Upper Canada

“ There is a quiet, lethargic, old-world air about the country, contrasting strangely with the bustling, hurrying, restless progress of Upper Canada. Though the condition of the habitans is extremely unprofitable to themselves, it affords a short rest to the thinking and observing faculties of the stranger, overstrained as they are with taking in and contemplating the railroad progress of things in the New World. ”

“ The natural advantages of the Province of Upper Canada are inferior to none on this side of the Atlantic; there can be no separate interest through its whole extent. The British form of government has prepared the way for its speedy colonization ”

“ The British Provinces of North America, especially Canada West,—formerly called Upper Canada,—in climate, soil, productions, and the usual prospects for internal improvements, are equal, if not superior, to any northern part of the continent. And for these very reasons, aside from their contiguity to the northern part of the United States,—and consequent facility for the escape of the slaves from the South,—we certainly should prefer them as a place of destination. ”

“ In Upper Canada it was 104 per cent. from 1841 to 1851. Upper Canada exhibited in forty years nearly four times the increase of the United States in fifty years. Even the population of Lower Canada increased 90 per cent. from 1829 to 1854. In a table in the same work it appears that the Irish in Lower Canada were more than double the English and Scotch together, and that they equalled both in Upper Canada. The writer says:—
“The ‘World’s Progress,’ published by Putnam, of New York,—a reliable authority,—gives the population and increase of the principal cities in the United States. ”

“ Upper Canada has grown to be the largest and wealthiest province in British America, and although improvements around the Bay have continued to increase, yet westward the bulk of the immigrants have found a home, so that this section no longer holds so important a position. Nevertheless, as in former years, so now, the Bay country may be regarded as the garden of Western Canada. Long since the wilderness has become a fruitful field, and the fertile land has returned to the toiler a full reward. ”

“ There is no intention or desire to clothe the founders of Upper Canada with a character to which they are not entitled, to suppress in any respect facts that would tend to derogate the standing of the loyalists. ”

“ Watching the whole night in the surrounding hills, they keep up a concert which truly "renders night hideous;" and bullfrogs in countless numbers from adjacent swamps, with an occasional "To-whit, to-whoo!" from the sombre owl, altogether make a native choir anything but conducive to calm repose. And yet, amid such a serenade, with a few boughs for a bed, and the gnarled root of a tree for a pillow, did many of our fathers spend their first nights in the wilderness of Canada.
The first settlers of Upper Canada were principally American colonists who adhered to the cause of England. ”

“ Settlements in Upper Canada commenced at several points, in each settlement were a few leading men, half-pay officers, or those who had held important positions during the Revolutionary war, with a good sprinkling of personal friends and relatives. At the capital, those were in excess. These leading men throughout the Province were in the most cases closely united by consanguinity and marriage; and soon became even more closely identified in interest—​forming a strong political body, which derived its life-blood from the Executive. ”

“ The material condition of the provinces—especially of Upper Canada, which now became the first in population and wealth—kept pace with the rapid progress of the people in self-government. The population of the five provinces had increased from about 1,500,000, in 1841, to about 3,200,000 when the census was taken in 1861 The greatest increase had been in the province of Upper Canada, chiefly in consequence of the large immigration which flowed into the country from Ireland, where the potato rot had caused wide-spread destitution and misery. ”

“ Lawrence, and throughout that portion of our possessions which is known as Lower Canada, are necessarily, from the improved condition and more numerous population of that province, on a larger scale and of better appointment; but in Upper Canada, where the traces of civilisation are less evident throughout, and become gradually more faint as we advance westward, the fortresses and harbours bear the same proportion In strength and extent to the scantiness of the population they are erected to protect. ”

“ The lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, General Hunter, was anxious to improve the communication in that province, and opened correspondence with Heriot on the subject. [157] Heriot laid the lieutenant governor's proposition before the postmaster general with his warm commendation. He pointed out that the rapid increase in the population, the salubrity of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, all encouraged the belief that Upper Canada would soon become one of the first of the British settlements in North America. ”

“ Once granted responsible government, and the liberty to make her own mistakes. Upper Canada went ahead. The population rose to 952,004 in 1851 and to 1,396,091 in 1861. Politically she found Lower Canada an uneasy yoke-fellow. The equality of representation, granted at the union, at first unfair to Lower Canada, became still more unfair to Upper Canada, as her population first equalled and then surpassed that of her sister province. The Roman Catholic claim to separate state-aided schools, at length conceded in 1863, long set the religious bodies by the ears. Materially the province prospered. ”

“ THE OBSTACLES TO ADVANCEMENT. In the section devoted to the first years of Upper Canada there has much been said having reference to the growth and prosperity of the Province, and advance of civilization, but something remains to be told which requires particular notice, and without which our sketch would not be complete.
The privations endured, and hardships overcome by the pioneers, tended to make them careful and prudent, and no doubt led to the more permanent prosperity of their children. As years wore away, comforts began to reward their toil and patience. ”

“ It will thus be seen that in the cities of Canada, those in the Upper Section of the Province contribute less, in proportion to their population, than do those in the Lower Section; while in the rural parts, Upper Canada contributes a larger number for each 1,000 inhabitants than does Lower Canada. ”

“ Lower Canada was inhabited chiefly by French Canadians, speaking the French language, retaining their ancient laws, manners, and religion, wedded to old customs in agriculture, and stationary in their habits. Of its population, amounting to 890,000 in 1852, nearly three-fourths were of French origin, the remainder being composed of emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland and other countries, while in Upper Canada the number of French was under 27,000. ”

“ Must we not search for a more powerful cause of peculiarity as a people, in some other channel. A natural one seemingly presents itself. The growth of a nation, as the growth of a tree will be modified by its own intrinsic vitality, and at the same time by external circumstances. Upper Canada was planted by British heroes of the American Revolution. It arose out of that revolution. The first settlers were U. E. Loyalists. The majority of the original settlers were natives of America, and brought up in one or other of the provinces that rebelled. ”

“ In 1791, when the former province of Quebec was divided into the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, Upper Canada contained about ten thousand inhabitants, chiefly Loyalists, who, as noted elsewhere, when the United States threw off allegiance to Great Britain, sought new hope in the wilds of Canada ”

“ And it is thought—likewise correctly—that the great resources of Upper Canada, were that province too a State, would become greatly more available than they now are: its population would increase; its cities and towns enlarge; and every man having an acre of land, or a lot in a town in it, would become much better off than he is at present. ”

“ Potash, from 1800 to about 1840, brought some $40 per barrel in Upper Canada, and with the fur trading helped to make wealth for my grandsire and others.
On the breaking out of the war of 1812, between Britain and the United States, the settlers in Upper Canada were generally on the high road to prosperity, cultivating a land as fertile as any under heaven outside the valley of the Nile, and with less waste land than in any country of like extent. ”

“ At the close of the war immigration increased, sturdy settlers coming into the country both from the British Isles and the United States. The settlement of the wild lands, the clearing of the forests and the building of roads went on apace; an era of prosperity and wealth succeeded as peace became assured.
The most thriving industry was that of the lumberman, awaiting whose axe lay the magnificent forests of timber which covered so large a portion of Upper Canada. ”

“ The French Canadians remained where they were. Most of the new Anglo-Canadians settled in the Maritime Provinces or moved west into what is now Ontario. A few settled in rural Quebec on lands outside the line of seigneuries. The Eastern Townships, that part of the province lying east of the Richelieu and nearest the American frontier, absorbed many English, Irish, and Scots, as well as a good many Americans who were attracted by cheap land. Ontario, or Upper Canada, received still more Americans, who were to be a thorn in the side of the British during the War of 1812. ”

“ The magnificent districts adjoining Lake Huron, the Georgian Bay, and Lake Simcoe, are only just being brought into notice; and of the fertile valley of the Ottawa, which it is estimated would support a population of nine millions, very little is known. Every circumstance that can be brought forward combines to show that Upper Canada is destined to become a great, a wealthy, and a prosperous country. ”

“ Turning to Upper Canada, we find a fact no less important, and quite as antagonistic to the theory. In consequence of the American Revolutionary war, some twenty-five or thirty thousand United Empire Loyalists were forced, or induced, to seek a home in the Canadian wilderness. Many of these were descendants of those who had first peopled New Holland. A large number settled along the St. Lawrence and the Bay of Quinté. In the main, indeed, almost altogether, until very recently, these old settlers have intermarried. ”

“ It is true that a great many English settlers had arrived, and had settled upon different farms; but as the French settlers had already possession of all the best land in Lower Canada, these new settlers were obliged to go into or toward Upper Canada, where, although the land was better, the distance from Quebec and Montreal, and other populous parts, was much greater, and they were left almost wholly to their own resources, and almost without protection. ”

“ In Upper Canada, a very small proportion (perhaps less than a tenth) of all the land thus granted, has been even occupied by settlers, much less reclaimed and cultivated. In Lower Canada, with the exception of a few townships bordering on the American frontier, which have been comparatively well settled, in despite of the proprietors, by American squatters, it may be said that nineteen-twentieths of these grants are still unsettled, and in a perfectly wild state. ”

“ Thousands went to England, many more thousands emigrated to the British West Indies, Nova Scotia, and what is now New Brunswick, and large numbers were attracted to the rich farm lands in that territory which was afterwards known as Upper Canada.
In the autumn of 1783 a great body of emigrants sailed from New York, and, coming around through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, wintered at Sorel, in the present province of Quebec. ”

“ In the progress of things towards this conclusion, the inhabitants of Upper Canada would imperceptibly be induced to form connections with their American neighbours, and, being unnaturally disjoined from Lower Canada, would seek to diminish the inconveniences arising by a more intimate intercourse with the adjoining states, leading inevitably to a union with that country. ”

“ This mode of traveling is preferred by large families and prudent settlers.
The conveniences of traveling then, as well as the time required, are so widely different from what we are accustomed to in this day, that we have to pause and wonder at the change which even fifty 143and sixty years have wrought. Even after Upper Canada had become somewhat settled, it was a momentous matter for a family to set out from the Hudson for Cataraqui, or the Bay Quinté, as they generally called the settlement in those days. ”

“ Nothing can be farther from the truth. Upper Canada especially, has quite outstripped, even the most prosperous of all the original States of the Union. A comparison of the statistics of the two countries shows this to be undoubtedly the case. The following paragraph, taken from a valuable little work by Dr. ”

“ We have knowledge of a vast number who attained to a great age. Of those who lived to an old age, “A Traveler,” writing in 1835 says of Upper Canada, “I often met the venerable in years.”
The children and grand-children of the early settlers live, in many cases, to as great an age as their fathers.
Descendants.—​While there were some among the first settlers of European birth, the majority were of American birth, and possessed the characteristics of the colonists of that day. ”