CHAPTER II 

 1850-1856 



Emigration to Canada, 1850 — Incidents of the Voyage — 

 Clearing a Farm — Amusing Episodes in the life of a 

 Settler — Hiring Out — First Acquaintance with Cana- 

 dian Wild Flowers. 



TO please my mother, my brother gave up thoughts of going 

 to Australia and we took our passage for America and left 

 Maralin on the Second of May, 1850, for Belfast. We sailed 

 from there on the ship "Chester", which carried three hundred and 

 eighty-seven passengers. I do not recall any person being in the 

 first cabin. The steerage people, I do not remember seeing, and we 

 of the second cabin had the deck to ourselves. The night we left 

 Belfast a great gale sprang up and, the bow-ports having been 

 left open, the ship began to leak. In the middle of the night all 

 hands were called to man the pumps and the sailors shirked and 

 hid and there was a great commotion and the passengers were 

 called upon to go to the pumps. My brother-in-law and Frederick 

 started for the deck. Frederick returned in about ten minutes 

 and I asked him why he came back so soon and he said "I never 

 got there. When we reached the deck, the ship was rolling so that 

 I fell and when I was able to get up I came down. I would 

 rather die in bed than be drowned on the deck." Some of the 

 passengers went almost insane and the women cried and the chil- 

 dren cried and there was an awful hub-bub. When daybreak 

 came it was seen that the ports had been left open when they were 

 putting the ballast into the ship. The ballast was pig-iron. 



After this, the weather for three weeks was beautiful and fair 

 and we made a quick passage to some point between Newfound- 

 land and Nova Scotia on a Sunday afternoon, the 27th of May. 

 This day, a big storm of wind and snow broke out and our bow- 

 sprit was carried away and all the sails upon it. There were fears 

 that the mainmast would be taken away also, so all hands, pas- 



