Chapter Six
Genuine Original Men are Scarce
“Bowmanville made excellent liquor and its citizens consumed it at alarming rates.”
– Shane Peacock, The Great Farini
“. . . we are nursing a viper in our midst which is stinging our very vitals.”
– The Canadian Statesman, 29 April 1869
Winter was, in many ways, a more pleasant experience in the 19th century. In the absence of snow plows, salting machines and sophisticated central heating, the only response was a grudging acceptance.
Nothing better symbolized this than the sport of curling. Near Vanstone Mill and south of the bridge carrying the Kingston Road, two of Bowmanville’s first curling pads flanked a skating rink. By 1877 a shed protected curlers from the harsher elements of the season, but it had no heating nor could the rinks be protected from January thaws. Still the rink site was covered with six inches of clay and thoroughly padded to ensure that the eventual sheet of ice was firm and lasting.
In January 1869 Colonel Frederick Cubitt and William Roaf Climie were teammates on Bowmanville’s number three rink against Orono.1 As well they partnered for the married men (invariably dubbed the Benedicts in reference to Shakespeare’s confirmed bachelor who is deceived into marriage) in their competition with the town’s single men. In the cold and fraternity of play they shared and, in their way, created the atmosphere for town life and identity. Bowmanville was no longer an anonymous location on the planet, but a defined place which people called home and defended with pride when away.
What made the curlers real people, however, rather than the antique cliches of small town friendship, was the intense rivalry which often exploded into public anger and even hate between messieurs Climie and Cubitt. These two men in many ways symbolize the vitality of Bowmanville life in the last century, when its citizens could believe that they were the centre of the universe and its newspaper could proclaim itself The Canadian Statesman and not earn snickers for pompous overreach.
Who were these two men who could encompass so much of the life of their town and in turn define its meaning for their fellow citizens?
In late November of 1872 an Indian was brought before the magistrate’s court proceeded over by Colonel Cubitt, the Mayor of Bowmanville. By this time the only remnant native population in the area, never large in number, had lost any sense of the independence that the first European arrivals had encountered. The nameless aboriginal brought before Cubitt’s court was a scarred figure found drunk in a public place and fined three dollars. No action was taken against the whiskey salesman “. . . although the law in some places will put an individual six months in a chain gang who sells whiskey to an Indian”.2
Six 19th century Bowmanville mayors.
William Climie, Bowmanville’s original “Statesman” and his successor Moses James.
William Climie was furious and mocked Cubitt, commenting, “. . . the tender hearted mayor inflicts in this case no punishment.” Climie’s medium was his newspaper, The Canadian Statesman, which he had assumed from his father, John, a Congregationalist minister. Climie and Cubitt’s disdain for each other, more pronounced by the likelihood of almost daily encounter in this town of a few thousand residents, reflected their backgrounds and public philosophies.
Cubitt was among the early English arrivals in the fledgling town. His father, Woolmer Richard Cubitt MD, a graduate of Edinburgh University in 1823, had been the owner of a large estate, Erpingham, in Norfolk. Formal records show that he married Mary Churchill and had three sons, Richard, Fleetwood and Frederick. Curiously Squair’s history says, “There was also, probably, a son John Churchill . . .” and leaves it at that.3 They came to Darlington Township in 1833 and, just four years later , eighteen year old Frederick had a life changing experience as a volunteer with the Militia force that marched to Toronto to confront the rebel forces of William Lyon MacKenzie. It would forever confirm him as, what Fairbairn called, a Conservative dyed in the wool.4 It began as well a lifetime association with the military which saw him rise to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the 45th Battalion.
The Cubitts, however, were more than defenders of the Family Compact which controlled the political affairs and much of the province’s best land. They liked to entertain, they drank and they may even have been somewhat the playboys of the western world. Of the three sons, Doctor Richard was described by Fairbairn as “. . . a great favourite with his acquaintances; he was very sociable and friendly. They kept bachelors’ hall at the mill and I have been told, led a right jolly life.”5
The Climies, on the other hand, were profoundly, though progressively, religious, noted teetotallers and proponents of the temperance movement. John Climie was a leader in the Congregationalist Church with its cultured and progressive mandate. He came to Bowmanville sometime around 1848 to assume the pastorship of the church, established locally at least as early as 1840. He purchased a local newspaper, The Messenger, and in the mid 1850s (sources conflict as to whether it was 1854 or 1855) brought out the first issue of The Canadian Statesman.6 It was a name full of pomp and ceremony but also civic responsibility, signifying that even a small community played a major role in the national territory that only became a country in 1867. Over the past century and a half Bowmanville and The Canadian Statesman have become synonymous. We might say, fairly, that Bowmanville is The Canadian Statesman and it would be hard to imagine the town without the independent-minded journal.
John Climie’s son, William Roaf, was born in Simcoe County in 1839 and thus had no experience of the Upper Canada Rebellion, but he would not escape its impact. Congregationalists were one of the few denominations associated with the insurgents though this was as much due to their espousal of religious tolerance and education reforms as to any actual support. Years later William Climie would say, “William Lyon MacKenzie was an extreme man; had he not taken the stand he did we might still be under the iron heel of the family compact, Who can imagine the condition of society of the present day had these men not been sterling patriots.”7
The Climies were devoted to reform, but on one issue they tolerated no backsliding. Alcohol was a scourge. It was cheap, plentiful and seemingly everywhere. It destroyed families and the culture of violence in the mid 19th century could be laid at its door.
Climie’s own paper, suspect only because of its owner’s point of view, spoke of numerous tragedies. James Borland was shot in the face by his brother, thinking he was a cat committing depredations near the barn.8 In 1868, “A farmer by the name of John Cotter was shot dead at the door of his brother-in-law, a farmer named John Gay, by the discharge of a gun. He had drunk liquor shortly before at the station hotel of the Grand Trunk Railway.”9
And in the same year, “Ladies cannot come home from church on Sunday evenings without being jostled against by low blackguards that congregate at the various corners on King Street. Well dressed, well paid street rowdies are allowed to collect at corners and make use of their vile language before passing ladies without fear of interruption.”10
Vulgar behaviour, however, was not solely the result of excessive drink. It represented an extreme occurrence in a more open society akin perhaps to that of the late 20th century—a world either to be feared or fully joined. In the remaining decades of the 19th century it would gradually be replaced by that of a more closed society of conventions and restrictions on social behaviour, which has become the prevailing image of the Victorian era. We can look at these two protagonists and conclude that Colonel Cubitt was a guardian, though from a life of privilege, of the open world and Mr. Climie, aware of its excesses, a proponent of a more closed and safer world.
As far as William Climie was concerned