SKETCH XIX
NEIL’S CORNERS AND COPE’S LANDING
In pioneer times, St. Williams was known as “Neil’s Corners.”[1] It was named St. Williams by one, Dickinson, in honour of King William IV.[2] “Duitcher’s Corners” was named Port Rowan, and “Big Creek” received the geographical appellation of “River Rowan,” in honor of Colonel Rowan, private secretary to Sir John Colborne.[3]
Old St. Williams is one of the pleasantest villages in Norfolk County. Its streets are level and beautifully shaded;[4] its gardens are rich, and its cosy leaf-embowered homes indicate a taste for arboriculture on the part of its home-owners. Its lake breezes are most delightful-being wafted just far enough over-land to temper the rawness. It is surrounded by one of the best sections of country in the county. The traveller who approaches St. Williams from east or north for the first time, feels as though he had been suddenly transported to some far-off land of milk and honey, and he enters the old village so favorably impressed that there may be some danger of over-estimating its real merits. In the homes of St. Williams are found the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren of many of the old Long Point pioneers. The present Postmaster Mr. John Cope, is a great-grandson of the man who first settled on the land upon which the Post-office and all the Walsingham part of the village stand.[5]
William Cope was the name of this old pioneer. The Cope family is of German descent.[6] The Cope brothers were U. E. Loyalists, and were born on Long Island.[7] They settled at Niagara in 1794, it is said, and two or three years afterwards, one of them William, came up to Long Point and settled on Lot 24, lake front of Walsingham.[8] Here, on the high bank overlooking Erie’s broad expanse, he erected his log cabin about a hundred years ago. For many years the place was known as Cope’s Landing. The fall before he came up he had put in a piece of wheat at Niagara, and when the harvest time came he went down to harvest it, leaving the young mother in the lonely cabin with her little children and a single loaf of bread. While at Niagara Mr. Cope was stricken down with a fever, and it was six weeks before he was able to return to his new home. During this time the pioneer mother had tastes of pioneer life that would have unnerved many a less courageous woman. There were two or three settlers in the vicinity, and upon these Mrs. Cope was forced to rely for necessary supplies, which she carried long distances through the woods. On one occasion, while carrying a pail of flour, she espied a wolf following in the trail. At first she was inclined to compromise by surrendering the flour, but when she thought of her hungry children in the little cabin with not a mouthful to eat, she looked up above the tree-tops for strength and resolved to cling to the pail and trust to Providence. The wolf followed but did not attack her, and she reached home safely, although nearly exhausted. On another occasion two or three Indians stalked into the cabin in a most insolent manner, which, in honor to the old Long Point Indians be it said, was quite unusual. A small piece of cotton lay on the rude table, and the Indians demanded it. It was all she had and she determined to keep it, if possible. Placing her baby on the cloth she stepped to the door and called for her husband. But the ruse did not work; the Indians knew that Mr. Cope had not returned, and they persisted in their demands for cotton. They, no doubt, would have forcibly taken it had not one of her boys, who was out shooting, fortunately shot off his gun. The report frightened the Indians, and they suddenly took their departure.
Copetown, in Wentworth County, was named after a branch of the Cope family that settled there. William Cope, the subject of this sketch, was a God-fearing man of most exemplary character. He was quiet and unobtrusive in manners attended strictly to his own affairs, and won the love and respect of his fellow pioneers. He died in 1813, in his 57th year, leaving two sons-Jacob and Thomas.
Jacob Cope, eldest son of William, married Elizabeth Procunier, and settled on the old homestead. He had four sons-Thomas, John, Peter and Williams Henry; and one daughter, Margaret who married James Lucas. She is now a widow and lives in St. Williams. Jacob Cope was at the battle of Lundy’s Lane in Colonel Bostwick’s command, and was wounded.[9]
Thomas Cope, youngest son of William, married Catherine Manuel, and settled on part of the old homestead. He had five sons-William, Frederick, Jonas, Thomas and Daniel; and six daughters-Elizabeth, Sarah, Mary Hulda, Jane Ann and Hannah. All settled in Norfolk, except two of the daughters. John Cope, the Postmaster of St. Williams, is a son of Frederick, second son of Thomas, and is one of Norfolk’s ex-wardens, having occupied the Executive chair in 1894.
[1] Neill’s Corners or Neal’s Corners was named for Reverend George Neill/Neal (c. 1750-1840) who owned the property in Lot 1, Concession A, Charlotteville Township at the southeast corner of the village.
[2]Some historians claim from local traditions that the village was named St. Williams for William Gillaspy (1791-1867) who owned the farm in Lot 24, Concession 2, Walsingham Twp. at the northwest corner and severed village lots. William was said to be a “saintly man.” Gillaspy was a son-in-law of John Monro who had the original Crown grant of the 200 acre farm lot. Editor R. Robert Mutrie’s family has owned the central part of the Gillaspy farm at St. Williams since 1872. Source: Henry Smith Johnson, “Place Names of Norfolk County” in Bruce M. Pearce, Historical Highlights of Norfolk County (Griffin and Richmond Company Ltd., Hamilton, ON:1973), p. 145.
[3]Actually “Dutcher’s Corners” was named for John Dutcher (c. 1789-1819) who bought a parcel of land in Lot 16, Concession A, Walsingham Township at Port Rowan. Dutcher lived there only very briefly. Later, the residents of the growing village named it Port Rowan for Colonel Rowan, Secretary to Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Colborne. The name for the river did not stick. The river reverted to “Big Creek”, but the village at its mouth continued as Rowan Mills. Source: Ibid.
[4]Much of this was due to the efforts of William Nevitt (1821-1898), an English gentleman. He married Elsey Jane McCall, a granddaughter of Donald McCall who pioneered in Charlotteville Township near Vittoria. They made St. Williams their long time home. William Nevitt personally planted the grand trees that line the streets. When plans were put in place for a Provincial Reforestry Station just north of the village in 1906, it was embraced whole-heartedly by the residents and many worked there. The village looks much the same in 2012 as it did in 1898, although more homes have been added. Source: St. Williams: The History by R. Robert Mutrie, Log Cabin Publishing (Ridgeway, ON: 1986).
[5]The Post Office stood and still stands on the west side of Main Street South in Lot 24, Concession 1, Walsingham Township. The northwest part of the village in Lot 24, Concession 2, was severed from the Gillaspy farm.
[6]Cope family tradition claims that William Cope (1719-1813) was a Scot who fled to Wurtemburg, Germany after the Scottish Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. In Germany, he married Phoebe Ellsworth and then came to America. Sometime prior to 1775 he moved his family to Pennsylvania and then to Flushing, Long Island, New York. In 1785, they moved to Fort Niagara, and finally in 1783 to Copetown, Beverly Township, Wentworth County. Source: Alvin L. Monro, My Gramma Was A Cope (Dogwood Printing, Ozark, MO: 1995), p. 13.
[7]While the Cope family may have been sympathetic to the British cause during the American Revolution, they apparently did not serve in the Loyalist forces. None of the brothers (sons of William Cope) applied for military grants, they were not included in the United Empire Loyalists List of the Executive Council, and their children did not apply for U.E. grants.
[8]Family tradition states a 1785 arrival at Niagara. The Copes were at Niagara at least by 1793 when Conradt Cope and his brothers-in-law Jacob Darby and Tunis Cronk, along with John Stacy, petitioned for land in the Long Point Settlement. At that time they stated that they had already settled there and made improvements. Cope and Darby received grants in Beverly Twp. as did the other brothers and moved there. Cronk died soon after arriving on his Lot 1, Concession A, Charlotteville Twp. but his son William later settled to the lot. Located next to this across the Township Line, William Cope Jr. took over his brother Conradt’s interest in Lot 24, Concession 1, Walsingham Twp. Source: Upper Canada Land Petition “S” Bundle 2, Doc. No. 78.
[9]Jacob Cope gave up his part of the homestead to his brother Thomas and settled on Lot 17, Concession 1, Charlotteville Township at Normandale, recorded there in the 1852 Census. Jacob might have had two more daughters. One could have been Frances Sands Cope, named for Jacob’s mother. Frances, who was born in 1823, married Henry John Keough. Another, Mary born c. 1830, was living with Jacob in the 1852 Census of Charlotteville Township. The family of Frances Sands (Cope) Keough was included in Alvin L. Monro’s, My Gramma Was A Cope (Dogwood Printing, Ozark, MO: 1995).