Charles Buck - Charles Buck's book.

Does anyone have a copy of Charles Buck's book.....The Wandering Memories of an Old Man by Charles Buck (1977)

I am looking for it, as it likely contains important historic background/info.

(Here are the first four pages)

This is something that I never tried to do before, and how good it will be or how bad, me will not know until we reach the end. In order to get the right start, I'll have to go back down memory's lane about one hundred and eighty years before my appearance in this world. This information I have been able to get from our good friend and author, Victor Lauriston's book, Romantic Kent. He tells us that at that time this part of the country was a complete wilderness with nothing but wild animals and Indians roaming through the forest, and the Thames was just like a crack in the forest, the trees growing almost to the water's edge. Some of the black walnut trees were six feet across on the stump. The river was first named the Eskunisippi by the Indians and then La Tranche by the French settlers and then renamed the Thames by Colonel Simcoe in 1792. The first settlers came in by the way of Detroit, which at that time belonged to England. then east along Lake St. Clair to the mouth of the Thames River. The people settled along both sides of the river on the way up. right away. This being open land they could start cultivating it It would seem as if the water was at a low ebb at that time although we have no account of it.

This up river settling continued on up to St. Peter's Church where the first Roman Catholic parish in these parts was started in 1792 and the first chapel was built in 1802. In 1824 the log chapel became too small and a new frame church was built and after over seventy years of service it was destroyed by fire on October 28th, 1895, and in 1898 a new brick church was built which still stands.

The settlers came on up the river to what is now known as the Crow Road named after a family that settled at that spot and was the starting point of the old trail that ran from the river to Wallaceburg. of this trail I will tell you more in my story later on, but we must go on up the river to a place just south of the road now known as the Winterline where a settler by the name of Thomas Smith and his family settled in 1789 and to whom a great tragedy befell. They had two daughters Ann and Mary. but the milk cows ran out It was in the winter time in the forest to et feed and they had to be brought into closure at night for safety. One evening while the girls. were after the cows they got lost in a snow storm and when they were found Mary had frozen to death and Ann had both less frozen so that they had to be cut off. There was no doctor nearer than Detroit so as they could not wait for the doctor a lady by the name of Mrs. Dolson, who was nurse and doctor for the community, had to do the surgery with nothing to ease the pain except whiskey and a lead bullet to chew on. Well, she lived through the operation and lived to the age of seventy two years.

Then going up the river we come to the Dolsons who settled on both sides of the river, and it was thought that this would be the site for a tow. This was in 1791. In 1792 the Dolsons started a flour mill. They also had a blacksmith shop and a general store. At the same time a man by the name of Clark built a dam across MacGregor's Creek, some distance back from the mouth of the creek, and then put up a flour mill powered by a water wheel at the dam. The wheat and other grains were ground up by two stones. The bottom stone was convex in shape and the top one concave. The bottom stone was stationary and the top one rotated with grain being run in between the two stones through a hole in the centre of the top stone. The two faces of the stones were fluted so that the grain was drawn in and down and round up fine and then run over seams to get the flour out.

In 1792 Colonel Simcoe surveyed a piece of land around the mouth of McGregor's Creek and the Thames River, which was called the Forks, for the city of Chatham, Here I will leave you, and if you want to know more about the early days of Chatham just get a copy of Victor Lauriston's book, Romantic Kent and you will find in it its growth and changes set forth most beautifully.

And now back down the river again to the Crow road. From this point we will start on the main part of our story. This road was the starting point on the Thames River of the old trail to Wallaceburg and followed the timber line. There was quite a strip of land between the forest and the shore of Lake St. Clair. In some areas the dry land ran out almost to the water's edge and in other places there were many acres of just swamp and water the home of muskrats and water fowl of all kinds snakes, turtles and so forth. The first settlers chose this land along the old trail because they could work up the open land and put in crops to live on and get fire wood for heat and timber from the forest to build houses and other buildings. The people that first settled in this part of Dover township were nearly all French from Quebec coming from Lake Ontario by boat to Niagara falls then across land to a place above the Falls on the Niagara river where they again came by boat to Lake Erie and then on up the lake to the Detroit River then up the river to Lake St. Clair, then along the south shore of the lake to the mouth of the Thames River which at that time went by the name of La Tranche, They settled on both sides of the river. Then from the Crow road on the Polish Irish Scotch and Germans seemed to take over and in 1791 went up the river as far as Fairfield where the settling stopped for a while.

Some of the more outstanding settlers were the Palsons, the Eberts: and the Clarks. The Dolsons and the Eberts were some of the first to own and operate steam boats on the river and the great Lakes. The first steam boat to come up the Thames to Chatham from Detroit was in the year 1812. Another noted character of a little later date was an English man by the name of Foot, a magistrate in England who had condemned a man to be hanged for some crime that he had committed. However on the afternoon of the day that the man was to be hanged there was a fox hunt planned and as he wanted to take part in the hunt he set the hanging ahead to the forenoon. But just after the man was hanged an order came for the release and pardon of the crime. Mr. Foot had to forget his fox hunt grab all the money that he could get hold of and leave the country fast. He headed for Canada and landed in Chatham where he bought a place in Dover Township. That place is now owned by Mr. Laprise. He built a house not far from the river and seemed to live a life of leisure.

Leaving the Thames and going on the Crow road the settlers came to the Pain Court Creek; then going east along the creek they came to what is now Pain Court then called La Tranche. Here in 1815 the first French settlers were Baby and Paquette who settled on lot six and seven on the north side of the creek. Later that same year J B. Lauzon Gabriel Peltier J.B. Faulert and Louis Dezelia and J.B. Primeau came and settled in the same area which consisted of lots 1 to 15 amounting to 772 acres. It was first surveyed in 1830 by a British officer by the name of Rankin.