PREFACE. The writer of the following pages has had in view the collection and preservation of reminiscences of the early days when the town and county of Peterborough were first settled. This portion of the task seemed incomplete, without a summary of leading events in town and county to the present time. He has endeavoured to approach the subject as impartially, and to record the facts as accurately as possible. The events of the earlier years were gathered from such of the first settlers as still survive, and although, as might be expected, slight discrepancies were sometimes found in the recollections of these different observers, these were only upon minor matters of trifling import; so that the general details may be relied on as correct. For the events of later years, and especially since 1845, printed and official documents have been to some extent available; but it is to be regretted that in none of our public offices has much attention been shewn to preserve and hand down to futurity, current and evanescent records of the time, which will, by and by, be of rare value and historic interest. Whether the facts here recorded (most of them for the first time) were of sufficient interest and importance to justify their collection in permanent form; and whether the task has been accomplished in a proper and worthy manner, must be left to the public to decide; to whom it is now offered, to be judged upon its merits. Peterborough, January 2nd, 1867. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. The Author of this little work herewith returns his best thanks and grateful acknowledgements to the numerous persons, both in town and county, who have kindly and gratuitously assisted him, by contributions of facts and incidents, oral, written, or printed, on which the following pages are chiefly based, and without which he would have been unable to accomplish his task. The very enumeration of the names of the persous to whom he is thus under obligation, would be a formidable task; and he begs of them, one and all, to accept this general acknowledgement of his gratitude for the services they have so cheerfully and promptly rendered. Peterborough, January 2nd, 1867. XIX.—(1) The Banks of Peterborough. (2) The Churches of Peterborough. (3). The Schools of Peterborough. XX. (1) Summary of Legislative Council Elections. (2) Sum- mary of Legislative Assembly Elections. (3) Wardens for the County. (4) Mayors, Reeves, Clerks and Treasurers of Peterborough. (5) Justices of the Peace for Peterborough. (6) Coroners, Assessors, XXX.-The New Townships; including Galway, Snowden, Min- XXXII.-The Indian Tribes of the County.. XXXIII.—Our Brave Volunteers; Lists of Officers and Privates of the several Peterboro' Companies who rushed to arms to repel invasion in June, 1866. Other Volunteer Companies since organized,--Peterborough Infantry A SKETCH OF THE EARLY SETTLEMENT AND SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS OF The Town of Peterborough, AND EACH TOWNSHIP IN THE COUNTY OF PETERBOROUGH. CHAPTER I. A PIONEER CHAPTER. Prior to the year 1818, that portion of Canada now known as the flourishing County of Peterborough, was covered by an unbroken forest, in which the settler's axe had never echoed, and where, save the homeless Indian or the adventurous hunter, the foot of man had scarcely penetrated. In that year, a small body of emigrants sailed from England, some of whom, braving the perils of the bush, found their way into the township of Smith, then but recently surveyed. This was in the Autumn of 1818; the pioneers finding an inlet by way of Rice Lake and the Otonabee river, for as yet, and for long after, there was no semblance of a road through the wooded wilderness stretching away between the frontier settlements and their new home. The merit of the first settlement in the county belongs to the township |