[vooRHis] ANCESTRY OF ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN 111 



which shone brilliantly, and raven black hair which maintained its 

 colour throughout their lives. The descendants of Abraham Gesner 

 include many noted geologists, clergymen, doctors, chemists and 

 inventors. 



David Gesner was born at Cornwallis in 1793. When twenty- 

 seven years old he left Nova Scotia for Montreal, where he taught 

 school for two years. He then studied medicine for two years, but 

 not finding either occupation to his liking and being drawn by a love 

 of adventure and a great fondness for nature, he decided to join the 

 ranks of the pioneers who at that time were beginning to migrate 

 from Lower Canada and the Maritime Provinces to Upper Canada. 

 About the year 1825, in company with other pioneers he arrived at 

 Port Talbot on Lake Erie. Thence he journeyed a few miles west- 

 ward and took up land in the township of Orford, County of Kent. 

 The Book of Land Grants in the Archives at Toronto records a grant 

 to David Henry Gesner of 200 acres south on Talbot Road on the 

 shore of Lake Erie, 7th June, 1825. At Talbot dwelt Colonel Thomas 

 Talbot, a retired officer of the English army who had secured a grant 

 of 100,000 acres under the condition that he should place a settler 

 upon every 200 acres. "There he dwelt for years, utterly alone, 

 shunning the society of his fellowmen, a picturesque and singular 

 character in the early history of Upper Canada". 



The country at that time was an almost unbroken wilderness 

 of primeval forest, peopled principally by Indians and a few settlers 

 who had penetrated west from York as far as London and along the 

 north shore of Lake Erie. Every privation and difficulty which the 

 sturdy pioneer of those days encountered fell to the lot of David 

 Henry and it needed a stout heart and wonderful self reliance to 

 induce a man to leave the comparatively well settled country of 

 Nova Scotia and to brave the unknown wilds of Upper Canada. 

 There he would be deprived of the comforts to which he had been 

 accustomed; communication with his family and friends would be 

 infrequent and subject to the uncertainties of courier post and ship- 

 ping; whatever he should require for existence must be the fruit of 

 his own labours. Clearing a small space in the forest Gesner erected 

 a comfortable log house in which he dwelt alone for nearly two years. 

 By incessant labour and perseverance he hewed down the forest, 

 cleared his fields, built himself a comfortable home, planted and 

 developed a fruit farm rivalling in some degree his father's estate 

 at Cornwallis. As events turned out, it was not for his own profit 

 alone that he ventured so far from home, for the Government saw 

 in the son of the loyalist Colonel Gesner such qualities as marked 



