I
As you know, the ancestors of the Chisholm’s came from northern
The name Chisholm first appeared around the year 1254. When William the
Conqueror invaded
The highlands of
In
the early 1700s, the British built roads into the area, making access
easier. Many Clan Chiefs were enticed to send their sons to
school in
During the late 1700s emigrations
started.
When I left off last, our Chisholm’s
had arrived in
They, like most of the other Scots,
landed in Pictou harbor. A lot of the good land along the coast and the local
rivers had already been taken and they eventually moved up the trail to the
next available land (the current Route 4 from Pictou to Antigonish and
beyond was a trail cut through the woods that eventually went past
Heatherton and down towards Guysborough). Remember, the people had few
belongings, no money; many could not read or write, spoke only Gaelic and
found themselves in a vast, dark forest. However, there was an abundance
of deer and other animals and the rivers were teeming with fish.
At first they looked around and settled on areas no one else claimed.
They were squatters. Then claims were made at the government land office and so
they received their 200 or so acres. Initially, the provincial government
provided them with some tools and provisions, but eventually they were on their
own. At first, they stayed with friends and relatives from the old
country, but after the first winter cleared a patch of land and built their
first houses out of logs with mud placed in the spaces between. No machinery,
no horses, cows, sheep or pigs. No plumbing or electricity and a limited diet.
They lived off the land. All of them were Catholics, but there were in the
first years no priests or churches.
Fortunately, by the early 1800s, the
local Micmac Indians did not present a problem.
The first crop they grew was wheat,
planted around the stumps of the trees they cleared, but they had no way to
grind it so had to haul it many miles through the forest to someone who had
a hand mill. All supplies had to come along the north shore from Pictou or
be carried on their back through the forest. In a few years they grew wheat for
bread, ate lots of fish, deer meat and berries and planted potatoes. It was a
few years later before cattle and sheep were introduced. Their main tool was
the axe and the hoe. In general they cut a little clearing, planted some wheat
or eyes from a potatoes in the Spring and harvested in the Fall. After a few
years - in the 1820s and 1830s - enough land was cleared and the crops were
sufficient that they could introduce sheep and cattle, and farming, as we know
it, was widespread. Our ancestors worked hard in the old country also, but it
was for someone else's benefit. They probably worked harder in the new land but
it was their land, for their own benefit.
In
the early days, marriages were contracted before a magistrate, children grew up
unbaptized and church was a meeting held in somebody's house. Eventually, the
few available priests would make the rounds every couple of months. Then they
would baptize the kids and marry those who had gone to the magistrate
previously. It would be many years before roads would be built. Mail was
carried by the Postman traveling many scores of miles on foot. Eventually the
trails became paths and wooden sleds were drawn by men at first and later by
oxen. In the winter many of the men went off to Pictou,
Soon also, little chapels were built from about 1816-1820 on, along the
narrow roads. People got engaged and married like they did in the old country.
A young man wanting to get married took a friend with him and a bottle of
whiskey to the house where there were one or more marriageable
daughters. Soon the bottle is passed around and eventually the friend
tells the father that the wife-seeker desires to marry one of his daughters.
The father takes the young intended aside and tells her that the young man
wants to marry her. If she says no, then the matter is ended. The young
disappointed swain and his friend go on to the next house. But if she says yes,
they are allowed to get together for a chat and settle the matter. They are
then considered betrothed. It wasn't done so superficially as it seems, for the
people all knew each other. Weddings were another ceremony accompanied by much
dancing and consumption of alcohol. Initially the houses of our early ancestor
settlers were separated 2 or 3 miles apart, connected only by a path through
the woods. When looking for land, one sought a place that had a stream nearby
and where a well could be built. This was a key consideration. Neighbors
visited each other frequently, walking for miles through the woods. Especially
in the winter, neighbors would often visit. The visit would be spent telling
stories about the "olden times". Our Chisholm ancestors were more
superstitious than we. Many of these tales were about spirits and ghosts. The
kids grew up listening to this and many a night, after sitting around the fire,
went to sleep scared. They passed it on when they grew up. I remember when
I was young, listening to relatives talk about these things; but the art of
storytelling has died out.
When I left off last, the Chisholm’s
and other early settlers from the Highlands of Scotland were getting into
farming and starting to make a better life for themselves. But who were these Chisholm’s
and where did they live?
Before we get into the family tree, let
me explain that you will see a lot of Chisholm’s marrying other Chisholm’s.
They were Catholics and the Church would not allow anybody to marry another
relative closer than a second cousin. This was never a problem,
however, since there were so many Chisholm’s who came over from the old
Country. You will also find that there were a lot of John Chisholm’s. (One
Summer - 1952 - I spent in Glassburn I looked at the list of voters in the
area and over half were named John Chisholm). To identify these people,
they were given names related to their family or where they lived.
"Johnny big Duncan" or "Tom the Schoolhouse", etc. Another
item to note was that most families were large by our standards,
usually six to ten children. This abundance of kids was to have later
consequences. Also, the areas, such as Heatherton, Frasers Grant, Glassburn,
Among
their large family was a John Chisholm, born about 1820. He married a
Catherine Chisholm and they had six children, among whom two
grew up to be priests (Rev Donald, 1844-1916, who was parish priest in
Heatherton; also Rev. Finlay Chisholm, 1848-1939, who was parish priest in
Cape Breton).
About this time also, the young people started to speak English,
although the use of Gaelic still predominated. Sheep and cattle had been
introduced and farming was what a good ninety-five percent of the young people
aspired to. Agriculture began to pick up and farmers could sell their excess
produce. Cooperatives were formed and money began to come in, although nobody
got rich. Schools were beginning to be built. This was the one room school,
where all grades were taught by men at first, and then later by woman, because
the pay was not very good. About this time also (1842) the first Church was
built in Heatherton
John and Catherine's youngest son, John Chisholm (my great-grandfather for
reference) married a Kate MacIntosh of the Lower South River MacIntoshes. They
had nine kids, among whom was my Grandmother, the famous "Minnie",
born in 1878. The second oldest daughter, Cassie married a Pat Gillis and they
had fourteen children. When she passed away some years ago, all fourteen kids
were at her bedside. The seventh child of John and Kate, Janet -
Minnie's sister - married an Alexander MacDonald from Fraser's Grant.
I
mentioned the fact that most families had many kids. The aim of parents was to
buy land so their kids could also start up a farm. But there were too many sons
to buy land for and daughters to marry off. Population reached it
When we last left off, my grandfather,
John W Chisholm, had become a widower. He was about 32 years old and this was
about 1897. Most of the Chisholm’s and their offspring were almost all involved
in farming, although a few of the younger folk had begun to go west or to the
States looking for work. Most of the available land was settled and the
farms would not support large families. Besides, people were looking for a
better life. On the adjacent farm was my grandmother's family farm. There, John
Chisholm and Kate Mackintosh had 10 children among whom was Minnie. Born in
1878, she was about 20 years old and 12 years younger than my grandfather
when they married. Over the next 17 years, they had 9 living
offspring. Of the nine, all except one were at one time or another in the
States. Before moving onto the kids, I will tell you what I know
about my grandparents. Although they understood the Gaelic language, they
were brought up speaking English. And none of their kids spoke Gaelic. It was
considered a backward language at the time and to be "in" English was
spoken. My grandfather John William died
in 1935. I never got to know him. I have a letter he wrote to my dad in 1931
telling him that he should come back to Glassburn because there were farms to
be had cheap (remember this was during the Depression in the USA).
Minnie was a very gentle woman. I was
told she balanced out my grandfather who tended to be very strict with his
family. His word was the law. The summers I spent on the farm, she
would play cribbage or poker with me at night. She became the Postmistress for
Glassburn and had a small room in the house set aside for this purpose. All the
surrounding neighbors would come and pick up or deliver their mail. Every
afternoon we had tea and cake or cookies with jam. They lived on the farm and
raised their growing family. Every Sunday they went to church in
Heatherton. Automobiles had not yet come on the scene and so it was with
the horses and a wagon they traveled, except in very deep snows in the winter.
Their neighbors were mostly relatives - Minnie's brother, Dan on her old
homestead and a cousin, John J ("Johnny Archie") Chisholm on an
adjacent farm. Nova
As late as 1948, the farms in
Glassburn had no electricity and no bathrooms. At night, oil lamps were
used. A windmill supplied energy to a battery which powered a radio. If one
wanted to go to the bathroom, the outhouse was about 100 feet away, Water
came from a well. In the house a pump was used to get water. All of this
changed around 1950, when electricity and bathrooms (for some folks) came
to Glassburn. At some time prior, my uncle, Colin, bought a
truck. During the 1950s, a group of farmers got together and purchased a
tractor which they rotated from farm to farm during the harvest, etc.
You asked about your mother's uncles
and aunts on my father's side and I will go down the roster, from the oldest to
the youngest. Most left the farm and came to the States/Boston to
find work. The men became lineman (working with electric high tension lines)
and most of the woman worked as domestics.
1. Catherine (Cassie) was the oldest,
born in 1899. She left for the States - to
2. Margaret (1900-1985) also left the
farm and moved to
3.
4. Colin, (1904-1973) was the
oldest son. He came to the States in the early 1920s and worked as a lineman.
He was very active young man and had a motorcycle and then a roadster. He never
married. During WWII he was a corporal in the Army, but released because of a
prior motorcycle injury. In 1944 or so he returned to Glassburn to take over
the farm. He was my mentor/buddy when I spent summers in Glassburn.
Sundays we would go to church with grandmother, Minnie, and with me and
others in the area riding in the back of the truck (He had benches for the
passengers). Once a month or so we got to "go to town" in Antigonish
to buy whatever was needed, get a haircut, etc. In the 1960s he, with his
mother and sister,
We
pick up now, continuing with the children of John W and Minnie Chisholm,
your
great-grandparents. Remember this was the period from about 1920 to 1940
when
the young people in Glassburn (indeed in all of
leaving
the farm and coming up to
it
was just a few. But the word soon got back that life was better up here and
one
could find work and a better life. This is the background of how we all
ended
up here in
We
last discussed my uncle Colin.
5. John A Chisholm
(my dad) was the next child, born in 1906. He only
attended
a few years of grammar school at the one room schoolhouse and grew up
helping
his dad on the farm. My grandfather sent him off to
in
But
dad left the farm and came to the States in 1926 as a twenty year old. He
got
work as a lineman (like many others I mentioned in the last segment) in
lived
for a while in the South End of Boston. Anyway, he took several trips
"back
home to Glassburn" over the years. One time in 1928, he went back with
his
brother Colin and sister Jenny for a visit. It was there that he first met
my
mother, Mary Long in
the
Longs in a future segment). Jenny, set up the meeting, a visit to my
other
grandfather, Joseph Long, and my mother happened to be also home on a
visit,
from her job in
any
more deeply. My parents got married in 1933, during the great
depression.
Under the tough economic circumstances at the time, they just got married
at
the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. They didn't tell anyone, just went off and
got
married. No wedding as such, which kind of disappointed their siblings
especially
Dad's sister Jennie. They lived on
across
from St Patrick’s Grammar School where I was born a year later, in 1934. In
the
early years of their marriage they used to go to dances where other
Canadians
and Irish also congregated. You are familiar with the rest. Dad passed
away
in 1977.
6.
Jenny C. Chisholm was the next child born in 1908. Because of the age
groupings
in the family, Jennie was closest to my father and her older brother,
Colin
than to the others. For instance, they learned to smoke cigarettes and
drink
whiskey or beer together, ever mindful not to get caught by their
strict
father. In spite of this, she was the "glue" that kept the family
together.
Before coming to the States, her father
decided that she would be the school
teacher at on of the local one-room schools,
in the adjacent Guysborough
County,
I believe. She related to me during a long talk (after uncorking the
second
bottle of wine) some years back that she didn't' want to teach and
indeed
was afraid of some of the young louts who were in her classes. But her
father
decided and she had no choice. Among these "louts” was a youth destined to
become
my uncle, Richard Long. This was the reason she visited Joseph Long
in
1928 where my father met my mother. She related that at the time she
thought
my mother, Mary Long too "skinny", but my dad disagreed as they
discussed
the
visit on the way home to Glassburn at the time. Jenny never married. She
also
worked for the same rich family in
was
going on in the family, Aunt Jenny knew. After many years as a domestic,
she
retired to
7.
Mary was the next child, born in 1912. I first met her in 1939, when she
was
a Registered Nurse visiting the States? At that time she was engaged to a
Ronny
"Lauchy" MacDonald from Heatherton. They married and built a house
also
across from the church in Heatherton. Ronny, her husband ran a gas station.
They
had five children, the first of which died at birth. They had four
other
kids, Basil, Gail, Judith (never married) all who are retired and now live
in
Ronny
passed away around 1951 and she was left raising the kids and running the
business.
When the
After
all the kids were married or moved out, she eventually moved into a
senior
citizens home in Antigonish. Aunt Mary knew everyone in Heatherton and
the
surrounding district and was a real font of information. She passed away
in
1998 (?).
8.
The next child was a boy, Bernard, born in 1913. I don't know much about
him,
except he worked on the docks in
1952
and bought a farm about a quarter mile downs the road from the Chisholm
homestead
(I visited him when he was fixing up the old house on the farm in
1952).
Soon thereafter he married a woman, Mary Quirk and they had - in quick
succession
- five children. Several of my Aunts, listed previously. were not
in
favor of this marriage, and were not afraid to say so. In any case, Bernard
died
in 1970 of a brain tumor. [I believe you were with my father when he
visited
Bernard in the hospital]. Mary and her kids lost the farm and moved
into
the old schoolhouse where all the Chisholm kids had gone to school. Today,
the
youngest of my cousins, Jerome, from this family still lives in the
schoolhouse.
Of his brothers, two work in
Antigonish
area.
9.
Anne was the youngest child, born in 1915. (She will be 90 years old next
month,
March 2005) She also emigrated to the
married
Angus MacDonald (from
Elaine
and John. Angus died in 1951 and Anne had to raise the two kids alone. All
currently
live in
John
has never married.
This
then is a brief rundown of your mother's uncles and aunts on my
father's
side.
The
time that our Chisholm ancestors spent in
years.
They went from being primitive farmers in
being
semi-illiterate, speaking only Gaelic, to your generation where most
people
have a college education. The one thing that was their trademark was: hard
work
and a desire to see that their kids had a better life.
Starting off with my
mother's family, the Long lineage. We know that they came from
In any case, they left
The ship carrying the original
settlers was headed for
Among their seven children was my
great-grandfather, Edward Long, born in 1835. Edward married, in 1860, a
Margaret White. The Long and White families were close friends. The union
of Edward and Margaret produced ten children. The sixth child was
Joseph Long (1875-1965), my grandfather.
Here we have to pause on an issue that
none of my Long ancestors ever talked about. It appears that Edward
Long had a liaison with a Micmac Indian woman, since Joseph Long had Indian
blood in him. This is somewhat conjecture, but the Indian blood is definitely
there. Many of us asked over the years, but no one ever gave a satisfactory
explanation.
Joseph Long worked for a while in
a gold mine. He had his eye on a woman, Sarah Gillis
(1880-1959) from Meadow Green (adjacent to Glassburn where the
Chisholms lived). Her father was John Gillis, whose family also came from
After Mary, who died, there came
John ("Jack Long" 1904-1974) who emigrated to the States in the
1920s. He was a lineman all his life, working his last years for the Boston
MBTA. He married a woman of Polish descent, Helen Sobocinski (d. 1991). They
had three daughters. Two - Rita and Barbara - passed away recently in
1993, but the middle daughter Patricia currently lives on
Next came
William "Bill" Long who followed his brother to the
The next was Margaret "Peg"
(1907-1998?). She married Edward Rogers who was described as a very nice,
personable guy. They had one daughter Mary, who died in infancy. They adopted a
daughter Josephine, "Josie", who has become a focal point for all the
original thirty grandchildren of Joseph and Sarah.
The next child was my mother, Mary Long
(1909-1990). I won't go into details as you know pretty much all about
her. I mentioned the fact that the Longs were poor. When my mother was fifteen
years old in 1924, her father put her on a wagon and sent her to
The next in line was Daniel Long
(1913-2004). He also became a lineman, working for a time in central
Richard Long (1916-1984). Dick was
the wild man of the family. He grew up without too much schooling. You may
recall he was a student of my dad's sister Jenny (see family history VI).
In his early 20s, he was drafted in the Canadian Army and fought in
the WWII for almost 6 years. he was wounded
twice. During the War he met a woman in
Catherine Long (1919-2003), "Aunt
Kay" was also an adventerous soul. I recall
she came to the States on a visit, sometime around 1940 and she and my mother
went around town visiting all the stores, having a few drinks on the way,
which greatly disturbed my father. The next thing I recall -
sometime in 1949/50 - was that she was expecting a baby, as yet not
married. This precipitated many phone calls I recall among various family
members. Anyway, she married the father, John MacGillivary. They moved out to western
Edith Long (1921-1991) was the youngest
of the family of Joseph and Sarah. She married a local man, Donald Connoly and together they had five children, one of whom
died as an infant. The other four all live in
Joseph and Sarah Long, parents of all
of these eight kids also adopted a girl, Geraldine, who grew up with and
is considered part of the family. She is married and has six children of her
own.
Like the Chisholms,
the original Longs came to