Gordon as a eleven year old

Here is a picture of Gordon taken in 1926 when he was 11 years old. While he loved sports and likely dreamed of being the boxing champion of the world, he was also a quiet studious person who loved books. A good assortment of his books have survived, a testament, very likely, of their importance in his life. Books appear to have been a standard gift at Christmas. The year that he turned 12 his cousins Bill, June and Charlotte Simpson who lived on a farm almost immediately behind the McEwan farm, gave him Ralph Conner's The Sky Pilot In NoMan's Land. He also owned Conner's The Prospector. Robinson Crusoe had been a gift when he was seven. Horatio Alger appears to have been a favourite author with several of Alger's books being part of his collection.

Lionel Walne: Pauper/Apprentice

In the last blog I introduced Joseph Fulcher, the mole catcher, whose passage to Canada in 1831 was paid for by the Parish of Kettleburgh in Suffolk, England. A second family who were also part of that pauper emigration was that of Lionel Walne. Lionel was 11 years old when his mother died on December 19, 1811 and shortly thereafter. because his father could no longer care for him, Lionel was placed in the workhouse. Above is the entry notation for the day in January 1812 when 11 year old Lionel was committed to the House of Industry. Six months later, on the 19th of July 1812, Lionel left the workhouse to be apprenticed for five years to Mr. Charles Jackson a local farmer who likely was not much better off than his apprentices. Lionel spent several years working for Mr. Jackson, but when he was 17, Lionel was put in jail briefly for beating his master's horse. It is unclear whether this event was the trigger, or whether Lionel's apprenticeship was already complete, but shortly after the incident with the horse, Lionel left the employment of Mr. Jackson. Lionel married Elisabeth Webb in the parish church at Kettleburgh in 1821. It is not surprising, given their background, that neither of them could read or write and had to sign the church register with an X. It was their second child Eliza Ann who married Joseph Fulcher, who raised a large family in Downie Township, and who is Lois' great Grandmother. (Lois' paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Fulcher was the second daughter of Joseph and Eliza.) In 1831 the parish of Kettleburgh, in an act that was both charitable and self-serving, paid for 44 poor people to leave the parish and emigrate to Upper Canada. The Walnes and the Fulchers were part of that group. They settled near one another in Etobicoke Township. Thirteen years later, in 1844, Joseph Fulcher, along with his brother William bought Canada Company land in Downie Township. Joseph Fulcher and Eliza Ann Waun, who had known each other from childhood in Kettleburgh, and who had very likely crossed the Atlantic in the same chartered boat were married in London, Ontario. The picture of Joseph and Eliza, on the right, is unlikely to have been a wedding picture. It was taken by James Wilson, a photographer in St. Marys who does not appear to have been in business in the 1840's when Joseph and Eliza were first married and living in Downie Township. Whatever the occasion, however, the picture-taking was an important event, and this copy has survived for over 150 years as a testament to the tenacity of two pauper families who were part of a massive movement of immigrants to Upper Canada in the 1830's.

Joseph Fulcher : Mole Catcher

Lois' paternal grandmother was Elizabeth Fulcher, the daughter of Joseph Fulcher and Eliza Ann Waun. Joseph Fulcher had arrived in Canada as a teenager from Kettleburgh, a small impoverished parish in Suffolk on the east coast of southern England. The Fulchers would likely have left little trace on the records of that parish if it had not been for the English Poor Laws. The Poor Laws, which dated back to the reign of Elizabeth I established the principle that each parish was responsible for looking after its own poor. Because the money for this came from the landowners and from the parish church, it is easy to understand why residency examination committees were established to rule on which of the poor were legitimate members of the parish and thus deserving support. Joseph Fulcher, the mole catcher, a poor man with a wife and four children appeared before this committee in 1824. Evidently, Joseph had lived outside the parish for several years and needed to establish his rights as a legitimate resident. As can be seen in the document Joseph based his argument on the fact that both he and his parents had been members of Kettleburgh parish. We can presume that Joseph did get some poor relief and remained in the parish because eight years later, the parish paid the costs for Joseph and his family, along with Lionel Waun and family to emigrate to Canada. A total of 44 people came and, as a group settled in Etobicoke outside of Toronto. Years later, in 1845 Joseph married Eliza Ann Waun and together they moved to Downie Township.

Bethesda Sunday School - Possible Origins

These two paragraphs from an article by Ryan Taylor likely explain how Bethesda Sunday School began at a crossroads in Downie Township.


"Because Methodism had evangelism as its base, there was a tradition of Circuit- riding missionaries through out the province. Small churches were established even in remote villages. Tiny country churches sprang up at crossroads without any houses around them. They served the farming community in the vicinity.

The farmers in a given area would be glad to have their own church nearby, however small it was. They might also find themselves in a disagreement with their neighbours or the local preacher on some theological point and begin a new congregation. The result was a proliferation of these little log cabin churches dotted on back concessions."

I don't know if this accounts for the Sunday School being established on a 1/4 acre lot on the SE corner of Lot 6 Concession 12 on land first settled by John Edwards in 1854. At his death in 1862 the lot was subdivided into 8 pieces for his children. A short time later in 1865 the Sunday School was built. Could there be a connection between John's death, the splitting up of the land, and the establishment of the Sunday School?
Methodist Church Records In Ontario
By: Ryan Taylor, Biography and Archived Articles

Bethesda Sunday School - Pt. 2

Bethseda Sunday School played multiple roles in the life of the community. It allowed individuals such as Mae Hearn to express her deep religious beliefs and it offered her an opportunity to impart those beliefs to her children. While the music and the lessons must have been a welcome diversion from the steady work of the week for the younger people, I am certain that the chance to meet and to socialize with other young people was especially welcome. On occasion the young people put on plays and Lois remembers Norman McCully whose family owned a large farm near the four-mile bush, and Percy Switzer whose family farm overlooked a wonderful sweep of land in the Trout Creek valley, acting in those plays. Often, Norman adlibbed his lines, much to the consternation of Percy whose obvious discomfort only added to the delight of the audience. In the 1930's Stella McLeod, who lived with her sister Lulu and her brothers Roy and Fred on land also overlooking the Trout Creek valley, began a girls' club. The club met monthly and it was the members of this club who did the spring cleaning of the Sunday School. I don't know of any pictures taken of the group, but possibly, this picture of the young women who attended Helen Laing's wedding includes members of the club. In this picture in the back row are Anna Dunbar, Mary Shrubsole (whose family lived at the bottom of hill in the Trout Creek Valley), Stella McLeod, Hazel Stewart who married a Kemp and whose grandmother was the midwife who attended the births of many children in the area, and Margaret Dunbar the sister of Anna. In the front row are Lois Hearn, Isobel Snoddy who married Ted Murray, Marie Ballantyne who married Earl Boyes, a man who figures prominently in this story, Annabel Aitcheson, and Mabel Tyler.