. But the story is not half told, as will be seen by the following chapter.

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME of the most striking facts connected with the early Irish emigration will now be laid before the reader.

In 1832 the Messrs. Edward and Dominick Blake, with some connections and friends, left Ireland for Canada to seek a kinder fortune beneath colder skies. Nothing was to be despaired of with such leaders. It was hard to leave a country where the family had made for itself a name and place. But necessity was severe as the father of Teucer, and there was nothing for it but to bedew the shamrock with wine and on the morrow sail the boundless main.

The Blakes of Castlegrove, County of Galway, held a good place among the country gentry. Dominick Edward Blake, of Castlegrove, married first the Honourable Miss Netterville, a daughter of Lord Netterville, of Drogheda, by whom he had three sons, Edward, Andrew, and John Netterville. He afterwards married a daughter of Sir Joseph Hoare, Baronet, of Annabella, in the County of Cork, by whom he had four sons, one of whom was Dominick Edward Blake, who chose the Church as his profession. He married Anne Margaret Hume, eldest daughter of William Hume, of Humewood, County Wicklow. His wife survived him as did his three daughters, and the two sons Dominick Edward and William Hume, both of whom were educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Dominick Edward, the eldest, was ordained as a clergyman of the Church of England, while his brother studied surgery under Surgeon-General Sir Philip Crampton.

The Rev. D. E. Blake soon married, the lady being a Miss Jones, the eldest daughter of a man who was connected in a passing way with Canada, and whose conversation respecting the country had no small influence on the mind of his son-in-law. Major Jones was a retired officer who had held commissions in the 37th, 49th, and 60th regiments. He had served throughout the Peninsular War and in Canada during the war of 1812. He took part in the battles of Lundy's Lane and Queenston Heights.

THE BLAKES START FOR CANADA.

303

William Hume Blake married Miss Catharine Hume, the daughter of a younger brother of William Hume, of Humewood. In 1832, he and his brother determined to emigrate to Canada. In the July of that year they sailed for this country, accompanied by their mother and sisters; by the late Archdeacon Brough, who had married Miss Wilhelmina Blake; by the late Mr. Justice Connor; by Dr. Robinson and his sons, Arthur Robinson, now of Orillia, and Charles Robinson, the present Judge of the County of Lambton; by the Rev. Benjamin Cronyn, late Bishop of Huron, and the Rev. Mr. Palmer, now the Archdeacon of Huron. They chartered a vessel the "Ann of Halifax," and with high hopes and brave hearts stood out to sea.

When only three days out one of the crew was seized with cholera and before morning his body was thrown overboard. Owing to the prophylactic measures of Dr. Robinson the plague was stayed. Yet for some time there was an inclination in the breasts of the emigrants to put the ship's head about and return to Ireland. After six weeks they arrived in the St. Lawrence and were subjected to a long quarantine at Grosse Isle. September had arrived before they were allowed to proceed. The cholera was now epidemic.

They remained about six months in Little York, and then separated, Mr. Brough, Mr. Skeffington Connor, and Doctor Robinson going northwards, to the Township of Oro, on Lake Simcoe, and the remainder going west to the Township of Adelaide, of which the Reverend D. E. Blake had been appointed rector by Sir John Colborne, then Governor of the Province.

Mr. W. H. Blake purchased a farm at Bear Creek, about seven miles from Adelaide, near where the Town of Strathroy now stands. He resided there about two years, after which he returned to Toronto, and commenced to study law. The Reverend Mr. Blake, with whom his mother resided, remained for about twelve years in Adelaide, during which time he built the three churches in which he held service. Having been appointed rector of Thornhill in the year 1844, he removed thither, and for thirteen years continued his ministrations in each of his three churches every Sunday. Travelling twenty-four miles in all weathers, and conducting three services, proved, however, in time, too much for

him, and he had reluctantly to abandon the most distant one to the care of others. Notwithstanding his failing health he continued his ministrations in the remaining two churches up to the time of his death, which took place in June, 1859, at Trinity College, Toronto, upon the evening of the annual convocation. His widow and two sons, Dominick Edward and John Netterville, and two daughters survived him. His mother lived until towards the close of 1867, when she died at the age of ninety-three, in London, Ontario, at the residence of her youngest daughter, the widow of the Reverend Richard Flood, late of Delaware. A woman of remarkable strength of mind and firmness of character, up to the time of her death she remained in full possession of all her mental faculties.

The history of the early settlement of the district west of London differs little from that of the newer districts of the present day. Roads there were none, except one or two leading colonization lines cut out through the wilderness. The present site of London was then known as the Forks of the Thames, and the baggage and household belongings of the Blakes had to be dragged by oxen, through quagmires and over streams, from Port Stanley to Adelaide.

For some time the nearest post office to where the Reverend Mr. Blake resided, was fifteen miles distant. What is now the Egremont Gravel Road, passing through a rich farming district, having on either side comfortable residences and farm "steadings," was then a mere trail, unfit for travel except with oxen and waggons. On either hand lay a dense wilderness, through which the wolves howled as they chased the deer during the long winter nights. At first no medical man could be found nearer than London; and the emigrants with whom the township was being settled, consisting chiefly of old soldiers (many of them with no more worldly goods than they stood up in), had to be housed and fed at the expense of the Government. Typhus fever soon broke out amongst them, and many died for want of proper treatment. The Reverend Mr. Blake fortunately had some knowledge of medicine, and between visiting the sick and attending to his parochial duties, the first few years of his life as a colonist passed rapidly.

One of the old settlers, the late Colonel Johnston, of Strathroy,