On The Borders Of Ahpopka Lake

Source

"...to attack Osuchee (Cooper), a chief of some note, who was reported to have a large Indian force under his command in a swamp on the borders of Ahpopka lake." [Head-quarters, Army of the South, Fort Armstrong, Letter dated Feb. 7th 1837] [General Jesup]

South Shore Of Lake Apopka, Orange County, Florida

[My assumption is that Ahpopka Lake is Lake Apopka]

Grimsby Park In Canada

The camp-meeting seems to have been a prominent feature of the early religious life of Canada.  Long before there were town or villages, the scattered settlers were wont to gather occasionally in those primitive meetings.

Grimsby Park (on the banks of Lake Ontario) is one of the few survivals [in 1900], if not the only one, of the old-fashioned camp-meetings remaining in Canada (the Grimsby Camp-Meeting came into existence in 1859).

Source

As early as 1846 a mammoth temperance meeting was held here.  Egerton Ryerson* and William Ryerson graced the platform.

Noah Phelps, who was born in New York, was featured in the biographies. Information about Rev. Dr. John Wakefield and John Beamer Bowslaugh (the original owner of the land) was also in the book.

Grimsby Park, Historical and Biographical Sketches interested me because of an interest in ancestors who lived in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.  [See more here at the Grimsby Museum]

Rev. Isaac Brock Howard (son of William and Mary Howard, who were also my ancestors), was born in Grimsby and was Egerton Ryerson's assistant* in the early 1840's, -- was he present at the 1846 temperance meeting?   He wasn't mentioned in the book, so I'll never know.

John Askin And His Home In Sandwich

John Askin was a prominent Detroit merchant at one time; after the Revolutionary War he moved across the river into Canada.

The Askin family attained influence in the Detroit district at an early period. The name was originally the Scottish "Erskine" and was changed to conceal identity after the Jacobite defeat in 1715. One of the old family removed to Ireland and had a son, John Askin who settled in America and at the time of the Conquest of Canada was a merchant at Albany.  In the Pontiac outbreak he transported the supplies from Albany by Lake Erie to Detroit and received, as a reward, grants of land at Detroit. In 1764 he went as Commissary to Michilimackinac, returning in 1780 to Detroit as a trader. He was successful in business and amassed much property, which he abandoned to the States at the close of the Revolutionary War. He then settled in Canada on the east side of the Detroit river. He was appointed a Captain of Militia in 1787 by Lord Dorchester and in 1796 was promoted to be Lieut-Colonel and Colonel in 1801. [Source]

In Sandwich East (above Walkerville), now the home of Alexander H. Askin, the grandson of John Askin, who did heroic service during the Pontiac War in 1762. In 1796, When Detroit was formally made a part of the Union, John Askin, through his steadfast loyalty to Great Britain, lost his property in Detroit, now worth nearly six million dollars, and moved to the site of the present homestead. In 1843 the original building was removed and the present home erected.

The Wreck Of The Julie Plante

Dr. W. H. Drummond, the noted writer of French-Canadian dialect poems, who died in Cobalt April 6, 1907. One of his most popular poems was "The Wreck of the Julie Plante." Believing that it will prove both
amusing and interesting to the reader we publish it in full :

THE WRECK OF THE JULIE PLANTE

'Twas one dark night on Lac St. Clair,

De wind was "blow," "blow," "blow,"

When de crew on de wood skow "Julie Plante"

Got scare and run below.

For de wind she blow like hurricane,

Bineby she blow some more

When de skow buss up just off Grosee Pointe

Ten acres from the shore.

The captain she's walk on the front deck,

She's walk on the hind deck, too,

She's call the crew from up the hole,

She's call the cook also.

De cook his name was Rosa

He come from Montreal,

Was a chambermaid on a lumber barge

On dat big Lachine Canal.

De wind he's blow from nor' eass' wess'

De sou' wind he's blow too,

When Rosa say, "Oh, Captain,

Whatever shall I do."

De captain she's throw the hank,

But still that skow she drif,

And de crew he can't pass on dat shore

Because he loose dat skiff.

De night was dark like one black cat,

De wave ran high and fass

When the Captain took poor Rosa

And lash her to the mass.

When the Captain put on de life preserve

And he jump into the lac,

And he say, "Good-by, my Rosa dear,

I go down for your sak.

Next morning vary hearly,

About half-past two, three, four,

De Captain, cook and wood skow

Lay corpses on dat shore.

For the wind she blow like hurricane,

Bimeby she blow some more,

For dat skow buss up just hoff Grosee Pointe

Ten hacres from de shore.

Moral.

Now all good wood skow sailor mans,

Take lesson by that storm

And go and marry nice French gal

And live on Grosee Pointe farm.

Den the wind may blow like hurricane

And spose she's blow some more,

You can't get drowned on Lac St. Clair

So long you stop on shore.

[Source]

Put to song by Nelson Eddy (Lac St. Pierre instead of Lac St. Clair) and a more traditional reading here (both on YouTube).