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Birth Date: 15 Apr 1815
Birth Place: Genesee County. N.Y.
Death Date: 1892
Burial: Trinity United Cemetery, Hannon, Glanford Twp., Wentworth
Co., Ontario, CANADA
Notes:
See Milton Lowden's essay on pioneers.
Jacob came to Glanford in 1848 and settled on lot 16 concession 5, two miles
west of the village of Binbrook, which, then, was usually called Hall's Corners
Jacob Lowden was born in 1815 in Genesee county (later Monroe county NY). He met
Phoebe Ann Smith when she visited in that area. He married her, on 13 December
1838, at her father's home (Jacob L Smith, a grandson of (Pinewoods) Jake Smith,
the first settler in Glanford township) They returned to New York state where
their children Ann (1839), Stephen Elijah (1841), Jacob Anson (1843), Hiram (1845), William
Henry (1847), and Annie (1849) were born. When he had the money to
pay for a farm in Glanford township by 1849 they moved to Ontario where
Milton (1851), Martin L (1852) and George (1854) were born. Lowden descendants
intermarried with Cloughs, Laidmans, Petitts, Bushes, Scotts, Stewarts, Youngs
etc.
Spouse:
Phoebe Ann Smith (1815-1854)
Birth Date: 6 Nov 1815
Birth Place: Glanford
Death Date: 10 Feb 1854
Burial: Trinity United Cemetery, Hannon, Glanford Twp., Wentworth
Co., Ontario, CANADA
Spouse Father: Jacob L Smith (1784-1860)
Spouse Mother: Hannah Hagel (1785-1843)
Spouse Notes:
another source gives her birth as Oct. 14, 1816
another note gives her birth as 15 Oct 1815
Marriage Date: 13 Dec 1838
Marriage Place: Her Father's Farm
Note: Jacob, who was from Rochester, NY area [near mouth of
Genesee River], was opposed to the use of strong drink and tobacco, and at
one time he and his seven sons were all members of the same division of
the Sons of Temperance
PIONEER TALES OF THE LOWDEN FAMILY -
compiled by Milton Lowden (1851-1951)
You may wonder how two living so far apart as my parents [Jacob Lowden and
Phoebe Ann Smith] came to get acquainted. Strange things do happen. My mother
had a chum who married a man named Nash who was a near neighbor of the
Lowdens in the State of New York near the mouth of the Genesee River but was a
near relative of the Nashes of Stoney Creek. In visiting her chum she first
met my father whose brother Philip had married Nash's sister. As there was no
railroad from Hamilton to Rochester at that time she had to go by boat and
when the boat quit running in the fall there was no way for her to get home
and so she had to stay there until spring. As the Lowdens and the Nashes lived
on adjacent farms and visited frequently and what would you expect when a boy
of twenty-three and a girl; of twenty-two met every few days during the
winter. The result was that they became engaged and in less than a year were
married.
My grandfather [Jacob Lewis] Smith and my father then bought the Glanford farm
for the sum of $1,000, but as there was no cleared land on it and as they had
not the cash to pay for it, father did not move to Canada until he had it paid
for but worked a rented farm in the neighborhood where he had been brought
up. He chopped wood in the winter to help raise money. He raised $600 and
Mother's father paid $400. When it was all paid, he hired about seven acres
chopped off and the following fall he moved on it with a family of four
children, my brother Henry being about six months old.
My father had two brothers and a sister older than he, and two brothers and a
sister younger. His brothers Stephen and Tom, and his sister Rachel were
younger. His brother John lived to be a little over 100 years of age.
I never saw many of my father's family. My Aunt Rachel married a man by the
name of Hall, and bought a farm twelve miles further west than the old Lowden
farm. She and her children have visited Canada. My grandmother and Uncle
Stephen put in one winter here when I was a boy.
My grandfather Smith married Hannah Hagul (sic) and had eleven children four
sons and seven daughters.
The eldest son Elijah had the second farm west of my father's. He married the
eldest Swazie who had the south half of the lot just north of my father's. He
was a prominent member of the Methodist church. He had a family of eleven
children one of whom live to be ninety-seven years. He himself lived to be
ninety-four.
The second son Hiram had the farm just west of my father's from which he sold
at one time timber for the sum of $18,000. He married [Charity Hess] Taylor,
sister of Henry Taylor. He was an official in the Methodist Church. He taught
singing school in his younger days and his son, Lafayette; was a noted
musician. His daughter Hannah lived to be between ninety-five and one hundred
years old.
The third son Anson (Benson) had a farm south of his fathers on the north side
of the Twenty Mile Creek and I don't know how many daughters he had. He was a
prominent Methodist and sometimes occupied the pulpit. He died at ninety-four.
Grandfather's youngest son died young leaving two children. His widow
afterwards married Uncle [Benson's] eldest son.
Of grandfather's daughters, the eldest married Andrew Swazie, brother of Uncle
Elijah's wife. She lived to be ninety-seven and good eyesight at that age. She
had a numerous family some of whom lived to be over ninety.
The second Phoemia did not live so long. She married Henry Taylor brother of
Uncle Hiram's wife. She had three sons and two daughters some of whom lived to
be over ninety.
The next Phoebe died before reaching the age of forty leaving a family of
eight children, seven sons and one daughter three of whom lived to be over
ninety.
His daughter Cynthia married Elijah Burkholder. Two of her children died of
diphtheria but eight of them lived to be a good age, some of them over ninety.
His youngest daughter, Christina, married father's cousin Cyrus Smith. She had
no children of her own but raised quite a family and made a fairly good job of
it. She lived to be ninety-seven.
Elizabeth and Catherine were Unmarried. They graduated at the Toronto Normal
School and Elizabeth taught school for some time. They both lived to a fairly
good age.
Large families were the rule at that time. My grandfather's cousin Samuel
Smith had a family of eighteen children but they did not all grow up. This was
the largest family I ever knew for one couple. His brother Gideon had sixteen
children by two wives.
I will describe the way clearing was done. The first thing was to cut the
small twigs as close to the ground as possible. (all up to the size for wood)
Then cut out the ones intended for market falling them with their tops on
brush piles if possible. Then cutting the ones for lumber and wagon spokes.
Father had some excellent oak and was very good at cutting and splitting it,
and so his spokes were in good demand. The next summer, having all the
valuable stuff removed; when a convenient time arrived he would fire the
brush. After the brush had been burned, he would take a wooden rake which he
made himself and rake up the small chips into piles for burning. The large
ones having been drawn to the house for summer fire-wood before the brush had
been burned.
Then when everything was ready for logging it was quite customary to make a
bee inviting the neighbours with their oxen for one day. When the bee was
over, the rest of the logs had to be piled for burning. Sometimes Father and
Benson (Anson) would do it without the help of Elijah when he was busy at
something else. At one time such as this they had a heavy log and as they were
putting it on the pile, it came back at them coming on Anson, and as it would
soon have crushed the life out of him, father had to get it off him alone. He
did it but he strained himself so that he never got over it and never had the
same strength afterwards.
After the logs had been burned the ground was ready for the crop. The first
thing to do was prepare a seed bed by harrowing it over. A harrow such as we
use on cultivated land would be useless on newly cleared land so a special
harrow had to be made in the shape of a letter "A" The side pieces
which held the teeth were slanting a little back on the under side so as to
slip over a root or other obstruction. This harrow was generally run over the
ground a couple of times before the grain was sowed and after the grain was
sown, it was harrowed again and in the spring the ground was sowed with
timothy and clover and continued in sod about eight years at which time most
of the stumps could be pulled with oxen and the ground ploughed.
Father always tapped the maple trees in the spring. The sap was caught in
troughs which were made by cutting. a tall pine tree into lengths of about
three feet and splitting through the centre and digging it out so as to hold
the sap. These troughs of course, rested on the ground at the root of the tree
and stayed there all summer. Late in the fall when they were filled with ice
they were stood on end against the tree. When it got warm the ice dropped out
taking the leaves and whatever in the troughs had gathered leaving the troughs
fairly clean in the middle.
When the sap was gathered it was taken to the boiling place and poured into a
large trough made by cutting a fine tree about three feet thick into lengths
about ten or twelve feet and digging out the centre, Father generally had
maple syrup and sugar all summer. By boiling the syrup fairly thick it would
form a kind of rock candy around the sides and over the top and keep
indefinitely.
Sometimes he was annoyed by the neighbour boys coming at night and boiling the
partly boiled sap into sugar and have a treat. As the kettle had to be scoured
before using again this was very annoying. One night while they were there,
there was a light fall of snow and next morning their tracks were plainly
visible, and father followed their tracks to their home and called them out of
bed, They denied it, but father showed them their tracks which they could not
deny. Two of them lived about a mile away and the third, a mile further but
father got his name without going there. Father promised he would not tell his
name if they would never do it again, but he told me about it after we were
both married and was that father never had told it. That was the last time the
neighbour boys troubled his sugar bush.
Several times I have heard father say that he had never attended school but
three months, yet he could read fairly well and could count and subtract
fairly well. His writing was confined to signing his own name. He once told me
that my mother had taught him.
I do not remember my mother as I was under three when she died but I know it
was a great loss to all. After mother died Aunt Katy ran the house until Aunt
Betsy quit teaching and came to live with us. There was always a hired girl at
$1.00 per week.
I do not know when father started to build the new house, but I do know that
it was not finished until after mother died. It had an excellent cellar under
the whole house. Some of the farms only had a cellar under part of their house
and sometimes such houses held two families. A family of humans in the house
and a family of skunks under it. There was no more comfortable nor convenient
house anywhere than father had. There was a well in the cellar with a pump in
the pantry which furnished the drinking water.
When Elijah was twenty-four years old he rented the Scott farm in Binbrook on
the Chippawa Creek on which was a saw mill. He rented it for two years before
he married Sarah Scott who continued to cheer him up to a good old age.
Not long after Elijah was married, Anson (Benson) married Kate Hagal, a cousin
of mother's; and brought her home and then Aunt Kate and Aunt Betsey went to
live in Mount Hope. Anson and Kate who was very nice lived with us a little
more than a year and father bought the farm in Charlotteville where they
moved.
I forgot to mention about the barn. I don't remember when the old barn was
built but I was ten years old when the addition for the horses on its east
end, and the addition on the west for cows and the open shed were built.
Father had a small garden between the house and the drive from the road to the
barn and in this garden he had what you might call a small nursery where the
seed of the fruit was sowed, and when the trees were about three years old
they were planted in the orchard and grafted afterwards. There were a number
of cherry trees on the hill east of the house. They had been raised from pits.
Afterwards father bought two Black Tartawan cherry trees and two Merry Dukes
and planted them between the house and the road. At the same time he bought a
couple of grape vines and planted them on the south side of the house and
trained them up. They also did well. One of the Merry Duke cherries died but
the smallest one lived and bore more fruit than both of the Tartarrans.
During the winter of the deep snow father lost his largest apple trees by the
mice peeling them.
Father would make a trip to near Winona every fall, going early in the
morning, and buying apples on the tree shaking them down and gathering them up
himself, and returning the same day. Then we would peel and core them and
string them on string and dry them for use the rest of the year.
The first time we ever had plenty of apples for our own use there came a fall
of snow on the 14th of October and the apples were all frozen. We got
grandfather's old cider mill and made them into cider and apple butter, enough
to last all summer. Uncle Hiram Smith shook his apples down in the snow and
saved them. We never had any canned fruit when I was a boy. It was either
dried fruit or preserved, a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit.
We were visited every spring with flocks of pigeons, ducks and geese. I once
saw a flock of pigeons which completely covered the sky as far as the eye
could reach. There were many thousands or perhaps millions of them. I took at
least a minute perhaps two or three for them to pass over. It seemed much
longer than that to me. I once saw a flock of wild geese pass over on their
way to their home in the south. There were many thousands of them. This was
after I was grownup. I only saw such a flock once, and this quite late in the
fall.
Father was opposed to the use of strong drink and tobacco. At one time he and
his seven sons were all members of the same division of the Sons of
Temperance. If any of our visitors started to smoke he always opened the
windows. I don't remember ever hearing him forbid any of us using tobacco but
he often said that he never could see any good in it. Often when any of us
would plan any mean trick he would say, "How would you like to have some
one do that to you?"
Father was a leading farmer in our neighbourhood. He would often have a new
kind of grain a year before any of the neighbours and if it proved good he
would have a supply to sell the neighbours before the price came down.
Father used to visit his old home in the U.S. He would start in the morning
and get back to his old home about noon of the third day walking the one
hundred and twenty-five miles in two and a half days. He would return in the
same time. He would always bring back some scions for grafting, thereby
getting a good quality of fruit.
Hiram lost his hand by he and Anson playing with an axe when he was about one
and a half years.
Milton maintained excellent health, taught Sunday school and milked cows until
94, had hyacinth blue eyes that seemed even bluer as he got into his nineties.
He fell down the cellar steps shortly after his 94th birthday. He was bruised
from head to toe and it took some months for him to really recover. Meanwhile
Edward's hired man kept forgetting that he was to milk the two cows that
Milton had milked up to his fall. Before he was fully recovered the cows were
sold. Each summer after that he continued to hoe in the garden. In the winter
he crocheted gloves for everyone in the family. Only in the fall of 1950 did
he begin to seem less than well, and gradually grew weak.
My mother told a wonderful story of his death. She was on the couch in his
room when he suddenly sat up in bed, looking towards the door. She said the
smile on his face was such that she could imagine him greeting those he loved.
He fell back in the bed and when she got to him he was dead. She said that she
never felt afraid of death after that.
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