Move marks last of original 8th Concession farmers
Maureen McLeod is leaving Northslope Farm, on the 8th Line of the former Nottawasaga Township.
“I’m the last of the Mohicans,” she said from her easy chair by the kitchen window, emptied cabinets behind her, as she prepared for the moving truck to come in a few days.
To commemorate the long-time farm families of the area, neighbour Jim Muzyka arranged to have a Sugar Maple planted at the top of a hill on the southern edge of the McLeod farm and a gathering of locals took place Saturday to mark the occasion.
Muzyka described Maureen’s move as a tipping point and the end of the era of the 100-acre string farms that where settled in the mid-1800s. “Virtually every farm has become a residential estate or been amalgamated into a much larger farming operation,” he said. “The end of the era of the original 100-acre homesteads seems punctuated by Maureen’s move.”
“I don’t want it to be about me,” said Maureen. “I want it to be to remember that there were people here who worked hard and didn’t always prosper but loved their land. It’s not about me as much as the people who were here and who settled and who came from wherever they came from, mostly Scotland, Ireland or England, with diddlysquat and have managed to buy a bit of land,” she said acknowledging that some bought the land sight unseen and didn’t know what they were getting into, while others did. “The original McLeods took the last two pieces of land out of the Crown in this Township and let me tell you, nobody else wanted it.”
McLeod leaves behind a story-and-a-half log house built in 1874 or 1875 by the Blackstocks. The farm got ahead of Donald Blackstock so in 1916, Alexander (Sandy) McLeod paid off the mortgage and gave Blackstock enough money to be able to move into The Glen. Sandy McLeod sold it to his son in 1920 and Maureen’s husband Charlie bought it in 1964, the week before they were married. Charlie had been born in the house and lived there his entire life. Together, they raised three children Alex, Ian, and Mariane in that house.
Between the original 100-acre parcel, a 100-acre upper farm, another 50-acre lot they purchased, and rented land, they farmed about 400 acres at one point with oats, barley and hay and pastured beef cattle and pigs.
“It’s hilly, you have to be a little tough to manage it,” said McLeod.
Maureen worked as a registered nurse, starting off at the hospital and later in long-term care, but she never worked full-time after the children were born. She made time to be president of the figure skating club, 4-H and church work, while also helping to run the farm.
She said the neighbourhood on the 8th Concession has changed. The old farming families have left for the most part and her neighbours, many of whom are from the city, come up here to get away from people. She remembers when Harmen Best was selling his land across the road. There was an agreement that he was going to keep the house and the McLeods would buy his 50 acres.
“A city person came along and they wanted to buy it all for more money than we had agreed to,” said Maureen.
She said they had to break the deal because it meant Harmen would get more money. That was almost 50 years ago, but they weren’t the first weekenders to discover the neighbourhood. There was a man named Murray Davis who had bought a farm and hired a farm manager. “He was the first. I guess there were more coming but they just hadn’t this far,” said Maureen.
The old farm families – the Campbells, the Bests, the Lanes, the Arnolds, the Fergusons, the Allens – have all moved out of the area. She said between the Hamiltons in Glen Huron and Donny Metheral, she is the last of the long term residents.
“It’s the evolution of the time. You either had to get bigger and this land isn’t flat enough to get too much bigger,” said Maureen, explaining that the really big farm equipment is difficult to maneuver on the hilly landscape.
Northslope Farm is for sale and she is off to her new home in Collingwood. A self proclaimed “bull-headed female,” one of many in these parts going back awhile, she is also very practical, another of the fine attributes of the women in these parts.
Having worked as a registered nurse in long-term care for 38 years, she learned one should downsize a little before the kids have to do it all.
“I have watched, for years and years, people coming into The Manor and they stayed in their house too long. They haven’t been able to do the work of the move and they weren’t
able to decide what they wanted. I think it’s better to go when you can,” said Maureen. “It was and it wasn’t and it’s going to be bad some days but I realize it’s the best thing to do and when it’s the best thing to do, you just grit your teeth and do it.”
“At one point I couldn’t imagine leaving Creemore,” but she said, after much thought she knows there could come a time when she loses her licence. “There’s no place to go in Creemore if you can’t drive.”
She said others who leave the farm usually get a place in Creemore but McLeod is hoping that by moving to a house in Collingwood, she is able
to stay there longer. McLeod said she will still come to Dunedin to attend church, and other events. She is also still very much involved in the GNE.
Photo: Farm families from the Dunedin are gather Oct. 19 at the invitation of neighbour Jim Muzyka, for a commemorative tree planting ceremony to mark the last of the original residents, Maureen McLeod (left of tree), leaving the area. Pictured from left(ish) is: Shelley Mendes and Josh Mendes (Gordon family), Judy Milley (Arnold family), Judy Wickens (Potts family), Delsie Metheral, Diane Elliott and Allan Elliott (McLeod family), Robert McLeod, local historian Helen Blackburn, Carol Cooksey (Allen family), Cherry Rowbotham (McLeod family), Cathy Hume (McLeod family), Ian McLeod, Wendy Prentice (McLeod family), Blair Rowbotham, Connor McLeod and Dana Prentice.
