184 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



APPENDIX A. 



Ijetter from Singleton Gardiner, a settler in Dunwich to his broth- 

 er-in-law, Henry Coyne ^ (original in possession of James H. Coyne) 



Dear Brother-, Buffalo, October 27th 1816. 



I arrived here yesterday after 10 days passage from Port Talbot, 

 a place I never would again see. was it not for my family; but I was 

 obliged to come here for flour, and I am afraid I will not get what I 

 want. I got one barrell and had to give $13 for it, but when done it is 

 much cheaper than I can get it at Port Talbot. Just before I left home I 

 had 104 lbs which cost me $16., viz. I had 41/2 bushels of wheat, cost $9, 

 and a hired man at $12. per month was 7 days to mill to have it ground, 

 so the expense in all was $16. So you may judge what a comfortable 

 place I am in. No, it is the hardest place I ever saw to get the necessaries 

 of life, and I believe, according to the number of inhabitants, they have 

 suffered more for the want of bread, than any other place I ever saw or 

 heard of. Many persons here, I believe, have not tasted bread for 2 

 months; for they had not the grain, and if they had, they could not 

 have it ground. 



I have bargained for 100 acres of land off Colonel Talbot at 3 

 Dollars per acre, and have got a log house 24 by 16 feet not half finished, 

 and it has cost me about $200 ; ior we cannot get a board without fetch- 

 ing them 130 miles, and no stone nor brick to build chimneys, nothing 

 but clay. 



All the money I got for my place would not build such a house 

 as I had in P. Talbot. But God only knows whether I will get home 

 or not for the lake is so dangerous at this season of the year, that I 

 dread the journey of going 150 miles in an open boat. It is a (great 

 undertaking, but I must either do it or my family suffer for want of 

 bread, which they have never done as yet. Things were cut off with the 

 frost of the 6th of July last, and, about the 24th of August, there was 

 another which killed the Buckwheat and Corn, that grain is scarce and 

 dear ; so there has not been one month this summer but there has been 

 frost. I made a mistake in the firm of Townsend & Co. N. York, in 

 my last letter. It is K. and E. Townsend, No. 123 Pearl St. New York; 

 and get an order on Townsend, Brunson & Co. Lewiston; and send the 

 order in a letter to me to the care of John Warren, Merchant, near 



1 Henry Coyne was then residing near Poughkeepsie in the State of New 

 Yorlc. He settled in Dunwich in the Talbot Settlement in October. 1817. 

 He >came from Belfast in Ireland. His descendants are numerous. 



