THOUGHTS ABOUT HOME ON CANADA DAY

ByLee Ann

Hello, there!

It’s Canada Day in my part of the world, and that brings me to thoughts about home: what is a home, what home means to me, and also the places I call home.

Do you ever think about that? I wonder how you’d define “home” for yourself.

To me, home is family, and I’m blessed to have a close one: my husband and our boys; my siblings and I; all our children – a.k.a. “The Cousins” – and now the next generation, for whom we’ll have a celebration this month, which has been dubbed the “Dozens of CousinsFest.”

Home to me means sanctuary. It’s the place where I create my definition of beauty: gardens and plants, warm colours inside and out, plus all the special items collected over time and generations.

Baptisia in my back garden

I’ve realized recently that there are three places I call home:

  1. Canada. I’m so grateful to my ancestors who chose this magnificent country! I’m currently on a mission to visit the northern, southern, eastern and western-most points in Canada. Two down, two to go!
  1. Richmond and Ottawa, Ontario. My village of Richmond is officially part of Ottawa, yet retains its separate identity and is actually older than the capital. I’ve been out in the village photographing and writing, and the inspiration I’m finding makes this Richmond 200 project so much fun! And recently, Geoff and I enjoyed a “staycation” in Ottawa, taking in the Jazzfest and other activities usually reserved for tourists. We barely got started on the list of things to do and see!
Ottawa’s Rideau Canal
  1. Muskoka. The Smith family cottage is a magnet for all family members and many friends too. Ten people and 3 dogs are there this weekend, in the middle of a heatwave and a power outage. Still, as my sister is fond of saying, “a bad day at the cottage is better than a good day at home!”
Three Mile Lake, Muskoka

All of this is my long-winded introduction to this month’s photo and poem, called “Where is Home?” Originally inspired by a scene near our cottage, it’s a poem that has had quite a bit of exposure. It was first published in the May 11 issue of the Glebe Report‘s Poetry Corner (page 30); their theme was “home.” You can also see it in the Richmond Hub newspaper, where I paired it with a scene along the Jock River in Richmond, which was no less inspiring to me! I hope you click to take a look at that scene.

Happy Canada Day, everyone! May your thoughts of home be as satisfying as mine.

Lee Ann

THE PRICE OF LOYALTY TO THE KING: Part 1, What Hardship Looks Like

ByLee Ann

Two hundred and forty-seven years ago, on June 11, 1771, my six-times great-grandparents were accosted by a band of armed locals who assaulted them, threatened their lives, and then ran them off their land. Donald and Mary McIntyre were forced to flee several miles south with their three young children and six neighbouring families, caught in a jurisdictional dispute between New York and New Hampshire.

The McIntyres had just recently arrived to their 200 acre piece of the colony of New York (along the North River in Albany County) and had begun the onerous process of clearing and improving the land for farming. Donald had been granted this land by the British King after discharge from fighting in the Seven Years War. But on that day in June, the family found out that New Hampshire also claimed their land. Not only that, a group calling themselves the “Green Mountain Boys” had taken up arms to roust the “New Yorkers,” then tear down the log houses they had built, pile them in heaps and burn them.

McIntyre and the others tried to return later, but were again expelled. Without a crop, they were left completely without means to support and feed themselves.

From where they had fled in New Perth (now Salem, New York) they petitioned the Governor, asking what he would have them do. Should they give up the lands, or defend them with force? Or maybe there was some course of law by which the Governor could deal with the situation?

Petition of displaced Loyalist settlers, 1771. Note Donald McIntyre’s signature

The Governor dealt with it by ordering the Justices of the Peace in Albany to investigate this “riot.” Three months later, in November, one of the Justices responded. Here’s part of what he wrote:

On the very Eve of a long hard winter it is very Schocking to see so many poor familys reduced to so great Distress and if they had not been hospitably entertained by the Rev’d Mr Clark & his people their Straits must have been exceeding great.

The Governor then issued a warrant for the arrest of the Green Mountain Boys and their leader, who were determined to be responsible. The leader, Ethan Allan, remained at large and I do not know if the fourteen Boys who assaulted the settlers were ever captured.

In any case, after seven years of war, instead of beginning their new lives in the American Colony and reaping the first crops on land granted to them for loyalty to the King, for five months my six-times great grandparents had to live on the charitable gifts of friends and the congregation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in New Perth.

There is more to the story of these ancestors, which I’ll write about in Part 2. Meanwhile, I’m reflecting on the nature of hardship, imagining the conversations among those seven displaced families while they decided what next steps to take, and looking around at my own privileged circumstances this day in June, 247 years later.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to Jim Issak and John Blythe Dobson, whose diligent research unearthed this previously unpublished petition of our ancestor, Donald/Daniel McIntyre. Jim recently shared with me their excellent article, “Daniel McIntyre, United Empire Loyalist, of The Town of Argyle, Albany County, New York, and Grimsby Township, Lincoln County, Upper Canada,” published in the July 2017 issue of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record.

HONOURING PIONEER WOMEN

ByLee Ann

Hello there! Is it finally springtime in your neighbourhood?

Last week as the air in my neighbourhood finally softened, I took the opportunity to explore Richmond Village – my community. I wanted to see what might remain from its original settlement 200 years ago.

Site of original settlement, Richmond Ontario

The short answer is: not much remains. The longer answer is that I spent a wonderful few hours along the banks of the Jock River, which bisects the village, in the vicinity of the original “Government Reserve” block of land. Most of this block is now a subdivision, but there remains a small undeveloped piece in the south-east corner. I wandered happily back and forth along a path that used to be where two major roads intersected, delighting in the experience of standing where key events in the history of my village took place. Here in 1818 was the Commissariat, where supplies were handed out and the soldiers collected their pensions. Here was the first school, which for the initial seven years of Richmond’s existence was also home to all denominations of churches.

Richmond was a military settlement, established by veterans of the War of 1812, most of them from Ireland. We know quite a lot about the first soldier/settlers: the ranks they held, the businesses they started, the legacies they’ve left in the village, including their names on our streets. As is typical with history, we know much less about Richmond’s first women. I found myself wondering about these women and lamenting how so few details about them survive, compared to their men. I’ve blogged about this topic before (How Women Get Lost in History) and last week I wrote even more about it: a poem based on historical facts, about what a Richmond pioneer woman might have experienced (published in the Richmond Hub).

Julianna Molnar, circa 1910

This in turn led me to think about my own ancestral mothers and how I’ve worked hard to unearth details about their lives that might tell me something substantive about them. For the most part, they remain shrouded in time. This makes me sad, and also makes me want to honour them – especially my pioneer, immigrant great-grandmothers, for the particular hardships they endured.

My way of honouring is writing. So this month’s poem is for Julianna Molnár Gerencsér, my maternal great-grandmother. Happy Mothers Day, to all our ancestral mothers!

Lee Ann

FINDING INSPIRATION IN THE GRIP OF WINTER

ByLee Ann

We are experiencing a reluctant spring here in Ottawa. The ground is still frozen, the neighbourhood lawns sit brown and matted, tiny buds hold tight to tree branches. For an April-born soul like me, this extended grip of winter is like a tether I’m chafing against. I need the soft spring warmth and new green sprouts of my favourite season to renew my inspiration and energy. Are you feeling the same way?

It seems that for now my challenge is to seek out the few brave tips that have broken through the crust of soil and find inspiration with what nature has to offer, instead of complaining and protesting the latest weather forecast.

So I took myself out into the back yard and found these brave tips:

And I took myself out into my community and found some more brave tips and with them, the inspiration for this month’s poem, The Only Way You Get to Bloom.

I remind myself that Nature is wise and patient and steadfast – all things I am not. I’ll take these early signs as proof that spring is emerging… albeit on her own timetable. May you also experience the wisdom of Nature this month!

Lee Ann

THE IDES OF MARCH: I Get Refreshed and Attempt to Solve a Mystery

ByLee Ann

The Romans called today the “ides” of March – the middle of the month – and in Shakespeare’s play a fortune teller warns Julius Caesar: “beware the ides of March.” (He didn’t listen and was murdered on this day in 44BC.)

For me, March 15 is all about renewal. Every year about this time I feel the urge to plant something. Try something different. Start something new. Of course the ground is still frozen in Ottawa, and I’ve been shovelling the driveway this week, and nothing green will show up in my gardens for at least another month.

So I’ve been experimenting with new (to me) forms of poetry, and studying photo composition. Walking around the village of Richmond looking for new sites to photograph – when it’s pretty enough to do so. Cleaning out that basement closet to open up physical space, which always invites more open creative space too.

This month’s poem is in two parts: the first part is in the form of a “prose poem”, which looks a lot like a paragraph, but which strives to be more lyrical, more graceful in language and description. Part two is a story in free verse, where I imagine the answer to a mystery car that is only revealed in the early spring or in winter, when there are few or no leaves on trees to provide cover. I took the photo of it near our cottage in Muskoka.

Hope you get to feeling renewed and energized in March! Meanwhile, please pause and ponder this month’s “somewhere beautiful.” Where does this mystery take your imagination? I’d love to know! Here’s “Ridge Road.”

Lee Ann

DEEP DIVE INTO MY NORTH AMERICAN FAMILY HISTORY

ByLee Ann

Seeding a New Country

I recently investigated the whereabouts of my ancestors in 1867 – the year that Canada officially became a country. But the seeds for my country’s formation were actually sown over a hundred years prior to that, when the “Seven Years War” between England and France and their allies came to an end. Key battles in that war were fought in North America, including at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, in Montreal and at Quebec City. These brought about a major turning point for North America and set up the circumstances that would lead to the creation of Canada. They also led to dramatic changes in some of my ancestors’ lives.

Here’s what North America looked like in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War:

Here’s why that war was a turning point for North America:

  1. Control switched from France to Britain. After 150 years, France surrendered all its territories to Britain and North America became English. Explains why I don’t speak French!
  2. French was protected in Quebec. “New France” was gone, and with it the French (Catholic) religion, the French language and French common law – except in Quebec, where Britain made allowances for the French settlers who decided to stay. Canada still struggles with this today.
  3. First Nations land rights were recognized. The red line shown on the map is where Britain declared the western boundary of its settlements to extend; land to the west of that was acknowledged as “Indian Territory.” This was the first recognition of First Nations’ rights to land and titles. The proclamation did not last; some historians say that what happened to the natives once the Europeans arrived was in fact genocide. And the fallout from ignored and/or disrespected native land treaties established in 1763 is still in the news in Canada today.

And here’s why the Seven Years War is important to my family history:

  1. I had ancestors living in North America at the time. The “British Colonies” noted on the map were the first settlements of what would become the United States. Thirteen colonies stretching from Georgia to Maine, they had first been established in 1607 and were already British from that time. I had many ancestors, all from my father’s line, living in the 13 Colonies in 1763.
  2. I had at least one ancestor who fought in the Seven Years War.

My Soldier in the Seven Years War

78th Fraser Highlanders wore Highland dress into battle, however the tartan style is unknown.

I know of only one ancestor who was directly involved in fighting in the Seven Years War: my 5-times-great-grandfather Daniel McIntyre. Daniel signed up with the 78th Regiment Frasers Highlanders in Inverness Scotland in 1757, at the age of 21; he was likely a farmer before that. He fought for Britain – in his kilt – at Louisbourg, at Montreal, and at the decisive battle on Quebec’s Plains of Abraham. When the war ended, his regiment consisted of 887 men. Of these, almost half chose to be deployed to other regiments in North America, while others boarded ships back to Scotland. Some settled in Quebec (as many of them spoke French) and some, Daniel included, decided to set up homes in upstate New York or Vermont. Daniel received a land grant of 200 acres in Vermont for his service to Britain.

My Family’s Presence in the 13 Colonies

When Daniel McIntyre settled in Vermont after the war, he unknowingly joined other family members from my father’s line who were already living in the 13 Colonies. Although there were battles fought during the Seven Years War in what would become New York State and Pennsylvania, I have no information that indicates any of these family members from the Colonies were involved:

  • By 1763, the Wilcox family had been in North America for 130 years! My 10-times-great-grandfather Edward was the first immigrant, from South Elkington, England. He settled in Rhode Island in 1638. At the end of The Seven Years War, his descendant, Benjamin Wilcox, my 5-times-great-grandfather, plus his wife Elsie and daughter Hannah, were living either in Massachusetts where Benjamin was born, or New Jersey, where they moved to at some point.
Fretz homestead in Pennsylvania. From Fretz Family History by Rev. A. J. Fretz, pub. 1890
  • “Weaver John” Fretz – so called because he was a weaver as well as a farmer – was head of a large Mennonite family living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They farmed together on 230 acres. “Weaver John” had emigrated from Manheim, Germany as a child, somewhere between 1710 and 1720. By 1763 the family consisted of John, his second wife Maria, their eight children and many grandchildren. “Weaver John” was my 7-times-great-grandfather.
  • The Boughner family were newcomers to the  13 Colonies, originally from Unnau, Germany. Johann Martin Buchner and Elsa Zehrung had arrived in September 1753, just three years before the war began. They settled with their seven children in New Jersey. Martin was a school master; he and Elsa were my 5-times great-grandparents.

The peace negotiated in 1763 would not last long. Within 12 years a new war would erupt, caused in part by the terms of that 1763 treaty. As a result of the new war, the map of North America would be redrawn again. Daniel McIntyre’s fighting days were not over yet. And many more of my ancestors’ lives would change dramatically.

I’ll continue this story in another post. Meanwhile: what world events have had a direct impact on your family? I’d love to know!