Sep 30 2019

William McDougall: Father of Confederation, Canadian Nationalist

Did you know that one of Simcoe County’s former MPPs was also a Father of Confederation?

Although he never lived in Simcoe County, William McDougall served as MPP for Simcoe South in the 1870s, in the twilight of his political career.

McDougall was born in 1822 on a farm along Yonge Street, the third generation of a staunch Scotch-American Loyalist family who was amongst the first settlers at York (now Toronto) after the American Revolution.

In contrast with his loyalist parents, McDougall developed a passion for American-style liberty at an early age, when he witnessed the burning of Montgomery’s Tavern during the Rebellion of 1837, at age 15. After finishing school, McDougall studied law at the office of Toronto lawyer James Harvey Price, where he also learned many of the values underpinning his early political career: increased democracy, greater access to land ownership, and ambivalence towards the two existing political parties, the Reform and the Liberal Conservatives.

McDougall opened his law practice in 1847 but devoted much of his spare time toward politics. In 1849, McDougall’s Toronto office became the meeting place for reformers dissatisfied with the pace of change in provincial politics since 1837. From these meetings grew the Clear Grit movement, a radical wing of the Reform Party. Between 1850 and 1855, McDougall’s newspaper the North American was essentially a mouthpiece for the Clear Grits. It was later absorbed by the Toronto Globe.

After two unsuccessful attempts, McDougall finally entered the provincial Legislative Assembly in 1858, where he remained until Confederation.

An early proponent of Confederation, McDougall joined Oliver Mowat and George Brown in defecting from the Reform government of Canada West to call for political union between the provinces of British North America. He attended all three Confederation conferences.

Following Confederation, McDougall surprised his former political colleagues by setting aside his liberal political beliefs to join Canada’s first federal government, which belonged to the Conservatives of Sir John A. Macdonald.

In addition to his support for Confederation, McDougall was also a booster for increased colonization and the expansion of Canadian territory across the continent at the expense of Indigenous peoples. His term as provincial Commissioner of Crown Lands from 1862 to 1867 oversaw increased settlement and the repossession of reserve lands on Manitoulin Island. Between 1867 and 1869, it was McDougall who introduced the bill calling for the annexation of the Hudson Bay Company’s territories (what is now all of northern and western Canada) and helped negotiate the transfer.

At least in part due to his role in the annexation of Rupert’s Land and his support for colonization, McDougall was selected as the first lieutenant governor of the North West Territories, even before the official transfer of lands on January 1, 1870. It was this role as lieutenant governor that led to the incident for which McDougall is best remembered.

McDougall’s appointment coincided with the outbreak of the Red River Resistance, an uprising by Metis inhabitants of the Red River Colony (now Manitoba) over the transfer of Rupert’s Land. To the Metis, the arrival of federal surveyors in August 1869 was an intrusion on their traditional territory. Simmering tensions boiled over in October 1869, when a party of Metis men led by a young Louis Riel confronted a survey party and insisted that the Canadian government had no right to trespass on private property without permission.

Shortly afterwards, McDougall departed for the Red River in order to take possession of the North-West Territories for Canada. He brought with him a party of men and an arsenal of 300 rifles to be issued to supporters of annexation – mostly English-speaking Protestant migrants who had moved to the colony within the last ten years.

News of McDougall’s coming confirmed Metis fears that annexation to Canada would threaten their culture, for the French-speaking, Catholic Metis were well aware of McDougall’s anglophile, pro-Protestant beliefs. At the beginning of October, the Metis organized a “National Committee” led by Riel and erected a barricade along the road connecting the Red River to Ottawa via North Dakota, the only route by which McDougall could reach the area.

McDougall and his party reached the border at the end of October. Choosing to ignore a warning from the Metis National Committee, McDougall and two lieutenants continued along the road towards Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) before being stopped by a party of thirty Metis and conducted back to US territory.

Thwarted, McDougall returned to Ottawa, bitter and embarrassed. His failure to stand up to the Metis seems to have dealt a death blow to his political career. He lost the next federal election in 1872 and briefly resumed his law practice before returning to provincial politics as MPP for Simcoe South in 1875. In 1878 he resigned his position to return to federal politics for one term.

After losing the next two federal elections in 1882 and 1887, McDougall was forced to the sidelines in 1890 when he sustained a serious spinal injury after accidentally walking off a moving train. He died in Ottawa in 1905 after years of ill health.

John Merritt – SCHA

Photo: McDougall in 1894, after his retirement from politics. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada.

May 16 2019

The life of Thomas Roberts Ferguson, 1818-1879

Thomas Roberts Ferguson was born in a rural part of County Cavan, Ireland, in December 1818. He and his family were just some of the hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Canada in the 1830s. Thomas’ father, Andrew, died during the journey.

After a brief stay in Montreal, in 1842 the Ferguson family joined the large Irish-Canadian community around Cookstown, and Ferguson became a farmer. Later, after buying up some additional land in the area, Ferguson established each of his brothers on their own farm and moved into Cookstown, where he became a merchant.

Ferguson joined the Orange Order in 1847, at age 29. In 1852, he became master of his local Orange Lodge and later a deputy grand master of the order.

In 1856, Ferguson married Frances Jane Gowan, daughter of Orange leader Ogle Robert Gowan. The couple eventually had three sons and six daughters.

Ferguson was elected to the township council of Innisfil in 1852 and served for 21 years, 18 of them as reeve. Ferguson also served as warden of Simcoe County in 1858 and again from 1862 to 1867.

During the 1858 election, Ferguson ran against fellow Conservative William Benjamin Robinson, defeating him to become representative for Simcoe South. He kept his seat through two subsequent elections, in 1861 and 1863.

At that time, what are now Ontario and Quebec were joined together in one province, and both had equal representation in the legislature, even though Ontario’s population was larger and growing faster than Quebec’s. Throughout his time in the legislature, Ferguson was a strong advocate for instituting representation by population, which would give Ontario more seats than Quebec. The issue, however, remained unsettled until Confederation in 1867.

Ferguson had served as an officer in the Cookstown company of the provincial Sedentary Militia since 1847. In 1862 he was promoted to captain and placed in command of the company.

In 1866, during the Fenian Raids, Ferguson and his men were called out along with tens of thousands of other Canadian militiamen to defend the province against Irish Catholic veterans of the US Civil War who hoped to occupy Canada and trade it with Britain for Irish independence.

Ferguson’s company was stationed at Toronto during the crisis. After a successful raid into Canada in June, many Fenians were arrested by US authorities as they were re-crossing the border. Once the threat to the province had largely passed, Ferguson and his men, like other Canadian militiamen, returned home to a grand reception.

Following the crisis, the Cookstown company was joined together with the other Simcoe County militia companies to form the 35^th Battalion (Simcoe Foresters). Ferguson was appointed temporary second-in-command of the unit in 1869.

Upon Confederation in 1867, Ferguson was elected by acclamation to represent Simcoe South in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, at the same time that he was elected a Conservative member for Cardwell (an early federal riding comprising parts of what are now Peel Region and Simcoe and Dufferin Counties) in the new federal House of Commons.

During his career in the Ontario legislature, Ferguson served on various committees, including the standing committees for railways and for privileges and elections. Ferguson also served on the board of the Northern Railway.

In 1872 Ferguson did not run again for a seat in the House of Commons but was re-elected by acclamation to his seat in the provincial legislature. That same year, however, Ferguson was attending a political meeting in Bradford when a fight broke out between supporters and opponents of the government. In the process of allegedly attempting to stop the fight, Ferguson suffered a severe blow to the head that left him with permanent physical and mental injuries. As a result, he resigned from the Simcoe Foresters, the Northern Railway board, and the provincial legislature in 1873.

After his retirement from politics, Ferguson’s government connections helped ensure his appointment to a civil service position as a customs collector at Collingwood. He was dismissed from that position two years after the Liberal government of Alexander Mackenzie took power in 1874.

Ferguson spent his remaining years at his home in Cookstown, where he died on September 15, 1879, from paralysis. He was 60 years old.

Written by John Merritt, Simcoe County Historical Association

Photo: Thomas Roberts Ferguson.

Mar 25 2019

Order in council begins settlement of the Penetanguishene Road, April 1819

By John Merritt for the SCHA

On April 26, 1819, the Executive Council of Upper Canada issued an order in council promising free land to any citizens willing and able to settle along the strategic road linking the military outpost at Penetanguishene with the capital at York via Lake Simcoe. The order created one of the first pioneer settlements in Simcoe County.

The origins of the Penetanguishene Road began in 1793, when John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor, visited southern Georgian Bay and chose Penetanguishene as an ideal military harbour on the upper Great Lakes. The harbour was acquired by the province from the Ojibwa in 1798.

In March 1808, government surveyor Samuel Wilmot was sent to explore the land between Penetanguishene and Kempenfeldt Bay. In 1811, he returned to the area to survey the route of a road connecting Kempenfeldt Bay with Penetanguishene Harbour, as well as one concession of 200-acre lots on each side of the road and the outlines of a town plot at either end. The northern town site would eventually become the town of Penetanguishene. The southern one would become the village of Kempenfeldt, now a part of Barrie.

In the fall of 1814, after the Americans had almost severed British supply lines across Lake Huron, Lieutenant-Governor Sir Gordon Drummond and Sir George Prevost, commander in chief of British North America, ordered that an outpost be established at Penetanguishene. That December a party of Canadian soldiers and militiamen was dispatched to the area to begin constructing the outpost and the road surveyed by Wilmot in 1811. By February, when British soldiers arrived to help, only a few huts had been constructed at the outpost and the Penetanguishene Road was little more than an uneven trail pocked by stumps and made impassable when spring rain and melting snow turned it into a river of mud.

That March, news arrived that the war with the United States had ended. Construction of the outpost at Penetanguishene was halted and the site was quickly abandoned in favour of a fort on the Nottawasaga River. In 1818, the government relocated its upper Great Lakes post back to Penetanguishene and both the fort and the road came back in to use, although it can be imagined that after several years of disuse the already poor condition of the Penetanguishene Road had become even worse.

The order in council of April 1819 was meant to help improve the poor condition of the road and to develop the surrounding area. Settlers were offered grants of 200 acres along the road on condition that they quickly build a house, clear ten acres next to the road, and improve one half of the road fronting on their lots.

Notice of the settlement order was published in the York Gazette and within a few years about twenty families had settled along the road, mostly in its southern half.

Travellers from York to Penetanguishene in the early years of settlement would first see the log barracks and warehouse of the government station at Kempenfeldt as they neared the southern end of the Penetanguishene Road from across Lake Simcoe.

As they stepped onto the shore and began their journey up the road, travellers would pass by small groups of three or four or even six farms, each separated by a mile or two of wilderness.

Twelve miles or so up the road, about a day’s journey by wagon, travellers would come to the farm of Black Canadian settler William Davenport, the last farm they would see for another eleven miles.

Eventually travellers would pass a couple of solitary homesteads, separated by another mile of wilderness, before re-entering the forest. After another three or four miles, the travellers would finally see the village of Penetanguishene, where a few families had settled along the shores of the harbour in the year or two since the military post was revived.

The outpost itself lay behind a palisade another mile or so further along the shore, toward the mouth of the harbour. Like the nearby village, it remained a pretty modest affair until 1828, when the outpost at Drummond Island was shut down and its residents were relocated to Penetanguishene.

During the early years of settlement, most of the Penetanguishene Road settlers were preoccupied with clearing the land, establishing their farms, and completing their settlement duties in order to obtain full title to their property. For the most part, the only other people they saw were those travelling up or down the road: First Nations people, fur traders, soldiers, merchants, and the occasional missionary.

The settlements along the Penetanguishene Road were among the first in Simcoe County. Over the following years, the efforts of the Penetanguishene Road settlers would improve the road, clear the surrounding land, and establish the first stores, villages, churches and township councils, opening the area up for further settlement and beginning the transformation of the land to the way it looks today.

Photo: George Russell Dartnell, view of Penetanguishene Harbour from his farm, ca. 1836.

Mar 06 2019

Rev. George Hallen, a pioneer priest

George Hallen was an Anglican priest who served as the first pastor of not one but two new Anglican churches built in Simcoe County in the mid-1800s, both of which are still in use today.

Rev. Hallen was born in England in February 1794. As a young man, he studied at Oxford University before joining the clergy of the Church of England.

In 1833, at age 39, Rev. Hallen immigrated to Canada with his wife and five children, settling in the Township of Medonte two years later. There the Hallen family settled on a farm they purchased from the Bywater family at Lot 11, Concession 13, and moved into the house that had already been built there by the farm’s previous owners.

For five years Rev. Hallen served the local Anglican congregation out of his family’s home. Later, on a return to trip to England, he solicited members of his old parish for funds to help build a proper church for the area, on lands donated by his neighbours, the Hamilton and Steele families. Construction of the church had begun by 1838, using bricks trucked in from Orillia. The church was consecrated in 1842 as St. George’s Church of Fair Valley.

By this time the Rev. Hallen had relocated permanently with his family to the Penetanguishene area, where he became the first pastor of a second new Anglican church, a wood-framed clapboard building which had already been under construction for several years. The new church was named St. James on-the-Lines, referring to its position at the edge of the “lines”, or rows of barracks, of the nearby military establishment.

Located halfway between the military establishment and the town of Penetanguishene, initially St. James on-the-Lines served the soldiers garrisoned at the base and retired soldiers located on two-acre grants along the Penetanguishene Road, as well as local farmers and residents of the fledgling town of Penetanguishene. The church also served residents of Wyebridge, Midland and the surrounding townships until they established Anglican churches of their own.

When the military establishment closed in 1856 and was converted to a boys’ reformatory, the Rev. Hallen became its chaplain. In 19^th-century Canada (indeed, until our correctional system was reorganized in 1972), a boys’ reformatory was essentially a detention center for male young offenders, the idea being that removing them from the city, educating them and teaching them vocational skills would help divert them from ending up in a life of crime.

The Rev. Hallen left St. James on-the-Lines around 1876, after 36 years of service. He died in Toronto in 1882, at age 88, and was buried alongside some of his family members and many of his former parishioners in the cemetery of St. James’ Church in Penetanguishene.

According to Andrew Hunter, himself a pioneer of Simcoe County history, in addition to his significant contributions to the Anglican community, the Rev. Hallen was one of the first residents of Simcoe County to take an interest in local history and heritage preservation, commissioning some of the earliest maps of the remains of Ste. Marie Among the Hurons.

Author: John Merritt, Simcoe County Historical Association.

Photo: St. James On-the-Lines Anglican Church, Penetanguishene.

Simcoe County Historical Association Land Acknowledgement