Part of the Society’s work is to collect local history. This is achieved in a variety of ways but one of the most satisfying is when correspondence brings stories and information about a family of whom only the smallest details are known. This is often just a name, that through an entry on the Assessment Roll or a Directory Listing has become part of the township’s history. This August, a letter originally sent to the Hamilton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society was forwarded to the Society in the hope that additional information about early Flamborough settlers could be found to assist an 80 year old lady from St. Mary’s, Ontario. Included with the lady’s request was a wonderful history of a Mountsberg pioneer and associated Strabane and Millgrove families that will not only be added to the Society’s files, but also possibly to the records of the Mountsberg Tweedsmuir Histories and Mr. Cecil Hamilton’s research on the Strabane community.
Adam Darling was born 13 November 1809 at Ninemill, Charnside, Berwickshire, Scotland. He was the third son and fourth child of James Darling and his wife, Jane Black. His brothers, William, James and John and one sister, Isabella, remained in Scotland but Agnes (Mrs. John Inglis), his other sister did eventually come and settle in Canada.
Sometime during the early 1830s Adam took passage on a sailing vessel travelling to America and after being at sea for thirteen weeks finally landed in New Jersey. He stayed there for three years but after contracting fever and ague and being unable to work, he decided to come north to Canada and find an uncle, Adam Black, after whom he was named and who owned a hotel, described as “being 12 miles from Guelph and whose Post Office was Dundas”.1
Travelling northwards, he passed through Hamilton, which at the time he recalled had only a few buildings. He found the Brock Road and when halfway along, stopped at a house for a drink of water and to enquire about directions to Black’s Hotel. While talking to the family he discovered that they had also originally come from Berwickshire, and so a friendship with the Thomas Nickle family2 began.
He continued on his way to the Millgrove area, found his uncle and stayed with him until his health had improved. On his uncle’s advice, he purchased a small farm in the northwest corner of East Flamborough Township that had recently been created after the northern part of the township had been re-surveyed.3 The property consisted on forty five acres of Lot 10, Concession 14 and according to Darling family stories there was alreading a small house and clearing on it when Adam took possession, suggesting that there may have been squatters on it before the re-surveying occurred.4
On 14 February 1839, Adam Darling and Helen Nickle, daughter of Thomas and his wife Mary Dickson were married by Reverend Mark Y. Stark in Ancaster. Adam’s name appears on the earliest known Assessment Roll for the township that was issued in 1841, and again on the Agricultural Census of 1851. In the decade between, a number of children were born to Adam and Helen, the majority of whom did not survive the harsh pioneer surroundings into which they were born.5 No record of a burial site for these little ones has been located to date, so they may have been interred on a corner of the family farm as was often the case when there was no burying ground within the community.
Although very little is known about Adam Darling while he lived in East Flamborough, one storey about him, where he is described as “a giant of a man with strength to match his stature” is recorded in the history of Mountsberg. The McCurdy family of County Antrim, Ireland were the Darling’s neighbours to the south. James McCurdy and his wife, Rose Curry has a family of five children and settled on Lot 10, Concession 13 in 1848. Two of their boys, John and Adam helped their father on the farm, while another son went out to work. In September 1850, John, then 26 years old, met a tragic death. While a “bee” to build a log house was in progress on Lot 9, Concession 14 for Edward McCarthy, the oxen started up with a rush and a handspike (a logging tool) flew off and struck John in the temple. Adam Darling, huge and strong, single-handedly carried John back to the McCurdy family cabin which was a considerable distance away, near the southeast of their 100 acres. Sadly by the time they reached there, John had died.
It is known that the family attended church at Duff’s Presbyterian Church, Puslinch Township as Adam Darling is recorded as one of the members on the Communion Roll of 1844. One Sunday while the family were away at church their barn burnt down. Perhaps this serious loss, their need by 1855 for more land to support the family and provide for their two oldest sons and a sadness that they must have associated with this farm resulted in a decision to begin looking for more property. In 1854 they received word that Bruce County was to be opened up for settlement and plans were made to see what the prospects might be.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 1997, 2023.
