From “Guide Book & Atlas of Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts”, 1879
P. 31
McKellar Village
McKellar Village is the second halting place, about sixteen miles on the great highway of travel to the Northern Townships from Parry Sound. Here the traveller gladly stretches his wearied limbs at the McKellar House, and after all his carnal wants have been fully supplied by the genial host, Mr. William Thompson, he takes a bird’s eye view of the charmingly located village, between Owl and Minerva Lakes. The goddess of wisdom and her symbolic bird must surely have assisted the founders of the village in the selection of its site, so as to combine the elements of commercial convenience and beauty of landscape. From the north and south portions of the great north road, streams of travel converge on the village, while yet another feeder is afforded by the east road, which can be utilized in the future for other industries, give another outlet for the transit of settlers and are in full operation, and the trade of McKellar is swelled by the settlers so arriving.
The tourist will find the McKellar House a home in every sense of the word. The host, without fussy obsequiousness or fidgety and obtrusive worrying, contrives to make the guest feel perfectly at ease before he has been many hours housed in the hotel, and boats are at his command for fishing or general idling on the lakes. The business traveller finds quiet and prompt attention, and reluctantly leaves this cozy hostelry for the unknown regions of the north.
The writer, who lived in McKellar in the 1874, on seeing a drawing of the village, from which that embodied in the present atlas is reproduced, felt perplexed which to admire most, the fidelity of the artist, or the gourd-like growth of the village during the last four years. It was like seeing the photograph of a full-grown youth after years of separation. And recognizing the old expression of features while viewing, for the first time, the stalwart limbs and expanded muscles which marred the recognition of identity.
The writer spent a very enjoyable time in McKellar (the frame only of the above-mentioned hotel was then in the process of erection) in the autumn of ’74. Grotesque incidents cropped up thickly during his stay. To try and reproduce some of them seems almost like offering the readers uncorked champagne after the sparkling aroma has fled. Let me begin by warning them against inferring anything discouraging against the fishing prospects of McKellar from what follows. Ill luck as an angler seems to be my destiny from the cradle to the grave. If there be truth in astrology, I was never born under the constellation Pisces; fish may play about my hook, and even commit petty larceny on the bait, they will do everything but get hooked, and even the line snaps as a rule, so that I write ‘”without prejudice,” as the lawyers say, to the trout and pickerel fishing, which is excellent. To resume. I Fished, as in duty bound, with my usual tantalizing result of catching nothing, which a costly fishing rod (lancewood end joint, patent reel, &c), while adjacent urchins were hauling out their scaly victims hand over hand. As a last forlorn hope I tried Armstrong’s scow, which was moored alongside the bank of the lower lake as a fishing platform. An eight-year old McKellarite initiated me into a secret of getting irresistible bait – the silver minnow, which appeared in the shoals near the waste water of the mill. The modus operandi is to get a square shallow basswood sieve, and hold it quietly and steadily in the bottom of the water, while your confederate stealthily drops bread crumbs over it, whereupon the minnows, timidly at first, but afterwards in shoals, attack the bait. At this stage, a quick upward jerk of the sieve, and lot a sieve-full of struggling minnows, enough for a couple of hours of fishing. Armed with this bait, I fished for two hours from the scow. No sooner was the hook dropped than a fish was seen darting at the minnow, which sparkled like molten silver through the water. In two hours I caught enough fish, when strung through the gills, to cover an eight-foot pole completely. I marched to the hotel in triumph. It is true that some of the fish were very small, but still the solitary exception to a life angling ill-luck marked that day as a red letter day for all time. Its glory was somewhat dimmed by the looks of mild contempt cast by casual villagers, as they brushed against my uplifted trophy. Entering the hotel, and expecting an ovation, I saw the McKellarites looking disdainfully at my spoils, and heard the words whispered, “only perch,” in various tones of pity. In that region pickerel is only thought worthy of a true angler’s aims. One critic went so far as to tell me that perch were full of worms in the fall of the year, though worms or no worms, they are toothsome additions to the table. Taking this culinary view of the result, feeling that I had lost caste among the male part of the angling tribe, T retreated with my fish to the kitchen, seeking sympathy from the softer inmates of the tavern. Little did I know then that woman, culinary woman, dreads above all things the eviscerating of small fish. But here I was subject to fresh censure. Sun-fish were found in my collection, and though the catching of perch and pickerel region may be winked at, the man who descends to catch sunfish is beyond redemption. That evening eight feet long of perch might have been seen floating down by the mill, while the writer made a solemn vow never to fish for perch again.
One angling duty remained unperformed—to fish for pickerel. I visited a renowned pickerel habitat on the upper lake, below “Falls,” which at that time resolved themselves into very insignificant waterspout, and as usual caught nothing. The soft and solemn scenery of the lake, and its pine-clad shores, deeply scalloped by bays of every fantastic shape, gave no small solace to the repining angler.
Reader, did you ever see a catfish? If not, bear with me for a few short sentences devoted to that monstrosity. I forgot to tell you that while fishing from the scow, I saw something wriggling, groveling, and stirring up the mud at the bottom of the water, presumably a fish, but possibly a musk-rat or an otter, for all I could tell. It snapped my bait off twice, with contemptuous jerks. At last I landed it safely and found that it was a cat fish. I spared its life, and kept it in a bottomless barrel sunk in shallow water at the back of the hotel. One night a jovial gathering rejoiced “mine host,” and lasted till the small hours of morning, when about 2 p.m., somebody suggested supper. A foraging party assailed the larder. Tea pork were unearthed, but no butter. I volunteered, then and there, to catch a fish in the dark, as my contribution. They all stared, and jeered, after which I baited my rod and sallied forth alone, went to the barrel, and returned with a living writhing catfish on the hook. Petrified by my swift nocturnal catch, and voting me a wizard of the first order, one of the party – on whom Bacchus had poured out his spirit abundantly, and on whom the lot had fallen to skin the catfish – set to work, knife in hand, to make the first incision. While so doing, it seemed to the excited toper as if the hideous scowl of this most repulsive fish followed him with such unwavering and magnetic sorcery that he feared to make the gash, dashing it down in terror, and leaving the task of dissection for another comrade. The cooked catfish had a delicious “meaty” flavor, which condoned its forbidding aspect. The Indian mode of cooking it is to leave the skinned fish previously for some hours in a swiftly running stream.
Deer-hunting along the lake shores was another pastime. Two hunters one day, with loud ostentatious preface, recounting the boastful record of their past conquest in the chase, after the manner of the Homeric warriors, sallied forth. For brevity let us christen them (fictitiously of course) Jack and Mac. Mac was to row along the shore, while Jack and the dog were to start the deer towards the water. Soon we heard the loud shouting and the deep baying of the hound, that joyful utterance when he has struck the scent of the antlered monarch. The clear, frosty air sent each sound of the chase with almost painful distinctness through the interlacing foliage of the trees. Nearer and nearer bayed the hound and then seemed to retrace its steps, as if the stag had doubled back to the forest. Meanwhile, a swift dappled vision appeared, some graceful animal in mortal terror crimson gore circling its arched neck, and bounding with such fleetness over the cleared bottom land that the eye could just but identify it as deer. Shades of Abbotsford, what a theme for your immortal owner! But, alas, something always spoils romance in America. The deer was Mrs. Samuel Armstrong’s pet deer, and the ring of crimson gore round its neck was an identifying strip of red flannel, placed there by the fair owner.
Now for some dry statistics. The Township of McKellar, surveyed into farm lots by J. W Fitzgerald, P.L.S., contains 44,755 acres. The surveyor’s report describes the easterly half of the township as “considerably broken” (by which euphemism we suppose he means “very rocky”), with exception of a good tract near Oliver Lake, and occasional oases along Manitowabin[g?] River. Pine is inferior in this easterly half, but enormous cedars, together with good-sized spruce and tamarack, are enumerated, while white oak is abundant. The last named timber points to McKellar as a wagon building centre for the wide circle of country, to supply which wagon-makers in front would be heavily weighted in the competition from the high freight to Parry Sound, and the comparative scarcity of good white oak in the older districts of Western Ontario. Of the easterly half McKellar 40 per cent., or say 8, 500 acres, are reported by the surveyor as good land; the south portion of the westerly half contains “perhaps larger and thinker” oak than elsewhere, with good mill sites and 80 per cent. of the land fit for cultivation. As to the easterly half, it is noted that the soil (generally clay) is more gravelly and stony on side hills, but deep and heavy in the valleys.
The first white settler in the McKellar Township was Peter Leach, a trapper, who made this region his home in the summer of 1868, and still resides in the Township. David Patterson, who now occupies the very important position of Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, for unorganized townships, was the second bona fide settler, and the first in or near McKellar Village, and built the first shanty in the fall of 1868. Samuel and John Armstrong are the pioneers of this and the surrounding townships, started the first store, post office, saw mill, grist mill, lath mill, black smith shop, and were leaders generally in the development of settlement, as they still continue to be. McKellar Township was incorporated in the spring of 1873, under a special Act of the Ontario Legislature, granting municipal institutions in unorganized districts without connection with any County Council. The first election for Reeve and Councilors was held in the Orange Hall, McKellar Village, on Thursday, the first day of May, 1873. Samuel Armstrong, Jr., was elected Reeve, and Wm. A. Hurd, James McKeown, George B. Lee and Samuel Oldfield, Councilors, holding office to the end of 1874. Mr. S. Armstrong has held the office of Reeve continually up to the present time, and Mr. D. Patterson has worthily filled the office of Clerk for the same period. The first sitting of the Division Court for the District of Parry Sound was held in the store of S. & J Armstrong, McKellar Village, on the 4th of April, 1872, His Honour Judge McCurry presiding, with Henry Armstrong as Clerk, and Wm. J. Moffatt is the present bailiff. At the sitting of the Court in March, 1878, the docket showed a clean sheet, and His Honor earned the customary white gloves.
There are (for 1878) 160 ratepayers. McKellar Village consists of two stores, one hotel, one wagon shop, one grist mill, one saw mill, one black smith shop, two boot and shoemakers, one C.M church, and Orange hall, school house and post office.
The tourist will find the McKellar House a home in every sense of the word. The host, without fussy obsequiousness or fidgety and obtrusive worrying, contrives to make the guest feel perfectly at ease before he has been many hours housed in the hotel, and boats are at his command for fishing or general idling on the lakes. The business traveller finds quiet and prompt attention, and reluctantly leaves this cozy hostelry for the unknown regions of the north.
The writer, who lived in McKellar in the 1874, on seeing a drawing of the village, from which that embodied in the present atlas is reproduced, felt perplexed which to admire most, the fidelity of the artist, or the gourd-like growth of the village during the last four years. It was like seeing the photograph of a full-grown youth after years of separation. And recognizing the old expression of features while viewing, for the first time, the stalwart limbs and expanded muscles which marred the recognition of identity.
The writer spent a very enjoyable time in McKellar (the frame only of the above-mentioned hotel was then in the process of erection) in the autumn of ’74. Grotesque incidents cropped up thickly during his stay. To try and reproduce some of them seems almost like offering the readers uncorked champagne after the sparkling aroma has fled. Let me begin by warning them against inferring anything discouraging against the fishing prospects of McKellar from what follows. Ill luck as an angler seems to be my destiny from the cradle to the grave. If there be truth in astrology, I was never born under the constellation Pisces; fish may play about my hook, and even commit petty larceny on the bait, they will do everything but get hooked, and even the line snaps as a rule, so that I write ‘”without prejudice,” as the lawyers say, to the trout and pickerel fishing, which is excellent. To resume. I Fished, as in duty bound, with my usual tantalizing result of catching nothing, which a costly fishing rod (lancewood end joint, patent reel, &c), while adjacent urchins were hauling out their scaly victims hand over hand. As a last forlorn hope I tried Armstrong’s scow, which was moored alongside the bank of the lower lake as a fishing platform. An eight-year old McKellarite initiated me into a secret of getting irresistible bait – the silver minnow, which appeared in the shoals near the waste water of the mill. The modus operandi is to get a square shallow basswood sieve, and hold it quietly and steadily in the bottom of the water, while your confederate stealthily drops bread crumbs over it, whereupon the minnows, timidly at first, but afterwards in shoals, attack the bait. At this stage, a quick upward jerk of the sieve, and lot a sieve-full of struggling minnows, enough for a couple of hours of fishing. Armed with this bait, I fished for two hours from the scow. No sooner was the hook dropped than a fish was seen darting at the minnow, which sparkled like molten silver through the water. In two hours I caught enough fish, when strung through the gills, to cover an eight-foot pole completely. I marched to the hotel in triumph. It is true that some of the fish were very small, but still the solitary exception to a life angling ill-luck marked that day as a red letter day for all time. Its glory was somewhat dimmed by the looks of mild contempt cast by casual villagers, as they brushed against my uplifted trophy. Entering the hotel, and expecting an ovation, I saw the McKellarites looking disdainfully at my spoils, and heard the words whispered, “only perch,” in various tones of pity. In that region pickerel is only thought worthy of a true angler’s aims. One critic went so far as to tell me that perch were full of worms in the fall of the year, though worms or no worms, they are toothsome additions to the table. Taking this culinary view of the result, feeling that I had lost caste among the male part of the angling tribe, T retreated with my fish to the kitchen, seeking sympathy from the softer inmates of the tavern. Little did I know then that woman, culinary woman, dreads above all things the eviscerating of small fish. But here I was subject to fresh censure. Sun-fish were found in my collection, and though the catching of perch and pickerel region may be winked at, the man who descends to catch sunfish is beyond redemption. That evening eight feet long of perch might have been seen floating down by the mill, while the writer made a solemn vow never to fish for perch again.
One angling duty remained unperformed—to fish for pickerel. I visited a renowned pickerel habitat on the upper lake, below “Falls,” which at that time resolved themselves into very insignificant waterspout, and as usual caught nothing. The soft and solemn scenery of the lake, and its pine-clad shores, deeply scalloped by bays of every fantastic shape, gave no small solace to the repining angler.
Reader, did you ever see a catfish? If not, bear with me for a few short sentences devoted to that monstrosity. I forgot to tell you that while fishing from the scow, I saw something wriggling, groveling, and stirring up the mud at the bottom of the water, presumably a fish, but possibly a musk-rat or an otter, for all I could tell. It snapped my bait off twice, with contemptuous jerks. At last I landed it safely and found that it was a cat fish. I spared its life, and kept it in a bottomless barrel sunk in shallow water at the back of the hotel. One night a jovial gathering rejoiced “mine host,” and lasted till the small hours of morning, when about 2 p.m., somebody suggested supper. A foraging party assailed the larder. Tea pork were unearthed, but no butter. I volunteered, then and there, to catch a fish in the dark, as my contribution. They all stared, and jeered, after which I baited my rod and sallied forth alone, went to the barrel, and returned with a living writhing catfish on the hook. Petrified by my swift nocturnal catch, and voting me a wizard of the first order, one of the party – on whom Bacchus had poured out his spirit abundantly, and on whom the lot had fallen to skin the catfish – set to work, knife in hand, to make the first incision. While so doing, it seemed to the excited toper as if the hideous scowl of this most repulsive fish followed him with such unwavering and magnetic sorcery that he feared to make the gash, dashing it down in terror, and leaving the task of dissection for another comrade. The cooked catfish had a delicious “meaty” flavor, which condoned its forbidding aspect. The Indian mode of cooking it is to leave the skinned fish previously for some hours in a swiftly running stream.
Deer-hunting along the lake shores was another pastime. Two hunters one day, with loud ostentatious preface, recounting the boastful record of their past conquest in the chase, after the manner of the Homeric warriors, sallied forth. For brevity let us christen them (fictitiously of course) Jack and Mac. Mac was to row along the shore, while Jack and the dog were to start the deer towards the water. Soon we heard the loud shouting and the deep baying of the hound, that joyful utterance when he has struck the scent of the antlered monarch. The clear, frosty air sent each sound of the chase with almost painful distinctness through the interlacing foliage of the trees. Nearer and nearer bayed the hound and then seemed to retrace its steps, as if the stag had doubled back to the forest. Meanwhile, a swift dappled vision appeared, some graceful animal in mortal terror crimson gore circling its arched neck, and bounding with such fleetness over the cleared bottom land that the eye could just but identify it as deer. Shades of Abbotsford, what a theme for your immortal owner! But, alas, something always spoils romance in America. The deer was Mrs. Samuel Armstrong’s pet deer, and the ring of crimson gore round its neck was an identifying strip of red flannel, placed there by the fair owner.
Now for some dry statistics. The Township of McKellar, surveyed into farm lots by J. W Fitzgerald, P.L.S., contains 44,755 acres. The surveyor’s report describes the easterly half of the township as “considerably broken” (by which euphemism we suppose he means “very rocky”), with exception of a good tract near Oliver Lake, and occasional oases along Manitowabin[g?] River. Pine is inferior in this easterly half, but enormous cedars, together with good-sized spruce and tamarack, are enumerated, while white oak is abundant. The last named timber points to McKellar as a wagon building centre for the wide circle of country, to supply which wagon-makers in front would be heavily weighted in the competition from the high freight to Parry Sound, and the comparative scarcity of good white oak in the older districts of Western Ontario. Of the easterly half McKellar 40 per cent., or say 8, 500 acres, are reported by the surveyor as good land; the south portion of the westerly half contains “perhaps larger and thinker” oak than elsewhere, with good mill sites and 80 per cent. of the land fit for cultivation. As to the easterly half, it is noted that the soil (generally clay) is more gravelly and stony on side hills, but deep and heavy in the valleys.
The first white settler in the McKellar Township was Peter Leach, a trapper, who made this region his home in the summer of 1868, and still resides in the Township. David Patterson, who now occupies the very important position of Registrar of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, for unorganized townships, was the second bona fide settler, and the first in or near McKellar Village, and built the first shanty in the fall of 1868. Samuel and John Armstrong are the pioneers of this and the surrounding townships, started the first store, post office, saw mill, grist mill, lath mill, black smith shop, and were leaders generally in the development of settlement, as they still continue to be. McKellar Township was incorporated in the spring of 1873, under a special Act of the Ontario Legislature, granting municipal institutions in unorganized districts without connection with any County Council. The first election for Reeve and Councilors was held in the Orange Hall, McKellar Village, on Thursday, the first day of May, 1873. Samuel Armstrong, Jr., was elected Reeve, and Wm. A. Hurd, James McKeown, George B. Lee and Samuel Oldfield, Councilors, holding office to the end of 1874. Mr. S. Armstrong has held the office of Reeve continually up to the present time, and Mr. D. Patterson has worthily filled the office of Clerk for the same period. The first sitting of the Division Court for the District of Parry Sound was held in the store of S. & J Armstrong, McKellar Village, on the 4th of April, 1872, His Honour Judge McCurry presiding, with Henry Armstrong as Clerk, and Wm. J. Moffatt is the present bailiff. At the sitting of the Court in March, 1878, the docket showed a clean sheet, and His Honor earned the customary white gloves.
There are (for 1878) 160 ratepayers. McKellar Village consists of two stores, one hotel, one wagon shop, one grist mill, one saw mill, one black smith shop, two boot and shoemakers, one C.M church, and Orange hall, school house and post office.
As history seldom does full justice to the early pioneers of a new settlement, who are often subsequently bought off by wealthier successors, so that their very names fade away from public record, let us say that the McKellar pioneers include Mr. John Henley (who unfortunately lost his life in Manitowabin Lake by the capsizing of a canoe) Peter Leach, James Brownlee, James Buchner, Samuel Armstrong, Henry Moffatt and Alex Hardy.