Canadian Transport Sourcebook

VI

VAN EGMOND "FATHER OF THE HURON TRACT"

"TO BUILD in the wilderness a refuge for the cheers from the calamities of the Old World"—more prosaically, to convert his forest-covered million acres into cultivated farms—John Galt had to see to it that, when the settlers did arrive, roads were ready by which they could penetrate to the western limits of the district on the shore of Lake Huron.

This was the essential preliminary work to which Colonel Anthony Van Egmond devoted himself with such success as to deserve the title "father of the Huron Tract". To keep his memory alive, a hundred years later there was erected near the site of his original clearing a stone cairn which bears the legend: "This cairn erected in 1928 commemorates the opening of the Huron Road by the Canada Company in 1828. Near this spot Colonel Anthony Van Egmond who had the contract to build the road erected his residence and. grew the first wheat in the Huron Tract."

It was a long way from Toronto and Guelph to the end of the road at Goderich, and meant days of difficult travel for the incoming settlers. As soon as Van Egmond had the road in passable condition he made provision for stopping-places at convenient intervals. Three men were procured in Waterloo to build and maintain taverns of a sort for the overnight reception of settlers on the way in. The three men—Helmer, Fryfogle and Seebach by name—were given by the Company a cash bonus of £40, £50 and £60 respectively, with the stipulation that travellers should be entertained at prices usual in the older settlements. In the early stage Van Egmond with his oxteams assured them a regular delivery of supplies. Miss Lizars reports that after 1832 he had twenty four-horse teams engaged in carrying settlers and their belongings along the road from Toronto to Goderich.

John Galt was a frequent caller at Van Egmond's home. It was only in the second year of his settlement in the Huron Tract that Van Egmond had to hear distressing news. He was sick in bed when Galt dropped in to tell him of his approaching departure from Canada. Reporting their conversation some years later, he quotes Galt as saying: "Remember me and Mrs. Galt to Mrs. Van Egmond and your good son Constantin and your other dear children, and tell them and all other settlers that alone to my anxiety to see them prosper it is to be attributed that I did not quit the Canada Company nine or ten months ago."

Looking back upon the days of his happy co-operation with John Galt, Van Egmond writes: "I could and would fill a volume with well deserved encomiums of the noble sentiments, heart and conduct of that truly great and noble man, without injuring truth and good faith. All and each of you that is versed in our provincial affairs knows it, that he, Mr. Galt, was always the most warm and the most industrious advocate in favour of the war losses being paid to the sufferers in this province, and will, in consideration of these his services rendered, not disapprove of my rather extended dissertation on, or relation of, this good man s genuine merits. God bless Mr Galt, Mrs Galt and their dear children. Not one settler either here or in the Guelph block but heartily responses: Amen. And not one of these I have found yet to disagree with me when saying: Had Mr Galt been continued the Canada Company Superintendent, and enjoyed full discretion to act agreeable to the dictates of his own heart and mind, the number of settlers in this tract would have been more than a hundred for each one there is at present; and the land then yet unsold would have been worth double what it is now. Mr Galt had, as is generally the case with good and clever men, good agents in his service, and so were his clerks of his own selection, but those sent him by the Company were at the best, very indifferent ones."

Galt's severance of relations with the Canada Company soon upset Van Egmond's plans completely, and gave the unhappy turn to his whole life that led to its so tragic ending.

Thomas Mercer Jones was the chief of the two Commissioners appointed to carry on the operations of the Canada Company. Owing to the momentum imparted to it by Galt's push it continued apparently along the same lines for a couple of years. Jones was among the party invited by Colonel Van Egmond to the ceremony of the garnering of the first sheaf of wheat. But, as head of the Canada Company this incompetent novice was just tolerated by Tiger Dunlop and the others, who not only failed to treat him with respect but even went to the point of playing practical jokes upon him. According to Van Egmond, after carrying on thus indifferently for a short time, Jones suddenly changed his tactics and threw himself entirely into the hands of Family Compact officialdom. He began appointing to innumerable offices in the Company's service newcomers from the Old Country of alleged aristocratic connections and others of like pretensions, regardless of their qualifications. With ridiculous foppery he went about the Huron Tract escorted by a bodyguard of eight or ten mounted men. In the course of time, too, he achieved admission to the inner circle of Compact high society by marrying the daughter of Bishop Strachan, a vivacious and withal clever social leader, with a pronounced managing cast of temperament. For this transfigured Commissioner Jones and his host of satellites Van Egmond has nothing but contempt. To describe them he can draw upon a rich vocabulary of such designations as: "old parasites and young idlers; half-beggared would-be Gentlemen, half-pays and no-pays cashiered officers, ex-West Indian negro-drivers, mushroom aristocrats, etc., etc.; creatures either half worn out or but half made; knowing nothing and capable of nothing .... and got them soon pledged: magistrates, commissioners of the Court of Requests, coroners, registrars, clerks, etc., etc. .... 8 or 10 of them would usually form his horseguard on his journeys through the tract, make Chesterfield bows to him and act quite equal with the courtiers of olden times,—when insulted, nay kicked, merely reply 'Thank you, Sir'; and this all went on in grand state at our local headquarters; but with us all was put topsy-turvy by it." Canadians were "stamped with the indissoluble sin of being either born or old residents here, men who lacked the soupleness in their back to make bows deep and pleasing enough .... in fine, who would not barter their old-fashioned principle for office"—they were not appointed.