A Dutch Cooper's Legacy: An Ouderkirk Story From 1660 

Pages 94-96

Like the Forths, the Elvins lived for a number of years in Bracebridge where their daughter Lucy Elizabeth was born in 1890. She died January 03, 1893 and is buried in the United Church Cemetery there near her great-grandparents Henry Takel and Sarah Eliza Ouderkirk. The Elvins were close neighbours of Rose’s brother Lemuel and his wife Emily. The two women shared the joys and problems of their growing families. With regret, Emily watched the Elvins caught up in the new dream that emerged in the early 1900s. Agriculture, the dominant Canadian economic activity, was concentrated in the south where climate and soils were favourable to farming. Northeastern Ontario, however, at the turn of the century was a vast wilderness peopled mainly by Indians and fur traders. The construction of the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway from North Bay to Cochrane where it joined with the Quebec-Winnipeg National Trans-Continental Railway changed all that. The wilderness became a “boom” area. From 1904 to 1909 discoveries of gold and silver brought prospectors and miners to the area. Lumbering flourished and paper mills sprang up. When the clay soil was reported excellent for root crops, settlers flooded in and farms were cleared. Once again people were on the move drawn by talks of new opportunities and new land, dreams of a better life for themselves and their children. The Elvins, and their friends the Littles, responded to the excitement and moved north, obtaining land grants of Lots 7 and 8 Con 2 in Beatty Township.

A poem by Frank Holley, a friend of George Little, describes the life of those 20th century pioneers – days spent clearing space in the forest for homes and crops and “at evening fiddles played and people sang” for young Emily May Elvin was becoming an accomplished violinist. Holley’s verses then recount the terrible fate that befell so many of the families in 1916. In spite of soaring temperatures – 95.6 Fahrenheit – on July 29 and three weeks without rain, railway workers and farmers continued burning slash and started small fires throughout the woods. Small forest and clearing fires were so common at that time of year that few people were concerned or alarmed by the thick clouds of smoke that stretched as far as Cochrane, 45 miles to the north. Suddenly the smoke thickened, the wind rose, the fires spread and became a firestorm that swept through communities like Matheson. There are many stories of tragic deaths, heroic rescues and miraculous escapes on that day.

The great Matheson fires destroyed much of the town and other smaller communities but it was among the isolated homesteaders, lumbermen and miners that the death toll was highest. In one day the fire that swept away towns and villages killed at least 223 people and destroyed 1,000 square miles. On July 31, 1916 the Cobalt Daily Nugget in a seven-column headline declared, “North is Devastated.” That news pushed the war news from France off the front pages of southern newspapers. Lewis Scott, then nine years old, remembers his mother’ shock and concern for the fate of the Elvin family as news of the disaster reached Bracebridge.

Holley’s poem tells of the vain efforts of some of the Elvins, Smalls and Littles to reach Leach’s Lake. Slowed by the need to help young children and caught by the swift advance of the flames, only George Little survived though the child he carried with him died in his arms.

The three Elvin sons Joseph Olimer (Ollie) (22), Lemuel Robert (19), and John Irvin (15) who were not at the homestead that day also survived. As relief trains with food, clothes, medicines, nurses and doctors reached the north, the Elvin boys came south to Bracebridge where Lewis Scott recalls Ollie (Joseph) became so ill that it took all Lewis’s mother’s nursing skill and the help of a local doctor to restore his health. Eventually, Ollie and Irvin returned to the north where Irvin died in March, 1918 from lung complications believed to have been caused by the fire. Lemuel went to work in Arvida, Quebec. In July, 1925 he married Sarah Jane Coffee. When Lemuel retired from the mill in Arvida, they moved to Toronto. He died December 13, 1959.

In the north once more Joseph (Ollie) worked as a foreman on the railroad. On August 29, 1923 he married Harriet Elizabeth Neill b. August 23, 1899. They lived at Iroquois Falls and after Ollie’s retirement, at Porquis Junction. Their daughter, Emily (Elvin) Scratch b. May 13, 1936 reports that her father’s memories of the fire in 1916 were so painful that he refused to talk about what happened that July day. Only when he was much older and, with Emily, visited the area and the cemetery could he speak of it. He told her that the three young Elvins were 10 to 20 miles away at a mine where Lemuel was a cook. When they heard that fire was getting close to Matheson, they jumped in their car and started for home. They were at Twin Lakes – a spot with a lake on each side of the road – a few miles from home, when the fire hit. They drove their canvas-topped car into the lake and huddled under the wet top. An air space between the wet top and the water probably saved them. When the fire passed, they went in search of the family. Only their sister Edith Mary Small was still alive. She clung to Ollie’s hand and begged him to loosen her stays. He could do nothing but watch over her until she died because the heat of the fire had welded the metal corset stays to her body. Small wonder that he arrived in Bracebridge physically and emotionally drained!

The bodies of the Matheson fire victims were buried in a mass grave at Hillcrest Cemetery just outside the town. Today a tall grey granite marker with names on four sides serves as a memorial among others to RoseAnn (Scott) Elvin, Joseph Elvin, their young daughters Emily May and Rosanna, their older daughter Edith Mary (Elvin) Small, Arthur E. Small and their daughters Irene and Della Small. Smaller footstones around the base commemorate individuals who are listed on the column. Just as the story of the “Great Fire” remains an integral part of Matheson’s history so the story of Rose and her family remains very much a part of the Scott family history.