›› Eramosa Township Officials Arrested as Rebels in 1837

(As published in Here and There in Eramosa; An Historical Sketch of the Early Years, and of the People and Events Contributing to the Growth and Development of the Township. Authored by Frank Day 1953. p.179-83.)

It is 99 years on December 13th since stirring scenes were witnessed in the arrest of seven prominent men in the Township of Eramosa. James Peters, an Englishman from Lancashire, was Township Clerk at the time, he had settled in 1826 at the age of 25 on Lot 23, Concession 2, now the home of Charles Gordon, and tells the story vividly of how he was arrested in bed before daylight by Squire Inglis of Guelph with a glittering drawn sword, and a company of 32 men with rifles and bayonets. Sixteen of the men entered the house, the remaining half of the company guarding other prisoners in the early morning hours; Mr. Peters was highly indignant at the manner of his arrest, claiming that an Englishman's home was his castle, and that the Queen's business required such haste that he was hardly given time to dress before being bundled in the waiting sleigh with the other prisoners.

The eldest of the men arrested was John Butchard, who resided on Lot 13, Con. 3, now the home of the Reeve, D. H. Storey; he was later a Commissioner for the township. Another prominent prisoner was James Benham [portrait], an Englishman from London, for many years a township official and the father of J. W. Benham, also a councillor, James Benham's grandson, Charles, served as councillor and Road Supt. in Eramosa for many years, while another grandson, Joseph, was Reeve of Erin, and is still Road Supt. of the Township.

Peters, aged 36; Butchard, aged 49; and Benham, aged 43, were supposed to be the ringleaders of the gang of rebels who were planning to march to Guelph to burn the town down.

Rumor was strong in Fergus that "Capt." Peters, Clerk of Eramosa, with 50 men, and supported by township officials, was planning to destroy the bridge over the Grand River. Special guards were on duty in Fergus as well as in Guelph.

Other men arrested were William Armstrong, 20, a son of Thos. Armstrong, the first District Councillor from Eramosa, Calvin Lyman and Hiram Dowlan, 36. With six men under arrest, the party of 32 soldiers under Squire Inglis, drove into the yard of Joseph Parkinson, a native of Lancashire, England, the local Justice of the Peace, and an early Treasurer of the township. They demanded breakfast and feed for the horses, this was provided, and the Parkinson's were rewarded by the arrest of their son James, aged 23.

At Guelph, Messrs. Parkinson, Dowlan, Lyman and Armstrong were examined and released on bail, after being bled in the pocket, as Mr. Peters says. Messrs. Benham, Butchard and Peters were taken to Hamilton jail by sleigh, a team being secured from Mr. Allan of Guelph Mills, the driver, Robert Wharton, aged 25, later settled on Lot 2, Con. 1. The men were held in Hamilton jail for nearly six weeks before being released on bail, they suffered terribly by being left in the plank jail with no blankets or bed on about the coldest night in December. Next morning they were given three loaves of bread and told that no more food would be provided that day. Mr. Peters says that some prisoners were released to make room for the men from Eramosa, and in their haste to get away, they left their nest of straw, their prayer book and all the live stock except what was on their persons.

The seven men were charged, among other things, "That not having the fear of God in their hearts, but being moved and induced by the instigation of the Devil, they did traitorously compass, imagine and intend to bring and put our said Lady the Queen to death; and that they did, as false traitors, endeavour to induce and persuade, with force and arms, other subjects to levy war against our Sovereign Lady the Queen; that they did meet on the 8th day of December, 1837, in the Township of Eramosa, District of Gore, and with other false traitors, did conspire, consult and agree among themselves, unlawfully and wickedly, to fulfil and bring to effect their said traitorous compassing, imaginings and intentions."

The men were put of trial on March 8th, 1838, the Grand Jury of 18 men, (Mr. Peters says, all thoroughbred tories) found a true bill against the seven men from Eramosa, who were now again in jail, and they were given 10 days in which to prepare their defence. They subscribed $10.00 each toward the $70.00 necessary to hire a lawyer.

Public feeling ran high at home, in Fergus and Guelph, and among Government officials, and was strongly against them. The prosecuting attorneys were using every endeavour to have them hung for treason; the Government was determined to suppress with a ruthless hand any attempt at sympathy with the Mackenzie rebellion. James Peters had lost his position as Clerk, he was in jail when the annual Township meeting was held in January, and Sam Fear was appointed in his place for 1838, and Sam Balls for 1839. The Solicior-General himself (afterwards Judge Draper) appeared for the Crown, and tried all his tact and talent with the witnesses to secure a conviction. There were 80 Petit Jurors summoned, 57 Tories and 23 Reformers. It appeared that the men from Eramosa were doomed.

Mr. Peters relates what he terms a miserable attempt to send them all to be tried by a higher tribunal than that summoned to meet in Hamilton. The Government had stored 50 kegs of gunpowder in the cells, which were all plank and timber. The night before the trial some fiend set fire under the cell doore and before morning the building was filling with smoke; James Benham was the first man to raise the alarm, and all the prisoners made noise enough for the jailor and turnkey to hear. These two men took axes and with the help of one of the guards, Wm Kennedy, afterwards of Guelph, chopped off the planks between the fire and the gunpowder. The feelings of the prisoners as they heard the sound of the axes, and wondered whether they were to meet death by fire or explosion can hardly be described. Excepting Wm. Kennedy, non of the dastardly villains who had been set to guard the jail would lend a hand to extinguish the fire. Writing 29 years later, Mr. Peters says that no notice was taken of this wanton act, and no effort was made by the authorities to discover the perpetrators.

From the time the court opened till 9 at night, the prisoners were made to stand. The 3 Crown witnesses were William Campbell of Eramosa, Walter King, later of Guelph, and Robert Grindell of Lot 13, Con. 5, Eramosa. The Crown failed to get anything out of these witnesses on which to secure a conviction and the defence counsel asked that the case go to the jury without hearing the eight witnesses for the defence. The prosecution would not consent to this, hoping by cross-examination to bring out some damaging evidence from defence witnesses. After examining three of them, the prosecution rested their case, and the judge charged the jury, dwelling on the enormity of the crime of treason, but telling them that if doubt existed, the prisoners were entitled to the benefit. After a retirement of eight minutes the jury brough in a verdict of "Not Guilty", and one of the most stirring chapters in the history of the Township of Eramosa was ended.

James Peters was one of the founders of Speedside Congregational Church, he was a total abstainer, a most unusual stand for a man to take in those days when whiskey was the regular beverage at the many bees the settlers held in clearing land and erecting buildings. When the prisoners were released, they secured 2 gallons of good whiskey, and James admits that with the other jolly fellows he did take a pull at "Old Jeoboam", but 29 years later he states that he had only tasted it twice since. I am in agreement with James Peters that the best policy with regard to whiskey is to leave it alone. My last drink was on a wet and cold night in France in 1917 when theings were not going too good, so I have a certain amount of sympathy for James, and hope he will be excused for that wee drappie, after such a narrow escape from death by hanging, blasting, fire and smoke combined.

James Peters was again Clerk of the township from 1840 to 1843, by which time public feeling was practically all on the side of the arrested men. Between the arrests in December and the trial in March, many night raids had been made from Guelph on the settlers in Eramosa, and arms and money for fines collected in the name of the Crown in suppressing the rebellion. Fourteen sleighloads of people reported to the police in Guelph in one day, most of them gave bonds for their good behaviour, some had to pay $4.00, some who had less money got past with $1.00, or even 50c. One man was so mad that he knocked the Judge down, then got off by paying $1.00; Mr. Peters jocularly remarks that this was the beginning of the cash system in Guelph. Quite a lot of money was collected in this way, and the annoyance and arrogance of the procedure were so great that popular support was veering from the Government to the so-called rebels, and it is siad that one more raid after the acquittal would have resulted in bloodshed and a rebellion in earnest.

Looking at the episode from the evidence available after 99 years, it appears that the seven men were innocent, but that the Government had reasonable grounds for the supposition that they were rebels. Mackenzie had rebelled, the Yonge Street affair was more or less common knowledge, the Government had called on all loyal citizens to help stamp out the rebellion, but in the confusion, mail and newspapers were not getting to Guelph, which was the Post Office for the Eramosa settlers at the time. It is not to be wondered at, that regular despatches of letters or papers would be delayed in reaching Guelph in such troublous times, the only mail route from Toronto would be via Hamilton. There was a road from Guelph to Toronto know as the York Road, leaving Guelph by the road now know as York Road to the townline of Eramosa, then South one lot to what is now called the Old York Trail, wandering through Concessions 1, 2, and 3, and South 1 1/2 lots to the Wellington and Halton boundary, thence through Crewson's Corners and Ballinfad to York Township and Souteast to Toronto. There may have been an alternate road through Campbellville and Burlington, but neither of these would be a mail route from Toronto to Guelph at that time.

The settlers in Eramosa, not having very definite word of what was going on in the Province, not getting the call of the Government to assist in capturing the real rebels, and being uneasy as to the actual state of affaris, held a meeting in the Central School House, to find out the condition of affairs in the Province. The Central School House had for some time been used for township meetings, it was situated on Lot 12, Con. 3, near where the Stone Church now stands. James Peters, the Township Clerk, was appointed secretary, and was requested to draw up a resolution expressive of the decision of the settlers, the resolution was passed as follows: "That we return home, and mind our own business." In the face of the demand of the Government that the settlers assist in quelling the rebellion, which demand the settlers claim had not reached them, the resolution "That we return home and mind our own business" might be taken as a refusal. It is clear that information had reached the government that a nest of rebels in Eramosa had held a meeting and passed the resolution mentioned, hence the arrests.

Their case was different, however, for William How, the first settler in Hillsburg in the Township of Erin, who was arrested about the same time. He was born in Kent, England, and like thousands of other emigrants, was willing to take a chance in a new country in order to escape the aristocratic form of government so irriating to a democratic nature. Like others, he too, found the aristocracy of Toronto to be no better than that of London, and readily became a convert to the ideas of William Lyon Mackenzie, he was a reader and contributor to Mackenzie's paper, "The Colonial Advocate." Sixteen well armed loyalists from Toronto surrounded his home one day and made him prisoner, he refused to walk, but when his captors proceeded to impress the horse of his neighbour, Mr. Rott, he consented to travel with his guards on foot to Toronto. When they finished with him there, he was minus 500 acres of land on which he had performed settlement duties.

Mr. Peters says that all of the victims from Eramosa remained good Grits for the rest of their lives, although some had previously supported the Tories; he further asserts that if any of them ever again voted Tory they deserved to be tarred and feathered. Had he been spared till now, he would have seen several of their descendents become prominent Conservatives, and a survey of the Township registrations of Births, Marriages and Deaths for 50 years shows that at least 75% of the present landowners are connected by descent or marriage with the families of the principals in the 1837 affair. The Eramosa affair seems to have been due to a misunderstanding on both sides, some of the settlers deny any idea of rebellion, they were all comparatively young men, adventurous and typically British in their bulldog determination to preserve their ideals of liberty at all costs. Apparently they did not realise that their resolution could easily be taken to mean that they would not support the authority of the Crown as represented by constitutional government.