Milburn Colony settlers put down Peterborough roots in 1818
First group of European pioneers arrived here 200 years ago, settling along what’s now Chemong Rd.
The first European settlers arrived in the new Smith Township during 1818 with British encouragement. The British had negotiated Treaty 20 with the local Anishinaabe, which opened the area north of Rice Lake.
The Milburn Colony settlers differed from other new arrivals in several respects. Their emigration and settlement in the new world was fashioned around collective family decisions supported by a broad community consensus. It also coincided with a shift in British colonial policy which briefly and half-heartedly supported government assistance to intending settlers in Canada. The conclusion of the Napoleonic wars, the final chapter in a century of warfare since 1690 that pitted France versus England led to massive reductions in the soldiers and sailors. However, there was little reason to trust the United States which had waged an annoying war, the War of 1812, which ended in January 1815.
The British policy of assisted emigration, a policy that had been redundant since the settlement of Nova Scotia in 1749, began as a military policy. In the case of Canada, it was best illustrated in the military settlement around Perth and Lanark. Military emigrants could provide support to the military in the event of American invasion. However, the British Colonial Office soon reasoned that non-military settlers could also provide support.
British officials considered the idea of assisting non-military settlement in 1813 and by February 1815 was advertising for applicants. The people of Alston, in northern England, were ready to apply. The town and the surrounding Alston Moor had thrived on lead mining. However, the opportunities to sell lead were hurt by several developments. There was less demand for bullets and lead was not protected in new tariffs. The community had accepted that migration was a possible solution for the town and had an emigration society to assist out migration. Thomas Milburn on behalf of the Alston community applied for the offered support.
On February 23, 1818, those few who had applied and had remained interested despite the British government’s lack of enthusiasm were sent the first printed circular letter promising free transportation and 100 acres of land for each settler head of household who was in a group of ten families, and who fulfilled the settlement requirements. To ensure compliance, each group had to pay £10 for each settler, refundable after the settlers were located on their land. The British government also offered to refund the settlement duties to those who made improvements within five years of reaching their land.
On April 9, Thomas Milburn sent a list of intended settlers and the deposit to the Colonial Office, headed by Lord Bathurst. The Colonial Office distinguished the Alston group from the three other successful applications as the “Thomas Milburn Colony of Settlers.”
The Navy arranged the tonnage for the passage, and agents for transport were at the launch in Whitehaven on May 17. The Navy billed the Colonial Office £597 1s. 9d.
The Cumberland settlers sailed on the Brigatine “Jason” from the port of Whitehaven, only a week or so after the boat had been built in Whitehaven. Whitehaven had been a significant port with piers, warehouses, a commercial district and some manufacturing. The port’s first major export was coal for Ireland, but later included tobacco from the American colonies. The “Jason” sailed with 110 passengers, of whom 102 had come from Alston and its suburbs and were destined for the new lands opening in the Newcastle District. It arrived in Quebec City by July 15.
Besides the two-month ocean voyage, the Milburn Colonists had to navigate difficult roads at both ends. From Alston to Whitehaven is about sixty miles downhill from 2000 feet above sea level to the harbour. The road to Penrith has many hairpin turns to compensate for the steep incline.
The group traveled in smaller crafts from Quebec to Montreal and up the St. Lawrence to Port Hope.
The women and children were left in Port Hope as the men headed to Smith Township to prepare new homes. They used a well-established Indigenous trail to Rice Lake and then travelled mostly by water to the head of navigation (at the foot of what is now Simcoe Street). From there they were able to follow the Chemong Portage to the foot of the Communication Road (now Chemong Rd. and Parkhill Rd.).
Here the men established a group home on the triangle from which the ventured up the Communication Road to build shanties on each of the group’s 100 acre lots fronting on the Communication Road, which was surveyed between May and August 1818.
The historical marker erected on Smith Town Hill, across from the group home, was erected in the 1990s and identifies nine families that were part of the Milburn Colony settlers. In my research, the number seems closer to 19, even allowing that some of the settlers of 1818 never stayed long enough to meet the Colonial Office conditions.
Alastair Robertson, the Alston historian, identified 11 heads of household, of whom five had been lead miners in Alston and the nearby places. He identified William Dixon as a miner of Leadgate; Robert Milburn, of High Nest; Jonathan Stevenson, of Nest; and William Walton, of Wanwood. Joseph Lee was both a miner and a mason, from Flatt. George Lee, of Sheepriggs, was a butcher while John Smith, of Alston, was a shoemaker. He also identified the homes of several others. Thomas Moore was of Knarsdale; John Walton of Low Leehouse; Robert Walton of Alston; and Walton Wilson of Jollyboard House in Alston.
The 14 names submitted by Thomas Milburn in his first report in 1815 were William Dixon; Joseph Lee; John Smith; Robert Milburn (17841857); Thomas Milburn (b. 1779); Robert Walton; John Walton; Johnathan Stephenson; Walton Wilson; Thomas Moores; John Bailes; another John Walton described as wife of Mary; Thomas Greenwell; and John Wilthew.
Most of these are mentioned in Thomas Milburn’s report to the Colonial Office in Nov. 3, 1818, when the settlers were seeking the financial support promised by the British government. “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.” These were 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.
The settlers 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. After some difficulty, they received the refund by March 1819.
Several of the Milburn settlers, fathers and sons, received land along the Communication Road. William Dixon. William Dixon (1762-1823) had five sons and a daughter who seem to have received land in their own right. John Dixon and Christine, who married James Campbell, were associated with lot 1 on the east side of Communication Road. Isaac Dixon was on the north half of Lot 3 on the east side. William Dixon (1808-1849) started a saw mill on Dixon’s Creek by 1830, on a broken lot concession west of Fairbairn.
Likewise, Joseph Lee and his sons John Lee and George Lee all settled on the Communication Road. It was likely George Lee who was working on public works project near Montreal in 1818.
When the Milburn Colony settlers arrived in Smith Township in the late summer of 1818, they were the first European group settlement in the area north of Rice Lake. They were also the first of many assisted emigration ventures, of which the most famous here were the 1825 Peter Robinson settlers.
When Captain Basil Hall and his wife visited Peterborough in 1827, they strolled over to visit these first settlers in Smith Town who, he said, were living in "ease and comparative affluence" only nine years after their arrival.
Elwood H. Jones, archivist at the Trent Valley Archives, can be reached at elwood@trentvalleyarchives. The Trent Valley Archives has over 700 archival collections relating to our area. Contact them at Trent Valley Archives, 567 Carnegie Avenue, at Woodland Avenue, 705-745-4404.