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Legend of Newmarket's Trading Tree, true or not, recalls town's fur trade beginnings

Newmarket’s Trading Tree is an excellent example of a “historical fact” that continues to have its doubters, says History Hound Richard MacLeod in this week's Remember This, Newmarket

Newmarket’s Trading Tree is an excellent example of a “historical fact” that continues to have its doubters. Whether this has any effect on our current perception is hard to say but it is a great example of just why words like historical facts need to be vetted closely in today’s world.  

In this article, I will examine some facts about our primary fur trading families, the Roe, Robinson, Borland and Cawthra families and the part they played in the story, along with that of our famous Trading Tree on Timothy Street. I intend to examine the facts we know to be true, as well as the speculations over the years. 

We know that expectations of lasting prosperity on Yonge Street had initially been based upon the expected permanency of the fur trade, however, with the merger of the two rival trading companies in 1821, the fur trade began to recede farther to the north.  

For more than three-quarters of a century, the name of William Roe was associated with a trading post on the southeast corner of Main and Water streets.  It is here that we begin our fur trade story.  

I published an article on William Roe earlier in this series on Newmarket Today, so I will not repeat the early history of this adventurous English boy who had run away from school and embarked on a ship sailing from Britain to Montreal. 

I will pick up the story of William Roe when he arrives in Newmarket around 1814, to a settlement consisting of only two frame houses and several log buildings. Shortly after his arrival, he enters a partnership with Andrew Borland to trade with the surrounding Indigenous community.  

During those years in the “New Market” following the war of 1812, the fur trade had become “Big Business”, supplied by the Indigenous and voyageurs who travelled with their furs for many hundreds of miles over the lakes, rivers and portages, up the Holland River in their canoes to their ancient place of disembarkation, the Upper Landing on Lake Simcoe.  

When I attended university, my professors insisted that they would then head southeast, through present day Whitchurch and Uxbridge and not to my town. They insisted that our traders would have met the indigenous peoples in Holland Landing and not in Newmarket as I was insisting.

We know that by the end of the second decade three stores had been established in the hamlet by proprietors Peter Robinson, William Roe and John Cawthra, with a large portion of the furs being exchanged  for goods in the shops of these gentlemen. Roe would travel by wagon to New York two or three months prior to arrival of the Indigenous to procure suitable goods for the trade.  

I had grown up hearing that until about 1825, when the trade had reached its peak, 300 to 400 native trappers laden with furs of fabulous value, congregated at the New Market Trading Post. At the height of this trade it was reported that during some seasons, Roe, Borland and Robinson had purchased furs valued at $30,000 to $40,000. 

There are some reports that have survived of the Indigenous peoples ‘with fine physiques, their headdresses of eagle feathers waving and carrying their weapons of war, making their way down Yonge Street to York (Toronto) once a year to receive their treaty money and presents from the territorial government’.  

It was also recalled that having been plied with excessive whiskey, they would be robbed of the supplies they had received from the government, often forced to beg food from the settlers along the way back to Holland Landing. This scandal prompted the authorities at York (Toronto) to change the place of payment to Holland Landing.  We see that Holland Landing became of importance.

Edgar Bogart, in an interview with Ms. Trewhella back in the 1940s confirmed that a small building had stood on the corner of Main and Water streets prior to the War of 1812, known to Newmarket citizens as the Roe House.  This was said to be the strategic site of the fur trade in Newmarket, being on the ancient trail and close to the Indian ford.

Part of this early building is still there, the timbers of which had been hewn by hand. Later this was clapboarded, later still it was covered with stucco and in 1932 or 1933, it was bricked. This was all done before the Cousins purchased the property, as I understand. 

In those early days the Holland River, flowing through endless miles of wooded country, was much wider and deeper. It seems doubtful that the trader canoes that visited here could have been the huge canoes, or bateaux, constructed for the navigation of the waters of the Great Lakes, making the Upper Landing a more logical destination.

It is said that when Roe traded with the Indigenous, his favourite spot was beneath a large elm tree that stood in the centre of Timothy Street, west of Main Street.  This legend has been related by Newmarket residents for generations. The ancient tree became a symbol of our prosperity and firmly fixed in the lore of the generations of people of Newmarket.  

However, its history became a topic for argument as early as the late 1890s. Was it really a trading spot?  In support of the legend, William Roe’s grandson wrote that it was a tradition within the Roe family that this had been his grandfather’s favourite trading spot.

Of interest is the fact that my mentor and father of all things concerning Newmarket history, Robert Terence Carter, could not authenticate the story in his books on our history.

Athol Hart, a learned man on all things concerning our local Indigenous, told me in a conversation in preparation for this article, “It is definitely a legend for several reasons. The area around the Holland river was a cedar swamp at the time with high banks. Can you imagine trying to carry either a canoe or a pile of furs through a cedar swamp, then through a bush with little or no trail development?  And remember, there were three trading posts right on the banks of the river at Main and Water owned by Mr. Robinson, Mr. Roe, and Mr. Cawthra, so why leave the river for a forest?”

James Allan, who as a young man of 19 had come to Newmarket in 1843, left behind a story recalling the area as mostly dense forest occupying the entire area on Timothy Street.  If one tree was singled out, why that specific tree?

I researched references by other members of Newmarket’s founding families in the local newspaper from 1870 to 1940, many having arrived as early as 1804. It is interesting that many would not positively declare the legend to be true, while some of them derided the notion of a trading tree.

One of those who hotly disputed the claim that the ancient tree was connected to the fur trade in Newmarket was Fred Hartry, born locally and 88 years old in 1943.  He stated his grandparents, who came here only a few years after it began to be settled, had told him that all the trading with the Indians took place at the lower end of Main on the riverbank.

If you have read Ethel Trewhella’s The History of Newmarket, you will know that she was very much sceptical of the legend of the Trading Tree.

While no primary reference to the tree as a trading post has ever been found, it is known from documentary evidence taken from the Registry Office that Roe owned the property on the west side of Main, which extended along the south side of Timothy, so this could have been a convenient bartering ground.  

Up to the 1820s, Holland Landing was the head of navigation on the Holland River. It was a small settlement based on two or three storehouses connected with the fur trade at Newmarket. The North West Company had built a fort, a stockade, and buildings of hewn logs.  

The Indigenous arrived there with their harvest of furs.  The businessmen of Newmarket realized it was imperative to establish themselves close to the landing, making it easier to capture the bulk of the trade and so they located themselves there.

As the land was cleared by the early settlers, the fur trade began to retreat to the north. Borland and Roe established outposts on northern waters, such as the Narrows near Orillia.

After all this time, it is likely impossible to definitively address the question of the Trading Tree. Given what we know of William Roe’s part in the trade, it would seem likely that such trading, if true, would probably be incidental in the total business carried on by William Roe as a private trader.

Sources: Records from the County Registry Office online; The Newmarket Era; The Settlement of Upper Canada by William Caniff; Reminiscences of Benjamin Cody, Toronto Telegram, August 1909; The History of Simcoe County by Andrew F. Hunter; Past and Present, Henry Cawthra, Prov. Archives; The History of Newmarket by Ethel Trewhella; Stories of Newmarket, An Old Ontario Town by Robert Terence Carter; The Pioneers of Old Ontario, William Loe Smith; Reminiscences of Eleanor Hewitt, The Newmarket Era; Sketches of Canada, by W. L. Mackenzie, Prov. Archives; Recollections of Pioneer Life, Rachel Haight; Interview with Athol Hart, local indigenous history authority.

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Newmarket resident Richard MacLeod — the History Hound — has been a local historian for more than 40 years. He writes a weekly feature about our town's history in partnership with Newmarket Today, conducts heritage lectures and walking tours of local interest, and leads local oral history interviews.




 

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About the Author: Richard MacLeod

Newmarket resident Richard MacLeod — the History Hound — has been a local historian for more than 40 years
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