Act 24

The Ontarians

Upon his return from the Crimean War, John George Farndale took his family to Ontario in 1870. At about the same time Samuel Kirk Farndale took his family to Ontario.

The Ontarians Podcast

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Scene 1 - The Crimean Veteran’s Family

From Kilton to Ontario via Russia and Australia

John George Farndale (1836 to 1909) was born 26 on October 1836, the son of John and Martha Farndale, farmer of Skelton, and the author who we have already met. He was born into the extended Farndale family of Kilton. By the age of 14, he was a printer’s apprentice in Skelton and shortly afterwards he joined the army. The year after his uncle, Matthew Farndale and his family had arrived in Australia, John embarked for the Crimea and in 1854 to 1855 he wrote home from the heights of Sevastapol during its siege. We will pick up his military exploits in Act 32.

After the Crimean Wars, his Regiment, the 28th of Foot served in India from 1858 to 1865. There was a Private John Farndale, discharged from the Grenadier Regiment of Guards on 25 May 1872, of very good character. As we know John George Farndale was promoted to Lance Corporal in January 1855, if this was him he had suffered a demotion.

We are not sure exactly when he emigrated to Canada, but he probably crossed the Atlantic and travelled through Canada to Ontario in the mid 1870s. There is an unsubstantiated story that he went to Australia first, so he might have arrived in Canada by a more circuitous route, perhaps even crossing the Pacific.

John George Farndale 1836 to 1909 A Victorian infantryman who provided us with an eye witness account of the Crimean War before taking his family to a new life in Ontario

The Crimean War The Crimean War through the perspective of John Farndale, who took part in the long campaign

Ontario

Ontario has been inhabited by humans for about 11,000 years. Indigenous people probably lived by fishing and hunting. Deer, elk, bear and beaver could be found in the south, and caribou in the north. By 1,000 BCE, pottery had been introduced in the area of modern Ontario, and archaeological sites show a far-flung trading system with imports from as far as the Gulf of Mexico. By 800 CE the Wendat and the Haudenosaunee, were well-established farmers, growing corn, beans and squash. The known inhabitants of the Ontario region before the arrival of Europeans included the Iroquoian-speaking agricultural Huron, Tionontati, and Erie peoples of the south and the Algonquian-speaking hunting Algonquin, Ojibwa, and Cree peoples of the north.

The French explorer Étienne Brûlé surveyed part of the area in 1610–12. The English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into Hudson Bay in 1611 and claimed the area for England, but Samuel de Champlain reached Lake Huron in 1615. In their effort to secure the North American fur trade, the British and the French established fur trading forts in Ontario during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the British establishing forts around Hudson Bay, and the French establishing forts through the Pays d'en Haut region, a vast area west of Montreal which included most of the Great Lakes Region and defined the area from 1610 to 1763.

Control over the area remained contested until the end of the Seven Years' War, when the Treaty of Paris of 1763 awarded the colony of New France to the British. The Quebec Act of 1774 established Ontario as part of an extended colony ruled from Quebec. Following the American Revolutionary War, the province saw an influx of loyalists settle the area. In response to the influx of loyalist refugees, the Constitutional Act of 1791 was enacted, splitting the colony of Quebec into Lower Canada, which is present day southern Quebec, and Upper Canada, which is present day southern Ontario.

On 18 March 1797, Sergeant Patrick Mealey received the first land patent for a plot on the west side of Royal York Road on Lake Ontario, later the area of Etobicoke. This was part of the First Military Tract, or Militia Lands. The Crown was providing land to Loyalists in compensation for property they left behind in the U.S. and to veterans of the American Revolution in payment for service. In other parts of Ontario, the Crown granted land to the Iroquoian First Nations who had served as allies during the war and were forced to cede most of their land in New York to the state.

By the time of the census of 1805 there were 84 people in the township of Etobicoke. In 1806, William Cooper built a grist mill and saw mill on the Humber river's west bank, just south of Dundas Street. The 1809 census recorded 137 residents. The Dundas Street bridge opened in 1816, making the township more accessible.

John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada, supervised the introduction of English legal and local government practices. He started a land-granting pattern, and encouraged the construction of trunk roads. He fixed the capital of Ontario at York, which later became Toronto. Simcoe’s welcomed massive immigration from the United States which became a source of tension between the newcomers and the established anti-U.S. loyalists, a rift that deepened during the War of 1812. After that war and throughout the nineteenth century, immigrants came mainly from Ireland and Great Britain, with large numbers from Scotland.

From 1815 to 1840 the province was dominated by a conservative oligarchy, which was known as the Family Compact, an elite tied together by family relationships. Even when this group lost its majority in the elected legislative assembly, as happened twice, it continued to control the governing bodies. Its commitment of public funds, borrowed in Britain, to private infrastructure projects, such as the construction of the Welland Canal to bypass Niagara Falls, led to mounting opposition as costs rose. Reformers demanded responsible government. They pressed for a government with the confidence of a majority of members of the elected assembly.

Between 1825 and 1842, the population of Upper Canada tripled to 450,000, and by 1851 it had doubled again. Most of the immigrants came from the British Isles, made up roughly of 20 per cent English, 20 per cent Scottish and 60 per cent Irish immigrants. Settlement generally spread from south to north, moving away from the lakes as land along the shores became settled. By the 1850s, Ontario’s economy was primarily agricultural, particularly wheat growing, but the balance gradually shifted to dairy, fruit and vegetable farming.

The Canadas were reunited as the Province of Canada by the Act of Union 1840.

Urban and industrial growth increased from the 1850s through the 1860s with the development of textiles and metalworking, farm implements and machinery. Toronto grew as both a railway and manufacturing centre, and as the provincial capital.

The township of Etobicoke was incorporated on 1 January 1850 by which time the township's population had grown to 2,904.

Ottawa became the capital of the Province of Canada in 1857 and on 1 July 1867 the Province of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were united to form a single federation. The Province of Canada was split into two provinces at Confederation, with the area east of the Ottawa River forming Quebec, and the area west of the river forming Ontario.

In 1872, the lawyer Oliver Mowat became Premier of Ontario and remained as premier until 1896. He fought for provincial rights, and sought to weaken the power of the federal government in provincial matters. His battles with the federal government significantly decentralised Canada, and gave the provinces far more power. He consolidated and expanded Ontario's educational and provincial institutions, created districts in Northern Ontario, and fought to ensure that those parts of Northwestern Ontario not historically part of Upper Canada, the vast areas north and west of the Lake Superior-Hudson Bay watershed, known as the District of Keewatin, would become part of Ontario. This was embodied in the Canada (Ontario Boundary) Act, 1889. He also presided over the emergence of the province into the economic powerhouse of Canada. Mowat was the creator of what was often called Empire Ontario.

The Canadian Pacific Railway through Northern Ontario and the Canadian Prairies to British Columbia was constructed between 1875 to 1885.

Mineral exploitation accelerated in the late nineteenth century, leading to the rise of important mining centres in the northeast, such as Sudbury, Cobalt and Timmins. The province harnessed its water power to generate hydro-electric power and created the state-controlled Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, later Ontario Hydro. The availability of cheap electric power further facilitated the development of industry. By 1880 Ontario manufacturing and industry flourished.

Vaughan and Etobicoke

John Farndale, aged 43, married Elizabeth Sanderson aged 27, the daughter of Richard and Martha Sanderson of Vaughan, Ontario, at Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada on 24 March 1880. Both were methodists. The witnesses were Thomas and Jane Sanderson. The Reverend J Thompson officiated. Etobicoke is now a district of Toronto.

By the following year, 1881, John G Farndale was a labourer in Vaughan, to the north of Etobicoke, also now part of Toronto, with his wife Lisebeth. By 1881, when John and Lisebeth Farndale settled there, the population of Etobicoke township was 2,976.

On 21 May 1881, John and Elizabeth had their first son, Charles Farndale. John was still working as a labourer and they had taken Lot 18 in Vaughan. Their second son, George Farndale, was born on 20 December 1882 at Vaughan. Then Albert Farndale was born on 5 May 1884. By this time, John was described as a farmer of Lot 18, Con 10 at Vaughan. Mark Farndale was born on 6 December 1885. Then on 3 December 1887, the first girl of the family, Martha Teressa Farndale, was born. By 1887, John was still a farmer, at Elders Mills PO.

This photograph is of John George and Elizabeth Farndale and their family taken in about 1887 in Canada. The children left to right are George, Teressa, Mark, Charles and Albert

Annie Maria Farndale completed the family and was born on 25 October 1889 at Smithfield, Etobicoke, York, Ontario. At this time, their medical practice was at Woodbridge, Ontario. John, still a farmer, had Canadian citizenship by this time.

In 1891, he was described as a farm labourer again, living at Etobicoke, York West. John was then 52 and living with him were Elizabeth Farndale, 39; Charles Farndale, 10; George Farndale, 8; Albert Farndale, 7; Mark Farndale, 5; Martha T Farndale, 3; Anne M Farndale, 1; Jonathan Farr, 25, domestic, and Sarah B Farr, 22, his wife.

John’s wife, Elizabeth died in 1893.

In 1893 Ontario’s population increase slowed after a recession hit the province in 1893. Many newly arrived immigrants moved west along the railway to the Prairie Provinces and British Columbia, and into sparsely settled Northern Ontario.

The 1901 Census for Peel District, Chinquacousy listed John Farndale, 64, a farm labourer and widower, with an hourly wage of 300, boarding with others.

Chinguacousy Township is in the Regional Municipality of Peel, Ontario. Several villages were once located within Chinguacousy Township. Only a few remnants like churches and cemeteries of these former villages exist. Peel is now part of the Greater Toronto Area. The area was first settled in the early 1800s after being divided into townships in 1805. The County of Peel was formed in 1851, named after Sir Robert Peel. The townships that would eventually constitute Peel were initially part of York County in the Home District, and were designated as the West Riding of York in 1845. In 1867, Peel officially separated from York County. Peel County was dissolved in 1974. The Ford Motor Company of Canada was established in 1904.

John George Farndale died on 21 February 1909 at Chinquacousy, Ontario aged 72, a widower, and farm labourer. He was buried at Brampton Cemetery, Ontario with his wife Elizabeth and his daughter Martha Teresa, who died on 7 January 1986, aged 99, a spinster.

Gravestone at Brampton Cemetery, Brampton, Peel Municipality, Ontario

Brampton had been a small village in 1834. The only building of consequence at the corner of Hurontario, now Main, and Queen Streets, today the centre of Brampton, was William Buffy's tavern. At that time, the area was referred to as Buffy's Corner. All real business in Chinguacousy Township took place a mile away at Martin Salisbury's tavern. By 1834, John Elliott laid out the area in lots for sale, and applied the name Brampton to the area, which was soon adopted by others.

In 1911, the community of Mimico was incorporated on land taken from Etobicoke township. New Toronto was incorporated on 1 January 1913. Early on, there was talk of merging Mimico and New Toronto. A 1916 referendum on amalgamating the two communities was approved by the residents of Mimico, but rejected by residents of New Toronto. In 1917, Mimico became a town and in 1920, New Toronto became the Town of New Toronto.

In July 1912, the Conservative government of Sir James Whitney issued Regulation 17 which severely limited the availability of French language schooling to the province's French-speaking minority. French Canadians reacted with outrage, journalist Henri Bourassa denouncing the Prussians of Ontario. The regulation was eventually repealed in 1927.

Influenced by events in the United States, the government of Sir William Hearst introduced prohibition of alcohol in 1916 with the passing of the Ontario Temperance Act. However, residents could distil and retain their own personal supply, and liquor producers could continue distillation and export for sale, allowing this already sizeable industry to strengthen further. Ontario became a hotbed for the illegal smuggling of liquor and the biggest supplier into the United States, which was under complete prohibition. General Motors Canada was formed in 1918. The motor vehicle industry became the most lucrative industry for the Ontario economy during the twentieth century. Prohibition in Ontario came to an end in 1927 with the establishment of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario under the government of Howard Ferguson.

The Ontario 1 Line were the descendants of John Farndale.

The second generation

Charles Farndale (1881 to 1928) married Mabel Fanny Pugh on 27 October 1914 in Peel. Mabel was the daughter of Fannie Pugh and was born in Ontario in about 1886.

This photograph is of the wedding of Charles Farndale and Mabel Pugh in Canada in 1914

Charles was a farmer in Melton, Ontario by 1911. Their son Wilfred Gordon Farndale was born in 1915 and Clarence Edward Farndale on 3 October 1918.In 1921 the family were living at Chiguacousy Township, Peel, in Polling Division 4, which comprised the west of the middle of the second concession west of Hurontario Street from lots 1 to 10 inclusive, at Huttonville Village. Their daughter Bessie Marie Farndale was born in 1922. Charles died tragically on 7 July 1928 by hanging himself while temporarily insane. Mabel married Charles’ brother, Albert Farndale, but they later divorced.

George Farndale (1882 to 1976) was a carpenter’s apprentice, boarding with the McCulloch family in Peel, by 1901. He then moved to MacDonald, Manitoba, southwest of Winnipeg by 1911. Coincidentally there is a region called Ferndale in the municipality of MacDonald. He settled in Townships 7, 8, 9 in range 12 west of 1st Meridian and became a contractor. He married Elisa Erikson (1883 to 1949) on 26 April 1912 at Victoria, Manitoba. Their daughter Clara Farndale was born in about 1920. George became a grain buyer at Somerset a little further to the southwest and he died on 4 April 1976 in Winnipeg.

Albert Farndale worked as a farm labourer on the Carter farm in Chinguacousy, Peel in 1901 and then moved to Saskatchewan, where on 23 October 1906 he applied for Homestead No 247924, SW, Section 14, Township 26, Range 14, Meridian W3. He settled in Lintlaw, about 150 kilometres northeast of Regina. He applied for another homestead on 18 November 1907, and on 26 September 1913 he was granted Homestead No 282866, NE, Section 18, Township 36, Range 9, Meridian W2. Still single in 1911, he was farming in Mackenzie District in Saskatchewan. Still single, aged 37, in 1921 he was a farmer on his own account in Mackenzie. On 27 April 1929 in Peel, Ontario, Albert Farndale, farmer, 44, bachelor, residing at Lintlaw, Saskatchewan married Mabel Fanny Farndale, his brother Charles’ widow, a housekeeper, 43 also by then of Lintlaw, Saskatchewan. Their daughter, Irene Violet Farndale, died at birth in 1938. They married at Churchville back in Peel, Ontario. He was still living in Lintlaw in 1977.

Mark Farndale (1885 to 1918) worked as a labourer in Toronto Township in 1901. On 9 October 1907 he took Homestead 277265, SW Section 6, Township 34, Range 18, Meridian W. By 1908 he had moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he married Mary Alberta Wiltse on 23 September 1908. By 1911, they had moved to Humboldt in Saskatchewan, about 100 kilometres west of Lintlaw, where Mark was a farmer. Anne Lilian Farndale was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on 6 June 1911, Lloyd Wiltse Farndale in about 1913, Audrey Celine Farndale on 15 July 1916 and Ina Elziabeth Farndale, who died at birth, in 1918. Mark died on 29 November 1918 in the flu epidemic. He was buried at Jansen Cemetery in Saskatchewan. Mary Alberta Farndale died in 1974.

Martha Teressa Farndale (1887 to 1986) didn’t marry and lived in Toronto. She died on 7 January 1986 aged 99 and is buried with her brother Charles at Brampton Cemetery, Peel, near her parents.

Annie Maria Farndale (1889 to 1936) married Thomas Ernest (“Dan”) Kirk and they lived at Huttonville, Peel, Ontario on 30 June 1920. Annie Maria Kirk, of 419 Ninth Street, Saskatchewan died in 1936.

The third generation

Of the third generation of John Farndale’s family, Wilfred Gordon Farndale (born 1915) served as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War 2 in Europe and then became an accountant. He married Vivian May Gordon on 4 May 1944 and they lived at Sarnia in Ontario. Their children were Mary Barbara Farndale, later Bell, Donna Vivian Farndale, later Kemp, and Phyllis Louise Farndale.

Sarnia, on the US border, is the largest city on Lake Huron. The city's natural harbour first attracted the French explorer La Salle, who named the site the Rapids on 23 August 1679. The township was surveyed in 1829, and in the early 1830s there were many Scottish immigrants to this area. After its foundation, Port Sarnia expanded throughout the nineteenth century. On 19 June 1856, Parliament passed An Act to Incorporate the Town of Sarnia. Oil was discovered in nearby Oil Springs in 1858 by James Miller Williams. The Great Western Railway arrived in 1858 and the Grand Trunk Railway in 1859. The rail lines were later linked directly to the United States. By 20 April 1914, when Parliament passed An Act to Incorporate the City of Sarnia, the population had grown to 10,985 in six wards. Sarnia officially became a city on 7 May 1914.

Gordon Farndale RCAF 1944 Clarence Farndale and Gordon Farndale RCAF in 1944 on board Clarence Edward’s corvette Gordon Farndale with his cousin, Audrey McKelvie (nee Farndale) in about 1982

Clarence Edward Farndale served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1939 to 1966. He married Dorothy Burton at Halifax on 29 September 1942. Paul Edward Farndale was born in Toronto on 3 July 1943. After a divorce, Clarence married Katherine (“Kay”) Ann Shea at Halifax on 19 November 1955. Julia Ann Farndale was born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia on 21 February 1957. She died on 10 June 1971 at Kentville, Nova Scotia. David Christopher Farndale was born in Annapolis Nova Scotia on 3 October 1959. When Clarence retired from the navy in 1966 he was became a Farmer and later a school bus driver. He died in 1992.

Clarence Farndale in 1960 Clarence in 1985

Audrey Celine Farndale (1916 to 2005) married Ernest Stewart McKelvie on 19 August 1938 at 88 Maryland Street, Manitoba. Rev P T Pilkey officiated. They had two daughters, Margaret (“Terry”) McKelvie and Bernice McKelvie. Audrey moved to British Columbia in 1953, first to Chilliwack, then to Vancouver and finally to Victoria. She was employed by the Hudson Bay Company as a comptometer operator and later by the Federal Government in a secretarial position. The comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the United States by Dorr E Felt in 1887.

A key driven calculator was extremely fast for its time, since each key added or subtracted its value to the accumulator as soon as it was pressed. A skilled operator could enter all of the digits of a number simultaneously, using as many fingers as required, making them sometimes faster to use than electronic calculators. In specialised applications, comptometers remained in use in limited numbers into the early 1990s.

Audrey died on 5 February 2005. Audrey crossed the bar mid morning Saturday. She was born in Winnipeg and moved to BC in 1953, first to Chilliwack, then to Vancouver and finally to Victoria. She was employed by the Hudson Bay Company as a comptometer operator and later by the Federal Government in a secretarial position. She is survived by daughters Margaret (Terry) and Bernice, by grandsons Michael (Gail), David (Kate) and Brian (Jenn) Sagar and by great-grandchildren Lynn and Tom. Audrey's husband Ernie died in 1998. Her grandsons will remember her for her generosity in support of their education.

The Ontario 1 Line continues the Farndale Story in Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Scene 2 - The Farndales of Oshawa

Samuel (Kirk) Farndale was born in Guisborough District in late 1871, almost certainly at Loftus, the son of William and Hannah Farndale. Samuel was born into the Loftus 3 Line, and his grandfather was John Farndale of Eskdaleside and his uncle was Joseph Farndale, the Chief Constable of Birmingham. We met his family in Act 15 Scene 3.

At the age of 21, having worked for a time as a labourer, Samuel travelled from Liverpool to Quebec on the SS Sardinian on 21 April 1892. This was about a decade after John George Farndale had settled in Ontario. He must have returned home for a visit as Sam Farndale, a labourer, travelled from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Carthaginian on 16 March 1895, but he settled in Oshawa, Ontario at the end of the century.

Oshawa is on the Lake Ontario shoreline, about sixty kilometres east of Toronto. So Samuel settled not so far from John’s family. Oshawa began as a transfer point for the fur trade. In about 1760, the French constructed a trading post near the harbour location.

Beginning in the 1770s, the area was settled primarily by British colonists. An increase in population occurred after the American Revolutionary War, when the Crown resettled Loyalists and encouraged new immigration. In 1822 a colonisation road known as Simcoe Street was built. It roughly followed the path of an old native trail known as the Nonquon Road, and ran from the harbour to the area of Lake Scugog. This intersected the Kingston Road at what would become Oshawa's Four Corners. In 1842, Skae, the postmaster, applied for official post office status, but was informed the community needed a better name. Moody Farewell was requested to ask his native acquaintances what they called the area. Their reply was Oshawa, or where we must leave our canoes.

The 1846 Gazeteer showed a population of about 1,000 in a community surrounded by farms. There were three churches, a post office, a foundry, a grist mill and a fulling mill, a brewery with two distilleries, a machine shop and four cabinet makers. The newly established village became an industrial centre, and tanneries, asheries and wagon factories opened. In 1876, Robert Samuel McLaughlin Senior moved his carriage works to Oshawa from Enniskillen to take advantage of its harbour and of the availability of a rail link not too far away. He constructed a two-storey building, which was remodelled in 1929, receiving a new facade and being extended to the north using land where the city's gaol had once stood.

The village became a town in 1879, in what was then called East Whitby Township. A rail service had been provided in 1890 by the Oshawa Railway. This was originally set up as a streetcar line, but in 1910 a second freight line was built. This electric line provided streetcar and freight service, which connected central Oshawa with the Grand Trunk, later the Canadian National Railway, and with the Canadian Northern and the Canadian Pacific, built in 1912.

Samuel Farndale married Mary Richardson at Kinsale, Ontario on 20 March 1906. Kinsale was part of Pickering and Oshawa.

The township of Pickering was originally called Edinburgh but in 1792 was renamed after Pickering, North Yorkshire. Pickering Village, now part of Ajax, emerged as the major population and commercial centre of the Pickering Township in the early nineteenth century. In 1807, Quakers led by Timothy Rogers settled in the area, and by 1809, the population of Pickering Township consisted of 180 people, most of whom lived along the Duffins Creek. In 1811, the Pickering Township became a separate municipality. Several sawmills, gristmills, taverns, and other businesses operated in the area. During the War of 1812, the maintenance of the Kingston Road improved because of the increased military traffic and further contributed to the development of the area. In 1851, the Pickering Township was severed from the York County, and became a part of the newly established Ontario County. In the later decades of the nineteenth century, a fall in the demand for wheat led to economic decline in the primarily agricultural township. The township lost over 40% of its population in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the decline continued in the first half of the twentieth century.

William Thomas Howard Farndale was born on 16 October 1907. Gordon Samuel Farndale was born on 22 February 1909. Clarence Richard Farndale was born on 27 July 1912. Samuel became a farmer at farmer, Brooklin, Pickering. By 1945 he was still in Brooklin, a gentleman, and he’s retired by 1949.

So Samuel’s family lived in an area of Ontario given names of their homeland, including Whitby, Pickering, York and Scarborough, along the shore of Lake Ontario.

Samuel Kirk Farndale’s descendants were the Ontario 2 Line. William Thomas Howard Farndale was a farmer who married Mabel Alice Bell, aged 20 on 18 June 1929 at the United Church in the County of East Whitby. Gordon Samuel Farndale was also a farmer who married Rova Valera Thomas, aged 27 on 20 September 1930 at the same church.

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