Fun Fact Friday #9 - Little Ireland 🍀

Colonel T. Talbot

      Did you know that the first four settlers in the Dunwich township were all related?

      On July 14, 1809, a raft-like boat sailed along the shore of Lake Erie. Packed with men, women, and children and all of their belongings, scared and excited to see what this new land had to offer. They finally landed and were met by a short, stocky man named Colonel Thomas Talbot. He was happy to greet them because they were the kind of settlers he wanted, Irish.

      There were four individual families aboard that craft, Storey, Backus, Patterson, and Pearce. Mary Storey was the eldest. A widow at 51 accompanied by her son, Walter, and daughters, Anne and Sarah. Anne ended up marrying Stephen Backus (another settler) and they bared eleven children. Leslie Patterson immigrated at the same time as his sister, Mary Storey, and met and married Lydia Backus. Mary and Leslie's other sister, Frances Patterson, married John Pearce in Pennsylvania, but then made their way to the Talbot Settlement along with the others.

      There is a barn quilt hung at the Backus-Page House Museum in honour of the four settling families. It is a green and yellow Irish star that symbolizes the families' ancestry. The star also emphasizes the progress that the settlers had made. Finally, the four pointed star represents the four families.

Visit Stephen Backus and Anne Storey's grandchildren's home at:
29424 Lakeview Line, Wallacetown, ON
(519) 762-3072

A map of Elgin County in 1877.
Second from the left is the area (Dunwich)
 the families settled on.