PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. i^ 



lu the plan of this paper I have purposely entered into details of the i)i'iiuiniiit;> 

 of Col. Burwell's work as a laud surveyor, to illustrate the value of his letters ami 

 journals as materials of history, but without a pretence to elaborate them into 

 literary form — for history is not written hastily in broken hours at the end of a 

 day's work. What remains to be done is the harder task of presenting witliin the 

 limits of a few pages a clear idea of the extent and luiture of Burwell's labors dur- 

 ing the next twenty or more years of active career as a surveyor ; or down to the 

 time when, though still in middle life, his physic-al powej's had decayed and he 

 was no longer able to execute a commission from his chief. ' ' Should His [Majesty's 

 Government require that this township (Dunwich) should be re-surveyed," he 

 wrote to Acting Surveyor-General William Chewett on February 24th, ]8:"{2, "may 

 I beg that you Avill not order me to perform the service, as my health Avould really 

 not permit me to go into the woods at this time,"— and he suggested the name of 

 another to whom the order might go instead. After that time it does not appear 

 that Mr. Burwell attempted any work for the Government except to finish the 

 surveys of one or two townships which he had commenced long before. A list of 

 his undertakings from 1809 to 1835 includes surveys in whole or in part of the 

 townships of Wainfleet, in Ilaldimand ; Houghton, Middleton and Townsend in 

 Norfolk ; Bayham, Malahide, Southwold and North Yarmouth, iu Elgin ; Caradoc, 

 Ekfrid, Lobo, Loudon, Mosa and Westminster in Middlesex ; Harwich, Howard^ 

 Orford. Raleigh, Romuey, Tilbury East and Zone, in Kent ; and Colchester, Gos- 

 tield. ^laidstone, Mersea, Rochester, Sandwich and Tilbury West, in Essex. The 

 list also includes surveys of the towns of Loudon and Chatham (the latter being a 

 re-survey); of Talbot Road East, from the west line of Southwold to the east line 

 of Middleton ; of Talbot Road North, from the west line of Soutliwold to the junc- 

 tion with the Longwoods Road in Westminister ; of Talbot Road West, from Port 

 Talbot to the town of Sandwich on the Detroit river ; of the Middle Road, midway 

 between lake Erie on the south and the river Thames and lake St. Clair on the 

 north, from the east line of the township of Orford to a point of junction with the 

 Talliot Road in the township of Sandwich ; of the Brock Road in Wellington, from 

 Guelph to the rear of Flamboro ; of the north limit of lands }>urcliased from the 

 Chij^pewa Indians in 1827, from the northwest corner ofGarafraxa to lake Huron ; 

 besides several Indian reserves in the counties of Middlesex and Lambton. 



The survey of Talbot Road East, or Colonel Talbot's Road, as it was first called, 

 occupied the whole of the season of 1809 and part of 1810 ; and the work was 

 pushed on without cessation every day the party was in the woods, tlie only days 

 of rest being the rainy days. The limits between Dunwich and Southwold, South- 

 wold and Yarmouth, Yarmouth and Houghton, and Houghton and Walsingham 

 were first traversed, the Avestern boundary of Yarmouth being intended as a 

 governing line, and the most eligible points of intersection for the road were found 

 iu this way. No difficulty was experienced in disco^•ering a suitable location 

 across Southwold and Yarmouth, and only two courses were necessary in the 

 former, made to avoid a marsh iu which Talbot creek had its source. The south- 

 ern part of Yarmouth had been surveyed in 1799, where a grant of 5000 acres was 

 made to Hon. James Baby and his brothers. In the instructions to Surveyor Jones 

 Yarmouth was described as situated between Southwold and Houghton. The 

 original intention was to run the road through the seventh concession, but Mr. 

 Burwell's explorations showed that a more favorable route was one on the line 

 between the eighth and ninth concessions. He reported it as "an extraordinary 

 place for the Street to pass, there is but Four Chains of Swamj) tlie whole way and 

 that not bad." To the east of Yarmouth the couutry along the projected line was 

 broken by gullies and swamps. "All the creeks of any account between Port 

 Talbot and Long Point," Mr. Burwell ob.served in one of his letters, "come from 

 the North East to within about eight miles of the Lake, and tluMi run nearly a South 

 course into it." This was the real cause of the difficulty of finding an easy route 

 across Houghton — whose western boundary at that time was the east line of Yar- 

 mouth—for the direction of the road was nearly i^arallel to the main stieams in 

 their upper reaches, and it crossed many of their tributaries. But a fairly good 

 route was obtained in the end, which for the last thirty miles eastward lay ui a 

 splendid forest of pines. The terminus of the road was at the eastern hue of 3[id- 

 dleton, where the village of Delhi now stands ; but the name of Talliot Road lias 

 been applied to one extending eastward through Cayuga in H:il<liinaii(l. 



