In Canada they hastened to secure their possessions, locating the one hundred-acre lot of their own, in the hard timber woods out on the boulder-sprinkled soil of lower Canada, in the Dalhousie township, within five miles of Lanark, and obtaining a free government outfit at the government store at Lanark. Here young Hugh spent the most of his boyhood, helping to clear the farm, becoming an expert axeman, burning the hard wood, from the ashes of which was leached the potash that paid for the clearing; and also getting his education at the free school. He recalls these as very happy years, and the pride and joy that all the family took in owning their own home did very much to form his character on a more liberal and progressive plan than could have been had in old world conditions. At the age of twenty-one he was married to Mary, a daughter of Richard Rositer,—“a glorious good man,” of Perth. Learning at length that land of a better quality, less stony, was vacant “out west,” a move was made to Chatham, in Canada West, as then known. Having a “birth-right claim,” as it was called, to one hundred acres, and finding that he could make a purchase adjoining of one hundred acres of “clerical land,” the young farmer laid out his two hundred-acre farm, and made buildings to improve it. But learning that land was still better the farther west one went, he proceeded as far as the Detroit River. But just at this juncture all things were thrown in confusion by the uprising of the “Patriots,” the extent of whose organization was not known. There was great alarm felt, and the Canadian militia were likely to be called out. Now the Cosgroves had been duly taught that “the Yankees” were terrible people, almost ready to eat innocent people from the old country. But now that the Canadian side looked warlike, Mrs. Cosgrove said to her husband: “Very likely now you will be called out with the militia, and I will be left alone; why not cross over into the United States, and begin there?” She was acquainted, moreover, with a family in Detroit. Mr. Cosgrove acted upon the suggestion, and this led into a very much larger field of operations. They found life on the American side much more intense and extensive, and discovered that the Yankees, instead of being a species of man-eaters, were royal good fellows. Having saved some money for a new start, he prudently looked about how to invest it so as to make increase as he crossed the line. He found at the custom house that duty on cattle was low. He bought cows, selling at $10 each in Canada, which he disposed of in Michigan at as much as $40 each,—his first “good luck.” This gave him some ready money to begin business.