CONTENTS
-Cumberland Gazetteer
-Travels of Fur Traders and Missionaries
-Township Statistics
-Churches
-Settlement Duties
-Old Cumberland Vignettes

(Please advise me of other 'interesting' facts and stories.)

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 CUMBERLAND GAZETTEER; 
-Bearbrook (20-5c)
-Bearbrook Stn (another name for Vars)
-Borromee (P/O 1886-1915; near 5-11c)
-Canaan (had P/O in 1879)
-Carlsbad Springs (16-w11c)
-Cathartic (i.e. purgative waters; see Carlsbad Springs)
-Chartrand (P/O 1900-1915; near 3-9c)
-Cotton's Corners (9-9c)
-Creighton's Hill
-Cumberland Mills (Cardinal Creek 7km E of Orleans, P/O 1875-1877)
-Cumberland Village (P/O 1839; 14-1c os)
-Daniston (hwy 17 at 10th P/O 1892-1915)
-Dickenson (e˝28-9c, P/O 1883-98; ex-Veighton) 6mi from Eastman’s Sp's on Cda Atlantic RR
-Dunlop's Hill (see Vinette's Hill)
-Eastman's Springs (hotel owner's name at Carlsbad Springs)
-French Hill (3-5c)
-Lavalee (8-11c)
-Leonard (13-5c)
-Martins Corners (25-1c os)
-Massey's Corners (11-Ac)
-Murray's Hill
-Navan (10-9c)
-Notre-Dame-des-Champs (6-w11c)
-Orleans (37-1c os)
-Osborne (P/O 1839-c1856 or 1856-1863); see Cumberland)
-Princess Louise Falls
-Sarsfield (10-4c)
-Vars (25-7c)
-Veighton (P/O 1864-1883; 1st post-master was John McVeigh; became Dickenson)
-Vinette's Hill

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 TRAVELS OF FUR TRADERS AND MISSIONARIES. (up the Ottawa) 

Nicholas Garry, a Deputy Director of the HBC, and Simon McGillivray, of the old NW Fur
  Trading Co, did a tour up the Ottawa in 1821.
‘From the Long Sault to the Chaudiere (approx 60 miles), the banks on both sides are low but
 present a most beautiful appearance, with the trees looking as they have for all the ages.
  This is nature in all its beauty, wildness and decay.’
He also says the mosquitoes were terrible, and describes the Rideau Falls.
 'Diary of Nicholas Garry'  NLC  AS 42 R6 Fol  1900 Sec'n 2 pp.94/5; and MIC.F CC4 06955 


Claude Jean Allouez, s.j.  (Jesuit Missionary in Cda)
 On the way into the Outaouac (Ottawa) Country, Aug 1665.
No sooner had I embarked than he (an Indian) put a paddle in my hand, urging me to use it and
 assuring me it was an honorable employment, and one worthy of a great captain.  I willingly
 took the paddle and, offering up to God this labour in atonement for my sins and to hasten those
 poor savages' conversion, I imagined myself a malefactor sentenced to the galleys; and, although
 I became entirely exhausted, yet God gave me sufficient strength to paddle all day long, and
 often a good part of the night.  But this application did not prevent my being commonly the
 object of their contempt and the butt of their jokes; for, however much I exerted myself, I
 accomplished nothing in comparison with them, their bodies being large and strong and
 perfectly adapted to such labours.  The slight esteem in which they held me caused them to steal
 from me every article of my wardrobe that they could; and I had much difficulty in retaining my
 hat, the wide rim of which seemed to them peculiarly fitted for defence against the excessive
 heat of the sun.  And when evening came, as my pilot took away a bit of blanket that I had, to
 serve him as a pillow, he forced me to pass the night without any covering but the foliage of
 some tree.
  When hunger is added to these discomforts it is a severe hardship, but one that soon teaches a
 man to find a relish in the bitterest roots and the most putrid meat.  God was pleased to make me
 suffer from hunger, on Fridays especially, for which I heartily thank him.
 We were forced to accustom ourselves to eat a certain moss growing upon the rocks.  It is a sort
 of shell-shaped leaf which is always covered with caterpillars and spiders; and which, on being
 boiled, furnishes an insipid soup, black and viscous, that rather serves to ward off death than to
 impart life.
  One morning we found a stag that had been dead 4 or 5 days.  It was a lucky accident for poor
 starvelings.  I was given a piece of it, and, altho its offensive odour deterred some from eating
 any, hunger made me take my share; but my mouth had a putrid taste, in consequence, until the
 next day.
  Amid all these hardships, whenever we came to any rapids I carried as heavy burdens as I
 could; but I often succumbed under them, and that made our savages laugh and mock me, saying
 they must call a child to carry me and my burden.  Our good God did not foresake me utterly on
 these occasions, but often wrought on some of the men so that, touched with compassion, they
 would, without saying anything, relieve me of my chapelle (group of sacred vessels for
 celebration of the mass) or of some other burden, and would help me to journey a little more at
 my ease.
  It sometimes happened that, after we had carried our loads and plied our paddles all day long,
 and even 2 or 3 hours into the night, we went supperless to bed on the ground or on some rock,
 to begin over again the next day with the same labours.  But everywhere the Divine Providence
 mingled some little sweetness and relief with our fatigue...
   PAC p.393 


‘Diary of John MacDonell’
‘I’m told this grave marker is for a young Christian Indian who drowned in attempting to run the
 rapid in his canoe.’ (near Long Sault, i.e. Dollard des Ormeaux, above Pt Fortune on the
 Ottawa R.).
  John was b.1768 in Scot; SO John, retired to Pt Fortune. pp.71/72; in ‘Five Fur Traders of the
 NW’ by Gates, CM (editor), Minnesota Historical Soc, 1965.

It was the custom among the voyageurs to erect a cross to mark the grave of any of their number
 who met his death along the trail.  When passing such crosses the voyageurs always pulled off
 their hats, made the sign of the cross & repeated a short prayer. “Journal of Voyages & Trails in
 the Interior of N.A.” by Harmon, Daniel. Toronto 1911; pp.6,9


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 TOWNSHIP STATISTICS. 

1831 Assessment    (from 1850 Twp Minute Bk)  Assessor= John Edwards
Chairman of Court= Geo Hamilton; 20 Apr.  All on Old Conc 1

McLaughlin, Pat;   lot 1, 46 unc, 4 cult, 1 cow; 1m 1f  2 girls (under 10yrs)
Lough, Wm sr;       lot 1, 2 oxen, 2 cows, 1m 3 boys (under 10) 1f  2 girls
Buck, Joe;              lot 2, 1 cow, 1m  4b 1f  3g
Wallace, John;        lot 3, 96 unc, 4 cult, 1 cow, 1m  3b 1f 1g
Beckworth, Walt;   lots 5/6, 330 unc, 70 cult, frame hse, 1 saw, 1 horse, 4 ox, 1 cow; 1m 1b 1f 2g
Orton, Nathan;       lot 10, 1m 1b 1f  3g
Dunning, Wm;       lots 12/13, 320 unc, 80 cult; hewn timber house, 2 cows, 3 young cattle
Faubert, Amiable;  lot 14, 182 unc, 18 cult, hewn log house, 1 horse, 2 ox, 3 cows, 1m 3b 3g
Dunning, Wm P;    lot 17, 193 unc 7 cult, 1 cow, 2 young cattle; 1m 1b 1f  1g
Cameron, John;      lot 18, 188 unc 12 cult, hewn log house; 2 horses, 2 ox, 3 cows  1m 3b 1f 1g
Mann, Wm;            lot 20, 194 unc 6 cult; 2 oxen, 2 cows, 1m 3b 1f 1g
La Flamme, Joe


1832 Assessment; 15 families;  32m over 16; 31m under 16; 25f over 16; 28f under 16
    3 horses, 20 oxen (best for heavy clearing), 18 milch cows, 9 cattle

Improved acreage to total settled;
1837; 513/8067
1838; 533/8765
1839; 749/9211
1840; 831/9956
1841; 926/9811
1842; 1080/10909
1843; 1184/12440
1844; 1377/10072
1845; 1616/9038
1846; 1822/12889
1847; 2033/11224
1848; 2450/14740
1871 Agric census totals  137 owners, 14 tenants, 2 employees
 . . spuds 19,063 bu (187 acres); turnips 924 bu; peas 2583 bu; beans 130 bu; spring wheat 3266
 bu (291 acres); oats 13301 bu; rye 24 bu; barley 170 bu; buck wheat 108 bu; corn 412 bu; hay
 1593 tons (1697 acres)
 . . 52 orchards/gardens 1539 bu (5211 acres); grapes 80 lbs; apples 368 bu; other fruit 140 bu
 . . maple syrup 150 lbs; tobacco 141 lbs; hops 41 lbs
 . . horses over 3yrs  292; 91 colts/fillies; 7 working oxen; 538 milch cows; 376 other horned
 cattle; 893 sheep; 350 pigs.  Slaughtered; 173 cattle, 465 sheep, 382 pigs, 57 musk rats; 15 deer.
 . . butter 4352 lbs; cheese 708 lbs; honey 1655 lbs (190 hives); wool 3388 lbs; 75 yds of cloth
 . . 574,000 cu ft of sq white pine, 10,000 red pine, 63,000, tamarac, 1000 birch or maple,
 1000 elm, 141,000 other squared, 19,047 pine logs, 2,927 spruce; 5,294 cords firewood

 ETC

Cumberland was created a township in Russell County in 1799.  It was named after Prince Ernest
 Augustus (1771-1851), the 5th son of King Geo 111. (Not to be confused with his grt uncle,
 'Butcher' Cumberland of Culloden infamy).  The Prince had became the Duke of Cumberland
 (a County in N'n England), in 1799.

The 4 twps were formed into the single municipality of Russell in Jan 1850 but this was reversed
 in Dec 1850.

Council for the United Co's of Prescott and Russell, in Feb 1847, required every man of age
 21-60 to work 1 day/year (or pay 2s6p for a substitute).

The first road to open up the south shore of the Ottawa River was completed c1850.  Originally
 called 'the L'Orignal-Bytown Rd', it  linked the little villages that huddled on the banks whose
 only means of communications had been by canoe and river steamer.  It also brought in a new
 tavern (where the road crossed the Gloucester boundary) to add to the two previous ones; near
 the Cumberland Village ferry wharf, and another near Bearbrook.

The milk industry began c1885 when creameries began to appear.

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 CHURCHES. 

--Cumberland Old Kirk; built 1823 in Cumb. Village, Rev Geo Bell.  Destroyed by fire 1878.
--St Andrews Presbyterian in Cumberland Village was built 1836, Rev John McEwan.
--Methodist services were held in a frame house donated in 1862 by Mrs Jessie Wilson.
   They later went to Bearbrook.
--Bearbrook Anglican  c1845; present stone one built 1900
--Plymouth Brethern
--Anabaptist
--RC mission was established Oct'48 (just N of French Hill, on Robitaille land).  The missionary
 was Father John Brady.  The 1st services in Cumberland were in the Giroux residence on Market
 St.  Mr Foubert offered land in Cumberland Village in 1855 to Father FR Michel from of
 Buckingham).  The Cumb. chapel burned down in 1866.  Father Almeras from Curran (1858).
  Father G Ebrard in 1860.  In 1861 Father Onesime Boucher from St Eugene, built a new chapel
 and presbytery, but both were destroyed by arson in 1866 and then services moved to Clarence
 Creek.  James Morin donated the land in Cumberland where the present church stands.

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 SETTLEMENT DUTIES. 

Settlers were given a location ticket.  They had 2 years to clear half of the road in front and rear
 (altho it appears they had only to do the front road), cut down, clear and fence 5 acres along the
 front of each 100 acres (altho it was considered adequate to cut down, without clearing, a 1
 chain depth of land along both front and rear; and even then it seems the front was adequate);
 and build a 16x20 dwelling house.

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 OLD CUMBERLAND VIGNETTES. 

'A few days ago, an Italian minstral was arrested on the Ottawa River, on suspicion of having
 committed a robbery, from having, when in liquor, exhibited a number of Bank bills of 100 and
 50 dollars amounting altogether to $900, which he wished to exchange for gold; the bills were
 also suspected to be forgeries.  On enquiries in Montreal they are discovered to be good, and the
 man has been enabled to satisfy the Magistrates, that the money he possessed was the wealth he
 had acquired during 10 years absence from his home, during which he has traversed almost
 every part of this continent, with no other means of acquiring money than a monkey and a hand-organ.'
 Montreal Gazette, 14 June 1834. 

Vars; wanted to continue using the name Bearbrooke but it was already officially allocated.
  So thye took 1st letter of the 4 orig families; McVeigh, Armstrong, Rowan and Smith