Zurich Citizens News, 1980-11-27, Page 9Land misuse in the 1704's curtailed
development in the Huron Tract
By BUD STURGEON 1800 most of these restric- in these areas were allowed
When we left the story a tions were lifted. to settle on the commons.
couple of weeks ago, the sur- The second method of This land could also be leas-
vey crews sent out by John
Collins o explore out `U Johnper township layout was devised ed from the government for
Canada',owere laying drunk by Alan McDonnel, who did a period' of thirty years for
and disorderly and in total much work in the Niagara agricultural purposes.
andfusion. Ir oranr to spare Peninsula area. McDonnel Other persons building up
is also credited with having vast amounts of land at that
the gory details, let us just
say that they recovered the earliest 'field notes'from time included the surveyors
somewhat, and continued his surveys in Upper Canada themselves. In many cases,
on file today at the federal they would take grants of
with the dubious task of lay-
ing out the townships as the archives. The system he used land in place of money as
British Government had was the front and rear pay. As a result, they
requested. system: became prosperous people
All in all, the Settlers as land grew scarce and they
The first type of township
problems only began when sold off their accumulations
system was called the `Single
System' and apop- they requested a land grant at inflated prices.
Frontular method from was until , and many went through great It is easy to see that much
1818. This system was dents- hardships a n d d i s a p - land went unused at a time
pointments in order to live when settlers were begging
ed to suit the Loyalists com-
ing into Canada as they were ere. • for land grants and as a
used large farm lots. Many Probably many of you have result, growth was slowed
of the `eastern' townships noticed piles of rocks in immensely.
farmers fields, paticularly in The first session of the
were layed out this way. the corners in 'less' parliament of Upper Canada
Many different methods devastated regions of On- tooklace in 1792. In the
were conceived and used for . tario. In the erarly days,previous year, the, country
a variety of reasons. rock piles, tree blazes anhad been formerly split int
Primarily, the government wooden posts were the Upper Canada and Lower
was reluctant to spend mainstays of the surveyor Canada.
money on surveys, and as a for marking out lots. Of One of the newovernin
result they constantly course many `false' markers bodies first acts as to set
searched for a more exist, as many farmers pile up a land board for each dis-
economical system. Wasting rocks in the corners of- the trict. Each board was to
horns of money while looking field primarily to get them have a Surveyor -general in
for a `better way' isn't much out of the way, but charge. The system lasted
different than the thinking of sometimes on close examina- governments is it? tion,the original until 1794 when was
The type of people � thatg surve Y abolished and they reverted
marks can be seer& quite back to the old waywith
the
would settle the land and the clearly, chiseled on the face Surveyor-Generaof the
geographical features of the of the monument. Another 'Province (or his de t
vastly different regions of � Pu Y) �-
sure-fire method o f ing responsible for land
Upper Canada, comprised
the other main reasoning for validating- them, is to dig matters.
the mai n r different down a ways and look for Not much else was going
the umpteen/
methods of surveying -the broken pieces of glass as the on at the time in our own
crews usuallysaved their
area of the province save,for
townships.
That's about enough whiskey bottles for this pur- Henry Wolsey Bayfield's
background so let's continue pose. These were all com- sounding and surveying of
mon and acceptable prat- lakes which began in 1815
with the story. , eg
tices until the 1900 s when
When the first townships and concluded nine years
were laid out, the people iron bars became the popular later. During this period he
who hadreceived land grants markers . set foot on what was to
began settling. The lots had
As far'back as the 1700's become the townsite of
not been marked out, so the there was ,a problem with Bayfield only a few years in
settlers guessed at the a .
survey monuments beIhg the future.
moved or destroyed inten- 1815 was also the
proximate location of the tionall The 1 slature hadyear
land and erected their y when the 'back'townships
to pass laws to deter would were
dwellings and 'cleared their be villains from doing this. and thetn'double to etfrotnt''
farmland, Unfortunately, One act read " that if any
this was not destined to work system of townshi p surveys
persons shall knowingly and was introduced. Over 100
out so good and disputes soon
The government willfully pull down, deface, townships were layed out us-
followed.alter or remove any such in this method until it
b
quickly passed a new regula- monument so: erected as g
tion. It statedthat no person afore -said, he she or they became advantageobsolete to this
1 sy29The
wouldbe allowed to build on shall be adjudged guily of system
their lapd until a surveyor felony and shall suffer death
had examined the property, without benefit of clergy."
and made certain that it was That was kind of a severe
in fact their own. penalty so it was later reduc-
Since there. were not ed to heavy fines and/or im-
enough surveyors available, prisonment. The maximum
the township crews' were prison term to -day is five
soon called back to clear up years.
the problem. The old saying, Our story is fast drawing
'haste makes waste', had to a close but before It ends
caught up to them as it we should take a quick look
always does. at the misuse of land in
Upon their return, they Upper Canada in the late
found a huge backlog of 1700's
settlers waiting for their land Along with the grants
so they could build and get given out to private in -
back to the business of living.
Some surveyors used playing dividuals around this period,
cards to determine the order other large parcels were set
in which the people would get aside for various purposes.
their land. On the back of the Old English colonial laws
playing cards, the lot stated that a percentage of
numbers were written and land in each new township be
handed to the 'owners'. set aside for the church.
There we have the first land These parcels of land
deeds. Although they were became known as Clergy
not regarded as 'legal' deeds, Reserves. Unfortunately
this method did attempt to these particular plots of land
alleviate some of the confu- contributed to the slow
sion. Then again, more development of `Upper
problems came about when Canadain its early years.
the settlers lost their cards, They encompassed a vast
(or they were stolen) before amount of land which
they had received their land. otherwise could have been
These unlucky ones had to go granted to settlers. If this
back .to the end of the line land was not secularized by
and re -apply for a new grant. the mid -1800's it was split up
Because of the shortage of and granted to private in -
men to work on the survey dividuals.
crews, the Government add- Early laws had also forced
ed another stipulation to the a 'seventh' of the land to be
land grants they were issu-
left aside for Crown
ing. Any person that wanted Reserves. There was also a
land, had to assist the sur- common' left in every
veyor in charge of marking township around the town
out the lots. The duties re- sites. These portions of land
quired of these people includ- were used to build for -
ed carrying supplies, cutting titications and for other
trees, chaing (measuring) Government projects. A few
and other menial tasks, By' of the 'better known' Indians
tommommaimmlimlminiow
was that the land could be
granted out in half lots.
But everything had to be
speeded up. The government
wanted more settlers and
wanted them on the land
faster. Now was the time for
the huge land companies to
enter on the scene and suck
up vast amounts of land
(such as the Huron Tract)
and get extremely wealthy
selling it off again. •
This brings us to the
historical period most peo-
ple would consider as the
beginning as it has been
covered most extensively
many times. However, since
we have come all the way
from the early 1600's, to
keep the story honest, we'll
finish it with alas another
review in the final two
chapters of the Founding of
Upper Canada next time
around.
Call in mediator
Continued from front page
been set.
Two weeks ago the report
of a fact finder appointed by
the Commission was
released, indicating a big
gap in salary offers and
demands. At the time of the
report the board had offered
a 5.6 percent increase over a
one year period while the
teachers had countered with
a demond for 15 percent.
The fact finder had
recommended an increase of
8.5 percent.
SEASON'S.GREETINGS
BE A + BLOOD DONOR
A CHAMPION'S AUTOGRAPH — Elizabeth Merner of the
Zurich -Grand Bend figure skating club executive gets an
autograph from Donald Jackson. The 1962 world's men's
figure skating champion conducted a seminar in Exeter, Satur-
day. Staff photo
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