Low Down Articles
Echoes from the Past
Article 101 of 111
This article first appeared in the "Echoes from the Past" column of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
o o o
Treasure Trove
A small stiff-covered book has recently turned up in some Wright papers. The owner has given me permission to write about it in "Echo".
The book is 6-1/2" x 4" and has a label on its front cover with the exquisite penmanship of some unknown scribe:
P. Wright Esq.
LAND BOOK
TEMPLETON
On each page is a different Lot. No. for each portion of land in Templeton - on the east of the Gatineau River - directly opposite to the place where the Wright party came ashore in the early spring of 1800.
Apparently the lots were chartered to sundry individuals. Later the word "patented" came into more general use. This is how the system, more or less, seemed to work:
The lots were assigned to live people which was recorded in the little book. If the person had no use for the property that man or woman could surrender it, by legal means before a Public Notary, to Philemon Wright who could dispose of it to another person or use it for the public weal.
An interesting entry for Lot No. 27, consisting of 304 acres, was chartered to London Oxford, a black gentleman who came to the area with his wife in the Wright party from Massachusetts. Oxford gave up his acreage on 14 Dec. 1809.
A number of lots assigned to non-Wrights were early settlers in the area centred on Wright's Town (Hull) namely Wymans, Edeys, Chamberlins, Holts, Allens, Benedicts, Olmsteads, Grimes, etc.
No record has, as far as I know, turned up to tell us what happened to the two Oxfords after 1809. Should anyone be aware, I would be pleased to learn.