Many of the early pioneering families who came to Upper Canada overcame great hardship and sadness before they became established in their new homeland. There are thousands of stories about these brave people who risked everything to begin life anew, and sadly many of them have been lost through time, or are known only to their direct descendants. This Fall, a small group of longtime residents of the Carlisle area will see stories about some of their ancestors appear in print.* One of these “forgotten” families of East Flamborough Township is the Sparks Family.
John Henry Sparks and his wife, Amy Ellworthy were born in the County of Devon in south west England. They emigrated to Canada with their eight children in 1843, arriving in Montréal after a seven week voyage across the Atlantic and their funds nearly exhausted. Henry Sparks sold his watch to augment his funds to pay their fare as far as Kingston, where he had to stop and work to earn money to bring them as far as Hamilton.
His great ambition was to settle on uncleared land, regardless of what it would cost to support the family until they were able to cultivate some land and raise crops sufficient for their existence. He left his wife and children in the Hamilton area and walked to the Queen’s Bush where he took up 200 acres of Crown Land in Biddulph Township. His neighbours, anxious to have settlers come into the area, turned out to build him a log shanty. Once completed, his plan was to return to Hamilton and bring his wife and children to their new home, where he believed they could subsist until a crop could be raised.
However, a terrible accident changed all the plans that John Henry Sparks had made. A tree fell across the back of one of the oxen which a neighbour had kindly brought to draw the logs, and the animal had to be killed. Mr. Sparks tried to hold the animal’s head while it was being destroyed with an axe, but the axe glanced off the oxen and cut through his hand. Building of the cabin ceased and Mr. Sparks walked back to Hamilton in a maimed condition and to a family that was destitute. Recognizing that a crisis was facing him, he went out among the farmers around Hamilton and related his misfortune. Many of them showed great kindness towards the family and provided provisions which tidied them over the winter.
Once his hand had healed sufficiently, he went to work thrashing Mr. Jame Gage’s crop of wheat with a flail, and for which he received every tenth bushel as payment. Once the job was finished, he borrowed a horse from Mr. Gage, hitched it to a cart which he had brought with him from England and took his wheat to Applegarth’s Grist Mill in Hidden Valley, East Flamborough Township, where it was ground and provided the family with one of the necessities for survival.
John Henry Sparks hired on with Mr. Gage once Spring came, and for which he received a yoke of oxen, a house rent free, firewood, pasture for a cow and $10.00 in cash as payment. So finally the family had a little security. When the summer work was over, Mr. Gage proposed to Mr. Sparks that he could rent the farm. With no means of being able to equip the farm with stock or implements, Mr. Sparks was not happy with the proposal. But when the suggestion was made by Mr. Gage that he let him have stock and implements at a valuation to be decided upon by two valuators to be chosen, one by each party, and that at the end of the ten year lease, he was to return the same valuation, the offer was accepted.
While he worked for the James Gage family, John Henry Sparks saved all the money he could, and during their tenure he was able to purchase a farm of 117 acres on Lot 10, Concession 7, East Flamborough Township from Andrew Thornton Todd of the City of Toronto for the sum of £234, and to which the family moved in 1855. The Sparks family resided on the property for 36 years during which time Amy Sparks died aged 79 years, the children all married and settled in homes of their own, and the farm passed to a son, Reuben Sparks. When Reuben retired and moved to Waterdown, he brought his father with him, where he lived to the age of 91 years. John Henry and Amy Sparks are buried in Grace Anglican Church, Waterdown.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 1984, 2022.
Editor’s Note:Fall 1994 was the release of Dorothy Turcotte’s “Carlisle: Beginnings”. Check it out in our shop!
