Blythe

Looking up the hill, past fence to Blythe, c 1950

John and Anne Langton were born into a wealthy mercantile Lancashire family. Their father, Thomas, imported flax and hemp to manufacture sail cloth. They lived in Blythe Hall, near Ormskirk. Thomas and his wife Ellen wanted to provide the best education for their children that they could, so they set out on the Grand Tour of Europe, where their children received private instruction from masters like Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. While travelling, Anne learned to be an artist, while both received an excellent education. However, while they were touring Europe, the family business fell on hard times, so they were forced to return to England and sell Blythe Hall. From then on, the family would look back to their former home—the life and prosperity they had lost.

Though they were in “embarrassed circumstances”, an aunt helped John to attend Cambridge. He then emigrated to Upper Canada, where he hoped to live as a gentlemen, which would not have been possible in Britain given his circumstances. As he arrived on Sturgeon Lake, he found that many of his new neighbours were also younger sons who lacked the means to live up to their expectations back in Britain. John hoped to make his living by speculating in land and farming—which to an English gentleman of that era meant managing the operation with hired labourers doing much of the physical work.  It was a proud moment for him on August 20, 1833, as he became “for the first time in my life, a Lord of the soil.”

John lived in a cabin, but in 1837 his parents, sister and aunt Alice crossed the Atlantic to join him. For his family, he commissioned a new two storey home, named Blythe after the old family home back in Lancashire. This new Blythe was one of the largest and most conspicuous houses in the area, and was furnished with butternut panelling. Though beautiful, it was difficult to keep warm. They employed a neighbouring boy, William Dick (later Reeve of Fenelon Township and Member of the Manitoba Legislature) full time as their chopper. He was occupied all winter chopping up two large maple trees a day and hauling the firewood into the house, trying to keep it warm. Despite such efforts, Anne recorded in her journal:

The mercury stood only three degrees above zero [Fahrenheit] in our room whilst we were dressing. At noon it rose to five, and once we contrived to raise it to eight, which is the utmost a good fire has been able to do for it... Much of to-day has been spent in keeping ourselves warm, by which I do not mean standing or sitting over the fires, but going about piling wood upon them, and also with paste and brown paper seeking to keep out the cold wind.

Many of their neighbours lived in log shanties (perhaps with their livestock, often with many children sharing the one room) which were easier to keep warm.

Blythe Farm, Watercolour, 1851

For a gentlewoman like Anne Langton, living in the backwoods of Upper Canada was an ironic life. She and John both recorded their experiences in very descriptive letters to relatives. Later in life Anne published The Story of Our Family., Anne used her artistic abilities to sketch her surroundings. Together they created records of the pioneer experience that no other Canadian community can match.

John had calculated how to manage his farm to ensure that it could be sufficiently profitable that he could live as a gentleman. But he soon began to learn the many hard lessons of farming.  His rabbits died. He lost most of his poultry by the fall of 1834, and found them hard to keep over the winter because their feet froze. He had to kill his oxen after one of them was accidentally injured. He found Swedish turnips and mangel wurzel tough sales. He realized “I was led away with the rest of the mania and thought that our time would come sooner than it has.” He would have liked to live as a farmer, but realized that his farm could generate enough to get by, but precious little cash beyond that. This was the life that his neighbours would live, working their whole lives to create a farm from the forest so their children might have the opportunities that came with cleared fields, a barn and a home. His land ventures were also not a profitable as he had hoped. A gentleman with class consciousness like John Langton aspired to much more.

By the 1850s John was running out of time. He was elected to Parliament in 1851 (he later became Canada’s First Auditor General), and moved to Peterborough, but stayed at Blythe for the winter, before leaving for good in May. By 1855, his old genteel neighbour was asking for additional collateral against his life insurance for the mortgage on Blythe, and he sold the farm on April 1, 1856 to Mossom Boyd. This brother-in-law was a Bobcaygeon lumberman, who had migrated as an orphan, much poorer than John—but was a remarkably industrious businessman. Eight days later, Boyd flipped the property to Robert Graham.

The Graham family lived at Blythe for generations, initially using the Langton’s home and barn. As the years passed, better materials were available for construction, and they erected a beautiful brick home and cathedral barn on the site. The family used both homes into the twentieth century, but by mid century the Langton’s home was falling into disrepair and has since been disassembled. Part of the butternut panelling was preserved at Maryboro Lodge Museum. Because of Anne and John Langton’s unique artistic and literary contributions, the site retains a special significance.

The Graham Family's Barn and House at Blythe