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A "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" 18 - PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, February 1,1994 Sketches of Scugog is a historical column written by local resident and historian Paul Arculus and published in the Port Perry Star the first issue of each month. [J] ® [ THE FIRST SETTLERS PETER JONES AND THE MISSISSAUGAS ® ¥x *% Changes One thing that history teaches us is that no nation, no civilization will endure unchanged for long. In other words; the world is in a constant state of change. Throughout history every civilization and every country has undergone dramatic transformations over the years of its existence. These changes have been brought about through a number of factors. Toynbee says that the most significant factor in bringing about the collapse of the world's civilizations has been the moral decay within each civilization. For whatever the internal reason, the ultimate demise has been brought about by invasions of other groups. Britain is a perfect example. The countries which make up Britain have been subjected to numerous invasions; The Celts, from central Europe about 1800 B.C., the Roman invasion in 43 A.D., the Anglo Saxons beginning in 449 A.D. and the Norman invasion of 1066. Each of these invasions has resulted in changes in Britain's language, culture, economy and the entire socio-political structure. Even the attempted invasions of the Vikings in the 11th century and the Nazis during the middle of the 20th century resulted in major socio-economic changes. In this century Britain has witnessed the legal invasion of millions of immigrants, particularly in the post war 'period, from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the far east. This 20th century invasion is having a much slower but still dramatic impact on the language and culture and economy of Britain. Ontario's Early Settlers Canada, too has been subjected to numerous invasions. Beginning in about 9000 B.C. waves of differing cultural groups of Canada's first people swept across what is now Ontario at the end of the Ice Age. This region was probably first settled by the Algonquins who were driven out by the Iroquois speaking people about four thousand years ago. The Iroquois were farming people, planting various crops but mainly corn and maize. Examples of their pottery dating back to 1,000 B.C. have been found at numerous sites in Southern Ontario. They tended to live in long houses containing many families. The Algonquin speaking group, which included the Ojibwa (or Chippewa) were hunters and food gatherers and tended to be nomadic. When Champlain first passed through this region in his explorations of the Ottawa river - Great lake system in 1615, he followed the routes used by the residents, the Huron, an Iroquois speaking people. The French, British and Dutch competed for the favors of the indigenous people. The French becoming allied with the Huron and the British and Dutch with the Iroquois. The Huron, although they were of the Iroquois language not allied to the Iroquois themselves. The rivaling French and British generated hatred between the two groups as they negotiated for furs, guides and translators in their territorial expansion. The wars between the French and British produced such horrors as the murder of the Jesuit priests at Midland and the eventual near extinction of the Huron. By the 1720s, a group of the Ojibwa whom we know as the Mississaugas had gained firm control of the area between Georgian Bay and Lake Ontario. The Iroquois had been driven to the area south of Lake Ontario. The Arrival of New Immigrants Champlain brought with him the French language and traditions. In 1759 the British defeated the French at the Plains of Abraham bringing about another change in what is now Canada. One of the most significant events in the modern era occurred when tens of thousands of Americans including the Bigelows, the Fisks, the Perrys and the Sharps fled north Canada in order to remain loyal to British traditions after the American Revolution of 1776. Their arrival signaled the political beginnings of Ontario and more than doubled its populations. We, like the British, also experienced major changes due to the Loyalist immigration and then, beginning inthe early 1800s with the arrival of settlers from the British Isles and again in the late 1940s, first from Britain and western Europe, then from central Europe and more recently from the islands of the Caribbean. Early Surveyors The first three articles in this series have dealt with the early maps and surveys of the Lake Scugog Basin. The men who carried out these surveys were a hardy lot. They had to hack their way through virgin forest. It is difficult to imagine all of the townships surrounding Lake Scugog to be a solid forest of pine, white pine, spruce, birch, maple, oak, and hemlock but this was indeed the case. The fur trade lured the first white entrepreneurs, but, as we shall see in future articles, the real economic development and growth of this region took place from about 1840 and was based on lumber. The method of surveying used in this region of Ontario demanded the toughest of men. A compass would be set at the beginning of a line to be surveyed and then a straight line would have to be cut through the forest. Each man would have to swing an axe until a clear uninterrupted, line of sight could be obtained in the required compass direction. A marker or picket would be placed at the end of the line of sight and this line would then be measured. The compass would be set at the picket and the cutting would begin all over again. Augustus Jones e mentioned that the great surveyors of Southern Ontario, were men like William Chewett, Patrick Rev Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonably or "Sacred Father") from the Victoria University Library, group Were nyer-sity of Toronto. Portrait painted in London at the time of his first visit there in 1832 by Matilda - Wahbanosay as his guide. McNiff and Samuel Wilmot. Another prominent surveyor at this time was a man named Augustus Jones. During the period from 1787 to 1800 he had surveyed Dundas Street from York to London, Yonge Street from York to Lake Simcoe as well as many of the townships around Trenton. On many of his surveying excursions he had a Mississauga Chief named During that time Jones learned the ways of the Mississaugas, including their language. He had also become a close friend of the great Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant. In 1800, Jones retired from surveying to take up farming on his Pe a 'Queen Victoria as she probably would have appeared to Peter Jones when he met her in 1838. She had just been on the throne for one year. Picture from Metropolitan Toronto Central Library extensive land holdings. He married Tuhbenahneequay, the daughter of Chief Wahbanosay. She gave birth té6 two sons, John in 1798 and Peter on New Year's Day in 1802. Since Tuhbenahneequay would not become a Christian, Augustus left her and married the daughter of a Mohawk chief who had embraced Christianity. Peter, whose birth name was Kahkewaquonaby or Sacred Feathers, was raised by his mother as a Mississauga. He saw very little of his father, although Augustus made sure that his sons were well provided for. When Peter reached the age of 14, his father encouraged the boys to come to live with him near Paris, Upper Canada, to learn not only the ways of the white man but also the customs and traditions of their Mohawk step-mother. With no hesitation, they joined him. The Rev. Peter Jones In the summer of 1823, Peter and his step-sister Polly attended a Methodist camp at Ancaster. There were many similarities in the Christian teachings and his own upbringing in the legends and myths of the Mississaugas. All evidence points to the fact that the Mississaugas had always been a deeply religious people. Their spirituality had a profound emphasis on obedience and sensitivity to the will of the "Great Spirit." Their view of reality was largely influenced by their desire to please the spirits of their ancestors and, through them, their Creator. The Mississauga belief that success as a hunter-warrior was directly dependent upon sensitivity to the spirits or manitous of the world around; the animals, rivers, sky and trees. This sensitivity was also coupled with the Mississauga confidence in their own prophets, priests and medicine men. Jones had no difficulty reconciling his sense of the "Great Spirit" with the Christian God and he readily understood the idea that Jesus was the messenger from the Great Spirit and he equated the Mississauga belief in lesser deities with the Christian belief in angels. He became a devout Christian and, as his knowledge of his new found faith grew, he felt the need to pass on his convictions to all the natives of Upper Canada, particularly his own people, the Mississaugas. With this in mind, he became a Methodist preacher. Changes for the First Nations It should be pointed out that around this time the Native peoples of southern Ontario were experiencing dramatic changes in their culture, changes that were affecting their very existence. ILuropeans had brought with them a number of diseases to which the native population had not acquired a resistance. The scourge of alcohol was also now proving to be an overwhelming problem. But the most important problem was that of lifestyle. In the past, the Ojibway had been content to gather their food, hunt and fish, and in so doing, continue a relatively peaceful and healthy existence. Since furs had become so valuable, many had abandoned their agrarian lifestyle to aggressively pursue the gathering of furs, particularly beaver pelts. Peter Jones was one of the few who understood the impact of this transformation. The Credit Mississaugas He spent the most of 1825 and 1826 living and preaching among his people in the area around the mouth of the Credit River, the region which now bears their name. He also taught them how to survive among the new settlers, teaching them techniques in farming, fishing and the _ necessary process of trade. Another most important Methodist teaching was the refusal to use alcohol. At this time, another Methodist minister, Egerton ° Ryerson, later to become one of the most important and influential people in - Ontario, became his.closest friend, a relationship which was to be life long. Ryerson spent a year with Jones among the Credit area Mississaugas. . Mississaugas of Scugog * Jones felt that his mandate among his own people was to establish mission stations with schools in all the Mississauga settlements in Upper Canada. One of his first visits was to the Mississaugas at Scugog. In May 1827, Peter Jones paid his first visit here. In his diary, he rejoiced in the fact that they smashed two barrels of whiskey which had been brought to them by traders. At this time a log schoolhouse was built in the Port Perry area. Its exact location is not known but, following usual Mississauga practice of establishing important buildings either at the height of land or at the waterfront, the log school house would have been built close to the site of the present high school on Borelia Hill or at the present Port Perry waterfront. This was the first school in Reach. A year later his diary records another visit to "Indians about Schoogog Lake." His description of the settlement of about a hundred Mississaugas was about "a mile and a half from Schoogog Lake" leads us to believe that this 1828 visit was probably to the mainland near what is now Port Perry and not on the island. The present settlement on Scugog Island was purchased in 1843, by a group of Mississaugas living at Balsam Lake. They moved to Scugog Island in 1844. One of the first buildings they erected on their newly purchased land was a school house. Jones Marries In 1829 Peter Jones tours the United States in order to raise funds for the Methodist mission schools and churches among the Mississaugas. The next year he toured England on a fundraising speaking tour where he met Eliza Field, the daughter of a deeply religious and wealthy factory owner. They married in New York 1833 where their interracial marriage caused quite a stir. Several scathing articles appeared in the press. THE FIRST SETTLERS Part Il Next Week ¥ : ~y