The Spirit of the Times

Click on the title above for an interesting article called “The Canada
of 1880” published in 1930 on the 50th anniversary of Imperial Oil.
There must have been many interesting conversations around the
Peacock dinner tables in King Township in the late 1860s and early
1870s. Canada became a country in 1867, free grant land became
available farther north in Ontario in 1868, Manitoba entered
Confederation in 1870 after the Red River Rebellion and British
Columbia joined the following year, the railway was being built to
the West, and free grant land was offered in Manitoba in 1872.
There were opportunities to move both within Canada and beyond.

South of the border, there was a significant Irish population in
major cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh,
Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco and therefore con-
nections for Irish expatriates. Because the passage to Canada
was shorter and therefore cheaper, many Irish came first to
Canada and then moved on to the US where work was available
in cities. It must have been a very exciting time in the history of
North America and especially for the young men full of hope and
dreams for their future.