Early Proton History

All my life I have enjoyed pioneer stories and it has always been a delight to me to listen to the tales of early days in Grey County, Ont., from the lips of my two dear grandmothers. Both my grandfathers died before I was old enough to appreciate their conversations, and my remembrance of both is very hazy.
I will try to give the Sun [i.e. Farmer’s Sun] sisters the stories as I heard them, beginning with my maternal grandmother, Mrs. Jean Campbell, because she is the elder of the two by ten years, and if she lives until October 31st, 1920, she will be ninety years old.
In the year 1851 Jean and Jack Campbell and their baby son left Glasgow, Scotland, on board a sailing vessel bound for Montreal to try their fortunes in this new land. The trip took six weeks, and during that time the baby died. It was not buried at sea but at the first place the ship could land. From Montreal the journey was continued by boat to Toronto.
For a short time they worked at a brick yard, owned by Jim Read, at The Gore of Toronto, but the following Spring they went further cause their desire was to hew out a farm for themselves.
Finally they settled on what is now the third concession of Normandy township, where Grandpa bought 200 acres of land from a negro for $75.;;. A very crude shanty was built and the clearing began, but the first summer of their stay they both took the ague. Grandma had it for six weeks and Grandpa for five. The shaking came every second day, and after it a burning fever that made them very thirsty. It happened that they didn't take the severe shaking on the same day, so the well one would take a pail and a stick to help them climb the sharp hill and go to the creek for water. They were so sick that at the end of three weeks Grandma gave the cow the loaf of bread that had been in the shanty, but which they had never tasted.
Some potatoes brought by a neighbour, and quantities of hemlock tea soon made them well, although Grandpa always said he got well a week sooner on account of a big drink of whiskey he took. Grandma wouldn't taste it.
The next Spring two more Campbell men, Tom and Geordie and one woman, Geordie's wife, Lizzie came to Canada. They didn't like the land their brother had chosen, and leaving the women there the three men went through the bush with their supplies strapped to their backs, and located on what is now the 13th Concession of Proton township, where their descendants still live.
They stayed in Proton about nine months, getting a little clearing made and a shanty built. They had flour and water to eat and they had the choice of eating it raw or cooked. Their bed was brush with whatever blankets they carried.
When the log house was fit to live in the men went back to Normanby and with two yoke of oxen hitched to jumpers they began the return journey, taking all their goods with them, also eight bags of flour. They often had to cut a road for the oxen through the thick brush.
The women walked and carried a baby each, and drove a cow and five pigs. One of the babies was only nine weeks old; the distance was eighteen miles. The first night they stayed at Jackson Reid's at Yeovil, and the second night at MacFadden's on the 15th Con. further west, where the land was so wet that hewed logs were laid on the floor on which one could walk with dry feet. The women were home half a day before the oxen. They all lived in Geordie's house until one could be built on Grandpa's place.
Grandma says their new shanty was a good one and warm. The floor was made of split logs. The chimney and fire place were built of mud and sticks like thick lath. The chinks between the logs were filled in the same way. There was one window with six small panes, but the house was so dark that the sewing was done by the fire place where the light came in through the chimney.
The chimney smoked very badly and after putting up with it for a long time Grandma tore it down. She then dug a hole in the ground and with her bare feet tramped water into the clay until she had a suitable mortar, then alone she rebuilt it and it never smoked again.
At first they used the "chists" for table and chairs, but after a time Grandma got Archie Fullerton to make her a big strong table that she still has, for fifty pounds of flour.
Same man made a frame for another six-paned window and Grandma got the glass for it at a little store about 2 ½ miles west of where Priceville now is, but she could never get the men to saw out the logs and fit it in. Jack, the oldest boy, was now over three years old, and Grandma stood him on the table and after knocking out the chinks between the logs, and taking one handle of the crosscut saw, she got Jack to hold up the end of it while she went outside and drew the saw back and forth until finally she got the logs cut out and the window in.
Grandma says that she and Lizzie made their first thimble by getting a "thumb" of cedar, boring a hole with a half-inch auger and punching holes over the outside with an awl. For pins they used the "jags" of the hawthorn and they made their first brooms out of birch, cut fine and tied with strips of leather wood. The method of lighting the house was grease in a dish with a piece of woolen cloth for wick; this in time gave place to home-made candles.
Grandma kept up to a cradle raking and binding, and for the first years with a baby strapped to her back, while the older children played near. When she could cover her shadow with one big step as she stood with her back to the sun, she knew it was time to go in and prepare dinner. The baking was done every night in a bake kettle and while the eight bags of Normanby flour lasted, bread could be baked, but the frozen wheat of Proton would not make flour fit for bread and so scone took its place.
Grandma trained her own yoke of oxen to follow her. She went ahead and they followed with the drag. If she went around a stump they went too, and they always guided their speed by hers, [sic] One day a man named MacDonald came to buy a yoke of oxen for his wife to drive, and after explaining how the oxen were “broken” the yoke was sold to him. His wife was a “town” woman and knew little about oxen and their ways, so rather timidly she began her task. At first all went well, then she began to walk a little faster to get away from the big creatures and they changed their lazy walk to a smarter one. Mrs. MacDonald hurried still more and so did the oxen; she ran and so did they. Then the race around the clearing got faster and faster until Mr. MacDonald had to come to the rescue and his wife never “led” oxen again.
Grandma and Great Uncle Tam, who always lived with my grandparents, broke oxen and sold them to other settlers. The story is told that as Rev. John Morrison, well known and dearly loved by Proton pioneers, was driving along the road one day and heard a man swearing at his oxen with the fluency of an expert. The Rev. Morrison stopped to remonstrate with him for his use of profane language but the accused cleared him self by explaining that he bought the yoke from Jock Campbell and he was using the only language they understood.
When they first came into the bush, hunting the cows was the very worst job, Grandma says. They never knew what direction they would be unless they were near enough to hear the bell. The baby was carried but the little children had to be shut in the shanty for fear they would wander away and get lost. Neither Grandma nor her sister-in-law had any steeples to lock the door, although they had a chain and padlock. So they took a link of a chain and an old axe and by turns at the job they cut it in two and so were able to lock the door.
The men did the logging but the women did the burning, both my grandmothers agreed that the men of pioneer days didn’t know how to burn. One day the men were over at Bob Blacks, Grandma’s brother’s place, helping to log. They had a big slash ready to burn and been holding back the burning and Grandma considered the slash ready and the wind right, so she went and fired it. She was barefooted; she got up on an uprooted tree and ran the length of it; another tree was just feet further on. She jumped down on what she thought was safe ground but one foot went through the cold looking ashes into a burning ground. The pain was very intense; she ran for Lizzie’s and at the door there sat a full pail of water, she put her foot in it, and as a result had a very bad foot: it broke open and balsam gum healed it up quickly.
The beaver-meadow supplied hay for animals and blueberries for the “kitchen” to make the scone go better.
When they came from Scotland quite a supply of clothes and blankets were brought in the “chist”. When the clothes were nearly done seven sheep were bought, but the wolves got the sheep and for two years no more sheep were purchased so every blanket that could be spared was made into clothes. They were coloured by boiling quantities of golden rod, staining it, and using the liquid as dye.
When they were new in the bush Mrs. John McEachnie died and Grandpa put on his “black” and high hat to attend the funeral. All the other men were in working clothes, and Grandpa was so disgusted with himself that he never wore the suit or hat again. He told Grandma to cut them up and use the pieces of cloth for the boys.
After a time the MacMillans, Blacks, Milliners and Dingwalls all settled near; the Parslows had been in before the Campbells came. Community life became brighter and Grandma says they had good times. They went visiting and to church in the only clothes they owned - their working clothes. Mrs. Milliner was a skilled needle-woman and Grandma’s talk is full of praise of her skill and kindness.
In this age of brotherhoods, [continued in "reverse" image] organizations and societies with all their get-together talk, we are just nowhere compared to the binding unity of those pioneer days with their real friendships. They were bound together with the strong “logging” chain of common hardship shared.
When Priceville came on the map a new style began for women. A blue derry skirt with a blue derry smock was the very latest and every woman who had one was well dressed.
Of all the old settlers I have mentioned no men remain and only three women, my two grandmothers and Mrs. Duncan McMillan, who now resides in Flesherton.
The rugged honesty, the devotion to duty and the real Christianity of these early settlers make us look very small. We do not realize how great is the debt of gratitude we owe them. It is a duty as well as a privilege to preserve the stories of the pioneer days in Ontario that the children of today and tomorrow will realize what a struggle it was to clear land and make it fir for cultivation, and that they may be proud to be descendants of the clearers of the forest and the tillers of the soil.