Robert Gillespie

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-199007
• Occupation: CA 1820, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; millwright

Notes:

Despite the disadvantages, not to speak of the trials of "bush life," the time-scarred Veter-ans of those early times, look back with pleasure to the town's early history, and many and curious are the inci-dents they relate in regard to it.

During the construction of the mills and distillery, the prospects of the village and settlement manifested sonic scanty signs of improvement. A few more settlers began to come in, and the workmen from a distance employed on the new buildings made everything more lively. All the millrights employed were Americans, and the machi-nery had to be brought all the way from New York-a task of the greatest difficulty.

Three of the workmen, named Robert Gillespie, Ira White, and John McCleary, were conspicuous for their strong American sympathies. At this period, in fact, there were very few citizens of the United States who did not regard the speedy union of Upper Canada with the Republic, as a foregone conclusion. Among those also employed on the mills, were a few French Canadians, who, with others in the little village or around it, were just as loud in express-ing their British sympathies. When the work was nearly completed in 1819, the memorable Fourth of July came round, and for a lark, more than anything else, the Ame-ricans hoisted the stars and stripes from the gable of the mills I This so excited the ire of the French Canadians and others, that after considerable expression of loyal feeling-which was of double-distilled strength on the part of some in those days-an attempt was made to take the flag down. This was forcibly resisted by the Ameri-cans, and for a time a desperate fight was imminent, when more serious effects than a few scarred faces might have resulted. Mr. Shade, on hearing of the melee, hurried to the scene, and having gone on top of the mills and taken down the obnoxious flag, the breeze fortunately blew over.


Reminiscences of the Early History of Galt and the Settlement of Dumfries in the Province of Ontario, by James Young, 1880 Toronto: Hunter, Rose