Historical notes - Vermillion Lake - Larchwood to Chelmsford to Creighton to Fairbanks and Dowling - who were those pioneering northern Ontario prospectors and farmers ?
became a Liberal MP 1883-86 and 1890-94 - same position as James Bonfield had in Renfrew South from 1875 - 83
Somewhere on the traders river
a fort rises.
Typical wire
from one trader to another,
---
Follow the Ottawa to Lake Nipissing
then hike north.
Or follow the French river
to Georgian Bay then go north
to the North Channel of Lake Huron.
Find a good guide and he'll
take you up the smaller rivers
all the way to Stobie Falls
then to Dowling or Larchwood
via Vermillion Lake.
Make sure you have your
bear grease or you will
die of bug bites !!!
Bonfield was Ireland born. He immigrated in 1848 and worked for the lumber merchant John Egan. Then he set up his own lumber store and played politics.
John Egan was 19 years old in 1830 when he came to Aylmer, Lower Canada. He came there to learn the lumber trade in the settlements that were rising along old Algonquin First Nations territory. Ottawa didn't exist then. Bytown was just another settlement like Aylmer in the surrounding valley. Bytown would become Ottawa. Aylmer itself had been named after a British Governor of Canada at about the same time Egan came to Canada.
Likely, long before the Europeans came along, the Ottawa Nation, keepers of the trades according to the ancient Council of three fires treaty, came up this river many times to trade with the Algonquians. The traders river became the Ottawa river and Bytown became Ottawa. Aylmer and Hull were just suburbs of Ottawa.
Much of the commercial lumber industry rising in the Ottawa Valley in the early 1800's was the work of early American business men from Massachusetts. One of them was Philemon Wright.
Typical small sawmill - 1954
Somewhere between Lake Nippising
and Larchwood - Dowling
Egan learnt how to trade lumber with the Wright's then set up shop in Bytown. He partnered up with a son of Philemon Wright when he got into the steamship business. Together, Ruggles Wright and Egan moved merchandise up and down the Ottawa river. Every big time trader of the day wanted a piece of the railway action so he also got into railroads. Egan was associated to the Bytown and Prescott Railway which opened up markets on the St Lawrence river which connected the Ottawa Valley and river to the Midlands. That railway was taken over by Canadian Pacific Railway in 1884 while CPR was expanding its railroad across Canada. The Ottawa river dumps into Lake Nipissing where Worthington took CPR to St Anne des pins, aka Sudbury. By 1885 the Chelmsford Station was active. At about the same time the CPR Sault line was being completed. The Larchwood, aka Dowling Station would be the next CPR stop after Chelmsford once the CPR connected.
The north had opened up and the same traders came on the railroad to work the economy of the north.
In Chelmsford and Larchwood, these merchants and industrialists, were now in Ojibwa territory. However even before the Europeans came along the Ojibwa were not always alone in these vast white pine forests spotted with dozens of lakes. The Ojibwa would have been visited many times by the Cree to the north and the Algonquians of the south. Most of those visits would have been friendly and meant as ways of making life better by bonding through trade.
Some of the Algonquians and the Cree stayed. Most of the European immigrants also stayed and kept on trading whatever they could turn over to make a buck.
It is the way Dowling, aka Larchwood, aka Rheaume's Flats came to be. At first it was a lumber village. Then it was a mining camp with a trading post and a post office likely situated in the railroad station where the old postmaster or factor could send morse codes over the telegraph lines to partners of partners scattered all over the continent and all over the world.
If you can't get the wood pass the falls
you build a lumber slide or timber crib.
c. 1901 at Chaudière Falls.
source - Wikimedia Commons
That's Progress
When trees are like hair on a monkey...
Shave the monkey.
Build an economy.
I can just imagine that James Stobie is sitting at the Larchwood Station and dictating a message to the factor postmaster. That message will reach Violet Stobie who is postmaster at a similar rail station somewhere near Washington, California and the Pacific ocean. Ironically enough, as Stobie finishes his cup of coffee and is leaving to go back to his claims along the Vermillion river, he bumps into Colonel Gordon who is coming into Larchwood to send a message to FW Bradley in Dakota or to O (Ogden?) B Gordon, the mercantile banker, in Nevada City.
But that is just imagination at work. The truth is beyond me.
There were a few pioneering days sawmills in Dowling. One of them was run by the Thompson's. The other Larchwood sawmill was run by the Wilson's. There were also a few of them in Chelmsford. The Chew's and the Coyne's were the sawmill operators there.
Most of these people were from the Midland and Prescott area where the competition for control of the lumber industry was fierce and where another Gordon was at one time running for his life away from Drummond Island and towards Penetanguishene, aka Gordon's Point.
In another recent post called Coyne's Water Tower we had come across the names O'bumsawin and Osawabine and asked if both might be the same name therefore both being Chippewa or Ojibwa. Obsviously it seems our answer is definitely NO .
Joseph O'bomsawin went and married Zoe Miron before moving to the northern village of Chelmsford.
Where do we get this information ?
nosorigines is a genealogical site that is sometimes less than accurate but from that site we learn that Jean Joseph O'bomsawin was the son of Simon O'bomsawin and the grandson of Francois de Sales O'bomsawin. His great great grandfather was Pierre Joseph O'bomsawin and was born at the Odanak Mission way back in 1777.
What ?
Odanak what ???
Alanis Obomsawin was born in New Hampshire but her mother eventually returned to the Odanak reservation in Quebec, Canada. Alanis is a film maker and her story probably explains the history of the Abenaki and of the Obomsowin best.
Understanding her story might help to understand the Obomsowin who came to Chelmsford and better yet it might help me understand my background a little better.
We mentioned Thomas Phineas, Patrick and other Coyne's before on this blog. It seemed Phineas had went to Toronto to get married in 1896. While there he picked up an hydraulic pump for his sawmill. So says the local Chelmsford St Joseph parish book. The same book has a picture of the Coyne's standing in front of their tower which looks similar to this Coyne Water Tower sketch. The date in the book is given as 1895 so I can only guess that the hydraulic saw had nothing to do with the windmill on top of the Coyne water tower.
I took a photo of a similar windmill in 2012. It had been built by a guy who had been living in the area for some 80 years. Where he got the design for his windmill is beyond me but it seems obvious that this type of machine was implanted in his memories from his experiences as a child. He'd probably seen Coyne's water tower or probably his family had a similar one on their farm in Lumsden township where Morgan is.
What was the function of Coyne's water tower and windmill ?
It is funny how things work in this world of progress...
In the same parish book there is a story about how several families living in the area depended partially on log cutting as a means of survival. The story goes that as the pioneers cut through the forest they became associated with and befriended the Chippewa who had been living along the rivers, streams and lakes long before their arrival.
Those Chippewa were the Ojibwa first nation people and the second most populace group of natives in Canada. The Cree are the first.
How ironic is it that on a recent trip to Manitoulin Island in Ojibwa country along Lake Huron, Georgian Bay and the North Channel, I took a picture of these wind mills or wind turbines. This is only one of the many windmills that are being erected atop McClean's mountain. The business behind these wind turbines is said to be a partnership Northland Power and the United Council of Chiefs of the Mnidoo Mnising, aka UCCMM first nations.
I really want to get into the politics of that but I won't. This post is more about getting to the nitty gritty behind Coyne's Water Tower.
Coyne's water tower was built sometime before 1895 by a local logger/sawmill operator and farmer. The purpose of the water tower was to supply Phineas and his family with a clean source of drinking water and maybe as a means of draining his property of the waters that often rose above the banks of the Whitson river. The windmill served as a water pump. Wind mills and water wheels were the means of pumping water or powering saw mills before the age of steam engines came along.
How Phineas Coyne made use of his wind mill and hydraulic sawmill pump, or why he didn't use steam engines is beyond me but I know that he understood how having such tools could greatly magnify his odds of succeeding in a pioneering community. Consider that by 1890 over 50 million telegraph messages had been sent over wires. Chelmsford was in the minds of some as a little jewel that would become the next big town that would rise from the neighbouring gold and coal mines ( that petered out sooner than later ). Maybe he had a telegraph machine which used battery power which required charging by a wind mill. Or maybe not....as a fantasy I always think that the Stobie and his associates working the Whitson and Vermillion river were never out of contact with another Stobie located at the end of a rail line near the Pacific ocean and another Gordon and another Bradley in Dakota and Nevada
The wind turbines on Manitoulin Island meanwhile are an issue hotly contested.
Again it is interesting to note that many people in the Chelmsford and Larchwood area were and are named O'bumsawin and they were native descendants by my understanding. An Ojibwa nation member of the Wikwemikong tribe named Osawabine recently gave his opinion of the McClean Mountain wind turbine project to the editor of the Expositor. He called his letter, " Wind turbine money is a deal with the devil ".
Again it is politics but it is also reality and it is a topic that moves the spirit of humans; zeitgeist. So it is important. I wonder how Chippewa really felt about the presence of Coyne and others when they first settled the patches of land around the Chelmsford CPR station.
As for this blog the curiosity then becomes the Osawabine and O'bumsawin names. Is the latter just a bastard form of the first ? Both seem to be well rooted in Chippewa bloodlines.
Or maybe not....so we went looking for info on the O'bumsawin origin...
.......and we leave it at that............for now......
E T was Eldridge Truman Barnette. He doesn't play any direct role in the development of the mines behind Chelmsford but he is the founding father of Fairbanks, Alaska, and the way it came to pass is interesting enough to have a deeper look into his journey.
Little is known of this American's early life except that he was born in 1863 in Akron, Ohio, and that he grew up with a flare for adventure and risky business. He supposedly was sentenced to spend several years in an Oregon prison for some shady horse trading deals. However he received clemency. Some say due to his political connections, or to his families connections, and got out in less than one year on account that he never show up in Oregon again.
So he travelled around looking for a strike somewhere along the gold mines. He ended up on the Tanana river on a 150 foot sternwheeler owned by Captain Charles Adams. Adams boat was called the Lavalle Young. Why ? We hope to find out someday but yet don't know.
E T had a similar boat named the St Michael and had named himself Captain Barnette while intending to travel the Yukon river to Alaska but those plans had failed. The Yukon river being the highway into Alaska and into Klondike gold claims in those days meant he had to go looking for another Captain and another boat.
Before finding Charles Adam and his Lavalle Young, E T Barnette had went to work with North American Trading and Transportation at Dawson. While there he connected with a guy who was keen on building a railroad all the way to Eagle, Alaska. Healy was his name and he supposedly convinced Barnette to go ahead of him to set up a trading post at a point were the railroad would cross the Tanana River.
So the story goes that Barnette took the bait and looked for a means of getting his trade worthy goods to his destination. Well not quite !!!
After a few more failures he seeked out Captain Adams and the Lavalle Young. By now he had partnered up with Charles Smith and they put up 6000$ to hire the Lavalle Young. However Captain Adams explained to them that he could only ferry them to within 200 miles of their destination. They loaded her up with tons of trade worthy goods and off they went from the shores of St Michael's.
Soon enough E T Barnette and his wife Isabella Creary Barnette were settled on the shores of these Fairbanks and soon enough a few gold traders came down from them there hills and things they started looking not too shabby for the Barnette and Smith company.
They had traders, they had stock, and soon enough they had Bradley's in Fairbanks, Alaska which supposedly got its name from an up and coming politician.
"Barnette was the leader of the claim-jumping, miner-robbing gang which held this camp by the throat since its inception. With Barnette Courts and Barnette Juries, the people had no redress. Now comes the most wonderfully terrible part of this tale."
This quote was supposedly part of a message sent to Governor Walter E. Clark in 1911 by Aline Bradley and was found on an Alaska Bar Association site where they look into the world of Aline Chenot Baskerville Bradley Beegler who was a pioneering advocate and medical professional in Fairbanks.
Aline was married several times. Freeman Bradley, a Canadian miner, was one of her husbands.
In 1902 or thereabouts Barnette had bought his own ferry and baptized her the Isabella. For many years thereafter he worked the Fairbanks Gold Rush as an agent merchant banker and trading post owner operator. He used his money and his power and his businesses; Fairbanks Banking and the Northern Commercial Company to gauge miners and residents at will.
Life went on for Mayor Barnette and Isabella who were now parents.
By 1906 Fairbanks, Alaska was a gold haven with a population of more 5000 people.
By 1918 Barnette and his family were living in Los Angeles when Isabella filed for divorce claiming that E T was having an affair.
" I knew there was a reason I put Elizabeth and not Isabella in that sketch ".
Eldridge Truman Barnette died in 1933 in Los Angeles.
Was there ever such a thing as a Cheese Factory on the road that ran along the Vermillion River ?
Charles and the Vermillion River Cheese Factory...
If my information is correct then there was a cheese factory in the vicinity of Errington mine. That cheese factory was about a half mile away from the Vermillion river and above the Stobie Falls. If my map is correct then the Vermillion river cheese factory was located on the edge of Charles and Regina Masse Brosseau's farm.
This map of the area has sent me on many a wild goose chases. This cheese factory story is just one of them.
I really have no other information about the Vermillion cheese factory other than that it seems to have operated for a decade or more.
It would be logical to think that as long as there was a market for cheese in the area then there would have been a reason to keep the cheese factory open for business. The population in the area grew dramatically in the 1920's as Bradley, Errington and Treadwell Yukon Mining set up the mining village of Platinum. The boom brought more than 300 people to the area and Charles farm was perfectly located to take advantage of this. However, when Treadwell closed shop in 1931-32 then all would have been lost to a cheese factory. Charles Brosseau and Regina Masse Brosseau's farm was in the sixth concession of Creighton township on the north half of lot 11. The village of Platinum and the mill were on lot 10, 9, 8.....
All of that is very sketchy at best. Was Charles Brosseau even alive in 1932. We know that his brother Toussaint had died in 1907 and his other brother Leandre went and died in 1933. Charles was likely a widower living alone in the early 1920's if the 1921 census is accurate.
It isn't even certain whether or not he was the operator of this cheese factory. So we leave it that for now.
We know that these people were originally from Prescott and Vaudreuil counties which were rich in farmland and well versed in the art of cheese making.
Did they bring the art of cheese making with them to what would become the cheese factory near Vermillion river ?
What exactly was a cheese factory in the early 1900's.
Most of the cheese factories were small time operations located on a small parcel of land with only a few employees capable of churning out many pounds of cheese every day.
How much cheese ? Probably as much as he could produce with whatever amount of milk he had. Or as much as he could find buyers for.
The cheese maker needed milk as a base ingredient. When the cheese maker decided to go commercial with a factory then the amount of milk he needed grew exponentially. The cheese factory then needed to buy milk from the local farms.
What happened to the cheese factory ?
Watch this video and you will see that when industrial progress caught up to the world of the small cheese maker most of them ended up being put out of business by the co-ops who bought up all of the supply of milk in their corporation type factories. The Cheese Factory story thus ends the same way as any other story which is based on the struggle for survival between the little guy and the big players.
What's a Gordon is just a story. I am no expert historian so the following is loosely based on facts and only meant as a study more fictional that true.
While I'm on the trail of finding out, but not being very successful at discovering, who is Colonel James R Gordon who once owned Gordon Lake in Creighton where he managed the nearby Creighton Gold Mining Company I figure I might as well try to answer " What's a Gordon ? " .
Let's start out with some juicy stuff.
King Richard of England was succeeded by his brother John who pretty much took the crown of England out of the hands of his nephew Arthur. Arthur was imprisoned at the Rouen castle and put under the watchful guard of the Baron of Braose. Arthur disappeared and was never seen or heard of again. At least one legend as it that he was murdered by Braose. The House of Braose had come about from a forefather of his who had started out as Baron of Briouze - lord of the mud patch in Normandy.
My suspicious mind tells me that this Braose, the latin form sounding almost like brasso is probably ancestral to the clans in America with similar names. It is just a suspicion.
What's a story without a map....
Back to King Richard meanwhile...
He died in 1199 at Chalons near Limousin in France after being shot by, I believe a friendly fire arrow while besieging the castle. The archer responsible for the misfire was Bertram de Gordon, aka Bertran de Gourdon. Bertram Gordon was a knight living in France. This line of Gourdon or Gordon had lived on the mainland of Europe for many centuries.
Gourdon in France is near to where the Vaudreuil castle was erected. That Chateau de Vaudreuil is where Philippe de Rigaud was born. The castle Vaudreuil was not built anywhere near Le Vaudreuil in Normandy where the archers of Vaudreuil who follow William the Conqueror into the Battle of Hastings came from ( at least that is how I understand it ). Vaudreuil in Normandy is near to Briouze where House of Braose began to take form.
Bertram de Gordon was not living in Scotland or anywhere else on the islands of Europe. However there were plenty of Gordon's who were. They were definitely in England and in Scotland and maybe in Wales and Ireland. Did they cross over in 1066 with Duke William of Normandy and the archers of Vaudreuil and the troops of the lord of Briouze ? William won the war that started at the Battle of Hastings. While he was conquering England and censuring
Clan Swinton
source Wikipedia
motto
Je pense, J'espere
I think, I hope
A boar chained to a tree proper
Every node of a tree proper has
two nodes but the leaves
themselves have none
The family tree maybe.
But what is the boar ?
his new lands through the Domesday book another King was ruling a lot of Scots territory. Not all of it. Some of it was controlled by Norse or Gaelic clans. He was Scotland King Malcolm III. His successors would battle the England Kings for many generations to come. According to some legends the first Gordon was not a native of France or mainland Europe. He was a member of the Swinton Clan who originated in the area of Scotland known as the county of Berwickshire which at one time was part of Scotland but was lost to England in the late 1400's.
Interestingly enough Berwickshire is where most of the coal mines we talked about in a recent post are situated. Those coal mines were labored in by miners with names like Stobie, Bradley, Coyne, Hargreaves, Gordon, and such.
The Gordon Berwickshire story goes that a Knight named Sir Gordon came into the shire and met with the Prince of Swinton . Sir Gordon then went out on a mission and killed a boar threatening the borders of the Prince's lands. For his efforts Sir Gordon was made lord of his own territory within Mercia ( Berwickshire). On this land he lived with his father Adam I de Gordon and his son also named Adam II de Gordon. But that is legend.
Clan Gordon Crest Stand and Fight By Courage Not by Craft
The Gordon Clan was
a cadet family descended
from the older
Swinton clan.
There were
others
like
Arbuthnott
Nisbet
Elphinstone
What or who was the boar ?
Adam II de Gordon was the father of Richard de Gordon. Richard Gordon was a philanthropist and donated some of his lands to monks who built an abbey and St Mary's Church at Kelso. ( there's that Kel again ). In the town of Gordon they built a church devoted to St Michael; St Michael church of Gordon.
Richard Gordon is the node above Knight Sir Thomas Gordon.
Sir Thomas Gordon and his father were contemporaries of the Gordon in France. But the tree proper has many branches and in the same era, in Scotland there was also another Adam Gordon alive. Adam owned part of the lordship of Gordon so he was either a direct family member of Thomas and Richard or a close relative.
Another Thomas is born to Thomas and he also has the title of Sir. He carries on the tradition of benevolence to the monks and the churches. Unlike his father however Knight Thomas Junior is a leaf and not a node. He is without male children when he dies around 1258 so his possessions are inherited by his daughter Alicia Gordon.
Richard Lion Heart and Saladin the Muslim
A movie about the third crusade
__________________________
Matters get even more complicated when Alicia marries the son of Adam Gordon. He is her cousin and also named Adam Gordon. By this marriage of blood the entire Gordon clan was once again reunited under a single lord and governor.
Adam Gordon was a crusader Knight. Sir Adam and his soldiers were on assignment to the King of Scotland Alexander III who wanted to pilgrimage to the holy land in about 1270. The mission would prove fatal for Sir Adam Gordon. However he had left Alicia with a son also name Adam.
Adam the son married an English women and through her owned land both in England and in Scotland. However the barons were at odds with King Henry III of England and most barons ended up dead or in the prison towers of the English castles; not Adam Gordon. He survived even though he seems to have sided with the barons. He went on to pillage whatever was owned by the English Crown or their loyalists.
Then along came the English Prince Edward who took him on in a duel. The fight lasted long and Adam only lost because he slipped. Edward spared Adam's life in return for his loyalty and service. Adam accepted and became a vassal and supporter of England's cause.
The year is now 1285 or thereabouts and King Alexander of Scotland signs a decree naming Margaret has heir to the throne. He dies in 1286 and she dies in 1290. Then Robert Bruce ( grandfather of Robert de Bruce ) is competing against King John Belliol, aka Toom Tabard, for the Crown of Scotland. Toom Tabard wins out after seeking the council of Prince Edward, now King Edward I of England. ( This is loosely the basis of the movie Braveheart ). The story of Maid Margaret is told here.
Adam Gordon sided with Prince Belliol who became King John of Scotland. King John of Scotland insulted King Edward I of England who attacked him in retaliation. By 1296 King John had fled to France and King Edward fought with the Scots who tried to retain their sovereignty and freedom. People like William Wallace ( hero of Braveheart often used the name of King John in their rebellions against England ). By 1306 Robert de Bruce had become King of the Scots. He was also on the side of the rebels.
Robert the Bruce was from Scoto Norman ancestry so says wpedia. Who knows he may have been a descendant of the Briouze clans who surfaced sometime around 911 when the Normans gained their sovereignty from the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperors. Who knows ?
Adam Gordon fought alongside William Wallace says Collin's Peerage book of England, Volume 5.
In 1297 he was made Governor of Wigton Castle in Galloway after the Wallace rebels had taken over Wigton and Gallaway. Adam Gordon was also made Warden of the Marches of Scotland. ( Marches are almost always border counties so he was a border sheriff ). He was a liaison between the English King and the Scot King and or the rebels of Beliol. John Beliol died in 1313 or thereabouts so Sir Adam Gordon served King Robert the Bruce from that point forward.
Robert de Bruce had been excommunicated from the Catholic circles. He looked to Sir Adam Gordon for support when he wanted to go to Rome to fight this. For his reward Sir Adam Gordon was given the estates once belonging to the Earl of Atholl. Adam Gordon was now lord of Gordon and lord of Strabolgie at Aberdeenshire. He moved his home to the latter and renamed the estate Huntley. There he died in 1333. His heirs, thought to be children of Anna Bella ? Gordon, were Alexander, William, John, Thomas, and Mary.
Between them they ruled all types of estates. Mary became Mary Gordon Hamilton when she married Sir Walter Hamilton. John and Thomas became priests. Sir Alexander Gordon settled at Huntley. He was a patriot like his father and was on the battlefield at Hallidon Hill when his father died in battle. Sir Alexander Gordon survived Hallidon Hill but died later at Nevill's Cross near Durham while fighting the rebel cause in 1346.
By now Robert de Bruce had been succeeded by King David II de Bruce but when he was captured at Nevill's Cross the Scots crown went to Robert II Stewart. He was the son of Walter Stewart married to Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert Bruce.
And the story goes on.....
By 1378 another Sir Adam Gordon comes and married Elizabeth Keith, daughter of Sir William Keith. They have only a daughter, her name is Elizabeth Gordon. She becomes Elizabeth Gordon Seton. The Seton's are now lords of Gordon and Huntley.
And so on and so forth grew the clan Gordon as they spread throughout England and Scotland. The tree proper had seeded many nodes and leaves. Some nodes became giant branches while some expired.
They they came across the Atlantic.
And the story continued from there with Gordon's on both continents.
It is no surprise that James R Gordon, the manager of Creighton Gold Mines near Sudbury, was aka Colonel James R Gordon. The Gordon's are military people.
This perhaps less than accurate story only serves to show how determined people will go to the ends of the earth to secure their independence and maybe to build a world that revolves around them.
Yet this story brings me no closer to knowing who the heck was Colonel James R Gordon ?
I know he had a house built the size of a church on Gordon Lake in Fairbanks township around the year 1900. The guy who built that house was a lumberjack and carpenter named Ernest Gravelle. Most likely no relation to Mr Hargreaves or Mister Graverod.
This Homestake mines in Black Hills country ? post follows up on our search for Colonel Gordon and the Creighton Gold Mining Company he managed.
We came across Homestakes mines when looking at an 1891 Bureau of Mines report where Fairbanks and Creighton Gold finds were involved.
The report stated that a gold expert with extensive USA gold mining experience had visited the northern Ontario sites at Vermillion Lake and Gordon Lake and had compared the finds to those he'd seen at the Homestakes mines in Black Hills country.
It is no wonder that the area experienced a minor gold rush if people truly interested in finding the next gold mother lode were reading such reports.
Homestakes mines according to David Anderson in Ethnographies of Conservation was built in Sioux Indian country. He puts it this way.......
1848 - Marshall finds Gold at Sutter's mill in California - California Gold Rush is on
1851 The Treaty of Fort Laramie is signed which gives white men, Europeans, safety as they venture across the Oregon trail into the west and northwest to settle. Same treaty allows for roads and forts to be built in their lands. Same treaty is basically a precursor to the reservation land of the Native American tribes and nations.
1857 Lieutenant G. K Warren is moving troops across the northwest when he mentions gold in those mountains.
1858 The Pike's peak gold rush is on as miners and settlers rush into Kansas and Nebraska..........but wait...this is against the rules of the 1851 treaty which stated that the US would prevent the mass immigration of settlers and miners. Plenty of Spanish speaking gold miners and prospectors enter this area - probably one of them set up the Spanish Mines that are later bought by F W Bradley.
1868 - Fort Laramie Treaty basically protected the Sioux in the Blackhills from invasion by white settlers.
1874 - Blackhills Gold Rush begins and the Fort Laramie Treaty is broken when gold in discovered. General G. A. Custer moves in with his troops
1875 - mining towns are everywhere - Deadwood, Central City, Lead...
1876 - April 9 - Fred and Moses Manuel, Hank Harney and Alex Engh discover gold near Lead....
1877 - Amendment of 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty pushes the Sioux onto reservation land
2002 - Homestake mine closes after producing some 40 million ounces of gold
Lead is where Homestake mine set up shop. Lead is in North Dakota. Their gold mine was special and not like the other ore bodies in the area.
Homestake mines in Black Hills country is explained on Wikipedia this way :
The workers crushed the rock to release the gold, concentrated the gold by gravity methods, and then exposed the concentrate to mercury that would amalgamate with the gold. Miners call this kind of gold ore free milling. Gold existed elsewhere in the Black Hills, but it was not in the free milling state. In these conditions, gold was chemically bound to the rock, and very difficult to remove. It was called refractory gold ore. For many years, the Homestake operated as the only major gold mine in the Black Hills. Chlorization and smelting were seen as two methods that could remove gold from the refractory ore in the 1890s. More rock mining regions opened up around Lead and Deadwood because of this discovery.
It closed down in 2002 but it produced not only gold. It produced gold mining experts. Some of those experts were in the Vermillion Lake and Gordon Lake area of Creighton and Fairbanks townships when Colonel James R Gordon was also there.
Who exactly was J R Gordon ? We are looking hard to find that out. We know that wherever there is a coal mine or any type of mine, be it in England or in Canada or the US there is bound to be a Stobie, a Bradley, a Gordon, a Loftus, a Coyne or an Hargreaves nearby.
It is extremely interesting to note that Homestake mine was dealing with solar neutrino observations way before the Sudbury, Ontario mines got involved with this type of atomic research. Just a few years back there was an entire conspiracy theory going around that research like this, also done through the large hadron collider in Switzerland, could lead to the ultimate destruction of mankind by create black holes. But that is certainly all conspiracy....
It is also interesting to note that O B Gordon was a Nevada banker working the placer gold prospectors in the same era when Homestake was being founded and that F W Bradley was coming of age with his Spanish mine special knowledge of how to mine gold on the cheap. Meanwhile a guy named Violet Stobie was at the end of the rail line playing the role of Factor almost exactly where the explorers Lewis and Clark had ended their trek across the US.
Pause for the cause.....Why does it always seem like conspiracy at work ?
Schliemann was in the US in the mid 1800's. He was buying gold from miners and selling it to the big players. They were the Morgan's and Rothschild etc.... Schliemann went back to Europe, screwballed the Russians then went and discovered the ancient city of Troy.........WOW!!!
Meanwhile the Rothschild's are financing Treadwell in Alaska while F W Bradley takes on increasingly more important positions with Bunker Hill and Sullivan and with Treadwell Alaska. Then he forms Treadwell Yukon and ends up in the backyard of J R Gordon who in 1924 seems to disappear from the Chelmsford scene just when Errington and Bradley start playing in the sandbox. In 1931 everybody exits the area.
Where did they go ? They went hunting for more gold and more mines.
How ironic........in 1856 Salter's compass went haywire in Creighton.
Joseph Salter, like Colonel James R Gordon was a surveyor. However the Gordon family name is so much bigger in the mining industry. Salter was a no one except for probably being an apprentice to the wizard US military dude named Colborne.
The Canadian correspondent of the Financial and Mining Record, published in New
York, referring to gold properties in Ontario writes as follows in the October number :
The syndicate represented by Mr. J. M. Clark are sinking a 100-foot shaft with two
drifts on their gold location in Fairbank. They have traced and stripped a vein along
the top of a bluff for nearly 600 feet, then down the face of the bluff nearly 100 feet. Near
the base of this bluff a quantity of gold ore was blasted and crushed, the result averaging
$15 to the ton. The vein is between four and five feet wide. According to the opinion of
a Chicago expert ore of the character here found can be reduced for $3 per ton. Gold has
thus far been traced across part of Creighton, all of Fairbank and into Trill township,
a length of about twelve miles.
The Fairbank Consolidated Mining Company with a capital stock of $500,000 owns
1,150 acres in the townships of Fairbank, Creighton and Trill in the Sudbury district.
Toronto gentlemen are the officers of the company, including Messrs. Henry Lowndes,
O. A. Howland., J. L. Nichols and others. The company have opened up three different
veins and are awaiting the result of the milling test. One assay of a piece of surface ore
showed 822 of gold to the ton. The veins are very promising on or near the surface. I am
informed that the company is about to dispose of a section of its property to an American
syndicate.
A correspondent of the Toronto Globe writes from the Sudbury district as follows :
A number of men have been engaged cutting roads for taking provisions, lumber, etc.,
from the railway to the mineral properties in Trill, Fairbank and Creighton. A mining
expert who has been investigating the districts in the vicinity of Vermilion and Gordon
lakes, and who has had extensive experience in the mines of the United States and Mexico,
states that several of the quartz veins in the township of Fairbank very strongly resemble
the Homestake mines of the famous Black Hills country.
Life knows no age nor time Youth will ever set out to seek fortune Man will ever fight for the love of woman Kings will threaten - Queens weep - Ministers conspire And so - though our story is of three hundred years ago It is as young as yesterday or tomorrow
Many of the information found on this Who Sold the Farm blog comes from the pages of the following books and the map that was given to me by this guy who remains nameless at this time. All we know of him is that he spent a lifetime working in some of the mines that developed from the pioneering mines researched for this blog. Doesn't he look like he is carrying a lunch pale ?
This scan is only a
portion of the fuller map
of 1880 - 1920
residents and events
between Chelmsford
and Dowling
I believe the map of Chelmsford and Dowling included here was researched by a friend of his.
The Story of Onaping Falls , Dowling, Levack and Onaping is the work of Robert P. Trott who was a long time resident of Onaping Falls.
Book Cover
Story of Onaping Falls
Robert P Trott
The front cover photos show a Mr. Drysdale working a team of horses on his farm and a Mr. Tom Morley standing in front of his mine at the High Falls just west of Dowling and Larchwood.
You know this story is about to get even more interesting when you look at the map and see the name or Morley Arthur. In the Onaping Falls book Morley Arthurs is mentioned. However I have a suspicion that Morley Arthurs is probably Arthur Morley and somehow a relative of Tom Morley. However that is only a suspicion.
Not too far away in the same book we find the names of Charles Sanders and his son Freeman. And we also see Colonel Gordon and Ernest Gravelle.
Book Cover
1883 - 1983
Chelmsford
Then there is this gem of a book from Chelmsford. It is the parish book and a work by Marie Jeanne Vaillancourt who was at one time the Principal of Mgr. Cote School. Also listed as contributors to this book are Florence Auld, Glorette Blais, and Diane Belanger.
The Chelmsford Parish 1883 1983 book contains many of the names of the pioneering families of the townships of Balfour and Rayside. But better than that it is a source that can be used with the internet to dig deep into the past of those pioneers.
The intentions of those who write these books is certainly good but why should we take their word for the reality behind the events. Many of them were teachers in the schools that formed the professionals and trades people of the following generation. It is only justifiable that we question the validity of their teachings. Mgr Cote was an Abbot and had studied in Rome. He came to Chelmsford in 1906 when the schools were funded by the government public sector. When he arrived in Chelmsford the community consisted of some 200 families and 1600 residents. Wow.!!! That's an average of 8 people per household. Many of them were English and many of them were French and in the neighbourhood or forests where they lumbered for wood to build their dwellings many of them were natives of the land.
It is a story of the little guy against the big guy and of the French against the English and of both of them against the natives.
It is a story best described by a Dum as who wrote the Three Musketeers when he said the quote at the beginning of this post.
Interestingly enough, the 1921 silent film version of Three Musketeers was produced by Douglas Fairbanks. He also played to the role of D'Artignan who struggles with King Louis XIII of France and with Armand du Plessis, aka Lord Richelieu.
Fairbanks !!! Isn't that where the Club Richelieu operates in this day and age ?
Synchronicity - Chance - Conspiracy - Maybe just the way the game of life is played..................
If you are French then you recognize that "tailleur" is tailor in English.
Who was Marceline Tailleur who married Francois Xavier Rheaume in the 1800's ?
A tailor is a person who mends clothes as a profession. In the old days when Voyageurs, fur traders, and " coureurs des bois " were running through the wilderness of Canada, the tailor would have been a popular person because he could trade with you.
Couturier to the French is a sewer to the English.
In 1837 this same
amendment could have been used
by the French when Colborne
and the British oligarch came
calling
We have a few Couturier named on this blog. So far however, I have only come across one Tailleur.
There are at least two Marceline Couturier, sometimes referred to as Couturier Lajoie. Why Lajoie ? In my opinion La Joie is simply a census typo that was at one time La Jolie which is a location in France where these people once plied their profession.
Marceline Couturier is at one time the daughter of Camille Couturier and of Angele Richer. At another time she is the sister of Camille Couturier. The daughter of Camille goes on to marry Toussaint Brosseau and they relocate to Larchwood sometime around 1900.
What happened to Camille's sister Marceline ? I may have jumped the gun on that one. Was there ever a sister named Marceline ? I know almost for certain that there was a Julie Couturier who married a Masse.
There we go again.....a quick search for Camille Couturier Lajoie brings up the names of John Bradley, Ned Bradley, Elzear and Leandre Brosseau and others.
The story didn't start
in Chelmsford
Camille Couturier was born around 1820 somewhere in French Patriot country. Angele Richer was born around 1830 in the same political arena. Camille gives his profession as that of a carpenter in 1871. ( carpenter - sewer - tanner - taylor - tomato - tomato....). Let's just say the guy could measure and fit something to something else and make it look like something more. Maybe he made the chair and she sewed the fabric for it !!!
Supposedly his parents were Hubert and Ursula Loiselle Couturier. The Loiselle name seems to go back to immigrant French ( Normandy ) soldiers who came to New France and protected the Fort of Quebec back in the 1600's. That area of France is full of mystery about archers of Vaudreuil who join William the Conqueror and Barons of Braosa who seem to have their name turned to mud. So we know that we are in the right dog patch.
Somewhere on Vermillion river
near the property of
Marcie and Milly
Marceline Tailleur meanwhile is said to be the daughter of Rose Page and Jean Baptiste Tailleur. If so, then she obviously is not Marceline Couturier.
Marceline Tailleur was born around 1822 probably at Rigaud in Vaudreuil County which at that time was neighbouring the newly formed County of Newton. The English King George III had been the monarch behind the invention of this new border county. Likely, like the Couturier, the Tailleur were French Patriots and were fighting for the survival of their French heritage.
Marceline Tailleur married Francois Xavier Rheaume. Marcie and Frankie then had children. One of them was named Timothee and was born in 1854. Timmy would later meet Milly, aka Melina Aurelie Masse, and they would marry and have children.
Another interesting thing about the Rheaume and Tailleur name is they seem to trace back to Sault Ste Marie and to traders working for the Hudson's Bay Company.
Milly and Tim Rheaume were definitely early pioneers of Chelmsford and Larchwood. They had a place on Vermillion Lake road near where Gordon Lake road is today. They lived only a few farms down from Marcie Couturier Brosseau and her husband Toussaint ( how the heck do you nickname this guy... all saint, Toulou, Tilou ??? ) who lived next door to Delphis Laurin and Delia....aka Del and Del.
It is all a very simple story.
As I researched this Marceline Tailleur issue I came across other people that are very interesting to the Chelmsford story.
The LaBatte sister and their husbands. They were the daughters of Tony Labatt, aka Antoine Labatte. Tony, it seems, was married a few times......the story of Tony Labatt is possibly linked to the story of the Chew brothers who run the sawmill in Chelmsford. Tony's story is probably linked to the story of the Wilson's and the Thompson's who run sawmills in Larchwood and New Larchwood.
And the Labatte name is connected to the Cote name. So we might be able to connect the old Monsignor Cote in this somewhere. After all what is religion without politics ?
It isn't conspiracy.....they just knew how to play the game......
The Vermillion Mine was located in Denison Township on Lot 6 of Concession 4. It was explored by the Vermillion Mining Company incorporated in 1888. The prospector who started it all was Henry Ranger who came along in 1887 and hit on loose gold near Esther Lake.( was he related to Joseph Brasseur Duhamel and his wife Malvina Ranger who were early pioneers of the area ??? ) However, it wasn't Ranger who set up the Vermillion Mining Co. Ranger turned to Tough who patented the properties and Tough turned to James Stobie to help him dig the shaft.
In 1890 Vermillion Mining Company was sold the likes of Ritchie and Connell who were behind Canadian Copper Company. CCC then explored the gold mine on and off until 1917 when it was closed down.
The Little Vermillion Lake Mine operation, as some call it, was located on the south side of Vermillion Lake. It was discovered in 1929 by diamond drillers ( probably Errington and Sudbury Diamond Drilling ). On the surface a mill was constructed along with a flotation plant. The ore body itself was located beneath the lake. That mine also ceased operating in 1931. Interestingly enough, the Little Vermillion Lake mine was located in Fairbanks township around Lot 5 Concession 5 and across the lake from Joe Sauve and Eva Rheaume's property in concession 6.
The mine was again explored from about 1952 to 1957. It was then taken over by Giant Yellowknife Mines Ltd who explored it again in 1979 but never re opened it. The source of this info is linked above.
Joe Sauve was Eva Rheaume were married in 1904 in Chelmsford. She was the daughter of Timothee Rheaume and Melina Massie ( Massey sometimes ). Tim and Melina had a property nearer to the Stobie Falls where the Errington mine and the town of Platinum went up and then went down when all of the houses were sold and moved away. Rosario Rheaume was just across the Whitson Creek near Stobie Falls which was dammed from the beginning; hence Stobie Dam.
Tim and Melina were also connected to the Bradley clan when their daughter Rose married Isaac the son of Nathaniel Bradley who was one of the first pioneers in Chelmsford.
Shaft 1 of the Errington mine was located in the Sudbury District Creighton Township on the north half of Lot 9 ( town of Platinum 1926 ), Concession 6. Shaft 3 was located in Balfour Township Lot 4 Concession 1 ( town of Bradley ). Shaft 2 was located next to Rosario Rheaume's house on Concession 6 Lot 8 of Creighton Township. Alphonse Ollier was for a time a lodger in Rosario's home. The Errington mine in 1927-28 was powered by electricity supplied by a private utility line. The mine had a 250 tonne pilot concentrating mill.
The mining operation probably looked like the place shown in this video about pilot milling.
Everything was shut down in 1931 and in 1952 some exploration resumed. Joseph Errington had passed away in 1942.
David McKay in Why Mining states that the Number 1 shaft, B 1 shaft of Errington mine as he puts it, was the first shaft to be block caved ( B = block caving ). The B 2 shaft came later and was accessed from Errington B 1 probably for tax reasons. However McKay is talking about the Errington mine at Steep Rock Lake which was also being explored in the 1950's.
Another Errington mine, formerly the Steep Rock Lake mine, was located in the east part of the Freeborn township of the Rainy River district.
Massey mine was located in Sudbury District Salter township on the SE 1/4 if section 16 and the SW 1/4 of section 15.
_____________
It isn't conspiracy....it is just the way the game of life is played. Some people are better at building big corporate enterprises than others.
There were plenty of small sawmills in the area in the beginning but the co-ops came along and took control. The poor prospector sold his claims to the bigger players. The cheese factories sold out or folded when the big guys bought all the local milk and so on and so forth....somewhere in all of this the politicians in a democratic society is supposed to protect us from falling to far to the right or to far to the left.
But are they succeeding or are we just becoming what we were always struggling to avoid. We were trying to avoid being manipulated into being just slaves or just servants. The story behind these mines is the story of life. It is a story of power and monopoly.
The Montreal Gazette ran a story on the death of Joseph Errington on February 10, 1942.
Headline -
Joseph Errington Dies in Toronto
Little Long Lac Mines President Succumbs to Heart Attack at age 70
The story went that the Canadian coal fields pioneering mine developer, now living in Toronto, was at Union Station in Toronto awaiting a train to New York where he was to speak to the American Mining Association. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the station.
His funeral service was in Toronto but his body was put to rest in Beaverton, Ontario.
Joseph Errington was born in Simcoe County.
He was educated in Ontario.
He worked in the Sudbury district until 1909 then went west where he discovered coal with his partner R J McKenzie north of the Athabasca river.
The article does not name his widow or his two daughters living in Toronto or his five sisters that survived him.
Joseph Errington, according to the article was:
member of the Ontario Mining Association
member of the Canadian and American Associations of Mining and Metallurgy
president of the Little Longlac Mines
manager of the Treadwell Yukon Company
president of the Sudbury Basin Mines Ltd.
director of Sheritt Gordon Mines Ltd
director of Osisko Lake Mines
director of Sudbury Diamond Drilling Company Ltd
director of Dominion Explorers Ltd
director of Kenora Prospectors and Miners Ltd
director of Bankfield Gold Mines Ltd
director of Hardrock Gold Mines Ltd
director of Ventures Ltd
director of Oklend Gold Mines Ltd
director of Paymaster Consolidated Mines Ltd
In 1928 Joseph Errington donated a large black diamond found in the Wesselton mines of Kimberley, South Africa in 1927 to the Royal Ontario Museum.
The black diamond was named the Errington Diamond and was supposedly as big as a silver dollar and 63.65 carots.
The following is verbatim and taken from a Bureau of Mines 1904 report.
Joseph Errington is mentioned as manager of Massey Copper Mine.
Mr Errington was a busy man. He was not yet 40 in 1904.
Massey Copper Mine
This lies about three miles northwest of the Massey Station. A branch of the railway was being built at the time when we were there, but at present all traffic is over a wagon road four and a half miles long.
The ore is copper pyrite, carrying less than $1.00 in gold. The shaft is down 400 feet and sinking was going on for the 500 foot level. Some beautiful crystallizations of copper pyrite on crystals of quartz and calcite had been taken out and handsome specimens were presented to us by Edward Moore, Thomas Moore and others of the miners. Some iron pyrite was noticed in the ore, and considerable specular hematite. Copper pyrite and specular ore were collected for future use.
The foreman, Mr. O. Summers, took us underground and gave us a good opportunity of inspecting the mine and collecting specimens. Mr. Joseph Errington, the manager, and Mr. R. C. Barclay, the treasurer, made us welcome. One of the cottages just being built was fitted with tables and seats for the class, which was opened at 7 pm on June 27th. The attendance was fair, averaging 10 daily with a total of 25 in attendance. Here, as in other places where a night shift was worked, another class was held a 4 pm.
Having few hours to spare at Sudbury on the way from Massey Station to Wabigoon, we drove about 7 miles to see some prospecting being done by Mr. T. A. Edison. A number of test pits were seen, about two miles northwest of Mount Nickel. Diamond drilling had also been done, and one hole, it was stated, had been put down 270 feet. Nickel ore in small quantities was noticed about some of the test pits. The ground where this work was being done was unusually level and free from gossan.
F W Bradley of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan Mining and Concentrating company, has arrived from San Francisco, Cal., and gone to the properties at Kellogg, Idaho.
Probably Bradley drove by the local sign that read, " You are now hear KELLOGG. The town by which was discovered by a JACKASS and which is inhabited by its descendants "
Noah Kellogg was a prospector who borrowed a burro and a grubstake in the nearby town of Murray while down on his luck. The guys who lent this gold prospector the donkey and a few bucks were named John T. Peck and Origin O. Cooper. This was in 1885. Noah was camped down for the night when his mule took off on him. When he woke up on September 4, 1885 he went out and found his jackass on a hill. That hill just happened to be a rich outcrop of lead ore.
What the Kell ? Just beside Wardner and Kellogg there is a Smelterville.
If a Kell is a Kiln and a Oast is a house then a Smelter must be a Oast Kell - or a Kell Oast !!!
Noah Kellogg's find became Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine. A small settlement of miners became the town of Wardner. The Wardner name came from one of Kellogg's partners named James Wardner. Another of his partners was Philip O'Rourke. Cornelius Sullivan was a prospector and a friend of O'Rourke. Wardner, supposedly was an investor more than a prospector.
Pretty soon all of these names and others were competing for mining interests in the area and many lawsuits were filed.
And the story moves on from there.
Just above the town of Wardner, the town of Kellogg came to be.
Bradley was involved with both Bunker Hill and Sullivan and with Alaska Treadwell Company. He was a close associate of Stanly A. Easton and Bradley was the man who built a smelter nearby.
But why Kellogg ?
Noah S. Kellogg was born in Ohio in 1829. He made a million and a half when he sold his mine.
I went to a 1903 book by Timothy Hopkins titled Kellogg's in the Old World and New World to find out more about the name.
As it goes, Hopkins says, in the old world when pagans were being Christianized they were taken by bunches and baptized as clans. For example a full settlement was renamed Kellogos and all or many men in the clan became Peter or Paul or Joseph or another Christian name. To differ them they were further known as Peter the small Kellogos or Peter the big or Peter the miner etc. The girls were Catherine or Mary etc.
Kellogg, says Hopkins book, came in many variations but the first converted pagans, according to one interpreter, were of Saxon ( German ) origin which suggests that they were named after the German word Keilhau which is a word used to describe a miner's pick axe.
These Keilhau clans somehow made their way towards Scotland by the time King James VI of Scotland ruled around 1566. James VI of Scotland also took on the title of James I of England after the last Tudor dynasty Queen, Queen Elizabeth I, died in 1603. Elizabeth also ruled Ireland. James took over the ruler ship of all tree nations for a time.
If this is right then the Keilhau clans moved into England, Wales and Ireland thereafter.
However others suggest that Kellogg and its variations are descended or invented from the ancient word "Kill " which referred to " Cemetary " and " " Loch " which is " Lake ". If so, the Kill Loch, or clan of the cemetery by the lake, would have become the Kellogg.
I have my own version. " log " was ancient word that meant " key ". So if Kell is Kiln then the clan that ran the furnace house or the kell oast had the key to this guild; they held the secret of smelting or the key secrets behind running a kiln house where grain, hops, or malts can be refined. They were the Kell, Kelloggs, etc....
Or they may have held the key to the incinerator by the cemetery by the lake.
What the Kell..........something like that.
Before long the Kell, Kellogg, and all the other flavours were in America. However, they don't seem to exist before about 1400 under any of those Christianized variations. So without insulting anyone, they must have been barbarians in Europe, similar to the savages or Indians in America which ironically needed to be assimilated after the Europeans arrived.
When they arrived to the Americas they came under the banner of one of the many religious denominations that had evolved from the early Church of England.
For example, Kellogg's in the New World says this -
In 1633 Reverend Thomas Hooker, with 200 passengers, arrived in Boston and settled in Newtowne. Mister Hooker was a famous minister of Chelmsford, Essex County, England, 11 miles from Braintree who had been silenced for non conformity,....
The story continues that Chelmsford people who worshipped him asked to be taken to the new world under his ministry ( Puritan ). Newtowne ( Massachusetts near Sudbury and Chelmsford in the US ) did not fit their style so they relocated to Connecticut. The Puritans, it seems, were big on self government and didn't want to put up with the rules of suffrage in Newtowne. They established settlements that grew around a center that became Hartford, Connecticut.
In the old world there were the Kellogg's of Braintree. Amongst them were Samuel, Daniel and Joseph. Their descendants moved around and pretty soon reached the Hudson river and Lake Champlain and then Canada. Other Kellogg's remained in the US.
Interestingly, Newton was formed as a county in Canada when King George III of England reigned. Newton is by some standards a border or "marche" and it might be that when the British new they were losing the old Newtowne they named a new one in what territory they had left in America. It wasn't long after that the war of 1812 broke out and then the rebellions of 1837-38. The British were trying to erase the French heritage which was highly based on Roman Catholic and Jesuit missions and beliefs.
It is interesting that John Treadwell was Governor of Connecticut in 1809. Another Treadwell sold his mines in Alaska to investors, including the Rothschild group. Those mines were formed and later taken over by Bradley and others.
Nathaniel Kellogg was probably born in Braintree and according to the Hopkins source was the first Kellogg in America. He died around 1659 and left his farm to his wife Elizabeth Kellogg.
And so on goes the story................
What the Kell...........all of this and I am no closer to knowing if Kell is connected to Kellogg. I am almost convinced however that the Kell name and the Kellogg name is descended from kilns which are ovens used in all types of trades.
In ancient times trades were well kept secrets. Every trade was a guild kept protected from spies who might want to learn how to use these talents. The story of how the Russian Peter the Great disguised himself as a laborer and worked in other parts of Europe in order to learn the ways of the advanced nations exemplifies this perfectly. Peter the Great went back to Russia and brought the country into the industrial world.
Kell was to brewing what Kellogg was to mining, smelting and corn flakes.
There is a Gordon Point Wharf ( Government Road ) somewhere around West Green Harbor, Nova Scotia ( New Scotland ). It is only mentioned on a canoe enthusiasts website as far as I know. It isn't the Gordon's Point that I was looking for but it is interesting to note that on that website Ragged Island is mentioned and Ragged Island was settled by Locke and Churchill of Massachusetts back in 1761 or 62 and they registered it in Liverpool, England as the township of Locke Island. In 1907 the named Lockeport was used when the town was incorporated. Interestingly at about the same time James Stobie was mining and prospecting on the Vermillion River near Stobie Falls and was sending his mineral ore all the way up to Lockport near St Joseph Island in Ontario. Lockport was initially called Stobie and it was not distant from Gordon Lake.
But that Gordon Lake was not the same Gordon Lake that is just downstream from Stobie Dam in Chelmsford.
Did I say Gordon ?
Stobie Dam is nowhere near
Gordon's Point...
However, follow
the Vermillion river down stream
and find a good guide like Mr
Graverod and he'll lead you
right to LaCloche where the
Hudson Trading Post was.
From there he could basically
take you to St Joseph Island, or
to Gordon's Point, or to
Drummond Island, or even to
Cleveland, Ohio.
J R Gordon was the guy behind Gordon Lake in Chelmsford but he isn't the guy behind Gordon's Point.
Gordon's Point is a place found near Penetanguishene, Ontario, which is right next door to Midland, Ontario, and only a neighbourhood away from Victoria Harbour, Ontario.
All three of these places are on the southeastern shores of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay and through the north channel of Georgian Bay a Voyageur can travel to St Joseph Island and to Lockport. With a bigger canoe any trader could have taken Stobie's stockpiled ore's and transported them to the smelters of Cleveland, Ohio.
Of course when Mond came along and set up his own smelters at Victoria mines in Fairbanks township the refining game changed for Sudbury Basin prospectors.
Why Victoria Harbour ?
Ancient history teaches us that religious ministers like Etienne Brule ( pardon the accents ), Jean de Brebeuf, Lalemand and Masse came to the area in the early 1600's and that by 1798 the local native tribes had pretty much all but lost or sold their land rights to the Europeans.
But it would be too convenient to blame all the changes happening in America at this time on religion. The corporate establishment is as much, if not more, too blame on the rise of these towns and trading centers in Ontario's northwest.
Victoria Harbour was at one time Hogg's Bay and a settlement of sawmill laborers. Hogg's Bay was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria. That story is a mid 19th century story. She likely is the dignitary behind Victoria mines also which is a story of the late 19th century.
Penetanguishene is a story that dates back to a century earlier when the US and the British were fighting for sovereignty over nations and land. Midland, the town, was a story formed when sawmill operators decided to form a co-op in order to manage and probably control the lumber and grain trade of the wild northwest. Midland the district was also known as Mecklenburg for a short period of time until Queen Victoria came along. Mecklenburg is a real German term and it is used in a period just before the English monarchs go on a mission to try to cover their German heritage. At least that is how I understand it.
And along came Gordon the Scotch trader........
His name was George Gordon and he had at one time been one of the many people living around Drummond Island.
The story of how he ends up near Midland is best told in the book " The Migration of Voyageurs " which says :
Several residents of Drummond Island appear to have taken time by the forelock (act quickly and decidedly ). A Scotch trader named Gordon from Drummond Island made, in 1825, the first permanent settlement at Penetanguishene, on the east side of the harbour, just beyond Barrack's Point, and called it the " Place of Penetangoushene ". It subsequently became known as Gordon's Point.
It would be nice to end the story with that but this blog is about the development and events that happened in Chelmsford so we must go on and find out how or if George Gordon is a factor.
He met and married his first wife at Gordon's Point. She was the daughter of a metis women named Agnes Landry. Her name was likely Agatha Agnes Landry Gordon. Gordon's father, if my genealogical source is correct, was a Montreal based Colonel Gordon who was killed during a West Indies voyage. There is a story about a son being born to Agatha and George while on Drummond Island. That story goes that on a trip the boy was lost and was devoured by a wolf pack. Agatha also died and George Gordon remarried Marguerite Langlade.
It might be legend....but Marguerite is believed by some to have been a descendant of the Ottawa ( Keepers of the Trades according to a c. 800 AD Council of Three Fires treaty ) nation war chief Nissowaquet. How so ?
Augustine Langlade was a fur trader who married Domitilde and she was a sister of the war chief of the Ottawa nation. Augustine Langlade, it seems, learnt the native traditions but also studied under Jesuit missionaries. If anything, he certainly seems like the type who could fit the shoes of the character "Mister Graverod" mentioned in that other book. But certainly he isn't.
In that post we might have put the carriage in front of the horse when we said that George Gordon was a Scotch Whiskey trader. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't...........
Was George Gordon of Gordon's Point related to, or an ancestor of, O B Gordon who was associated to other bankers who ran a mercantile bank when F W Bradley was making a name for himself near Nevada and California ? Was George Gordon an ancestor of J R Gordon who spent his summers at his cabin on Gordon Lake while the claims of James Stobie, Alphonse Ollier, who was a lodger in the home of Rosario Rheaume, and others were being explored. Rosario Rheaume was located right where Errington would build a mine with the financial backing of Bradley and Treadwell Yukon Mining.
Most of the French names seen in the Chelmsford story are found in genealogical records of Tiny Township which is about where George Gordon settled and died at Gordon's Point.
I find that interesting and extremely mysterious....almost bordering on conspiracy. But it isn't conspiracy as much as it is the nature of the game of republican democracy vs liberal democracy at work. Some people just seem to know how to work the odds and how to keep the horses in front of the wagon at all times. That game only gets dangerous when socialist values push democracy into the realm of communism or when republican values push democracy into the realm of fascism.
Politics and religion.............what a world we live in......
