1837 from the eyes of an NDG Scot

  Parts of a family history of the Brodie family - which settled the area of NDG where Oxford Park is located - in my desk recently. It's never been published. This sequence describing the 1837 Rebellions is worth a peek.

   In 1837 there was great discontent among the people of Canada who had no franchise, so some of the people rose up in rebellion. William Lyon Mackenzie was the leader of the rebellion in Upper Canada and Louis Joseph Papineau in Lower Canada. Papineau and his followers went the wrong way about it by declaring war against the English settlers and arresting those neighbours who had shown them nothing but kindness. My father and my Uncle Hugh were Officers in the Militia. My Uncle was a Captain in the Lachine Troop of the Cavalry.
   On Halloween in 1837, a Sergeant from Headquarters came to the house and told Uncle to rouse up his troupe of Cavalry. Grandfather was quite worried but Grandmother went about polishing up his uniform. He mounted his black horse and rode first to Snowdon. There he got Jos. Snowdon to accompany him through the fields to St. Laurent. Jos was mounted on a low-set French Canadian horse, and as he was tall like all the Snowdons, his long legs interfered with fence jumping. After jumping one of the fences, Uncle heard a shout behind him and looking around discovered that Joe's horse had left him behind on the fence. They then changed horses and by daylight had succeeded in mastering their troupe and were gathered in the Champs des Mars.
   Some of the nets of the rebels were very cruel. They beheaded James Walker, a Laprairie farmer, who resisted arrest, and walked with his head on a pole to Caughnawaga. Another case was that of Angus Cameron of the Bean River who was not given time to put on his boots but made to walk two miles over the frozen ground to Ste. Martine. They were also rough with my Grand Uncle James Holman who was lame and infirm and could not walk. There was a character named McLean who lived in a log house near the river. When the rebels hammered at his door, he climbed up the chimney, and stood on the Brodie farm cross bar on which they hung the kettle and called to his wife “Janet saw me brask.” In the meantime, the rebels broke into the house, and when she was tugging on his breeches, the cross bar broke and down he fell, all covered with soot. They took him for the “Diable” and ran away. However, they finally plucked up courage and returned and tied him up with a rope they found under his bed. McLean said, “It is the first time I have been tied up with me own rope. The reels marched with their prisoner to Caughnawaga, thinking the Iroquois were with them but the Indians let out a war whoop and arrested the rebels and let the English go free.
   The rebels paid dearly for their cruelty. They were badly defeated at Odeltown, not far from Hemmingford and also at St. Eustache, north-west of Montreal. Father and Uncle Hugh were in the engagement and father was sorry for the poor beggars. They went into the Church for safety but were shelled by the English and until the present day there are marks of bullets on the walls of the old Church. There were no fights in the Chateauguay district as the rebels came no nearer than a couple of miles south west of Ste Martine, where they had erected barricades.
  Mother said she remembered when her elder sister and herself baked seventy-five loaves of bread one day to feed the Militia who were camped nearby.
   A great many prisoners were taken in those battles and their leaders were arrested. Some of the prisoners were transported to New England. Louis Turcotte from Georgetown, near the church, was one of them, and when he returned, he told my uncle Robert Brodie that if he had had his family with him he never would have come back as the climate was no good without a severe snowy winter.
   A number of the leaders were executed. Four were hanged on the one day and one of them, an American, said he had made the mistake of thinking he was helping a respected people. He repeated the old hymn on the scaffold:
  The hour of my departures come.
  I hear the voices that call me home.
  At last O Lord let troubles cease
  And let thy servant die in peace.

Memoirs of Robert Brodie, Esq Orchard Bank 5635 Upper Lachine Road Montreal Que Written January/February 1934 at the age of 80 about a year before he died. Born Dec 27, 1854, died Feb 17, 1935.