| Title: | Stewart, Frances to Beaufort, Louisa, 1822 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4726 |
| Collection | Revisiting Our Forest Home, The immigrant letters of Frances Stewart [J. L. Aoki] |
| File | stewart/8 |
| Year | 1822 |
| Sender | Stewart, Frances |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | housewife |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Upper Canada |
| Destination | Ireland |
| Recipient | Beaufort, Louisa |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | friends |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 2681 |
| Genre | settling, description of the land |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 1822: September 11 To Louisa [Beaufort], Ireland Wednesday night Sept’r 11,1822 My dearest Louisa By a letter which reached me on Monday the 9th from dear Harriet, I find it probable that this letter may come to you at poor old 37. This letter of Harriet's had a very quick passage. The last date was June 29. It was the most delightful, cordial to my spirits which were beginning to droop at the length of time which had passed since I heard of or from any one creature. Oh how I did devour it & how I have read and re-read it. The excellent accounts it contained of Bess & of the improvement in her own health are delightful. But my dearest Aunt Beaufort seems to be the stoutest of the 31 party now. This does truly rejoice my heart, & that she may be blessed with that strength of mind which helps to support herself, as long as she is permitted to remain with those to whom she is so dear is my constant prayer. What horrible accounts there are in the newspapers of the sufferings of the people in the west of Ireland! I am sure a number of people will come to this country which is truly a land flowing with milk & honey. There is no such thing as poverty. We have had very good opportunity of judging of this, as during our passage up from La Chine to Kingston, a distance of 173 miles, we slept every night, or at least several nights, at farm houses, & during the day, sometimes called at cottages to procure bread or milk. The week which we spent in this part of our travels was I think the most interesting of the whole voyage, & therefore I will give you a history of it. The first day nothing particular happened, except that it was the hottest day we had during our lives. No day has been half so hot since. We were in 4 open boats, sitting perched on our luggage exactly as soldiers wives sit in baggage carts. The Reid family filled two. We occupied a third, & a poor family who accompanied us from White Abbey were in the 4th, so that we were a formidable party, 27 in number. About 6 in the evening we reached "Les Cascades" 24 miles from La Chine where the Rapids began. The scenery all along was very beautiful but here it was magnificent, the water rushing over the great stones in that great river & appearing between different wooded islands was most beautiful and formed such a contrast to the smooth glassy Lake (I may call it) through which we have been sliding all day. Our boatmen were all French Canadians & could not speak a word of English & their language was so different from the French we are accustomed to, that we found it very difficult to understand anything they said, but they always understood our French. Whenever they came to a shallow place they stopped rowing & all took long poles with which they push the boats on by sticking one end into the ground or against a stone. When rowing they sang a great deal. Their songs had a very wild sound, not a bit like our old "Canadian boat song." There was an Inn at "Les Cascades" to which we all went & where we dined. The Innkeeper was an Irishman but indeed his accommodations were very bad. He said his best bedrooms were engaged by an officer & his family so our whole party were to divide two very small rooms between them. The female Reids 8 in number took one, we, the other. The male part of the Reids went to the hay loft which they said was clean & cool. The poor people slept in another hay loft. The officer who turned out to be Capt. Melville, an acquaintance of Tom's, told us that the beds were swarming with bugs, so we spread mattrasses of our own on the floor & lay down, but not to sleep, for not one of our party, from Tom down to little Bessy, could bear the bugs which we found crawling all over us & all over the walls & floors. Tom said he would go to the hayloft, so I did the same & had all the wee'ans carried out there, & never was a bed of down so delightful, nor never was sleep more refreshing than ours that night, on nice clean hay with our cloaks about us & the sweet air & the sound of the cascade which lulled me to sleep in the most charming way you can conceive. The next day we were to travel 4 miles by land as the Rapids were too violent for us to remain in the boats. We hired a waggon in which Mrs. Reid & four of her children, Tom & I & our 3 children, all stuffed. A cart containing the rest of the children & servants followed & the men & boys walked. Waggons are the sort of carriage generally used by gentlemen's families in Upper Canada. They are just a very large four wheeled cart with 2 seats like Gigs placed one before the other. The driver of course sits in the foremost & takes as many beside him as there is room for. We womankind took boat again at the end of 4 or 5 miles but the men & even Tom walked the whole day as we had a strong current against us, & the boatmen required to have the boats lightened. Tom walked that day twelve miles & was the foremost of the party the whole way. Our progress was very slow that day & we stopped at "Coteau du Lac" where there is a Port. We were advised to apply to Col. Nicholl who lives there for leave to spread our mattrasses in some military store room or some such place. So Tom & Mr. Reid introduced themselves to him & made their request. He was excessively civil & said that he could give us a room in his house which had been built for a kitchen but which was not used for one. So he shewed us into a nice clean light room more like a parlour than a kitchen. Here we were settling ourselves & giving the children their supper when Col. Nichol sent to beg that we would open a door which was between our room & another & make use of that other room also, as he saw how much too large our party was for one room. This was particularly amiable of him, for upon opening the door, we entered a very nicely furnished drawing room carpeted, curtained, sofa'd & book'd in a very pretty manner. The gentlemen & boys slept there & we females kept possession of the other room. I always placed my Mattrass exactly at the door that little Bessy might be cool, for she never could sleep unless the air was actually blowing on her. She was very ill & feverish poor little dear & generally started crying every half hour. The next morning we got up at half past three & were glad to lose a few hours of sleep that we might gain a few hours of coolness, for the sun was very very hot though not half so bad as the first day. We had a heavy shower about the middle of the day which cooled the air & drenched us completely, though we covered ourselves as well as we could by lying down under the tarpaulins that covered our luggage. We stopped for shelter at a post office, I forget where, & found shelter, but no fire was in the house at which we could dry our dripping garments, so we read a parcel of Kingston & Montreal newspapers, & when the rain ceased, returned to our respective batteaux & when we got to Charlottenburg we stopped at an Inn & dried our clothes, but there was great scarcity of fire every where, for in this hot season people keep their fires lighted as short a time as possible. Having dried ourselves we once more went to our batteaux & went on & on till nearly dark in the evening, & the boatmen at last stopped, but, alack a day, no house was near enough for us to sleep at. There was one in sight, but there was a marsh between us & it, & it would have taken up too much time to go round this marsh. So we determined to lay our mattrasses on the grass which was nice & smooth & to keep company with our batteau men who always sleep either in the boats or just beside them on the shore. They had already a blazing fire at which they were busily engaged cooking pea soup for their supper. Our party had another fire, not for cooking, but to keep the flies & insects from us which by the way never annoyed us much except one day before we came to Quebec. We laid our beds all round the fire. Over mine Tom made a sort of little tent of a sail & 3 of the long poles the boatmen use. This kept us quite dry & comfortable. But the Reids would not make a tent though they might have done so as easily as we did, & I think both Mr. Reid & James got colds which they still feel the effects of. Poor Mr. R. has been ill which has greatly altered his animated keen eye & energetic manner. All the Reids have been ill more or less of the same complaint, but nothing alarming. Thank God our family have escaped all sorts of illness. Except little Bessy, we have all been perfectly well since we left Ireland & she is now well again & regaining her good looks & spirits. But I must return to our travels. We all slept well & arose early to renew our tedious voyage of which I began to grow tired. The next morning we went on as usual passing along a country not so pretty or so interesting as that we had for some weeks been accustomed to. The banks of the river about Cornwall & for two or three following days was common land with a few loghouses & comfortable farm houses & some fine walnut & Hiccory trees, but I have not yet seen any of the magnificent trees I expected in this country where everything is on so great a scale. The day after our night spent on the grass grew very rainy & we were wet through all our clothes. I never was so wet in my life, so completely soaking with wet. However, the rain began towards evening & we had not long to sit in the wet boats. Even under us was all wet. I never saw such awfully heavy rain. About 6 in the evening we came to a little village, the name of which I forget. We found that the walkers of our party had gone into a house to dry themselves, so we all fled to the same house in a great hurry and found a most beautiful fire, but such cross people that they seemed quite angry at our going in the way of their tea making & venison frying, which occupied the entire attention of the very crusty old dame & her maid. They pushed us away from the fire whenever they wanted the kettle & did nothing but complain of the dirtying of the floor & the noise of so many children. At last after waiting a tedious quarter of an hour our gentlemen came with the good news that they had found hospitality & lodgings. It was now very nearly dark & we had to walk a good way splashing through the puddles & wet, & then up a lane full of cows & growling bulls. But we at last got to the farm house of Mr. Marsh & here we found Oh! such true hospitality. He was blowing up a fine fire to warm & dry us & was so active & thoughtful about all our little comforts that he left us nothing to wish for. He spread our bedding before the fire to air & his wife (who seemed, poor woman, in the last stage of a dropsey) brought us pans full of nice new milk & very excellent loaves of her own baking, the only bread we had tasted since we left Montreal, for I own, though bread was plenty in every house, it was not good in general. I was the only one of the party whose clothes were still wet, & my shift was clinging to my skin. So I retired to Mrs. Marsh's nice tidy little closet within her bedroom & changed all my habiliments. They have no family so the house is very small & they could only spare us the tiny kitchen floor to sleep on. But it was given with such a good grace that it made us all contented. My mattrass was very wet so I left it airing all night & went with Tom to the barn where there was plenty of clean straw upon which we spread our blankets & cloaks, & lay down as usual, without undressing which none of us has had the comfort of doing at night since we left Montreal. Maria & her children slept in the kitchen & she said that good natured Mr. Marsh got up every now & then to watch & turn the bedding at the fire. The next day he insisted on driving as many as liked to go in his waggon to the far end of the "Longue Saut." This is a rapid which lasts for 3 miles & very few pass up there in the batteaux. I preferred walking but sent Betty & the children with Mrs. Reid &her squad in the waggon. This day was not at all too hot. It was early & our walk was delightful, part of it through cleared farms & part through the woods, where we gathered quantities of nuts. When we slept in this manner at farm houses we had nothing to pay except for milk & bread which were the only provisions we required as we had cold meat with us & dined & lunched every day in the boats, so that our lodging cost us nothing. In our walk we had peeps of the river which were most beautiful. I find I am at the end of my paper long before I have come to the end of my week, so I will keep the rest for Anne Nangle. It is impossible to put so much in one letter so I will only say that we are all well this 13th Sept'r. Tom & Mr. Reid are gone to Douro to see whether they like it enough to settle there. I hope they are safe & well. I am living alone without any companions but the children for the first time in my life. I find every day much too short. I have often dined & drank tea with the Fosters who are really the kindest people that can be. Mrs. R takes me out to drive whenever I can join her & I have gone 3 or 4 times. I wish you could all have the pleasure of seeing how very comfortably we are fixed & how very well & comfortably we live. Oh how completely happy I should be if — you may guess that if — but I know it is indulging weakness to wish for impossibilities, or to expect perfect happiness here in this world. God bless you all. Give my most affectionate love to all my dear friends, beginning with the M party & extending any where that you know I love. Yours, F Stewart |
