Tweedsmuir History - Pickering Womans Institute, p. 57

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Extract from the "Breeders Gazette", Christmas Number, 1894. William Miller of Pickering writes as follows: " My first experience on the water was along with farm stock. In the summer of 1838 my father left his native Annandale for Canada with my mother and family, my oldest brother John having gone some four years before. With us went ten Leicester sheep, four white swine and two dogs. At Liverpool we were loaded on the barque Mogul for New York-the sheep on deck in the long boat, swine in a pen, dogs and children at large, but they could go into what by courtesy they called the second cabin. — The ship was slow, the winds light and it took forty-nine days to make New York. Thence we took a steamboat to Albany; then through the Erie Canal to Rochester (which took a week), then across Lake Ontario by boat to Toronto, where friends met us and took us in wagons through the woods and into the woods in Pickering—some twenty-eight miles—near what is now Brougham, Ont., where my father and brother John hewed out for us a comfortable home and gathered around them fine cattle, horses, sheep and swine, gaining for themselves in those early rays a name among the leading breeders of the land. Brave hearts and strong arms like these made Ontario what she is today—deservedly the pride of the New World for sturdy independence, real intelligence and successful agriculture. "Some time in the forties my father visited Lewis F, Allen at Black Rock, N.Y., bringing home four Shorthorn heifers and the first volume of the American Herd Book. One of the heifers was Kate Kearney, by that grand Oxford bull Duke of Wellington 55 (3654). Bates bulls were bulls then. Kate Kearney was bred to imp. Captain, a Scotch bull, and produced Liza Logan, the mother of that grand Atha family now scattered and I fear lost. No direct importation of Shorthorns had been made into Canada since the Howett importation, only a few that Mr. Ralph Wade of Cobourg brought from Durham, I think in 1850. In 1852 my father sent an order to Robert Syme, Redkirk, Dumfries, Scotland, for four Shorthorn heifers and Leicester sheep. They came and the heifers were grand. "Next year, 1853, I was sent over by my father and brother John to bring out stock. At New York I took passage on the William Tapscot, a regular old-style liner "shanghaied" crew and terrible mates, but after 18 days we landed in Liverpool all right the week before Christmas. Making my way directly to Annan I examined the Redkirk Herd near there, and I still think it one of the most useful I saw—plenty of substance and constitution forever, great milkers and regular breeders—in fact just such as we are after today only a little refinement added; but if this refinement hurts the constitution, better without it. After spending some time among the Leicester breeders of Dumfries I made my way south to see the Shorthorns, not knowing well where to go, as I knew nothing of the breeders nor cattle outside of Redkirk and nothing about pedigree; but I had heard that Durham Darlington and the River Tees were headquarters, so out I started along for Durham town. Landing there in the evening I made for its head inn but found it full. The landlord after looking me over one time concluded they had no room. I tried the next with better luck and had the good fortune to fall in with a fine specimen of intelligent Englishman—a commercial traveler who knew a great deal about the country, the cattle and the breeders, and was willing to help me all he could. From him I first learned of Richard and John Booth, Thomas Raine, Samuel Wiley, etc. "Crossing the Tees again into Yorkshire and by way of Richmond I visited the duke's stables and saw the great race-horse Voltigeur just after his famous race with Flying Dutchman. Then on to the Wolds I went, where at Carter's of the Scales I bought two very fine Leicester tups. Then I went to Bransby, where I had the pleasure of meeting and spending a few days with what I should think the oldest of the famed Shorthorn men then living,Samuel Wiley; I can yet see his noble figure in Kneebreeches on his strong dun cob, attending to every detail of his splendidly managed establishment. I think he was then over seventy-five and as well as his noted Shorthorn he had the best of Leicesters—a type of his own—the most marvelous fat little white Yorkshire swine—so fat they could scarcely see. I bought sheep from him.

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