The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since ication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
Over the past years, this column has concentrated on industry, manufacturing, buildings and transportation.
The incidents and routine of everyday life a hundred and more years ago have been somewhat overshadowed.
It is easy to become excessively enthusiastic about the rapid material progress that Centre Wellington experienced in its first generations. Life could be crude and vulgar. Accidents, tragedies and sudden deaths confronted everyone continually.
The point was brought home to me a few months ago by a regular reader, Eric Butler of Fergus, who drew my attention to a story in A.E. Byerly’s book, Fergus, concerning a drowning in 1863.
Dr. Byerly wrote, “A young lady, 17 years of age, a daughter of Mr. McQuarrie was drowned in the Grand River near Mr. Grain’s saw mill on August 3, 1863, as she attempted to save the life of a child who fell in the water. She placed the child on a log and was unable to get out of the mud in which she sank deeper and deeper until she was drowned.”
Butler asked whether there was more information about this story. There is some, but not a great deal.
The drowned girl was Jessie McQuarrie, a daughter of Alex McQuarrie, who rented some property on Concession 16, Lot 20 of Nichol. The land is on the northwest corner of Garafraxa Street and the Fergus-West Garafraxa town line. The child she saved was her own sister.
The “Mr. Grain” who owned the sawmill was probably William Grain, a surveyor who occasionally had a finger in other enterprises. The sawmill he operated was probably the one across the river from Monkland Mills at the east end of Fergus. Logs floated down the river from Garafraxa and Luther would have been floating in the pond above the dam.
The story received coverage in both the Fergus Constitution and the Elora Lightning Express. Neither published a long story –about three column inches. The version in the Fergus Constitution contains details that differ somewhat from the version in the Elora Lightning Express.
A coroner’s jury was convened the next day. The whole process, including evidence, deliberations and verdict, took less than two hours. Although badly polluted through Fergus and Elora, the Grand River was regularly used for bathing in hot weather.
The river was more than a half mile from the McQuarrie residence, and it is likely that Jessie was placed in charge of her younger sibling, and that the Grand River seemed the most attractive place to spend a hot summer’s day.
It does not appear that the children were swimming. Rather, they probably dangled their feet in the mill pond and poured water over themselves. There are some differences in the two newspaper stories.
Byerly’s version seems to have relied only on the Elora Lightning Express story, which does not mention Jessie’s first name or the fact that it was her sister who fell in the water. Also, the Elora version has Jessie sinking into soft mud, while the Constitution story states that she fell backward into the water.
There were other children present, and it seems they ran to get some help, which arrived too late.
These children provided the important testimony at the coroner’s inquest the following day. The whole experience must have been stressful and frightening for them.
The quick and peremptory way that the newspapers and the authorities dealt with Jessie McQuarrie’s drowning was typical of the period.
A modern coroner’s inquest would probably spend several days on the testimony, and its verdict would include various recommendations for signage, fencing and perhaps an admonition for the owner about an unsafe situation.
Few people knew how to swim in the 1860s and drownings were more frequent than they would be a century later. Nevertheless, most accidental deaths occurred on land.
Runaway teams and falls from wagons accounted for many ghastly injuries and deaths. Safety was an unknown concept on early railways. Passengers faced the dangers of crashes and derailments, but railway employees faced the greatest danger. In the 1870s, there were few railway brakemen who had all their fingers.
Construction and industrial accidents accounted for dozens of deaths in this area. For example, one man was killed and another severely injured in the rebuilding of the Elora Mill in 1870.
Alex Smith fell to his death from a shaky scaffold during the building of Elora’s Methodist Church in 1862. Henry Hortop got caught in the line shafting at the Elora Mill in 1879 and was, in the words of the Elora Lightning Express, “ground to jelly.”
A list of similar accidental deaths in the 19th century would fill many columns. In some of these, when the victim was a common labourer or not a local resident, his name would not even be mentioned in newspaper reports.
Coroner’s juries convened after most of these deaths. Usually they merely confirmed the obvious facts surrounding the death, rarely making any recommendations to prevent recurrences.
Accidental injuries could be almost as tragic as deaths. These were the days before workman’s compensation and unemployment insurance, and only rudimentary welfare provisions. A crippling injury to a breadwinner struck an irreversible blow to a family’s fortunes.
Many of the 19th century widows who went into business did so when their husbands were killed in accidents or injured so severely that they could no longer earn a living. At the lower scale of the social ladder, women who were forced into the role of prime income earner did household chores or took in washing.
Catherine Hill, of Elora, was one of these. Her husband was killed in a construction accident in 1873, leaving her a widow at 37 with five children, aged between 2 and 13, to support. She advertised her services as of “housekeeping, cleaning and washing” in the local papers. Her situation was less severe than others in a similar situation. Her two eldest sons were already employed and they helped support the family.
Jessie McQuarrie’s tragic drowning at 17, performing an act of heroism to save her younger sister, reminds us that we should never forget that calamities intervened in everyday life regularly and without warning in the not-so-distant past.
People met tragedy with acts of personal courage, and with a Christian resignation that preserved their essential optimism.
Jessie McQuarrie’s brief story in the newspapers must be considered alongside the more tangible artifacts of the past century if we are to understand our history properly and completely.
*This column was originally published in the Elora Sentinel on Oct. 18, 1994.
