POINT ABINO AND VICINITY

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              The writer is indebted to Mr. Green for his kindly words. He may easily be correct about Gov. Maitland rather than Gov. Simcoe having met that funeral procession. Grandmother told us that story and was an eye-witness of the incident.

             As to Otway-Page-His granddaughter, Mrs. Wilson Bowen, who lives with her daughter in Welland, was the authority for stating that he was Sheriff of the district. Mrs. Bowen remembers her grandmother who died at the home of her son, Otway-Page, the writer remembers.

             Mrs. Bowen could doubtless recall much of interest regarding the family. They were connected with English aristocracy.

             A grandson, Thomas Otway-Page, was a graduate of Queen’s University, the first in that section. He taught high school for years at Van Kleek Hill, very successfully. The other brother, A.E. lived on the homestead where one of his sons, still resides.

             The other day I came across some notes father wrote during the last few months of his life, (in 1925). According to these, there have been Methodist meetings at or near Ridgeway for 126 years.

             William Baxter was very prominent in the early days. The first services were held in a barn, not far from the present Baxter Church.

             Mr. Baxter was a class leader, tall, clean shaven, with piercing yet kindly eyes.

             The requirements of the “discipline” regarding dress, etc., for the women, were rigidly adhered to at that time. Squire Benjamin Learn was another prominent man. His great-grandson lives in Crowland, J.A. Learn. Old Peter Tuttle was another of the group.

             The circuit was very large, and included Macaphee’s, 133 miles away; Lyon’s Creek, 14 miles in another direction, and Morgan’s Point Church, some 17 miles up the lake.

             The roads were nearly all bridle paths.

             But the services were very interesting. The singing was hearty. A tuning-fork was the only “instrument,” but singing schools were quite the order of the day, or night, rather-and many of the young folk sang by note, reading rapidly and correctly.

             There is a note also about “Little Tice Haun” who preached in the open, somewhere near the lake.

             There were log seats fixed, for about a hundred people.

             He was peculiar in dress and manner. He believed in baptism by immersion and “dipped” his converts three times.

             Two of the Fretzs were among those presenting themselves for baptism, one day, but the one wrenched himself free from the preacher’s hands after the first plunge into the icy waters, and ran. His brother pursued, but in vain, and the meeting dispersed without any formality. That happened sixty years ago.

             An old copy of the Telegraph some time in the spring of ’77 or ’78 contains an account of a wild goose hunt on the Maple Grove Farm. The account was written by father.

             A large flock of geese settled on the wheat field just north of the building, for several nights in succession.

             The old hunting instinct revived. Father, E.E. Fortner, who was his guest at the time, A.E. Otway Page, and one or two more assembled, just at dusk, and crept cautiously back the lane, using horses for concealment, for one of the men were sure they could approach quite near the birds in that manner.

             They did get within fifty yards or so. A group of woman watched them from the back yard, but some one was so absorbed or excited by the sight of the big flock that he spoke aloud and instantly the flock rose and formed for flight. The old shot guns were hastily raised and one lone goose dropped with a broken wing.

             We children fed it in the barn unit its wing healed and then freed it.

             Grandmother was certain that the flock was descended from a flock of geese she raised which disappeared from that very field.

             About this time Dr. Neff at Port Colborne had invited a group of his friends, of whom he had hosts, to help eat a wild goose he had shot. Mrs. Neff cooked the bird for a long time and the doctor essayed to carve it.

             All his efforts failed, and the bird roasted to a delicious (looking) brown remained, practically, intact on the platter. “Well boys,” said the doctor, “perhaps we can get our forks into the gravy.” That episode saved “our” goose’s life.

Fifty years ago the Grange was a quite prominent feature of agricultural life in that section. The old Grange hall is still standing. Was it not remodeled and dedicated as Kennedy’s Methodist Church?

Like some other ideas borrowed from our American cousins, it did not take very deep root in Canadian life.

Still it served the purpose of suggesting the idea that farm folk had common interests, other than those of a purely social nature, and paved the way for other rural organizations of broader purpose, and great economic value. The Wheat Pool is the outgrowth of these early organizations. The rural fairs were also a real factor of rural life.

Every township had its fall show, which was purely agricultural.

The big county fair did not in those days require a “midway” to draw the crowds. What did bring the people together then? We drove 16 miles and always attended.

It is a question whether the races are any more interesting now than when Ryerson McKenney drove in them, as he always did. The great high-wheeled sulkies are a thing of the past, so is much of the real “sports-for-sports’s-sake” that characterized the races of those old days. Are the ideals like the sulkies, lower today?

We’ve gone a long way from Point Abino this time, but in spite of all effort to the contrary the mind wanders, as we did in those old days. We follow the old road, as then, past Ben Snider’s blacksmith shop; back to Netherby and across the country to “the Seventh” into the county town, to the Fair. Remaining perhaps for the concert in Orient Hall. Once we heard Mrs. Keltie and the Tandy Brothers sing. Welland has almost forgotten the “days of small things” when Orient Hall was her only amusement auditorium.

Or perhaps we drove on through New Germany, over Montrose Bridge, to Lundy’s Lane and the Falls, or Drummondville; we climbed up the stairs of the old pagoda and listened to the stories the old soldier told the tourists, of the War of 1812-14. Of course, he had not taken part in those battles, but we childen really thought he must have done so, for he described them so graphically.

Then we wandered in the cemetery across the street where the graves of friend and foe were marked with wooden slabs.

There is a dim recollection of driving out to Falls View one evening to see “the lights on the Falls.” What they were is forgotten-not electric lights then, 45 years ago surely. But they were accounted a ‘wonder’ for a rainbow almost as perfect as the one seen any sunny day above the Falls was produced by them.

Then the long drive home, But we had good horses, two to a buggy, and the time went fast; till Auntie Sloan’s light streamed across the roadway and in five minutes we were home.

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

10 June 1926