Late
H. B. Stringer lived 82 years
in Neighborhood of His Birth
Henry Bostwick Stringer died
at the home of his son, Francis H. Stringer, of Port Dover, on Tuesday
last, January 7th.
He was buried the Friday
following in Pt. Dover cemetery, the pall-bearers being R. M. Taylor,
John S. Martin, W. H. Smith, W. J. Thompson, J. C. Howey and William
Wilkinson. The last named, a month younger that deceased, was born on
the adjoining farm, and their friendship was life-long.
H. B. Stringer's paternal
grandmother was born Margaret Buchner. She was a daughter of Henry Buchner,
one of the quartette of brothers who founded the numerous and
widely-scattered family of Buchner's or Boughner's of Norfolk.
Margaret Buchner married in
New Jersey a man named Robert Stringer, and they had a large family.
Some of their children were Henry, John, Darias, Christopher, Abner,
William, Aaron, David, Mary, Joanna, and Amanda.
Aaron married Mary Hunt, who
belonged to a Loyalist family, and she drew a hundred acres of land in
Upper Canada, to thither they came, settling first in the Short Hills,
Pelham Township.
Thence they moved on, in the
winter of 1832-33, and made their home on Lot 14 on the Third
Concession of Woodhouse, where on May 9th, 1836, their third son was
born and named Henry Bostwick.
In early life, Mr. Stringer
went to the United States and engaged in steam boating on the
Mississippi river.
Later he returned to Canada
and married Jane Porritt, February 25th 1863. After farming for a
short while in Norfolk and Haldimand counties, they moved to Port
Dover in 1867. Mrs. Stringer predeceased her husband, suddenly,
January 8th, 1916, by three years less one day.
Their three sons are Francis
H., public school teacher, Port Dover; Chas. H., accountant the
Clifton Hotel, Niagara Falls, Ontario, and H. Lee. accountant Miller
& Richards, Winnipeg, Manitoba. There is one grandchild, Evelyn P.
Stringer, Winnipeg.
Of his eight brothers and two
sisters, the three survivors, Robert of Bay City, Mich., Wesley of
Buffalo, N.Y., and Walker, of St. Thomas, Ont. were all present at the
funeral.
Deceased possessed a
heightened faculty for historical investigation and as long as the
Norfolk Historical Society existed was one of its most useful
members. He contributed a number of papers to the society's
deliberations and wrote many newspaper articles, mostly to the Reformer,
on pioneer times and events.
It was almost entirely due to
him that the spot on Black Creek near Port Dover, was identified as the
site of the cabin of the two Sulpician priests, Dollier de Casson and
De Brehant de Galinee who spent the winter of 1669-1670 there.
At the gathering of the
Norfolk and Elgin Historical Society held at the De Galinee site in
August, 1900, Dr. James H. Coyne, of St. Thomas, translator of the De
Galinee narrative, remarked that it would be most interesting if one
of the axes of the poor quality of which De Galinee complained, could
be found.
Mr. Stringer kept up the
search for one of these relics and at last discovered one in the
possession of Thomas Jackson, which he had found in 1880 or 1881
on the northeast corner of Lot 15 of Woodhouse Township -- about 1½ miles from
the site of the French camp -- under the main roots of a rotting tree
at least a hundred years old, the axe being a full two feet beneath
the surface of the ground.
The axe is at present in the
collection of D. B. McCord, Montreal. It would seem but fitting that
this axe should [come] into the possession of the Norfolk Historical
Society.
Deceased was several times a
member of the local Board of Education. In politics he was a Reformer,
except in municipal matters. In religion, he was an adherent of the
Anglican church.
Of his skill as carpenter,
buildings from Petrolia to Welland, and even the far-off state of
Louisiana bear mute but eloquent testimony.
