Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants by William Pittman Lett

Author:William Pittman Lett [Lett, William Pittman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781421945958
Google: qysvAAAAYAAJ
Publisher: Citizien" Printing and Publishing Company
Published: 1874-01-15T00:55:49+00:00

CHAPTER IX.

Table of Contents

Pierre Rocque, thou ancient man of stone!

I had almost let thee alone;

But 'twere not well to leave behind,

A man of such a rocky kind;

Thy Christian name is stone—that's hard,

Rock is thy surname, saith the Bard

Thou art an adamantine card.

And Baptist Cantin, too, it seems,

Appears 'mongst recollections' dreams,

A carpenter of worth and note,

Who ne'er asked sixpence for his vote.

Helaire Pinard presents his face,

And cheerfully I give him place,

A quiet, rare man, be it known,

Who minds no business but his own.

Joseph Paquette, to thee I give

A line to make thy memory live,

'Mid earliest recollections, thou

Art not the one least thought of now;

Something far better than mere fame

Is thine, it is an honest name!

Thomas E. Woodbury, who made

Tin cans and stovepipes, when the trade

And town was in an infant state,

Back in the days of '28.

And Fletcher, an old Yankee, who

Taught school and flogged his scholars, too

With a good health-inspiring cat,

My blessing on his old white hat!

Tho' scarce, entitled like the rest

By early advent, I think best

To name "The Orator of the West,"

James Spencer Lidstone, child of song,

The "man of memory," vast and long,

Who had, reader you need not start,

All Milton's Paradise by heart;

Strange mixture he of prose and rhyme,

Ridiculous, and the sublime

In him were singularly blended;

Where one began or the other ended,

It would be difficult to tell.

He played his part in each so well,

James Spencer Lidstone, fare thee well!

And 'mongst the ancient sons of fame

Who says that Dinny Cantlin's name

Does not deserve a line or two

In these old chronicles most true?

Dinny was just four feet in length,

Although a man of pith and strength,

His arm was always ready, too,

All rowdyism to subdue.

When special constable one day,

He captured in some sudden fray

A fellow six feet high, or taller,

And held him firmly by the collar;

And Dinny, as he upward gazed

At the colossus, o'er him raised,

Exclaimed, "escape now, if you can,

You're in the clutches of a man!"

Dinny had a commanding eye,

His hat was eighteen inches high

Come next to view, Denis O'Neill,

A ship carpenter, who laid the keel

Of many a vessel in his day,

And still he clinks and caulks away.

James Finch, too, who died here of late,

Was one of those of '28,

Or '27 it may be,

Comes nearer to the certainty;

James Finch sledged stoutly with a will,

In the old forge on "Major's Hill,"

In '29, he once lay still

For fifteen minutes on the ground

Insensible to sight or sound,

'Twas a stone that almost killed him quite,

In a most lively faction fight

In Bytown's celebrated fair,

When stones flew thickly through the air,

I can't forget it, I was there;

Its history I'll not jot down

Until I get to Upper Town.

And Charles Rowan, well I know,

The reader sought for him ere now,

What shall I of friend Charlie say,

Who came from Connaught all the way?

Who well can speak the celtic tongue

In which the Irish mintrels sung.

When famous Malachi of old

The collar wore of beaten gold,

Torn fiercely from the haughty Dane

By his right arm in battle slain!

Charlie is mild and full of meekness,

Horses with him have been a weakness:

A clipper spanking between traces

He used to drive at trotting races,

And then his powers of selection

In liquor almost touch perfection.

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