EARLY DAYS IN WELLAND COUNTY

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              It certainly seems difficult to realize that bridle-paths were the thoroughfares in this county within the memory of any person living. Yet such really is the case.

             The following incident occurred some seventy-odd years ago, and might have made a part of one of the “Point Abino” stories, since in that locality it happened.

             The county-it was not a county then-was still heavily timbered.

             There was a little hamlet at Ridgeway and a smaller one at Stevensville. These and the small clearings of the settlers with bridle paths connecting them were the only breaks in the forest. Deer were plentiful; wolves and bears common.

             Late in the autumn six little boys started out to gather nuts. It was a beautiful day and they wandered on and on till their sacks were full. But night was overtaking them and they realized that they were lost. They had eaten all their lunch at noon and were so tired and hungry but no lights could be seen. The oldest was only twelve and the youngest eight.

             On they trudged until at last they came to a small clearing with a shed. They crept into it, and in spite of their fears slept till early morning.

             Then they saw near them a little cabin. The settler and his wife gave them bread and milk. One of the boys, Burton Schooley, who taught so many years in the Welland of old days, and was afterward Collector of Taxes in the (then) town, often said he never tasted anything so good as that breakfast.

             They were near Stevensville, eight miles from their home, and there was no path on which to direct them. The settler had no horse.

             Meanwhile the parents became alarmed, and search parties were organized. All night long they hunted and shouted.

             John Cherry, tall and spare, led one party. Two of the boys were his sons. Elbert, afterward a merchant in Dunnville, was one of them.

             Weary and disheartened, the men returned to the cabins in the morning where the mothers waited, hoped, feared, prayed.

             “God knows-God knows where they are. May He protect them,” was all the word John had.

             And the boys?

             The settler took them to Stevensville. Two men were coming to Ridgeway by the bridle path and they took the boys on the saddles with them. The horses were well loaded but the boys enjoyed the ridge.

             Ridgeway was nearly three miles from the home of the Schooley boys, two of whom were in the party and from there they essayed to walk home; but they were still bewildered and started in the opposite direction. However, they were put on the right trail, and reached home just at nightfall.

             The parents had gathered at the Schooley cabin after a day of fruitless searching and one can imagine how the tired little wayfarers were welcomed as they stepped across the threshold.

             Nearly all the boys lived to be old men, but they never forgot the experience, the terror of the night, the breakfast, the ride, the home coming.

             The little boy, who was afterward Dr. Schooley, wandered off one day with his sister, Matilda-afterward the wife of George Morgan, into the woods. He was nearly frozen when they found him, for he had taken off coat and muffler to wrap around the little girl who had fallen asleep. She was too big for him to carry and too tired to walk; so he shouted and waited until he was found. They were not far from home-but the woods were deep.

             Yet those mothers didn’t have “nervous break-downs.” We women of today wonder why.

             When the Doans first came to the county they crossed Niagara River in a little boat and scouted around a few days and returned.

             They were wanted for military service. It was the days of the American Revolution and the border was watched pretty carefully. Therefore when they decided to take their families into Canada, they decided not to trip the “easy” way, but crossed the open lake in a big birch bark canoe and landed somewhere near Loraine.

             The father climbed to the top of the tallest tree to make a survey, and from there selected a knoll which he decided would be the site of their new home.

             With a woodsman’s true instinct, he reached the spot and built a rude shelter of branches.

             His grandson, who lives on a part of the homestead thus located, told the writer this story.

             The first house in that section-a little log cabin-was built by the Doans on the site known as the “Tice Steele Farm.”

             Mathias (Tice) Steele took his bride there, and their grandson resides there now.

             Across on another little knoll the Springers lived in those early days. Harry Kramer is the third of his generation to occupy that farm. The Springers were related to the McKenney’s of Crowland. Melinda was Burton Schooley’s wife. She passed away only a few years ago.

             Near there was another knell where the Overholts settled. Their name is preserved in “Overholt’s Cemetery” just across from the little Bethel Church in Humberstone Township.            

             The Chippawa Road followed an Indian trail in and our through the forest from Gravelly Bay to Chippawa.

             The Garrison Road or as the western end of  it came to be called “The Fort Erie Road” joined it just east of “The Bridge” or “Stone Bridge” as the old people used to call Humberstone village. I do not think the old maps so designated the little place. They called it Petersburg.

             Daniel Near, the last honest-to-goodness farmer M.P.P. of Welland, lived along this road. The home is still in the family’s possession, I believe.

             Father and some of the other “good Tories” had a kind of parody they used to sing, based on the old song “Dare to be a Daniel.” One stanza they thought needed no change:

“Many giants great and tall,

Stalking through the land

Headlong to the earth must fall,

If met by Daniel’s Band.”

             And certainly if all our public men were as staunch and true and absolutely honorable as was Daniel Near, this land would need fear no evil days. Men like him flout the cynical British statesmen who declared that “Every man has his price.”

             What splendid men and how many of them come to our minds as we write and read (?) these sketches. Perhaps not so many of outstanding or extraordinary ability or attainments, but men who compiled with Burns’ standard of nobility and greatness: you remember he says:

“A king can mak a belted knight,

A Marquis, duke and an’ that;

But an honest man’s aboon his might,

Gude faith, he maunna for ‘that!

And Again:
”The honest man, tho e’re sae poor

Is king of men for a’that.

             So Welland County has had-has still her “kings and queens,” and these we honor above all others.

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

1 July 1926