TWEEDSMUIR HISTORIES: Where the heart of Zorra lies

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The heart of Zorra in Oxford County lies at Braemar. At least a solid argument can be made for that assertion from a close examination of the Braemar Women’s Institute Tweedsmuir Community History.

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Braemar is a wee whisp of a place today, little more than a crossroads and even in its heyday around the turn of the 19th century little more than 75 souls called the place home. It’s located north of Woodstock – that’s where the area’s first rail line was laid – and today straddles the line dividing the municipalities of West Zorra and East Zorra-Tavistock.

Braemar is named for a village in the Scottish Highlands in Aberdeen Shire along a tributary to the River Dee. It’s where the Highland Games Gathering, traditionally attended by members of the Royal Family, is still held.

Zorra’s Braemar is said to resemble its namesake in that the hamlet is located in a valley, but many of the first Scots who arrived in Zorra originated from Sutherland Shire which lies to the north.

William MacKay and his brother Angus were among the first Highlanders to arrive, their names appearing in the 1820 census. Angus returned to Sutherland where people were being displaced from their land in favor of sheep and hunting estates. He encouraged a significant group to make the trip to Canada.

It took three months in a small sailing vessel to reach the St. Lawrence River, another two in open boats pulled by oxen to move up the St. Lawrence and longer still to reach Zorra.

There they joined settlers who had arrived earlier from the United States, people described as Pennsylvania Dutch and Baptists. Family lore tells of them having first made their way to the Norwich area with support from indigenous communities and, subsequently, around 1790, they began to settle in Zorra.

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Church was a central focus for these communities and at times the relationship among the various denominations appeared uneasy. In Embro, which today is not much larger than it was in the 1800s, the Braemar Tweedsmuir recalls an account from 1871 concerning two evangelical preachers whose words led to the Presbyterian congregation being split, some leaving to form a Congregational church.

“A yellow ochred atmosphere pervaded everywhere. The people were color-blind to form friends and associates. ”

It was a time of shifting alliances. Congregationalist Highlanders had moved closer to the Baptists and Methodists of the community. Yet at Braemar, just six years later, a story of a different type of story played out, one connected to the founding of The Braemar Gospel Hall.

The little property on which the hall was located was purchased from the postmaster at Braemar and his wife, Alexander and Jane Anderson for $ 10. According to the deed, “Considering some of the inhabitants of the village of Braemar and surrounding county have felt the necessity of having a building erected in said village, where the Gospel of the Grace of God, might be preached and proclaimed… as may be approved by the trustees. ”

Listed on the deed as the first trustees were Robert Forbes, esquire, of West Zorra and two East Zorra farmers, Robert W. Parker and Donald McKay, although a WI account includes a fourth name, JS McKay but not Robert Forbes.

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Regardless of the discrepancy, what’s noteworthy is that the three original trustees are said to have represented three different denominations of the area: Baptist, Congregationalist and Presbyterian.

The Braemar of the late 1800s and early 1900s was busy place. Prior to the construction of the hall, there was already a post office, a blacksmith shop, two general stores, hotel, 15 to 20 homes, a large cheese factory, and the surrounding area was populated by many farm families. The record of the second sale of cheese in 1870 includes the signatures of more than 70 farmers having contributed to its production.

The Braemar WI, formed in 1907, has a long association with the hall, holding its last function there in 1966 and paying the hydro bill until 1969. Religious functions continued to be held in the hall for many years but there were also Christmas concerts, fowl suppers, literary meetings, Halloween parties and it served as a meeting place for other organizations.

Education, like faith, was important to the early residents of Zorra and although in some respects rural schools may have had fewer resources compared to the schools of larger centers, there may also have been advantages. This thought is expressed in the account of an address at a Braemar School reunion by Oxford MPP Patrick M. Dewan, who served as Ontario’s minister of Agriculture in from 1937 to 1943: “He remarked that students in the country did not have the individual training that were given to publics in larger centers, but were taught to think for themselves. ”

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William Carlyle, who served as the Oxford County school inspector in the late 1800s and early 1900s, appears to have embraced this sentiment. His name appears several times in the Braemar WI Tweedsmuir.

In his later years, Carlyle is remembered as a white-whiskered old man who traveled by horse and open buggy with a fishing pole in the event an angling opportunity presented itself. He was accompanied by a white Skye terrier that would bare its teeth if anyone ventured too close.

“Feared for his keen perception and terse criticism,” Carlyle would test student and teacher alike, relishing in trick questions for which the correct answer often proved elusive.

“’Scholars, if the hands of the clock are at twelve noon, when will they meet again?’ First boy doesn’t know; second boy cannot tell. Then that cat was out of the bag. ‘They never meet, one hand merely passes the other.’ ”

If the inspection took place in the morning, there was a welcome compensation for the inspector’s appearance. Carlyle would invariably declare a half-day holiday.

William Ross, whose one-room-school education led to a teaching career, including a position at Braemar School, spoke of his student days at the nearby Elmsdale School where the students, especially the older boys, had a penchant for mischief, exploits certainly improper and occasionally dangerous as well, such as when a sealed inkpot was placed atop the lit wood stove.

Ross, however, was also inspired by his teachers, including one Wallace Kerr.

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“He was a natural born teacher. I recalled how he amazed us by his ability to stand on his head, raise himself on his hands, and proceed to walk around the school while a crowd of us followed, retrieving the coins which dropped from his inverted pockets. He taught us to play many games with the proper rules, he led us in songs, and helped us organize a literary society for the last hour of each Friday afternoon. School was a pleasant experience for all. Mr. Kerr could quote long poems from good literature and he gave me an appreciation of literature which few other teachers have given me. ”

The Braemar WI Tweedsmuir records details of other one-room schools in the area, notably Maple Grove School in West Zorra and the Braemar School in East Zorra, just a mile from the village.

An account written by Mrs. Sid Pearson recalls the early 1920s when Miss Mattie MacKay was the teacher: “Though I can’t claim to be a pioneer student… it was not a particularly cozy spot even then. On the coldest days our lunches would freeze in the cloak room and we were allowed to bring them into the classroom. That was always a very good idea as far as we were concerned, for there was always the chance that we could get a sandwich or two eaten on the sly before recess, and at noon we could toast them on the stove which stood almost in the center of the classroom. The cold, however, didn’t hinder us from spending our noon hours sleigh riding and skiing on the Alexander and Clifford hills. We skied on the one pair belonging to Ina Potter. She was very generous with them, so we all had a turn. ”

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It has been said that “no one cares anymore” for the heritage of places like Braemar and Zorra, yet that is hardly the case. I grew up along the Braemar Sideroad, six miles to the east of said hamlet, in a family with Scottish connections though merely of the lowland and Orkney kind.

The legacy of the Braemar Institute WI does matter, as does the legacy of Ontario’s other Women’s Institutes, regardless of whether the organizations have dissolved or remain active. A Biblical verse comes to mind, Matthew 7:16: “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? ”

The Braemar WI celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007 and remains active, although its membership is indeed aging and meetings have not been held for months in light of the COVID-10 pandemic.

From the onset, the members focused on the social, educational and cultural aspects of their community and the organization served, too, as a place where the considerable power of women could be exercised. At the same time, the organization’s members contributed to good works – an exhaustive list – with implications reaching far beyond Braemar, touching the lives of people on a global scale.

The extensive history of Zorra compiled over the decades by the women of the Braemar WI is a remarkable achievement in itself, as much for its reflection of the attitudes of the women for their community as for the history.