A LONG TIME AGO – 28 October 1887

BY JOHN RAY, PELHAM

                It was at Newmarket I received my first letter from friends in England three months ago after writing them my address. Postiers did not pass as quickly then as now, and the postage on a letter then was twenty-five cents. It cost five times the money and took four times the time to send a letter to England it does now, My time being up here, and, although I had several offers of eleven dollars a month, I decided to visit the United States. My good old Mrs. Martha Linville put me up a small knapsack of grub, and I started for Little York (Toronto) and thence by steamboat to Niagara. But when in York I saw in a window an advertisement of peppermint for sale, and thinking it might be good in case of seasickness on the lake, I bought a three-half-pint bottle full, and feeling some sick on the lake I tasted it for the first time. It was only whiskey flavored with peppermint. I had not as yet drunk any whiskey and I found it more likely to produce sickness than to cure it. From Fort Niagara to Youngs town crossed the Niagara River on a ferry boat worked by two horses upon deck. Four Indian women crossed at same time. They were greatly amused at one of the horses kicking, which the driver made him do for amusement. Landed at Youngstown, for the first time in my life I was in a foreign country. In walking to Lewiston, six miles, I saw many fine apples and peaches hanging over the road, but, being in a foreign land, I felt timid, and durst not do more than look at them, a delicacy I soon found out was but little observed in that country at the time. While sitting on the balcony of the hotel at Lewiston I heard for the first time the roar of Niagara Falls. I asked what that noise was. The parties asked were were so accustomed to it that it was difficult for them to bear it. At three in the morning I was called up to take the stage east. The stage was a large covered carriage, three seats in the middle, one having a broad leather strap for back hold; had four horses. The roads were very rough; the springs so springy as to cause myself and an old gentleman and his daughter to sometimes come together on the leather strap. Arrived at Lockport; there took my first breakfast in Yankee town, and my first lesson in quick eating. I had only got well prepared to begin when they began to leave the table. Out of over twenty, myself and an old toothless gentleman were the last, I left the stage at Johnson’s Creek, 12 miles east of Lockport. Next day I hired to a widow lady and her son, for eleven dollars a month for two months, to help do up the fall work on a farm, and here I had a good time. David, the son, 18 years old, and I got along splendidly. The old lady went on a visit to New York and left David and I to keep house, which we did in an improved style. She had left a three gallon jug full of excellent metheglin, and upon her return it had become empty. She inquired of David, “What has become of my metheglin?”  “Thy metheglin, mother, why, what did thee want with metheglin?” “I wanted it to treat my friends.” “Why, mother, thy friends have got it.” My two months being up, I was about to engage with a lumber man to drive team, when the old lady showed her motherly kindness by giving me her advice. She said, “The winters here are colder then thee has any idea of; thy former habits and thin clothing do not fit thee for that kind of life. Thee had better stop with us through the winter and go to school with David.” I said, “Would you think of boarding me all winter for nothing?” She said they would be glad to have me stop and help David do the chores. The offer was too good to be refused, so I put in about four months schooling in the town of Hartland, and in the spring of 1829 engaged to work on the same farm for twelve dollars a month. But in the summer, being much troubled with toothache, and two doctors having failed to extract the tooth and only broke it off, I resolved to go to New York and try a dentist, and then visit come of the southern states. By the Erie Canal and Hudson River in one week, arrived in New York. I got supper at a restaurant and lodgings close by. I had been in bed but a few minutes when I found more company than was agreeable, so I got into another bed in the same room. The company had either followed me or were already there. I then lay on the floor with no better success. At three in the morning I found my way into the street without disturbing anyone. I had paid for my lodgings the night before. Market gardeners were bringing in vegetables at that time, indeed all night, and leaving them in the market house at Peck’s Slip. As I was likely to have to remain in New York some time, I was anxious to be out of the bug settlement, and sought a new part of the city, where the bugs might not have taken possession, but got tired, so got breakfast and returned.

Welland Tribune

28 October 1887