Tuesday, November 8, 2011

1878 Pioneer Sketch - Part 3

The second fright we had arose from the doings of a young man who brought whiskey into or near the camps to sell to the Indians. Early the next morning the Indians caught their ponies -- a thing they had not done for months past -- and came to our houses and demanded 'whiskey! whiskey! shemokemon whiskey! nischicheen whiskey!' Some of them seemed determined to search the house but we finally satisfied them we had none and away they went in search of whiskey. We soon found a keg of the young man's whiskey, hid in the brush, to which we applied the ax which ended the whiskey fright.

On the first of May, 1837, Mr. John B. Fowler and family, Ruel Randall and whife and John A. Tanner, then a boy, arrived in town, having came through Canada with ox teams. The first Sunday morn after the arrival of John B. Fowler, we strolled through the woods and came to a clear spot of about an acre where there was a large oak tree; we sat down under the tree and talked of our mother who had been a Methodist all her days. 'Right here,' my brother says, 'if we live long enough, we will have a Methodist church.'

When the plat was surveyed, the stump of the tree still stood, which was after the lapse of 15 year, and remembering the conversation of my brother and myself I marked the lots for a Methodist church and in about twenty years, the church was built on that site.

Tomorrow's continuation will discuss the arrival of more settlers.

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