Waubakosh--Making potash--Prosperous settlers--Outbreak of war of 1812--Transporting military supplies--Moode Farewell’s hotel--“Here’s to a long and moderate war”--A lieutenant’s misfortune--“Open in the King’s name”--Humors of the time--Ingenious foragers--Hidden specie--Hardships of the U. E. Loyalists. “Now push the mug, my jolly boys, And live while we can, To-morrow’s sun may end our joys, For brief’s the hour of man, And he who bravely meets the foe His lease of life can never know.” Waubakosh was an Indian chief of the Mississaugaus. Every fall, from the year 1808 to 1847, he came with his tribe (or at least 150 of them) to the shore of Lake Ontario, that he and they might fish. Their lodges were almost invariably constructed on the bank of a creek, near its mouth, that they might take the salmon ascending the stream in November to spawn, and fish in the lake from their boats, with light-jack and spear, for sturgeon. [Illustration: LOGGING SCENE. ROGER CONANT IN DARLINGTON, CO. DURHAM, UPPER CANADA, 1778.] First he came as a young Indian brave, before he became chief, and, on attaining the chieftainship and a wife, the only difference which the few white settlers here at that time could discover in his attire was that his deerskin leggings were more beautifully fringed at the seams, and his moccasins likewise were more elaborately wrought with porcupine quills. Waubakosh was never known to commit a mean act. He was always friendly, and every succeeding fall his coming back was looked for with certainty by the white settlers, who got their living in the clearings and from the waters, as much hunters and fishermen as farmers. On bidding his white friends good-bye, about December, 1847, as he set out for the Indian encampment about Nottawasaga, in the thick woods, the Indian chief expressed the fear that he might never come back again. His fears were only too well founded, for he never did return. Old residents who knew him have been heard many times to wonder what was his ultimate fate. More strange still to say, not one of his tribe ever came back again to lodge any length of time. A noble-looking red man, he has been described as tall and straight, with a good face and a pleasant eye--in very truth, one of Nature’s noblemen. Many of his companions who predeceased him were buried near his camping-place on Lake Ontario. Their tomahawks, beads, flints, spears, ornaments, and buttons, and their skulls as well, have been found in recent years by those seeking for traces of the aboriginal red man. * * * * * As a means of money making, next to the fur trading in Upper Canada came the making of potash. Ashes were about in plenty, and were easily gathered from the burnt heaps of logs.