by Clayton Barker

June 24th, 2007

Holy Trinity Cemetery

Decoration Service

A great passion and hobby of mine has always been researching local history and also my ancestry. I was fortunate enough to have known all of my grandparents. Though each one of my ancestors fit equally into the theme, which I have selected for you today, time will only permit me to talk briefly about my father’s side, who many of them are actually buried here in this Holy Trinity Cemetery.



The very fact that we are dedicating this service and this day to decorate our graves and pay tribute to the lives of those who have gone before, tells me that this community is still interested in knowing about its past. If we expect our future generations to remember us and look after our grave sites - then we have to set an example for them today and keep this traditional decoration service always!

"Every dog has its day!" (That’s what my mom always says anyways). If that's the case, then this day is yours and this day is mine. For this is the time period in which we live and thrive, and this is the time period in which others will remember us. Thinking back, we remember: our friends, former neighbors, siblings, parents, grand parents and great-grandparents and many more that we have known throughout our lives that have all passed on. The list is endless as the years speed onward and forward. Eventually, it seems as if the list of people we used to know, who have died, is bigger than the list of people we still know.

My grandfather, Luther Barker, kept a diary almost all of his life which I have. Diaries are like a viewport into our ancestor's lives. My Grandfather's diary commences in August 1906 when he lost his thumb on his right hand in a grain binder. After the loss of his thumb on his writing hand, he needed to learn how to write with his left hand and needed to practice his writing skills. So he kept his diary up till the year he died which was 1995.

It is interesting to read those old diaries though: On many Sundays he wrote:..."Went to Church, Morning, Noon and night". His family would go to their regular church, which was St. John's Anglican Church, Cathcart (now our Parish Hall building moved to Burford in 1938). Then at noon they went to the Episcopal Methodist Church at Cathcart. Then in the evening they went to the St. John’s Anglican Church at Eastwood, which he always referred to as his "mother's Church". On one occasion he also noted that he sang in the Choir at Eastwood.



However, the most interesting events in those diaries only seemed to happen between the years 1906 and 1957 when he retired from farming at the age of 65. The last 38 years of his diary seemed to be basically a day to day list of all of the funerals he attended....."so and so died"..."so and so's funeral." With each name my grandfather mentions that died, it is interesting to trace those names back to when they were first mentioned in his diary. Way, way back, I find that most of these names were very close friends of his, close neighbors, former school chums or relatives.



But some of these individuals may have also been his mentors: People who inspired him, people he'd thought would live forever - Perhaps he even thought some of them "walked on water". Perhaps someday someone will think that way about us too....who knows? Except...instead of walking on water - I'm sure they'll just say something like "...that Clayton Barker, could fall into a barn yard pile and come out smelling like a rose!!...ooops...come to think of it that actually happened to me once when I was about 6 years old!!!...and it wasn't pretty!!!...ask my grandmother who had to clean me off, and the two girls with the smirks on their faces, who were sitting on the porch watching me while I was showing off for them....that was their entertainment for the day.

What's better than diaries is actually having met some of your ancestors and having them actually tell you about their lives first hand. My Grandfather Luther was old enough to be my great grandfather since he was born in 1892. He would sit in his rocking chair chewing his tobacco and having the occasional "mini-stroke". He would just smile and say..."don't worry, I have them all the time, one of them will probably take me one of these days!" But I always laughed and told him "come on grandpa, your going to live long enough to see three centuries!" Because he had seen nearly all of the 20th century and part of the late 19th century too - what was another 5 years, I figured? Then he'd take his old splattered spittoon up to his mouth to spit, and chuckle and say "I'll be satisfied just to see 100".



But I never wanted to think of him ever dying. I wanted him to live forever....which is a bit foolish and selfish I guess. He died August 3rd 1995 and the day of his funeral was such a gorgeous day. The sun was shining; the birds were singing the sky was blue. To me it seemed disrespectful, in some sort of way, for everyone to be enjoying such a beautiful day at a time like that. I stayed behind after the funeral service and remained at the graveside while the crowd and the undertaker and his hearse and everyone including the grave digger all left. He was buried in the Pioneer Cemetery here in Burford, beside my Grandmother, Clara. It seemed strange to me, but they just left him and his casket sitting there on the scaffold gleaming in the sunlight for a very long time. I wondered why they just left him sitting there like that. I even worried that someone might come along and steal his body or something. But eventually, I had to let go of him too, and so I walked over to the Rebecca Hall to be with the rest.



But everyone seemed to be so cheerful, and it was almost as if they hadn't been to a funeral at all. It was almost like they had been to a baptismal or baby shower or wedding or something happier than a funeral. But it was a happy day, I guess, if you think about it, for my grandfather anyway, though I was too stubborn to realize it then! I mean WOW!!! 102 years!!! He'd seen it all....what more could anyone ask for? He was the brother to four sisters, a brother-in-law, an uncle, a husband and married for 57 years, a father to 3 daughters and 6 sons, and he had 23 grand children, 53 great grandchildren and 15 great great grandchildren, at the time he died, not to mention that everyone from here to tim-buck-two knew him. Now his decedents probably out-number a small country of some sort!



My Grandfather's stories were priceless though! One story he liked to tell was of how he ate too many mulberry’s one time when he was a kid and it made him feel so ill he layed down on a farmer's lounge at his neighbors place and dreamed that he was a hay stack and the cows were eating him (And you thought the hippies of the 1960s had weird experiences!). He also liked to tell about how back in 1919 just after the first world war he and his brother-in-law Harold Farrington bought an airplane that had been surplus from the First World War and used to fly it around to all of the local fall fairs and take people up for a ride or just drop pamphlets out onto the ground below to advertise for companies at a rate of $10 per time. The plane eventually crash-landed after it got caught up on the wire fence at the end of the runway when it couldn't make lift off because of a strong downdraft.



The pilot of the duo was Harold Farrington (a hero to many aviation enthusiasts) who originally enlisted in the 125th Battalion as a Private during the First World War, later received his commission as Flight-Lieutenant in the R.C.A.F towards the end of the war. My Grandfather's position in the company was to drive along on the ground with a make-shift fuel and repair truck which was a 1916 Buick car converted into a truck. He never actually ever went up in the plane all the time they had it. Harold became a pioneer bush pilot in the 1920's in Northern Ontario and a flying instructor during the 2nd World War. In 1974, Harold was inducted in the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame in Winnipeg as a "Pioneer of Canadian Aviation."



I heard many stories about his flying escapades, from my grandfather and there are many books written about him. What I thought was really cool though, was finding an interesting story on the internet about him from back in the 1920's when he was flying a passenger into a Hudson's Bay frozen lake runway. The story goes that he had lost some of his landing gear during the take-off and a crash land was immanent. As they reached their destination, which was another frozen lake runway, he just calmly said to his passenger. "Here, take this parachute and wrap it around your head." The passenger was puzzled and wanted to know why? Harold just told him..."never mind why just do it!" Since the crew on the ground already knew they would be coming in for a crash landing, they had emergency crews standing by and everything and were anticipating casualties. However, Harold managed to land the plane by balancing it for a long time on just one ski. They survived, however I'm sure they would have sustained a few bumps and bruises.



[Note: Harold's name appears on an Ontario Plaque in Sioux Lookout. In February, 1926 Harold and J.V. Elliot, each flying a Curtiss JN-4 'Jenny' made the first in a series of passenger flights from here to the isolated Red lake mining district. I found the following excerpt from a story on www.virtualmuseum.ca about that first flight: ..."A crew of Native people was hired to pack a runway about a mile long until a hard crust made it possible for the planes to take off. The men then lifted the planes onto the strip and the pilots began the return flight. Meanwhile, a crew was hard at work in Hudson marking the runway for the planes arrival. When they did not arrive back at their expected time, they lined the runway with gasoline-soaked rags so the planes could land safely after dark. Had it not been for the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the people in Red Lake and Hudson, there might have been a very different ending to Red Lake’s first commercial flight."



Harold is buried here in the Farrington plot in Holy Trinity, Burford.



My Grandfather also told me interesting stories about the life and times of other ancestors of mine who died long before I was born. One of them was my Great Grandfather James Farrington (my father's mother's father). I was told many stories of James' experiences and there are also many old faded photographs which depict him and his brothers in the western US in the real "Old West" days of California and Nevada. Everything from the 20 mule team wagon trains and High Plains Freighting, gold and silver mines etc. and a huge ranch in Indian Valley Nevada known as the "Cloverdale Ranch" where James tended to 300 head of horses including a world champion racehorse "Geneva". It is said that James' love for horses was so great that he often said he'd rather give a horse to a friend than to sell a horse to a stranger who might abuse the animal!



His older brothers had traveled to California back before the American Civil War and soon found themselves riding shotgun for a stage coach operation along the famed Santa Fe Trail. However the first time James had gone to California, the trails were not too popular because of the great dangers due to the Native unrest and the poor condition or, in some places, the non-existence of a trail all-together - it was too dangerous for settlers to travel that route. Instead, they had to leave from New York by way of ship and go down the eastern coast of the states till they reached the Gulf of Mexico where they would then go aboard a flat bottomed boat propelled by Negro slave oarsman and travel through shark infested waters by way of the Isthmus of Panama.



According to one story which was compiled by a cousin of mine in California, Charles Gifford, tells of how James and his Brother William joined a freight caravan or wagon train in 1865. This was supposedly James' second trip to California. Just before the wagon train set out however, the Wagon Master was called away and couldn't leave the east, so James' brother William was appointed to be the "Wagon Master" of the expedition. The journey commenced at Illinois and went by way of the "Overland Trail" (otherwise known as the California Trail) through Fort Laramie and accross the Platte and on to the foothills of the Rockies [Note: William was also known to have driven the first head of cattle into the state of Montana, which were stampeded by Natives]. My great grandfather always said he "rode a mule across America"....though it was probably an ox [Note: about seven years later he would find himself part of the Farrington Brothers Freighters and Contractors which was a high plains 20 mule team operation out of Death Valley and is said to have earned a reputation in "handling the worst team of four-footed devils under harness"].



The 1865 wagon train consisted of 42 wagons loaded with gold mining equipment being actually pulled by oxen not mules. They left Illinois in March and only traveled about 14 miles per day and didn't reach the Rockies till November that same year. But the caravan met with a lot of calamities along the way including being pelted with large hail stones, various raiding Native tribes including the Sioux at Fort Laramie then finally being wiped out at the foothills of the Rockies by a blizzard where all 286 oxen froze to death. They had to go back in the spring to salvage anything they could to be sold at Salt Lake City for scrap.



James returned to Canada "with his pockets full of coin", as he put it, and met a Scottish woman by the name of Mary Elizabeth Laing and they Eloped in 1879. Following their Elopement in Ontario they headed back out west and it is said that Mary was the first white woman to have slept in many of those old mining "Tent Towns". The Hotels were generally the first buildings to be completed in those rugged frontier communities though most of the other buildings were simply a wooden false front with a tent attached to form a make-shift building. Since the Hotel as usually filled with hard-as-nails ornery customers and filthy riff-raff types with lots of fist-fights etc, Mary Elizabeth had to sleep in a tent which was erected behind the Hotel for her, so she could be spared all that. Though James and Mary Elizabeth lived much of their time in Indian Valley, Nevada, at the Farrington ranch, known as the "Cloverdale Ranch", they raised 10 children between the US and Canada then eventually came back to Canada and built a very large home west of Cathcart in 1883 which had 22 rooms, marble fireplaces, a billiard room and a ball room. This house still exists today and is the Sheridan residence, known as Derryharney. James and Mary Elizabeth are also buried here in the Farrington plot at Holy Trinity.



James' Grand Parents on his mother's side were Archibald and Sarah (known as Sally) Trimble, who came to Canada from Ireland, with their 5 children, on the sailing ship the "Duncan Gibbs" in the year 1830. Sally was born in 1788 at Castlepollard, Westmeath Ireland and died in 1872 and was buried here in Holy Trinity cemetery. Her father had fought here in Canada during the conquest or "storming of Quebec" in 1759. He always said he "went back home to Ireland with his coat full of bullet holes." Sally’s claim to fame was that her best friend was Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham, known as Kitty Pakenham, the daughter of the 2nd Baron Lord Longford. Kitty later married Arthur Wellesly, the 1st Duke of Wellington.



In 1834, Sallys husband was killed on the streets of "Little York" (now Toronto), run over by a runaway team of horses and wagon. He was buried in the cemetery at the St. James Cathedral. Sally and her 5 children came to Burford Township in 1839 to live closer to her brother Col. James Trimble (Trimble's Corners, now Muir) and to start over, even though her husband’s family had offered to send money for them to go back to Ireland. Not long after they'd settled here in Burford Township, between Cathcart and Muir, Sally’s Daughter Marianne (James' Mother - my G.G. Grandmother) met Adam Farrington (a Scotchman from Birwickshire). In 1841, Marianne was walking back home from Burford one day when Adam came along with a team of horses and a wagon and offered to give her a ride, since he was headed the same way....Three weeks later they were married at Holy Trinity Church here in Burford (when it was located on the opposite side of the road from where it is today, on a two room Sabbath School located approx. where the Home Hardware Store is today).



Marianne used to have a Hat shop (Millinery shop) on Spadina Ave back when she lived in Little York, and she sang in the choir at St. James Cathedral. She was said to be a "woman of great spiritual strength - her sincere devotion to her Episcopal (Anglican) faith remained with her at all times. She was one who could adjust to misfortune." Eight years after her marriage to Adam, tragedy struck their family again and while they were constructing their second home, her husband was killed when a wagon load of brick overturned and crushed him. The story is handed down from generation to generation that when Adam was crushed by the bricks he was taken to a nearby hotel. It is said that Marianne knelt by his side and he took her hand and said..."Polly, ye have been a light to me", and she replied, "Adam, I hope you see the true light." He "lingered for 36 hours" then died August 26th, 1849 a month before their youngest son Adam was born. [Note: the hotel was either a hotel located a mile and a half west of their place at the crossroads at "Trimble's Corners", now Muir, or the "Lawrence Hotel" located 2 miles east of their place at the junction of the Stage Road and former Highway 53, operated by Levis Lawrence.] Both Adam and Marianne are buried in the Farrington plot here in Holy Trinity.



It must have been a hard life for them, and with the father Adam and the grandfather Archibald both dead - that left only the mother Marrianne and the grandmother Sally to raise the 4 Farrington boys. I think that's why they sent them off to the wild and wooly west!!!!! Their names are now all engraved on the sides of slabs of stones, and those who had known them first hand are also buried beneath the sod. The history and stories of our ancestors and the locations of their graves will live forever as long as someone passes this information on to the next generation.



HE WALKED ON WATER: Words/Music by Allen Shamblin

Sung by Randy Travis





He wore a starched plaid shirts, buttoned at the neck

and he'd sit in the shade and watch the chicken's peck

but his teeth were gone, but what the heck...

I thought he walked on water.



He said he was a cowboy, when he was a youngin’

he could handle a rope, and he was good with a gun

and my mama’s daddy was his oldest son,

but I thought, he walked on water



If the story was told only heaven knows

but his hat seemed to me like an old halo

and though his wings they were never seen

I thought, he walked on water

If the story was told only heaven knows

but his hat seemed to me like an old halo

and though his wings they were never seen

I thought, he walked on water