AGED VISITOR RECALLS OLD DAYS

Has Nearly Attained the Century Mark

By Oliver Underwood

There has been in the city a venerable gentlewoman, once long a resident here, but who of late years has made her home with her grandson in Toronto, Eugene Beatty, also a former Welland resident. As a visitor to this city she has been the guest of her great-granddaughters, the Misses Morwood, of North Main Street, at whose home many of our older people have had the honor and pleasure of again meeting with Mrs. William Milton, who will in October next reach the great age of ninety-six years and whose remarkable personality is an exemplification of the observation made centuries ago by Cicero that old age is the consummation of life, just as of a play; as well as that of the more modern Robert Collyer who spoke of such age as the repose of life; the rest that precedes the rest that remains.

Highly illustrative of these two thoughts is this aged woman, whose facilities, with the exception of her hearing, are as keen as those of a girl of today, and whose gracious presence brings to mind another thought of advanced years that some old age is like the dying sun, which, even to the last, brightens the world with its glory.

That may well be written of her, for it is truly an inspiration to meet with such an one and to observe that she nears the blank, and to the most of us dread, door through which all mankind must in the course of nature inevitably pass, with no feeling of that blankness nor that dread, but rather as if she were about to step from one light and pleasant room into another far more illumined and made beautiful by the presence there of One to whom all humanity must instinctively look.

Mrs. Milton consented to receive a newspaperman, whose object in interviewing her was to dig up something of the life of old hereabouts; but said scribe will have to admit that he fell down on the assignment, in so far as that particular part is concerned, for, unlike the majority of the aged, she cared less about dwelling on the things of the past and more on the things that are yet to come.

So there was not much “old-timer stuff” gleaned from the call, although a little insight on days past was acquired as well as many interesting sidelights on the aged woman’s personal life, which would have no place in a news story.

Mary Eliza Harris was born in Nova Scotia in 1829, and left that Province in company with her parents, Elisha and Rachel Harris, at the age of five years for New York City, whither they travelled by packet boat and where they spent the winter. The following spring they travelled up the Hudson River to Albany, and from there journeyed to Buffalo via the Erie Canal, which passed through what was then mainly an unbroken wilderness.

The family remained in Buffalo between two and three years and when the child was eight years of age came to Canada and settled at Riceville, which was a settlement located at what is now the upper part of the village of Fonthill, along the Canboro Road, west of the Methodist Church.

There was then situated the residence of Dr. Fraser, the first Warden of Welland County many years later, and four or five other houses, all built of logs, as well as a school house and what Mrs. Milton recalls as the Price and Watson stores and-an essential component of every settlement of those early days an inn, Rice’s Tavern.

As her memory goes, there was no Fonthill at that time, although there were several log houses along the Canboro Road down the hill and at its foot; and she does not recall when the present village received its name, but she does say that the name was derived, not from Fonthill Abbey in England, as is popularly supposed, but from a drinking fountain erected near the foot of the hill in the vicinity of the present hotel and fed by a spring since filled in.

Mrs. Milton knew Dexter D’Everardo, often spoken of as the father of Fonthill and of whom more anon, and she dwelt at some length upon John Gore, grandfather of Dr. H.L. Emmett, of Fonthill, who, she said acted as best man at the wedding of her father and mother in Nova Scotia and was also among the guests present at the celebration of the golden anniversary of their marriage, held in Fonthill.

After the Harris family became Canadian settlers their daughter spent her school years in Buffalo, where she received her education, making her home with an aunt; and she told of crossing the Niagara in Indian canoes in the course of her vacation visits to Fonthill, and of the long drive through the bush from Waterloo, now Fort Erie, passing on the way the little settlement of Merrittsville, which is the Welland of today.

Mrs. Milton saw the building of the original Baptist Church in Fonthill and the present Methodist Church, which was originally erected as a Universalist place of worship and purchased by the other denomination when the founders became too few in numbers to support it.

She states that the land for the Baptist edifice was given by the father of Benjamin Camby, together with a cash contribution of $200, evidently a princely sum in those days, since the recollection of the donation has survived, all these years.

At the age of seventeen occurred her marriage to William Milton, a native of the United States, who conducted a business at Fonthill, Their married life was a brief one, death calling him after ten years, during which three daughters were born them; the late Mrs. William Beatty of this city; Mrs. Cornelia Harris, who is now a resident of Denver, Colorado, and has attained the age of seventy-four; and Mrs. Margaret Lyon, also of Denver, and the mother of the distinguished physician and surgeon, the late Dr. Roy Lyon.

Mrs. Milton has one grandchild, previously referred to, and there are five great-grandchildren besides the two in this city.

Confession has already been made that your scribe was a dud in the digging up of much old history, but the mind of the venerable woman was on other things and one was perforce content, not only because of that, but because Mrs. Milton’s outlook upon the ending of life here was a thing for even an newsman, who comes in touch with mankind at all angles, to marvel at.

In her case, it is truly

“O grave, where if thy Victory?

O Death, where in thy Sting?”

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

14 July 1925