The region was noted for the bloody, hostile encounters between the warring Iroquois du Nord and the Iroquois du Sud. But with the British occupation of the country came a change of affairs. The vast hinterland was thrown open to settlement, and an invading army of immigrants subsequently marched through the verdant woodlands of Upper Canada, armed with the implements of agriculture, having, through necessity, turned their “swords into ploughshares.” The United Empire Loyalists from the recently established United States formed the vanguard.
These first pioneers settled along the entire southern frontier of Upper Canada, and their success in establishing a viable existence kindled the zeal of the British government to found other settlements in this, her largest colony. In the year 1815, a proclamation was issued in England, offering free passage and tracts of land to such natives of Britain who might be desirous of proceeding to Canada for the purpose of settling. As a further inducement to potential settlers, this offer was supplemented by free provisions not only during the voyage, but also upon their arrival in the colony and until such time as the land, which was given free to each male immigrant over legal age, could be made to support them. When the first party of settlers arrived in Canada in the autumn of 1815, they found, much to their dismay, that no preparations had been made for their reception by the colonial authorities; thus compelling them to remain in temporary quarters at Brockville until the following summer.
In the fall of 1816, a party of these early settlers, looking toward the early subjugation of the forest, felled a giant elm tree at the site of the present town of Perth. In June of the same year, the “military colony of Perth,” which was comprised mainly of British Regulars whose terms of service had expired while in Canada, and who more recently had been members of regiments engaged in the War of 1812, arrived in the vicinity, and were assigned to the surrounding townships of Bathurst and Drummond. Alexander Gourley, the eminent historian who visited the settlement in 1817, gave the following account after noting that nearly one thousand of these soldiers had settled in the area:
“Some of them are doing well, but many were unpromising settlers, and did indeed only remain until the term of receiving rations expired, or they acquired the right to sell the land given them…At the first settlement of Upper Canada it was not uncommon for soldiers to sell their two hundred acre lots of land for a bottle of rum.”1
In 1820, the County of Lanark received considerable accessions to her population in the form of the “Lesmahago” and “Transatlantic” Societies of Scottish immigrants, who settled in Dalhousie township; and within a very few years, with the exception of the northern extremities of the county, settlement became quite general.
This pioneer strain was the stock from which the Marks brothers evolved. Although the Marks family has its roots deeply entrenched in Ireland, the name is English in origin, so it is probable the patriarch of the clan was already firmly established in the country when Elizabeth I, ascended to the throne of England. Following the subjugation of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell in 1652, several male members of the Marks family who had fought with Cromwell’s “round heads” were rewarded with tracts of land for services rendered.
Robert Marks, the 19th century family patriarch, was born in County Mayo, Ireland, about 1800. Very little is known about this gentleman, other than that he married a woman named Sarah, circa 1824; and while still residing in the “old country” he became the father of at least one child, Matthew. Between the years 1825 and 1832, they emigrated to Canada and raised an additional ten children.
Unfortunately, no documented evidence remains indicating why Robert Marks left the land of his birth to take up residence in the Canadian wilderness. However, it would be safe to assume that a desire to create a better life for his family was the prime motivating factor. The exact date of their arrival in Lanark County also remains a mystery, lost in the annals of history. But there are several references to the surname Marks in the Bathurst Courier, a local newspaper of the day, the first mention was in 1836, evidence that the family had resided in the area for some time.
In later years, Ernie, the youngest member of the Marks Brothers theatrical troupe, would record for posterity a brief, yet personal glimpse into the early lives of his grandfather, Robert Marks, and father Thomas Marks. “My father’s father,” he wrote, “came from Ireland with his wife, but I do not remember him since he was dead at the time I was born. My father grew up where the present farm of Dan Brennan is located.” [Concession 5, Lot 2, Bathurst township]
“It seems that my grandfather in his later life married for the second time. There were two elderly ladies living in a log cabin not far from the homestead and my grandfather married one of these and moved in with them. His family were against it, but grandfather is reported to have said, ‘It is a poor rooster that can’t scratch for two hens.’
“This marriage did not work and grandfather came back to live with his son Bob, after three weeks. I understand that the old ladies beat up on him. His son, Bob, carried on in the old homestead and grandfather lived with him until his death.”2
Robert Marks Sr., according to the personal and agricultural census of 1851-52, was evidently a prosperous farmer, having at that time accumulated 200 acres of land, of which 100 acres were under cultivation. When the next public census was taken in 1861, there was no mention of Robert Marks, leaving one to suspect that he had since left the area or had passed away.
Thomas Marks Sr., father of the celebrated seven brothers, was a second son, born in 1833 on the Bathurst township homestead. Facts surrounding his formative years are sketchy, but we do know he spent the better part of his life tilling the soil and was instrumental in turning Christie Lake into a viable recreation area that had few equals in the Ottawa Valley. The year 1853 held great promise for this resourceful twenty-year- old. It would still be another year before he legally “came of age”; but already he had taken a bride and purchased a farm on the third concession of South Sherbrooke township, which included extensive water frontage on Christie Lake. In conjunction with this initial purchase he acquired another tract of land some three miles distant, on which he cleared one hundred acres and constructed a substantial residence. During the next seventy years the Marks family would acquire well over seven hundred acres of the finest recreational property bordering Christie Lake, and this land would eventually constitute the bulk of the Marks’ real estate investments.
Within a few short years, Thomas Marks and family fell victim to the ravages of fire – a scourge which plagued many communities during the early days of settlement. His home, in addition to out-buildings, was consumed in a rampant inferno that originated in a local tannery. Assisted by prevailing winds, it blazed a path of destruction through the width and breadth of South Sherbrooke and surrounding townships, causing extensive damage to both property and livestock. While compiling his brief, but intimate history of the Marks family, Ernie commented on this tragic event:
“After his marriage he went to live in the ‘upper place’ where he built a log cabin. It was a very poor location, located in the wilderness and was poor farm land. Some of my brothers were born there. This cabin was burned down in a huge fire that swept the district and when the government representative called the burned-out people to Perth to award them money to start up again, my father declared that all he needed was strength. The government man said that his name would be recorded in Ottawa as the most honest man in Lanark County.
“When he came to Christie Lake after the fire he built another log cabin near where the present Inn (Arliedale) is located, but a few yards to the east. I was not born in this cabin, but in the more imposing house that was later built, but I remember the cabin as a boy and recall that it had a dirt floor and a huge fireplace.”3
Ernie also recorded the unusual and somewhat poetic circumstances surrounding the chance meeting between his father and the woman who would eventually become his bride, the charming Margaret Farrell:
“One day he
