HISTORY OF BOWMANVILLE
Part 32
By Mr. J. B. Fairbairn, P. M.
I do not know how it was that so many who were identified with the early settlement of this town came from Port Hope. There was quite a large number who found their way into Darlington after a short residence there. Port Hope had what accommodation some years before we were given the convenience and they made that their place of entry before coming west. This is how I account for it. Among the number who was destined to fill quite a space in the growing activity was the late Robert S. Manning, who located here somewhere about 1847. His family must have been amongst the very earliest arrivals who cast in their lot with the Port Hopers. My father knew them when he first saw that picturesque little village in 1819. The family were from Ireland and left in coming to this country one of the loveliest spots in all that island so famed for its beauty. It was the county of Wicklow and the valley where they lived, near the Avoca River as been embalmed for all time by Moore, the poet
in one of the sweetest of his lays.
"Sweet vale of Avoca, How calm could I rest.
In the bosom of shade that I love the best;
When the storms that we feel in this cold world shall cease
And our hearts like thy waters be mingled in peace."
Mr. Manning named his residence Avoca Cottage. They were from a good class in the land of their fathers. He was in early life deprived of his parents and was brought up and educated by William Furby, who was an uncle by marriage. It may seem foreign to my subject, still that gentleman had so much to do with things here that I think it in place to say a little about him. Mr. Furby established one of the first newspapers in the county of Durham and through all the viscisitudes of outrageous fortune it is still attempting to guide the Durhamites in political and other matters. It is called The Port Hope Guide. What little items of interests took place in this, then the next village of importance, west, were chronicled in that paper, so that he had a written intercourse with the people here. He was English by birth and the fact that he was bale to edit a newspaper shows that he was endowed with a good deal of talent and must have been fairly well educated. His son,
George M. Furby, never left the place of his birth and is the General Manager of the Midland Loan Society. Like his father he is a useful member of society. He also kept a cabinet shop.
Mr. R. S. Manning served an apprenticeship to that trade and to the printing as well. On coming to Bowmanville he took up the former, adding to it the undertaking, both of which he carried on for years. One of the Bigelow’s leased the corner where Mr. McMurtry’s store stood before the fire and put up a peculiar kind of structure on it. The lower storey was used for a tinshop and the upper part for a dwelling. Lumber was cheap and plentiful and in place of the ordinary clapboard they laid the boards flat one upon another and those when nailed together made a pretty solid wall. It was warm and stood the wear and tear of use well, finally being destroyed by fire. It was in those premises that Mr. Manning commenced operation. He soon became the leading man in that line and did a large trade both in town and country. A word is often used pregnant with meaning to describe an honest man, that is, upright and he was entitled to have the epitaph applied to
him. He soon got the confidence of the people and retained it. There was any amount of geniality about him and he was always cheerful and bright. I might well call him a human magnet, for he had the power of drawing others about him. His shop was the headquarters of quite a cotrie of good fellows congregated there to enjoy the sweets of conversation, to criticize the doings of the populaces and to discuss the affairs of the town and nation. It was a kind of "Pelican Club", only differing in this, that the game was played by the head and not by the hand. Many a yarn was spun and good story told there.
Mr. Manning sold out to Mr. W. P. Prower and went into the hardware line.
Mr. Thos. Bassett at the time was doing a flourishing business in the stand now occupied as a grocery store by Mayor Tait. This he bought and by shrewd management, he was able to retire and thus become relieved of care and anxiety at a comparatively early age. He was only one of the very few who had made money during the boom, being wise enough to unload the lands he held before the market went under. He was small in stuature but well knit and as active in his movements as it was possible for one to be. He was a scientific wrestler and was quite willing to try a clinch when the opportunity offered. What the size of the contestant might be was a matter of indifference. The little Japs remind me of him. After he was sixty years of age, he being at the time in his son George’s store, a farmer from Darlington, a much younger man, happening to be there, got speaking of his prowess and ability in such feats of strength and ability and offering to show his senior how ea
sily he could throw him. R. S. agreed to gratify him and give him one chance. No sooner said than done, for this agriculturist found himself on the floor and had to shake the dust off his back.
Mr. Manning was a staunch supporter of te Episcopal Church and one of the most liberal contributors they had. In politics he was a Conservative but not a hardshell. He was willing to give to those opposed to him credit for equal honesty in taking opposite ground to any opinion he expressed. The Masonic Fraternity had in him a living exponent of their principles. The square and compass were not simply symbols but entered into his daily intercourse with his fellow members and with his fellow men. He remembered the poor. Of the two living sons, William is in the United States. Robert has been most successful in Winnipeg and is at the head of a large coal company and has, I am told, made an ample fortune.
Another Celtic family from Scotland came into the village in 1842. The name itself smells of the highlands – McTavish. I do not wonder at the clan being so proud of it, so many members having distinguished themselves in every country and ____. In the varied pursuits of life they have been found in large numbers doing valiant service and Canada has had its full share of benefit from many members who have borne this truly highland surname. They were strong in numbers, healthy and vigorous. They at first had intended locating in Chatham, Ontario, their friends the McVicar’s having taken up quarters in that fertile section of the province. They were closely related, being full cousins of Rev. Dr. H. McVicar, who worked with such great advantage in educating so many young men for the ministry, holding as he did the principalship of the Presbyterian College, Montreal, and Malcolm who was among the distinguished educationists here and at one time in Brockport, New
York. His achievements in the various schools under his management led up to the principalship of the renowned McMaster College, Toronto. How they found their way to this particular spot of the earth came about through the influence of a young woman. You know there is generally a woman under every rare occurance. One of the sons, Neil, fell in love with a Miss Galbraith. She was living at home with her parents on the farm in the fourth concession where Mr. James Veale is now running business. To be near his lady love, he induced the mother to pitch her tent in this now flourishing town, then a small village. She did so and bought the property on King St. which for so long became the homestead and which was sold on the old lady’s demise to Mr. R. W. James. Mrs. McTavish was a particularly good specimen of her country women. A comely matron with a strong personality – one born to rule if only within a limited sphere. I can fancy with what pride she would look on her sturdy
offspring. There were six sons and two daughters and not a weakling in the blood. Two of the brothers, Edward and Donald, became partners and went into the business to which they were bred and for some time supplied the farmers with wheel vehicles and other articles which they required in telling the soil. Donald became quite noted for the manufacture of Scotch ploughs and plough points. He was strong and wholesome. If one dared use a comparison I would be inclined to place him alongside of some of the Scottish chiefs with which the literature of the Gaul abounds.
It happened in the olden time when the social glass was so universally used that he indulged with the others and if the blood coursed too freely and a misunderstanding arose with any of his companions resulting as it did in a combat, he was sure to be the victor. He was an excellent singer having been blessed with a fine tenor voice. For a long period, one decade anyway, he was the presenter in the Presbyterian church and led the devotions in the sanctuary with acceptance and edification. He married an aunt of R. B. Andrew, our whilom townsman who is so well known and so well like from the Alantic to the Pacific. Donald left Bowmanville to try his hand in Western Ontario; he afterwards moved to the United States where he died. Edward, my brother-in-law who married my only living sister, Elizabeth, - moved first to Woodville and then to Whitby, Ontario. About twenty five years ago they determined to take their young and numerous family to Manitoba which was
then coming into prominence as an outlet for the overflowing population of this province. They did so and guided by a kind Providence, took up lands in Morris, where they are now among the well to do leading citizens. Edward lived to see his family all grown up and living in his immediate neighborhood.
Mr. Robert Fairbairn McTavish, M.D., is in the village of Morris. For some reason he has never married and has become rich. Some seven miles from his office there is a large Minnonite colony. In the outset of his professional visits to them he found, notwithstanding their intelligence and high moral character, that their domestic habits, were of the most filthy description. He learned the Russian language which they speak and after he had obtained their confidence, he set himself rigidly to work to bring about a reformation and now they are living not like savages but civilized beings. He is a superior looking man and would attract attention in a crowd. He has two brothers also in Morris and one in Winnipeg. My two neices are living, - Mrs. Martyn, a widow in Los Angeles, California, and Mrs. McClenighan, ?amiota, Manitoba, at present with her son, Dr. Lorne Jackson, who like so many of the younger men in Manitoba has heaped up a surplus. His brother
Bruce, Barrister, and his wife have been this winter automobiling through California.
Referring again to the original, Hugh was a sea captain and after he came to this country followed the same avocation on the lakes, making his headquarters at Detroit. Jameswho as about my own age, became a medical doctor of repute. After practising for a short time in Ontario he finally put up his sign in Alpena, Michagan, where he passed out into the great beyond about tow years ago. Malcolm the younger is still at the old profession, now perhaps the oldest schoolteacher in the county. I do not mean as to age but of service. He is a walking dictionary, carrying in his mind a full recollection of men, women and events connected with the place since the day of arrival in Bowmanville. He is as active and useful as ever. May his bow log continue in strength. The two daughters, Amelia and Janet are still in the land of the living, peacefully and happily gliding like the rest of the older ones, down to the parting of the ways which leads to great and blessed
light in the future. All were Liberals in Politics and Presbyterians in religion. Neil, already referred to, could claim the honor, if such it can be called, of being the first resident who attempted to operate a machine shop run by water power. He was a skilled mechanic and had large views, had he only had the faculty of making things pay, but he was too generous and kindly in his disposition to get on under the existing circumstances. Shortly after arriving he bought the fifty acres from the Cubitts on the north side of Kingston road. It was afterwards sold to the Suttons. They for years had a brewery on it. The little rivulet that is still coursing its way down from the old Borland estate, now Mrs. J. C. Rowe and sons, was then quite a creek. He dammed it up, this giving him quite a pond, and erected a suitable shop and made rakes and sythes. I cannot say how long he continued his efforts, at any rate, he sold out and went to the west and I think went into farmin
g at which he continued to the end.
Next - Bowmanville and Darlington History Part 33
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