Last week’s item on communion tokens struck a chord with at least one reader. I had an email from Ken McEwen of Ottawa, who as regular readers will recall, was born and raised south of Dunvegan on the 7th Concession (Kenyon). As a very young boy, he remembers there being a “sack” of them on the farm and of being aware they were, in some way, used for church activities. “They were oblong in shape, roughly an inch in length, maybe 3/4 inch wide,” Ken wrote me, “… inscribed, if my memory serves me well, Parish of the Indian Lands.” I gather this inscription refers to the Presbyterian church in Maxville that predated the current one: St. Andrew’s. While nicknamed the ‘White Church’, I’m confident this appellation arose from when the exterior of the structure was whitewashed… not from any exclusionary membership policies. It was located where the cemetery at the south end of Maxville is today. I know that Ken’s father attended the White Church and suspect the reason a “sack of them” was on the farm where Ken grew up was that his dad or granddad had been an elder of the church. Sadly, Ken has no recollection of what became of the sack of tokens. If you’d like to see what the 1858 Dunvegan tokens looked like, check out the May 19th column on www.dunvegan-times.ca.
Nor any drop to drink
While often misquoted, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s familiar lines from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner were actually written, “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Even when misquoted though, the meaning is the same: sometimes, even when you’re surrounded by something, you can’t benefit from. I thought this was an appropriate intro to our next item: naturally occurring springs. Places where fresh, cool delicious water bubbles up from the ground or cascades from a rock face. Ideally, these sites are by the side of a road so members of the public who are ‘in the know’ have access to potable spring-fed drinking water. There were a number of spots I knew of in the western Laurentians when I lived there. Lost River being one. And Terry knew of another by the railroad trestle in downtown Garson when she was growing up. And we’re not alone in our appreciation of natural water sources. I even found a ‘Find A Spring Foundation’ on the Web. It’s core members are a bit on the fruitcake, or at the very least granola, side of things. Nevertheless, their site supports a global, user-generated map that allows one to submit the location of a public or private spring. (It would make a hell of a road trip visiting all of the ones in the Maritimes.)
This whole topic of springs arose from a conversation I had with Marlie Tilker, late of Dunvegan East. She was bemoaning the fact that Dunvegan, and the whole of Glengarry for that matter, appears bereft of bubbling sources of natural spring water. Truth be told, neither Marlie nor I have lived here as long as many of my readers. The region may be riddled with secret fresh water spring sites. If this were the case, I’d love it if you’d share them with me if you’re not comfortable submitting the location(s) to www.findaspring.com. The closest Ontario spring I could find on their map was in Ardoch, Ontario. In the meantime — until Eastern Ontarians generously share hidden natural water sources or a cataclysmic change in the earth’s crust create some — I thought Marlie had an excellent suggestion.
In the absence of a natural spring, she wondered if a free public access site for potable water could be created at the pumping station on Kenyon Concession Road 6. The pump house was recently constructed as a part of the Maxville Water Project, and Marlie is of the opinion it would be a perfect spot for the public to be able to pull off the road and fill up a jug or two with drinking water. And she’s right. Yes, I realize the water flowing through the pipeline and the pumping station is at high pressure. But, just like we have step-down transformers for high voltage current, I’m confident an engineering solution could be found to install a public tap at the normal household water pressure. It isn’t rocket science. The next argument will no doubt be that it’s Maxville’s water. No, it isn’t. I know the residents of Maxville are paying a healthy share. Nevertheless, of the project’s $30 million price tag, the federal government kicked in $15 million. And $7.5 million came from the provincial coffers. I’m guessing some of these federal and provincial tax dollars came from families all across North Glengarry.
It’s not being suggested that huge tanker trucks hauling water for swimming pools, irrigation or other commercial purposes be allowed to pull over and suck up thousands of litres at a time for free. We’re talking about an automatic shut-off tap where a rural family on a sulphur-tainted well could fill up a five-gallon plastic water jug every once and a while. Then, with apologies to Coleridge, perhaps we could say: Water, water everywhere, and we’ve a wee drop to drink.
Where’d the eggs go?
It’s taken me a while, but I finally had a chance to study a receipt book from D.K. MacLeod’s general store that Steve Merritt lent to me long ago. It only covers a five-day period in 1925, from Tuesday, May 26 to Saturday, May 30. Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating look at a thin tranche of life in one corner of Dunvegan. The northeast corner of the crossroads, to be precise… the site of D.K. MacLeod, General Merchant.
Once the heart and soul of every small hamlet, village and town, general merchants, or general stores as they were more commonly called, have dwindled to insignificance over the nearly one hundred years since D.K. was a shopkeeper. Why, in the forty short years I’ve lived here, I can count six corner stores in the immediate area that have bit the dust: one at MacCrimmon’s Corners, two in Laggan, two in Greenfield and one in Apple Hill. And, of these, only the store and service station that Alex Titley bought from Oscar Ouimet in 1953 sort of remained true to its “general store” roots almost to the end. I still remember driving our neighbour John Dashney to Titley’s every once and a while. He still stocked the long undies and overalls John swore by. About the only place that even comes close to being a general store these days is at Fassifern. Don’t get me wrong. It is wonderful that the shop is still around, but it fits the ‘convenience store’ mould more these days. Of late, one would be hard-pressed to find nails by the pound or leather to repair your harness there.
Back in D.K.’s day, there were no Universal Product Codes to scan or digital registers that calculated the change for you and printed a receipt. Every transaction was written out in longhand in a two-part receipt book that relied on a tiny sheet of carbon paper to create a copy of the receipt for the customer. I was fascinated by the two-way barter system that was recorded on the bills of sale. A surprising number of D.K.’s customers brought in produce for him to buy. For example, eggs which he paid 25¢ a dozen… or oats at 60¢ a bushel, or a pound; it’s not clear on the receipt. It happened so frequently that he even developed a shorthand way of recording the transaction. The bartered item(s) would be headed “By,” for “Buy” I assume. And the items being purchased by the customer would be listed under the heading “To”. This is just a guess. D.K. should have been a doctor. His handwriting is that bad. He would then tally their purchases and give them cash if the total didn’t equal the value of the items proffered for barter… or put the balance they owed him on account. As an aside, it’s interesting to note that come Saturday, May 30, both the order of the transactions and the handwriting in the receipt book was different. “By” items were at the bottom instead of the top and the cursive lettering was far more legible. I suspect that, with no school on Saturday, one of D.K.’s kids helped out.
As I went through the fifty transaction slips (which were individually numbered and, by necessity, in chronological order), I was struck by the width of his inventory. His was truly a ‘general’ store. Soup. Tea by the pound. Tomatoes. Apples. Glass. Oatmeal. “C. Flakes” (which I assume is Corn Flakes). Brush. Sandpaper. Oranges. Polish (stove?) Overalls. Notepaper. Yeast. Soap. Rice. Mustard. Shoes. Hat. Wallpaper. And a surprising amount of paint. Another item on the majority of the bills — always at the very end, when one could see if there were any pennies left — was candy. Reading between the lines, I imagine the shopper’s children came along for the ride and played the “can I have a…” line that kids have probably used since the first prehistoric family came across a cave sale.
What really puzzled me though, after looking at five days of sales records, is what happened to all the eggs D.K. bought? I added them up and they totalled 179 dozen in the space of not even a week… minus the one dozen that D.K. sold on the 27th for 25¢, in other words, at cost. What about the remaining 178 dozen eggs? Did he hatch them and sell the chicks? Wholesale them to someone in Maxville or Alexandria? Send them via train from Greenfield to Montreal? If you have any insights here, I’d love to hear from you.
-30-