On my father’s arrival in the country he had been sworn in a justice of the peace for the London and Western districts — a very extensive jurisdiction over wild lands with few inhabitants; for those districts embraced all the land between Lake Erie and Lake Huron, the Grand River, and Rivers Detroit and St. Clair.

Courts were held in Sandwich, a distance of nearly two hundred miles, without roads, so that magistrates had to settle all disputes as they best could, perform all marriages, bury the dead, and prescribe for the sick.

In addition to the medicine chest, my father purchased a pair of tooth-drawers, and learned to draw teeth, to the great relief of the suffering.  So popular did he become in that way, that in after years they used to entreat him to draw their teeth in preference to a medical man — the one did it gratuitously, the other, of course, charged.

My father put up two or three small log-houses which were tenanted by very poor people whose labour he required.  From one of these houses my mother hired a nurse, Poll Spragge, who was a merry laughing, "who-cares" sort of girl.

Upon my mother remarking the scantiness of her wardrobe, which was limited to one garment, a woollen slip that reached from the throat to the feet, Poll related a misfortune which had befallen her a short time before.

She then, as now, had but the one article of dress, and it was made of buckskin, a leather something like chamois; and when it became greasy and dirty, her mother said she must wash it that afternoon, as she was going visiting, and that Poll must have her slip dry to put on before her father and mother returned from the field.

During the interval, she must of necessity, represent Eve before her fall.

Poll had seen her mother, in the absence of soap, make a pot of strong ley from wood ashes, and boil her father’s and brother’s coarse linen shirts in it. She subjected her leather slip to the same process.

We all know the effect of great heat upon leather.  When Poll took her slip from the pot it was a shrivelled-up mass, partly decomposed by the strong ley.

Poor Poll was in despair.  She watched for the return of her family with no enviable feelings, and when she heard them coming she lifted a board and concealed herself in the potato hole, under the floor.

Her mother soon discovered what had befallen Poll, and search was made for her. After a time, a feeble voice was heard from under the floor, and Poll was induced to come forth, by the promise of her mother’s second petticoat, which was converted into the slip she then wore.

She ended her recital with a merry laugh, and said now she had got service she would soon get herself clothes.  But clothing was one of the things most difficult to obtain then.

Continued...>

Copyright 1994-2014 John Cardiff and Port Ryerse Environmental and Historical Society

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