Laura Ingersoll Secord’s early childhood was spent in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where her father, Major Ingersoll, was engaged in business. The house in which she lived has been presented to the town and is now the Great Barrington Free Library and Reading Room. It is a frame building, a story and a half in height, low and broad, with dormer windows facing the street.
Here the little girl played happily about the four or five acres that surrounded her father’s home and shop and extended to the banks of the Housatonic River. Born in December, 1775, she was only a child during the American Revolution. Its after effects, however, she was old enough to comprehend; for the war, as do all wars, had left a trail of hardship in its wake. Business declined; and Major Ingersoll, having heard that Governor Simcoe was offering tracts of land in Canada on generous terms to those settling there, determined to move thither.
When Chief Joseph Brant, of the Mohawk Indians, was visiting in New York he had become friends with Major Ingersoll and had promised to show him the best lands for settlement if he came to Canada to live. He did not forget his offer, after the Ingersolls arrived, but sent six of his ablest braves to point out the most suitable district which, according to his opinion, was around the Thames River, then called River La Tranche.
Major Ingersoll brought his family to Oswego and from there they sailed westward on Lake Ontario. It is said that when they were in the vicinity of Grimsby a severe storm broke upon them and they were obliged to put up a tent on shore and camp there until it abated. For several days the vessel had been becalmed and, during the days spent in waiting for a favourable wind, the supply of food had become almost exhausted. There was nothing for Mrs. Ingersoll and the children to eat, so the sailors started off to search for provisions. In the woods they found a camp of hunters who directed them to a settler’s house where they were able to procure milk and other necessities.
They left the sailing ship at Burlington Bay and proceeded the remainder of the trip by land. There were no roads built in that part of the country, nothing but an Indian trail leading from Ancaster to Detroit. Guided by Chief Brant’s braves they reached their destination, a location that had been used for many years previously by the Indians as a summer camping-ground. Here Major Ingersoll settled, on the site of the present town of Ingersoll which bears his name.
At this time Laura Ingersoll was a handsome young woman, about twenty years of age, slight and fair, in height around five feet four inches. One day, later on, James Secord chanced to call upon Major Ingersoll to consult him on certain business matters. The gentlemanly bearing of the young man impressed Major Ingersoll and his wife and the latter remarked, after the stranger had departed, that it was unfortunate” there were so few opportunities to meet people of education and refinement,” adding that she doubted if they would ever see the young man again.
But James Secord, during his short stay, had not been wholly engrossed in business. He had seen the lovely daughter of the household and had carried away a vision of kindly brown eyes and sweet, smiling mouth. It was impossible for him to stay away and so, before long, he returned. Thus began a friendship which culminated in marriage. For a while the young couple lived at St. David’s, then they moved to Queenston where they were when the war clouds of 1812 darkened the horizon.
Laura Secord was resourceful and courageous in danger. In the early part of the war she rescued her husband from the hands of three enemy soldiers who were about to club him to death, as he lay wounded on the hillside.
One night, some time afterwards, when she and her children were alone save for two young colored servants, Bob and Fan, a man knocked at the door. In reply to her query he said he was being pursued and wished to enter. As it happened, Mr. Secord had left a considerable sum of money in the house and the man must have known this for, when Mrs. Secord objected to admitting him at that hour, he became abusive and declared:
“I can come in and I will!”
Before he could carry out his evil intention, she spoke gruffly in an Irish brogue, saying in a loud, stern voice; “If ye dare to do it, shure an’ I’ll set the dog on ye.”
At the same time she motioned to Bob, the colored boy, to imitate the growling of a dog, an accomplishment in which he was an adept.
The man left but shortly came back again. Then, Laura Secord, not in the last intimidated, brought out an old horse-pistol and threatened to shoot if he did not go away. This had the desired effect.
After the war, when the Secords were living in Chippewa, where Mr. Secord was a customs-house official, he was, one day, notified that smugglers were going to make an attempt to land at a certain spot. Mrs. Secord’s granddaughter relates how, on hearing the news, Laura Secord at once said to her husband: “There are only two of you and there will be great danger. I shall represent the third person.”
She disguised herself by donning a pair of her husband’s boots and wearing a man’s cap and overcoat. Thus dressed she went with them to the boat and remained on guard while the cargo was seized.
Throughout her life she exemplified “strong religious principles, strong affections” and a strict adherence to the “sacred duty of doing good.” Her motto was, “It is ever the darkest hour just before the daylight.”
There was no recognition by the Canadian Government given Laura Secord at the time of her exploit but a monument, in her honor, was erected at Queenston in 1912, the centenary of the war.
When the Prince of Wales visited Canada in 1860, among the signatures attached to a petition, submitted for his approval, was that of Laura Secord. As hers was the only woman’s name appearing he asked the reason for its inclusion and was told of the brave deed she had undertaken in order to save her country. The Prince, at once interested, made further inquiries and when he returned to England expressed his appreciation of her heroism by sending her a hundred pounds sterling.
CHAPTER V. HAPPINESS IN A LOG-CABIN: CATHARINE PARR TRAILL
A fair, rosy-cheeked English lady gazed somewhat ruefully at the four-sided structure of logs which had been put up the day before. Were these the walls of a house; was this the framework of her new home?
Catharine Parr Traill had always been accustomed to the luxuries and refinements of life, having come from an illustrious family in England, after one of whose ancestors, the ill-fated Catharine Parr, wife of Henry the Eighth, she had been named. She and her husband had had a long tiresome journey, by sailing vessel across the ocean to Montreal and from there by river steamer, stage-coach and wagon to the shores of a small lake near the Otonabee River.
It was now the end of October and she was hoping to be in a home of her own before winter set in. It had seemed as though the raising of the house would never begin. Delay after delay had hindered its erection. The yoke of oxen they had bought in order to draw the logs for the walls had, one morning, taken a notion to wander. The animals had forded the lake, imitating the Indians by leaving no trail behind them. It was four weeks before they had been located and in that time their instinct had led them, through forest and swamp, back to their former quarters, some twenty miles distant.
But at last the logs had been cut and pulled into the small clearing and with the help of neighboring settlers they had had a “raising bee.”
“We have got along splendidly,” Mr. Traill had said the previous evening.
So Catharine had hurried over from her brother’s clearing, where the Traills were staying temporarily, with the expectation of seeing a house almost completed. Instead of which there was “merely an oblong square of logs, raised one above the other, with open spaces between every row.”
In a couple of days the cabin presented a better appearance. The roof was shingled and openings sawed in the logs for doors and windows. Sleepers were laid as a base for the floors but again the building was delayed because there were no floor-boards available. The nearest saw-mill was in Peterborough and to go there for lumber entailed a hard day’s journey over corduroy roads. The flooring-boards would have to b
e done by hand. Not only was this a tedious business but it involved the additional labour of relaying them the next year when the boards had become seasoned.
By now Mrs. Traill’s high spirits had returned. She was naturally of a cheerful, hopeful disposition and always tried to make the best of any situation.
“I laughed because I would not cry,” she once said when going through a trying experience. This, her characteristic trait, stood her in good stead in the bush.
She refused to be downhearted over the next misfortune that occurred. The weather had changed and cold nights succeeded the comparatively mild days. One morning, when she went as usual to inspect the building, she found operations suspended. “What,” she inquired, “is the matter?”
“The plaster,” replied her husband, “is frozen.” The mixture of lime and clay, that was used to fill in the cracks between the logs on both outside and inside the house, had been spoiled by the frost and was useless. A fresh supply had to be prepared. Then the workman, who was hewing the inside walls to make them smooth, cut himself with the axe and could not work until the wound healed.
Gradually, however, the log-cabin was finished. A few days before Christmas the Traills moved in. The house consisted of a sitting-room, kitchen, pantry and bedroom on the main floor and an attic that could be made into sleeping rooms later. The windows of the sitting-room afforded a pleasant view of the lake.
Here Catharine Traill settled down to pioneer living. Keeping house was not easy in those days. Bread must be made, because bakers and bake-shops do not exist in unsettled districts; cloth must be spun and clothes made and a hundred and one duties performed in surroundings that called for every ounce of strength and nerve a woman possessed.
Cooking was often a problem as supplies were difficult to obtain and, when they did come from the distant village, sometimes the jolting of the wagon over the rough roads caused articles to be mixed that should have been kept apart.
“Behold,” she wrote her mother, “rice, sugar, currants, pepper and mustard jumbled into one mess. What think you of a rice-pudding seasoned plentifully with pepper, mustard and, maybe, little rappee or prince’s mixture added by way of sauce.”
Potatoes were their standby. When other foodstuff was scarce there were generally potatoes to fall back upon. Wild fruits, strawberry, raspberry, plum were preserved for winter use.
Life in the backwoods was hard. There were few comforts and often not even bare necessities. They had no neighbours, at first, for miles except Mrs. Traill’s brother and one other settler. In early summer they were tormented by swarms of mosquitoes and by that wretched pest, the black fly, “a wicked-looking fly, with black body and white legs and wings.” The intense heat of July and August and the severity of mid-winter were distressing to those accustomed to the mild climate of England.
Under such circumstances one would almost expect to find Catharine Traill complaining bitterly against her lot, but this was not the case. She wrote to England, it is true, describing the state of affairs in Upper Canada, but the letters showed no acrimonious spirit, being intended to serve only as a warning to those men and women who, not willing to labour with their hands or perform so-called menial tasks, were planning to emigrate to Canada, in the belief that there they would have a life of luxury and ease.
Flowers were her constant delight. Even when she was very old, and she lived until her ninety-eighth year, if anyone brought her a new specimen of plant or flower her eye would kindle and the flush of pleasure tinge her cheek. She loved to study the plant life that abounded on all sides and never wearied in gathering and examining the flowers that carpeted the fields and swamps. Many of them were strange to her and others were similar to the “cherished pets” of the gardens and green-houses in England which, she states, “are here flung carelessly from Nature’s lavish hand among our woods and wilds.”
She had no time to be unhappy. Every minute was filled; there were many household tasks and a family of nine, four sons and five daughters, to be reared. She was busy with the classification of the flora of the new land and, in addition to the regular letters she wrote to her home in England, she managed to write a number of books. One of these, Canadian Crusoes, is the tale of a boy and girl lost on the plains of Rice Lake; another, The Backwoods of Canada, describes her experiences during the first three years.
“Hope, resolution and perseverance are my passwords,” she once remarked.
“This is true philosophy,” her husband had replied, “and the more forcible because you not only recommend the maxim but practise it also.”
Everything she saw in the fields and about the farm was of interest to her. She learned to make her own soap and candles, vinegar and yeast. Maple-sugar time was fascinating. She took especial delight in following the various stages of its manufacture. There were a number of sugar maples in their bush and, after the trees were tapped and the sap running into rough troughs made by hollowing with an axe a piece of pine-wood, she would sample the pale, clear fluid.
It was when night came and the sap was boiling in the big pots over a log-fire that she found it most pleasurable. The leaping flames against the dark background of the trees and the figures of the men tending the kettles, watchful lest the contents boil over, made a quaint and picturesque sight.
The first time the Traills made maple syrup and sugar they had only one kettle in use but as they became adept they conducted operations on a larger scale. Catharine took an active part in this work and thoroughly enjoyed it. It meant a good deal to her to have a plentiful supply of the sugar on hand for cooking and table use.
A family of Indians pitched their tents on an island in the nearby lake and Catharine made friends with the women who came to see her. They brought baskets, mats, ducks or venison to trade for store supplies or potatoes. Often they borrowed a “kettle to cook” and were prompt in returning it.
One day an Indian woman came to the house and asked for something. What it was Mrs. Traill could not imagine as she did not understand her language, but, by and by, the woman “took up a corner of her blanket and, pointing to some soap, began washing it between her hands, imitating the action of washing, then laughed and pointed to a tub; she then held up two fingers to intimate it was for two days she needed the loan.”
The Indians were excellent fishermen. The lake waters abounded in salmon-trout, whitefish, black bass and maskinonge and the islands that dotted its surface were favourite camping grounds during the fishing season. Often they fished at night. A squaw paddled the canoe and a man stood in the centre of the frail birchbark craft, holding a spear. A long pole was fastened to the bow of the canoe and from it was suspended an “open grated iron basket” called a jack. This contained fat-pine or rolls of birch bark which, when set on fire, furnished a bright light. By means of the reflection on the water the fisherman was able to spear the fish that came within his vision.
What a picture a fleet of these canoes must have afforded to the beauty-loving young English woman, the flickering, flaming light casting shadows on the placid surface of the lake, as she watched them from the doorway of her log-cabin.
For seven years the Traills lived on the farm they had partly cleared then they moved to what is now a part of the city of Peterborough. There they remained until 1846 when they went to Rice Lake, on whose shores they built another log-cabin.
Eleven years later a fire consumed the entire building. Mr and Mrs. Traill and their family miraculously escaped but all their possessions, manuscripts, books and other valuables were destroyed. This loss hastened Mr. Traill’s death.
Mrs. Traill spent her closing years in Lakefield. Her home there, which she named Westove, from her husband’s Orkney estate, was bought with the money received from a grant given her in recognition of her literary services in England.
Although Catharine Traill was often homesick for the land of her birth and often hungered for the companionship of her loved ones who had been left behind, yet she was able to say:
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bsp; “I love Canada, and am as happy in my humble log-house as if it were courtly hall or bower.”
CHAPTER VI. A NOBLE GIRL QUEEN: QUEEN VICTORIA
In Kensington Palace a young girl lay sleeping, her fair face flushed with the bloom of health. A little more than three weeks before she had celebrated her eighteenth birthday but so youthful did she appear one would almost have doubted it.
The Palace rooms were hushed and still, the inmates sunk in slumber. As usual, had been the routine of the day and as usual, the household had retired to rest. None knew that at two o’clock that morning, in the city, distant some three hours’ journey, there had gone forth the cry, “The King is dead! Long live the Queen!”
The June sun had scarcely risen when imperative knocking sounded on the outer doors. Sleepy servants answered the summons and admitted the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain, who had ridden in haste to bear news of great moment.
“We wish to see your mistress immediately,” they said to the lady-in-waiting.
“But,” she demurred, “the Princess has not yet awakened. I do not like to disturb her.”
“We are come on business of state to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to that.”
As soon as the Princess heard who had arrived and on what errand they had come, she rose quickly and, waiting but to throw a shawl around her shoulders, with golden hair streaming, hurried to receive them.
The two dignitaries knelt to do homage to the young Queen of England and she turned to the Archbishop, saying simply:
“I ask your Grace to pray for me.”
The childhood and girlhood of the young princess had been passed in quiet and seclusion. Her mother, the Duchess of Kent, had no liking for the pomps and vanities of the Court and preferred to educate her daughter as a simple English lady rather than a grande dame. In her estimation character-building was of more importance than learning the wiles and graces of fashionable society. The King, William IV, wished to have his young niece at court all the time but this the Duchess of Kent would not allow. “It was well that a girl so young should be a stranger in the Court of England, even under the Sailor King.” Victoria’s mother realized this and kept the little girl as much as possible in the wholesome atmosphere of Kensington Palace.
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 776