THE JOURNEY BACK

In December, 2024 my family travelled with my parents to Perth and Lanark County, where Joseph Légaré and three generations of his family once lived. Joseph was my fourth great-grandfather and after serving in the War of 1812, he drew a ticket from the British Crown for land as compensation for his service.

When he arrived, his lot would have been full of trees and stones, waiting to be cleared before he could begin to farm it. Fifteen years in, he expressed his views on life here in a letter responding to a British House of Commons report on encouraging emigration to British North America. The letter was written as part of a public consultation carried out by the Colonial Department.

Joseph had a full life, marrying Anne (Nancy) Ellison (the first bride in Perth) in 1817 and together they raised eleven children, ran an inn and ferry service off the property.

Ron Shaw’s fascinating work of local history, Influence and Ambition: First Persons of Perth, includes a chapter on their life and all they accomplished together. It’s where this map was found, showing where their ferry was located.

On the way there, we stopped at Balderson’s Cheese, which sits on the original site of the first cheese shop to open there in 1881.

After “saying cheese” ourselves, a staff member inside the shop showed us to a photo that had been taken around the time of Balderson’s original opening. The photo and the one below it, give a sense of what the area looked like about 25 years after Joseph’s passing.

This is the view up the old Town Line Road that connects Perth to Lanark County, where the old homestead was (behind where the photographer would have stood). The cheesemaker was on the left, where the wagon tracks can be seen.

The next video gives a view from the old homestead property, looking out towards the Fall River. The family’s ferry, known as Légaré’s Ferry (probably little more than a flat boat), would have allowed people and goods to travel between Fallbrook (another settlement), the village of Balderson and the town of Perth.

Although the property was blanketed in freshly fallen snow, the current property owners told us where the foundation of Joseph’s old inn could still be seen in warmer times. Mom and Dad are essentially standing right on it here.

To recap, in 1821, Joseph became one of the first of seven Perth innkeepers to be granted a liquor licence by the new magistrates of the Perth settlement. For decades, Légaré’s Ferry was a popular site for business, social gatherings and even weddings (as described in the book First Persons of Perth).

Aside from having eleven kids, running a farm, a ferry service and an inn, Joseph was also active in town life. In 1823, he was an elder in St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Perth, and later a chief elder. He was already a member of the congregation before today’s church was built and very likely in attendance when it opened on Christmas Eve, 1848. Today this is the oldest original church structure in the town of Perth.

Of course, no trip to the Perth area would be complete without a stop at a local maple syrup seller. We stopped in for some maple syrup folk and a couple of jars for the Australian fam.