THE first settlements in this part of Upper Canada were in the townships on the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The old survey of Trafalgar was opened for settlement in 1807, but it was not until 1819, when Sir Peregrine Maitland was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, that free grants of land, of one hundred acres each, were made to bona fide settlers in Esquesing. The pioneers came into a wooded country, and bears, wolves, deer and other wild animals roamed the forests. The bears and wolves rarely attacked people, but were a continual menace to hogs and sheep. This part of Canada, like the whole region south of the lakes from the Hudson River to the Ohio, had been dominated by the Six Nation Indians, but Indians of any tribe were rarely seen, and they gave the pioneers in Esquesing no such trouble as they gave in some parts of Upper Canada. Because of his loyal support to the British in the American Revolution and previous "wars, the Indian Reserve on the Grand River was given to Captain Joseph Brant, a Mohawk Indian and war chief of the Six Nations, and to his people. He also received for himself a royal grant of Wellington Square, the present Burlington, and died there in 1807 in a house which he had built for himself, and his body was buried near the Church of England on the Reserve. He had received an English education when young. He became a Christian, and translated the Gospel according to Mark into the Mohawk language. His name is perpetuated in Brant County and Brantford.

The conditions of life were hard for the first settlers. The trees had to be cut down and cleared away, log houses and barns built, roads made, and by severe and protracted labor the necessities and comforts of life provided. At first, and until they had oxen and sleighs, many men in the Scotch Block had to carry flour on their backs from a mill on the Sixteenth at Dundas Street, Trafalgar.

A journey of 40 miles to York, always made afoot till horses became common, took two days; the driven oxen were tethered or turned out for the night; and their drivers often slept, shelterless, in the woods, by the roadside. The wheels of the first carts were cut from tree-trunks and pinned on the axle with wood,— were solid, heavy, slow, but introducers, nevertheless as the wheel everywhere has been, of community contact as well as of commercial exchanges. Butter and eggs went to Toronto, ox-drawn; books, necessaries, and seeds came back. Furniture and household utensils were very meagre, and hemlock branches were used as part of the bedding. Before saw-mills were built, with immense labor and patience, two men sawed out a board from an elevated log with a whip-saw, one standing above the log, and the other below it. Tools and implements for doing farm work were few, and these had to be brought a distance. Mrs. David Darling carried a tub of butter to Little York over the forest trails and traded it for a logging chain, which she carried back with her. We can imagine how that chain was borrowed by the neighbors until able to procure chains of their own.

There were no stoves. The open fire-place with its blazing logs warmed the houses, and in the evenings gave a cheerful light to the members of the family who circled in front of it. On a crane which swung, out and in, over the fire, the pots and kettles were suspended, and in them water was heated and food cooked. Bread was baked on the stone hearth in front of, and partially surrounded by, the coals of the fireplace. There were no matches. The fire was started by coals which were covered over by ashes the last thing at night, and so preserved until the morning, or by a spark made by a piece of steel striking a flint. The houses were lighted by candles made in moulds or by dipping wick in vessels holding the melted tallow. The one kerosene oil lamp, which came to be such a great possession and cause of family pride, was as yet in the unknown future.

The first small crops of wheat and oats were cut by the sickle, the grain was threshed out with the flail, and separated from the chaff by throwing it np in the wind. By and by the open cylinder and fanning-mill came into use. There were some men who were famous in their work with the cradle, which superseded the sickle, but after some years the glory of the cradle waned with the advent of the McCormick reaper in the. early sixties of the century, the mowing machine eclipsed the scythe, while the open cylinder retired from view with the arrival of the new separator.

In one generation} after the first settlement in Esquesing a great transformation had taken place. The woods had given way to fields of grass, grain and orchards, the one coW with her tinkling bell had become a herd, and the two, or three sheep, a flock. Log buildings had to a large extent been replaced by frame, and some farmers were erecting houses of brick or stone. The first brick house in the Block is said to have been built by Peter Scott in 1844.

The faithful co-worker of the^first settlers in clearing away the forest, working the plough, and moving the first vehicle of transportation, the sleigh, in winter and summer alike, was the willing and steady ox. Buck and Bright, the ox-team, hawed and gee’d, and took the log, or load to' its destination according to directions.

The dog Rover, or by whatever other name called, must not be overlooked in this narrative. He was hostile to all beasts of prey that committed depredations on his owner’s livestock, and resented them. When William Dobbie was returning home on foot from Ashgrove, his two dogs discovered a bear in the pine woods and rushed to the battle. William, full of courage, followed with a club, and the bear was killed, its skin becoming part of the house furnishing. The lives of bears and wolves were made very precarious and uncomfortable. Rover stood on guard always, except when calling on his canine neighbor. He was well acquainted with the farm and the domestic animals, was interested in all agricultural proceedings, did some work himself when he felt right, played with the children, and tried to encourage his master. The story of Sandy Ross’s dog is authentic. Sandy lived on Lot 17, 5th Concession East. One of his daughters was married to a man in a northern township, and a valuable cow was given her as part of her marriage portion. The cow was driven to the new home of the bride and Sandy’s dog went along. On the night following the arrival there Rover managed to get the cow out of the enclosure where she had been placed, and started back with her to the old home, where he considered she properly belonged. He had nearly reached it when they were overtaken, and the cow recovered. That his intentions and efforts to correct a wrong should have been thwarted on the point of success must have perplexed and discouraged this good dog.

In a short time the horse appeared in the new settlement to assist in farm operations. On the road the ox was sure but somewhat slow, and the horse excelled him. People in those days were fine walkers. A journey of ten, twenty, or even fifty miles, was not worth mentioning; nevertheless, both men and women found that riding on horse-back was a more easy and stylish way of travelling. They rode to church, to business and political gatherings, to call on neighbors, and to social functions where the fiddle was sometimes in evidence. The buggy had not yet arrived. The means of amusement and recreation were not as abundant then as they are at present. An aged lady, well informed on the early history of the Scotch Block, is authority for the statement that the first pastor on one occasion went with his wife to an evening party, carrying her dancing slippers in his overcoat pocket. Probably such a thing now would be regarded as a very grave indiscretion. The violin, however, was an auxiliary at that time to social pleasure, and to courting in the log houses.

The minister called on his parishioners, and the physician on his patients, by horse-back. The sleigh, or lumber-wagon, was unsuitable for such a purpose. Dr. Christopher Russell, who graduated in medicine at Glasgow University, Scotland, came to Canada by the way of Lockport, N.Y., and began to practice in the Block about 1833, and continued to do so for several years. He travelled long distances over the country. He married Margaret, daughter of John Stewart, and lived in a house belonging to Alexander Robertson, on Lot 5, in the 2nd Concession. In 1841 he bought a farm in Erin, moved there, and practiced for many years afterwards. He died in 1869.

The doctor in Cooksville came into the block on his horse, and Doctor James Cobban, who lived in Milton, went about for years in the same way.

Duncan McColl, while still a boy, about 1836 began to carry mail twice a week on a horse, from Esquesing into Trafalgar. He left the home of his father, John McColl, on Lot 11 in the 6th Concession West, in the morning, and went to the Inn of Thomas Thompson, or “Long Tom’s” as the place was called, on Lot 13, on the Seventh Line on the West side, and travelled down to Proudfoot’s store on Dundas Street, where there was a Post Office. It would seem that he received and left mail at several places on the way. On the return trip he either came directly back to “Long Tom’s”, or, what is more probable, up through the Scotch Block from Milton to his father’s where the neighbors used to come for their letters and papers. Before the establishment of this route people came from as far back as Erin to Trafalgar for their mail. This Post Office, opened in) 1820 at Post’s Corners, was kept by Mr. Proudfoot, and was named after the township. The first Post Office in Esquesing, also called after the township, was at Henry Fyfe’s place, Lot 9 on the 7th line, West side. The Esquesing office was moved into Stewarttown in 1840.

The Scotch Block Post Office was opened oh February 6, 1852, and was kept by Thomas Hume in his house on Lot 12, 4th Concession West. He conducted it until he moved to Walkerton with his family about 1884. After that the office found a place in several homes.

The years of the pioneers of the next generation were the years of homespun. The farmers for a time grew flax, and after it was pulled, retted and otherwise made ready, was spun into yarn on the small wheel, and then woven into cloth. The making of linen was given up as the facilities for making woolen goods developed. The wool was taken to carding mills, where it was turned into rolls, which were brought home, spun on the big wheel into yarn, which, when dyed, was woven on the loom found in many of the homes. After the web was fulled and finished in the woolen mill a tailor visited the families and made suits out of it for men and boys. One of these itinerant tailors was Angus Cameron. Beautiful plaid dresses for women and girls were also made by seamstresses. One of the shoemakers who came to the homes and made hoots and shoes, after the skins taken to the tannery came back in the form of leather, was James Baxter. This domestic manufacture was gradually given up, just as later on the individual makers of wagons, ploughs, etc., in the villages of the country had to yield to the competition of the large factories.

The first town meeting in Esquesing for municipal purposes was held at the home of Joseph Standish on Lot 13, in the 6t,h Concession East, on New Year’s Day, 1821. James Frazer was chosen Clerk, Joseph Standish and Thomas Barbour Assessors, Thomas Fyfe, Collector, Charles Kennedy and John Stewart, Wardens. The business of this body was transacted for several years at “Long Tom’s”.

Until 1848 this part of the country was in the Gore District, which seems to have included the present counties of Brant, Wentworth, Halt on, Waterloo and Wellington.

The first Esquesing Council under the new Municipal Act of 1849 consisted of the Reeve, John McNaughton; the Deputy-Reeve, Ninian Lindsay; Councillors, James Young, R. S. Hall and William Thompson; and Clerk, Richard Tracy.

At first the south-western part of Esquesing is spoken of in the Church records as “The Scotch Settlement” and “The Settlement,” but later on “The Scotch Block” only was used, and although somewhat loosely applied this term covered the territory from the base line between Trafalgar and Esquesing North to the Check Line, and from the Town line between Nassagaweya and Esquesing to between the 5th and 6th Concession lines.

The first settlers were Scotch almost without exception—Lowlanders and Highlanders. The most of them came direct from Scotland; a number after a shorter or longer stay in the United States. They wished to form a community and live together, for they were partial to their own kind of folks. It is said that the prayer of one of the pioneers was “God bless our ain people, the Scotch.” The first settlers were intelligent, thrifty and for the most part deeply religious. A few of them were unusually well educated. They were all Presbyterians, but different branches of the Presbyterian family were represented among them. They were farmers as their successors in the Scotch Block still are. There are no villages, nor towns within the boundary lines of the old Scotch Block.