THE HARPER FAMILY
Rev. W. G. T. Brown (1873-1951)
W. T. L. Harper (1907-1990)
Received from: D. B. Anderson (1932 - )
After
the close of Napoleon s career in Europe in 1815, many British soldiers and some
naval men obtained land in
what
was familiarly known as the Perth settlement.
The
little town of Perth did not spring up spontaneously. The site was chosen by the Government as the head of a
district
lying north of the Midland and Johnstown districts, comprising a great part of
the Ottawa Valley in Upper
Canada.
Men were hired to clear the land and to erect certain buildings necessary
for the administration of Justice.
To
the Perth settlement from Queens County, Ireland, came James, Joseph and Ephraim
Harper, with their sister,
Mary
Ann.
Joseph
Harper was born around 1766 at Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland.
He served in the Yeomanry Militia during
the
Irish rebellion of 1798.
He
was not a soldier but, like many others, he came hoping to improve his lot and
find a future for his children. It
is
not
easy to visualize the long weary journey, weeks tossing on the Atlantic in a
small wooden sailing ship, crowded
with
seasick passengers and without the conveniences of our very poorest vessels of
the present day.
He
and his wife, Mary Boyle, with daughters Mary, Jane, Ellen and Nancy, arrived in
Canada on the "Prince Augusta"
on
June 2,1818.
During
the crossing their son, John, was buried at sea. He had been injured on the playground at school and was
afterwards
a cripple. Nancy, a child of but
six years, who did not suffer from seasickness, as did the others,
remembered
the tears and sad outcry of her stricken mother that "she had left all her
friends in Ireland, and now her
one
little son in the sea".
From
Quebec the family travelled up the St. Lawrence to Montreal and thence still
farther up by boat and portage to
either
Prescott or Brockville. From the
St. Lawrence, the settlers would push their way back through the woods and
swamps,
crossing many streams that no longer exist, finally reaching Perth.
Here the Government had erected some
sort
of protection on the "island" for immigrant families, where they might
remain until the husband and father had
"drawn"
his land made a trip to it and built some rude shelter of logs and brush.
Joseph
Harper secured land in the township of North Burgess on Lot NE 15, Conc. 8 on
July 23, 1818. and there he
removed
with his wife and their four daughters: Mary, Jane, Ellen and Nancy.
On January 31, 1819, in a rude shanty
in
the woods, a son was born and named Ephraim Boyle Harper. Some time later on November 5, 1820, a daughter
Elizabeth
(Bessie) was born.
Harper
was a weaver and, as it was still the day of the hand-loom, he seems to have
done a good business among
the
settlers. Alas, the burden of
making a home in the wilderness fell heavily on his daughters. However, the family
prospered
and soon had not only the work oxen of every pioneer, but horses also.
The
girls were good horsewomen. An
occasional trip on horseback to Perth and some visits to a more distant
neighbourhoods helped to relieve the monotony of life in the bush. Mary and Jane had been to boarding school in
Clonmel,
was
no
supplemented
by their brother, Ephraim, while little more than a child himself.
Ellen was fond of good reading and
had
a memory stored with the Bible and Shakespeare, Milton and other great English
classics.
In
their old age, Ellen and Nancy, who could remember little or nothing of Ireland,
had stories to tell of their fun and
mishaps
in the woods of Canada - stories that had to do with horseback riding, riding
colts without saddles and being
thrown
in mud or snow.
One
story of another type of escapade must have come from their very early years.
Their father had a large hollow
basswood
cut into suitable lengths and cleaned out for storing grain.
The two little girls thought one of these might
provide
the thrill of a swift downhill ride. Nancy's
turn came first. She got in and
Ellen started the block on its way.
Once
started, there was no stopping it till the bottom of the hill was reached, while
inside the wild screams told of a
head
being bumped from side to side in the wildly careening log, as it gathered speed
down the rough hill.
Mary
Harper, born in Ireland November 9, 1802, was the eldest child of Joseph and
Mary (Boyle) Harper.
In
1822, before she had completed her twentieth year, she married John Deacon. He
had come to Canada from
Kilkenny,
Ireland in 1816, the son of an Irish family of the Perth settlement.
(Marriage Bonds of Ontario - 1803-1834 -
John
Deacon of Drummond, yeoman and Mary Harper of Burgess, spinster, March 25, 1822
at Perth, Ontario.
Bondsmen:
Joseph Harper of Burgess and Samuel Churchill of Ramsay, yeomen).
She
settled with her husband in the township of North Burgess, afterwards moving to
Perth in 1825. In 1842 they
moved
to South Sherbrooke, where Mr. Deacon engaged in the lumber trade.
He later served as Magistrate,
Councillor,
and Reeve.
To
them were born seventeen children, of whom six died in infancy, but eleven lived
well beyond middle age. The
names
of these were: Ellen (Mrs. Sam Mitchell), John, James, Henry, William, Joseph,
Thomas, Eliza Jane (Mrs.
Thomas
Dowdall), Ephraim, Richard and Mary Ann (Mrs. John McMunn)..
Mary
(Harper) Deacon died December 28, 1877, her husband on May 12, 1866.
They are buried in the Old Methodist
Burying
Ground, Robinson Street, Perth.
Jane
Harper, born in Ireland in 1805, was the second daughter of Joseph and Mary
(Boyle) Harper.
She
married an Irishman from County Cavan, Ireland, named Thomas McCue (1798-June
18, 1880). Their first
location
was on the 11th concession of Bathurst, but they found the land was entirely
worthless and were compelled
to
abandon it after a year or two. McCue
bought part of a clergy reserve lot in the 8th concession of Bathurst and here
they
made their home till their death.
Jane
had a severe illness when a young girl and was never robust afterwards, although
she lived to a great age. Her
husband
died on June 18, 1880 at 82 years, and she died on June 4, 1891, aged 86 years,
both of senile debility. They
had
no children.
Ellen
Harper, born in Ireland on January 14, 1810, was the third daughter of Joseph
and Mary (Boyle) Harper.
On
September 3,1833 she married an Irishman, Thomas Gallagher, who was born January
10, 1810, in County Tyrone,
near
the village of Clogher.
He
was one of at least seven children born in the house still known as Fardross.
They lived there in their youth and
that
is where their mother died.
This
estate has been in the possession of the Glodstanes for generations.
How it was in the possession of the
Gallagher
family for years is not known. They
were possibly charged a small rent to care for the place when the
owners
did not come to Ireland for a period of years. The family was apparently quite
prosperous, as the sons received
a
much better education than the majority of young men of their day.
Two of the sons, James and John, remained
in
Ireland and some of their descendants are still there.
Thomas came to the Perth Settlement in 1829, when 19 years
of
age.
After
their marriage they seem to have lived for a time in Burgess, but soon moved to
a farm in Bathurst on the Tay
River,
a few miles above Perth. Here they began to make a home for themselves, though
Thomas was never a
successful
farmer, nor an expert axe-man, a skill which was very much needed in the
clearing of forest land. He
seemed
to have been expert around the small grist and sawmills of the day and his
education made him useful also
in
the office management of these little enterprises.
A
good measure of success attended the efforts of the young couple and their
growing family for several years, until
they
were driven from their home and lost the fruits of their labor. It is not
possible at this time to know the whole story
of
the disaster that was too common in the early
settlement of the country. Land
was granted by the Government and
at
times purchased without careful survey of titles.
The
occupants of certain farms in the Perth Settlement found that their titles were
irregular. Some had the opportunity
of
re-purchase at reasonable rates and others had not.
Apparently, Thomas had not. Fraud,
incompetence and
neglect
had each a share in the condition but, in every case, the settler was the
sufferer. The earnings and the hard
labor
of the family were all gone. It was
an awful blow and one of which they hardly ever spoke. There was a story
of
neighborly kindness when this happened. The
indignant settlers came to the Gallagher's and said, "We want you
to
go to a neighbor's house and do not come out, nor ask any questions, nor know
anything that is going on". Then,
from
all about, came the men with their oxen, pulled down the log house, moved it
across the river to a new site and
there
rebuilt it and soon the little home was ready again for the family.
They
had eight children:
Thomas
(August 20, 1834 - December 1, 1856)
John
(January 29, 1836 - December 1, 1856)
Harriet
(July 5, 1838 - April 14, 1880) - married James Brown.
Ephraim
(March 22, 1840 - September 7, 1858)
William
(May 28, 184? - June 4, 1917) - after the death of his brothers, he had to
assume much of the burden of the
farm,
though he was quite young at the time. He
never married.
Joshua
Adams (July 16, 1844 - October 7, 1917) - married Margaret Linton
James
Joseph (July 12, 1846 - January 22, 1928) - married Margaret Robinson .
Henry
Deacon (August 16, 1851 - May 5, 1909) - married Ida Holmes and lived in
Brockville.
There
was no farm, but the father was not tied to the land as other settlers and, were
it not for anxiety about his
growing
family, he might have continued in other employment. When his older sons almost reached manhood, he
rented
a farm in the rear of Bathurst. The family, however, had to pass through greater
sorrows than the loss of
property.
The
two older sons, Thomas and John, aged 22 and 20 years, were drowned together in
the Mississippi River on
December
1, 1856.
The
rented farm lay on this stream and the two sons, perhaps not thoroughly
acquainted with the river, broke through
the
ice. Both were strong swimmers and
had broken much ice in their efforts to get out.
No one could hear their cries
and
at last they sank exhausted. Nearly
two years later, their next son, Ephraim, died after a long illness on September
7,
1858. Their deaths almost killed
the mother and indeed she never fully recovered, though she lived to be a very
old
woman.
Later,
Thomas bought a farm near the little village of Fallbrook, about a mile distant
from the one he had rented but
he
continued to find employment elsewhere. He was a man six feet two inches in
height, who never worried, never
had
a headache, never missed a meal and never had a severe accident and so, at a
great age was able to boast that
he
had never had a spoonful of medicine from a doctor.
Ellen
(Harper) Gallagher died in Fallbrook, near Perth, on October 3,1897, when she
was 87 years and nine months
old.
Her husband, Thomas, died four years later on December 22, 1901, when he
was nearly 92 years.
Mary
Ann (Nancy) Harper, born in Ireland on October 2, 1811, was the fourth daughter
of Joseph and Mary (Boyle)
Harper.
She married Henry Sleigh (Sly) from South Crosby, on March 12,1835.
They had one daughter, Mary Jane
Sleigh
(December 17, 1836 - July 14, 1910).
Mary
Jane married William J. Keays on May 30, 1860 (1833-November 7, 1897).
They had the following children:
William J. (1862-1929) - married 1) Angeline Churchill (1861-Apr. 17,
1891) buried Old Methodist Burying Ground
2) Susan Jones.
Annie H. (Mrs. Alfred J. Bell) 1885-1945 - buried in Elmwood Cemetery
with her husband.
Ellen Jane (Jennie) (1867-1918) - married 1) E. James Foley
2) Howard Buffam.
Ephraim D.(1871-1911) - married Elizabeth F. McNaughton - buried Elmwood
Cemetery.
Minnie M. (Mrs. Frederick Leighton) 1876-1905 - buried in plot with
mother, father and brother, Harry.
Henry (Harry) (1879-1952) - unmarried.
Buried in Elmwood Cemetery with mother, father and sister, Minnie.
After
the death of her husband, Henry Sleigh (Sly/Slye), Nancy married John Bowes on
February 27, 1850. It is said
he
left for the United States the day of their marriage and never returned.
One
child, John, was born on June 20, 1850. He
married Ann Elizabeth Bell (Sept. 21, 1853 - July 27, 1934).
To
them were born three children:
Esther Wilhelmina (Nov. 22, 1878) - married John Crosbie.
No children.
Harriet Ann (May 1, 1880 - Mar. 6, 1963) - married Rev. Dawson D.
Elliott. No children.
Alfred Anson (Mar. 23, 1883 - Mar. 31, 1965) -
1) Ida Margaret Warren.
2) Margaret Rebecca Wilson.
One daughter, Helen Margaret (Apr. 26, 1943 - Aug. 15, 1945).
For
many years, John was assessor in the township of Bathurst and was widely known
and respected. He died on
November
14, 1931.
Mary
Ann (Harper) Sleigh/Bowes died on October 31, 1895. She is buried in a marked grave in Elmwood Cemetery.
Ephrajm
Boyle Harper, the only surviving son of Joseph and Mary (Boyle) Harper, was born
the year following the
arrival
of the family in Canada on January 31, 1819.
He
married Susannah Street, second daughter of Samuel Street, on May 20, 1846 at
her father's home in Thorold,
Ontario.
They had eight children, Cecil, Laura, Bertha, Selina (Sept.4,
1852-Nov.11, 1856) and Samuel (Aug. 1847 -
Oct.
5, 1849). Only Cecil, Laura and
Bertha lived to maturity..
Ephraim
was accepted for the Methodist ministry and served almost all the leading
pulpits of Methodism in Canada,
winning
honors in Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic and Syraic, having a working knowledge of
fourteen languages. He died
on
February 6,1902 at the home of his son, Cecil, in Nantasket, Mass., and was
buried at Norval, Ontario.
Elizabeth
(Bessie) Harper, youngest child of Joseph and Mary (Boyle) Harper, was born in
the township of North
Burgess
November 5,1820. She moved to the township of Bathurst with her parents
about 1832.
Close
by the Harper home, on Lot 22, Concession 9 of Bathurst Township, lived Michael
Foley and his family, among
which
was his son, Thomas.
In
the year 1834, Thomas Foley (1817-1894) sailed from Ireland with his parents,
Michael and Margaret, and his
siblings, Matthew (1810), Mary (1815), Catherine (1825-1913), Ann (1825), and Peter (1831). A brother, Patrick,
had
His
father, Michael, was born in County Carlowe about 1783 and his mother, Margaret
(Cherfer/Cheverus) was born
in
County Wexford in 1789. Although in
their forties, his parents faced the unknown of this wild country and were
looking
forward to something better than what they had left in Ireland.
After a number of years, an impressive stone
house
was built, which stands to this day high up on the hill.
At
the age of thirty, Thomas married Elizabeth Harper on May 25, 1847 in St. John
the Baptist Roman Catholic Church
in
Perth, in the presence of his brother Patrick and sister Catherine.
Although Elizabeth was a Methodist of the Church
of
England and Thomas was Roman Catholic, the difference in religion was not
considered to be a significant factor
until
much later in life.
Thomas
and Elizabeth lived in a log house on Lot 21, Concession 9 next to his father,
Michael. They had six sons
and
four daughters, all of whom grew to maturity.
Ellen, born May, 1848, never married.
John Harper, born August 26, 1849, married Esther Annie Clayton
(1860-1929). He died in Innisfail,
Alberta
on June 3, 1930.
Thomas Harper, born April, 1851, never married.
He died November 14, 1887.
Michael Harper, born January, 1853, never married. He died March 31, 1894.
James Joseph, born January, 1855, married a distant cousin, Ellen Jane
Keays. He died March 27, 1891.
Matthew Levi, born September 13, 1856, married Jean Orpha McMartin.
He left his wife and baby daughter,
Hilda, in Perth to make his way out to Western Canada, taking part in the
Klondike Gold Rush a few years later.
He died March 13, 1936 and is buried in Ocean View Cemetery, Burnaby,
B.C.
At
the time of Thomas Foley's death on July 25, 1894, there was religious bickering
with his sister, Catherine (Foley)
Smith,
who insisted he be buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery of St. John the Baptist
at Perth.
Only
his wife, Elizabeth, sons Aaron and John, and spinster daughters Ellen and
Caroline were mentioned in his will
dated
June 8, 1893.
Mary
Ann, who married George McLellan,
was living in Perth at the time of the birth of her son, Laurence, in 1899 but
later
moved to Vancouver, B.C.
It
was on December 29,1899 that Elizabeth (Harper) Foley died after a few days
illness from pneumonia. She was
buried
in Elmwood Cemetery, Perth, beside her children Thomas, Michael, James and Eliza
Jane. Her son, Aaron,
was
buried in the same plot at the time of his death from tuberculosis in 1900 and
daughter, Caroline, also died from
tuberculosis
in 1905. Their graves are marked by
three tall tombstones, engraved with their names.
Sadly,
the family were separated from their father by religion, both in life and death.
Joseph
Harper's first wife, Mary (Boyle) Harper, it would seem, was some years younger
than her husband. Her death
took
place many years before his. His
second wife was Mrs. Jane (Bowles) Churchill, widow of Samuel Churchill, of
Lanark
- who had six children. On March
10, 1835, the marriage was performed by Rev. M. Harris (Bathurst Courier,
March
13, 1835). His daughter Mary Ann
(Nancy) married Henry Sleigh just two days later, on March 12, 1835.
Joseph
Harper and his wife Jane (Churchill) sold the farm at North Burgess to a William
McLean on May 13.1841.
They
then purchased 66 2/3 acres of Lot northwest 21, Concession 6, in the township
of Bathurst on October 2,1843
from
a William Glascott for £140.00. Glascott had secured the land from the Crown.
When
the family moved from North Burgess to the township of Bathurst, the Post Office
was named Harper and the
hamlet
familiarly known as Harper's Corners.
His
wife, Jane, though younger, predeceased him and, when a very old man, he was
left without his once substantial
property.
He died at the home of his daughter, Jane (Mrs. Thomas McCue) on November
21,1874 at the age of 108
years,
where she and her sister Nancy had cared for him most tenderly.
His death and age are recorded in the United
Church
Archives, Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, Ontario.
His
remains were interred in the St. James Church burial ground in Perth, Ontario.
The Rev. R. L. Stevenson officiated
at
his funeral service.
At
the time of Joseph Harper's death in 1874, his son Rev. Ephraim Boyle Harper was
Wesleyan minister at Port Hope,
Ontario.
Two of his grandsons were Judge Deacon and Thomas Deacon, MPP for North
Renfrew. A nephew, the son
of
his sister Mary Anne, Rev. William Bennington Curran was minister in the Church
of England in Galt, Ontario.
(Pembroke Observer, December 4, 1874).
Received from: Dolores Anderson - anzim@cyberus.ca Posted: 29 March, 2005.