Anyone familiar with Guelph’s history knows the city was founded by Canada Company agent John Galt on April 23, 1827. But what do we know of the community’s very early days, when it was nothing but a little collection of rough structures surrounded by howling wilderness?
Fortunately, we have an eyewitness account in the form of a letter written by Alexander Dunlop, a cousin of Dr. William “Tiger” Dunlop who was a friend and Canada Company associate of Galt’s. Alexander Dunlop’s letter was preserved by his great-grandson, a resident of Montreal. It was first published in a book titled The Beginning of Things, written by Guelph historian A.E. Byerly in 1935, and is available at the Guelph Public Library.
In May of 1827, Dunlop and his travelling companions were in Niagara where they met his friend John Galt, whom Dunlop, in fun, refers to in the letter as His Majesty. They travelled with Galt to York (Toronto) and then accepted his invitation to “accompany him through the wilderness to the new city of Guelph, the capital of the Kingdom of Scatterland, the new name I have taken the liberty of bestowing upon the Crown Reserves in every part of Upper Canada, granted to the Canada Company.”
Dunlop’s party loaded up a wagon with provisions and, setting off at six in the morning, “boldly entered the wilderness.” The group included two ladies who were willing to “brave the perils of the wilderness.” It took them two days to reach the settlement of Dundas.
Then they travelled through “the great forest of Beverley; the woodland scene assumed a darker and more grotesque appearance – immense masses of trees – huge trunks – reared their fantastic form.” They eventually arrived at the town of Galt (now part of Cambridge), where Dunlop and his friends stayed for two days while John Galt went ahead to Guelph.
Dunlop and company proceeded up the Grand River to Waterloo. “Travelling about twelve miles through a rich and luxuriant country, we entered the forest of Guelph.” They were on a very primitive road that had only recently been cut through the forest.
“Proceeding five or six miles, we came to a hundred woodsmen whom His Majesty sent out as pioneers to cut the way open before us. The trees fell like enchantment before their resolute arms … their savage appearance – the wildness of the scene – and the oddity of our progress produced together a most singular effect.”
Finally, “amid a savage yell of triumph,” Dunlop and his friends reached Guelph, which was little more than a clearing in the woods. “The forest traveller hailed the opening, as does the ocean mariner the loom of distant land.
“We entered the site of the intended city. Five weeks before it was a portion of the wilderness. Now the giant elms, the maples, the cedars and the oaks, fallen from their high estate, were crumbling into ashes or blazing into flames … We were thus received with a blaze, the only honor the infant capital could yet afford. We stalked through the avenue of burning trees, and descending toward a beautiful little stream about as large as the Doon, were received by his Guelphic Majesty at the entrance to his rustic palace.” (Dunlop was probably enjoying a play on words here, because at that time Guelph was the surname of the British Royal Family.)
This “regal mansion” was an unfinished log house with roof and floor made of planks. After the visitors got settled, Galt took them on a tour of Guelph.
“Lines of streets were cut through the woods, the principal one, the woodland sovereign christened Gordon Street,” Dunlop wrote. “The streets form a semicircle on the base of the eminence on which the town is destined to stand. Eighty lots were taken while we were there. Many houses have already been commenced. The site of the town has been chosen because it is nearly equidistant from the four lakes, Huron, Erie, Ontario and Simcoe, this being the centre. It is contemplated that highways will be formed to the different lakes. The soil is the finest I have seen in this part of Canada.”
Everyone sat down to a dinner hosted by Galt. Dunlop wrote that it was “the gayest and most animated evening that I ever enjoyed.” He liked the novelty of roughing it with wooden decanters and platters, and tin glasses.
“His Majesty was apotheosized in the evening and started forth the Pan of the American wilderness. In the evening we walked the royal rounds.”
Galt escorted his guests on an evening stroll around what is now part of downtown Guelph. Dunlop wrote of what he saw on a dark, clear night under a sky “fretted with golden fires.”
All around Galt’s “mansion” were small lean-to shanties with open fronts, which was where the workmen who cut down the trees and carved out the roads lived. In front of their rough shelters were huge blazing fires. The men slept or relaxed on the ground by the fires, “and the indistinct forms which the shadows partially obscured and the blaze partially exposed, conveyed the idea of sleeping banditti or bivouacking soldiers after the crises or toils of the preceding day. The dark forest around its green curtain partially gleaming in the reflection of the fires and partly shaded in more umbrageous scenes of the wood added to the imposing solemnity of our position. It was a wild, unique and romantic scene.”
He doesn’t say anything about the mosquitoes; probably one of the purposes of the big fires was to produce smoke to keep them at bay.
The ladies spent the night in Galt’s log house. The men shared accommodation with the labourers in their lean-tos, sleeping soundly (or so Dunlop says) on pallets.
The next morning Dunlop and friends took their leave of the capital of the Kingdom of Scatterland and travelled through the forest to the township of Dumfries. Then, in a newly-built “handsome gondola” they set off on what was intended to be a “voyage of discovery down the Grand River and its confluence with Lake Erie.”
Unfortunately, after only five miles the boat struck a rock and was wrecked, and the travellers had to complete their journey by wagon. The night they’d spent in the fledgling city of Guelph was therefore one of the more pleasant moments of their adventure.
