I have been asked to
furnish the Young's People's corner of the Mail and Empire a
brief sketch of prominent incidents in my youth, and it affords me
pleasure to comply with that request.
I am of English and Scotch
parentage, and was born in the town of Wheatfield, Monro county, New
York, on the border of the Scotch settlement of Caledonia, to which
colony my parents belonged.
When I was three years old, my
father moved to Ellicottville, Cattaraugus county, New York, and in this
section my youth was spent. It was a mountainous region and at that time
not less that three quarters of the surface of the country was covered
by the primeval forest.
My
educational advantages consisted of the common schools of that period up
to the time I was twelve years old, when I went to a select school at
Ellicottville, and two years later to the McLaren Grammar School of
Caledonia, New York. At the age of eighteen I attended Springvale
academy.
The most
important of the educational advantages I enjoyed were the influences at
home.
My father,
Adam Charlton, was an excellent Greek and Hebrew scholer, a man of rare
attainments, widely read, a fascinating conversationalist, a walking
encyclopedaedia, and exceedingly painstaking in educating his children,
storing their minds with useful information.
He
was a religious man, uncompromising and firm in his adherence to his
principles, he brought up his family in accordance with his religious
belief.
At an early age I
knew the shorter catechism; later on I committed to memory the larger
catechism, and foundations of my religious belief were securely laid by
my early training.
During
the greater part of my youth my father, through the agent of the Holland
Company, lived upon a farm three miles from town, and I became
accustomed to the kinds of farm work there were necessary in this new
and mountainous region.
I
grew up a sturdy young men, capable of yielding the axe, and of
performing efficiently, the rugged pioneer work that was required to the
early settlers of that region.
The
country abounded in trout streams, and I acquired a taste for this
sport, and spent many days in the deep glens of the mountains, following
down the crystal, babbling tout brooks, and trudging home laden with the
results of my day's fishing.
When
seventeen years of age, my first adventurous trip made, by taking a run
down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers, for a distance of eight hundred
miles on a lumber raft.
The
associations were not of the most elevating character, but the trip
served to give me knowledge of the world and development of character.
The
result of the education I passed through was calculated to give habits
of self-reliance, as will be indicated by the fact that when I was
twelve years of age, with the aid of a younger brother, eight years old,
we manufacturer 175 pounds of maple sugar, attending to the gathering of
the sap from the trees, cutting the wood for fires, to evaporate it at
the boiling places in the woods, and doing all the other work connected
with making it.
A rough
old soldier neighbor, by the name of Courter, complimented me very
hughby, in his own particular way, after the sugar season closed, by
saying to me:-- "Johnny, you're a tough little cuss."
When
thirteen years old I drove a flock of sheep from Nunda, N.Y. to
Ellicottville, a distance of fifty miles, without assistance. My father
had bought them from an uncle at Nunda, to put them upon a farm near
Ellicottville.
The last
three years of our stay in Cattaraugus county my father lived in the
village of Ellicottville, and I read law a little, dabbled at
type-setting in an amateur way, and assisted in the editorial work of
the Cattarugus Whig.
At
this time I indulged a little in writing poetry, and my effusions were
highly esteemed by friends, but I fear were not possessed of any degree
of merit.
At school,
the writing of compositions were required every week, and attention to
this duty gave me, at an early age, considerable facility in expressing
my thoughts in writing.
I
have been, during all the years of my life, an omnivorous reader and my
father first created in me a taste for reading, by buying for me when I
was seven years old, a beautifully illustrated copy of Robinson Crusoe.
This book I pored over day after day, and in my youthful imagination,
pictured the scenes and adventures of Crusoe and his man Friday, and
planned what, under the circumstances I would have done myself, and, of
course, I was able to make decided improvements upon the plans adopted
by Crusoe.
Later on I
acquired a taste for novel reading, but fortunately this kind of
literature palled upon my taste at an early age, and since I became of
age I have read very few novels.
My
taste has led me to read largely, books of travel and descriptions of
various countries, and anything in this line possesses a peculiar
fascination for me.
When
fifteen years of age I read Sir Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake, and the
impression it made upon me has been fresh and delightful ever since that
time. The reading of this poem created a taste for poetry. If I were
asked who my favorite poetical writers were, I would say Milton, Sir
Walter Scott, Bryant, Whittier, Mrs. Hemans and Longfellow. And my
favorite prose writers are, among others, Macaulay, Washington, Irving,
Prescott, Motley and Parkham.
I
have read almost everything that has come to my hand on Africa, from the
days of Livingstone, and have watched with the keenest interest the
gradual unfolding if its geographical problems, and the increasing
knowledge concerning its races and resources.
I
have read history and books on political economy extensively, and have
given a fair degree of attention to studies connected with the Bible.
My
father left Cattaraugus, N.Y. and came to Dumfries, Canada in 1849, when
I was twenty. I remained for four years on the farm a mile south of Ayr,
and then embarked in business at Lynedoch, where I still live.
If
I were asked by young people to give the secret of a successful career
in life, I should answer that it requires honesty, industry, sobriety
and strict attention to business, and a constant effort to make services
valuable, and if possible, indispensible to the employer.
No
amount of labor necessary to secure this standard will be thrown away or
fail to secure adequate reward. In a young growing country like our own,
there is ample scope for the ambition of the young men and women, who
desire to succeed.
There
is no royal road to success. It is merely a question of patient
endurance, and of faithful work and devotion to duty. A career centered
upon and pursued under these conditions will inevitably secure a degree
of success more or less marked.
John Charlton
