Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarianHaight, Canniff
History
Country Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago: Personal recollections and reminiscences of a sexagenarian
Haight, Canniff
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Ontario -- Social life and customs
Fifty years ago, shaving the beard, in Canada at all events, was
universal. If a man were to go about as the original Designer of his
person no doubt intended, a razor would never have touched his face. But
men, like other animals, are subject to crotchets, and are wont to
imitate superiors, so when some big-bug like Peter the Great introduced
the shears and razor, men appeared soon after with cropped heads and
clean chops. I do not remember that I ever saw a man with a full beard
until after I had passed manhood for some years, except on one occasion
when I was a youngster at school in the old school house on the
concession. A man passed through the neighbourhood--I do not remember
what he was doing--with a long flowing beard. We had somehow got the
idea that no men except Jews wore their beards, and the natural
inference with us was that this man was one of that creed. He was as
much of a curiosity to us as a chimpanzee or an African lion would have
been, and we were about as afraid of him as we would have been on seeing
either of the other animals.
The township of Adolphustown, in the county of Lennox, is the smallest
township in the Province. Originally the counties of Lennox and
Addington, Frontenac, Hastings and Prince Edward were embraced in the
Midland District. These counties, as the country advanced in population,
were one after another set off, the last being the united counties of
Lennox and Addington, separated from Frontenac, and with the town of
Napanee as its capital. The township in my young days was known as
fourth town, as the townships east of it as far as Kingston were known
as first, second and third town. Immediately after the American War, the
land along the Bay of Quinte, embracing these townships, with fifth,
sixth and seventh town to the west, were taken up, and the arduous task
of clearing away the bush at once began. The bay, from its debouche at
Kingston, extends west about seventy miles, nearly severing at its
termination the county of Prince Edward from the main land. The land on
either hand, for about thirty miles west of Kingston, is undulating,
with a gradual ascent from the shore, but when Adolphustown is reached,
Marysburgh, in the county of Prince Edward, on the opposite side of the
bay, presents a bold front, its steep banks rising from one to two
hundred feet. From the Lake of the Mountain, looking across the wide
stretch of water formed by the sharp detour of the bay in its westerly
to a north-easterly course for fifteen or twenty miles, the observer has
one of the most charming scenes in America spread out before him. In the
distance, the lofty rocky shore of Sophiasburgh, with its trees and
shrubs crowding down to the water's edge, stretch away to the right and
left. To the west, the estuary known as Picton Bay curves around the
high wooded shore of Marysburgh, and beneath and to the east, the four
points of which the township of Adolphustown is composed reach out their
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