HISTORY OF BOWMANVILLE

Part 23

By Mr. J. B. Fairbairn, P. M.

How changed conditions are since 1838! Any one lucky enough to own a mill site on our small streams was supposed to be rich. At that time it was a valuable asset. The manufacture of flour was equal to a gold mine. Judging by the money that flowed into the coffers of those engaged in it. Large fortunes were made all over the country by those who followed that occupation.

Wheat was the great grain crop. It was very much here then as it is now in the great North-West-wheat was on the brain and notwithstanding the limited quantity of land under cultivation, an enormous crop was annually raised. Fall sowing was universally practised in the country with wonderful results. There was an acre of it sown in the village near where Thomas Brown lived. He was a leading mechanic and made money at his trade. Many of the building he put up are still standing and in use. Mr. Thos Short owns one of them. There was produced from this patch of good marketable grain sixty bushels. This is no fish story, but a fact. As the axe weilded by willing lusty men made large and larger inroads on the forest, the acreage brought under cultivation stretched out with ever increasing breadth over Clarke, Cartwright and Manvers township. The farmers pushed this branch to such an extent that the surplus they were enabled to sell was a source of untold wealth to them. This was shown by the removal of log barns and houses and in the substitution of good ones of wood, brick or stone.

The increase of the population kept pace with the general improvements going on. Bowmanville also sprang by leaps and bounds into a main centre where millions of bushels of this cereal was handled. Those who were engaged in the commerce and trade of the village were men of good standing, having such a reputation as to bring customers from long distances to get their supplies. How it came about is impossible to explain.

Was it the inevitable that seems to control our destiny which let Mr. John Brown who was born and raised in one of the West India Islands to leave that land of sunshine and tropical luxuriance to seek a cooler climate? The "Lady of the Snows" was his choice and he came to Canada deciding upon this pretty village as a spot in which to try his fortune. He opened a general store on the lot upon which the brick block stands now owned by Mr. David Davis, boot and shoe merchant, and Mr. C.M. Cawker & Son, butchers. It was a frame structure endways to the street on the west side of it. A dwelling house some distance back was also put up on the east of it. He soon made a good connection with the purchasing public and for quite a time he sold large quantities of goods. Had he been contented with fair success his future might have been a happier one. Ambitious to make a large fortune he went into what seemed the readiest and surest means of attaining that end -milling. He bought the site where the electric power houuse is now situated, north west part of town, and reclaimed it from the state of nature in which it then was. The operations involved in the movement were carried on with great vigor, and necessarily very large amounts of money were spent by him before he got the dam built, the mill up and running a road had also to be constructed and other heavy expenses incurred. It was a big undertaking and only a man with a bouyant disposition would have attempted it. The ground plot which was necessary to carry out the scheme had to be cleared and the stumps removed. Financial troubles soon over took him. He didn not readily succumb sticking to it as long as he possibly could but at least was compelled to strike his colours. He was a heavy creditor of the then leading wholesale establishment of Gillespie, Moffat & Co., Montreal, to whom he made an assignment.. He was a most extraordinary fellow, nothing could daunt him. After the failure he for some tim e drove a peddling wagon up and down the country selling every variety of stuff. During the boom in Winnipeg he turned up there as a speculator in real estate and made money. His two daughters are now living. They are in affluent circumstances, denizens of that great city of the west.

Another man becomes identified with the early business of the place through him. Nathaniel Wilson, father of Mrs. Duncan Beith, was taken into his employment and had the main charge for sometime. He came from near the village of Grafton, Northumberland County, and was a fine bright aspirant for success. He opened up a shop in the same line and for years did a thriving trade. He was by nature hopeful and took a large outlook believing in the future possibilities of the country. After giving for a time his attention to property he owned in Port Hope, he turned back again to a branch of his former occupation and had just gotten a factory running in Toronto where he was making up white goods for the wholesale houses, when the last call came. I met him early in life, Mrs. Wilson is occasionally a resident in Bowmanville and enjoys good health, spending her time among her daughters who are all married. Her two sons have taken fine positions in this country. Frank W ilson the eldest has been since boyhood in the employment of the Hudson Bay Company and will soon be chief factor. Robert Wilson was here last summer with some celebrated Indian Chiefs from the North West. He is doing a fine work for the Government I looking after those aborigines who are still children of the state.

The word circumstance crops up so often I am tempted to make a short comment on its meaning. The dictionary says it is something attendant on another thing of a similar kind. That events we describe as circumstancial are forged in a celestial crucible and thrown out indiscrimately on the world at large bringing disaster to one and prosperity to another is a hard thing to accept as a principle of belief. I am fully aware that in discussing it I am walking on thin ice and would not like to break through myself or cause anyone else to do so, as the cold chilling water of doubt lies very near the surface. That there is a special Providence over God’s children is clearly and distinctly ennunciated by the great Teacher. This doctrine appeals to our reason and sense of right, still when incidents come so systematically out of which others evolve seemingly according to the natural order of cause and effect it makes it hard for us at all times to exercise full faith in the constant oversight of the Heavenly Father.

Next - Bowmanville and Darlington History Part 24

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