Learning Unit: Immigrants and Land
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Immigrants and Land

 

Some Regional and Contextual Background Information

  • The Stobos purchased over 400 acres of land on parts of Lots 21, 22 and 23 Concessions B and C in Scarborough in 1826.

  • Stephen Washington purchased the west 82 acres of Lot 22 Conc. C which was north of the original Kingston Road from Robert Stobo in March 1830. The price was $7.50 per acre according to his son’s writings some decades later. In 1950, Halbert School was built a very short distance from the site of Stephen Washington’s house.

  • As far as settlement was concerned, the extent of “Canada ” in 1842 heading north from Toronto was not much past Lake Simcoe.

  • The annual wages of a male servant in York in 1831 were in the range of 30 to 35 pounds sterling. (Firth, Town of York, 1815-1834, pg. 333)

  • William and Andrew Young were two of the more exceptional Lanarkshire settlers in the Scarborough area. While most others were of the tenant class at best, the Young brothers were younger sons of a small landowner in a long line of Strathaven “bonnet-lairds” (When the Ground Fails).  In about 1844 the Youngs purchased a farm just north of Scarborough in Markham Township.

  • Andrew Young, John Stobo, Arch Muir and Thomas Wilson were all from the same general part of Lowland Scotland and all eventually bought land on Scarboro Heights in Lots 21-23 near McCowan Road.

  • A complete “lot” in Scarborough was 200 acres. However, most farms were typically sold as 100 acres -- usually the “north half” or the “south half” of a lot.  

  • Lot 21, concession C, was divided into “long hundreds” for some reason -- the “east half” and “west half”. The portion of lot 22 north of the original Kingston road was similarly split from north to south. This strategy would have given the Stobos frontage on Kingston Road for more individual farms. However, the Isaac Stobo farm became landlocked when the Kingston Road was moved south to its present alignment -- he had to arrange for a right-of-way from his buildings to the road.

  • Robert Stobo sold 130 acres (Lot 22 Conc. B and the south part of Lot 22 Conc. C) to William Crone in June 1830 for 227 pounds sterling. Andrew Young purchased this farm in 1868. His son sold it to Robert McCowan in 1909. This farm was south of the original line of the Kingston Road. The buildings were on the north side of the present Kingston Road.

  • John Stobo sold the 75 acre farm (north part of Lot 23 Con. C, see letter below) to Thomas Wilson in 1846 for 525 pounds.

  • Archibald Muir was on Lot 21, Concession B and C.

  • The pattern in Scarborough for the great majority of Lanarkshire immigrants of the 1830s generally involved several years’ farm labour, a decade or so of renting land independently and, finally, the down-payment on a farm. (see When the Ground Fails: An Economic Watershed, concluding remarks for further evidence)  

  • Please refer also to the following pages (and the links on each page)

  •     Agriculture

  •     Immigration

  •     Agricultural Revolution in Ayrshire, Scotland

  •     Agricultural Revolution in Lanarkshire, Scotland

  • Go to our Search page -- use your language and thinking skills to define helpful search criteria

 

English Landowner Purchases Part of Lot 22 Con C 1830

I was born June 24 1813 at Beallawaite Green, 5 miles from the town Kendal in the County of Westmoreland, England, where the ancestors of George Washington were born and resided... No consideration could induce my father to desert the old flag. We sold out in the spring of 1829, having most satisfactory results. We got for some only ordinary land 11 pounds sterling per acre. In less than two years after, land fell in price nearly 50 per cent.

We sailed from Liverpool May 12th, had a favourable voyage on the whole with one exception -- our ship ran aground in the entrance to the St. Lawrence. We remained there nearly 24 hours. Ballast was thrown out and the tide came and we were then afloat once more and all were pleased. We were five weeks and four days in reaching Quebec with about 300 passengers on board. We took steamer for Montreal. Then the Durham boats, as they were called, were pushed along most of the way by Frenchmen, with oxen to pull us up the rapids. When we got to Cornwall we had to change and take the steamer for Toronto, or rather, Little York. We had to wait till next morning so we took our beds into the storeroom and laid them on the floor. In our hurry we forgot our bag of sovereigns, and when going out an old lady we had with us who was nearly blind struck her foot against it. My father very coolly said the money would not leave us, but we were very near leaving it.

When we arrived at York we decided to remain there until we had purchased a farm, so we rented a two-storey brick house on King St, about where Parliament St. is now, and the forest -- a thick second growth pine forest -- came within four rods of the street. We could at that time buy 100 acres in that part of the city for less per acre than we paid for our farm. Father went into several townships north of the town in search of a farm. Then he went east to the township of Scarborough where he made a purchase 10 miles east on the Kingston Road.

There were some improvements on the place and some buildings but of little value. He paid $7.50 per acre. At the north part of the lot was built the old Scarboro station. It was splendid land -- we raised great crops of wheat, 40 bushels to the acre. We had one year from a little less than four acres about 1,700 bushels of potatoes, which we sold for $600. The Government buildings were there [in York] besides a large number of soldiers and officers. We had a contract to supply them with nearly everything we raised. As we had not room for all of us on the homestead we decided to get some more land. We learned that in the Township of Darlington there was a large quantity of unsettled land of excellent quality; so in 1832 my father, brother Anthony and myself came in search of 200 acres...

Memoirs of Stephen Washington, Township (from a Bowmanville area paper)

 

Sons of a Scottish Landowner Look for Land, 1842

Scarborough , July 24th 1842

Dear Sir

Permit me to write you a very few words to let you know whereabouts we are and how we have come on since we saw you. We have had a long jaunt a way up through Canada as far as Thomas Willson’s friends. It’s very good land I think up there but is rather far from market, the land is very cheap. You can get a farm of 150 acres with about the half cleared for about 6 or 5 dollars per acre. I don’t think you would like to live up there. They have got no market for any thing but wheat and fat cattle.

We have both returned down again to Scarboro. Thomas [Wilson] is working for Arch’d Muir. He has hired 3 months and I am working for John Stobo. I shall be with him till hay and harvest is over.

I think a good deal of Canada. I think it’s far better than the States. The land is cheaper and the markets as good if you settle neigh the front. John Stobo has got a very fine farm of 150 acres on the lakeshore...

This is a very good township of land but it’s all taken up. John Stobo has a farm of 75 acres I think he would sell. He asks about 375 Pounds Sterling for it. I think we can get a better place for the money. There’s a farm for sale at Stamford up at Niagara Falls near the Browns of 122 acres, 70 in cultivation, houses and barns complete [for] 650 Pounds in five instalments. It stands on the Wellend River. There is another about 20 miles from Toronto of 100 acres, 60 improved, 450 Pounds. Now if you think of getting a place, I shall go and see them after harvest. I would like very well to see you have a farm. I don’t think there is any use of putting off another year...

Our friends here was very kind and had a great many questions to ask about home from us. Be sure and write what you are going to do. I would like if we had a home. We are both in good health. I can say no more but remain yours           Wm. Young & Andrew Young

Address    Andrew Young, Care of John Stobo, Scarboro, Upper Canada By Toronto

Andrew Young [on behalf of both him and his brother, William] writing to a friend or relative who was staying in Caledonia near Rochester, western New York

                    Clark Young Collection

 

A Scottish Minister’s Observations, 1832

Mr. Johnstone walked through the lot he wanted me to buy should I become minister in Scarborough.  It is very high priced at $8 per acre, and 100 at $7. Perhaps its nearness to the market [York], where all kinds of farm produce can be disposed of, might after all render it not a bad bargain.

Diary of Rev. William Proudfoot, Dec. 3 1832 (London and Middlesex Historical Society, 1915, and Ontario Historical Society)

 

On my way home, Mr. Johnstone came through two lots of land, adjoining to his, which are for sale at $1,500, and which he would recommend me to buy in the event of my coming to Scarborough . One of these lots is very good land, the other is principally clothed [covered] in pine. The land [of the other] is, of course, inferior, but it is thought the pine would pay for both lots, as lumber is becoming scarce and dear, and it is well suited for shingles, of which, after the wood is cut into proper lengths a dexterous workman will make 3,000 in one day, which may be sold for $2.00 per 1,000. I think the land an object, both because it is near to York , where there is a ready market for produce and because it is most convenient for the church and school. The money is more than I can afford to give I fear.

Diary of Rev. William Proudfoot, Dec. 10 1832

 

Tragedy in The Forest and Fatherlessness, 1832

After having disposed of the greater part of their furniture and household effects, my parents procured the services of two carts to carry the balance of the household and personal effects that remained along with themselves and the members of their little family composed of four children, to the City of Glasgow about 22 miles distant [from Lesmahagow] where we embarked at the Broomielaw on a small Steamer for Greenock with a view of taking immediate passage on the good ship “the Nailer”...

As [my uncle] Robert Hamilton, was at this time engaged in chopping a fallow, my father went out to assist him one afternoon. But as he had no experience in felling timber, the first large tree that he undertook to cut down fell in the opposite direction he had intended and, in attempting to get out of the way of the falling tree, he ran in the wrong direction and was struck by the body of the tree and instantly killed, just four weeks after we landed in Toronto [June 1832], leaving a widow and four small children wholly unprovided for, the eldest being seven years old and the youngest a little over one year old.

We remained in a small house on my uncle's place being Lot 25 in the third Concession of the Township of Scarborough until the fall of that year when the family removed to a small place of about fifteen acres which was rented from one Robert Stobo situated about ten miles east of Toronto on the Kingston Road where they remained about eight years during which time the widowed Mother with her young family by hard work and rigid economy made a fairly comfortable living for herself and children and accumulated a sufficient amount of money to purchase thirty acres of land being composed of part of Lot number 18 in the second Concession of the Township of Scarborough near where the Village of Malvern now stands...

Autobiography of Robert Rae (1826-1912)  
From a first person manuscript provided by his great-granddaughter

Rural Prosperity, 1871

Robert McCowan was owner of 77 acres on lot 22 Concession C including 70 acres improved, 10 acres of pasture, 2 acres in garden and orchard. Of the total, ten acres were in wheat (140 bushels of spring wheat were harvested), 3 acres yielded 300 bushels of potatoes, 32 acres were in hay part of which provided 98 bushels of grass and clover seed. Other produce included 75 bushels of apples, 210 bushels of barley, 300 bushels of oats, 20 bushels of peas,  250 bushels of turnips. Cattle included 2 horses over 3 years of age, 6 milch cows, 5 sheep, 11 swine. Implements included  2 carriages / sleighs, 2 carts / wagons / sleds, 3 ploughs / cultivators, 1 reaper / mower, 1 horse rake, 1 fanning mill. There was one house on the farm along with 3 barns and stables.

                        1871 Scarborough Census, summarized by D.B. McCowan

 

The Will of Robert McCowan, 1882

This is the last Will and Testament of me, Robert McCowan of the Township of Scarboro in the County of York and Province of Ontario, farmer, being of sound and disposing mind, memory and understanding and knowing the uncertainty of life do make, publish and declare this my last Will and Testament in manner following, that is to say:

First and principally I commend my soul to God who gave it, my body I commit to the earth to be decently interred at the direction of my executors hereinafter named in the full hope of a glorious resurrection into eternal life through the medium of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and as to my worldly estate wherewith it has pleased God to bless me I dispose of the same in manner following.

That is to say, First I direct that all my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses be paid by my executors hereinafter named as soon as conveniently may be after my decease out of my personal estate.

I give, devise and bequeath to my son Robert McCowan, my homestead being part of lot number twenty-two in Concession C in the Township of Scarboro, containing seventy-seven acres of land be the same more or less for his sole use and benefit forever, possession to be obtained on the first day of April next after my decease on condition that he shall pay the following bequests, namely:

To my daughter Catharine, wife of George C. Chester, one year after the first of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter Margaret, wife of William Patton, two years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter, Mary Ann, three years after the first day of April next after my decease, the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter Jane, four years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest and

To my son James Archibald, five years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars with interest at six per cent per annum payable yearly, the first year’s interest to be paid one year after the first day of April next after my decease.

I give devise and bequeath to my son William McCowan, part of lot number twenty in Concession B & C in the Township of Scarboro containing one hundred and twenty-five acres of land be the same more or less for his sole use and benefit forever, possession to be obtained on the first day of April next after my decease on condition that he shall pay the following bequests, namely:

To my daughter Catharine, wife of George C. Chester, one year after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter Margaret, wife of William Patton, two years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter Mary Ann, three years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest.

To my daughter Jane, four years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars without interest, and

To my son James Archibald, five years after the first day of April next after my decease the sum of five hundred dollars with interest at six per cent per annum payable yearly, the first year’s interest to be paid one year after the first day of April next after my decease.

I also give and bequeath to my son William McCowan, the double house on the Bambridge lot with the right to remove it within five years after my decease and the privilege of occupying the house in which my son Robert now resides until he removes the said double house, or for five years after my decease and also that he shall give to my daughters Mary Ann and Jane a home with him without charge so long as they remain unmarried and one cow to each of them on their wedding days.

I give, devise and bequeath to my son James Archibald three-fourths of an acre of land on lot number twenty-one in Concession C in the Township of Scarboro known as the Bambridge lot and the buildings thereon excepting the double house hereinbefore bequeathed to my son William for his use and benefit during his natural life and also for the use and benefit of his wife Isabella during her natural life and the use of the double house hereinbefore mentioned until removed by my son William, and at their death I give, devise and bequeath said three-fourths acre of land to my grandson Arthur Robert McCowan, son of my said son James Archibald McCowan for his sole use and benefit forever.

I give, devise and bequeath to my son James Archibald my watch and family Bible.

I give, devise and bequeath to my daughter Mary Ann my organ.

I give, devise and bequeath to my son Robert my iron safe.

I give, devise and bequeath to my daughter Jane my bureau and sewing machine, and

I give, devise and bequeath to my son William the balance of my household furniture, also all of my horses, cattle, farming implements, seed grain and feed for stock until the harvest following after my decease, and I direct that all rents due up till the first day of April next after my decease and the balance of my personal property shall be equally divided between all my children share and share alike.

And I nominate, constitute and appoint Robert McCowan, my son; Isaac Stobo, farmer; and Donald G. Stephenson, Lumber Merchant; all of the Township of Scarboro to be executors of this my last Will and Testament.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal this eight day of March in the year of our Lord One thousand, eight hundred and eighty-two hereby revoking all former wills or testamentary depositions by me at any time heretofore made and declare this only to be and contain my last Will and Testament being written on one side of four sheets of paper hereto attached.

ROBERT McCOWAN

Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Robert McCowan of the Township of Scarboro, Farmer, the testator as and for his last Will and Testament in the presence of us who both present together at the same time in his presence at his request and in the presence of each other have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses
Henry Hall, Scarboro Jct, Wagon Maker
D.G. Stephenson, J .P., Scarboro Jct.
George Wilson, Scarboro, Labourer

 

Eastern Europeans, ca 1930

Close to seventy years ago, a group of eastern European immigrants of the Jewish faith were searching for a parcel of land for use as a burial ground. They somehow happened across the McCowan farm which ran north from Kingston Road on the east side of McCowan Road . Arrangements were made and, in due course, a cemetery toward the north end of the farm was dedicated.

Over time, other Jewish people joined with the original group in the use of the area and the overall burying grounds expanded accordingly under a variety of property owners. The Machzika B’Nai Israel Congregation held a significant portion of the cemetery lands. Decades passed, some plots were abandoned, leaders in the congregation died and the future management of the cemetery became an issue.

In about 1980 Shaarei Shomayim Congregation took responsibility for the cemetery and the long process of consolidating all of the plots under a single Synagogue began. The final step was to secure title to the long roadway leading from McCowan Road to the cemetery. About ten years ago, for nominal consideration, the executors for the estates of William Harold McCowan and Robert Ashbridge McCowan granted title of the roadway to the Synagogue.

As told to Bruce McCowan by a Cemetery Representative, April 2001

 

Exercises

As usual, you should do additional research, especially on other pages of this web site. 

Individual Exercises (State all Assumptions)

1) What did Rev. Proudfoot mean when he said “I think the land an object”?

2) What did Rev. Proudfoot mean by “dear”? How did you conclude this?

3) Using Reverend Proudfoot’s figures for 1832, how long would it take a shinglemaker to earn enough to buy a 100 acre farm in Scarborough ? What assumptions did you make in your calculations? (Hint: What operating expenses did the shinglecutter have to pay out of his business earnings?)

4) How long would it take a woodcutter to earn enough to buy a 100 acre farm in the mid 1830s? Compare your assumptions to your assumptions regarding the shingle-maker.

5) Approximately how many years’ wages would it take for a York servant-man to buy a 100 acre farm in Scarboro Heights in 1830?

6) Calculate the approximate rate of inflation of land prices in Scarboro Heights between 1830 and 1846.

7) What was one of the difficulties for immigrants arriving in Scarborough in the 1840s?

8) What was “wrong” with the place where Thomas Wilson’s friends lived?

9) What was “better” about Scarborough ?

10) Estimate the exchange rate between pounds sterling and the dollar in about 1830. Be very clear on your assumptions.

11) Approximately how many years’ wages would it take for a construction worker to buy a bungalow in Scarborough today?

12) What was Billy McCowan supposed to give to his sisters as a wedding gift?  In 100 words explain why you think this was then a good wedding gift.

13) What were the two most important elements of Robert McCowan’s will. Why were these so important?

Class Discussion

1) Identify and discuss some key issues in the study of “economics”.

2) Discuss the term “Neigh the Front”. What does this term mean in the context of Ontario’s development? What does this term mean in the context of Scarborough’s development?

3) Compare / contrast “getting ahead” in 1842 to “getting ahead” today.

The Scarboro Heights Record V14 #1  

 

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