In studying this family history I began to wonder how these
pioneers traveled to Canada. Although we complain about our
travels, it really is a piece of cake. Thomas Thornton was
interviewed about coming to Canada and then to Ontario and
here is a small excerpt
Thomas Thornton, father of C. J. Thornton, ex.-M.P., and
one of the Thornton-Powers connection, also contributed to
these Clarke reminiscences. Mr. Thornton, born in
Yorkshire, as a boy of six came to Canada with his father
in the ‘twenties of the last century. He was
thirteen weeks and three days in crossing the Atlantic,
and three weeks more were spent on the journey by Durham
boats between Quebec and Montreal. “And,” 1[r.
Thornton told me, as we sat on his porch in Orono,
twenty-three years ago, “it rained on every one of
those twenty-one days, save three.” That certainly
was no pleasure trip for a boy of six. In 1835, while
still a lad, Mr. Thornton went to live with Thomas Best on
the eighth of Clarke. “On one occasion,” he
said, “when we required to have some wheat ground,
and having no horse of our own, it was necessary to pack
the grain to a neighbour’s place. We divided it into
four bags, and Best and I carried two bags for a distance
and then went back for the other two, and so on, each
carrying two bags alternately until we had covered the two
miles between our place and Bill Livingstone’s. Then
Bill teamed the grain to Bowmanville to be ground for us.
At that time there were only three horses in the township
north of the sixth concession.
“When Mr. Best first moved to his farm, his worldly
possessions consisted of three pigs, an axe, and what he
considered sufficient pork, flour, and potatoes to see him
through until next harvest. During the following May he
began to fear that, pork and potatoes were going to run
short and he decided to apportion what remained to make
sure of having at least some for each day until a new
supply came in. He weighed a pound of pork, cut it into
slices, counted the slices and from this calculated how
many slices per day his remaining stock would allow him.
Next he filled a half-bushel measure with potatoes and
counted the number of potatoes per day he could afford for
each meal. In this way he managed to keep up a daily
supply until new sources were available. In order to
hasten the fattening of the pigs I had to go to the bush
and hunt cow cabbage to feed them. And I assure you
fattening the kind of pigs we had then, by the means
described, was no picnic. The pigs were of the kind that
required a knot in their tails to prevent them from
slipping through a hole in the fence. [Copied from
Pioneers of Old Ontario, by W. L. Smith 1923.
Here is a photo of a”Durham Boat”, mentioned by
Thomas.
Then there was the trip from Montreal to Port Hope. The
presence of rapids made this a difficult trip as well. They
traveled by raft with each person entitled to load 200 pounds
of goods, but they often had to transfer to a stage coach to
get around the difficult waters. the entire trip may have
taken 2.5 to 3 months to complete. And then there was the
problem of clearing the land, building a house, etc. The
Thornton family and the Simpson family traveled in this manner
landing in Port Hope and settling in that area prior to moving
to Clarke township.
Here is a short excerpt from Mary Ann Thorton describing life
in the bush (yes Durham County was heavily treed).
At one time the Bests went nine weeks without seeing another
living person. Their nearest neighbor was Nathaniel Powers
of Kirby. There was a foot path through the woods marked by
a blaze on the trees. When Mr. Best first came to his farm
his worldly possessions consisted of three pigs, an axe,
beetle rings and what he considered sufficient pork, flour
and potatoes to see he and his wife through until the next
harvest. (From: Out of the Mist: A History of Clarke
Township, p.24)
And here is a second, taken from her obituary.
Enduring the hardships incident to the early settlers they
eventually secured a competence and lived to see the
wilderness transformed into a flourishing agricultural
district dotted with churches and schools. Their nearest
neighbour for some time was the family of the late Nathaniel
Powers at Kirby, about two miles distant, the only road
being a foot path through the bush marked by the
“blaze” on the trees. At one time she and her
husband were nine weeks without seeing a living person
except themselves, when Mr. Powers, fearing the bears or
wolves had killed them, went to see and was glad to find
them well. (Orono News, April 13, 1889)
