"The Camber Family: A Strong and Lasting Presence"
Presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Georgeville Historical Society on July 10th, 2004
by Louise Camber Bolden
The Cambers are one of a handful of families who can trace their roots back 200 years to the earliest days of settlement and who's surname has been continuously present since that era.
The first member of the Camber family to arrive on Magoon's Point, in the early 1800's, was John Henry Camber. Family history passed down through the generations indicates that he was one of two sons of a Dutch General (though it is quite possible that his rank grew as the story was retold). Wounded in battle and knowing he did not have long to live, the General tore in half what was once assumed to be a Family Bible, giving one half to each of his two sons. John Henry's half was passed down to his grandson, Daniel Amos. In 1899, Daniel showed it to the McGill Historian, Professor Charles Colby, who had just acquired lakeshore property near the Camber Farm, the beginning of what became a long association between the Camber and Colby families.
Professor Colby concluded that this fascinating and fragile document was not a Bible, but a devotional text that included Hymns, Psalms and apparently the complete text of the Augsburgh Confession, endorsed by Martin Luther as the creed of the Lutheran Church. The language of the document was not Dutch, but rather Deutsch, or pure German. So from this it seems that the Cambers probably descended from a Dutch or German background. The half of the document passed down in our family has found it's way to Calgary and is in the hands of a cousin who unfortunately couldn't be here today.
John Henry Camber married Heborah Data about 1788 in Strafford Township, Vermont across the Connecticut River from Hanover, N.H. In the early 1800's, the couple moved to Stanstead Township with their five children. They would ultimately have eight children and the last three, Henry, Richard and Theodoty were apparently born on Magoon's Point just after the turn of the century.
The earliest primary evidence of John Henry Camber in Copp's Ferry comes from a deed he witnessed dated November 6, 1810 by which Richard Copp acquired property on the East Road (the property now owned by the Lords). Later, in 1825 the census for Stanstead Township lists John Camber, his wife, two sons and a daughter, in age brackets that fit the family as we know it. At that time, John Henry was farming on the Magoon Point Road. From the order in which he was enumerated, his clearing was probably on the lot later farmed by his sons Henry and Richard, a mile or so south of the Elephant Barn.
It was these two sons, along with their younger sister Theodoty, who married near neighbours and raised families of their own in Magoon's Point. Henry married Priscilla Martel, a marriage that sheds some interesting light on the social demography of the Point. Priscilla was a daughter of Pascal Martel, the Martels being one of a number of French speaking Catholic families who settled on Magoon's Point much earler than is commonly supposed. Henry's brother Richard married Amanda Collins, the daughter of a settler at Harvey's Landing, south of Fitch Bay and Theodoty married an English emigrant to Magoon's Point named Joseph Kemp.
These three of John Henry's children began the Camber line that continues today, both on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. The eldest of Theodoty's eight children has left us a short memoir in which he vividly described a harsh fact iof life for farm children in the 1840's. When he was seven years old, Theodoty's son Joseph wrote that he began attending one room Magoon Point School, a two and a half mile walk from his home. But he recalls at age 10 that "it was decided to keep me at home to help clear the land of the forest, as the family was growing somewhat faster than the clearing." That sentence leaves one with a vivid image of large families working very hard to survive and of a time when survival precluded education.
Before leaving John Henry and Heborah, I should perhaps point out that we do not know how many of their grandchildren they lived to see. No record of their deaths survives. The thinking is that there is a lost cemetery in the woods near the Camber Farm on Magoon's Point, once known but buried over the years by the changing seasons. John and Heborah may well lie buried there.
Henry, the eldest of the three children born in Canada and Priscilla Martel were married in March of 1841 in Derby, Vermont. Now, why would two neighbours from Magoon's Point travel to Derby to be married? Perhaps it was the closest location in which an official marriage could be performed, but a more colorful interpretation leads one to speculate that they began one of the first Camber traditions. That of eloping, a tradition that has lasted for 160 years. Between 1841 and 1859, Henry and Priscilla would have six childrenthree boys and three girls. Henry farmed the property adjoining that of his brother Richard and most of the children were born there.
Those of us who grew up on Magoon's Point have little difficulty imagining what pioneer life was like there in the early to mid 1800's. We know from our Grandparents that life was difficult and we know how much hard work was required simply to survive, but seldom are we aware of the challenges and hardships facing pioneer families on a personal level.
Tragedy would strike the Henry Camber family. Henry and Priscilla's oldest daughter Mary Anne died in 1868 at the age of 27. Two weeks later, Henry died. This left Priscilla a widow at age 46, with five children between the ages of 8 and 22. Two years later, her daughter Elvira died and two years after that, her daughter Rosetta. In the span of six years, Priscilla had lost her husband and all three of her daughters. One can only wonder how families dealt with tragedies of this nature at that time. We know that the risks were great and that pioneers often died in horrible ways, but to have half of one's family of eight simply eradicated in less than six years had to have taken a toll on Priscilla. At some point during this period, the family had moved to Apple Grove, a small community south of the Narrows. However, Priscilla moved back to Magoon's Point and was living with her youngest son William when she died in 1908, at the age of 87.
The next of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Richard A. Camber, married Amanda Collins in 1833. It is the branch of the family from which the present day Georgeville Cambers have descended. They were my Great Great Grandparents, as well as Erwin and Richard's (otherwise known as Junior and Richie) and so while many people trace their ancestors back only three or four generations, Erwin and Sharon's sons Daniel and William and Richie and Stacey's daughter, Madison Raeburn, are Cambers of the seventh generation in Georgeville.
Richard A. and Amanda had six children, all born between 1834 and 1856. Richard A.'s name appears in a ledger of the storekeeper Joshua Copp and it's probably safe to say that the articles he purchased were just slightly different from those listed on the Camber accounts in Max Grainger's ledger in the 1960's. Nevertheless, this confirms a second Camber family tradition, a trip to the village to buy supplies.
We know from Registry Office Records that Richard A. purchased 62 acres of what was likely his father's homestead in 1847. The property was then described as being bounded on the east by that occupied by his brother Henry. The 1861 Census shows Richard and Amanda living with their three sons, Richard, Jr., John A. and Daniel, in a framed one story house. Presumably, their older daughters had married and left home by then.
Census takers in the mid 1800's clearly took a great deal of time to gather information. The 1861 Census shows that Richard's farming operations were, with one exception, not untypical of those of his neighbours. He had 15 acres in crops, 15 acres in pasture and 32 wooded acres. The value of his farm was was $600 and he owned implements and machinery worth $20. The exception was that, along with producing butter, beef and pork, Richard also was a canny fisherman, another Camber tradition. He reported producing two barrels of salted fish that year and selling 150lbs. of fresh fish. It appears that Richard and Amanda lived a comfortable life, looking after themselves and their family quite well on their 62 acres, with little help from Lake Memphremagog.
Richard died on July 6, 1873 at the age of 70. Only two of their six children were left on Magoon's Point at that time. Daniel Amos and John Anderson, names which all present day Cambers are quite familiar. From Richard's will, we know that he left half of his farm to his widow Amanda and the other half to his son Daniel. In the custom of the times, Amanda sold her half to Daniel for $1, in return for his promise to maintain her for the rest of her life. As it turned out, Amanda died in 1876. Both Richard and Amanda are buried in the Brookside Cemetery in Fitch Bay.
It is perhaps the third of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Theodoty who relatively speaking became the most famous. In 1840, she married the English emigrant Joseph Kemp, who acquired a farm to the south of Richard's down on the lakeshore.That was probably a good decision on Theodoty's part. Joseph, Sr. no doubt had a lovely English accent, never mind the lakeshore acres that came along with him.
Theodoty's claim to fame was that it was her son, Joseph, Jr., the little boy who left school at age ten because he was needed on the farm, who grew up to achieve celebrity and I quote, as "the father of all manure spreader." This does not mean, as you might think, that he became a politician. Rather, he invented and manufactured North America's first practical, mechanical manure spreader, a significant advance in agricultural technology.
After leaving home, Joseph, Jr. aquired a farm at the north end of the Lake, near what is now known as Kemp Bay and there designed and developed his spreader. He then entered into a partnership with William Burpee of Derby. The partners moved to Syracuse, NY, where they went into business as the Kemp and Burpee Manufacturing Company. This was eventually taken over by the John Deere Company. Joseph, Jr. then designed and built a new machine, which was manufactured by J.S. Kemp Manufacturing for some years until it was bought by the International Harvester Company. So whichever way you spread it, Joseph, Jr. was there.
Now, back to Richard and Amanda's three youngest sons, John Anderson, Daniel Amos and Charles, for there is a story worth telling here. All three married granddaughters of another Magoon Point francophone settler, Francois Xavier Saball, Sr. Francois Xavier was born in France in 1788 and was a veteran of Napoleon's Army when he settled on Magoon's Point with his wife Eliza Gravel in the 1820's. John Anderson's wife, Sarah Anne and Daniel Amos' wife, Eliza and were daughter's of Francois Xavier's son Joseph and his wife Betsey Martel (Betsey was a younger sister of Henry Smith Camber's wife Priscilla Martel). Charles' wife, Maggie was the daughter of Joseph's brother Julius and his wife Naomi Martel (yes, another sister of Priscilla's). Don't worry, there won't be a test on this, but it is all to say that the Camber, Martel and Saball families were joined in a vast network of relationships over two generations. One can only hope that one of them had a home large enough for Christmas dinner.
It was Richard and Amanda's son, Daniel Amos, that the relationship between the Camber and Colby families began. Professor Charles Colby and his wife Kitty come into our story in 1898 when they decided to spend two September weeks at the Mountain House, at the foot of Owl's Head, before the new term began at McGill. The Colbys were familiar with the area as Charles was a grandson of one of Stanstead's first Doctors, Moses French Colby and the son of Member of Parliament, Charles Carroll Colby. As Professor Colby recalled in a family memoir, "at this time the Mountain House was going full blast and as things went in this part of the World, had a good standing among Hotels of it's class. Far from grand, it was comfortable and had good enough food. More important still, it had plenty of rowboats. Having both been born near the lake, we had been on it's shores often in summer.
So it was, exploring by rowboat, that the Colbys discovered and decided to buy, a stretch of lakeshore near Daniel's farm. The following summer, Daniel and his brother John both helped to build a cottage for the Colbys on their new property. This is perhaps where the next Camber family tradition began, that of carpentry, a tradition continued by Daniel's great nephew Percy and his nephew Richie.
One day, Professor Colby overheard Daniel commenting on a particular design element of the cottage, commenting without knowing Professor Colby was within earshot, of course. Work was well underway for aa rough stone fireplace in the cottage. "Well, I suppose the Doctor likes that sort of thing or else he wouldn't have it, but if it were mine, I wouldn't have it in my house, no, nor in my Sugar House." Never a family to sit on the fence on any issue, the Camber family tradition of outspokenness came through loud and clear, but Daniel redeemed himself by suggesting the name for the Colby property. Professor Colby was endeavouring to find the name of the original squatter who had lived on the property and it was Daniel who remembered that in the days of his great grandfather there had been a settler named Winlock, living in a small shack just behind the bay and so the name Winlock came into existence.
As for Daniel's brother, John Anderson, he began each workday, the professor recalled, by sing in a loud, though dulcet coice "O birdie I am tired now, I do not want to hear you sing; you've sung your happy songs all day, now hide your head beneath your wing." As Professor Colby put it, "this confession of weariness at 7 a.m. was something to catch attention."
Early rising singers aside, the Cambers' association with the Colbys endured. Daniel's son, Daniel Amos, Jr., oversaw the Colby property for more than 45 years. "I have often said," the Professor recalled, "that he was the best mechanic on the lake and though this statement may be hard to prove, it would have been harder to disprove. He took great pleasure and pride in what he did, to our great advantage." As well both my father Percy and my cousin Junior worked for the Colbys and lived on the Colby Estate, between the two of them for almost 30 years.
As for Daniel's elder brother, John Anderson, his romance with Sarah Anne Saball must have been the first to blossom, for theirs was the first of three marriages that joined the Camber and Saball families. It was also a first in another way. St. George's Church was built in 1866 in the village and John and Sarah held the distinction of being the first couple to be wed in the splendid new Church. They were married, presumably in the company of numerous Cambers and Saballs, on February 9, 1867.
Three years before his marriage, John Anderson, like a number of young men on the Canadian side of the line, went off to fight on the Union side in the US Civil War. In January of 1864, when he was 21 years old, John left Georgeville to enroll in Company E, of the 1st Regiment of the New York Mounted Rifles. An electronic search of the US Government's National Park Service Civil War site confirms that John Anderson Camber joined up as a Private, possibly substituting for a New York draftee. The Company was first organized at New York City for duty in Virginia and was involved in a number of bloody engagements from 1864 to 1866, including General Isaac Wistar's expedition toward Richmond, operations against Fort Darling and an expedition from Fort Monroe to Fredericksburg. Over the course of that time, the regiment lost 159 soldiers. Today we know the horrors of war have long term repercussions for those who experience them. From family stories, I believe this was the case with my Great Grandfather as there are times when he would take up residence in the barn, perhaps in an attempt to find peace and solitude and escape from the tortures of war.
John Anderson and Sarah Anne had a large family. Their eight children were well known to my father and his siblings as their Aunts and Uncles and their respective stories are perhaps some of the first I remember hearing. They were a pretty colorful bunch and of the eight, some left Magoon's Point early on, some left and came back and a few of them spent their entire lives on the Point, my Great Uncle Percy and Grandfather Erwin being two that remained for life. They were strong minded, independent folk who liked to do things in their own ways.
Great Uncle Percy, the first known bachelor in the family and no, this was not the start of another Camber family tradition, lived with his mother all of her life and then remained in her house after her death. This, by the way, is now Ian Campbell's house. Uncle Percy died in 195 after living his last years with his brother Erwin's family and with George Buzzell. Percy is buried in MacPherson Cemetery.
My Grandfather Erwin stole the heart of a young Scottish lass named Jessie Raeburn Cameron, also stealing her away from her work at Dunkeld as nanny to the Murray children. Erwin and Jessie, both born in 1885, but on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were married in 1921 in Newport, keeping the family tradition of wlopement alive and well.
Since at least 1905, Erwin and his brother Percy had both worked as farmers on the Molson Estate, Fernhill. In 1908, following the death of Alexander Molson's widow, the property came into the hands of a Molson daughter, Ella Geraldine, or "Miss" as she was always referred to by my father and his siblings. Erwin progressed up the Fernhill ladder, first as Chauffeur and then as foreman.
Every time I think of my Grandfather in his chauffeur uniform (which he still had at the time of his death in 1973), I am reminded of the movie Driving Miss Daisy. I'd like to think that Erwin's relationship with Miss Molson was similar to Miss Daisy's with her chauffeur. I'm guessing Miss Molson knew her mind. I don't have to guess that about my Grandfather.
One of Erwin's responsibilities at that time was to see that the Lighthouse on Molson's Island was lit every night and extinguished every morning, in spite of the weather. The route he took by rowboat has been retraced many times by his grandchildren as we all spent a great deal of our time on Molson's Island during our childhoods. Erwin probably rowed to the Island and although we occasionally rowed over, most times we had the luxury of a boat equipped with a small outboard motor.
The main Molson house was located on the lakeshore part of the Estate, just about where John and Mary Cowan's house is now sited. It was not winterized so Miss Molson lived there only in the Summer. She and her staff, including Erwin and Jessie, would move to the main house around May 1. They spent the balance of the year in the farmhouse on the Molson Estate, located where Phillip and Gail Hutchins now live.
Erwin and Jessie's family arrived in the 1920's. Richard Donald, Percy Roy and Edna Raeburn. All of their childhood and early life was spent at Fernhill. In the early 1940's, Erwin leased the farm portion of the Molson Estate and was kept busy farming, driving the school van and maintaining the town roads, which in those days included winter rolling.
Miss Molson died in 1945 and three years later, Erwin purchased the Molson Farm. We have a number of photographs of Richard, Percy and Edna during those years. The light haired Richard, who had his mother's coloring, always had a twinkle in his eye. I remember Uncle Richard as a fun loving fellow who often dropped in to sample my mother's latest desserts. My father Percy and Aunt Edna favored their father with their dark hair and complexions and the two of them always seemd so serious in their photos. However, we all know that was only a pose for the camera. Percy would tease Edna relentlessly and he would bother her constantly about her favorite Hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, but Edna could give it back in equal measure. Percy and his Maple Leafs often took a shellacking, You don't have too much imagination to know what Hockey night in Canada was like around the radio in the household.
A number of cousins came into the story at this time. My Grandfather Erwin's sister Edythe had married Charles Mosher. They were the Grandparents of our Newport cousins, the Kryzskos and Bensons. Edythe Mosher Kryzsko was a regular visitor at Fernhill during her childhood and was particularly close to Percy and Erwin's brother Wallace married Olive Leney, bringing Evadna and Armonde into the clan. Wallace and Olive lived the last years of their life together with Raymond West in the house Raymond built just south of the Georgeville United Church.
Uncle Richard and my father Percy lived their entire lives on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. Richard settled on Fernhill, taking over the property from Erwin in 1957. He married Eva Mary Jones, who could make the best Raisin Spice Cake with Butter icing ever tasted on Magoon's Point. I still remember her Birthday gifts to me of those cakes, always decorated with phlox from her garden and of course, Junior and Richie always helped with the cake eating. Richard later purchased the property on the East Road where his son Richie and Stacey now live. At that time, Fernhill was sold to Douglas Creighton who also subsequently bought the neighbouring property to the south known as Tanglewood. These properties are now owned by the St, Germains.
My father Percy, or Pep (or Uncle Perp) as he was more commonly known, married Jean Mary Thayer and that is where Wendy and I come into the story. We lived in the gatehouse on Fernhill until 1967 when we moved to the house vacated by Bill and Mattie Gosney when my father assumed the position of caretaker on the Colby Estate. I'll never forget the words my father used when he told us we were going to move. He rushed through the front door and announced that "the gates of heaven have opened." Percy worked and lived on the Colby Estate for the rest of his life.
Edna was the adventuresome sibling. She moved to Montreal to work for the Bell Telephone Company. She returned to the area to marry John McKelvey and lived in Cherry River until his untimely death. She returned to Georgeville and worked in Max Grainger's Store for three summers and then moved to Magog, living with Mrs. Harris, the widow of Veterinarian Dr. Harris, while she worked at Dominion Textile. Edna returned to Georgeville to enjoy her retirement years, though retiring may not be precisely the word that springs to mind in the case of Aunt Edna.
And so here we are, just about caught up to the year 2004. Junior and Richie have had the good fortune to marry into families long established in the area, the Hornbys and Johnstons and Daniel, William and Madison will carry on the Camber traditions, I'm sure.
Growing up on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville was a privilege, one I feel very fortunate to have shared with all the generations since John Henry Camber. The lake, the mountains, the supportive and friendly people and the opportunity to learn, to respect and care for the natural gifts bestowed upon us all played a role in providing what I can only describe as a rare and precious environment. For all of us fortunate enough to have had this experience, I will repeat my father's words, "the gates of heaven have opened."
Transcribed by Richard Meyers
March 6, 2015
Presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Georgeville Historical Society on July 10th, 2004
by Louise Camber Bolden
The Cambers are one of a handful of families who can trace their roots back 200 years to the earliest days of settlement and who's surname has been continuously present since that era.
The first member of the Camber family to arrive on Magoon's Point, in the early 1800's, was John Henry Camber. Family history passed down through the generations indicates that he was one of two sons of a Dutch General (though it is quite possible that his rank grew as the story was retold). Wounded in battle and knowing he did not have long to live, the General tore in half what was once assumed to be a Family Bible, giving one half to each of his two sons. John Henry's half was passed down to his grandson, Daniel Amos. In 1899, Daniel showed it to the McGill Historian, Professor Charles Colby, who had just acquired lakeshore property near the Camber Farm, the beginning of what became a long association between the Camber and Colby families.
Professor Colby concluded that this fascinating and fragile document was not a Bible, but a devotional text that included Hymns, Psalms and apparently the complete text of the Augsburgh Confession, endorsed by Martin Luther as the creed of the Lutheran Church. The language of the document was not Dutch, but rather Deutsch, or pure German. So from this it seems that the Cambers probably descended from a Dutch or German background. The half of the document passed down in our family has found it's way to Calgary and is in the hands of a cousin who unfortunately couldn't be here today.
John Henry Camber married Heborah Data about 1788 in Strafford Township, Vermont across the Connecticut River from Hanover, N.H. In the early 1800's, the couple moved to Stanstead Township with their five children. They would ultimately have eight children and the last three, Henry, Richard and Theodoty were apparently born on Magoon's Point just after the turn of the century.
The earliest primary evidence of John Henry Camber in Copp's Ferry comes from a deed he witnessed dated November 6, 1810 by which Richard Copp acquired property on the East Road (the property now owned by the Lords). Later, in 1825 the census for Stanstead Township lists John Camber, his wife, two sons and a daughter, in age brackets that fit the family as we know it. At that time, John Henry was farming on the Magoon Point Road. From the order in which he was enumerated, his clearing was probably on the lot later farmed by his sons Henry and Richard, a mile or so south of the Elephant Barn.
It was these two sons, along with their younger sister Theodoty, who married near neighbours and raised families of their own in Magoon's Point. Henry married Priscilla Martel, a marriage that sheds some interesting light on the social demography of the Point. Priscilla was a daughter of Pascal Martel, the Martels being one of a number of French speaking Catholic families who settled on Magoon's Point much earler than is commonly supposed. Henry's brother Richard married Amanda Collins, the daughter of a settler at Harvey's Landing, south of Fitch Bay and Theodoty married an English emigrant to Magoon's Point named Joseph Kemp.
These three of John Henry's children began the Camber line that continues today, both on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. The eldest of Theodoty's eight children has left us a short memoir in which he vividly described a harsh fact iof life for farm children in the 1840's. When he was seven years old, Theodoty's son Joseph wrote that he began attending one room Magoon Point School, a two and a half mile walk from his home. But he recalls at age 10 that "it was decided to keep me at home to help clear the land of the forest, as the family was growing somewhat faster than the clearing." That sentence leaves one with a vivid image of large families working very hard to survive and of a time when survival precluded education.
Before leaving John Henry and Heborah, I should perhaps point out that we do not know how many of their grandchildren they lived to see. No record of their deaths survives. The thinking is that there is a lost cemetery in the woods near the Camber Farm on Magoon's Point, once known but buried over the years by the changing seasons. John and Heborah may well lie buried there.
Henry, the eldest of the three children born in Canada and Priscilla Martel were married in March of 1841 in Derby, Vermont. Now, why would two neighbours from Magoon's Point travel to Derby to be married? Perhaps it was the closest location in which an official marriage could be performed, but a more colorful interpretation leads one to speculate that they began one of the first Camber traditions. That of eloping, a tradition that has lasted for 160 years. Between 1841 and 1859, Henry and Priscilla would have six childrenthree boys and three girls. Henry farmed the property adjoining that of his brother Richard and most of the children were born there.
Those of us who grew up on Magoon's Point have little difficulty imagining what pioneer life was like there in the early to mid 1800's. We know from our Grandparents that life was difficult and we know how much hard work was required simply to survive, but seldom are we aware of the challenges and hardships facing pioneer families on a personal level.
Tragedy would strike the Henry Camber family. Henry and Priscilla's oldest daughter Mary Anne died in 1868 at the age of 27. Two weeks later, Henry died. This left Priscilla a widow at age 46, with five children between the ages of 8 and 22. Two years later, her daughter Elvira died and two years after that, her daughter Rosetta. In the span of six years, Priscilla had lost her husband and all three of her daughters. One can only wonder how families dealt with tragedies of this nature at that time. We know that the risks were great and that pioneers often died in horrible ways, but to have half of one's family of eight simply eradicated in less than six years had to have taken a toll on Priscilla. At some point during this period, the family had moved to Apple Grove, a small community south of the Narrows. However, Priscilla moved back to Magoon's Point and was living with her youngest son William when she died in 1908, at the age of 87.
The next of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Richard A. Camber, married Amanda Collins in 1833. It is the branch of the family from which the present day Georgeville Cambers have descended. They were my Great Great Grandparents, as well as Erwin and Richard's (otherwise known as Junior and Richie) and so while many people trace their ancestors back only three or four generations, Erwin and Sharon's sons Daniel and William and Richie and Stacey's daughter, Madison Raeburn, are Cambers of the seventh generation in Georgeville.
Richard A. and Amanda had six children, all born between 1834 and 1856. Richard A.'s name appears in a ledger of the storekeeper Joshua Copp and it's probably safe to say that the articles he purchased were just slightly different from those listed on the Camber accounts in Max Grainger's ledger in the 1960's. Nevertheless, this confirms a second Camber family tradition, a trip to the village to buy supplies.
We know from Registry Office Records that Richard A. purchased 62 acres of what was likely his father's homestead in 1847. The property was then described as being bounded on the east by that occupied by his brother Henry. The 1861 Census shows Richard and Amanda living with their three sons, Richard, Jr., John A. and Daniel, in a framed one story house. Presumably, their older daughters had married and left home by then.
Census takers in the mid 1800's clearly took a great deal of time to gather information. The 1861 Census shows that Richard's farming operations were, with one exception, not untypical of those of his neighbours. He had 15 acres in crops, 15 acres in pasture and 32 wooded acres. The value of his farm was was $600 and he owned implements and machinery worth $20. The exception was that, along with producing butter, beef and pork, Richard also was a canny fisherman, another Camber tradition. He reported producing two barrels of salted fish that year and selling 150lbs. of fresh fish. It appears that Richard and Amanda lived a comfortable life, looking after themselves and their family quite well on their 62 acres, with little help from Lake Memphremagog.
Richard died on July 6, 1873 at the age of 70. Only two of their six children were left on Magoon's Point at that time. Daniel Amos and John Anderson, names which all present day Cambers are quite familiar. From Richard's will, we know that he left half of his farm to his widow Amanda and the other half to his son Daniel. In the custom of the times, Amanda sold her half to Daniel for $1, in return for his promise to maintain her for the rest of her life. As it turned out, Amanda died in 1876. Both Richard and Amanda are buried in the Brookside Cemetery in Fitch Bay.
It is perhaps the third of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Theodoty who relatively speaking became the most famous. In 1840, she married the English emigrant Joseph Kemp, who acquired a farm to the south of Richard's down on the lakeshore.That was probably a good decision on Theodoty's part. Joseph, Sr. no doubt had a lovely English accent, never mind the lakeshore acres that came along with him.
Theodoty's claim to fame was that it was her son, Joseph, Jr., the little boy who left school at age ten because he was needed on the farm, who grew up to achieve celebrity and I quote, as "the father of all manure spreader." This does not mean, as you might think, that he became a politician. Rather, he invented and manufactured North America's first practical, mechanical manure spreader, a significant advance in agricultural technology.
After leaving home, Joseph, Jr. aquired a farm at the north end of the Lake, near what is now known as Kemp Bay and there designed and developed his spreader. He then entered into a partnership with William Burpee of Derby. The partners moved to Syracuse, NY, where they went into business as the Kemp and Burpee Manufacturing Company. This was eventually taken over by the John Deere Company. Joseph, Jr. then designed and built a new machine, which was manufactured by J.S. Kemp Manufacturing for some years until it was bought by the International Harvester Company. So whichever way you spread it, Joseph, Jr. was there.
Now, back to Richard and Amanda's three youngest sons, John Anderson, Daniel Amos and Charles, for there is a story worth telling here. All three married granddaughters of another Magoon Point francophone settler, Francois Xavier Saball, Sr. Francois Xavier was born in France in 1788 and was a veteran of Napoleon's Army when he settled on Magoon's Point with his wife Eliza Gravel in the 1820's. John Anderson's wife, Sarah Anne and Daniel Amos' wife, Eliza and were daughter's of Francois Xavier's son Joseph and his wife Betsey Martel (Betsey was a younger sister of Henry Smith Camber's wife Priscilla Martel). Charles' wife, Maggie was the daughter of Joseph's brother Julius and his wife Naomi Martel (yes, another sister of Priscilla's). Don't worry, there won't be a test on this, but it is all to say that the Camber, Martel and Saball families were joined in a vast network of relationships over two generations. One can only hope that one of them had a home large enough for Christmas dinner.
It was Richard and Amanda's son, Daniel Amos, that the relationship between the Camber and Colby families began. Professor Charles Colby and his wife Kitty come into our story in 1898 when they decided to spend two September weeks at the Mountain House, at the foot of Owl's Head, before the new term began at McGill. The Colbys were familiar with the area as Charles was a grandson of one of Stanstead's first Doctors, Moses French Colby and the son of Member of Parliament, Charles Carroll Colby. As Professor Colby recalled in a family memoir, "at this time the Mountain House was going full blast and as things went in this part of the World, had a good standing among Hotels of it's class. Far from grand, it was comfortable and had good enough food. More important still, it had plenty of rowboats. Having both been born near the lake, we had been on it's shores often in summer.
So it was, exploring by rowboat, that the Colbys discovered and decided to buy, a stretch of lakeshore near Daniel's farm. The following summer, Daniel and his brother John both helped to build a cottage for the Colbys on their new property. This is perhaps where the next Camber family tradition began, that of carpentry, a tradition continued by Daniel's great nephew Percy and his nephew Richie.
One day, Professor Colby overheard Daniel commenting on a particular design element of the cottage, commenting without knowing Professor Colby was within earshot, of course. Work was well underway for aa rough stone fireplace in the cottage. "Well, I suppose the Doctor likes that sort of thing or else he wouldn't have it, but if it were mine, I wouldn't have it in my house, no, nor in my Sugar House." Never a family to sit on the fence on any issue, the Camber family tradition of outspokenness came through loud and clear, but Daniel redeemed himself by suggesting the name for the Colby property. Professor Colby was endeavouring to find the name of the original squatter who had lived on the property and it was Daniel who remembered that in the days of his great grandfather there had been a settler named Winlock, living in a small shack just behind the bay and so the name Winlock came into existence.
As for Daniel's brother, John Anderson, he began each workday, the professor recalled, by sing in a loud, though dulcet coice "O birdie I am tired now, I do not want to hear you sing; you've sung your happy songs all day, now hide your head beneath your wing." As Professor Colby put it, "this confession of weariness at 7 a.m. was something to catch attention."
Early rising singers aside, the Cambers' association with the Colbys endured. Daniel's son, Daniel Amos, Jr., oversaw the Colby property for more than 45 years. "I have often said," the Professor recalled, "that he was the best mechanic on the lake and though this statement may be hard to prove, it would have been harder to disprove. He took great pleasure and pride in what he did, to our great advantage." As well both my father Percy and my cousin Junior worked for the Colbys and lived on the Colby Estate, between the two of them for almost 30 years.
As for Daniel's elder brother, John Anderson, his romance with Sarah Anne Saball must have been the first to blossom, for theirs was the first of three marriages that joined the Camber and Saball families. It was also a first in another way. St. George's Church was built in 1866 in the village and John and Sarah held the distinction of being the first couple to be wed in the splendid new Church. They were married, presumably in the company of numerous Cambers and Saballs, on February 9, 1867.
Three years before his marriage, John Anderson, like a number of young men on the Canadian side of the line, went off to fight on the Union side in the US Civil War. In January of 1864, when he was 21 years old, John left Georgeville to enroll in Company E, of the 1st Regiment of the New York Mounted Rifles. An electronic search of the US Government's National Park Service Civil War site confirms that John Anderson Camber joined up as a Private, possibly substituting for a New York draftee. The Company was first organized at New York City for duty in Virginia and was involved in a number of bloody engagements from 1864 to 1866, including General Isaac Wistar's expedition toward Richmond, operations against Fort Darling and an expedition from Fort Monroe to Fredericksburg. Over the course of that time, the regiment lost 159 soldiers. Today we know the horrors of war have long term repercussions for those who experience them. From family stories, I believe this was the case with my Great Grandfather as there are times when he would take up residence in the barn, perhaps in an attempt to find peace and solitude and escape from the tortures of war.
John Anderson and Sarah Anne had a large family. Their eight children were well known to my father and his siblings as their Aunts and Uncles and their respective stories are perhaps some of the first I remember hearing. They were a pretty colorful bunch and of the eight, some left Magoon's Point early on, some left and came back and a few of them spent their entire lives on the Point, my Great Uncle Percy and Grandfather Erwin being two that remained for life. They were strong minded, independent folk who liked to do things in their own ways.
Great Uncle Percy, the first known bachelor in the family and no, this was not the start of another Camber family tradition, lived with his mother all of her life and then remained in her house after her death. This, by the way, is now Ian Campbell's house. Uncle Percy died in 195 after living his last years with his brother Erwin's family and with George Buzzell. Percy is buried in MacPherson Cemetery.
My Grandfather Erwin stole the heart of a young Scottish lass named Jessie Raeburn Cameron, also stealing her away from her work at Dunkeld as nanny to the Murray children. Erwin and Jessie, both born in 1885, but on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were married in 1921 in Newport, keeping the family tradition of wlopement alive and well.
Since at least 1905, Erwin and his brother Percy had both worked as farmers on the Molson Estate, Fernhill. In 1908, following the death of Alexander Molson's widow, the property came into the hands of a Molson daughter, Ella Geraldine, or "Miss" as she was always referred to by my father and his siblings. Erwin progressed up the Fernhill ladder, first as Chauffeur and then as foreman.
Every time I think of my Grandfather in his chauffeur uniform (which he still had at the time of his death in 1973), I am reminded of the movie Driving Miss Daisy. I'd like to think that Erwin's relationship with Miss Molson was similar to Miss Daisy's with her chauffeur. I'm guessing Miss Molson knew her mind. I don't have to guess that about my Grandfather.
One of Erwin's responsibilities at that time was to see that the Lighthouse on Molson's Island was lit every night and extinguished every morning, in spite of the weather. The route he took by rowboat has been retraced many times by his grandchildren as we all spent a great deal of our time on Molson's Island during our childhoods. Erwin probably rowed to the Island and although we occasionally rowed over, most times we had the luxury of a boat equipped with a small outboard motor.
The main Molson house was located on the lakeshore part of the Estate, just about where John and Mary Cowan's house is now sited. It was not winterized so Miss Molson lived there only in the Summer. She and her staff, including Erwin and Jessie, would move to the main house around May 1. They spent the balance of the year in the farmhouse on the Molson Estate, located where Phillip and Gail Hutchins now live.
Erwin and Jessie's family arrived in the 1920's. Richard Donald, Percy Roy and Edna Raeburn. All of their childhood and early life was spent at Fernhill. In the early 1940's, Erwin leased the farm portion of the Molson Estate and was kept busy farming, driving the school van and maintaining the town roads, which in those days included winter rolling.
Miss Molson died in 1945 and three years later, Erwin purchased the Molson Farm. We have a number of photographs of Richard, Percy and Edna during those years. The light haired Richard, who had his mother's coloring, always had a twinkle in his eye. I remember Uncle Richard as a fun loving fellow who often dropped in to sample my mother's latest desserts. My father Percy and Aunt Edna favored their father with their dark hair and complexions and the two of them always seemd so serious in their photos. However, we all know that was only a pose for the camera. Percy would tease Edna relentlessly and he would bother her constantly about her favorite Hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, but Edna could give it back in equal measure. Percy and his Maple Leafs often took a shellacking, You don't have too much imagination to know what Hockey night in Canada was like around the radio in the household.
A number of cousins came into the story at this time. My Grandfather Erwin's sister Edythe had married Charles Mosher. They were the Grandparents of our Newport cousins, the Kryzskos and Bensons. Edythe Mosher Kryzsko was a regular visitor at Fernhill during her childhood and was particularly close to Percy and Erwin's brother Wallace married Olive Leney, bringing Evadna and Armonde into the clan. Wallace and Olive lived the last years of their life together with Raymond West in the house Raymond built just south of the Georgeville United Church.
Uncle Richard and my father Percy lived their entire lives on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. Richard settled on Fernhill, taking over the property from Erwin in 1957. He married Eva Mary Jones, who could make the best Raisin Spice Cake with Butter icing ever tasted on Magoon's Point. I still remember her Birthday gifts to me of those cakes, always decorated with phlox from her garden and of course, Junior and Richie always helped with the cake eating. Richard later purchased the property on the East Road where his son Richie and Stacey now live. At that time, Fernhill was sold to Douglas Creighton who also subsequently bought the neighbouring property to the south known as Tanglewood. These properties are now owned by the St, Germains.
My father Percy, or Pep (or Uncle Perp) as he was more commonly known, married Jean Mary Thayer and that is where Wendy and I come into the story. We lived in the gatehouse on Fernhill until 1967 when we moved to the house vacated by Bill and Mattie Gosney when my father assumed the position of caretaker on the Colby Estate. I'll never forget the words my father used when he told us we were going to move. He rushed through the front door and announced that "the gates of heaven have opened." Percy worked and lived on the Colby Estate for the rest of his life.
Edna was the adventuresome sibling. She moved to Montreal to work for the Bell Telephone Company. She returned to the area to marry John McKelvey and lived in Cherry River until his untimely death. She returned to Georgeville and worked in Max Grainger's Store for three summers and then moved to Magog, living with Mrs. Harris, the widow of Veterinarian Dr. Harris, while she worked at Dominion Textile. Edna returned to Georgeville to enjoy her retirement years, though retiring may not be precisely the word that springs to mind in the case of Aunt Edna.
And so here we are, just about caught up to the year 2004. Junior and Richie have had the good fortune to marry into families long established in the area, the Hornbys and Johnstons and Daniel, William and Madison will carry on the Camber traditions, I'm sure.
Growing up on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville was a privilege, one I feel very fortunate to have shared with all the generations since John Henry Camber. The lake, the mountains, the supportive and friendly people and the opportunity to learn, to respect and care for the natural gifts bestowed upon us all played a role in providing what I can only describe as a rare and precious environment. For all of us fortunate enough to have had this experience, I will repeat my father's words, "the gates of heaven have opened."
Transcribed by Richard Meyers
March 6, 2015
"The Camber Family: A Strong and Lasting Presence"
Presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Georgeville Historical Society on July 10th, 2004
by Louise Camber Bolden
The Cambers are one of a handful of families who can trace their roots back 200 years to the earliest days of settlement and who's surname has been continuously present since that era.
The first member of the Camber family to arrive on Magoon's Point, in the early 1800's, was John Henry Camber. Family history passed down through the generations indicates that he was one of two sons of a Dutch General (though it is quite possible that his rank grew as the story was retold). Wounded in battle and knowing he did not have long to live, the General tore in half what was once assumed to be a Family Bible, giving one half to each of his two sons. John Henry's half was passed down to his grandson, Daniel Amos. In 1899, Daniel showed it to the McGill Historian, Professor Charles Colby, who had just acquired lakeshore property near the Camber Farm, the beginning of what became a long association between the Camber and Colby families.
Professor Colby concluded that this fascinating and fragile document was not a Bible, but a devotional text that included Hymns, Psalms and apparently the complete text of the Augsburgh Confession, endorsed by Martin Luther as the creed of the Lutheran Church. The language of the document was not Dutch, but rather Deutsch, or pure German. So from this it seems that the Cambers probably descended from a Dutch or German background. The half of the document passed down in our family has found it's way to Calgary and is in the hands of a cousin who unfortunately couldn't be here today.
John Henry Camber married Heborah Data about 1788 in Strafford Township, Vermont across the Connecticut River from Hanover, N.H. In the early 1800's, the couple moved to Stanstead Township with their five children. They would ultimately have eight children and the last three, Henry, Richard and Theodoty were apparently born on Magoon's Point just after the turn of the century.
The earliest primary evidence of John Henry Camber in Copp's Ferry comes from a deed he witnessed dated November 6, 1810 by which Richard Copp acquired property on the East Road (the property now owned by the Lords). Later, in 1825 the census for Stanstead Township lists John Camber, his wife, two sons and a daughter, in age brackets that fit the family as we know it. At that time, John Henry was farming on the Magoon Point Road. From the order in which he was enumerated, his clearing was probably on the lot later farmed by his sons Henry and Richard, a mile or so south of the Elephant Barn.
It was these two sons, along with their younger sister Theodoty, who married near neighbours and raised families of their own in Magoon's Point. Henry married Priscilla Martel, a marriage that sheds some interesting light on the social demography of the Point. Priscilla was a daughter of Pascal Martel, the Martels being one of a number of French speaking Catholic families who settled on Magoon's Point much earler than is commonly supposed. Henry's brother Richard married Amanda Collins, the daughter of a settler at Harvey's Landing, south of Fitch Bay and Theodoty married an English emigrant to Magoon's Point named Joseph Kemp.
These three of John Henry's children began the Camber line that continues today, both on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. The eldest of Theodoty's eight children has left us a short memoir in which he vividly described a harsh fact iof life for farm children in the 1840's. When he was seven years old, Theodoty's son Joseph wrote that he began attending one room Magoon Point School, a two and a half mile walk from his home. But he recalls at age 10 that "it was decided to keep me at home to help clear the land of the forest, as the family was growing somewhat faster than the clearing." That sentence leaves one with a vivid image of large families working very hard to survive and of a time when survival precluded education.
Before leaving John Henry and Heborah, I should perhaps point out that we do not know how many of their grandchildren they lived to see. No record of their deaths survives. The thinking is that there is a lost cemetery in the woods near the Camber Farm on Magoon's Point, once known but buried over the years by the changing seasons. John and Heborah may well lie buried there.
Henry, the eldest of the three children born in Canada and Priscilla Martel were married in March of 1841 in Derby, Vermont. Now, why would two neighbours from Magoon's Point travel to Derby to be married? Perhaps it was the closest location in which an official marriage could be performed, but a more colorful interpretation leads one to speculate that they began one of the first Camber traditions. That of eloping, a tradition that has lasted for 160 years. Between 1841 and 1859, Henry and Priscilla would have six childrenthree boys and three girls. Henry farmed the property adjoining that of his brother Richard and most of the children were born there.
Those of us who grew up on Magoon's Point have little difficulty imagining what pioneer life was like there in the early to mid 1800's. We know from our Grandparents that life was difficult and we know how much hard work was required simply to survive, but seldom are we aware of the challenges and hardships facing pioneer families on a personal level.
Tragedy would strike the Henry Camber family. Henry and Priscilla's oldest daughter Mary Anne died in 1868 at the age of 27. Two weeks later, Henry died. This left Priscilla a widow at age 46, with five children between the ages of 8 and 22. Two years later, her daughter Elvira died and two years after that, her daughter Rosetta. In the span of six years, Priscilla had lost her husband and all three of her daughters. One can only wonder how families dealt with tragedies of this nature at that time. We know that the risks were great and that pioneers often died in horrible ways, but to have half of one's family of eight simply eradicated in less than six years had to have taken a toll on Priscilla. At some point during this period, the family had moved to Apple Grove, a small community south of the Narrows. However, Priscilla moved back to Magoon's Point and was living with her youngest son William when she died in 1908, at the age of 87.
The next of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Richard A. Camber, married Amanda Collins in 1833. It is the branch of the family from which the present day Georgeville Cambers have descended. They were my Great Great Grandparents, as well as Erwin and Richard's (otherwise known as Junior and Richie) and so while many people trace their ancestors back only three or four generations, Erwin and Sharon's sons Daniel and William and Richie and Stacey's daughter, Madison Raeburn, are Cambers of the seventh generation in Georgeville.
Richard A. and Amanda had six children, all born between 1834 and 1856. Richard A.'s name appears in a ledger of the storekeeper Joshua Copp and it's probably safe to say that the articles he purchased were just slightly different from those listed on the Camber accounts in Max Grainger's ledger in the 1960's. Nevertheless, this confirms a second Camber family tradition, a trip to the village to buy supplies.
We know from Registry Office Records that Richard A. purchased 62 acres of what was likely his father's homestead in 1847. The property was then described as being bounded on the east by that occupied by his brother Henry. The 1861 Census shows Richard and Amanda living with their three sons, Richard, Jr., John A. and Daniel, in a framed one story house. Presumably, their older daughters had married and left home by then.
Census takers in the mid 1800's clearly took a great deal of time to gather information. The 1861 Census shows that Richard's farming operations were, with one exception, not untypical of those of his neighbours. He had 15 acres in crops, 15 acres in pasture and 32 wooded acres. The value of his farm was was $600 and he owned implements and machinery worth $20. The exception was that, along with producing butter, beef and pork, Richard also was a canny fisherman, another Camber tradition. He reported producing two barrels of salted fish that year and selling 150lbs. of fresh fish. It appears that Richard and Amanda lived a comfortable life, looking after themselves and their family quite well on their 62 acres, with little help from Lake Memphremagog.
Richard died on July 6, 1873 at the age of 70. Only two of their six children were left on Magoon's Point at that time. Daniel Amos and John Anderson, names which all present day Cambers are quite familiar. From Richard's will, we know that he left half of his farm to his widow Amanda and the other half to his son Daniel. In the custom of the times, Amanda sold her half to Daniel for $1, in return for his promise to maintain her for the rest of her life. As it turned out, Amanda died in 1876. Both Richard and Amanda are buried in the Brookside Cemetery in Fitch Bay.
It is perhaps the third of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Theodoty who relatively speaking became the most famous. In 1840, she married the English emigrant Joseph Kemp, who acquired a farm to the south of Richard's down on the lakeshore.That was probably a good decision on Theodoty's part. Joseph, Sr. no doubt had a lovely English accent, never mind the lakeshore acres that came along with him.
Theodoty's claim to fame was that it was her son, Joseph, Jr., the little boy who left school at age ten because he was needed on the farm, who grew up to achieve celebrity and I quote, as "the father of all manure spreader." This does not mean, as you might think, that he became a politician. Rather, he invented and manufactured North America's first practical, mechanical manure spreader, a significant advance in agricultural technology.
After leaving home, Joseph, Jr. aquired a farm at the north end of the Lake, near what is now known as Kemp Bay and there designed and developed his spreader. He then entered into a partnership with William Burpee of Derby. The partners moved to Syracuse, NY, where they went into business as the Kemp and Burpee Manufacturing Company. This was eventually taken over by the John Deere Company. Joseph, Jr. then designed and built a new machine, which was manufactured by J.S. Kemp Manufacturing for some years until it was bought by the International Harvester Company. So whichever way you spread it, Joseph, Jr. was there.
Now, back to Richard and Amanda's three youngest sons, John Anderson, Daniel Amos and Charles, for there is a story worth telling here. All three married granddaughters of another Magoon Point francophone settler, Francois Xavier Saball, Sr. Francois Xavier was born in France in 1788 and was a veteran of Napoleon's Army when he settled on Magoon's Point with his wife Eliza Gravel in the 1820's. John Anderson's wife, Sarah Anne and Daniel Amos' wife, Eliza and were daughter's of Francois Xavier's son Joseph and his wife Betsey Martel (Betsey was a younger sister of Henry Smith Camber's wife Priscilla Martel). Charles' wife, Maggie was the daughter of Joseph's brother Julius and his wife Naomi Martel (yes, another sister of Priscilla's). Don't worry, there won't be a test on this, but it is all to say that the Camber, Martel and Saball families were joined in a vast network of relationships over two generations. One can only hope that one of them had a home large enough for Christmas dinner.
It was Richard and Amanda's son, Daniel Amos, that the relationship between the Camber and Colby families began. Professor Charles Colby and his wife Kitty come into our story in 1898 when they decided to spend two September weeks at the Mountain House, at the foot of Owl's Head, before the new term began at McGill. The Colbys were familiar with the area as Charles was a grandson of one of Stanstead's first Doctors, Moses French Colby and the son of Member of Parliament, Charles Carroll Colby. As Professor Colby recalled in a family memoir, "at this time the Mountain House was going full blast and as things went in this part of the World, had a good standing among Hotels of it's class. Far from grand, it was comfortable and had good enough food. More important still, it had plenty of rowboats. Having both been born near the lake, we had been on it's shores often in summer.
So it was, exploring by rowboat, that the Colbys discovered and decided to buy, a stretch of lakeshore near Daniel's farm. The following summer, Daniel and his brother John both helped to build a cottage for the Colbys on their new property. This is perhaps where the next Camber family tradition began, that of carpentry, a tradition continued by Daniel's great nephew Percy and his nephew Richie.
One day, Professor Colby overheard Daniel commenting on a particular design element of the cottage, commenting without knowing Professor Colby was within earshot, of course. Work was well underway for aa rough stone fireplace in the cottage. "Well, I suppose the Doctor likes that sort of thing or else he wouldn't have it, but if it were mine, I wouldn't have it in my house, no, nor in my Sugar House." Never a family to sit on the fence on any issue, the Camber family tradition of outspokenness came through loud and clear, but Daniel redeemed himself by suggesting the name for the Colby property. Professor Colby was endeavouring to find the name of the original squatter who had lived on the property and it was Daniel who remembered that in the days of his great grandfather there had been a settler named Winlock, living in a small shack just behind the bay and so the name Winlock came into existence.
As for Daniel's brother, John Anderson, he began each workday, the professor recalled, by sing in a loud, though dulcet coice "O birdie I am tired now, I do not want to hear you sing; you've sung your happy songs all day, now hide your head beneath your wing." As Professor Colby put it, "this confession of weariness at 7 a.m. was something to catch attention."
Early rising singers aside, the Cambers' association with the Colbys endured. Daniel's son, Daniel Amos, Jr., oversaw the Colby property for more than 45 years. "I have often said," the Professor recalled, "that he was the best mechanic on the lake and though this statement may be hard to prove, it would have been harder to disprove. He took great pleasure and pride in what he did, to our great advantage." As well both my father Percy and my cousin Junior worked for the Colbys and lived on the Colby Estate, between the two of them for almost 30 years.
As for Daniel's elder brother, John Anderson, his romance with Sarah Anne Saball must have been the first to blossom, for theirs was the first of three marriages that joined the Camber and Saball families. It was also a first in another way. St. George's Church was built in 1866 in the village and John and Sarah held the distinction of being the first couple to be wed in the splendid new Church. They were married, presumably in the company of numerous Cambers and Saballs, on February 9, 1867.
Three years before his marriage, John Anderson, like a number of young men on the Canadian side of the line, went off to fight on the Union side in the US Civil War. In January of 1864, when he was 21 years old, John left Georgeville to enroll in Company E, of the 1st Regiment of the New York Mounted Rifles. An electronic search of the US Government's National Park Service Civil War site confirms that John Anderson Camber joined up as a Private, possibly substituting for a New York draftee. The Company was first organized at New York City for duty in Virginia and was involved in a number of bloody engagements from 1864 to 1866, including General Isaac Wistar's expedition toward Richmond, operations against Fort Darling and an expedition from Fort Monroe to Fredericksburg. Over the course of that time, the regiment lost 159 soldiers. Today we know the horrors of war have long term repercussions for those who experience them. From family stories, I believe this was the case with my Great Grandfather as there are times when he would take up residence in the barn, perhaps in an attempt to find peace and solitude and escape from the tortures of war.
John Anderson and Sarah Anne had a large family. Their eight children were well known to my father and his siblings as their Aunts and Uncles and their respective stories are perhaps some of the first I remember hearing. They were a pretty colorful bunch and of the eight, some left Magoon's Point early on, some left and came back and a few of them spent their entire lives on the Point, my Great Uncle Percy and Grandfather Erwin being two that remained for life. They were strong minded, independent folk who liked to do things in their own ways.
Great Uncle Percy, the first known bachelor in the family and no, this was not the start of another Camber family tradition, lived with his mother all of her life and then remained in her house after her death. This, by the way, is now Ian Campbell's house. Uncle Percy died in 195 after living his last years with his brother Erwin's family and with George Buzzell. Percy is buried in MacPherson Cemetery.
My Grandfather Erwin stole the heart of a young Scottish lass named Jessie Raeburn Cameron, also stealing her away from her work at Dunkeld as nanny to the Murray children. Erwin and Jessie, both born in 1885, but on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were married in 1921 in Newport, keeping the family tradition of wlopement alive and well.
Since at least 1905, Erwin and his brother Percy had both worked as farmers on the Molson Estate, Fernhill. In 1908, following the death of Alexander Molson's widow, the property came into the hands of a Molson daughter, Ella Geraldine, or "Miss" as she was always referred to by my father and his siblings. Erwin progressed up the Fernhill ladder, first as Chauffeur and then as foreman.
Every time I think of my Grandfather in his chauffeur uniform (which he still had at the time of his death in 1973), I am reminded of the movie Driving Miss Daisy. I'd like to think that Erwin's relationship with Miss Molson was similar to Miss Daisy's with her chauffeur. I'm guessing Miss Molson knew her mind. I don't have to guess that about my Grandfather.
One of Erwin's responsibilities at that time was to see that the Lighthouse on Molson's Island was lit every night and extinguished every morning, in spite of the weather. The route he took by rowboat has been retraced many times by his grandchildren as we all spent a great deal of our time on Molson's Island during our childhoods. Erwin probably rowed to the Island and although we occasionally rowed over, most times we had the luxury of a boat equipped with a small outboard motor.
The main Molson house was located on the lakeshore part of the Estate, just about where John and Mary Cowan's house is now sited. It was not winterized so Miss Molson lived there only in the Summer. She and her staff, including Erwin and Jessie, would move to the main house around May 1. They spent the balance of the year in the farmhouse on the Molson Estate, located where Phillip and Gail Hutchins now live.
Erwin and Jessie's family arrived in the 1920's. Richard Donald, Percy Roy and Edna Raeburn. All of their childhood and early life was spent at Fernhill. In the early 1940's, Erwin leased the farm portion of the Molson Estate and was kept busy farming, driving the school van and maintaining the town roads, which in those days included winter rolling.
Miss Molson died in 1945 and three years later, Erwin purchased the Molson Farm. We have a number of photographs of Richard, Percy and Edna during those years. The light haired Richard, who had his mother's coloring, always had a twinkle in his eye. I remember Uncle Richard as a fun loving fellow who often dropped in to sample my mother's latest desserts. My father Percy and Aunt Edna favored their father with their dark hair and complexions and the two of them always seemd so serious in their photos. However, we all know that was only a pose for the camera. Percy would tease Edna relentlessly and he would bother her constantly about her favorite Hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, but Edna could give it back in equal measure. Percy and his Maple Leafs often took a shellacking, You don't have too much imagination to know what Hockey night in Canada was like around the radio in the household.
A number of cousins came into the story at this time. My Grandfather Erwin's sister Edythe had married Charles Mosher. They were the Grandparents of our Newport cousins, the Kryzskos and Bensons. Edythe Mosher Kryzsko was a regular visitor at Fernhill during her childhood and was particularly close to Percy and Erwin's brother Wallace married Olive Leney, bringing Evadna and Armonde into the clan. Wallace and Olive lived the last years of their life together with Raymond West in the house Raymond built just south of the Georgeville United Church.
Uncle Richard and my father Percy lived their entire lives on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. Richard settled on Fernhill, taking over the property from Erwin in 1957. He married Eva Mary Jones, who could make the best Raisin Spice Cake with Butter icing ever tasted on Magoon's Point. I still remember her Birthday gifts to me of those cakes, always decorated with phlox from her garden and of course, Junior and Richie always helped with the cake eating. Richard later purchased the property on the East Road where his son Richie and Stacey now live. At that time, Fernhill was sold to Douglas Creighton who also subsequently bought the neighbouring property to the south known as Tanglewood. These properties are now owned by the St, Germains.
My father Percy, or Pep (or Uncle Perp) as he was more commonly known, married Jean Mary Thayer and that is where Wendy and I come into the story. We lived in the gatehouse on Fernhill until 1967 when we moved to the house vacated by Bill and Mattie Gosney when my father assumed the position of caretaker on the Colby Estate. I'll never forget the words my father used when he told us we were going to move. He rushed through the front door and announced that "the gates of heaven have opened." Percy worked and lived on the Colby Estate for the rest of his life.
Edna was the adventuresome sibling. She moved to Montreal to work for the Bell Telephone Company. She returned to the area to marry John McKelvey and lived in Cherry River until his untimely death. She returned to Georgeville and worked in Max Grainger's Store for three summers and then moved to Magog, living with Mrs. Harris, the widow of Veterinarian Dr. Harris, while she worked at Dominion Textile. Edna returned to Georgeville to enjoy her retirement years, though retiring may not be precisely the word that springs to mind in the case of Aunt Edna.
And so here we are, just about caught up to the year 2004. Junior and Richie have had the good fortune to marry into families long established in the area, the Hornbys and Johnstons and Daniel, William and Madison will carry on the Camber traditions, I'm sure.
Growing up on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville was a privilege, one I feel very fortunate to have shared with all the generations since John Henry Camber. The lake, the mountains, the supportive and friendly people and the opportunity to learn, to respect and care for the natural gifts bestowed upon us all played a role in providing what I can only describe as a rare and precious environment. For all of us fortunate enough to have had this experience, I will repeat my father's words, "the gates of heaven have opened."
Transcribed by Richard Meyers
March 6, 2015
Presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the Georgeville Historical Society on July 10th, 2004
by Louise Camber Bolden
The Cambers are one of a handful of families who can trace their roots back 200 years to the earliest days of settlement and who's surname has been continuously present since that era.
The first member of the Camber family to arrive on Magoon's Point, in the early 1800's, was John Henry Camber. Family history passed down through the generations indicates that he was one of two sons of a Dutch General (though it is quite possible that his rank grew as the story was retold). Wounded in battle and knowing he did not have long to live, the General tore in half what was once assumed to be a Family Bible, giving one half to each of his two sons. John Henry's half was passed down to his grandson, Daniel Amos. In 1899, Daniel showed it to the McGill Historian, Professor Charles Colby, who had just acquired lakeshore property near the Camber Farm, the beginning of what became a long association between the Camber and Colby families.
Professor Colby concluded that this fascinating and fragile document was not a Bible, but a devotional text that included Hymns, Psalms and apparently the complete text of the Augsburgh Confession, endorsed by Martin Luther as the creed of the Lutheran Church. The language of the document was not Dutch, but rather Deutsch, or pure German. So from this it seems that the Cambers probably descended from a Dutch or German background. The half of the document passed down in our family has found it's way to Calgary and is in the hands of a cousin who unfortunately couldn't be here today.
John Henry Camber married Heborah Data about 1788 in Strafford Township, Vermont across the Connecticut River from Hanover, N.H. In the early 1800's, the couple moved to Stanstead Township with their five children. They would ultimately have eight children and the last three, Henry, Richard and Theodoty were apparently born on Magoon's Point just after the turn of the century.
The earliest primary evidence of John Henry Camber in Copp's Ferry comes from a deed he witnessed dated November 6, 1810 by which Richard Copp acquired property on the East Road (the property now owned by the Lords). Later, in 1825 the census for Stanstead Township lists John Camber, his wife, two sons and a daughter, in age brackets that fit the family as we know it. At that time, John Henry was farming on the Magoon Point Road. From the order in which he was enumerated, his clearing was probably on the lot later farmed by his sons Henry and Richard, a mile or so south of the Elephant Barn.
It was these two sons, along with their younger sister Theodoty, who married near neighbours and raised families of their own in Magoon's Point. Henry married Priscilla Martel, a marriage that sheds some interesting light on the social demography of the Point. Priscilla was a daughter of Pascal Martel, the Martels being one of a number of French speaking Catholic families who settled on Magoon's Point much earler than is commonly supposed. Henry's brother Richard married Amanda Collins, the daughter of a settler at Harvey's Landing, south of Fitch Bay and Theodoty married an English emigrant to Magoon's Point named Joseph Kemp.
These three of John Henry's children began the Camber line that continues today, both on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. The eldest of Theodoty's eight children has left us a short memoir in which he vividly described a harsh fact iof life for farm children in the 1840's. When he was seven years old, Theodoty's son Joseph wrote that he began attending one room Magoon Point School, a two and a half mile walk from his home. But he recalls at age 10 that "it was decided to keep me at home to help clear the land of the forest, as the family was growing somewhat faster than the clearing." That sentence leaves one with a vivid image of large families working very hard to survive and of a time when survival precluded education.
Before leaving John Henry and Heborah, I should perhaps point out that we do not know how many of their grandchildren they lived to see. No record of their deaths survives. The thinking is that there is a lost cemetery in the woods near the Camber Farm on Magoon's Point, once known but buried over the years by the changing seasons. John and Heborah may well lie buried there.
Henry, the eldest of the three children born in Canada and Priscilla Martel were married in March of 1841 in Derby, Vermont. Now, why would two neighbours from Magoon's Point travel to Derby to be married? Perhaps it was the closest location in which an official marriage could be performed, but a more colorful interpretation leads one to speculate that they began one of the first Camber traditions. That of eloping, a tradition that has lasted for 160 years. Between 1841 and 1859, Henry and Priscilla would have six childrenthree boys and three girls. Henry farmed the property adjoining that of his brother Richard and most of the children were born there.
Those of us who grew up on Magoon's Point have little difficulty imagining what pioneer life was like there in the early to mid 1800's. We know from our Grandparents that life was difficult and we know how much hard work was required simply to survive, but seldom are we aware of the challenges and hardships facing pioneer families on a personal level.
Tragedy would strike the Henry Camber family. Henry and Priscilla's oldest daughter Mary Anne died in 1868 at the age of 27. Two weeks later, Henry died. This left Priscilla a widow at age 46, with five children between the ages of 8 and 22. Two years later, her daughter Elvira died and two years after that, her daughter Rosetta. In the span of six years, Priscilla had lost her husband and all three of her daughters. One can only wonder how families dealt with tragedies of this nature at that time. We know that the risks were great and that pioneers often died in horrible ways, but to have half of one's family of eight simply eradicated in less than six years had to have taken a toll on Priscilla. At some point during this period, the family had moved to Apple Grove, a small community south of the Narrows. However, Priscilla moved back to Magoon's Point and was living with her youngest son William when she died in 1908, at the age of 87.
The next of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Richard A. Camber, married Amanda Collins in 1833. It is the branch of the family from which the present day Georgeville Cambers have descended. They were my Great Great Grandparents, as well as Erwin and Richard's (otherwise known as Junior and Richie) and so while many people trace their ancestors back only three or four generations, Erwin and Sharon's sons Daniel and William and Richie and Stacey's daughter, Madison Raeburn, are Cambers of the seventh generation in Georgeville.
Richard A. and Amanda had six children, all born between 1834 and 1856. Richard A.'s name appears in a ledger of the storekeeper Joshua Copp and it's probably safe to say that the articles he purchased were just slightly different from those listed on the Camber accounts in Max Grainger's ledger in the 1960's. Nevertheless, this confirms a second Camber family tradition, a trip to the village to buy supplies.
We know from Registry Office Records that Richard A. purchased 62 acres of what was likely his father's homestead in 1847. The property was then described as being bounded on the east by that occupied by his brother Henry. The 1861 Census shows Richard and Amanda living with their three sons, Richard, Jr., John A. and Daniel, in a framed one story house. Presumably, their older daughters had married and left home by then.
Census takers in the mid 1800's clearly took a great deal of time to gather information. The 1861 Census shows that Richard's farming operations were, with one exception, not untypical of those of his neighbours. He had 15 acres in crops, 15 acres in pasture and 32 wooded acres. The value of his farm was was $600 and he owned implements and machinery worth $20. The exception was that, along with producing butter, beef and pork, Richard also was a canny fisherman, another Camber tradition. He reported producing two barrels of salted fish that year and selling 150lbs. of fresh fish. It appears that Richard and Amanda lived a comfortable life, looking after themselves and their family quite well on their 62 acres, with little help from Lake Memphremagog.
Richard died on July 6, 1873 at the age of 70. Only two of their six children were left on Magoon's Point at that time. Daniel Amos and John Anderson, names which all present day Cambers are quite familiar. From Richard's will, we know that he left half of his farm to his widow Amanda and the other half to his son Daniel. In the custom of the times, Amanda sold her half to Daniel for $1, in return for his promise to maintain her for the rest of her life. As it turned out, Amanda died in 1876. Both Richard and Amanda are buried in the Brookside Cemetery in Fitch Bay.
It is perhaps the third of John and Heborah's Canadian children, Theodoty who relatively speaking became the most famous. In 1840, she married the English emigrant Joseph Kemp, who acquired a farm to the south of Richard's down on the lakeshore.That was probably a good decision on Theodoty's part. Joseph, Sr. no doubt had a lovely English accent, never mind the lakeshore acres that came along with him.
Theodoty's claim to fame was that it was her son, Joseph, Jr., the little boy who left school at age ten because he was needed on the farm, who grew up to achieve celebrity and I quote, as "the father of all manure spreader." This does not mean, as you might think, that he became a politician. Rather, he invented and manufactured North America's first practical, mechanical manure spreader, a significant advance in agricultural technology.
After leaving home, Joseph, Jr. aquired a farm at the north end of the Lake, near what is now known as Kemp Bay and there designed and developed his spreader. He then entered into a partnership with William Burpee of Derby. The partners moved to Syracuse, NY, where they went into business as the Kemp and Burpee Manufacturing Company. This was eventually taken over by the John Deere Company. Joseph, Jr. then designed and built a new machine, which was manufactured by J.S. Kemp Manufacturing for some years until it was bought by the International Harvester Company. So whichever way you spread it, Joseph, Jr. was there.
Now, back to Richard and Amanda's three youngest sons, John Anderson, Daniel Amos and Charles, for there is a story worth telling here. All three married granddaughters of another Magoon Point francophone settler, Francois Xavier Saball, Sr. Francois Xavier was born in France in 1788 and was a veteran of Napoleon's Army when he settled on Magoon's Point with his wife Eliza Gravel in the 1820's. John Anderson's wife, Sarah Anne and Daniel Amos' wife, Eliza and were daughter's of Francois Xavier's son Joseph and his wife Betsey Martel (Betsey was a younger sister of Henry Smith Camber's wife Priscilla Martel). Charles' wife, Maggie was the daughter of Joseph's brother Julius and his wife Naomi Martel (yes, another sister of Priscilla's). Don't worry, there won't be a test on this, but it is all to say that the Camber, Martel and Saball families were joined in a vast network of relationships over two generations. One can only hope that one of them had a home large enough for Christmas dinner.
It was Richard and Amanda's son, Daniel Amos, that the relationship between the Camber and Colby families began. Professor Charles Colby and his wife Kitty come into our story in 1898 when they decided to spend two September weeks at the Mountain House, at the foot of Owl's Head, before the new term began at McGill. The Colbys were familiar with the area as Charles was a grandson of one of Stanstead's first Doctors, Moses French Colby and the son of Member of Parliament, Charles Carroll Colby. As Professor Colby recalled in a family memoir, "at this time the Mountain House was going full blast and as things went in this part of the World, had a good standing among Hotels of it's class. Far from grand, it was comfortable and had good enough food. More important still, it had plenty of rowboats. Having both been born near the lake, we had been on it's shores often in summer.
So it was, exploring by rowboat, that the Colbys discovered and decided to buy, a stretch of lakeshore near Daniel's farm. The following summer, Daniel and his brother John both helped to build a cottage for the Colbys on their new property. This is perhaps where the next Camber family tradition began, that of carpentry, a tradition continued by Daniel's great nephew Percy and his nephew Richie.
One day, Professor Colby overheard Daniel commenting on a particular design element of the cottage, commenting without knowing Professor Colby was within earshot, of course. Work was well underway for aa rough stone fireplace in the cottage. "Well, I suppose the Doctor likes that sort of thing or else he wouldn't have it, but if it were mine, I wouldn't have it in my house, no, nor in my Sugar House." Never a family to sit on the fence on any issue, the Camber family tradition of outspokenness came through loud and clear, but Daniel redeemed himself by suggesting the name for the Colby property. Professor Colby was endeavouring to find the name of the original squatter who had lived on the property and it was Daniel who remembered that in the days of his great grandfather there had been a settler named Winlock, living in a small shack just behind the bay and so the name Winlock came into existence.
As for Daniel's brother, John Anderson, he began each workday, the professor recalled, by sing in a loud, though dulcet coice "O birdie I am tired now, I do not want to hear you sing; you've sung your happy songs all day, now hide your head beneath your wing." As Professor Colby put it, "this confession of weariness at 7 a.m. was something to catch attention."
Early rising singers aside, the Cambers' association with the Colbys endured. Daniel's son, Daniel Amos, Jr., oversaw the Colby property for more than 45 years. "I have often said," the Professor recalled, "that he was the best mechanic on the lake and though this statement may be hard to prove, it would have been harder to disprove. He took great pleasure and pride in what he did, to our great advantage." As well both my father Percy and my cousin Junior worked for the Colbys and lived on the Colby Estate, between the two of them for almost 30 years.
As for Daniel's elder brother, John Anderson, his romance with Sarah Anne Saball must have been the first to blossom, for theirs was the first of three marriages that joined the Camber and Saball families. It was also a first in another way. St. George's Church was built in 1866 in the village and John and Sarah held the distinction of being the first couple to be wed in the splendid new Church. They were married, presumably in the company of numerous Cambers and Saballs, on February 9, 1867.
Three years before his marriage, John Anderson, like a number of young men on the Canadian side of the line, went off to fight on the Union side in the US Civil War. In January of 1864, when he was 21 years old, John left Georgeville to enroll in Company E, of the 1st Regiment of the New York Mounted Rifles. An electronic search of the US Government's National Park Service Civil War site confirms that John Anderson Camber joined up as a Private, possibly substituting for a New York draftee. The Company was first organized at New York City for duty in Virginia and was involved in a number of bloody engagements from 1864 to 1866, including General Isaac Wistar's expedition toward Richmond, operations against Fort Darling and an expedition from Fort Monroe to Fredericksburg. Over the course of that time, the regiment lost 159 soldiers. Today we know the horrors of war have long term repercussions for those who experience them. From family stories, I believe this was the case with my Great Grandfather as there are times when he would take up residence in the barn, perhaps in an attempt to find peace and solitude and escape from the tortures of war.
John Anderson and Sarah Anne had a large family. Their eight children were well known to my father and his siblings as their Aunts and Uncles and their respective stories are perhaps some of the first I remember hearing. They were a pretty colorful bunch and of the eight, some left Magoon's Point early on, some left and came back and a few of them spent their entire lives on the Point, my Great Uncle Percy and Grandfather Erwin being two that remained for life. They were strong minded, independent folk who liked to do things in their own ways.
Great Uncle Percy, the first known bachelor in the family and no, this was not the start of another Camber family tradition, lived with his mother all of her life and then remained in her house after her death. This, by the way, is now Ian Campbell's house. Uncle Percy died in 195 after living his last years with his brother Erwin's family and with George Buzzell. Percy is buried in MacPherson Cemetery.
My Grandfather Erwin stole the heart of a young Scottish lass named Jessie Raeburn Cameron, also stealing her away from her work at Dunkeld as nanny to the Murray children. Erwin and Jessie, both born in 1885, but on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were married in 1921 in Newport, keeping the family tradition of wlopement alive and well.
Since at least 1905, Erwin and his brother Percy had both worked as farmers on the Molson Estate, Fernhill. In 1908, following the death of Alexander Molson's widow, the property came into the hands of a Molson daughter, Ella Geraldine, or "Miss" as she was always referred to by my father and his siblings. Erwin progressed up the Fernhill ladder, first as Chauffeur and then as foreman.
Every time I think of my Grandfather in his chauffeur uniform (which he still had at the time of his death in 1973), I am reminded of the movie Driving Miss Daisy. I'd like to think that Erwin's relationship with Miss Molson was similar to Miss Daisy's with her chauffeur. I'm guessing Miss Molson knew her mind. I don't have to guess that about my Grandfather.
One of Erwin's responsibilities at that time was to see that the Lighthouse on Molson's Island was lit every night and extinguished every morning, in spite of the weather. The route he took by rowboat has been retraced many times by his grandchildren as we all spent a great deal of our time on Molson's Island during our childhoods. Erwin probably rowed to the Island and although we occasionally rowed over, most times we had the luxury of a boat equipped with a small outboard motor.
The main Molson house was located on the lakeshore part of the Estate, just about where John and Mary Cowan's house is now sited. It was not winterized so Miss Molson lived there only in the Summer. She and her staff, including Erwin and Jessie, would move to the main house around May 1. They spent the balance of the year in the farmhouse on the Molson Estate, located where Phillip and Gail Hutchins now live.
Erwin and Jessie's family arrived in the 1920's. Richard Donald, Percy Roy and Edna Raeburn. All of their childhood and early life was spent at Fernhill. In the early 1940's, Erwin leased the farm portion of the Molson Estate and was kept busy farming, driving the school van and maintaining the town roads, which in those days included winter rolling.
Miss Molson died in 1945 and three years later, Erwin purchased the Molson Farm. We have a number of photographs of Richard, Percy and Edna during those years. The light haired Richard, who had his mother's coloring, always had a twinkle in his eye. I remember Uncle Richard as a fun loving fellow who often dropped in to sample my mother's latest desserts. My father Percy and Aunt Edna favored their father with their dark hair and complexions and the two of them always seemd so serious in their photos. However, we all know that was only a pose for the camera. Percy would tease Edna relentlessly and he would bother her constantly about her favorite Hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, but Edna could give it back in equal measure. Percy and his Maple Leafs often took a shellacking, You don't have too much imagination to know what Hockey night in Canada was like around the radio in the household.
A number of cousins came into the story at this time. My Grandfather Erwin's sister Edythe had married Charles Mosher. They were the Grandparents of our Newport cousins, the Kryzskos and Bensons. Edythe Mosher Kryzsko was a regular visitor at Fernhill during her childhood and was particularly close to Percy and Erwin's brother Wallace married Olive Leney, bringing Evadna and Armonde into the clan. Wallace and Olive lived the last years of their life together with Raymond West in the house Raymond built just south of the Georgeville United Church.
Uncle Richard and my father Percy lived their entire lives on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville. Richard settled on Fernhill, taking over the property from Erwin in 1957. He married Eva Mary Jones, who could make the best Raisin Spice Cake with Butter icing ever tasted on Magoon's Point. I still remember her Birthday gifts to me of those cakes, always decorated with phlox from her garden and of course, Junior and Richie always helped with the cake eating. Richard later purchased the property on the East Road where his son Richie and Stacey now live. At that time, Fernhill was sold to Douglas Creighton who also subsequently bought the neighbouring property to the south known as Tanglewood. These properties are now owned by the St, Germains.
My father Percy, or Pep (or Uncle Perp) as he was more commonly known, married Jean Mary Thayer and that is where Wendy and I come into the story. We lived in the gatehouse on Fernhill until 1967 when we moved to the house vacated by Bill and Mattie Gosney when my father assumed the position of caretaker on the Colby Estate. I'll never forget the words my father used when he told us we were going to move. He rushed through the front door and announced that "the gates of heaven have opened." Percy worked and lived on the Colby Estate for the rest of his life.
Edna was the adventuresome sibling. She moved to Montreal to work for the Bell Telephone Company. She returned to the area to marry John McKelvey and lived in Cherry River until his untimely death. She returned to Georgeville and worked in Max Grainger's Store for three summers and then moved to Magog, living with Mrs. Harris, the widow of Veterinarian Dr. Harris, while she worked at Dominion Textile. Edna returned to Georgeville to enjoy her retirement years, though retiring may not be precisely the word that springs to mind in the case of Aunt Edna.
And so here we are, just about caught up to the year 2004. Junior and Richie have had the good fortune to marry into families long established in the area, the Hornbys and Johnstons and Daniel, William and Madison will carry on the Camber traditions, I'm sure.
Growing up on Magoon's Point and in Georgeville was a privilege, one I feel very fortunate to have shared with all the generations since John Henry Camber. The lake, the mountains, the supportive and friendly people and the opportunity to learn, to respect and care for the natural gifts bestowed upon us all played a role in providing what I can only describe as a rare and precious environment. For all of us fortunate enough to have had this experience, I will repeat my father's words, "the gates of heaven have opened."
Transcribed by Richard Meyers
March 6, 2015
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