Stories of marriage breakdowns and domestic disputes presented a problem for old-time editors.
Some believed personal matters such as these had no place in their newspapers. Others delighted in publishing them, knowing that most readers delighted in reading about the misfortunes of others.
Still other editors shunned such stories from their own towns, but readily published them when they concerned residents of nearby towns. Editors were especially delighted to publish stories of spectacular marital breakdowns and adultery from the United States, delighting in the seemingly low moral standards of Americans.
In Wellington County, at least, stories of domestic troubles were relatively rare. It is hard to say whether marital misfortune seldom occurred, whether the stories were eschewed by editors, or whether editors simply did not learn of them in sufficient detail to produce a story.
In any case, a few can be found in old newspapers, and today, 100 years and more after they happened, they provide a glimpse of a society that operated under different standards than that of today.
In June of 1901 there were two local stories that belong in this category, an unusual coincidence.
One originated in Belwood, in West Garafraxa, the township that seemed to produce more cases of this type than any other in Wellington. This one involved a man named Tom Richardson, partner in a sawmill operating as Richardson and Boyce.
Richardson was married and the father of three children. Somewhere Richardson, who was about 35, made the acquaintance of a 19-year-old woman known only to history as Miss Mann. She formed a friendship with Richardson, and under the unsuspecting eyes of Mrs. Richardson, a romance quickly blossomed.
For a time Miss Mann lived with the Richardsons, helping with the household chores. If Mrs. Richardson was aware of, or suspected, anything irregular she kept her thoughts to herself. After a time Miss Mann left the Richardson household and moved to Fergus, but she continued her association with Richardson. He continued to see her, and on one occasion he took his wife and three children with him on one of his visits. Amazingly, his wife still did not indicate that she saw anything unusual in the relationship.
Around June 20 Richardson decided to end the deceit and duplicity. He rented a rig from the Belwood livery stable and drove to Fergus, where he picked up Miss Mann. Together, they drove off for parts unknown. The next day Mrs. Richardson was apoplectic concerning her missing husband, and the livery man was equally upset over his missing rig. As it often does, the full story came out in bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks.
By the carriage and then by train the couple had made their way to Midland, where they took a room in a boarding house and Richardson obtained employment as a caretaker in one of the warehouses there. The town was then booming as a port, and no one asked questions about Richardson and the young girl.
All went well for the pair for a little over a week. But soon Miss Mann was grumbling, complaining of boredom as she sat day after day in their small room in the boarding house. The two began to quarrel. That soon escalated into a bitter shouting match. In a huff, Miss Mann stomped out of the boarding house and took the first train out of town. Soon she was back in Fergus, living with her uncle. Bit by bit she related the story of her elopement and her return.
The Belwood livery man was still looking for his horse, and he laid a charge with the police in Guelph. Based on Miss Mann’s story, the Guelph chief sent a man to Midland to arrest Richardson for horse stealing. Somehow he had learned that authorities were looking for him and Richardson made himself scarce, evading arrest.
Police sent circulars around the province asking for the arrest and return of Richardson. A sharp-eyed constable in Toronto spotted Richardson and arrested him, but he was able to break free and escape.
By the end of July 1901 there were no further reports that he had been spotted. At that time, men in his position often fled south across the border to the Land of the Free. His wife and three young children were left in destitution.
The other example from June 1901 came from Harriston, and involved a marriage ceremony that failed to come off. In the 1890s a young man named Tom Dusty had come to the town, and had taken a position at one of the stores as a shoemaker and clerk. He seemed honest, friendly and obliging.
Around 1900 he began courting the daughter of one of the town’s better families. Despite Tom’s humble employment, her family approved of the relationship, and the couple started to make plans for a wedding. They planned carefully. He rented a modest house for them to live in after the marriage, and spent much of his spare time in June of 1901 buying and moving furniture into the house.
Tom made a big show of buying a wedding ring, and the ceremony was scheduled for June 26, a Wednesday evening. On the Monday before the wedding Dusty boarded a southbound train, stating that he wanted to see some relatives before the wedding.
On the day of the wedding no one saw Tom, but suspected that he would return on one of the trains that evening in time for the ceremony.
That evening some 50 guests assembled at the home of the bride’s parents, along with the a minister. There they sat, for almost two hours, waiting for a groom who did not appear. Soon the guests were speculating on Dusty’s whereabouts. Some thought he might have fallen ill. Others thought he must have met with foul play. No one could imagine that the friendly and obliging young man would skip out on his marriage.
Dusty did not appear in Harriston that night, nor any time later. A couple of days after the ill-fated ceremony his employer received a letter from Dusty, postmarked Chicago. Letters to others of his acquaintance soon followed. In them he stated that he did not know why he left the country, and that he had fully intended to go through with the marriage.
Dusty’s flight from his marriage vows created a sensation in Harriston. He was known to everyone in town, and his intended bride was a popular girl locally.
The agent at the Grand Trunk station chimed in, stating that Dusty had purchased a one-way ticket to St. Mary’s when he left town. Had he intended to return, he surely would have asked for a round trip ticket, as that would have been less costly than two one-way tickets.
Local people did not make light of the poor girl’s experience, or criticize her in any way. Instead, she received congratulations from many people in her narrow escape from marriage to such a two-faced character, a man both duplicitous and cowardly.
The eventual fates of all these people would provide a sense of completeness to their stories. On the other hand it is perhaps best to leave their stories to the imagination.
Should anyone wish to pursue the stories, I wish them well. I am content to let these people disappear in the mist of history.