Erin Township received a flood of new settlers in the early 1830s. Some of that first wave established farmsteads, and others soon moved on to other opportunities, making way for others to carry on with the clearing of the land.
Among that second wave of Erin settlers was a young Scotsman named John McPhail. He was born in Ayrshire, Scotland about 1815. At the age of 23, he came to Canada with his parents, settling in Nassegaweya Township. The late 1830s were not good years to begin a new life on a farm in Upper Canada. The economy was in depression, resulting in low prices for farm products and few opportunities for off-farm employment.
Conditions improved by the mid 1840s. In 1848, at the age of 33, John McPhail struck off on his own. He had recently married, and wanted a farm of his own. McPhail went to Erin Township, and purchased the western half of Lot 15, Concession 3 of Erin, from a man named James McGillvray. The farm was a short distance to the northwest of the hamlet of Ospringe.
McPhail signed a mortgage to McGillvray for $600 for the property. The farm was partially cleared, and contained some crude farm buildings and a modest log cabin. A diligent worker, McPhail paid off the mortgage within four years. The late 1850s and the 1860s were good years for the McPhails and their growing family. John replaced the original log house with a substantial stone one, but that required him to remortgage the property for $600 in 1870.
Two years later, agricultural prices began to decline, and that trend continued until the late 1890s. For farmers with mortgages, the situation was an impossible one, as they tried to service their debts with declining incomes. Even those who were debt free had a tough time. Their only course to stay afloat was to become more and more efficient and productive. Many could not find ways to cope.
During the 1880s, some farmers simply gave up, and walked away from their farms. At one point in the 1880s, one farm in three in Erin and West Garafraxa was abandoned. John McPhail tried to grapple with circumstances by borrowing more money and expanding his holdings, hoping that he and his sons, who were young men in the 1880s, could expand their way to prosperity.
By the late 1880s, McPhail owned 300 acres of land, and by outward appearances seemed to be dealing with the difficult conditions. In 1875, he acquired the farm across the road from the home farm, known as the west half of Lot 16, and in 1887 the farm adjoining it, the east half of Lot 16, Concession 3.
In reality he was not prosperous. His debt burden was steadily increasing. McPhail remortgaged the home farm for $1,200 in 1874, for $2,800 in 1881, and for $3,300 in 1882. By the fall of 1896, his mortgages totalled $9,400, equivalent to well over $1-million in 2011 dollars.
John McPhail, by then, had passed the age of 80. He was slowing down, and decided to pass the farm holdings on to his sons, Bill, Alex, and John Jr. Financially, that did nothing to pull the family out of their financial hole. Their debt load remained the same.
Though prices for farm products at last began to move upward in 1897, it was too little and too late for the McPhails. The mortgage holders called the loans, and the financial affairs of the McPhails were soon in the hands of the sheriff and official assignee for Wellington County, Robert McKim. Unable to work out an arrangement between the McPhails and the creditors, he ordered a sale of the farms and the stock, implements, and other assets. McKim set the date for April 7, 1898.
The sons, realizing that the family was in an impossible situation, knew that there was nothing they could do. Old John, though, could not acknowledge that his lifetime of work had come to nothing. His wife, Mary, had recently died. She had worked as hard as he had in building their farm, and he could not think of insulting her memory by losing it at the end of their lives. And now there was friction between himself and the boys.
McPhail had a younger brother in Nassegaweya who pleaded with John to come to live with him. The brother had prospered on a farm there, and was quite willing to care for his older sibling. John would have none of it. He was determined to live out his live on the farm he had built over the previous half century.
On the morning of the sale, John appeared to have resigned himself to the inevitable. After breakfast with his son Alexander, John walked to the barn to tend to animals, whistling and with a spring in his step.
A few minutes later the Alex discovered his father hanging from a trap door in the barn. He had managed to close it on his neck, and was slowly strangling to death. His face was bright red, and seemed to be turning black. It was a remarkable feat of agility for a man of 83 to manoeuvre himself into such a position.
Quickly, Alex grasped him, opened the trap door, and let him down onto some straw. He gagged and sputtered for a few minutes. Then, in a raspy voice, he said, “Alex, why didn’t you let me die? It will break my heart to leave the old farm anyway.”
Alex half-carried his father to the house and made him lie down in bed to rest. Shortly after noon, Sheriff McKim, accompanied by the auctioneer, arrived at the McPhail farm. John was up to meet them, then went back to his bedroom, presumably to continue to rest.
By mid-afternoon, the sale was in full progress, and John McPhail was on his feet, mingling with the buyers and curiosity seekers that inevitably turn up at an auction sale.
After a time, McPhail made his way to the barn. A few seconds later, some of the those present heard a gurgling sound, and they rushed inside the barn. McPhail had picked up a half-round harness knife and had gashed himself across the throat. Blood was spurting like fountain from the wound as John stood, a vacant look on his face. He had cut through his windpipe, but he had only nicked his jugular vein, not severed it.
Acting quickly, some of the women present were able to staunch the flow of blood as John slipped into unconsciousness. They bandaged him up and carried him back to the house and laid him in his bed.
Despite the near tragedy, McKim decided to resume the sale. As John slipped in and out of consciousness, he could hear auctioneer Heffernan’s hammer fall again and again as the hard-earned possessions of the family found new owners. Many of those thought it crass and insensitive to proceed with the sale under the circumstances of that day.
John McPhail lingered on for several days, but his spirit was broken. He had no desire to continue living. He died on the morning of April 12, bitter and disappointed that he had lost everything he had worked for during a life of 83 years.