Fifty or sixty years ago the life of a young person in the backwoods of Canada was uneventful and monotonous.   In those times there was no debating club at the corner schoolhouse, where the youthful orators of the bush could air their eloquence or exhibit their powers of declamation to the admiring elders in the district.   There was no concert or literary society, no tea meeting where the young people, dressed in their most splendid habiliments, could come to see or be seen of each other.   There were no churches, or very few, where the pious settlers could gather together and listen to the word from some veteran old minister who had travelled far through the trackless forest to break among the few waiting ones the bread of life.   All such meetings, when they did take place, were held in the shanties of the settlers.   The life of a young person, therefore, in those days consisted of a continuous round of labor, eating, and sleeping. Mr. Brethour, occupied his time in assisting his father to clear up the farm until he reached his fifteenth year.   From this time until he was twenty-one he worked with the neighboring settlers, and considered himself amply rewarded with the sum of $8.00 per month.   In 1851 he married Elizabeth Shier, of the adjoining township of Brock, a sister of Mr. Shier, of Woodham.   The issue of this union was seven children - Rebecca, (Mrs. Heron) of Manitoba; Catherine Ann, (Mrs. Miners) of Manitoba; Wesley, Reeve of Hamiota County, Manitoba; Augutus, in Blanshard; Mary Jane, in Blanshard; Harriet, in Blanshard; and Michael, in Blanshard, the last three on the old homestead.   After his marriage he rented a farm till 1853, when he came west into the, township of Blanshard, and settled on lot 4, on the 7th concession, which was then all woods, and on which he has remained ever since.


Next Page - David Brethour - In Public Life