OLMSTEAD ARRIVALS

IN ONTARIO, CANADA

 

The following article was contributed by Joe Barber.

 

In 1953 Raymond Miles Gorssline, a great grandson of Sarah Olmstead and her second husband Nicholas Sparks wrote the following story about the journey of Sarah Olmstead and her family from the Mohawk Valley to Ontario.

 

The Mohawk Valley extending from Albany, NY in the east to Syracuse in the west, through which flows the Mohawk River, was the main route for trade and movement of settlers from the seaboard states, to the land of opportunity and adventure farther west. During the Revolutionary War (1775‑83) this valley was the scene of fierce gorilla warfare, between the Continentals and those who remained loyal to George III. Villages were burned, crops destroyed, the country side laid waste, and inhabitants driven from their homes, and often murdered by the marauding Indians of both sides.

 

It was in this district that Gideon Olmstead (1768‑1837) and his wife Esther Andrews (1770‑1841) lived. Some of their children including Sarah were born there. Their ancestors had come from Wales to America several years before. The name Olmstead (Holmstead, Olmsted) is a local English name of Scandinavian origin, meaning "a place on an island in a river".

 

In 1792 Simcoe, Lieut. Governor of Upper Canada believing there were many former subjects of the King, still living in New York and other states, who would welcome an opportunity to emigrate and settle in Upper Canada, particularly since they were not being too well treated in their old homes, issued a proclamation inviting those who wished to come and settle, offering free grants of land of 200 acres to the head of each family.

 

As a result many families decided to emigrate. Among them being the Burritts, Hurds and Olmsteads who all came to the Rideau River country and settled near what is now the village of Burritts Rapids. (Elizabeth Sparks, sister of Nicholas Sparks who was husband of Sarah Olmstead married Edmund Hurd). This was in 1795, one year before Philemon Wright first came to the Chaudi�re.

 

It should be interesting to follow the pioneers, during their journey from the Mohawk Valley. They went by flat bottomed boats up the Mohawk River to Fort Stanwicx (Rome, NY), there by portage over the height of land to the headwaters of the Black River, and down that river via Watertown, NY to Sackets Harbour, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, then by Durham boat skirting the shore, through the Thousand Islands to Brockville, Ont. This was a journey of several weeks, during which the pioneers, slept under the stars, cooked by camp fires, and often walked long distances along narrow trails, carrying their few belongings. There were other well used routes coming out at Oswego, Ogdensburg or Cornwall.

 

At Brockville they drew their lots in the back concessions, and the emigrants proceed North through the unbroken forest. There were no roads, merely blazed trails along which they walked and transported their household goods on an ox cart, driving a cow or two up the trail.

 

Gideon Olmstead and his wife Esther came in this way, with their family of small children. Sarah was 8 years old. The family settled on lot 19, concession 1, along the Rideau River front, just east of the present village of Burritts Rapids. There were two brother of Gideon, namely Richard and Jabez and a sister Elizabeth who came at the same time. Another brother Job came a few years later.

 

Gideon lived on lot 19 for 9 years and must have been a successful farmer, for by 1804 he was able to purchase 300 acres of good land in Hull Township, along the present Aylmer Road, just west of the Chaudiere Golf Club. He remained here until his death in 1837.