Duncan is an intelligent and important national/international fin de siècle writer of manners. She observes, through a social lens, the decline of the British Empire. For her, the story of the beginning of the end begins in Southern Ontario’s Elgin (Brantford). Sara Jeannette Duncan’s West Street home is pictured above. It is presently Thorpe Brothers Funeral Parlour…. Read more …
Wheeling, Ohio County, West Virginia – Nellah Blaize Golden and Jedidiah (Jeddah) Golden are first cousins. They are born in Wheeling, West Virginia. Their mothers are the Blaize sisters, whose line is Algerian. They are what is called “free blacks.” Their fathers are brothers. White. From Scandinavia. The brothers’ surname is originally Gullgård. They anglicize… Read more …
The nothing-to-see-here story. “No record of any malicious bloodshed on the site has been unearthed.” Really?!! Unearthed by Stephen Heeney, the real story, if not bloody, is certainly malicious. “My brother and myself had been in about two hours when John [Smoke] Johnson and from about eight to ten other Indians armed with knives and a… Read more …
Squire Tehawennihárhos Davis and Skunny Wundy have a problem with the stone giants, which is best expressed in the frustration of Skunny Wundy: “For the rest of his life Skunny Wundy told anybody who would listen the story of his encounter with the Stone Giant(s), but nobody ever believed him.” Arthur Caswell Parker, Collected Stories of… Read more …
Victims of the Irish famine, Bride Munny and her two children Pomeroy and Chrisinny emigrate to Canada West from Wexford via Wicklow. They cross the ocean on what is called a coffin ship – called such for obvious reasons. In 1845, the Munnys are early to leave the Fitzwilliam estate, where clearances will get into… Read more …
“The Grand River project was unique in one particular way. It was the only major project in Canadian history financed by Indian funds. By 1836 the Six Nations possessed 80% of the outstanding stock; their total investment subscribed without their knowledge or consent, amounted to over 40 000 pounds. Over a hundred years of protest by the… Read more …
Squire Davis has several run-ins with the authorities. Here is one. Squire’s claim to property in the Township of Onondaga on the Six Nations Reserve is contentious. Squire stands accused of getting a man inebriated, encouraging said fellow to sign a quit claim, vis-à-vis lot 45, and, if all this isn’t sketchy enough, a certain… Read more …
“Jeddah” or the “Snowman.” He is a neighbour of the Fergusons. He is a hired gun and the owner of a horse stock farm in Uxbridge. From Smoky Mountains in West Virginia of Appalachia Jeddah and Nellah Golden are the great grandchildren of a Butler’s Ranger, Loyalist and former Algerian Eduard Blaize. Eudora Gourlay, is… Read more …
In 1791 after the American rebellion and the ensuing flood of displaced persons arrive into the upper country, Great Britain took it upon itself to divide Quebec into Lower and Upper Canada. Upper Canada, which the British claimed but did not own and did not conquer – actually Upper Canada was the territories-depending-thereon part of Quebec – … Read more …
“Considering that Ruthven was situated on or very near the land that was sacred to the Cayuga Indians, and considering that a number of Indians ‘sold land improvements’ to [David] Thompson I, it is reasonable to assume that there must have been more than 14 Indians in Indiana over these years.” Laura Kathleen Quirk, The… Read more …