A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various
enrolled themselves in the militia under the temporary command of a Captain Patterson. A successful defence was out of the question, and Colonel Talbot, who would probably have been deemed an important capture, quietly walked out of the back door as the invaders entered at the front. Some of the Indians saw the colonel, who was dressed in homely, everyday garb, walking off through the woods, and were about to fire on him, when they were restrained by Captain Patterson, who begged them not to hurt the poor old fellow, who, he said, was the person who tended the sheep. The marauders rifled the place, and carried off everything they could lay hands on, including some valuable horses and cattle. Colonel Talbot’s gold, consisting of about two quart pots full, and some valuable plate, concealed under the front wing of the house, escaped notice. The invaders set fire to the grist-mill that the colonel had built in the township of Dunwick, which was totally consumed, and this was a serious loss to the settlement generally. Mrs. Jameson, who travelled in Upper Canada in 1837–38, has left us the following description of her visit to Port Talbot. Speaking of the colonel, she says, “this remarkable man is now about sixty-five, perhaps more, but he does not look so much. In spite of his rustic dress, his good-humoured, jovial, weather-beaten face, and the primitive simplicity, not to say rudeness, of his dwelling, he has in his features, air, deportment, that something which stamps him gentleman. And that something, which thirty-four years of solitude has not effaced, he derives, I suppose, from blood and birth, things of more consequence, when philosophically and philanthropically considered, than we are apt to allow. I had always heard and read of him as the ‘eccentric’ Colonel Talbot. Of his eccentricity I heard much more than of his benevolence, his invincible courage, his enthusiasm, his perseverance; but, perhaps, according to the worldly nomenclature, these qualities come under the general head of ‘eccentricity’ when devotion to a favourite object cannot possibly be referred to self-interest. Of the life he led for the first sixteen years, and the difficulties and obstacles he encountered, he drew, in his discourse with me, a strong, I might say a terrible, picture; and observe that it was not a life of wild, wandering freedom—the life of an Indian hunter, which is said to be so fascinating that ‘no man who has ever followed it for any length of time, ever voluntarily returns to civilized society!’ Colonel Talbot’s life has been one of persevering, heroic self-devotion to the completion of a magnificent plan, laid down in the first instance, and followed up with unflinching tenacity of purpose. For sixteen years he saw scarce a human being, except the few boors and blacks employed in clearing and logging his land; he himself assumed the blanket coat and axe, slept upon the bare earth, cooked three meals a day for twenty woodsmen, cleaned his own boots, washed his own linen, milked his own cows, churned the butter, and made and baked the bread. In this latter branch of household economy he became very expert, and still piques himself on it. To all these heterogenous functions of sowing and reaping, felling and planting, frying, boiling, washing and wringing, brewing and baking, he added another, even more extraordinary—for many years he solemnized all the marriages in his district. Besides natural obstacles, he met with others far more trying to his temper and patience. ‘He had continual quarrels,’ says Dr. Dunlop, ‘with the successive governors, who were jealous of the independent power he exercised in his own territory, and every means were used to annoy him here, and misrepresent his proceedings at home; but he stood firm, and by an occasional visit to the colonial office in England, he opened the eyes of ministers to the proceedings of both parties, and for a while averted the danger. At length, some five years ago, finding the enemy was getting too strong for him, he repaired once more to England, and returned in triumph with an order from the colonial office, that nobody was in any way to interfere with his proceedings; and he has now the pleasure of contemplating some hundreds of miles of the best roads in the province, closely settled on each side by the most prosperous families within its bounds, who owe all they possess to his judgment, enthusiasm, and perseverance, and who are grateful to him in proportion to the benefits he has bestowed upon them, though in many instances sorely against their will at the time.’ The original grant must have been much extended; for the territory now under Colonel Talbot’s management, and bearing the general name of the Talbot country, contains, according to the list I have in his own hand-writing, twenty-eight townships, and about 650,000 acres of land, of which 98,700 are cleared and cultivated. The inhabitants, including the population of the towns, amounted to about 50,000. ‘You see,’ said he, gaily, ‘I may boast, like the Irishman in the farce, of having peopled a whole country with my own hands.’ He has built his tower, like the eagle his eyry, on a bold cliff overhanging the lake. It is a long wooden building, chiefly of rough logs, with a covered porch running along the south side. Here I found suspended, among sundry implements of husbandry, one of those ferocious animals of the feline kind, called here the cat-a-mountain, and by some the American tiger, or panther, which it more resembles. This one, which had been killed in its attack on the fold or poultry-yard, was at least four feet in length, and glared at me from the rafters above ghastly and horrible. The farm consists of six hundred acres. He has sixteen acres of orchard-ground, and has a garden of more than two acres, very neatly laid out and enclosed, and in which he evidently took exceeding pride and pleasure. He described the appearance of the spot when he first came here as contrasted with its present appearance. I told him of the surmises of the people relative to his early life and his motives for emigrating, at which he laughed. ‘Charlevoix,’ said he, ‘was, I believe, the true cause of my coming to this place. You know he calls this the “Paradise of the Hurons.” Now I was resolved to get to paradise by hook or by crook, and so I came here.’ He added more seriously, ‘I have accomplished what I resolved to do—it is done; but I would not, if any one was to offer me the universe, go through again the horrors I have undergone in forming this settlement. But do not imagine I repent it; I like my retirement.’ ” He lived long enough to see the prosperity of his settlement fully assured. For many years prior to his death it appears to have been his cherished desire to bequeath his large estate to one of the male descendants of the Talbot family, and with this view he invited one of his sister’s sons, Julius Airey, to come over from England and reside with him at Port Talbot, which he did, but rusticating without companions or equals in either birth or education did not suit him, so he returned to England. Some years later a younger brother of Julius’, Colonel Airey, military secretary at the Horse Guards, came out with his family to reside at Port Talbot. The uncle and nephew could not get on together, so the uncle determined to leave Canada, and to end his days in the old world. He transferred the Port Talbot estate, valued at £10,000, together with 13,000 acres of land in the adjoining township of Aldborough, to Colonel Airey. Acting on his determination to leave Canada, he started, in his eightieth year, for Europe. He was accompanied on the voyage by George McBeth. Colonel Talbot remained in London somewhat more than a year, but finding London life somewhat distasteful to him, he once more bade adieu to society, and repaired to Canada, where he died on the 6th, and was buried on the 9th of February, 1853, leaving his estate, valued at £50,000, to George McBeth, and an annuity of £20 to Jeffrey Hunter’s widow. He was interred in the churchyard at Tyrconnel. A plate on the oaken coffin bore the simple inscription:
THOMAS TALBOT,
FOUNDER OF THE TALBOT SETTLEMENT,
Died 6th February, 1853.
We take leave of our worthy hero, in the words of an English song-writer:—
“God speed the stalwart pioneer!
Give strength to thy strong right hand!
And aid thee in thy brave intent
To clear and till the land.
’Tis men like thee that make us proud
Of the stubborn Saxon race:
And while old England bears such fruit
We’ll pluck up heart of grace.”
Barrett, M., B.A., M.D.—The late Dr. Barrett, who died on the 26th February, 1887, at Toronto, was the son of an English barrister, and was born in London, England, on 16th May, 1816. He was educated at Caen, Normandy, France. Coming to Canada in 1833 he engaged in the fishery business in the Georgian Bay, where he owned a fishing station and a vessel. In the spring of 1837 he accepted a position in a school at Newmarket. On the breaking out of the rebellion he joined the Queen’s Rangers, in which he filled the post of quartermaster of the regiment. Shortly after this he was married to Ellen McCallum,