the Weir land grant was parcelled out to the pair. After spending two years there, where their daughter, Margaret, the first child, was born in 1820, the Weir family took up their 100 acre grant in London Township, County of Middlesex, the North Half of lot 12, 15th Concession, fronting on the 16th Concession.
It was in the summer of 1822 when Archibald and Mary had settled in and built themselves a shelter that Archibald went off the property on an errand to the nearest village. Mary, left alone with little Margaret, a toddler, and James on the way, was hoeing in her garden and keeping an eye on the child. Straightening up for a moment to relieve her back, she looked around and noticed a couple of Indian men approaching the cabin, in what seemed to Mary, a rather furtive way. She was used to neighbours dropping in without a knock or a by-your-leave as was their custom, but this seemed a little different somehow. Scooping up Margaret, Mary ran for the cabin. At once it was obvious to her what had attracted the pair. It was her teapot, her shiny teapot, which they had observed from time to time and coveted.
Mary Currie Weir, born 1792; married 1817; died 1888.
With Archibald out of the way, the men no doubt thought it a good opportunity to make off with the teapot and melt it down for bullets. Mary entered the cabin, Margaret on one hip and her good garden hoe in the other hand. One of the Indians made as if to attack her. Mary straight armed him with her hoe. The other would-be thief dropped the teapot in fright and the pair made off as fast as they could, leaving a trail of blood from Mary’s clout with her weapon. The pewter teapot is still given a place of honour in the home of one of her descendants, the little dent where it was dropped in such a hurry still in place.
Archibald lived as a farmer all the rest of his life and died in 1869 at the age of 79. Mary died in 1888, aged 96, still the feisty pioneer’s wife. It was said that she suffered a fatal heart attack while pumping water in the town well at Granton where she had gone to live in order to be close to her daughter, Sarah Weir Grant. Mary’s last home where she lived independently until the end of her days was in an apartment over a store. In the way of general stores of the era, it is to be hoped that it carried a good line of fine Irish linens.
Archibald Weir, born 1790; married 1817; died 1869.
In his will, Archibald left the farm to Mary, an unusual tribute and an indication of his confidence in her ability to take care of herself and the farm. She had demonstrated her control of many a situation involving wolves, Indians, bears and assorted other hazards of pioneer life. Upon her death the farm was to be divided equally between Margaret, the first born and James, the eldest son. Margaret had married Frederick Fitzgerald and produced eleven children. Her grandson, Fred Fitzgerald, became a well known and respected ear, nose and throat specialist in New York City, whom Samuel Edward Weir frequently consulted and with whom he had a close friendship.
Perhaps because she had married well and lived in a splendid stone house in Granton, Sarah, the fifth child, received only five shillings from the will. It was to Sarah that Mary turned when the farm was no longer her home, and she settled in the village near her daughter. Archibald’s and Mary’s other sons, Robert, John, and their eighth child, Samuel, our Samuel Edward’s great uncle, also were left 5 shillings apiece. The other daughters, Mary Ann, Jane, Martha and Elizabeth were left one hundred or two hundred dollars apiece, a not inconsiderable sum in those days.
JAMES AND SUSANNAH SUTTON WEIR, M. 1851
James married Susannah Sutton, also of pioneering stock. He later left his father’s land grant for land acquired through his marriage and took up farming near Hensall, Ontario, south of Clinton on the former Highway 4. Ultimately they would have nine children.
The Sutton family, originally from Yorkshire, had moved to County Wexford, Ireland, as tenant farmers of a Lord Morris who had assigned them to his Irish grant of land. It is of interest to note that a Sutton, remaining in England, founded Charles House School where the Wesleys were educated. Archibald and Mary’s third child, Robert, married Martha, the younger sister of Susannah. Consequently, James’ and Robert’s children were double cousins, not an uncommon occurrence among pioneering families. No doubt all were proud of their Wesley connection.
James and Susannah Sutton Weir had nine children. The eldest, Richard, about whom we hear more, began his career as a teacher in Petrolia. Their second child, Mary, died of typhoid in 1874 at the age of twenty one. Another Archibald, the third child, born in 1855, married Agnes Cruickshank and practised law in Sarnia. The couple had two children, Charles, born in 1896 and Agnes, born in 1907, who both practised law in their father’s firm. Agnes, after her marriage to Archibald Randolph, continued her practice and collaborated in legal matters with her cousin’s son, Samuel Edward. Agnes Randolph’s two daughters, Penny and Libbie, were taken to London on many an occasion as small children. While Agnes and Samuel Edward consulted together in his chambers, the two little girls entertained themselves on the escalators in a nearby London department store. This commodity, unknown in Sarnia at the time, was a source of great fun for the youngsters.
Of the six remaining children of James Weir and Susannah Sutton Weir, all girls, the eldest, Susan, died in infancy; while three married and left the area. The two youngest, Anna, born in 1866, and Jane, known in the family as Jennie, born in 1868, had teaching careers, the former in Port Hope and the latter in London. It is possible that Jennie Weir had known Samuel Edward as a little boy in the London public school system from 1903 onward when he started school and Jennie was a school marm, aged 35. Jennie must have known Samuel Edward’s father, her cousin George Sutton Weir, in his role as Medical Officer of Health for the London school system. Both Anna and Jennie died as spinsters, not uncommon in those days.
Richard married Margaret Moir and ultimately became a Presbyterian minister, his last charge in Ontario being at Petrolia. Richard’s sister, Jennie, remarked somewhat uncharitably that he had “preached every Presbyterian church in Ontario empty.” Richard and Margaret decided to take advantage of the land grants being offered to those who were willing and able to homestead on the western prairies, then known as the North West Territories. They set out for Kenaston in 1878. Margaret Moir Weir remembered her experiences as a young pioneering wife in a story she wrote in 1923. She disguised herself and Richard as Peggie and Pat, chronicling the vicissitudes and adventures of the hardy folk who established themselves in what is now the Province of Saskatchewan. Her account “Years Ago,” providing us with a vivid picture of the earliest pioneer life in western Canada, is part of the Weir Collection at River Brink.
Although he had gone west to farm, the Reverend Richard received a call to take a charge in Prince Albert. During the course of his ministry, he had several charges in Saskatchewan and neighbouring states to the south. Emulating his father, Richard and his wife also had nine children, born between 1878 and the 1890s. They were true pioneers of the west and their seven living children distinguished themselves in various professions and occupations throughout Canada.
Their eldest child, Elizabeth, became the tax collector of Saskatoon, an unusual career for a woman at the turn of the century. The second, Susan, married Hugh MacLean M.D. of Regina and subsequently of Los Angeles. Susan was a gifted watercolourist and her daughters feel that she could have had a distinguished career as an artist had she been able to have had formal training, but in that society it was the sons who were given special education leading to careers. Susan Weir MacLean told her daughters that at one time her father, the Reverend Richard, preached in what was a log cabin outside the fort at Winnipeg. When her father went into Winnipeg, the children asked for candies for a special treat, but she always asked for crayons. She also told them that she and her sisters slept on a tick mattress filled with wheat stalks in the cabin. Seeds of wheat had a habit of falling in little pieces on the floor and the three little girls nibbled them with glee. Margaret, Marion and Isobel, Susan’s
