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Margaret Hall:
Our First Lady Tourist
Martha Ann Kidd
Captain Basil Hall, RN, FRS, and his wife Margaret, who visited the fledgling village of
Peterborough in 1827, were surely its first tourists. Captain Hall was an inveterate
traveller, and the account of his visit to Peterborough is tucked into his three
volume account of Travels in North America which was published in 1829 in Edinburgh and London. He devotes a chapter to the visit to Peterborough and has
supplemented his observations with letters from Thomas A. Stewart and Captain Charles Rubidge. The chapter compares well with the rest of the work. Hall was interested
in ideas that people had about government and politics, and his work remains interesting. In Canada, his travels ranged from Niagara Falls to the Richelieu River, with
side trips to Holland’s Landing and Peterborough. In the United States he travelled along the Erie Canal, went as far south as New Orleans, and as far west as St
Louis, and spent considerable time in Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
Dr T.W. Poole was familiar with Hall’s visit and had read Captain Rubidge’s letter to Hall
while preparing his county history, published in 1867. And of course Frances Stewart’s interesting correspondence was published in part in Our Forest Home. The
unedited letters of Frances Stewart are now in the Trent University Archives in Peterborough.
Although it is not mentioned in his book, his wife, Margaret, accompanied him on his tour of North
America and kept her own diary. This diary is now housed in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and a very inferior microfilm copy is at the National Archives
of Canada, in Ottawa. Her account is much more interesting than her husband's , partly because it was not edited for publication. She also had different interests.
This excerpt from the diary of Margaret Hall has been transcribed and edited by Martha Ann Kidd.
. . . . . Peterborough on the Otonabee River 30 miles N.N.W. of Cobourg, Upper Canada, 24th July
[1827]. - - -
This little village has spring up within the last two years, it is part of an establishment of
Irish settlers sent out by the British Government two years ago under the superintendence of Mr. Peter Robinson, brother to the Attorney General, Mr. John Robinson - it
is an experiment which has excited considerable interest in England & so far it has succeeded well. -- [Mr. Robinson is in England] but his agent W. McDonell is
here and has lodged us in Mr. Robinson's house where he also lives; -- we arrived here soon after seven o'clock pretty well fatigued with our day's business. It is on
such occasions that we experience the drawbacks of being great people - when tired to death & wishing for nothing on earth but to be allowed to go peacefully to
bed, you are obliged to keep your eyes open & your mouth shut (from yawning I mean) and sit another hour talking common places to the Clergyman's wife who out of
great tho' mistaken kindness comes to pay you a visit - Such was my case last night when Mrs. Armour came just as I was going to make my escape to bed - Basil,
fortunately for himself had already made his exit, but poor I had to sit till human nature could bear it no longer, & as my company would not leave me I was obliged
to leave them. I am quite refreshed this morning, having slept till eight o'clock - after breakfast Mr. & Mrs. Stewart came over from Douro, two miles from this.
Basil had a letter from Mrs, Edgeworth to Mrs. Stewart, who is in some way connected with her. They came out between four & five years ago and were the first
persons who settled in this part of the country when all around them was forest - for the first year & a half Mrs. Stewart never saw a female except those in her
own family, at first they could hardly procure flour sufficient to make a loaf of bread for sick? children, the house they lived in the first night they slept in it had
ice on the floor some inches? thick which they had to light stoves to melt & to break away with axes the best way they could - in short what they & all those
who came had to endure is only to be judged of by seeing what they now consider luxury. Log huts neither plastered nor painted and a very [limited] supply of furniture
of every kind? Added to their other difficulties they could not easily? get servants and had all the menial offices to do for themselves, and these were people . . who
were used to the comforts of an old country, and did not come here until they were past that youthful? age when all those things appear amusing? I think I should have
gone into despair if I had been exposed to such miseries, and yet they talk of it all quite cheerfully, it is certainly a good lesson to teach one? not to complain of
the little trifles that one is apt to be annoyed with.
....
Basil is gone since breakfast with Mr. McDonnel to visit some of the settlers [located in]
different places a few miles off, & I have been working with the rest of our party here. There is the most striking difference between the people in the States
& those here in point of dress. However poor their dwellings may be and however retired their place of residence, both the gentlemen & ladies here whether
English or Canadians are always neatly dressed while in the States you find men . . . sometimes without coats, sometimes without neck cloths, dirty & unshaven
looking, and the women either over or under dressed. --
....
Basil and I walked last night to a place about a mile and a half from here and paid a visit to a
family who came nine years ago from Cumberland, not "Mr. Robinson's Settlers" as those were sent out entirely at the expense of Government were called, but
they had a hundred acres of land each given to them for which they had to deposit ú10 to the Secretary of State as a security for their settling in the country, but as
soon as they had located themselves this sum was repaid to them - They seem exceedingly comfortable and are perfectly contented & happy as are also all of those of
Mr. Robinson's settlers who Basil has visited both yesterday & today. Tomorrow we go back to Cobourg, and as we start pretty early in the morning I must go to bed.
We drank tea last night with Miss Tweeney?, the niece of the Catholic Priest who is himself from home, & tonight with Mr. & Mrs. Armour, the Episcopal Clergyman
- Good night.
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