Neighbours rescue tenant farmer
Saturday, 31 October 2009 05:00
October 31, 1894. Thompson, "an honest, hard-working" tenant farmer with a large family, was $500 in arrears on his rent. His crop was just harvested, but it was being seized, and he and his family faced eviction. His neighbours, reports the Toronto Daily Mail, were indignant.
The farm was on the estate of the late Samuel Snell, and Thompson's landlady held a chattel mortgage against the stock. No sooner had Thompson finished threshing than a Mr. Remmer, an executor for the estate, arrived with his bed, prepared to stay a few days while he and his helper cleaned and took Thompson's grain to market.
The next day, Remmer was ready to take the first load of oats to market when a group of Thompson's neighbours arrived. The village assessor, the division court clerk, the postmaster and a lawyer, William Harris, the son of the resident minister, were all there.
Harris drew Remmer aside for a conversation, while the division court clerk slipped up to the barn door and put a lock on it. "The executor demanded Mr. Harris' authority for so doing, to which he replied that if he wished to know he would have to find out," the Mail reported. "Remmer then hitched up his horse and drove to Whitby for the desired information.
"In the meantime, every man, woman and child able to work in the village had collected, and the grain was cleaned up, bagged, and carried on their backs the distance of half a mile to the mill of Mr. F.L. Green, where it was warehoused, and an account taken of its weight. The amount carried by these workers was the produce of 40 acres' crop.
"Thompson has been a much-respected resident of this village for nearly five years, and has a large family of young children depending upon him. The thought of his being turned out, and winter staring him in the face, penniless as he would be, aroused the villagers' indignation."
All's well that ends well. The landlady apparently had a change of heart and "has since made the most satisfactory arrangements with the tenant. He is to receive arrears of rent, remain on the premises another year, and the load of oats carried away to be accounted for."