Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 11.
Edward McSheffrey - Mayor Of Low Township
Gunda Lambton
On November 18th. 1895 the Free Press, Ottawa. published a list of new Council members for Low Township, at a time when that paper had special correspondents on the scene to describe a battle which never took place. and which was later known as the "Battle of Brennan‘s Hill“. The members of this Council were W. McCrank, Thos. McDonald, P. Gannon. J.J. Sullivan, S. Smith and J. Skillen, elected under the chairmanship of Father Blondin of the Martindale church in North Low. The new mayor was Edward McSheffrey, a farmer in the area of North Low we now know as Venosta. His name is not found on the list of delinquent tax payers, who, it turned out, had had good reason to object: some taxes had been paid to a former Township treasurer and had not been handed over to the County. This necessitated a second payment, a fact which, quite naturally, enraged the settlers. The list of delinquent tax payers included a number of wealthy inhabitants of Low Township - George Brooks, for instance, who ran the stage coach to Maniwaki, and who had put up police and militia at his hotel; his brother, Oscar Brooks, on whose farm the Ottawa militia erected their camp, and the wealthy Montreal Trust and Loan Company. In fact, most names of families still in the area appear on that tax list.
The Council took over a heavy burden, for the cost of police and troops called in to enforce payment of taxes was estimated at six hundred dollars a day and that Monday the troops were still encamped on Oscar Brooks‘ farm and were not to leave until Wednesday the 20th November, 1895. Many of the less affluent farmers of Low Township were, at the time of the so-called “Low Rebellion", quite far away from Low in the logging shanties to earn badly needed cash for seed or equipment, perhaps for one of the new-fangled binder-reapers, for instance. The journalists mentioned that sixty of these binder-reapers had been sold in Low in 1894, but 1895 may not have been as good a year; only thirty-seven came to the community that year.
Edward McSheffrey, elected in 1895, remained the mayor of Low Township for seventeen years. At the time he was elected, the Township had numbered 1399 according to the last census, and it was to grow steadily during the next decades. The railroad, which had reached Low in the previous year, was not to reach Maniwaki until 1905, so that trips the mayor had to make to the county seat of Gatineau County had to be made by stage-coach for some time. There were a number of schools in Low Township by 1895 - nine Catholic and two Protestant. On the latter, a tax had been levied from 1883 but was not enforced. Catholic schools were paid for by subscription. Roads were nothing but muddy trails, most of them still from the days the logging companies had needed them for transportation. There were many problems facing the new mayor. Ed McSheffrey, who was then thirty-six; but he was certainly one of the most able men to deal with them. He spoke French as well as English; he could use a theodolite to determine the boundaries of the farms and bush lots which were still very uncertain in the newly settled area of Low. Although Low was established as a separate, self-governing municipality in 1859 and had been surveyed and divided into ranges and lots at an earlier date, many immigrants did not get title, or "letters patent", for their land until many years after settling, and a mayor who could survey land was of the greatest help in that respect.
Many of the Irish farmers who settled in North Low, later called Venosta after an obscure station-agent, had come from farms in North Wakefield, now Alcove, from which some of the sons moved north to take up new and, sometimes, better land. The farm from which Ed McSheffrey came was, however, an excellent farm and is still one of the best-looking farms on the Gatineau: it lies east of the Gatineau River, about a mile north of Alcove, and is distinctly visible from (the present) Highway 105.
The name of James McSheffrey, Edward's father, first appears in the 1860 census of Wakefield. Edward, the eldest son, born in 1859, was one year old then, and born in Canada. His father James, was thirty and his mother Sara, born Daley, was twenty-two.
Sara Daley's name had appeared earlier, in the parish register of St. Camillius, Farrellton. She was one of the first confirmants there, when Bishop Guigues of Ottawa conducted the ceremony on July 14th, 1851, and when Sara was only fourteen. Hard work on the farm and in the bush prevented some men from getting confirmed early. James McSheffrey, Edward's father, was one of the adults who attended the next large confirmation ceremony, that in 1861, when his son, Edward, was already two years old.
James McSheffrey was born in Ireland, and like many immigrants, had come to Canada with another family, the McConnells. While the McSheffreys came from County Derry in the 1850's the name McSheffrey was, at one time, the most common in County Longford, where it was predominant around 1659. Descendants of James McSheffrey still live in Alcove, although the original farm is now run by the family of the late Anthony Kelly, who bought it from the McSheffreys. A son of James McSheffrey’s son, Joseph, Emmanuel McSheffrey, lived in Farrellton and though he died in 1982, he is well remembered for his love of music, and the active part he took in the Gatineau Valley Song Project at the Low Community Centre in 1977.
The farm in North Low where Edward McSheffrey settled some time before he became mayor of Low lies on the west side of {the present) Highway 105; it now belongs to Orval Kelly. Two years after Edward McSheffrey became mayor of Low, he married Sara Gleason.
The Gleasons were some of the earliest settlers in Low and their original farm is still in the hands of the same family. The farms in North Low were dispersed widely and there was no village then, like the present-day Venosta. The Gleason farm is on the Pike Lake road which runs north from Fieldville, crosses the Stag Creek by the covered bridge known as "Barry Kelly" and at its most northerly point joins the Borough Road which runs west from (the present) Highway 105. north of Venosta. It is one of the most beautiful small roads in the Gatineau. The Gleasons had come from Kilkenny County in Ireland, as had the Cuddiheys, who settled in Martindale, as far east of present day Venosta as the Gleasons were west. Edward McSheffrey's eldest daughter, Mary, married into the Cuddihey family.
Born in 1900, Mary Cuddihey, nee McSheffrey, well remembers the busy days her father had when he had to travel north to Maniwaki or south to Hull and Ottawa on behalf of his community. He was also busy on his farm, and, for ten or twelve years, for the Department of Highways. Mary married Albert Cuddihey in 1925 and the couple moved to the farm north of Martindale on which John Cuddihey, Albert's grandfather, had settled in the early 1850's. His name first appears in the parish register of St. Camillus, when his own daughter, Mary, married Patrick Maloney of Martindale. The original Cuddihey farm still belongs to Albert's son, Clifford. In 1944 the Albert Cuddiheys moved to the farm a mile south of Venosta which is part of the original farm of Tom Keeley, Albert's maternal grandfather. Another part of this farm, one of the earliest for which "letters patent" were taken out in North Low, went to William Keeley who married Mary McSheffrey's sister, Nellie, the second of Edward McSheffrey's six children. After Mary and Nellie there was a son, Jim who married Mary O'Grady: then a daughter, Elizabeth, now Mrs. Harry Myles, who lives in Ottawa: then John, who married Bernice Skillen. The youngest son, Emmanuel, still lives in Ottawa, and most of this information has come from him and from Mary, Edward McSheffrey's eldest daughter. By the time Emmanuel was born, Edward McSheffrey‘s days as mayor were almost over, but he remained very active in politics while farming and, later, working for the Department of Highways. He also assisted some builders with construction, and on the day he died, in 1938, he was working with his youngest son, Emmanuel, on the construction of a house in Maniwaki. Emmanuel well remembers the day, for he was working with his father until seven in the evening and at nine, two hours later, Edward McSheffrey had died, leaving many friends and a large family. Only three of his children, Mary, Elizabeth and Emmanuel, are now living. His portrait hangs in the public building at Maniwaki where the many community records are kept with which the former mayor had so long and so actively been involved.