POINT ABINO AND VICINITY

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              Just at the fork of the Fort Erie Road and the road to Point Abino, is the farm, still known as the Schooley Homestead, though, alas no longer in the family’s hands-the old story.

             In 1820, grandfather took his bride to the small log house, which was for many years their home.

             There was a third member of the family, an old crippled uncle who sat in a chair with high rockers and broad arms.

             For years he sat there, until the rockers wore down to the floor, and his elbows actually wore holes in the arms.

             That chair is in the youngest grandson’s home today, the original rush seat still intact.

             Furniture manufacturers long since discovered that it does not pay to make such furniture. It is “in restraint of trade.”

             Although of Quaker extraction, grandfather gave the site for a little Anglican Church that was built in the maple grove. However, the necessary funds to pay for the building were never raised, and it was never dedicated, though services were held in it for a few months.

             Eventually he bought the building and it served as his son Burton Schooley’s first home and afterwards degenerated into an implement shed.

             Burton Schooley taught in the “Garden Ward” school in the then little town of Welland for many years, and will be remembered by the “old timers.”

             The first school house of the neighborhood also was built on that farm. One of father’s early teachers was Miss Bethiah Beam, whose brother, J.F. Beam, was Welland County’s most prominent pioneer advocate of a good roads system.

             Fifty hears ago the present stone school house was built and equipped.

It was provided with plenty of (for those days) of good blackboards, space maps, globes, and some other pieces of “machiner”, one illustrating the relative position of the planets and their place in the solar system, was especial marvel to us children.

There was even a small library of well selected books.

Elmon Dickout and W.F. Schooley were mainly responsible for this complete (for those days) equipment.

Inspector Ball, after the various classes had given him an exhibition of their skill (?) in simultaneous reading (his pet hobby) and a few minor accomplishments, would seldom fail, in the little address he gave us at parting to compliment the teacher and pupils of No. 12 Bertie, on their advantages.

The scene is very vivid as I write.

Miss Mary Cameron was the dignified teacher, and seventy pupils filled the seats to overflowing.

How many of that “Fourth Class” who filled the long platform at the back of the room, where we always stood for recitation, remember those days? The three girls have never lost trace of each other. One lives in Hamilton, one on the old Dickout homestead and the other holds the pen.

             Some of the “first things” of Bertie Township still centre in that neighborhood. The creamery on the Sherk farm is one of them.

             By the way, the first “creamery” in Welland County was built on the John Misener Farm, along the Forks Road, a mile north of Marshville. Like many other ventures, it was a few years ahead of time, and failed.

             It was a small building and is still standing. The rusty old boiler is the only thing to suggest that it was ever anything but a shed.

             The Ellsworths, Zavitzs and Cullers and one family of Wilsons were the prominent Quaker families of the Point neighborhood. The Edsalls and Ellsworths came to Bertie about the same time, as did our family.

             Vague stories of meetings in the old “Quaker Meeting House” referred to in the first of these letters, tease-they are so vague.

             Every “First Day” they gathered –the little devout band.

             One morning they sat there-the men on the rude benches on one side of the room, the women on the other, quiet, solemn, waiting for “The Spirit” to move someone to address them.

             The door was ajar, for the day was hot. At last a wandering dog sniffed at the door, pushed it open wide and ran up to the front.

             “Put him out, and give him a good kick that he may stay out,” solemnly ordered one of the Ellsworth men.

             The spell of silence having been broken, the gathering rose and went to their homes.

But oftener, one or other of these grave pioneers would be “given” a message ere they dispersed.

Thirty-seven years ago, some few representatives of the old “Quaker” stock still gathered occasionally at Black Creek in the little old meeting house on the bank of the Niagara River, but the meetings were discontinued entirely shortly after that.

             There is still a group of these splendid people in Pelham Township and the county has not worthier residents.

             It would be well if the integrity which characterized these folk-their “yea was yea, their nay, nay”-had descended in larger measure to us, who with just pride, point to our connection with them, Birthright Quakers. Ah, me-we have sold our birthright too many of us and for less than “a mess of pottage.” But these were also the days of the “itinerant” Methodist preacher.

             There was no church near, but services were held in one and another of the little log homes of the settler.

             Grandmother would take the baby in her arms and putting two other children, one before and one behind her on the saddle, ride to MacAphies (that spelling may not be correct) or to the little church on Lyons Creek, along the bridle paths for “quarterly occasion”.

             MacAphie’s was situated near the river at Bridgeburg.

             Sometimes they would go to Lundy’s Lane, but she never ventured that far alone.

             Their nearest store in the early days was at Chippawa. Once a year that trip was made. Sometimes chains were dragging behind the sleigh to frighten the wolves. On one occasion the wolves came to the end of the long chain. How we children liked to hear that story! Tea was a luxury for occasional use. Herb teas were the usual drink, and grandmother often remarked that our health would be better if we adhere to those old-time drinks.     

             She often told us too, of a funeral procession meeting the sleigh of Governor Simcoe whose residence was near the Falls. The great man’s equipage drew off to the side of the road in the deep snow, and he and his party sat with uncovered heads till the last sleigh passed them.   

             By the way, the Governor’s Welland County Home was in a good state of preservation until 1887 or “88. It was then in possession of a man named “Bell” Henry, and was totally destroyed by fire about that time. The Henry’s lived in the gate-keeper’s lodge for some little time after that, but there are no traces of the building at present. The city has swallowed it up.

             How far we have wandered from Point Abino!

             Two of grandmother’s daughters went west when they married, not to Manitoba you know, but to Middlesex, which was almost farther from Point Abino then, than Winnipeg is today, for modern conveniences of travel have almost annihilated distance.

             On one of her rare visits to them, she travelled by boat from Buffalo to Port Stanley where “Uncle Isaac Sherk” met her. His brother Abraham lived in the vicinity we are talking about. That Sherk homestead has passed into other hands, too, but not into the possession of strangers.

             On the return trip, chatting with the Captain, she told him that her home was just a mile from Point Abino, and the Captain offered, if the weather was propitious, to send her ashore there.

             The wind was fair when they arrived off the Point, and the vessel lay to, while a boat conveyed grandmother and her baggage ashore.

             This was not the Twentieth Century, and time schedules must have been very elastic.

             On her way home, she passed the homes enumerate in the last letter, the first one being Auntie Sloan’s house and then Page’s. A few days ago a member of that family informed me that the first settler of the Ot-way Page’s was High Sheriff of the district and travelled to and fro from old Niagara to his little log home in the “wilderness”.

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

27 April 1926