John Robertson

John Robertson
Born	1797 Perthshire, Scotland
💀Died	3 January 1884 Nepean Township, Carleton County, Ontario, Canada3 January 1884
🏳️ Nationality	Scottish
💼 Occupation
👶 Children	Thomas Ebenezer

John Robertson was an early settler of Bell's Corners, Nepean Township, Carleton County, Ontario. While much has been written about him, particularly during the renaming controversy regarding Robertson Road, little of it has been documented. He has been described as a pioneer, weaver, foreman for the Rideau Canal, stone mason, mechanical engineer, storekeeper, farmer, major landowner, lumberman, pathmaster, surveyor of roads, Highway Commissioner, magistrate, councillor, warden of Nepean Township , agriculturalist, benefactor to his community, and an entrepreneur in his lifetime. He was born in Perthshire, Scotland in 1797 and became a silk weaver by trade before emigrating to Canada in 1827. That same year he purchased a partially cleared homestead in what would later become Bell's Corners.

The Rev. J. L. Gourlay in his 1896 History of the Ottawa Valley described Robertson thusly:

"South of Bell's Corners dwelt a man of immense brain power, and the most prominent man as merchant, lumberer, and farmer successful in all, and whose heart was as kind as his head was clear. His ashes have slept for years, but it does us good at this date to bear a true testimony to his undoubted talents and real genuine worth. John Robertson was born in Perthshire, Scotland, and came to this country in 1827, and took up the land now occupied by his son, Thomas McKay Robertson. Some of his sons are deceased many years. One of these, Ebenezer, gave early signs of the greatest promise as an enterprising business man, raised great expectations in his parent's minds, which, had he been spared, we believe he would have fully met or exceeded. It seems the loss of him to his father was irreparable. It prostrated and nearly killed that man of great mind. We do not mean in speaking thus to say that John Robertson had no defects or faults (all men have). But to a thinking mind the excellencies hid the defects. It would never occur to such to hunt them up. Some have dwelt on them, made much of them. But they had their own defects and blemishes, whilst they could not lay claim to one tithe of his towering genius. His wife was not like him, though a distant connection of his own. She was cool, intelligent, kind-hearted, well informed and good, a woman among a thousand."

"[He] began his life in Canada ... as an overseer of the works of the Rideau canal. Thomas McKay and John Redpath, of Montreal, had the contract, and from their knowledge of Mr. Robertson's engineering skill, employed him... The Perth silk-weaver soon showed his acquaintance with mason work, and brought the canal eventually to a grand success. Redpath and McKay had to cart home, in Mexican silver half dollars, etc., their part of the profits of the contract. Robertson had only good wages and a name worth much, and some experience."

"There was a lull in the canal works and Redpath and McKay built, with the idle men, the first stone church where St Andrew's now stands.... McKay was an elder respected highly in the church, and we often met John Redpath in synod; a very strong man. He afterwards went into the refining of sugar and left great riches. Thomas McKay was afterwards an Honorable in the legislature of the provinces."

Robertson continued to work on the canal system until 1834 as well as farming. After the canal was finished, he began storekeeping and branched out into lumbering in the Township of Nepean and on the Bonnechere River.

The first fair in the County of Carleton was held in Bell’s Corners in 1836 on land donated by John Robertson. He took a prominent and leading role for many years in the affairs of Nepean Township. He was pathmaster in 1837 collecting money for roads and supervising construction.

On December 17, 1838, Robertson purchased 100 acres of lot 9, concession II, Ottawa front from John D. McKay. Then in September 1839, he received the first crown patent for all 200 acres of the adjacent lot 8. By 1855, he owned at least 1,100 acres in the Bell’s Corners area. The 1879 Belden map of the area also shows that he owned all of lot 35, concession V, Rideau front on the other side of what would later become Robertson Road where Westcliffe Estates is now located. Robertson and his wife had a number of children, among them sons Thomas and Ebenezer. Although Robertson sold various parcels of land over the years to others, what remained in the family was passed on or sold to Thomas. Thomas McKay Robertson is considered the first male white child born in Bytown.

He established a store in 1841, which did the largest business in the area. While Robertson was well known for his farming, the Canada Directory of 1857-58 listed him as a Lt. Col. in the Carleton Battalion as well as a "dealer in dry goods, hardware, groceries, produce, &c."

In 1842, Robertson was surveyor of roads in Nepean, then Highway Commissioner. He was a magistrate for nine years in the Township. In 1848 when Nepean commenced to run its own affairs alone there were 169 ratepayers in the Township entitled to vote, and John Robertson was elected Town Warden. In 1850, when Nepean Township was formally incorporated John Robertson was elected Councillor, a position he held for some years.

John Robertson was one of the founders of the Bell’s Corners Union Cemetery in 1853. He was a very religious man and one who believed in education. Gourlay wrote:

"The first school house was raised near Robertson's as he boarded the teacher or teachers free of cost for years. We remember he proposed to spend what he would have to pay in board, for his two grandsons, W. Goodfellow, and Ebenezer B. Brown at Ottawa, if we could procure him a fit teacher, and add this to his salary in the section. We sent him the man and he was there over twenty years. Stories were told of a wooden church built and supplied at his own expense"

On March 18, 1868, John Robertson wrote an article published in The Canadian Farmer detailing his farming methods and their effect on crop yields and livestock production. Gourlay:

"whatever Mr. Robertson did in other lines, he was intensely interested in farming. With his low level, stiff, clay soil, was at once the most scientific, and the most successful agriculturist in the Ottawa Valley. His land was swamp and had to be raised by drains that doubled its value. He had great potash works, turned the leached ashes on the land, then dry ashes, buying from everybody around. Agricultural chemistry (Johnston's) he had almost in his memory. He bought up almost everything printed in English or French on agriculture. He sent to London, England, for a ton of sulphate of ammonia for plant food on the farm or as a fertilizer. He under drained so much that some American, visiting the place, predicted that when large clearings would be made, his land would be useless in drought. He concluded the fulfilment of such predictions must be far, far away. Three large hemlock poles made the piping for his first drains, and he discovered 23 years after, that when he cut through one, the poles were fresh and peeled like as if they had been cut in June."

"Cheese making claimed his attention later, at which with 60 or 70 cows he was a success. He followed it up scientifically, found that ten pounds of milk made one pound of cheese, twenty-five pounds of milk, one pound of butter. The hired girls milked 60 cows and Mr. and Mrs. Robertson made the cheese. He kept so carefully accounts of all his outlay on the whole crops of the farm, that he could by a look at his books, give you at once a statement of what every hundred pounds cost that grew or was raised on the whole farm."

His first wife died in 1869. He later remarried. However, the great fire of August 1870 destroyed his entire property. Gourlay wrote:

"he disclaimed any sympathy when the terrible fire swept all his buildings and crops away. He said he had plenty in the bank. He never rebuilt the ruins....; The disastrous fire of 1870, that ran over fourteen townships, swept away from him the labors of a lifetime. His splendid dwelling house, with barns, stables, feeding houses of every kind, were consumed; all save his livestock that roamed over unfenced fields, green turnips, crop plots, potato fields, in that August drought, maddened with the pain of being un-milked for days as we saw them, and heard their bellowing groans that moved our pity to beg the hired girls, whom we met as we drove past, to milk them, for once on the ground, promising them pay for their trouble. We are always sorry to see these ruins as we pass, they wake up so many old associations and reflections."

In September 1880, John Robertson, then aged 83, wrote for his grandson, Ebenezer Robertson, a practical guide for all farming activities, with particular emphasis placed on the economics of farming. There were 280 pages of advice, wrapped in old Montreal newspapers. It was purchased in 1959 by the Manuscript Collection, Canadian History Department, Metropolitan Toronto.

John Robertson died on 3 January 1884 at the age of 87. He is buried in the Bells Corners Union Cemetery.

References

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