One Gritty Woman

As I was growing up, one family anecdote captured my imagination ahead of all others.  That was the story of my maternal third great grandmother Margaret Dixon (1810-1894) and the over 100 mile trek she undertook with her family to begin a new life in McGillivray Township.

Margaret Dixon

Margaret had been born a Dixon and retained that name when she married her first cousin William Dixon, son of patriarch James who came to Canada, settling in Ontario in 1818.  The couple did not accompany James that year but immigrated some years later to join him and other Dixon members.  Although the exact year of their arrival is unknown, they were certainly in Etobicoke Township with other Dixon relatives by June of 1833 when their first child, son William, was born.

In the years that followed six more children were born, the last being John born in February of 1848.  William Senior would be dead of dropsy less than a month later leaving an impecunious widow and her many children.   Although Margaret could perhaps rely on some temporary assistance from other Dixon relatives in Etobicoke Township, her general prospects were bleak.  Although many women in such days quickly remarried to regain some sort of financial security, finding a new husband would no doubt be a challenge for a 38-year-old widow with so many young children.

A few months after her husband’s death, Margaret, homeless or soon to be, is said to have met up with a James McMurtry of McGillivray Township.  Although one account suggests he may have been a previous family acquaintance, it is unclear why he was at the time visiting in Etobicoke Township.  In any event, he told Margaret of a deserted log shack near his home, which could provide shelter for her and her family during the winter months ahead. 

As a result Margaret made the long trek by foot with her seven children from the Toronto area to McGillivray Township, following McMurtry in his ox cart.  Although family lore was that the family walked the entire way, there were four children under the age of ten years, including a babe in arms.  The cart no doubt provided room for some but not all family members and such possessions, if any, that they brought with them.  It is understood that they covered no more than twenty miles a day. 

After arriving in October of 1848, the family was directed to the deserted shack that was to be its temporary home on Lot 17, Concession 4 of the Township.  Years later Margaret’s eldest son would recall that the shack was windowless and that there was only a blanket to cover the door opening.  The family passed its first winter mainly subsisting on some turnips which had been stored in the shack.

In the spring of 1849 Margaret is said to have finally received a one hundred pound legacy due to her from her father’s estate, her father having died three years earlier in England.  With this she purchased an ox, plough, and one hundred acres of land, the north half of Lot 18, Concession 11 of McGillivray Township.  At the time of an 1850 census, twelve acres were under crop and eighty-eight still “wild”.  Livestock consisted of six cattle and four hogs.

With the family’s settlement on their new lands, its fortunes improved.  The eldest three children

Weathered Margaret Dixon Tombstone

were sons old enough to provide assistance in farming operations.  As the years went by, they also hired themselves out to assist with family income.  By 1856, with many of her children now less needy, Margaret had managed to remarry a widower named Joseph Holt.  The marriage, perhaps of some financial necessity, was said to have been an unhappy one not approved of by her children.

In her later years Margaret gained some local renown as a mid-wife and practical nurse.  One story handed down involves her trekking through the woods at night through lands, still heavily wooded, with a torch to guide her way and frighten wolves as she made her way to assist with a birth.

Described as a large vigorous woman who weighed about one hundred and seventy pounds, she is said to have always spoken her mind but to have done so fairly.  She is also understood to have smoked a pipe.  Following Margaret’s death in 1894 at the age of seventy-four, she was buried in  Mar’s Hill Cemetery near her final home as are many of her Dixon descendants.

Tombstone Signage Commemorating Trek

Margaret was clearly one gritty woman who persevered under trying circumstances.  Widowed and impoverished, she embarked on a long journey by foot with seven children, an effort that to-day is hard to imagine.  At first subsisting on a diet of turnips in an abandoned shack, she bit by bit succeeded in improving her lot and that of her family, most of whom went on to become successful farmers in McGillivray Township.  She stands out as an ancestral symbol of self-sufficiency and strength.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield