Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)

{Compiled by “S”}

In 1834 John Wetherald, a quaker, moved his family to Canada. He purchased a hundred acre farm near Guelph Ontario.

One son William was born in Healaugh, England on September 28, 1820. He attended Ackworth, one of the leading Quaker schools in England. He came to Canada and worked on the farm. Later he worked as a teacher. At age 23 he taught school in Ermosa Township. He was a gifted teacher.

In 1846 William Wetherald married Jemima Harris Balls born March 3, 1830 near Rockwood.

In 1851 William Wetherald started a boarding school for boys. It was called Rockwood Academy

Rockwood Academy: It housed up to fifty boys. The boys were ages 12-16. The main floor of the academy had a library, classroom, living room. The dining facilities were in the basement with a kitchen at the back. Upstairs the Wetherald family had five bedrooms and rooms for teaching assistants. The third floor was  dormitory rooms for students.

The school was solid. English, math and latin were taught. Expenses were low, twenty –one dollars for tuition and board for a term of three months. Most of the texts were furnished to the students.

Mr Wetherald was a gifted teacher and revelled in the poets and was close to his students.

Many of his students were accomplished, many became doctors, teachers, business men, ministry. J.J. Hill became a railway magnet, Premier A.S. Hardy, I.E. Bowman was leading educator of Waterloo, Alexander Campbell Public School Inspector of Bruce County.and Sir Adam Beck of Hydro.

In 1864 William Wetherald sold Rockwood Academy and by 1884 it closed.

The movie Agnes of God was filmed at the Rockwood Academy.

William Wetherald accepted a position at Haverford College in Philadelphia, moved his family there and stayed there until 1866. He resigned and moved to a farm in Pelham, Ontario. It was located the corner of Foss Road and Cream Street. He was welcomed by the Quaker community. William became the ordained minister at the Quaker church on Haist Street, Fonthill.

In May 1898 William went to England to attend an annual meeting of the Friends and spent several months in England. He was strickened with pneumonia and died there. He died in Banbury England in his 78^th year.

His Son Herbert inherited the farm. William Jr and Agnes Ethelwyn lived there until their deaths.

Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald was born April 26, 1857 in Rockwood. Her parents were William and Jemima Wetherald.  She was the 6^th of eleven children.

She was a serious, lonely, frail child. She immersed herself in books. She was five feet five inches tall, slight stature, gentle unselfish person with an indomitable spirit.

When the family moved to Pelham, a Quaker family in Buffalo offered to educate one of William’s daughters, Agnes was chosen. She attended Union Springs school in New York and Pickering College in Ontario.

Her father believed women should have as good an education as men.

At age 17 Agnes received her first cheque for a poem that was published in “St Nicholas”. Starting in 1887 she contributed articles to Toronto Globe, also wrote regular columns for that paper.

Much of Ethelwyn’s work was done in her “Camp Shelbi” a large tree house built in the limbs of a willow tree at the Pelham Farm. It was built  March 1910.

Ethelwyn enjoyed politics and economics from both countries where she was educated.

Her first experience as a free lance writer, she was living with her 2 brothers in St Pail, Minnesota. She spent the summer at the lake , wrote about it and took it to the paper and was told it was a human interest story. It was published and she earned four dollars.

In the late 1930s Ethelwyn contributed to a column in the Welland Tribune. It was a children’s column written by Mrs S. McInnis using the pen name Patty Perkins. Ethelwyn used the pen name Octo, referring to the fact she was an octogenarian.

In 1938 July 16 Ethelwyn had a party. It was hosted by Louis Blake Duff at his home  in St. John’s.

In 1911 at the age of 54 Ethelwyn employed a woman named Mary who had a child. Ethelwyn adopted the child and named her Dorothy. Ethelwyn never married.

Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald died March 10, 1940. At the time of her death much of her book collection was donated to the Rockwood Academy Collection at the University of Guelph.

• Some of Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald’s works:

The House of the Trees and other Poems, 1895

Tangled in Stars, 1902

The Radiant Road, 1902

The Last Robin; lyrics and Sonnets, 1907

Tree Top Mornings, 1921

Lyrics and Sonnets, 1931

An Algonquin Maiden: A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada with Graeme Mercer Adam, 1887

The Garden of the Heart: A Garland of verses by Ethelwyn Wetherald and others, 1903.