Hastings

(from newspaper clippings and Days of Yore)

John and Betsy (Hasty) Hastings came to Canada in 1842 with their six children, settling in Brooke Twp. They lived in a one story log cabin. John was a carpenter. He and his son had a saw mill on their property.

John Hastings’s son John married Jane Hume and they settled in Brooke Twp. until his accidental death at age 45. After her husband’s accident Jane moved to Watford and ran a boarding house at 555 Front St., with her brother John Hume as her chief boarder. Her daughter Anne became a local school teacher.

Her oldest boy Will married Sarah Hindson from Watford. They raised six children. Will ran a hardware store and sheet metal business. Sometimes referred to as “Professor Hastings,” he was the leader of Watford’s band in 1882. In 1902 he and his family moved to the North West Territories. He returned to Watford in 1924 for the Old Boy’s Reunion and led the Silver Band one more time. The band members attracted much attention with their tall silk hats, long frock coats and white gloves.

As a schoolboy, Melvin King Hastings (1907–1958) is said to have put a cat into the heating system of his elementary school in order to grant a day off for his schoolmates. He was famous locally for his caricatures of local Watford residents. He most always drew his subjects from memory. Two of his caricatures, S. E. Thompson, local baker, and Thomas Malone, stonemason, have endured the test of time having been drawn in pavement. These caricatures are now in front of the Watford Fire Hall Museum.

Melvin usually drew pencil caricatures of his fellow townsmen or of public figures. He also drew with crayons, colouring animals and birds in imaginary situations. One example shows a pompous rooster dressed in a top hat, leading a plain bonneted hen hauling a huge cartload of eggs. The hen is unaided and is perspiring profusely.

Melvin was the only son of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Hastings, pioneer Watford builder of wagons and sleighs. He moved to Alberta where he died from a fall on an icy surface in Lethbridge. At that time Evelyn (Hastings) Way from California was the only surviving sister. It is not known if Melvin Hastings was related to John and Betsy Hastings from Brooke Twp.

Chapter 24 of 25 - Hastings Family

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