SPARKLING GEMS AND NUGGETS

James W. Bridgland is fast becoming my favourite of the Muskoka Road surveyors. His reports are so blunt! He’s given me some fabulous material to work with, not the least of which is his right-between-the-eyes warnings to his boss about Muskoka. “One vast field of granite rock” he called it, in 1852.  When he returned to the district in 1859 to inspect the beginnings of the Muskoka Colonization Road, his report nearly vibrates with scorn. “Bad mud holes, bad roots and bad stones abound,” he writes, and goes on to rant about the contractor responsible. About the settlers he was kinder, noting they were poor and had done the best they could in clearing their land. 

R.J. Oliver, the government’s land agent, delights me too. Here are two of his gems, also from 1859:

1. He singles out the Symington family as being “especially intelligent and industrious.” Perfect! My first pioneer family to feature in the book. This nugget sent me back to Library and Archives Canada this week and into the 1861 census. Turns out there were at least three Siminton families – inconsistent spelling is typical – who settled early. I’ll need to do more research to sort out what their relationships were, but the census gave me a rich picture of early Muskoka. Despite the “vast field of granite rock”, the great majority of settlers listed their occupation as “farmer.” Such high hopes, which in many cases were cruelly broken on that rock. But there were also other skilled people in the little community, including several carpenters, two millwrights, and one gentleman named William Harris, who was a “tailor or doctor.” Does that mean either one in a pinch – it being pioneer days? I immediately imagined the sign on his door: “Stitching of any kind.”

2. “It was on the Muskoka Road,” Oliver writes, “that the mammoth prize turnip was raised last year, weighing 35 1/2 pounds.” Don’t you just love this?

As a researcher, I positively swoon over these gems. This is the kind of material that will help me tell the kind of story I want to tell. I’m headed back into 1861. See you next week.