A Situation Eminently Calculated:A Situation Eminently Calculated:Settling London, Canada's WestSettling London, Canada's West

Maya HirschmanMaya HirschmanHistorian & CuratorHistorian & Curator

Cornelius De Jode, Map of North America, 1583

Lower Ontario in 1718, Guillaume de L'Isle map, approximate province area highlighted

Greg Curnoe's Indian Land Surrenders Map

John Graves Simcoe & Elizabeth Simcoe

1792 Native Land Surrenders – Upper CanadaMap endorsed by Simcoe

The Canada Company was a large private chartered British land development company, incorporated by an act of British parliament on July 27, 1825, to aid the colonization of Upper Canada. It assisted emigrants by providing good ships, low fares, implements and tools, and inexpensive land.

Unfortunately, it was mismanaged and was plagued by corrupt agents and officials, frequently tied closely to the government.

Philip J. Bainbrigge, Homestead Chatham, Upper Canada, 1828

Titus H. Ware, Log House in Orillia, Upper Canada, 1844

As we intended to prepare a large piece of ground for summer-fallow, it was necessary to get rid of those stumps of the trees, which, according to the practice of chopping them two or three feet from the ground, present a continual obstacle to the advance of the plough. We, however, succeeded in getting clear of them by hitching a logging-chain round the stump near the top, when a sudden jerk from the oxen was generally sufficient to pull it up.

Major Samuel Strickland, Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West, 1853

Clearing the Land, 19th centuryImage courtesy Cam Longhurst: http://www.concordnorth.ca/Ancestry

Hunter and dog, c.1855

Artist unknown

James Hamilton, North Branch of the Thames River, 1842

Those straggling Indians who wander about the inhabited parts of Upper Canada, are not fair specimens of the race of people to which they belong; for an intercourse with the Europeans has rendered them vicious, dissipated and depraved. Hard drinking has likewise impaired that acuteness of the senses for which the North American Indians are so remarkable; and were a Mohawk to join any of the tribes who inhabit the north-west territory [where contact with Europeans was still limited], his deficiency in this respect would probably subject him to contempt.

John Howison, on how European contact has hurt the Native peoples, 1822

And silence — awful silence broods

Profoundly o’er these solitudes;

Naught but the lapsing of the floods

Breaks the deep stillness of the woods;

A sense of desolation reigns

O’er these unpeopled forest plains.

Where sounds of life ne’er wake a tone

Of cheerful praise round Nature’s throne,

Man finds himself with God — alone.

From Susanna Moodie,

Roughing it in the Bush; Or, Life in Canada

Richard Airey, London, Canada West, c.1850

Some useful references for your pleasure:

James Beaven, Recreations of a Long Vacation..., published 1844 John Howison, Sketches of Upper Canada, published 1822 Susanna Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush, 1852 Samuel Strickland, Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West..., 1853 Elizabeth Simcoe, diaries, spanning 1792 to 1796

Contact information: @mambolicamuseummambo.blogspot.ca