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The Evening Mail 29 October 1927 Some Early History of Cumberland County By Martin Bent Huestis I am to write what I remember and what I have been told or read of the early history of Remsheg and parts of the east end of the County of Cumberland. I wish to write it as a kind of personal letter to old friends. My memory serves me quite well back to 1850. My family history and conversation of old friends, and records of the Crown Land Office take me back to he landing of the United Empire Loyalists in 1784. Then altho that may seem a long way, I want to take a flying leap back some millions of years and tell of records I have recently of how that part of the world which was Remsheg and is Wallace was being made, not in six day but in an infinite number of years. STONE QUARRIES Quite recently after an absence of 56 years I spent several days in my native Wallace. I was much interested in the great free stone quarries. They are on a part my father's farm where when a boy I put the horses and cows to pasture. No stone appeared on the surface then. My father sold about six acres to Wm. McNab, Customs Officer and Magistrate, father of Brenton A. McNab the well known journalist. In digging post holes for a board fence his workman found across the front of his lot two feet through the earth smooth flat stone. Mr. McNab opened the quarry, worked it for some years when it was transferred to a Company. It is now worked by the Peter Lisle Construction Co. of Montreal. For some years the truck loads of stone were sent down on a rail line to Wallace Station. It is sent overland to Montreal almost as it comes out of the quarry to be there sawn up and polished for the market. In past years a large quantity of stone was shipped to Boston and other U.S. ports from the well known Barry Quarries on Wallace River. The Province Building was built of stone from that quarry. But now about my million year records. I am not a geologist. I wish I could have had as a companion to read "The Testimony of the Rocks" a Hugh Miller or a Dawson. LOOKING BACKWARD But I met in the quarry an intelligent workman. He told me, and I saw for myself, evidence that beneath fifteen feet of earth and twenty feet of sandstone once flowed to the sea a river. Ferns that grew once on its banks left their imprint on the stone. Trees two feet in diameter, fossilized, lay prostrate along the bed of the quarry. One can trace clearly the layers showing the growth year by year and the bark on the outside. My imagination carried me back to the people who sat under the shade of these trees, hunted among them, drifted down their ancient river in canoes or dug-outs and caught fish in its waters. How do I know there were people? Well, why have trees or vegetable life, unless there were people to sit under the trees or animals to prowl about, or fish in the river and the seas to be caught. How long did it take to make the earth or how long to make man? They are still in the making, man far from a finished product. How long did it take for these trees to grow and how very very long for that great sandstone quarry to grow as the waters rose and the sand drifted until some twenty feet of solid rock was deposited? After that the overtopping earth, and again trees and ferns. There are the records for anyone who cares to read them. The supposed evidence of a river has recently been uncovered. ORIGIN OF NAMES Wallace, as it is well known, was originally called Remsheg. In print it appears in a variety of spellings. Remsack and Ramshag. In the Crown Land Grant it is Ramsheg. My father visited New York in 1819 and a letter written to him by his uncle in N.Y. after his return is addressed to Remsheg. Tombstones in the Methodist Graveyard, Wallace, spell it Remsheg. I like it that way. I do not know its origin or meaning. In February of this year I wrote C.C. Blackadar, Esq., Editor of the Acadian Recorder for information as to the names. He published my letter and his reply. His reply was: "Wallace is one of the three townships of Cumberland County. This place was at one time called "Ramsack" or "Ramshag". It was settled by American Loyalists in 1784. In the year 1810 Alexander Stewart, for many years the Cumberland representative in the local legislature, had the name changed to "Wallace" in honor of Michael Wallace, Prov. Sec. Wallace acted as Lieu. Governor in 1818 and again in 1824. The name has spread to Wallace Bay, River, Bridge, station, Grant, Highland, Ridge, East Wallace, North and South etc., all in Cumberland County. So many names are apt to lead to confusion." MEANING OF NAMES I think from the many records I have, that the date of the change should be about 1820 instead of 1810. Perhaps the old name continued to be used by so me after the change. We need some old Micmac namemaker to arise to give us names with meanings for all these places. I never found anyone who knew the origin of the name Stake Road which runs four miles below Wallace from the Tatamagouche to the Malagash road. In the first survey of the Crown Lands a stake was driven at an important pont on Wallace Ridge, on the road to Malagash. It was north of the road a few hundred yards near a house in my young days occupied by Samuel Canfield. A schoolhouse was built there and my mother used to tell me that she and other children walked up through the woods from the Shoal Bay road to School. Later on the Schoolhouse was moved about two miles to the Cross roads on the road to Malagash and it not only carried the name Stake Schoolhouse but gave it to the Stake road and a church built there. When I was Postmaster of Wallace I remember a letter coming to the office adddressed "To the Post Master Mr. John MacEachern Blue Hill Valley or Ridge, Or Duncil McDonald's father Among other places it was sent to my office on account of the name Wallace ridge. As all other places had been tried, I had after a time to send it to the Dead Letter Office. GRANT TO LOYALISTS My father as clerk of the town of Wallace for many years had a parchment copy of this grant. I remember studying it with interest many times. After his death and my leaving the place this valuable and interesting document became lost. In Crown Land Office, Halifax, I have found the original grant of 200 acre-lots with the town plot surveyed for the Loyalists in 1784 by Charles Baker Deputy Surveyor. It begins at Point Malagash, runs in double rows through Malagash and in single rows on both sides of Remsheg Harbor to the west end above Wallace Bridge. The lots were numbered, staked, and drawn for by the 120 or more loyalists of that time. I have copied only the names of grantees known to me, or whose descendants remain. Others did not stay long but sold their lots for some things they wanted more than land. I recollect hearing of one being sold for a barrel of pork, another for a waist coat or pair of pants. No doubt many drifted back to the country from which they had been expelled. The grant was a free offering to them and two or three years provision supplied by the British Government. EARLY TRIALS My grandfather Thomas Huestis and grandmother Phoebe Maybee, and I suppose many other loyalists, from N.Y. came by vessel up the Bay of Foundy to the French Beaubassin the marshes of Amherst and Tantremar hoping to get land dyked by the French who had been driven out. When they found this land all taken up they came down the Northumberland Straits and up Remsheg and other harbours. How they managed to shelter themselves until shacks or log houses could be built and their lots of land secured, is a problem. Some think that effects brought from New York to Amherst by vessels were afterward carried on rafts made of cedar or other trees towed by boats down to points on the Northumberland Straits. There was no one to welcome them unless it was stray Micmac or two. I never learned that the Indians gave them trouble. I have been told that moose or caribou looked down with wonder at this strange new appearance. The first name at the Malagash end or point of the grant is that of Gilbert Purdy, lot No. 30. That is a well known name in W allace to this day. It is said that this Gilbert had a very long nose. He was thrown from his horse one day and his nose being most prominent struck the ground, was broken and remained crooked. His point of land having a similar crook it was called for years "Purdy's nose" or the "jumping off place." I do not vouch for this story. Names following Purdy's were: Daniel Tidd Thomas Husted Solomon Horton Daniel Totten John Tidd Isaac Tidd David Tidd Alex Piers Then came a road to Tatamagouche James Dotten 200 acres. Then a road laid out to Cobequid Road from Shoel Bay. Names along the Harbour front of Remsheg are: Peter Winn Jesse Mills Ezekiel Piers John Jacobs Marcus Myers Absolim Smith John Lefauger Thomas Corneli Samuel Williams Gabriel Purdy John Angwine John Catterton James Tidd Jacob Veal Samuel Horton Benjamin Laurence OAK ISLAND Oak Island was granted to Col. Edward Fanning. The grant said there was a passage for boats at high water between Oak Island and Smith's Point the eastern end of of Fox Harbour land. Josiah Smith and others had the whole of Fox Harbour land which accounts for the name of the point. It is still so called on maps of N.S. My father who was born in 1788 when he grew to manhood bought one of these 200 acre lots the most central in Remsheg Harbor and built a large house which is still standing. It was solidly built with a frame of stout timbers and boarded in with pine two feet wide. It stood the test a few years ago of being moved a quarter of a mile down street to make room for a new house. The names of Derry, Williams, and Holmes to the Salt Mines on the North Shore of Malagash. In my day these lands were settled by Scotch: McKenzies, McKinnons, and McLeods, etc. Oliver Smith had 200 acres on the North Shore where a Smith family whom I knew lived. There was a small creek on their shore, usually full of logs and debris. Clam Point in Remsheg Harbour, 100 acres, was granted to Noah Webb. No.28 PLAN There is a second grant of 200 acre-lots as laid out for the Westchester loyalists at the River Remsheg. Written on the plan is the following: "Plan of surveys made and land granted Isaac Askley and 137 others of the West Chester Loyalists and disbanded Corps, done under the orders and directions of his Excellenct John Parr by Charles Morris. Surveyor General 1785." These lots were said to have been laid out to accommodate those who declined to take the lots which they had drawn on the Cobequid Road and on the road leading from thence down to Remsheg "The land at and near Remsheg is in general very good but badly watered, with a mixture of timber but mostly spruce. There is very little pine within these surveys." Some names are: Robert Purdy. Peter Maby., John Maby. John Myers. The names of Treen, Purdy, Seamen and Pugsley occur frequently. REMSHEG RIVER What is now called Head of the bay, Wallace was called on the plans Remsheg River, while that which is now Wallace River running up to Folleigh Lake was called a branch. The grant says: "There are many excellent situations on this river for the erecting of saw and grist mills and abundance of timber to justify them, such as pine, hemlock and spruce" On this plan of the Remsheg River and the branch of it running south, two spots of considerable size are marked Kereboo plain. I have never heard the name but it stands on the plan. Before I leave these interesting grants I must mention a rather remarkable mistake made by the surveyor. They decided that a town would eventually be built and they located it on the peninsula running from the head waters of Remsheg Harbor between Remsheg Harbor and Fox Harbor to the mouth of these harbors called now North Wallace. The town if built there would have been quite out of the way of through travel. The natural place for a town to be built is where the town of Wallace now stands. Land was granted across Remsheg Harbor, now North Wallace, from a point below Livingstson Bridge where the Wallace Ferry landed and the road leading to Fox Harbor began. First there was grant to the Minister (denomination not named) 500 acres. School 500 acres, next a large strip marked "common", then came 219 lots of about 3 acres each running from Remsheg Harbor to Fox Harbor and clear down to the end of the peninsula at Forshner's Point. NEVER FAILING SPRING My grandfather, Thomas Huestis, it seems had drawn a lot on the North Shore but preferred this location in the centre of Remsheg Harbor and no doubt on account of a fine spring he found there. He dug a well about 6 feet deep. It stands there yet as stoned up by him, the stones now thickly moss covered. It has never, I believe, run dry and the water is good. A family of Dottens took up lots alternate lots sufficient to make a large farm for each family. A good school house stands among these lots but I do not know what disposition was made of the 500 acres each to Minister, School and Commons. The loyalist movement was a greater one than many people think. I had read that over 80,000 were expelled from the U.S. forfeiting their estates. Everyman's Cyclopedia says "they emigrated to Canada after the United States had secured independence and formed the greater part of the population of Ontario and New Brunswick which they founded. It does not mention Nova Scotia. Murdoch's History of Nova Scotia says "In September 1783, 14,000 loyalist refugees were expected to come to Nova Scotia. Many vessels left N.Y. for N.S. in Sept. 1783, in which 8,000 refugees embarked." There may have been some romance in it as in the case of the Acadians from Grand Pre but the movement to and settlement in Nova Scotia was no glad picnic. GOVERNOR'S LETTER Governor Parr writes from Halifax to Lord North in England. "I cannot better describe the wretched condition of these people than by enclosing a list of those just arrived in the Clinton transport, destitute of almost everything, chiefly women and children, all still on board as I have not yet been able to find any sort of place for them and the cold settling in severe." Possibly our loyalists who came up the Bay of Fundy to Amherst and thence to Remsheg had not such a hard time. They had land grants and it is said 2 or 3 years of provision given to them; but getting shelter over their heads, wells dug and land cleared was a serious enough matter. I have heard of a man carrying a large bag of seed potatoes on his back over a trail from Truro to Pictou. This was long before the days of matches and the lighting of fires must have been a difficult matter. We are surprised often at the ignorance of some people we meet in the United States about Nova Scotia. In 1893 talking with a gold refiner in Providence, R.I., he asked me about gold mines near Shubenacadie "How do you get to them" he said. "By rail", I replied. "Is there any danger from the Indians" he said. I allayed his fears by assuring him he could make the trip in safety. I thought of the quiet lawabiding Micmacs braiding their baskets in the market then around the Halifax Post Office and smiled. I have written that the Indians as far as I learned from my forebears gave them little or no trouble. But this was because farther back in history they had been controlled by a strong hand. If anyone wants to learn of the terrors of that past let them read Murdoch's or other histories of Nova Scotia or the delightful but gruesome record of Parkman. INDIANS WERE TROUBLESOME In Murdoch's we find that: "In 1752 Morris the Surveyor went to Musquodoboit escorted by Capt. Lewis and 20 rangers as a defence against Indians." In 1753 "They gave much trouble". In 1755 "A party of Indians captured an English officer named Hay who was returning from Fort Lawrence to the Encampment. The Indians were disposed to put him to death but the French ransomed him from their savage allies, treated him with great politeness and notified Colonel Moncton of his capture." The following proclamation was issued in 1756 "The Indians had acted in such a treacherous and cruel manner, killed and carried away so many of His Majesty's subjects that a reward of 30 pounds is offered for every male Indian prisoner above the age of 16, brought in alive. For a scalp of such male Indian, 25 pounds and 25 pounds for every woman or child brought in alive." I think the loyalists met them in a kind and friendly way. When I was a boy a squaw looking hungry would often come into our kitchen. My mother called them "Sister" and used them well. Poor natives, they were losing their lands and in a sense their liberty and deserved charity from their supplanters. THE CHURCHES OF REMSHEG For several years after the settlement of the loyalists there was no church or minister. Scotch settlers on the Gulf shore, Fox Harbor and other points brought in two branches of Presbyterians. The old Kirk and the Free Church. In my early days both branches had ministers from Scotland, good churches and quite (sic) congregations. Rev. James Anderson and a Mr. Christie were ministers of the Kirk and Rev. John Munro, a valiant defender of any good cause, upheld the interests of the Free Church. A genial and humerous old man named Higgins an excellent shoemaker had a workshop opposite the Free Church. He used to say that he and Mr. Attended (sic) to souls on opposite sides of the street. CAUSED UNFRIENDLINESS There was a strict line drawn between these two branches of the faith and a feeling none too friendly existed. This was happily changed after much discussion by the Union which took place at a later date, although some opponents of Union remained outside for several years. Mr. Munro of the Free Church seemed to have a warmer and more fraternal feeling for the Methodists than for the Kirk. He used to join cordially with them in Union Prayer Meetings, but both branches of the Presbyterians seemed rather fearful of the Methodist revival services of that day. Two brief instances will will illustrate this. At Fox Harbor, with the exception of two families, all were Presbyterian. Two earnest Methodists of North Wallace, John Huestis and a quaint Irish lay preacher named Robin Tait used to meet the two Methodist families for prayer and religious conversation. The result was that other men and women, Presbyterians, used to drop in. Eventually a revival in Methodist style resulted and to the horror of Mr. Munro somne women began to "Speak in Meeting." GAVE OPINION Mr. Munro went over one day and gave his opinion, and that of St. Paul, as to women being heard in churches, in a very earnest style. He said that the Irish as a race in religion were quite excitable but the Scotch were more staid and cautious, preferring to live their religion than talk about it. This was too much for Auld Robin Tait. He "Spoke out in meeting" and said: "It's because their haven't the Grace of God in their hears (hearts?), if they had they would speak out. The result of the meeting was quite a large addition to the active membership of the Presbyterian Church in Fox Harbor. My other illustration relates to the Kirk. A series of special services were held by a zealous Methodist minister of Wallace at one of his appointments. During these meetings a lad from an old Kirk family came under the influence of the meetings. The Kirk minister asked permission to preach. He opposed the meetings vigorously and quoted from the clamor of the multitude when Jesus rode in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the people hailed him as King, afterwards fleeing and forsaking him. REBUFFS PASTOR The Methodist Minister called on the mother of the lad, a good old Scotch woman, of the Old Kirk school. He assured her that neither he nor his Church desired to make a Methodist of her son, but were deeply interested in his spiritual welfare and would advise him to join the church of his parents. The old lady smoked her pipe quietly in the chimney corner not even looking at the minister. When he had finished she suddenly turned on him and with all the pent up zeal of her grand old faith she said "The Kirk's the Kirk and it will be the Kirk." She was surely a continuing Presbyterian of the old school. METHODISM OR WESLEYANISM Dr. T. Watson Smith in his interesting history of Methodism in the Lower Provinces says in reference to the beginning of that Church in Remsheg: "During the winter of 1791 Wm. Grandin an English Wesleyan Minister visited Wallace, then known by the Indian name of Remsheg. A number of loyalists had settled on a tract of land laid out for a town, on the north side of the harbor opposite the present village. The majority of these had borne arms during the war. Many remained but a short time in their new quarters. But one minister had found his way into the settlement during the seven years which had elapsed since these exiles sought a new home near the Straits of Northumberland. This solitary visitor was Edward Manning of the Baptist Church. In the absence of religious services some of the settlers became very dissipated and total inattention to moral and religious duties prevailed. Chastisement prepared the way for a change: disease of a contagious and severe type visited nearly all the families and death left his footprints in many homes. The sudden [death?] of a man who had been sent for a quantity of liquor, over which to carouse had also made some impression. The influence of these events had not wholly passed away when Grandin, who had been preaching to the loyalists settlers on Westchester Mountain, made his appearance at the head of Wallace Bay. RESULTS SPREAD Arrangements had been made for a dance at the house of Thomas Huestis on the evening of the day of his arrival. The floor had been sanded and a few of the guests had arrived, when a message reached the house that a Methodist preacher at Andrew Forshners desired permission to preach in the room that evening. The voice of a preacher had so rarely been heard in the neighborhood that the strange request was granted. As the result of the labors of Grandin and others Methodism spread rapidly. Day after day the people met to listen to the gospel. The work proved to be as permanent as it was powerful. Many of the descendants of the converts of that day are to be found among the Methodists of Wallace and other circuits and in the Ministry of the Church. A small church was built at Wallace in 1808. In 1851 another and larger one was built. CHURCH CONSTRUCTED I remember the pulling down of the Church of 1808 and the building of the new one in 1851. The latter Church gave way a few years ago to a pretty new one on the same site. This reminds me of a story of a similar pulling down and building of a church in a town of Prince Edward Island. A Committee of three were out soliciting funds to rebuild. They saw coming towards them a very friendly old Irish Catholic priest. "Let us try Father John", they said, "he is a very generous man." But Father John when told they were building a new church and would like a little help from him, said "Oh no, boys, I couldn't give anything at all to the building up of Protestantism, but what are ye going to do with the old building?" "Oh, your reverence" they said, "we have to pull that down". "Well then here is ten dollars for pulling it down. I would give that any time to help pulling down Protestantism." The Church of England had a small membership in Wallace, and a small church, still standing, was built there. Other denominations had no followers. A few good Roman Catholics lived on the North Shore and other parts and a small chapel was built on Wallace Ridge. A PERSONAL MATTER I must beg my reader's forbearance if I mention my own forbears more often than other loyalists or Wallace in these sketches. My excuse is that I know more about my own people than any others, and another reason is that they were fairly representative of all. I have been greatly interested recently in the early history of my grandparents. Thomas Huestis was born of English parents in White Plains, Westchester Co., New York in 1859. I remember when he died and was buried at Wallace in 1851. Pheobe Mabie his wife was born in Tappan New York in 1757 and died in Wallace July 1811 aged 54 years. I spent a day recently up the Hudson River near Tarrytown and visited the house in which she was born. It was built at Tappan, N.Y., solidly of stone in 1755 bby a Mr. Mabie. He was a French Huguenot of good family who was expelled from France came out from Holland with the Dutch to New Amsterdam, now New York. SOLE FAMILY OF NAME I was told by Mr. Mabie of Mabie Todd and Co., gold pen manufacturers, New York, that but one family of that name came to America. The large number of Mabies now in the United States and Canada it would seem came from that stock. Hamilton Mabie the well known journalist came from the same family. The house is now called the '76 Stone House or Mabies Inn. It became historically famous on account of the imprisonment within its walls of Major John Andre the English Officer, messenger in the "Great Treason" between Benedict Arnold the traitor at West Point and General Clinton the Brit- [some words were evidently dropped here]. Andre was found guilty for five days then taken to a hill back of the house and cruelly executed by hanging. Phoebe Mabie, my grandmother, was born in that house. No doubt as a young woman of the family she waited on Major Andre and I hope she gave him a good breakfast. STOOD LOYAL Thomas Huestis was the only one of a large family who stood loyal to Britain. He served in the army during the revolution, was arrested by the rebel troops shortly before the end of the war, and imprisoned until its close. I think it likely that he also was held in the '76 house, met and married Phoebe and took her with him to Nova Scotia. His family were brought under the influence of the Wesley and Whitefield movement. I have a letter dated 1822 written to my father Joshua Huestis in Remsheg by his Uncle Joshua Huestis in Pelham, New York, in which he says: "I have to tell you of the death of your grandmother. She said she died in the Lord and we buried her body in the first Methodist graveyard in Marmoneck [sic] N.Y." This accounts I think for the open door for the Methodist preacher in the home of Thomas Huestis. He was a good farmer, a man of very loving nature, always happy in his family affairs and friendly with everyone. One of the modernists he was said to be a universalist because he could not accept the doctrine of eternal damnation as taught with fervor by preachers of his day. He was for a time a lay preacher, but the Methodist quarterly board objected to his using their pulpit on account of his liberal views. STUDIES LAW Joshua Huestis, my father, eldest son of a Thomas was taught the rudiments of an education by his parents before the first school was opened. Then for a time he taught school for the neighbors children. He was always privately a student of law. Was foreman of grand jury at Amherst when 21 years of age, and during his life held many prominent positions in Cumberland. Among other old official documents of his I have his appointment dated May 1821 to be one of the Commissioners for the summary trial of actions in the township of Remsheg. This was issued by His Excellency Sir James Kempt, Governor and Commander in Chief in and over His Majesty's province of Novas Scotia, etc. This was signed by Rupert D. George. Another was a Commission issued by his Honor Michael Wallace, President and Commander in Chief of Nova Scotia for expending Twenty Pounds to repair the road from Hortons in Remsheg to Dewars Bridge towards Tatamagouche. He superintended the repairing of roads and building of bridges for many years. IMPOSING DOCUMENT This commission was issued on the 10 of May th 1824 in the 5 year of the Reign of our Soverign th [sic] Lord George the Fourth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the United Church of England and Ireland the Supreme Head." I wonder if Hon. Percy Black, Minister of Highways, issues to his contractors such imposing documents as this. The next is his appointment as Postmaster of Wallace. It is dated 1829 and signed by John Howe, Junior, Esq., Postmaster General for the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. This is the first document min which the name of Wallace appears instead of Remsheg. Joshua Huestis acted as Postmaster without salary, from the time the mails were first carried on horseback over trails from Halifax until regularly appointed [some words missing here] by this document is a marriage license issued to Joshua Huestis esq., and Rebecca Fulton, Spinister [sic]. This was issued in Halifax Nov. 20th 1833 by His Honor Thomas N. Joffery administrator of the Government of Nova Scotia. A clause reads—We do hereby grant this License and Faculty as well to you the parties contracting as the Rector Vicar or Curate of the Parish of Wallace to solemnize the said marriage. The document was addressed to Daniel MacFarlane, Esq., and as there was no English clergymen available, and nonconformists, so called, were not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony they were duly married by the Squire. A document issued in 1855 by Sir Gaspard LeMarchant, Governor, etc., etc., appointed "Joshua Huestis of Wallis to be Custos Rotulorum, during pleasure, for the County of Cumberland." This office he held for many years, as Chief Magistrate presiding in January each year over the magistrates sessions in Amherst. This was before the days of Municipal County Government by a warden and councilors. The last document I have was issued by the Right Honorable Lucius Bentinck, Viscount Falkland, the governor of the time, appointing Joshua Huestis to be Captain and Adjutant of the 2nd Batt., Cumb. Co., Regt. Militia, dated 1840, in the 3rd year of Her Majesty's reign. His duty was to drill the regiment and on a good horse he was a fine looking and capable officer. He was the first to move for the organization of a volunteer company of young men called the Wallace Grays. The first captain was William S. Huestis, my cousin, while I had the honour to be a corporal of the company, rising afterwards to the exalted position of Sergeant Major in the Cumberland Militia and later to be a member of the company that drilled at Wallace during the Fenian scare. Years after I with others who prepared to shed our blood to put down the terrible Fenians received one hundred dollars each from a generous Government. Most of the civil and criminal cases in the Wallace District were tried before Squire Huestis, many such as now would come before a county court judge. When required, two justices, James Drysdale or William MacNab, used to sit with him. Students in a small law school at Wallace by the late Henry Oldright, among them E.D. King, W.F. McCoy and others, have told me that my father had as good a knowledge of the common law as any man they had known. I also received twenty dollars for a good score at the provincial shooting at Truro. I was a lad of 18 and Major General Doyle, then acting as governor, said to me, as from on horseback he presented me with my prize: "Your people do a lot of goose hunting, I believe." If I live to be as old (I am only 84 now) I may get, some day, another government grant for service in the militia. I fear I will be thought to be in my second childhood when readers find I have brought myself into these sketches. For this offence I humbly beg pardon and promise not to do so again. Comment by cousin Douglas Huestis: January 2007 Douglas W. Huestis 3525 North Tin Star Place Tucson, Arizona 85745 |