Chapter Three: Secret Moves

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The hamlet of Egmondville, in the Township of Tucker-Smith, Huron County; was just finding it's feet when the Heffler family arrived in 1851. Leaving a country embroiled in rebellion they may not have realized that Tucker-Smith also had a rebellious history, or at least one of their most famous settlers did.

Anthony Van Egmond had been in his grave for 13 years by then, but his name would be seen often by the family on a fingerboard nailed to a post, that directed the way to Egmondville. There's no escaping a legend.

But little did they know that the real legend had escaped everyone.

Madam Marie Susanne Elizabeth Dietz Van Egmond

Quite a title for a women living in Tucker-Smith, Huron County in the mid nineteenth century. And reading her name you just know that there is a long and interesting story of affluence and gentility, who should be receiving only the finest members of society.

So what was she doing in Tucker-Smith?

Hiding I suspect.

Because Madam Marie Susanne Elizabeth Dietz Van Egmond, was actually Susanne Gijbena (nee: Dietz?) from Mainz Germany, and the man she married was not Anthony Van Egmond, but was born Antonij Jacobi Willem Gijbena (aka Gysbert) from Groesbeek, Netherlands. And he was not a descendant of the Dutch royal family as he claimed, but the son of the local sheriff, Johannes Arnoldus Gijbena and his wife Maria Bloem. He was born on March 10, 1775 and baptized two days later in the Reform Church.

His father was murdered when he was 12 and Antonij chose a life of crime. It caught up with him when he was about 20, and he was forced to flee to Germany.

The story that the 'Colonel' liked to tell was that he was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars. He claimed to have been among the soldiers in Napoleon’s march to Moscow and that he was wounded at Waterloo. However, official records make no mention of him as an officer or a soldier, but rather as part of the army service, " ... probably involved in merchandising, supplies, and transportation." He was never wounded unless it was a paper cut.

Meanwhile, on January 8, 1802; an extradition order had been drawn up, that cited the record of the Gijben murder case in Groesbeek, and the authorities complained that they were having a lot of trouble tracking Antonij down. This meant that the crime he was running from had to have been pretty serious for them to go to so much trouble to find him.

What may have tipped them off was the fact that about six months prior, someone identified as a “prominent businessman” had requested a copy of Gijben’s baptismal certificate from the Groesbeek registers. This document was then used to fabricate a lineage to Van Egmond, despite the fact that the last count of that family had died childless in 1707.

From there the records stopped, until he turned up in Mainz where he would meet Susanne. Their first child, Constant, was born there on April 9, 1808; and the family would spend the next few years on the run, before turning up in Pennsylvania. By then they had five boys and three girls, and had bought some land; but in 1826 their property was seized and sold at auction for back taxes.

This was when Antonij, now calling himself Colonel Anthony Van Egmond, would try his luck in Upper Canada. Because he could speak German, and seemed to have a knack for organization, John Galt hired him to build a road through Huron county, to aid further settlement. He was to be paid one third in cash and the remainder in land. Apparently he never received the money, or at least not all of it, though he did manage to acquire 13,000 acres.

He and his sons would clear 100 of them and he built a home with a tavern attached, which became the local watering hole.

Soon his regulars began telling him tales of corruption involving the Canada Company, that had the contract for settlement, and told stories of how settlers were being driven off their lands if someone was willing to pay a higher price for it.

Antonij joined the Reform Party and even ran for office twice. During the 1835 campaign his lineage was questioned, with rumours that he came from the slums of New York. They were right to question his lineage, but had his roots all wrong.

Realizing that a political career was not in the cards, he began to write to William Lyon MacKenzie, the editor of the Colonial Advocate. MacKenzie had published a lot of stories exposing the corruption of both the the Tory government and the Canada Company, so they soon became allies.

On December 7, 1837, he made his way to Montgomery Tavern in Toronto to join the Rebellion. It failed and the fraudster hid out in a farmhouse until discovered and put in the Toronto Jail. There he became quite ill and was transferred to the Toronto General Hospital, where he died of a stroke on January 5, 1838. Just before his death he gave one of his descendants a piece of paper. It was his original baptismal certificate, and for many years it remained in the family, with future generations unsure of what it was.

Susanne and her sons would bring her husband's body back in a wagon. He would be waked at the house that he built and buried in the backyard. But his secrets would not be buried with him.

Chapter Three Continued: Family Burdens

Sources:

Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, 1836-1850 (Volume VII), By: W. J. Van Veen

The Canada Company and The Huron Tract, 1826-1853, By: Robert C. Lee, Natural Heritage Books, 2004, ISBN: 1-896219-94-2

Chapter One Continued: Family Affairs and Armed Citizens

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

The Canada Company got off to a bad start, as it would soon be accused of corruption, after aligning themselves with the questionable Tory government. John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada's first lieutenant-governor, had already created a local aristocracy, by appointing friends to government posts and granting them the most desirable land. It would now be business as usual, with the "company" becoming the vehicle to grind the wheels and the machine to grease the palms.

This merging of the "elite" would be dubbed by the settlers 'The Family Compact'.

But it was not only land and money issues that angered the people, but a religious hierarchy, created by the 'Clergy Reserves'; an act providing that one-seventh of the public lands of Upper and Lower Canada, had to be set aside for the maintenance of a "Protestant clergy," though it only applied to the Church of England. Added to that was the fact that only Anglican ministers were allowed to perform marriages, something they exploited, often charging outlandish fees.

One person who did more than complain, was William Lyon MacKenzie, owner of the newspaper; the Colonial Advocate.

After many battles with the Tories he announced his intention to run for the Parliament of Upper Canada, and began printing constant attack ads against his opponents.

Under the banner of the Reform Party, he not only won handily, but the Reformers also took a majority of the seats. However, the system at the time did not allow them to create a cabinet, since those ministers had to be selected by the Lieutenant Governor, who was firmly allied with the Family Compact.

Political unrest would continue to grow, and in 1837, Mackenzie, now mayor of Toronto; decided it was time to take action. While most of the military was engaged in Lower Canada where a revolt had taken place, Mackenzie mustered an army of about 1000 men, who gathered at Montgomery's tavern in Toronto, in early December. Armed with rifles, staves and pitchforks, they marched down Yonge Street, only to be thwarted by a small group of Loyalists, who opened fire and then fled.

Concerned with the loss of two of their men, the remaining rebels gave up and took leave. Many were Americans, who headed back over the border, while others hid out wherever they could, including Anthony Van Egmond.

Van Egmond, frustrated that his complaints to the compact that shady land deals were forcing settlers off their land, had agreed to be the military commander, and was responsible for training and organizing the small army. Feeling something wasn't right he tried to get MacKenzie to change his mind, but there was no turning back.

After the initial scuffle, he fled and hid out in a farmhouse, where he was discovered, arrested and locked up in the Toronto jail. He died on January 5, 1838; before having to go through a trial. (1)

The government confiscated all of his property, with the exception of his home and the land it was on, which was held by Susanna and her five sons; Constant, Edouard, Leopold, William and August; in their own right. In 1845, the eldest son, Constant; founded the hamlet of Egmondville, in Tucker-Smith Township, and acted as Justice of the Peace.

The rebellion may have failed, but Egmondville would prosper under the capable hands of Susanne Van Egmont and her family.

Continue to Chapter Two: Bolder Moves

Sources:

The Transition to Responsible Government: British Policy in British North America 1815-1850, By: P.A. Buckner, 1985

Chapter One: Bold Moves

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In 1825 the British Parliament incorporated the Canada Company, a private enterprise; to handle future settlement in the province of Upper Canada.

Whereas in and by a certain Act of Parliament made and passed in the sixth year of our reign, entitled, " An Act to enable His Majesty to grant to a Company, to be incorporated by Charter, to be called 'The Canada Company,' certain Lands in the Province of Upper Canada, and to invest the said Company with certain Powers and Privileges, and for other Purposes relating thereto: After reciting, amongst other things that divers persons had united together to establish a company for purchasing, improving, settling, and disposing of certain lands in the province of Upper Canada .... (1)

Their mandate included making necessary travel arrangements for emigrants; land distribution and the provision of the necessary tools required to carve out a life in the vast wilderness of the region. What this amounted to was the private purchase of about 2.5 million acres of land for $295,000. And since this endeavour was the brainchild of the Scottish novelist John Galt, he would act as superintendent.

In 1824, Galt dispatched a provisional committee to the province, to get the lay of the land, so to speak. The plan was to divide the province into tracts, that could be sold to wealthy investors; who in turn would further divide and sell the land again.

One of these tracts was a pie-shaped piece that stretched from present day Guelph to Goderich, which became known as the Huron Tract.

One of the members of this committee, was Martin Tucker-Smith, a London banker, who would become one of the directors of the Canada Company. When the Huron Tract was sub-divided into townships, approximately 40,850 acres would be sectioned off as Tucker-Smith, in his honour. The land was described as " ... rolling and considered by the early settlers to be one of the most fertile in the County".

However, by 1835, the official census revealed that there were only 61 souls residing in Tucker-Smith: 17 boys and 10 girls under the age of sixteen; 18 adult males and 16 adult females. (3) Hardly thriving when compared to most others.

Taverns and Mud Holes

In 1827, a new arrival, calling himself Anthony Van Egmond; would be hired to build a passable road through the bush, from Wilmot in Wellington County to Goderich; a distance of about 40 miles. His contract stipulated that he had three years to complete such a road, that must include three inns at various intervals, for the convenience of future travellers. He would receive one third of his payment in cash and the rest in land.

However, he and his son Constant completed the task in about a year and he was granted 13,000 acres in Tucker-Smith, making him the largest private landholder in the Huron Tract.

How good the road was is open for debate, but generally most in Upper Canada at the time were barely passable. In 1836, when Anna Jameson was summoned to Canada by her husband, Robert; who had been appointed chief justice of Upper Canada, she had to travel from New York to Toronto on her own, and described the conditions in her book Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada:

" ... The roads were throughout so execrably bad that no words can give an idea of them. We often sank into mud-holes above the axle trees; then over trunks of trees laid across swamps, called here corduroy roads, where my poor bones dislocated. A wheel here and there, or a broken shaft lying by the wayside, told of former wrecks and disasters. In some places they had, in desperation, flung huge boughs of oak into the mud abyss, and covered them with clay and sod, the rich green foliage projecting on either side. This sort of illusive contrivance would sometimes give way, and we were nearly precipitated in the midst. By the time we arrived at the township of Blanford, my hands were swelled and blistered by continually grasping with all my strength an iron bar in front of my vehicle to keep myself from being flung out, and my limbs ached woefully."

Regardless; Van Egmond cleared about a hundred acres of land, planted the first wheat in the township and built a sturdy home, complete with the obligatory tavern.

"The erection of a church or chapel generally precedes that of a schoolhouse in Upper Canada, but the mill and tavern invariably precede both." Anna Jameson (3)

The Colonel was now open for business, with 20, four-horse wagon teams to assist the arriving emigrants.

Chapter One Continued: Family Affairs and Armed Citizens

Sources:

1. History of the colonies of the British Empire ... from the official records of the Colonial Office, By Robert Montgomery Martin, H. Allen and Co. and George Routledge, 1843, Pg. 76

2. The Canada Company and the Huron Tract, 1826-1853: Personalities, Profits and Politics, By Robert C. Lee, Natural Heritage Books, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-1896219943, Pg, 232

3. Bits and Pieces of Brantford's History, By: Gary Muir, 1913