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THE SETTLEMENT OF MONO TOWNSHIP

1975; Wiley; Volume: 19; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1541-0064.1975.tb00509.x

1541-0064

R. Cole Harris, PAULINE ROULSTONY, CHRIS DE FREITAS,

Canadian Identity and History

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennesVolume 19, Issue 1 p. 1-17 THE SETTLEMENT OF MONO TOWNSHIP1 R. COLE HARRIS, R. COLE HARRIS University of British ColumbiaSearch for more papers by this authorPAULINE ROULSTONY, PAULINE ROULSTONY University of TorontoSearch for more papers by this authorCHRIS DE FREITAS, CHRIS DE FREITAS University of TorontoSearch for more papers by this author R. COLE HARRIS, R. COLE HARRIS University of British ColumbiaSearch for more papers by this authorPAULINE ROULSTONY, PAULINE ROULSTONY University of TorontoSearch for more papers by this authorCHRIS DE FREITAS, CHRIS DE FREITAS University of TorontoSearch for more papers by this author First published: March 1975 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1975.tb00509.xCitations: 15 1 This paper began in an undergraduate seminar in historical geography at the University of Toronto, and is based on field work in Mono township and research in the Ontario Provincial Archives undertaken for that course All of the authors contributed research and ideas; the final draft was largely written by R. Cole Harris AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Reference 1 This paper began in an undergraduate seminar in historical geography at the University of Toronto, and is based on field work in Mono township and research in the Ontario Provincial Archives undertaken for that course. All of the authors contributed research and ideas; the final draft was largely written by R. Cole Harris. 2 See J.T. Lemon, The Best Poor Man's Country ( Baltimore : Johns Hopkins Press, 1972). 3 Public Archives of Canada [PAC], Nominal census of Mono Township, 1842, reel C-1344. 4 W.H. Smith, Canada - Past, Present and Future, 2 (1851), 61–2. 5 On the background and nature of nineteenth-century pre-famine migration from Ulster see particularly: William F. Adams, Ireland and the Irish Emigration to the New World from 1815 to the Famine ( New Haven, 1932, and republished in New York : Russell and Russell, 1967); S.H. Cousens, “The Regional Variation in Emigration from Ireland between 1821 and 1841,” Trans. Inst. Brit. Geog., 37 (Dec. 1965), 15–29; Conrad Gill, The Rise of the Irish Linen Industry (Oxford, 1925); Thomas W. Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland: A Study in Historical Geography (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956). 6 Figure 3 is compiled from the surveyor's field notes. 7 We are not arguing that these values were peculiar to Ulster; for our purposes it is sufficient to show that they were widespread there. 8 R.H. Buchanan, “Common Fields and Enclosure: An Eighteenth Century Example from Lecale, County Down,” Ulster Folklife, 15/16 (1970), 99–118, especially p. 110. 9 The early nineteenth-century social structure of rural Ulster is not yet well studied; the most perceptive comments are by John Mogey, “ Social Relations in Rural Society,” in T.W. Moody and J.C. Beckett, Ulster since 1800: A Social Survey (BBC, London, 1957). Our remarks depend on his interpretation. 10 Elliott H. Leyton, “Spheres of Inheritance in Aughnaboy,” Am. Anthropol., 72, 6 (Dec. 1970), 1378–88. 11 E. Estyn Evans, “The Personality of Ulster,” Trans. Inst. Brit. Geog., 51 (1970), 13. 12 Gill, The Rise of the Irish Linen Industry, pp. 23–30. 13 Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland, p. 140. 14 W.J. Smyth, “ The Social and Economic Geography of 19th Century County Armagh,” Ph.D. thesis, National University of Ireland, University College, Dublin, 1973, p. 181. 15 J.H. Johnson, “ The Two ‘Irelands' at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century,” in Stephens Nicholas and R.E. Glasscock (eds.), Irish Geographical Studies in Honour of E. Estyn Evans ( Department of Geography , The Queen's University of Belfast, 1970), 224–43. 16 Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland, p. 51. 17 E.R.R. Green, The Lagan Valley, 1800–1850 ( London : Faber and Faber, 1949), especially pp. 59–61. 18 See, for example, Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall, Ireland: Its Scenery, Character, etc. (London, 1841–43), vol. 2, p. 453; cited in Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland, p. 287. 19 H.D. Inglis, A Tour throughout Ireland in the Spring, Summer and Autumn of 1834 (London, 1835), vol. 2 pp. 249–50; cited in Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland, pp. 275–6. 20 Freeman, pp. 269–71. 21 Many of the points in this paragraph emerged from discussions with W.J. Smyth and from his Ph.D. thesis on county Armagh. See note 14. 22 An average figure is given in W.H. Smith, Canadian Gazeteer, 1846, p. 118, and there is more detailed information on land values in the Crown Land Papers, Ontario Provincial Archives [OPA]. 23 In Armagh, for example, only 4.1 per cent of all farms were larger than 30 acres (Smyth, “The Social and Economic Geography,” p. 152). 24 OPA, Phoenix Diaries, 1871. 25 The common pioneer rotation in south-central Ontario was wheat-fallow-wheat, but in Mono Township, where spring plantings are late and the growing season is short, wheat often did not ripen and oats was widely planted. 26 For a fuller discussion of these points see Kenneth Kelly, “Wheat Farming in Simcoe County in the Mid-nineteenth Century,” Can. Geog., 15 (1971), 95–112. Kelly describes an agricultural system essentially similar to that in Mono. 27 James to David Rintoul, 3 March 1857, in J. Richardson, The Story of Whittington (Centennial publication of Whittington village, Amaranth Township, 1967). 28 The increasingly diversified activity of the produce speculators is revealed in advertisements in the Orangeville Sun. For example, The Sun, 5 Oct. 1865. 29 James to David Rintoul, 16 Oct. 1862. 30 James to David Rintoul, 23 June 1858. 31 The Sun, 10 July 1867. 32 James to David Rintoul, 10 June 1859. 33 The Sun, 18 June 1865. 34 The Sun, 13 Aug. 1868. 35 James to David Rintoul, 27 Nov. 1857. 36 OPA, W.F. Munro Papers, W.F. Munro to Georgie, Homing's Mills, 7 July 1858. 37 OPA, Crown Land Papers, Mono Township, lot 1, 7th concession. Submission for George Hopkins, Mono, 25 June 1833. 38 OPA, Munro Papers, W.F. Munro to Georgie, Homing's Mills, 11 June 1858. 39 James to David Rintoul, 26 Dec. 1865. 40 OPA, Crown Land Papers, Mono Township. See, for example, lot 7, 3rd concession, or lot 14, 8th concession. 41 OPA, Crown Land Papers, Mono Township, lot 27, 4th concession. Oath of John Wiley and Joseph Patterson, 15 March 1866. 42 The level of literacy among pioneers in Mono can be calculated from the signatures on land records in the Crown Land Papers. If a man signed a document, however badly, he may be considered literate; if he marked it with an “X” he may be considered illiterate. On this basis, and considering only the first signed document for each lot before 1855, the following results are obtained: literate, 96; illiterate, 56. These figures correspond fairly well with the literacy levels that might be expected in early Mono. In the Irish counties from which settlers had principally come, illiteracy levels in the early nineteenth century were as follows: Armagh, 44%; Tyrone, 45%; Monaghan, 52%. See Freeman, Pre-famine Ireland, p. 136. 43 OPA, Crown Land Papers, Mono Township, lot 24, 5th concession. E. Bowers to the Commissioner of Crown Lands, May 1866. 44 OPA, Crown Land Papers, Mono Township, lot 2, 4th concession. Thomas Bell to the Commissioner of Crown Land, 19 July 1849. 45 The only way to give some quantitative measure to the rate of failure would be to build up a lot-by-lot inventory of data from the nominal censuses, the abstract index of deeds, the Crown Land Papers, inspection records, and all other sources relating to the progress of settlement in the township. 46 The Sun, 28 Aug. 1862. 47 The Sun, 22 Oct. 1874. 48 A sentimental passage in The Yellow Briar, John Mitchell's idyll of pioneering and the only literature of any consequence on Mono Township, accurately catches this expectation: “Coming to Canada, these women continued to suffer and endure as their menfolk cut homesteads on these stony hillsides - but there was a touch of hope thrown in … One of the finest things Canada ever did was to put a kindly twinkle into the blue-grey eyes of those proud, poverty-stricken Irishwomen.”. 49 This tale is told by several old timers, and is recorded by Mrs Russell Turnbull in a lively account of the early days. The Orangeville Banner, 10 Aug. 1967. 50 James to David Rintoul, 3 March 1857. 51 Barn-raising bees were associated primarily with the large frame barn (the central Ontario barn) that was built in Mono in the mid-late nineteenth century. The pioneer barn - a log building - was usually erected by the settler and his family. 52 OPA, W.F. Munro to Georgie, Homing's Mills, 17 April 1858. 53 PAC, Nominal census of Mono Township, 1861, reel C-1073. 54 The Sun, 18 Sept. 1862. The phrase is used in a letter by John Avison praising two painters who had painted his house “in a manner becoming the progress of the times” and who, therefore, deserved other employment. 55 The Sun, 17 July and 28 Aug. 1862. 56 An outstanding overview of this development is given by J.B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (London, 1920). 57 The range of application is discussed by Arthur Ekirch in The Idea of Progress in America, 1815–1860 (New York, 1944). There is no doubt that settlers in Mono were impressed by the progress of the British Empire, by the progress marked by the erection of a new, transcontinental dominion, and by the progress of railways, cities, and settlement in Southern Ontario and the Middle West. All of this served to fortify the sense of progress that grew out of their experience. 58 For an elaboration of this point see Rush Welter, “The Idea of Progress in America,” J. Hist. Ideas, 16 (1955), 401–15. 59 These changes can be established by spot drilling with a soil auger. Professor J. van der Eyk, Pedologist in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto, is thanked for his assistance in this regard. Citing Literature Volume19, Issue1March 1975Pages 1-17 ReferencesRelatedInformation