The Colony Settlers arrive
This year is the 200th anniversary of the first European settlement of the Peterborough area
The 1818 emigration of the Colony Settlers from Cumberland was an early example of assisted emigration to the Peterborough area. This was a community organized venture that centred around Alston, England, the highest town in England. Alston Moor is on top of the Pennines, the hills and mountains that are like the backbone of England; its police station proclaims itself “The highest court in the land.”
Alston was a commercial centre of the Alston Moor, an area of fine mixed agricultural land. Many of the farmers and their sons were employed in a widespread lead mining operation that was mined beneath their feet, but the commercial links stretched across northern England.
There were many adjustments made to reflect the end of a long century of war, mostly with France. There was a sudden reduction in the need for soldiers and sailors, and many regiments were disbanded. The years between 1815 and 1820 were considered the Radical Years or the miserable years. With less demand for war materiel, there was less demand for Alston lead.
Colonial Office officials saw advantages in promoting the settlement of disbanded soldiers. In Upper Canada, the area between Kingston and Ottawa. It was desirable to send British emigrants to Canada rather than the United States. A military presence might deter Americans; 1815 also marked the end of the War of 1812 on this continent.
Even though the Thomas W. Milburn Colony was a civilian project, its origins were tied with British policies related to settling military emigrants in the Rideau region. British assistance to emigration should be available to civilians as readily as to military people. As it happened, Alston was prepared to take advantage of these changes in British policy. The wider community surrounding Alston that arranged the details for the emigration of some local families to Upper Canada.
Helen Cowan, an historian of emigration in the 1930s, observed (41): “According to some few theorists, the vast undeveloped wastelands of the colonies could so be used for the good of the whole empire, of the landlords with overcrowded estates, of the manufacturers seeking new markets, of a government striving to quiet agitators, and of the colonies themselves which needed population.”
Lord Bathurst, the Colonial Secretary, informed colonial leaders to enlarge preparations for placing demobilized soldiers.
His office had a document encouraging emigration on “Settlers Proceeding to Canada” by November 1813, and Lord Liverpool, the prime minister, gave his sanction in January 1815. After meeting some resistance in Parliament, the plans for 1815 were scaled down. Notices appeared in Edinburgh newspapers beginning February 25; this was the first notice since 1749, according to Cowan.
The first printed circular letter promising free transportation and land was sent to applicants on February 23, 1818. The conditions were that grants of 100 acres for each settler would only be made to those in groups of at least 10 who locate upon the land granted.
To ensure compliance, each applicant had to pay £10 for each settler, refundable after the settlers are located on their land.
Milburn wrote to the Colonial Office and the reply came on April 9. Milburn was to send the list of intended settlers, and the deposit Money to Lord Bathurst. The note also said, “Tonnage has been ordered for their conveyance from Whitehaven to Montreal and his Lordship trusts they will be enabled to sail so as to arrive as soon as the River St. Lawrence is navigable.”
Three groups, including the English group of 19 families from Alston, Cumberland, accepted the Colonial Office terms.
The Navy arranged the tonnage for the passage, and agents for transport were at the launch in Whitehaven on 17 May. The Navy billed the Colonial Office £597 1s. 9d.
The Cumberland settlers sailed on the Jason from the port of Whitehaven, only a week or so after the boat had been built. The ship sailed to Quebec City with 110 passengers, of whom 102 had come from Alston and its suburbs.
The road to Whitehaven is mostly downhill, steeply to Penrith, and more gently to Whitehaven, a distance of about sixty miles.
The British government agreed to give 100 acres to each adult male member of the group, and to refund the settlement duties if they made improvements within five years of reaching their land.
The group travelled from Port Hope mostly by water, as there were no roads until the 1840s; the women and children stayed in Port Hope until 1819, and the men established a group home on the triangle that is still evident at the base of the Communication Road, now known as Chemong Road. After the winter they helped each other to build their first homes, shanties or small log cabins, on their respective 100 acre lots which stretched along Communication Road for a few miles.
An historical stone monument was erected around 1992 by members of the Peterborough Historical Society working with Smith Township Historical Society. Gerry Stephenson was the lead volunteer on that project. The names engraved on the imposing stones were based on Thomas W. Poole’s information in his 1867 history of the county. The first settlers were William Dixon and five sons; Joseph Lee and two sons, John and George; John Smith and one son, Joseph; Robert Milburn; Thomas W. Milburn; Robert Walton; John Walton; Margaret Stephenson; John Smith and Walton Wilson.
The Cumberland Settlers came over a period of some 25 years. The first families left children in Alston, where the extended families ensured they were educated before emigrating. This differs from chain migration in which subsequent immigrants come to areas settled by friends, neighbours and family because the initial plan included the idea they would come after completing their education. There may have been chain migration as well. Thomas Hetherington and Thomas Archer brought their families from Alston in 1828 and 1831.
When the Milburn Colony Settlers arrived in Smith Township in the late summer of 1818, they were the first European settlement in the area north of Rice Lake. Settlement was opened after a British treaty with the First Nations. Parts of Smith were surveyed between May and August 1818, just in time for the arrival of the settlers.
A “Memorial from emigrants of Smith Township” addressed to Earl Bathurst at the Colonial Office and dated November 3, 1818 adds useful details. “We the undersigned Individuals belonging to the Colony of Mr. Thos. Milburn from Alston in Cumberland … sailed on the Brig Jason Cap’t White from Whitehaven on the 17th May last.” The undersigned varies from Poole’s list and the list on the monument: John Smith; Walton Wilson; William Dixon; Thomas Moor; John Bailes; Joseph Lee; Jonathan Stephenson Husband of Mary; Robt Milburn; John Walton Husband of Mary Walton; and John Walton.
As well, the letter mentions that Mary Lee and her husband, part of the Colony, were living in Montreal where he was “working on some Public Works there.” There are variations from what was placed on the Smithtown monument on Parkhill.
The Colony Settlers, as they selfidentified in this memorial, had expected to receive £206, which was their deposit money, as well as half the expenses, £86.3s. for getting them and their luggage from Montreal to Smithtown, which was supposed to be paid back when they were located on their lands.
The Government at York “has given us very little Information when the Money can be paid.” Instead, the Government “has given Mr. Milburn an order to draw the Money in London.” The problem with that suggestion was that the Colony Settlers had already spent the money, and the refund from London would be much slower than from York (now Toronto). As well, Milburn was in England, and was not expected back in Smith until the fall of 1819.
The refund of the deposit money came before March 1819. They also got a refund of the settlement duties in 1828 after prompting provincial government officials.
When Captain Basil Hall and his wife visited Peterborough in 1827, they strolled over to visit these first settlers in Smith Town who were living in “ease and comparative affluence” only nine years after their arrival.
Elwood Hugh Jones, professor emeritus of History at Trent University and Archivist, Trent Valley Archives, can be reached at elwood@trentvalleyarchives.com or at Trent Valley Archives, 567 Carnegie Avenue, 705-7454404. Trent Valley Archives is participating in the Selwyn Heritage Week event today, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Niels Pind Room, Lakefield-Smith Community Centre in Lakefield.