Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

varied reading. Nothing makes men differ so much, even in bodily appearance, as mental development.

"Forty years ago," the same gentleman writes, "I happened to pass by a poor man's house. I saw that he had, by some means, bought a yoke of steer, and they having some vermin on them, the man shook some wood ashes on their backs. One lay dead, the other was dying, leaving the man as poor as Job's turkey. Some years afterwards I passed that way. There was a house fit for the Governor, made from hard industry on the same farm."

The man who has thus supplied my palette with colours is himself worth $20,000.

There are several counties which have been wholly, or almost wholly cleared by Irishmen. Foremost among these stands the County of Carleton, which comprises the Townships of Nepean, North Gower, Marlborough, Goulburn, March, Huntley, Torbolton. Fitzroy, the Village of Richmond and the City of Ottawa. Throughout the county the Irish element predominates, save in the Townships of Fitzroy and Torbolton, which are chiefly settled by that other branch of the Celtic race whose hardihood has been nourished in the land of heather and shaggy wood, amid the stern sublimities of mountains and mountain streams. In the northern part of March, too, there are a great many of the Imperial English blood. Part of the Township of Goulburn, including the Village of Richmond, was settled by the Duke of Richmond, about 1815, with officers of the 99th. Among these military settlers were Irishmen such as Captain Burke; Lieutenant Maxwell, to whom we shall have again to refer; Captain Lett; Rev. Dr. Short, military chaplain; Captain Lyon, Lieutenant Ormsby, and Lieutenant Bradley. Into this settlement some naval officers also found their way. The northern part of the Township of March was settled by Captain Monk, an Englishman, and Colonel Lloyd, an Irishman. With such exceptions, the whole of the metropolitan county of the Dominion was settled by the Irish emigrant, with no assistance from anybody; his capital, his friends, his patrons, were his strong right arm, his resolute will and the axe upon his shoulder. Some particulars relating to the two classes of pioneers will not be uninteresting.

George J. Burke, of the 99th Regiment, and Colonel of the

SOLDIER.

JOURNALIST. LUMBERER.

311

Carleton Militia, was a native of Tipperary. He served in the Peninsula, and afterwards in Canada, during the war of 1812. During his campaigns here he contracted that fondness for Canada which has made of many who intended no more than a flying visit permanent settlers. When he retired from the service he took up his residence at Richmond. He was an Irish gentleman of the old school, a Conservative and a staunch Loyalist. He was the first Registrar of the County of Carleton, a position which he retained until his death.

His son, James Henry Burke, early gaye evidence of literary and even poetical, talents. Feeling himself walled in from congenial opportunity in the wild region round Richmond-Ottawa being then the small landing-place, Bytown-he made a voyage to the Arctic Region, and saw something of the great world outside. In 1854, he, having gained much experience and enlarged his views, settled at Ottawa, and started the Ottawa Tribune, in the Irish Roman Catholic interest. This paper he conducted in a very able manner until his death. On the decease of John Egan, in 1857, he ran for Pontiac, but was defeated by Mr. Heath. With the exception of Mr. Egan, he did more for the Ottawa district than any man of his day. The opening up of the Ottawa Valley was a subject on which he held enlightened views, and one on which he spoke and wrote well. He died on the 8th of January, 1858, at the early age of thirty-seven, having given promise of great things, both in statesmanship and literature.

John Egan was a native of Aughrim. He emigrated in 1832. He died at the early age of forty-seven. In the fifteen years he was spared to his adopted country he did as much as any man ever achieved in so brief a period. Few men were better acquainted with the trade of the Ottawa. The resources of the country and its requirements were thoroughly mastered by him. He worked his way from nothing to the head of the largest business on the river. It was he first gave system to its lumber trade, a trade which has yielded a return equal to one-fourth of the entire revenue of Canada. Before his time lumbering on the Ottawa was a wild venture. The annual business of his house ran up a few years before his death to from $800,000 to $1,000,000. It gave employment directly to over 2,000 men. It required 1,600 horses

and oxen. His living machinery consumed annually 90,000 bushels of oats, 12,000 barrels of pork, 15,000 barrels of flour. The ramifications of the house occupied a portion of nearly every stream on the Ottawa's course.

A handsome man, whose life was divided between business and generous deeds, he was very popular. He represented the County of Ottawa until it was divided, when he was returned by acclamation for Pontiac. His name has become part of the topographical nomenclature of the Ottawa, he having, with his clerk, the late Mr. Michael Joseph Hickey, founded and named Eganville.

Mr. Hickey was born at Nenagh, County Tipperary, in 1825. He was the oldest son of Mr. Patrick Hickey of the same place. He came to Canada while quite a young man and entered as clerk the employment of Mr. Egan, who soon selected him to take charge of his important business on the River Bonnechere, wherea large number of emigrants from Donegal were settled. Hickey induced Egan to build grist and saw mills, and the advance of civilization was soon attested by the erection of a tavern. The nucleus of a village was now formed. Hickey suggested the name of Eganville to the Post-office authorities. Eganville is now a considerable place with churches, mills, numerous stores. The population is about six hundred.

Here Hickey commenced business under the name of Hickey Brothers. But owing to the depression in the lumber trade he retired leaving the business to his brothers, John and Thomas, men of ability and genial popular manners. Michael Joseph Hickey had literary ability, and edited for a considerable time with great success the Ottawa Tribune. It was in connection with Hickey that McGee started the New Era. Differing on the seat of government question-Hickey being stoutly in favour of Ottawathey severed business connection but maintained their friendship. Hickey then went to the bar and practised his profession in Ottawa. Business took him to Toronto in the November of 1864. As he was walking along the Esplanade he fell into the Bay and was drowned. He was a constant contributor to Harper's Magazine and a paper contributed to that periodical, entitled "The Capital of Canada," deservedly attracted a great deal of attention.

When speaking of those connected with lumbering, Robert and

THE FOUNDER OF PEMBROKE.

313

James Coburn, of Pembroke, should not be forgotten. When growing youths, in 1830, they with their mother, a widow, emigrated to Canada. They first resided in Nepean. Ready employment and good pay in the lumber shanties early took them up the Ottawa. They soon began to do business for themselves and succeeded. They live on their own estates within a few miles of the fast-growing and beautiful Town of Pembroke, and are now as always fast friends of Methodism.

The founder of Pembroke came from Tipperary, Daniel O'Meara was born in 1812. His family is a respectable one, and well known in that part of Ireland. Educated at his native town, and in Dublin, on the death of his father in 1834, he came to Canada. After a brief sojourn in Quebec, he joined a party bound for the Upper Ottawa. Finally he settled where now stands the Town of Pembroke, which, in conjunction with Alexander Moffat, he founded in 1835. He carried on business for some time as a general merchant. In the latter years of his life he engaged in lumbering. He used to go every year to Quebec, and bring emigrants thence at his own expense. Not a few of the prominent men of the Ottawa valley acknowledge that they owe the foundation of their prosperity to O'Meara. Shortly before his death he greatly extended his business by the establishment of numerous branches. He started two of his brothers, Michael and William, in business as, merchants and lumbermen, both well known and greatly respected, in the County of Renfrew. He died in 1859, at the early age of 47, leaving three sons and two daughters, who survive. Mr. O'Meara was a Roman Catholic. He had built a church, and on his death-bed gave £500 towards the erection of a new one. He was a Conservative in politics. The reform journal of Pembroke the Observer-in its issue of the 22nd April, 1859, in the course of an eloquent article, mourns the loss to Pembroke of its leading business man, and dwells in terms of eulogy on the energy, the adherence to principle, the open-handed generosity of O'Meara.

Another man whose name is of note in connexion with lumbering, was John Brady, who was born in Cavan, in 1797. He came to this country in 1819, having suffered great hardships during a voyage of eighteen weeks across the Atlantic. He first settled

in the County of Glengarry, where he was married to Rachel McDonald, at St. Raphael's Church, by Bishop McDonell. He subsequently removed from thence to the Township of Alfred, in the County of Prescott, near the Ottawa river, the settlement being known to this day by the name of the Brady Settlement. He threw himself with energy into farming and lumbering. He was elected one of the old District Councillors. He was also Justice of the Peace and Coroner for the county. These offices he filled until the year 1847, when he removed to the County of Oxford, where he was soon elected to the County Council, which office he filled until his death, in 1853. In politics he was a Reformer, and took a very active part in affairs. He was a Roman Catholic. His wife is still living with his third son, James, in the Town of Ingersoll. The family consisted of five sons and three daughters, all of whom are living, except one daughter. John Brady had a brother named Thomas Brady, who settled in the same neighbourhood, and who died recently at the age of 95 years. John Brady's son, James Brady, who is a well-known man in Ingersoll, was born at Prescott, in 1839.

It would require many volumes to recount the lives and deeds of all those Irishmen who have made the County of Carleton what it is. A rapid survey must content us here.

John Boucher came to Canada in 1819, having been born in 1789. He worked for a year on the canal in the employ of Colonel By. With what he saved in this year he went into March township and began to clear with his own hands a dense bush. His daughter, Mrs. Riddell, was the first child born in the Township of March. Boucher was married three times and had in all twentyfive children, eleven boys and fourteen girls. At his death, this man-who went into the Township of March with his axe on his shoulder-left each of his sons a farm and each of his daughters a portion of money. He worked at farming all his life, excepting about twelve years which he devoted to the business of hotelkeeping. He belonged to the Church of England, and was a strong Conservative.

If all his children have proved as prolific as great-grandchildren alone now number 875. at this moment are very numerous.

Mrs. Riddell, his

His descendants

« AnteriorContinuar »