“My mind will still while life remains
Be plac’d on you and home.”
On June 25, 1838, a father imprisoned for treason crafted an intriguing object for one of his daughters. The small wooden box measures just 8 cm by 4.5 cm by 4.5 cm. It was carefully carved from walnut. Verses are written in black ink on smooth, inlaid panels on two sides. There is a dedication on the dovetailed, sliding lid.
Beauty is a flowe[r] that fades,
Soon it fall’s in time’s cold shade,
Virtue is a flower more gay,
That never dies nor fades away
Tho’ I be doom’d in Tyrants chains,
To loiter to the tomb
My mind will still while life remains
Be plac’d on you and home.
A present … Barclay,
From her father while confin’d in Prison in
TORONTO … Treason
June 25, 1838
What circumstances led Barclay to inscribe this heartfelt sentiment onto a box for his daughter? The story of rebellion, imprisonment, and creativity brings one of the most historically significant artifacts in our collection to life.
Montgomery’s Tavern
The prisoner box story is rooted in a rebellion that engulfed Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 and 1838. Newspaper publisher and politician William Lyon Mackenzie was a fierce critic of the appointed Legislative Council of Upper Canada. Nicknamed the Family Compact, they were an elite clique of officials, businessmen, and wealthy leaders who ran the colony based on patronage and corruption. Mackenzie roused like-minded citizens, including rebel leaders Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews, to support an uprising in Toronto.
They planned to gather on December 7 at Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street. When a warrant was issued for Mackenzie’s arrest, they decided to meet sooner. On December 5, hundreds of men marched down Yonge Street to occupy city hall. But the rebels retreated in confusion after militiamen began shooting at them.
On December 7, Mackenzie sent Matthews with about 60 men to create a diversion at the Don River. They killed one man and set fire to the bridge and some houses before being driven off. Matthews was captured. The same day, 1,000 British soldiers and militia moved in on 300 rebels at Montgomery’s Tavern. In just 20 minutes, the rebels were defeated. Lount was arrested but Mackenzie escaped.
Outcomes of War and Rebellion
The 1837 Rebellion was short-lived, but the conflict continued. Rebels took refuge in the United States and a series of border raids evolved into a greater conflict. Separated from Michigan by only the St. Clair River, citizens of Lambton County were on high alert. In June 1838, skirmishes involving local militias took place near Port Lambton, Sombra, and Dresden. Hostilities ended on December 4, 1838, when the militia defeated the rebels at Windsor.
John George Lambton, Governor-General of British North America, was sent to investigate the causes of rebellion. He produced the Durham Report that recommended uniting Upper Canada and Lower Canada, and suggested reforms to achieve responsible government. The County of Lambton is named after him.
In 1840, the Act of Union merged the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada into the Province of Canada. Responsible government became a reality in 1848. Both were critical events along Canada’s path to nationhood and independence from Great Britain. In 1849, the Rebellion Losses Bill returned property that was seized from the rebels to their families.
George Barclay Sr.
George Barclay Sr. was a rebel sympathizer and part of the prisoner box story. He was born in 1780 in Cupar, Scotland. He married Janet Tullis in 1801. Barclay became a Baptist preacher before immigrating to Upper Canada. In a December 3, 1817, petition for land, Barclay wrote:
That Your Petitioner is a Native of Scotland. That he left Scotland for this Province in 1816. That he has been resident in this Province the greater part of the time in the Home District since the Month of October 1816 and was employed as Teacher of the Common School at Newmarket about six months. That he has a family of a wife and six children who are now all in the Province.
In 1819, Barclay bought the north 100-acres of Lot 19 Concession 6 Pickering Township from Mary Matthews. He lived there with his wife and nine children.
Barclay was a busy man. He was minister of the First Baptist Church in Markham Township until 1821, then served as a travelling preacher. In 1826, he was pathmaster and supervised the development and maintenance of roads. In 1827, Barclay was warden and tax collector. He was postmaster of Brougham from August 26, 1836, to December 13, 1837.
Barclay supported the rebellion movement in Upper Canada. His farm was a popular meeting place for reformers. He was accused of persuading his neighbour Peter Matthews, son of Mary, to support the rebels. Major George Garnet described Barclay as “this vile old preaching traitor that stimulated the people of Pickering … to take part in the late Rebellion.” Although impactful as an instigator of rebellion, Barclay’s part in the events at Montgomery’s Tavern is obscure. He lost his postmaster job because he was under suspicion. His sons George and William both reportedly joined the uprising. No details were found about William’s involvement but George Barclay Jr.’s role is well-documented.
George Barclay Jr.
George Barclay Jr. was born in in Cupar in 1801. He was the oldest child of George and Janet. He left Scotland as a teenager in 1817. While his father was working as a minister, Barclay worked on the farm. In 1831, he married Jane Willson at York.
Barclay was one of the rebels who assembled at Montgomery’s Tavern. His accuser, Constable Charles Hadley, swore an oath that “George Barclay seemed to have some command, made himself very conspicuous and threatened him [Hadley] violently.” Colonial Office Records note a comment by Lieutenant Governor Sir George Arthur that,
George Barclay Jun’r was in arms at Montgomery’s and an active follower of Matthews in his expedition to burn the Don Bridge and houses adjoining. His case is aggravated by the robbery of a person whom he and his companions pillaged on the highway. The father of this young man is a Baptist preacher and bears a very bad character for disaffection.
Rumour has it that Barclay helped Mackenzie escape on December 7. After Mackenzie’s horse was shot, Barclay located a fresh horse for him. And apparently, loyalist soldiers fed their horses from the Barclay oat bin without finding the guns that were buried in the oats. On December 15, Francis Leys, Justice of the Peace for the Home District issued a warrant for Barclay’s arrest. On December 17, the day after his 36th birthday, he was arrested at his home and taken to Toronto Gaol.
Prisoner Boxes
After the rebellion, over 800 insurgents and sympathizers were jailed. More than half awaited trial in Toronto Gaol. Conditions inside were deplorable. Small rooms, each with a little stove and a wood pile, were packed with prisoners.
While incarcerated, more than 50 prisoners constructed boxes from scraps of stove wood. Some made more than one. The boxes were carved from hardwoods like maple, walnut, birch, cherry, and butternut. All have sliding, dovetailed lids, and most are precisely sized to the quarter inch. They are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
The prisoners faced execution, jail time, banishment, and transportation to distant colonies. They did not expect to return home. They expressed their feelings by writing political, religious, and sentimental verses on the boxes. Many of the boxes recorded the location, date, and name of the maker. The boxes were dedicated to family and friends and memorialized the dead. Rebel leaders, Lount and Matthews, were hanged on April 12, 1838. Most of the prisoner boxes were made between April and late July 1838, possibly inspired by their deaths.
Darryl Withrow has recreated about 20 boxes to learn how they were made. Once believed to be crafted using pocketknives, new research suggests the precise sizing, dovetailed sliding lids, and decorative inlays required tools like chisels, measuring devices, and glue. These must have been smuggled in and hidden from the guards. Withrow believes that because of the skill involved and the consistent style of the boxes, the men may have worked cooperatively. Skilled woodworkers made the lids, poets composed the verses, and tidy writers did the inscriptions. This enabled many men to be involved in the box-making, regardless of skill.
Nearly 100 prisoner boxes have been identified. Transported prisoner Benjamin Wait wrote about the experience in a letter to his wife from Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania):
I find the society very agreeable indeed; and our time was not ‘killed’ as is usually the case with prisoners, nor spent in the games of chance, swearing, and lewd conversation, tall telling, &c. &c. But industry prevailed – all were engaged in something useful, ornamented or entertaining – some were reading, some writing; others were occupied in making folios, small wooden boxes, or other mementoes for friendly presents.
George Barclay Jr.’s Prisoner Boxes
Two other prisoner boxes are attributed to George Barclay Jr. One belongs to the City of Toronto’s Culture Division. Possibly carved from walnut, it has a stepped panel sliding lid. The top and side are inset with rectangular pine panels with an inscription in black ink. The verse refers to Lount, Matthews, and Anderson. Anthony Anderson was a rebel who was shot on Yonge Street during the uprising.
IN MEMORY of Lount & Mathews
Executed at TORONTO, U.C. April 12th 1838.
Their minds were tranquil, and serene,
No terror in their looks were seen.
Their steps upon the Scaffold strong,
A moments pause – their lives are gone.
May Vengeance draw his sword in wrath,
And justice smile to see it done,
And smite the traitors for the death,
Of Mathews, Lount, and Anderson.
Let Canada mourn! For her Libertys weep,
By the ravage of tyrany torn,
And may the true sons of freedom in peace never sleep
Till their banners in triump[h] be boure.
May the king of terrors strike the blow
And lay those haughty tyrants low,
Thant forget the chains that bind the fr[ee]
And hang the Sons of Liberty.
For ever true freedoms call
Wherever she bids us sally
We in her ranks would rather fall
Than round a despot rally.
A third box was kept by Keith Barclay, a grandson of Barclay’s son Joshua. It has the following inscription.
To
Jane Barclay from her husband George Barclay to be kept as
A memorial for him while confined for high treason in a
Land of oppression. June 26, A.D. 1838
Tyrants their fetters forge in vain
To crush thy spirit – Liberty
Like brittle glass shall burst the chain
From hands now striving to be free.
In memory of Samuel Lount & P. Matthews
Executed April 12, 1838
Their words were tranquil and serene
No terror in their looks were seen.
Their steps upon the scaffold strong
A moment’s pause, their lives are gone.
Barclay spent about seven months in Toronto Gaol. He was discharged July 13, 1838, to the Provincial Penitentiary in Kingston. While at the penitentiary, Barclay (convict #262) was interviewed by the President of the Board of Inspectors for the Provincial Penitentiary. Barclay claimed he was induced to participate in the rebellion because,
I was told that Toronto was taken by the Rebels and that it was necessary I should go there to have my name called over. I went with Matthews to Montgomery’s, but was not at the battle. A gun was given to me by Matthew’s orders. McKenzie [sic], Lount and Gibson were the leaders of the Rebellion. … I deserted from him [Matthews] after two or three days. I was apprehended in consequence of a warrant taken out against me by Charles Hadleigh.
Barclay was convicted of high treason and sentenced to several years in prison followed by banishment. His wife and father both petitioned unsuccessfully for his release. On March 23, 1839, he was pardoned and discharged as part of a general amnesty for actions taken during the rebellions. A Provincial Penitentiary Report described him as 5 feet, 5 ½ inches tall with a florid complexion.
Following the Prisoner Box’s Trail
Barclay sold his farm in Pickering Township in 1848. His family moved to Lobo Township in Middlesex County where a brother-in-law was already living. They settled on a 200-acre plot of solid bush. By 1851, Barclay and Jane had ten children: Jane, Agnes (Nancy), Joshua, George, William, Catherine, John, David, Eli, and Arthur. In addition to 24 acres of crops, they had horses, hogs, and poultry. Barclay died from kidney stones in 1882.
It is not known exactly how the prisoner box passed through the generations. It may have originally been presented to Barclay’s eldest daughter, Jane, who was born around 1831. Little is known about Jane except that she lived with her parents in 1851. Barclay’s other daughters were Nancy (born in 1834) and Catherine (born in 1841). Somehow, the box ended up with a descendant of Catherine even though she was born after the box was made.
By 1861, Catherine was married to Dougald McColl. Ten years later, she was a widow living with her four children. Her father and two youngest brothers lived nearby. Catherine died of acute gastritis in 1874, at age 32.
Forest Hotelkeepers
The prisoner box was passed down through generations associated with the Franklin House hotel in Forest. Catherine’s daughter, Alfretta McColl, was born in 1860. Alfretta married George Webster Jr. on Christmas Eve, 1878. In 1888, Webster bought the newly built Franklin House hotel in Forest for $9,000. In 1893, a description was printed in the Toronto Mail:
This famous hotel is a three storey white brick, containing thirty bedrooms, two parlours, and three sample rooms, beside offices, reading room and other necessary apartments, all of which are tastefully, some of the luxuriously, finished. It is the favourite hotel between Sarnia and Stratford, and its tables are bountifully supplied at all seasons of the year.
George and Alfretta’s son, George H. Webster, was born in 1878, in Lobo Township. He married Rosa Opie in Sarnia in 1899. Their son, George Opie Webster, was born in Port Huron, Michigan in 1901. Rosa died just six months later, so her son grew up in Forest, living with his grandmother, Alfretta. George Opie Webster married Estelle Ethel Mitchell in 1927 and worked as an accountant near Chicago.
The Webster family sold the Franklin House about 1915. In 1919, William Benjamin bought it. He had been a bartender and saloon keeper in Chicago and likely purchased the hotel because his wife had family connections in Forest. Their daughter Mary was born in 1901. Mary worked as a hostess at the hotel before marrying Wilfred Victor Roche, the son of another Forest hotelier.
Mary (Benjamin) Roche’s husband passed away in 1962. George Opie Webster’s wife died in 1971. Soon after, the descendants of operators of Forest’s Franklin House were married. George Opie Webster died in 1986, and Mary passed away in 1995. It is through Mary’s estate that George Barclay Jr.’s prisoner box became part of the Lambton Heritage Museum collection.A Legacy of Rebellion
Many of the 1837 rebels were skilled, prosperous, educated, and community minded. They were tired of colonial rule and risked their lives because they believed in a cause. The prisoner boxes carved in the wake of the events of Montgomery’s Tavern are prized by descendants, collectors, and museums. They are tangible evidence of the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, and they provide glimpses into the lives of individuals like George Barclay Jr. who were part of an important chapter in Canadian history.
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