Creating The Good Life in Missisquoi County

By Heather Darch
Musée Missisquoi Museum

When the first settlers came in to this region and established themselves along the shores of Missisquoi Bay, they came with what they could carry on their backs, by boat, on frozen waterways or on an ox cart. Their belongings were meagre and many people like Christian Wehr, who had served King George III during the American Revolutionary War, left behind prosperous farms and businesses in order to escape persecution in the newly formed United States. In a report to a British parliamentary commission investigating the reparations claims of United Empire Loyalists, Wehr detailed his losses: “a good frame House…30 acres…2 cows – 2 Heifers – 18 Sheep-14 Hogs –furniture and Utensils -…The Rebels took them in the Winter of 1778”.

Thousands of other Americans joined the initial group of Loyalists in the Eastern Townships in the late 1790s and early 1800s and, seeing the potential for farming, took up residence primarily in the southernmost counties of Missisquoi, Brome, and Stanstead. Not all were farmers, but farming was the principal occupation of the region. The settlers chose sites near water and built rough dwellings until they could afford something better. Prior to 1850, industry in the area would have rested on the production of potash, also known as black salts or crude potassium carbonate. After burning felled trees and brush, ashes were leached and the lye was boiled down in great iron kettles into a tar-like substance, which was used in the production of soaps and dyes and in the manufacture of glass. Frelighsburg entrepreneur Jacob Bear and businessman Philip Luke of Missisquoi Bay both owned two of the earliest and successful asheries in the county and produced and sold this important commodity.

The settlers planted the same crops they had in New England, including buckwheat, corn, oats, and potatoes and kept small numbers of sheep and livestock. Entire families contributed to the production of an adequate subsistence and did not rely on the efforts of a single breadwinner. Women worked as hard as men in establishing family farms and businesses. A farmer named James Primmerman (1829-1901) of Rosenberg (St. Armand West) recorded concise but revealing entries in his diary concerning what he was able to harvest each year: “May 13 1863: Nice fine weather sewed flax seed; Sept. 11 1863 fair weather thrash flax; Sept.12 1863 fair weather spread flax; October 10 1863 raked buckwheat and turned flax. ” In the same year, James dug 45 bushels of potatoes and was able to sell them for 35 cents a bushel.

As the population expanded in the Townships – it totalled 8,000 in 1803 – the countryside opened into ploughed fields and open pastures. Despite the inadequate road network, villages emerged with mills, churches, schools, and stores.

The Philip Ruiter Ledgers (1786-1816) offer a picture of the social life and the exchanges of commodities in the newly populated area of Missisquoi Bay. Ruiter’s general store acted not only as a place to purchase goods but also as a bank, a meeting place, and a third party intermediary between citizens owing money to one another. A Loyalist himself, Philip Ruiter (1765-1820) was the epitome of self-sufficiency in this developing wilderness. By 1800, he had purchased more lots in the community than any other settler and had established a prosperous store, inn, and large home. In 1809, the community of Missisquoi Bay changed its name to Philipsburg after its most prosperous citizen of the time.

The ledgers illustrate how people paid their bills and received remuneration for their labour, as well as their indebtedness to the store, the frequency of their purchases, and their shopping patterns. Frequently, customers worked for Philip Ruiter to either earn credit or pay personal debts. Most jobs had a specific cash value, such as mending shoes, making clothes, hauling hay or boards, digging potatoes, mill or ashery work, or general labour.

It is often assumed that our ancestors lived a very restricted life with few luxury goods. The ledgers confirm that customers bought apples, potatoes and turnips, rum, gun powder, and tallow. But they could also buy velvet, expensive green tea and spices, port wine and brandy, a large variety of cloth including silk, scholarly books, window panes, and even chocolate.

Although not always identified directly, women were viable contributors to the early economy of Missisquoi Bay. Their purchases, whether obtained directly or through their husbands, included sturdy blue and grey cloths, flannels, linens, velvet, calico, flaxen sheeting, thread, darning needles, hair combs, fancy buttons, shawls, lace handkerchiefs, shoes, snuff, and paper pins.

The Ruiter Ledgers reveal the relative prosperity and indebtedness of some of the clientele. Some customers made frequent purchases and only settled their accounts at harvest time, while others always paid their bills in cash at the time of purchase. At the end of the year, some carried over their debts and hoped for better times. Paying one’s debt in Philip Ruiter’s store could be accomplished in a variety of ways. Notes of hand or promissory notes were popular with the wealthier citizens like Leon Lalanne, Esquire or Captain John Savage. Most people paid with an exchange of goods or by committing themselves to labour for Philip Ruiter.

Items bartered or exchanged for goods purchased included: Indian corn, rum, beef and pork, milk cows, salt, fresh produce, leaf tobacco, and sugar. Labour for Mr. Ruiter included haying, plowing and mowing, shoe making and saddle repair, carting logs and lumber, horse shoeing, surveying, mill dam work, pottery, spinning, weaving and carpentry work.

By the early 1830s, 5000 of the 5800 families in the Eastern Townships lived off sustainable agriculture, prompting one traveller to the region to observe, “The Eastern Townships will very soon deserve the name of the Garden of Lower Canada”.

For those who worked hard, life in the newly opened Townships provided all the necessities of life. There was an abundance of food to be gleaned from the land, forests, and waterways and the wherewithal to obtain luxury items. There was a sufficiency and sustainability for those that laboured despite crop failures, harsh weather, or seasons of epidemics. One elderly resident recalled life in the Townships in the early 1800s: “We had little to rely upon but strong hearts and willing hands, and the blessing of Divine Providence. Our privations and hardships were severe, but we were sustained by the hope of better days to come.”

Sources: The Philip Ruiter Ledgers (courtesy Robert Galbraith); “The Farming Heritage of the Eastern Townships”, Louise Abbott; Missisquoi: Water by the Mill vol. 13, Missisquoi Historical Society.

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