Owen Sound: The Port City

SOUND

PROLOGUE

Three men pushed through dense underbrush, hardly noticing the blaze of autumn reds, yellows and oranges in the canopy overhead. It was early October, 1840. John Telfer and two companions had arrived in southern Georgian Bay to search out government surveyor Charles Rankin. At a Native settlement on the northwest shore of Owen’s Sound, they learned that a white man had pitched camp a short distance to the south and east of the river which entered the bay at its apex.

The trio’s energy and enthusiasm were flagging by the time they spotted smoke from the Native encampment. They had journeyed a long way, riding wagons at first on rough settlement roads, walking later across portages to Georgian Bay’s shore. From there, they had sailed and paddled into the bay Natives called Keche Weequo Doong (the Great Bay).¹

Their shoulders and spirits sagged when Natives at this camp told them there was no white man in the village. However, just as quickly as they had slumped, their spirits soared, when in the next breath they learned of a white man camped nearby.

They set out immediately, crossing a stream the Indians called the noisy river, on through the tangled maze of underbrush and fallen trees. As they continued, their bodies aching, they anticipated the end of their exhausting journey. This thought, perhaps, or the cool bite of autumn air eased their tired limbs.

John Telfer arrived in the Owen Sound area in 1840. He first served as land agent, working with surveyor Charles Rankin to establish lots for the original settlers. Courtesy Grey County Archives.

Suddenly they came upon a wigwam in a small clearing. There was no one around! Nothing but a horn sitting on a recently-cut stump. Legend goes that Telfer went forward, picked up the instrument, and blew.

Shortly, Charles Rankin emerged from the wilderness forest. He had been at work, marking out plots for a proposed settlement. In 1836, Rankin had been commissioned by the colonial government, not only to map out this new community, but also to survey a route from Guelph to the Georgian Bay frontier. However, the Upper Canadian Rebellion in 1837 had delayed Rankin’s mission.

Finally, in the summer of 1840 Rankin began his survey in the vicinity of the Native community on the west shore of the bay. However, when the local Aboriginal population expressed displeasure at his presence, he discreetly took his surveying chains to the east bank of the Sydenham River.² It was here that the newcomers found him on October 7, 1840.

Like Rankin, Telfer held a government commission to open up this region. It would be his duty to act as land agent for the new settlement. He would oversee the building of roads and distribution of the lots surveyed by Rankin. Telfer also would supervise the construction of a school/church and houses in the nearby Native village.

Like the cavalry bugler’s call to charge, Telfer’s blowing of the horn in the small clearing signified the launching not only of a new community, but of a quest to create a port which would, for a time, dominate maritime commerce on Georgian Bay. This October 7, 1840 meeting in a wilderness clearing initiated the forces which, in working together would forge the modern community of Owen Sound!

1

ABORIGINALS OF THE AREA

Charles Rankin and John Telfer’s historic meeting signified the beginning of European settlement in this region. They, however, were not the first people to live here! The Natives whom Rankin, and then Telfer, met on the western shore of the bay were part of a civilization which had called this region home for many centuries.¹

Prior to the opening of European settlement, several Aboriginal nations had lived here. The arrival of French explorers in the early 1600s signalled the beginning of fur trading and the Natives, especially the Hurons, formed commercial alliances with the French. The quest for furs brought the Hurons, and others allied with the French, into conflict with Iroquois traders who had commercial ties with British merchants established to the south of the Great Lakes.

In 1649, the Iroquois almost totally annihilated the Hurons of this region in a fierce trade war. Perhaps fearing a similar fate, the Huron’s allies migrated to the north and west. For the next half century, the Iroquois used the Owen Sound/Bruce Peninsula region, then known as Indian Peninsula, as their own hunting grounds.

Around 1700, however, the Ojibwa and other former allies of the devastated Huron nation returned and routed the Iroquois in a bloody series of battles. With the Iroquois out of the area, the Wahbadick, Newash, Wahwahnosh, and Metegwob tribes of the Ojibwa nation² returned to their former land and lived in relative tranquility for the rest of the 1700s.³

However, the first decades of the 19th century marked the impending end of Aboriginal dominion. The colonial government of Upper Canada realized it needed more land to meet increasing demands from settlers arriving in North America. One strategy for acquisition was to draft a series of treaties and present them to the Natives in order to legally lay claim to Native lands for settlement.

The man leading this campaign was Sir Francis Bond Head, the governor of Upper Canada. Using the guise of concern for the Natives, Bond Head plotted to remove the Aboriginals from contact with white settlers. Writing in 1836, Bond Head stated the Indian breathes pure air, beholds splendid scenery, traverses unsullied water, and subsists on food which, generally speaking, forms not sustenance but the manly amusement, as well as occupation, of his life.⁴ He also voiced concern about the impact of foreign diseases and alcohol on the Native population.

This rationale led Bond Head to conclude that Indians could never be civilized. Consequently, the governor determined that isolation from white society was in their best interest. At first he proposed small isolated reservations, but in the end he aspired to relegate all Natives to exile on Manitoulin Island.⁵

Although Bond Head’s ultimate goal was to remove all First Nations people to Manitoulin, he first had to wrest control of the land from them in order to facilitate settlement of the Owen Sound region. In 1836, a treaty was negotiated which helped create a tract of land to begin the proposed non-native settlement. It also designated tracts of land as Native territory in perpetuity. However, in the next quarter of a century, ‘forever’ proved to be something other than the standard dictionary meaning.⁶

The 1836 treaty reduced Native land territory from over two million acres to approximately 450,000 acres.⁷ However, as the community of Owen Sound and other area settlements grew, the colonial government exerted further pressure on the Aboriginals to give up even more territory. As a result, in the 1840s and 1850s more treaties were signed and the indigenous populations were forced onto smaller and more remote tracts of land.

By 1842, as the number of settlers increased in the area, Native leaders began to feel encroachment on the lands which they had long considered their domain. A tenuous, contentious situation was developing with the Aboriginals clinging to their traditional lifestyle in the face of increasing demands from settlement.

In response to this situation, Chief Senegal of Newash decided that his community would leave their village on the west shore of Owen’s Sound. At first, they relocated on a reserve on Colpoys Bay, but it was not long before they moved again, this time further up the Bruce Peninsula to Cape Croker.

There is a certain irony in this decision to move away from the influence of the white settlers. The Chief’s daughter, Nah-nee-bah-wee-quay, (translated meaning: Upright Woman) who was nine years old at the time, convinced her father to allow her to stay and further her education! Later, when she married an English minister and teacher, William Sutton, the Natives of the area presented them with a parcel of land immediately south of Presque Isle, a small coastal port 15 km north of Owen Sound on the west shore of the bay. Despite the fact the couple built a home and farm buildings on this land, ensuing treaties failed to recognize their ownership and the property was dispersed in a land auction. Although the Suttons received support from both the white and Native communities, the government continued to refuse to recognize their claim to ownership.

Nah-nee-bah-wee-quay, daughter of Chief Senegal of Newash, married William Sutton. Also known as Catherine Sutton, she travelled to England to meet Queen Victoria in an attempt to resolve a land dispute. Courtesy County of Grey-Owen Sound Museum.

Nah-nee-bah-wee-quay, or Catherine Sutton (as she was also known) was a determined woman. She decided to go to England and present her case to Queen Victoria! In 1859, she toured the Canadian colony and northern United States seeking support for her claim and money to finance her trip across the Atlantic. The next year, 1860, she left for England. In June, she was given an audience with the Queen.

Catherine Sutton admitted later that she had been so nervous at the meeting she had momentarily forgotten how to bow and kiss the Queen’s hand. Victoria promised that when Crown Prince Albert travelled to Canada he would investigate the situation. However, nothing resulted from the Prince’s visit. The frustrated Suttons, however, were able to buy back some of their land. But unfortunately, Nah-nee-bah-wee-quay would enjoy only a short time on her property. She died in 1865, just five years after her presentation to Queen Victoria. The grave of Nah-nee-bah-wee-quay (Catherine Senegal Sutton) can be found just a few metres south of the Presqu’ile Road off Grey County Road #1. It overlooks Georgian Bay at Sutton Point, only twelve kilometres north of the Owen Sound business section.

To understand why the Sutton’s lost their land, it is important to know what was going on in the 1850s in terms of the Native ownership of land in the area. During this period the ownership of property north of present-day Highway #21, between Owen Sound and Southampton, was in question. Increased pioneer settlement had threatened the insularity of Native communities. Already the considerable growth of Owen Sound had been the catalyst for the Newash settlement to relocate at Cape Croker.

Decisions had to be made. Who owned this land? The Indian Peninsula, now known as the Bruce Peninsula, had been designated Native territory through a previous treaty. In 1857, in order to further the growth of settlement in Owen Sound, the lands which had been the village of Newash were taken over, and the settlement north of the Pottawatomi River was named Brooke or Brookholm.

These actions established and defined the geographical framework from which the community of Owen Sound would grow and prosper.

2

A CLEARING IN THE WILDERNESS

In the years following Rankin and Telfer’s historic meeting, settlers by the hundreds came to the mouth of the Sydenham River on Owen’s Sound. Like so many pioneers who had come to the New World they had dreams for a new future. The prospect of owning their own land, and making a better life for themselves and their families, had driven them to seek a place where they could carve a home from the wilderness, initially for survival, and later, it was hoped, prosperity.

Some came with little more than a few possessions and the clothes that they wore. Others came with some merchandise or equipment to start businesses. All came with a dream that ultimately would form their new community.

The pioneer’s first priority was to build a shelter and to clear the land. Their first homes were roughly assembled using the easiest available materials, sod and timber. Historian E.C. Guillet described the living conditions in one of these early pioneer shanties through a quote from a Mrs. Cook in Bruce County, the shanty to which we went had a bark roof, and this roof leaked so badly that when it rained my husband had to hold an umbrella over us when we were in bed.¹

Lots had to be cleared, not only to make room for a house and to grow crops for sustenance, but to meet the requirements imposed by the colonial government’s land grant system. As more land was cleared, more durable houses were erected and a few commercial establishments were built from timber that the forest provided. Gradually a community developed. With this sense of community came a desire to grow and prosper.

A depiction of early settlement illustrating the rough-hewn log house and shed, the number of stumps in the partially cleared patch of land, and the denseness of the surrounding forest. From The Pioneer Farmer and Backwoodsman. Vol. 2. by E.C. Guillet.

Heavy work was part of daily life of pioneer women. The making of potash in a large iron kettle was typical pioneer industry. Illustration by C. W. Jeffries.

Life was not easy for these early settlers in Owen Sound. They had left homes in the British Isles and elsewhere to escape famine, loss of land or other hardships. Many did not possess the skills or tools needed to clear the land and build their homes. Out of this common situation, however, grew a sense of care and concern among new neighbours. They shared lodgings, labour and, when necessary, food.

They helped one another construct dwellings and shelters for livestock. Together they cleared the land. Those who possessed certain skills, shared their knowledge and helped others. In times of poor or uncertain crops, families gave willingly to others in need. Early journals and diaries relate tales of soup bones being passed from one kettle to the next, until there was little or no nourishment left in the parched bone. Such mutual dependence fostered the sense of community.

Geographically the settlement at Owen Sound was essentially isolated from the rest of Upper Canada. Prior to 1840, there are few indications of European visits to the region. The French explorer, Samuel de Champlain is said to have visited the area in 1619. As well, there is speculation by some historians that Jesuit missionaries spent time with Natives who lived at the mouth of the Saugeen River in the early 1600s. The French clerics may have also travelled to the Native community located north and west of the original Owen Sound townsite.²

There is also speculation that a community of French settlers existed on the east shore of the bay between Owen Sound and Leith,³ before Rankin and Telfer arrived in 1840. However, this notion relies mainly on early settler reports of families with French names who seem to have sustained themselves by means of fishing and trapping.

The first British visitors, other than sailors on war ships during conflict with the Americans between 1812 and 1814, were most likely those who accompanied Captain William Fitz William Owen as part of the Bayfield survey team which charted this section of Georgian Bay in 1815. It is suspected by some historians that in the spring of 1824, Sir John Franklin, Lieutenant George Back, Dr. Richmond and other members of the expedition, passed through the area when they left Penetanguishene on their way to find the North West Passage in the Canadian Arctic.⁴ Ironically, one of the men who would be chosen later to try and find the ill-fated Franklin expedition, William Kennedy, in 1849 owned a fishery at the mouth of the Saugeen River just twenty miles from Owen Sound.⁵ In 1851, Sir John Ross, returning from the Arctic, spent an overnight stay in Owen Sound on his way back to England to report yet another failed attempt to find Franklin and his crew.⁶

William Fitz William Owen was the British Navy Officer assigned to survey Georgian Bay. He named the sound on which the city Owen Sound sits after himself. Courtesy County of Grey-Owen Sound Museum.

Limited early exploration reflected the difficulty of travel to the area. Access by water was restricted by the long winter freeze-up of Georgian Bay. Dense forest limited overland passage; not only was there heavy forest cover, but many of the trees were of gigantic proportions.

An example of the immensity of some of the trees that met the blade of the settler’s axe, was recorded during the winter of 1847–1848. A soft elm measuring eight feet in diameter at the ground, seven feet in diameter at the stump, and ninety feet in height was felled near Annan, a few miles northeast of Owen Sound. Four expert axemen toiled for an entire morning to bring this behemoth to the ground.⁷ A settler might find as many as three or four gigantic trees, to the acre. Other trees of smaller, varying sizes normally clustered around their larger cousins.

The settlers soon learned small tricks which enabled them to improve in axemanship. For instance,