Brantford was laid out as a village in 1830. The council had a dispute about a name some wanted Birmingham, another Biggarsville, etc., but there happened to come into the room a man named Dutton, whom they thought something of, and they asked him what name he would give this new village. Why," he said, "is not this place known as Brant's Ford?" They said yes. "Then call it Brantford." They all agreed, so the trouble was settled.

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Tuscarora, means "hemp gatherers," Indian hemp being a plant of many uses among the Carolina Tuscaroras. In 1708 they had 15 towns and about 1,200 warriors, with a population of two thousand. They were an important people and possessed many amiable qualities and behaved better to the white people than the whites did to them, for they kidnapped their children and sold them into slavery. They were so illtreated by the whites and the other Indian tribes that in 1714 the Tuscaroras came to the Five Nations for protection, and they with the Five Nations came to live on Grand River Reserve in 1784.

Tutelo Heights, 2 miles from Brantford, where the Bell Telephone was invented, was named after the Tutelo tribe, which came with the Six Nations in 1784 and settled by themselves on these heights. The Tutelo tribe dwelt in 1671 in Brunswick County, South Virginia, then afterwards with the Tuscaroras they moved to Pennsylvania, afterwards to New York, where they joined the Five Nations and with them moved to the Grand River Reserve. Their tribal ensign consisted of three arrows: their chiefs were allowed to sit in the Great Council. The Tutelos were tall, likely men with large robust bodies; they were cultivators of the soil. The last full blood Tutelo died in 1871-Nikonha, John Tutelo, as he was known on the reserve, aged 82.

VI.

OLD STAGE COACH DAYS IN OXFORD COUNTY.

BY W. B. HOBSON.

Years ago I collected a large amount of stage-day reminiscences and data, but have found on reviewing it lately that it contained so much repetition and sameness that I have decided to give a short paper on the old Stage Road with a few of the essential facts. The old Stage Road was the leading highway of Ontario in early days, with many branch lines leading from it along the way.

Staging is merely a substitute for the term coaching, and coaching dates back to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In England during the eighteenth century the coaches were great, lumbering affairs drawn by six horses, and it was conceded that a good walker could make better time. The passengers, it would appear, were usually either rich, lazy, fat or cripples. In the year 1718 the first contracts were given to the coachmen for carrying the mail. Up to that time the mail had been carried by post boys. Staging was introduced in America as soon as the country was sufficiently populated to warrant it, and the stage routes spread with the people, or rather, the people spread with the stage until they had reached all points of importance in North America.

It is my intention at this time to deal with stage days in Oxford, and as my information has been gathered from many sources it will necessarily be somewhat fragmentary.

In my youth I heard many stage stories from my uncle, George Hobson, who, in his early life, had the mail route from Hamilton to London, and ran stages on the old Stage Road for many years, and later on through Woodstock after the Governor's Road was finished. One little incident I remember him telling. The stages passed through Woodstock on sleighs on the 10th day of May, 1844-an old letter furnished me with the correct date. Winter was surely lingering in the lap of spring that time. I find that one Jed. Jackson, in the year 1832, got the first contract for carrying the mail from Brantford to London over the old Stage Road, and from that road into Woodstock with a light rig, although there was no post office in Woodstock until the year 1835. Just at this point in my investigation I made a discovery. I cannot very well understand why the stages had been running over the old Stage Road for many years before the Government gave a contract for carrying the mail. The question is, how did the people do business or get the mail? Dorman was one of the first stage proprietors of importance, but I cannot. find that he ever carried the mail. Dorman's stables at Sydenham, now Cathcart, were noted for their large number of high class stage horses. Two years was the average life of a stage horse.

Up to about 1836 the stages carried nine passengers inside and a goodly number outside. There was always room for one more. About the year 1853,

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when Babcock & Co., Hiram Weeks, George Hobson and others were staging, the stages were more commodious and carried as many as sixteen passengers. They were known as Concord stages, as they were at that time all built in Concord, New Hampshire. The old Stage Road between Niagara and London was considered the most beautiful drive in the country, winding through varied and ever-changing scenery the entire distance, passing a few miles south of Woodstock, and it is said, of which there is no doubt, that this old historic road was originally an Indian trail from Niagara to Windsor.

Eighty years ago, in the year 1839, Woodstock had become of much importance, or imagined so, having many retired military and naval officers living in and about it, who, having influence with the Government, succeeded in having work commenced in the year 1840 on the road leading from Sydenham to Eastwood to join the Governor's Road, through Woodstock. This road was well graded and planked with three-inch pine lumber. It was finished in the year 1843 and for a number of years nearly all the traffic passed through Woodstock, although the old Stage Road was never abandoned; it still had its attractions which led many that way. About the year 1847 the planking and grading on the Governor's Road had become much worn and the traffic reverted very largely back to the old Stage Road.

During the construction of the Great Western Railroad there was very heavy traffic over both roads. Often as many as six four-horse stages passed each way every day. Stages travelled at the rate of eight to ten miles an hour, and usually changed horses about every fifteen miles. Some stage lines had relays of horses at Putnam, Beachville, Eastwood, and so on, while others ran from London to Ingersoll, from there to Woodstock, and from Woodstock to Sydenham. It seems that each stage proprietor allotted relays to suit himself, which was not a difficult matter, as there were over thirty taverns between London and Brantford, twenty of which were between Woodstock and Brantford, and all did a flourishing business. Many of the old-time landlords were noted characters, and all seemed to be the very soul of hospitality. The stages made a practice of stopping at every tavern, business or no business. It took but twenty-five cents to treat the crowd, no matter about the number. Jokes and songs were the order of the day, and light-hearted merriment seemed to prevail everywhere. The old-timer would be considered illiterate and coarse now-a-days, but he at least seemed to live as long and get as much pleasure out of life as the people of to-day. Our better education would appear to be but the mother of discontent, and our bigoted social conditions are leading us into chaos. The old-timers tried to keep the ten commandments, but we have added ten times ten to the ten and break most of them. I fear our laws are becoming so drastic and fanatical that liberty has lost its meaning. The poor, uneducated pioneer in his stage coach would compare favorably, mentally, morally, physically and religiously with the educated masses who travel in Pullman cars to-day. The better education and Christianity do not appear to be working in harmony.

The old-time stage proprietor was looked upon as the salt of the earth, not that he had any outstanding qualifications as a rule any more than our modern M.P.P. or bank managers, but people who hold favors in the hollow of their hands are always treated with great deference. All the proud virtue of this vaunting world fawns on success and power. The highest ambition of the young man in early days was to be a stage driver, not that the remun

eration could have been any inducement as they received ten or twelve dollars per month, but the exciting life seemed to overcome the many hardships.

During the construction of the Great Western Railroad the fare from London to Brantford was $5.00, or $3.00 from Woodstock to Brantford, but this had not been the rule. In earlier days the competition was at times so great that they had rate wars and frequently carried passengers from London to Hamilton free and fed them on the way and treated them at each tavern. It was a common thing for stage drivers of opposing lines to meet at stage stations and fight like wild cats, and a man of pugilistic fame often drew double the pay of an ordinary peaceful driver, and fighting qualifications were recognized as a mark of efficiency.

A rather laughable incident is told by one of the stage drivers: being stuck in the mud on one occasion he ordered all the passengers out, and all obeyed excepting one big, burly fellow, who sat still. When the driver caught sight of him he said: "Look here, my good man, if you don't get out of there, I will serve you as I did a man here yesterday." The big fellow started to pull his coat off, saying: "How did you serve the man yesterday?" "Oh," replied the stage driver, "I just let him sit still."

Another pathetic incident I remember my uncle telling. On one occasion he was driving himself, and overtook a poor weary woman, near Martin's Tavern, and having room, he took her on. She had a small sack of flour on her shoulder, and she said she lived somewhere north of Ingersoll, and had walked nearly all the way to Hamilton with one bushel of wheat, and was returning with the flour. She had no money, but had not suffered for food or lodging on all the trip. The hospitable tavern keepers along the way gave her food, bed and a sup of whiskey, as she called on them, and the stage drivers gave her a lift when they had room.

Very likely this poor woman was the grandmother of some of the fanatics in our midst to-day who would not allow us to bet a nickel on a horse race or drink a glass of ale, yet would doff their hats to the promoters who fleece the public out of millions, and overlook the thousand greater evils that are leading the world into Bolshevism.

When the stage proprietor was put out of business there was no McKenzie & Mann, or Merchants Bank, to call upon the Government and force them to make good; railroad magnates and banks and big interests had no strangle hold on the throat of the government at that time.

But the stage proprietor and the stage driver, and the old-time tavern keeper and the toll gate, have all gone, never to return.

THE THAMES RIVER ROAD.

Long gone with the past are the pioneer days
When the riverside road was only a blaze,
And the Indian lurked like a beast of prey,
While the ox teams went lolling along the way.
But the ox team, and red man, and birch bark abode
Are passed like a dream from the Thames River Road.

Then came the stage coach with its rumble and din,
Full bulging with passengers outside and in,

All fresh from the motherland over the sea,

In search of new homes in the land of the free.

They chopped and they cleared and they plowed and they sowed,
And passed in their turn from the Thames River Road.

The railway came next and thus ended the age
Of the pioneer inn, the toll gate and stage,
And the landlord, that soul of mirth and good-will,
Long since with the stage driver sleeps in the hill.
All gone,-after doing the duty they owed,
Old mother in toil, by the Thames River Road.

The valley now echoes with whistles and wheels,
Of railways and tram-cars and automobiles;
A merciless, mercantile, serve-me-and-go,
Days coming and going with no after glow.
A money-mad, pleasure-bound, top-heavy load
Profanes the dream scenes of the Thames River Road.

Could we but turn back a few pages of time,
And see the old hills in their primitive prime.
But past locks the doors upon all that has been,
And Future is something no mortal has seen.
To-day 'tis our duty to lighten the load

Of the weary who travel the Thames River Road.