^8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



"Thursday 8th June. I engaged Jeremiah Wolfen to go with me for 1/8 

 per Day and Avas all in readiness to set out for Port Talbot, but the Wind blew 

 ■contrarily that I could not proceed, and then Wolfen refused to go at all, and I 

 could not complete my party, but determined to proceed in the morning. 



"Friday 9th June. Loaded the Boat early and rowed against the Wind to 

 the carrying place, or Isthmus of Long Point. We took ev^erything across to be 

 ready in the morning. 



' ' Saturday lO^h June. Loaded the Boat early and rowed against the Wind to 

 Big Otter Creek ; the Wind blew hard and we lay by. About 6 o'clock P.M. it 

 calmed and we rowed up to Catfish Creek by 10 o'clock P.M. there was a heavy 

 swell and when entering the mouth of the Creek the Boat had like to have filled 

 and my Trunk and my Papers got wet, by which some drawing Paper was consider- 

 ably injured. 



"Sunday ll'h June. There was such a violent sea that it was impossible to 

 proceed on the way. 



" Monday 12th June. The Lake raged most tremenduously all day that we 

 could not move out of the mouth of the Creek. So I searched for the limit between 

 the Townships of Yarmouth and Houghton, on both sides of the creek, but all to 

 no effect. 



' ' Tuesday 13th June. Early in the morning I set out with a pretty rough 

 Lake and we rowed hard until 2 o' Clock P.M., when we reached Port Talbot. 



' ' Wednesday 14th Jvxne. It rained very hard all day that I could not proceed 

 into the Woods. Colonel Talbot altered his opinion respecting the operation and 

 did not Avish to deviate from the intent of my instructions and I regretted that I 

 Iiad Avritten the Acting Surveyor-General on the subject." 



These extracts from the journals shoAV the difficulties and dangers which beset 

 the early surveyors of our Province in parts of it which were the most easy of access 

 by the best transportation of the time. To reach Port Talbot from Fort Erie with 

 assistants and provisions, Mr. BurAvell was occupied twenty-four days, and during 

 much of that period himself and the men were exposed to the stress of weather, 

 without shelter, and sometimes in peril of their lives; and journeying slowly on as 

 I)est they could, on foot through a wilderness of brushwood and briars, or in open 

 boat coasting a shore of high bluffs on the most treacherous of all the great lakes, 

 which in the months of May and June is peculiarly liable to gales that sweep it for 

 an unbroken length of more than a hundred miles from the south and Avest. 

 Today a party can leave Toronto in the morning, take a run of 120 miles in a rail- 

 way coach, drive fifteen miles across country along a finely graded road, and 

 arrive at Port Talbot early in the afternoon of the same day. That fifteen miles 

 embraces the first section of the Talbot road which Mr. Burwell was employed to 

 survey. Some of the best fai*ming land in Canada is to be seen there ; and if on 

 reaching the Southwold and Dunwich townline the traveller enquires, he may have 

 pointed out to him the house where Col. Mahlon Burwell lived with his family for 

 a third of a century, as well as the little building of red brick where he kept the 

 register of titles for Middlesex county ; and beyond these the quiet churchyard by 

 the roadside where, under the shadow of great forest trees, is a grass-covered 

 mound and a stone with this inscription : 



SACRED 



TO THE MEMORY 



OF 



MAHLON BURWELL 



WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE 



THE 25th day OF 



JANUARY A. D. 1846 



AGED 62 YEARS 



11 MONTHS AND 7 DAYS. 



HE WAS FOR SEVERAL PARLIA- 

 MENTS A MEMBER OF THE 

 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY FOR THE 

 COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX, AND 

 FOR ONE PARLIAMENT MEM- 

 BER FOR THE TOAVN OF LONDON. 



