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Upper Canada Sketches

<h2>CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.</h2> <div class="blockquot">Normandy—William the Conqueror—Origin of the name Conant—Devon, England—Sir Walter Raleigh’s home—Richard the Mill-owner—Roger the Pilgrim—The first Governor of Massachusetts—Salem, Massachusetts—Mill-owners. </div> <div class="poetry"> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Though of the past from no carved shrines, Canvas or deathless lyres we learn, Yet arbored streams and shadowy pines Are hung with legends wild and stern; In deep dark glen, on mountain side, Are graves whence stately pines have sprung, Naught telling how our fathers died Save faint Tradition’s faltering tongue. —Adapted. </div> </div></div> THERE is no reason to doubt that the progenitor of the Conant family in England and America came originally from Normandy, in 1066, as one of the followers of William the Conqueror. Frederick Odell Conant, of Portland, Maine,{10} whose exhaustive work, “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family,” entitles him to be quoted as an authority, has arrived at this conclusion. Edward Nathaniel Conant, of Oakham, Rutland County, England, a member of the English branch, told the author, when visiting Lyndon Hall, in 1894, that he had seen the name Conan—from which Conant has been evolved—on a castle archway in Normandy. In 1896 the author met a Frenchman of the same name in Melbourne, Australia, who was, no doubt, a descendant of the branch of the family that remained in Normandy when the others came over with William to the conquest of England. There are several derivations given of the name Conant, many of which would establish it as of Celtic origin; and though a Conant came over to England with William, it would appear his ancestors had come originally from Cornwall and Devon to Brittany. The meaning of the name is almost as variously given as its origin, but it appears that the conclusion arrived at by the family historian and genealogist is that it is equivalent to the word in the Welsh, Irish, Saxon, Dutch, German and Swedish tongue, and also the Oriental, signifying chief or leader. Although the Conants probably returned to Normandy during the reigns of William and his sons, they finally settled at East Budleigh, in Devonshire.{11} It is unnecessary here to trace the succeeding generations of the family, as we have to do only with the immediate connections of Roger Conant, known as the Pilgrim, who emigrated to the English Colonies in America in 1623, and from whom all the Conants in the United States and Canada are descended. The picture which forms the frontispiece to this volume is a faithful one of the mill yet standing on the Conant lands at East Budleigh. This mill was owned and occupied by Richard Conant, father of Roger the Pilgrim. It will be observed that the part of the stone building at the end farthest from the water-wheel is now used as a residence. Whether it was so occupied by Richard Conant the author has been unable to ascertain. There are indications that a residence had been located back from the mill and on rising ground farther from the road. The mill is a long stone structure. In front of the part used as a dwelling is a yard, and at one side farm buildings. Mr. Green, the present Rector of East Budleigh, assured the author that there is no doubt of its being the identical building and mill occupied and used by Richard Conant. The family records (parish register) are in Mr. Green’s care. There are entries of the birth of John Conant in 1520 and of his son Richard, born in Devon in 1548. These are on parchment, the{12} latter yellow, covered with leather, wood-bound and worm-eaten. Back of the house and mill a small spring creek runs. It has been turned from its bed by the rising ground, so that no artificial dam is needed, and to-day, as in 1560, it runs over the wheel and pours from the flume. In volume it is four inches deep and twenty wide, and is about six feet above the wheel. The latter, of course, has been renewed, being an overshoot about fourteen feet in diameter, but its foundations are now just as Richard Conant originally laid them. The lands owned by Richard Conant probably amounted to about two hundred acres. The glebe land, extending nearly to the mill, which is about five hundred yards from the church, and the Conant lands extending to the farm of Sir Walter Raleigh, we may conclude to be the probable extent of the property. Roger’s father, Richard, inherited the mill from his father. He graduated at Emanuel College, and was also Rector of East Budleigh. The book of his charities accounts is still extant. On the fly-leaf are the words, “This book was bought in 1600, to mark the amounts of charities,” etc. It is in Richard’s handwriting. Every few pages are signed by him, and the entries are neatly made, not a blot, erasure or scratch upon the well inscribed pages. The amounts{13} vary from one penny to sixpence. All this is evidence of the careful upbringing and piety practised in the home of Roger Conant, the man destined later to exert so beneficent an influence for the well-being of the Massachusetts Colony in America. Ascending for three-quarters of a mile the little burn whose waters turned Richard’s mill-wheel, one finds it running by the door of the Raleigh homestead, Hays Barton House. His living near the man who drew so much attention to the New World would suggest that Roger Conant’s ambitions to seek a new home in the wilds had been fired by the tales told by the adventurous knight; and hearing of its wonders and possibilities possibly made the lad restless, and later on willing to sail away to America. The Raleigh pew in East Budleigh church is at a right-angle from the Conant pew, and not ten feet away. They both face the pulpit, and as these were possessions as hereditary as their lands and homes, there is nothing improbable in the idea that the families were well known to each other. On the Raleigh pew-ends are carved the armorial bearings of the family, the lower part cut off. This was done when Sir Walter was attainted for treason, and may be a curious instance of the penalties exacted from the families whose head suffered such attainder{14} at the hands of the sovereign. On the Conant pew is the head of a North American Indian. It is well done. The Indian features, high cheek-bones and large nose, are faithfully depicted. On the other pews are negroes, ships’ paddles, tropical trees and foliage. Sir Walter’s father was Rector of East Budleigh when Richard Conant ran his little grist-mill and attended the church. Roger could not, in the natural order of succession, inherit the mill from his father, so he went early to London. No doubt the seeds sown by the study, as a child, of the quaint carvings in his parish church had an influence in directing his manhood’s steps. The church is a small stone leaded roofed building. It is dedicated to All Saints, and was consecrated by Bishop Lacy about A.D. 1430. It consists of a nave and chancels, and north and south aisles. It is eighty feet long and forty-eight and a half feet wide. The tower, which contains five bells, is seventy-two feet high. It is a Norman embattlemented tower with a chimney-shaped buttress. (Vide “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family.”) About the church is the graveyard, walled in and the earth dug away, leaving the church and graveyard isolated, and above the level of the surrounding roads and lands. Although the Conants are buried here, no stone or monument has been found to mark the spot where{15} they lie. The Rector told the author that all the Conants had moved away, leaving none to care for the graves of their ancestors. This was probably the cause of the absence of any information by which the place of burial could be ascertained. A brother of Roger’s—John, matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford—was made a full Fellow, 10th July, 1612; B.D., 2 Dec., 1619, or 28 June, 1620. He resigned his fellowship, and was instituted Rector of Lymington, a country parish near Ilchester, Somersetshire, on the presentation of Sir Henry Rosewell, and on the 20th of January, 1620, compounded for the firstfruits of the living—the sureties of his bond being his brothers Christopher and Roger. The name of Rosewell or Rowswell, is well known to students of the history of Massachusetts. Sir Henry’s name stands first among the grantees in the Patent from the Council of Plymouth—a fact which bears some significance to the emigration of Roger and Christopher to the New World, and also indicates that Conant had already espoused the cause of the Puritans. The above is taken from the “History and Genealogy of the Conant Family,” and is necessary to connect Roger’s early life with the period of his emigration to the New World. Roger was baptized at All Saints’ Church, East Budleigh, on the 9th April, 1592. He was the young{16}est of eight children. His after life showed that the integrity and piety which characterized his parents and elder brothers had been instilled into his mind in childhood. Like his brothers, he evidently received as good an education as the times would afford. He was employed to lay out boundaries, survey lands and transact other public business. The records of the Salters’ Company, to which he belonged, have been burned, so that no more authentic proof of his having been a freedman of the company can be adduced than the presumptive evidence given by the fact of his signing his brother John’s bonds as “Salter of London.” He married in London in November, 1618, and emigrated with the Pilgrims to New England in 1623. Members of the Drysalters’ Guild of London (the ninth of the twelve great livery companies, and chartered by Queen Elizabeth in 1558) have certain privileges and perquisites. To illustrate this more fully, the author during a visit to London, at the time of the Queen’s Jubilee, 1887, learned upon enquiry that by the laws of primogeniture (only abolished in Upper Canada in 1841) the direct descendant of Roger Conant was entitled to two meals a day and a bed to sleep on. The perquisite is not retroactive and an application for any commutation could not be regarded, but he was told that the two meals a day and{17} a bed would be given to the direct heir of Roger Conant, the Drysalter, whenever he chose to claim them. It is not certain what was the name of the vessel in which Roger Conant sailed, but from the fact that his brother Christopher was a passenger in the Ann, which arrived at Plymouth about 1623, it may be inferred that Roger accompanied him. In a petition to the general court, dated May 28th, 1671, he states that he had been “a planter in New England forty-eight years and upwards.” This would fix the date of his arrival early in 1623. Roger did not remain long in Plymouth. There were differences between him and the Pilgrim Fathers, he being a Puritan and they Separatists, and although these differences were not sufficiently marked to subject him to the treatment meted out to Allan and John Lyford, he left Plymouth for Nantucket, where they had settled soon after their expulsion from the former place. While here he appears to have made use of the island in Boston harbor, now called Governor’s Island, but then and for some time afterward known as Conant’s Island. The Dorchester Company was formed in 1622-3, and in 1624-5 Roger Conant’s reputation as “a pious, sober and prudent gentleman” reaching its associates, they chose him to manage or govern their affairs at{18} Cape Ann. While here a proof of the truth of the report was given them in the magnanimity and justness, as well as prudence, exercised by him in settling a dispute over the possession of a fishing stage between Miles Standish, “the captain of Plymouth,” and a captain Hewet, who had been sent out by the opposite party. This scene has been made the subject of a window in the Conant Memorial Congregational Church, recently erected at Dudley, Mass., by Hezekiah Conant. Cape Ann was not a suitable place for settlement; the land was poor and the merchandise brought from England unproductive of lucrative returns. Roger selected a site “on the other side of a creek called Naumkeag (now Salem),” and shortly after removed there. During his stay at Cape Ann Roger occupied the great frame house which had been built by the old planters in 1624. The frames, it is said, and probably with truth, were brought from England. The timbers are oak, yet sound, and in existence still as a part of a stable. The house, as given in the accompanying illustration, is taken from a drawing made in 1775. It is similar to many of the old houses of the same date, and still the most picturesque features of the villages in Surrey and Devon. This house was occupied by Endicott when <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/ill_005.jpg" width-obs="1200" height-obs="837" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /> <div class="caption">ROGER CONANT’S HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., 1628, FIRST GOVERNOR OF MASS. BAY COLONY. BARCLAY, CLARK & CO. LITHO. TORONTO </div> </div> {19} appointed Governor, it being taken down and removed to Salem. The exact site of Roger’s house, the first built in Salem, cannot be ascertained. Subsequent records go to show that the stability, the permanency and good government of the colony were largely dependent upon the influence of Conant, although after the appointment of Endicott as Governor, under the new patent, he was no longer the head. During the rivalry between the members of the old and the new company his self-denial and upright character won him friends on both sides and secured that harmony which resulted in the public good; he “quietly composed that the meum and tuum which divide the world should not disturb the peace of good Christians.” There has been some controversy among the antiquarians on Roger Conant’s claim to the title of first Governor of Massachusetts. He is, however, entitled to the honor, for the colony of which he was the recognized head for three years was the first permanent settlement in the territory, and from it the other colonies sprung. There are many documents extant, besides entries in the records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, which go to prove how frequently Roger Conant was called upon to fill offices and do his share in the numerous works inseparable from the building up of a country, the{20} knowledge and experience as well as the influence of the “prudent Christian gentleman” being invaluable to his fellow-townsmen and settlers. In 1668 that part of Salem known as Bass River, on the Cape Ann side, was incorporated under the name of Beverley, and one of the most interesting incidents of his long and active life is Roger Conant’s effort to change this name for that of Budleigh. The original petition, which however was not granted, is among the Massachusetts archives. It is interesting as showing how the memory of his birth-place still remained fresh in his affections. He died November 19th, 1678, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. From this date until that of the Revolution the succeeding generations of Conants have left individual records of worth, as landed proprietors in the State of Massachusetts; but it is unnecessary here to enter into their history. Several of them were graduates of Harvard University, and many of them mill-owners, thus carrying on the calling and talents of their ancestor, as we shall see, to the seventh, eighth and ninth generation; Hezekiah Conant, of Pawtucket, being a large owner of the great thread works of J. P. Coates, employing five thousand hands; and Daniel Conant, the author’s father, also a mill-owner in Upper Canada, a property which contributed largely to his success.{21} <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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