[Editor’s Note: The following was included in the 1972 reprint of E. A. Owen’s book]
of
Long Point Settlement
by
E. A. OWEN
with
a new introduction
by
EDWARD PHELPS
MIKA SILK SCREENING LIMITED
Belleville, Ontario
1972
Originally published in 1898
by William Briggs, Toronto
Facsimile edition printed
by Mika Silk Screening Limited
ISBN 0-919302-29-7
Belleville, Ontario
1972
When Egbert Americus Owen first saw the light of day in the year 1844, Norfolk County had passed through a half century of pioneer life. The early days of isolation and primitive hardship were easily called to mind by the elders of the community. Doubtless the young Egbert listened in awe to the tales told by his parents and grandparents generation. He formed a lasting admiration of this hardy race and, perhaps, the vague resolve to chronicle their saga.
Fifty years later, after an eventful career in Michigan as a farmer, then a merchant and finally a journalist. Owen returned to his native Norfolk. He wrote and laboured for the remaining fifteen years of his life, an amiable and well-like soul. Many years later a daughter recollected, “father never made much money. He was satisfied, it seems, if he made a living. In between writing and when he wasn’t out on the road canvassing for some book, he did odd jobs such as clerking in stores, planting fruit trees and selling nursery stock, and gardening, which he dearly loved, being able to make anything grow.”
Norfolk by 1898 was one of the truly historic parts of young Ontario, for it had been first settled by the United Empire Loyalists in 1793-4. The pioneers had all passed on, and their sons and grandsons were being gathered to their fathers at an alarming rate. Having known many of these sturdy men and women in his youth, Owen now realized that the fading memory of the early years of Norfolk was about to vanish entirely. Accordingly he formulated a plan “to commence at the very beginning of things in Norfolk and follow down to a certain fixed date (1805) so far, at least, as the family histories are concerned.” After two years of intensive canvassing and research, Owen brought forth in November 1898 his renowned local classic, the Pioneer Sketches.
Sketches ranks well with the twenty-odd histories of Ontario counties and cities which followed James Croil’s landmark study of Dundas County (1861). While these volumes abound in biographical detail, Owen is unsurpassed for his skilful inter-weaving of history, romance, genealogy, and hagiology. Sketches at once became a source which was mined for countless newspaper articles, school essays, and family histories.
As a competent journalist Owen was singularly qualified to write one of the more appealing of the old county histories. The frequently critical Review of Historical Publications Relating to Canada observed, “The style savours of the amateur, a fault readily pardoned in consideration of the valuable work which the author has done.” The Christian Guardian found the book “so racily written and rich in incident as to make it one of the best local histories we have yet had in Ontario.” The local press welcomed the book with unstinting praise.
From its first page the book looks back to the “good old days” with undisguised sentiment and affection. The themes of “reverence for God and sacred things, love of home, and a rigid observance of law and order” run throughout. It was entirely fitting that the book should bear the imprint of William Briggs, and by implication the imprimateur of the Methodist Church of Canada. Indeed the Christian Guardian, Briggs’ chief exponent of nonconformist virtue, had itself been founded by that staunch old son of Norfolk, Egerton Ryerson, some seventy years before.
It is clear that Owen, rather than Briggs, financed the publication. The Guardian carried a merely nominal advertisement at two dollars a copy. Fifteen hundred books were published of which twelve hundred were subscribed in advance. The hundred copies remaining at Owen’s death in 1908 were destroyed in a fire. The book soon became scarce; a great many are still treasured as family heirlooms. Sketches is one of the most sought-after local histories produced in Ontario. The Mika reprint is a boon to schools, libraries, genealogists, and the widely scattered progeny of the Norfolk pioneers.
Edward Phelps,
Regional History Librarian
The University of Western Ontario
January 24, 1972