Tag: immigration to Upper Canada

Thomas Whiteside and Sarah Murdoch, Scarborough Settlers

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In 1822, Thomas Whiteside of Belfast, Ireland was 40 years old, the average life expectancy for men in Great Britain at the time. But Thomas must have been an optimist because that was the year he and his wife, Sarah, 33, and their four children started their new lives in Upper Canada. When he and Sarah both died in 1870, they had lived in Canada for 48 years.1

Thomas prepared carefully for the move across the Atlantic, bringing with him three reference letters.2 The first, a character reference dated April 11, 1821, said that in the 16 years Thomas had lived in Belfast, he had behaved honestly and soberly, and was “in every way a decent respectable man.” The second stated that he had served loyally for nine years in the Belfast 2nd Company of Yeoman Infantry (a militia unit). The third noted that Thomas had been in the service of Mr. Thomas Battersby of Belfast for 15 years. Whether these references were helpful to Thomas once he reached Upper Canada is not clear, because he became a farmer and his own boss. 

The Whiteside home was demolished in 1989. photo courtesy Scarborough Archives

The Whitesides were one of many immigrant families, mainly from Scotland and Ireland, who settled in Scarborough in the 1820s. Today Scarborough is a sprawling suburb in the east end of Toronto, but at that time the area consisted of virgin forests and fertile agricultural soil. Thomas bought two properties in 1822 from Ebenezer Cavers: he paid 100 pounds for Concession I, Lot 22 and he also bought Concession II, Lot 29. Seven years later, he purchased the adjoining Concession II, Lot 28.3

According to the 1861 agricultural census,4 Thomas put half of the 100-acre Concession II, Lot 29 under cultivation for crops, producing primarily turnips, oats, peas and fall wheat. Twenty acres were pasture and 15 were left wooded. At that time, he estimated the cash value of the farm at $8000. At first, Thomas and Sarah lived in a log house. In 1854, they constructed a handsome stone house, which was demolished in 1989 to make way for a hotel. 

Perhaps one reason Thomas and Sarah decided to leave Ireland was the ongoing political turmoil there. But Canada had its own problems in 1837 as rebels in both Upper and Lower Canada demanded more responsible government. A conservative in politics,5 Thomas no doubt disagreed with the rebels. According to a family story,6 Thomas and his two eldest sons, James (an ensign in the local militia) and Daniel, were involved in a skirmish between the untrained rebels and the local militia at Montgomery’s Tavern in Toronto. I have not yet been able to confirm that the Whitesides were there. Although the rebellion collapsed that day, a few years later responsible government was established in Canada. 

The Whitesides brought their four young children with them from Ireland: Margaret (c. 1814-1874), James (c. 1816-1889), Jane (1817-1872), and Daniel (1819-1904.) Three more children were born in Canada: Sarah (1823-1894), Thomas (c. 1824-1914) and John (1833-1896).7

Whiteside gravestone. JH photo.

Margaret Whiteside married local farmer John Glendinning. Their daughter Isabella Glendenning (the spelling of the name has varied) married James Hamilton and moved first to Saskatoon, then to Winnipeg.8 They are my ancestors, making Thomas and Sarah Whiteside my three-times great grandparents.

Daughter Jane Whiteside married a local man, William Abraham, and daughter Sarah also married a man from Scarborough, John Crawford. 

John, the youngest son, lived on Concession II, Lot 28 and married Margaret Brown.

According to several family trees on www.Ancestry.ca, he died in British Columbia.

Thomas Whiteside Jr. took over Concession II, Lot 29 and married Jane McCowan. In 1892 he sold his property in Scarborough and bought Glen Farm in Innerkip, Oxford County, Ontario. 

Two of the Whiteside sons went far afield. James Murdoch Whiteside became a mining engineer and left for California around 1849. He spent most of his life in California with his wife Susan George and is buried in New Westminster, British Columbia. A few years later, his brother Daniel followed him to California and prospected for gold there, and in Australia and British Columbia. Daniel then went into the railroad construction business in California and lived in San Diego. After his first wife (name unknown) died, he married Ruth White. Daniel is buried in the same B.C. cemetery as James.9

Thomas and Sarah Whiteside died within two months of each other. The Whiteside gravestone in St. Andrews Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Scarborough, is tall and elegant and, although it is now discoloured, the words are still clearly legible. It reads, “Thomas Whiteside, died Dec. 7, 1870 age 88 years. Sarah Murdoch wife of Thos. Whiteside died Oct. 16, 1870 age 81 years.”

Notes and Sources

  1. Thomas’s death certificate puts his age at death as 89.  It adds that he was Presbyterian, and was born in County Antrim, Ireland (now part of Northern Ireland.) At the bottom of the page, a note adds that Thomas and his wife came to Canada in 1822 and lived in Scarborough for 48 years. “Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938, 1943-1944, and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947” digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca, accessed Nov. 7, 2016), entry for Thomas Whiteside, Dec. 7, 1870, citing Archives of Ontario; Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Series: MS935; Reel: 2.
  2. During a recent visit to the archives of the Scarborough Historical Society, I discovered these reference letters in a box of Whiteside family documents (Scarborough Archives, Whiteside Papers, Ref. # 1.04.29). They were donated to the archives in 1983 by Helen Richmond Smith (Whiteside) of Sidney, B.C. 
  3. This information was provided by the Scarborough archivist from microfilm of the Ontario land records.
  4. “Census Returns For 1861; Roll: C-1087-1090,“  digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca, accessed Nov. 7, 2016), entry for Thos Whiteside; Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, citing 1861 Census of Canada, Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
  5. History of Toronto and the County of York Ontario, Volume II, Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, publisher, 1885, p. 281.
  6. This story is mentioned in an article about the Whiteside family in a printed binder called James McCowan Family from 1833, p. 82, available on the bookshelf of the Scarborough Historical Society.
  7. The article on the Whitesides in the James McCowan Family from 1833, p. 82, lists the children of Thomas and Sarah and gives their birth and death dates. I looked for these individuals on www.Ancestry.ca, www.findagrave.com and www.familysearch.org and confirmed or corrected whatever I could find. Some of the birth dates are on the gravestones, others are calculated from age at death. 
  8. Janice Hamilton, “Isabella Hamilton the North-West Rebellion,” Writinguptheancestors.blgospot.ca, Nov. 8, 2013, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2013/11/isabella-hamilton-and-north-west_8.html.
  9. Most of the information about Thomas, James and Daniel Whiteside comes from the family history printed binder James McCowan Family from 1833, at the Scarborough Historical Society archives.

Settling in Scarborough

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The Scottish settlers of Scarborough were known as heavy drinkers, but not so Robert Hamilton. My great-great grandfather, who settled in this Upper Canadian farming community in 1830, was a “pioneer total abstinence advocate,” and his opposition to alcohol almost prevented his barn from being built.

Between 1796 and 1826, the government granted land in Scarborough to Loyalists, military officers and a few other settlers. Most were absentee landowners, however, and the population only began to grow after 1815, with the end of the Napoleonic wars. The height of immigration occurred in the 1820s and early 1830s, with a huge influx of settlers from England, Scotland and Ireland.

Most of the Scarborough’s Scots came from lowland counties such as Lanarkshire and Dumfriesshire. Many had friends or relatives who had already settled in the area and encouraged others to follow. Robert was no exception: he was a weaver from Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, and his in-laws, the Stobo family, were said to have been the first Lanarkshire settlers in Scarborough in 1824.

Robert and his wife, Elizabeth Stobo, and their six children stayed with the Stobo family when they first arrived. Soon they found a farm of their own, lot 25, concession III, and started to clear the trees so they could plant crops. 

Felling trees wasn’t as easy as it looked, however, as the Hamiltons learned. In 1832, three weeks after arriving in Scarborough, Robert Rae, Robert Hamilton’s brother-in-law, was helping clear the Hamilton farm when he was killed by a falling tree. The widowed Agnes Hamilton Rae brought up four children alone and eventually managed to purchase thirty acres of her own.

One of the traditions the settlers brought from Scotland was the custom of holding “bees,” in which neighbours helped each other with major projects, such as barn raisings. The person whose barn was being erected normally provided whisky to the volunteers, so when abstainer Robert Hamilton refused to serve any alcohol, the volunteers refused to help with the barn. The deadlock was broken when Robert gave the head carpenter the authority to oversee the barn-raising as he saw fit, and the carpenter approved the whisky.

Eventually, alcohol was no longer so central to the social lives of Scarborough’s Scots. Rev. James George, of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, founded the first recorded temperance society in the community in 1834 and, by the turn of the 20thcentury, no liquor was allowed at barn raisings.

Research notes: When I started to research this post, I just wanted to find out more about my ancestors’ lives, and I was excited to find references to Robert Hamilton on the website of The James McCowan Memorial Social History Society, www.beamccowan.com. This website gives an account of Robert Rae’s fatal accident. I wanted to learn more, so I ordered a couple of the booklets published by the society. When I read the footnotes, I realized that the McCowans are descendants of Robert and Agnes Hamilton Rae – and therefore distant cousins of mine!

Another excellent resource for the early history of Scarborough is The Township of Scarboro, 1796-1896, edited by David Boyle, Toronto, 1896, available online at http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028900970/cu31924028900970_djvu.txt. Written to celebrate Scarborough’s first centennial, this is the source of the story of the barn-raising.

Scarborough produced another book to celebrate its second centennial anniversary. The People of Scarborough: A History, by Barbara Myrvold, published by the City of Scarborough Public Library Board, 1997, gives a comprehensive overview of the community’s history. It is also available as an online PDF at static:Torontopubliclibrary.ca/da/pdfs/238353.pdf.

Finally, I discovered that Robert Hamilton took part in a curling match between Scarborough and Toronto on a frozen Toronto Bay in 1836. This little anecdote didn’t fit into my article, but I wanted to mention it anyway because it led me to a charming painting of Toronto Bay (now called Toronto Harbour) in winter: http://www.distilleryheritage.com/snippets/49.pdf.

See also: https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2013/12/from-lesmahagow-to-scarborough.html