History Scotland Magazine: Review - Frontiersmen and Settlers, William C. Wonders

Frontiersmen and Settlers

William C. Wonders

Trafford 2002. ISBN 1-55369-277-2, Pb pp345, 15.00.

To buy visit www.trafford.com/robots/02-0090.html

Genealogy is such a depressing study. Neither a science nor an art, devotees ferret away amongst the bones of their ancestors and produce a catalgue of couplings not much more enlightening than the begattings and begettings of the Bible. However, Frontiersmen and Settlers is not such a dreary list of the names of cousins but is a fascinating account of the social and working conditions of the authors maternal ancestors, the Bells, and how they drifted away from their original home in the Borders to become, like the seed of Abraham, scattered throughout the world.

The author makes the case that the Bells are really MacMillans in disguise but it may be that the name came from several independent sources and there is little harm in believing, if you want to, that the name has associations with the Temple of Bell aka the Tower of Babel. Wherever they originally came from, the authors family turned up in the Borders and engaged in the typical border pursuits: raiding for cattle in England and backing wrong horses in Scotland. They backed their superior, the Earl of Douglas, when in 1455 James II moved against the Back Douglases, and theBells were dispossessed and scattered to the winds, their seat at Kirkconnel being given to the Maxwells. The Bell clan, or rather bearers of the name, refused to learn their lesson and by the end of the 16th century, James VI, with his eye on the English throne, was down in the Borders hanging the odd Bell and threatening others with the same fate.

The Bells became enthusiastic Covenanters and many were shot for their beliefs. Following upon the Battle of the Boyne it is estimated that between 1689 and 1715 some 50,000 families emigrated from Scotland to Ulster and, judging by the ubiquity of the name, many of them must have been Bells. Despite popular belief, the Presbyterians did not lord it over the Catholics, but both groups suffered from discrimination from the members of the Episcopalian Church of Ireland. Economic hardship following upon the end of the Napoleonic Wars encouraged many of the Bells to emigrate to Canada and amongst them was the authors ancestor, Joseph Bell, who, then only two years of age, crossed the Atlantic with his father, William.

The Bell family of husband, wife and two small children, having braved the terrors of the deep had now to cope with the fears of cholera as they travelled from Montreal, westward through Quebec on their way to York, now Toronto, with a then population of 5,500. In Peterborough County, the Bells purchased a homestead some 50 miles (80km) north-east of York and settled down into the hard work of first surviving then prospering. As the family prospered so the members expanded their territory, moving west along the recently constructed railway line into Saskatchewan and further on to Alberta. This movement west was encouraged by the Canadian government which was anxious to establish citizens in territory which was being looked upon with some cupidity by their larger neighbour to the south.

The came the Great War, or World War One as we now call it. The Cause was adopted as blindly and enthusiastically in Canada as in the mother country. Volunteers rushed to join up before the fun was over and many arrived in time to sample the chlorine gas first employed on 22 April 1915. In a fit of patriotic fervour the citizens of the Ontarian settlement of Berlin changed its name to Kitchener, thus ensuring that their town would forever commemorate one of the more ignorant and blimpish generals in the British army. Howard Bell, a somewhat sickly scion of the family, answered the call, and was killed in Flanders on 21 October 1917.

Meantime the Bells who had stayed in the east moved to Toronto. World War Two came and brought prosperity both during it and after. Toronto exploded in size and has become the cultural and financial capital of a somewhat ramshackle country of great potential. It is a pity that Professor Wonders, while detailing in great depth the vicissitudes of the Bell family, only occasionally mentions the problems and potentials of the country they inhabit. Like earlier Bells, Professor Wonders and his wife Lillian moved west to Alberta and after a distinguished career, as the founder and now emeritus Professor of the Department of Geography there, have moved further west to retire to Victoria, British Columbia. Professor Wonders is already known to Scottish readers for his work on The Sawdust Fusiliers or Canadian Forestry Corps and many other articles on Canadian/Scottish themes.

This account of a particular Bell family is a most thoroughly researched academic treatise. It is the tale of a family very firmly placed in their historic and economic contexts. There are 25 appendices, a bibliography of some 350 works and a more than adequate index. There are many well-reproduced photographs, while the eighteen maps are models of clarity and draughtsmanship and in total this book is a valuable contribution to the account of the Diaspora of the Scots. Despite a strenuous effort to find some error, typographical or otherwise, I could only find one small slip on p.105 when 1932 appears instead of 1832.

This book has been reproduced by a relatively new process. Until recently books were printed prior to publication and sale. This meant that the publisher had to store, say 1,000 volumes, while the book was sold in dribs and drabs. Frontiersmen and Settlers does not exist to any extent in print. The complete volume is kept, in digital form, on a disk and, if a purchaser wants to buy a copy then one, individual copy is printed, bound and delivered. Anyone interested in purchasing this volume should contact Trafford Publishing at www.trafford.co,/robots/02-0090.html

Ian Keillar, Elgin.