Ah, the Good Ol' Days in Vansickle!
/Arlene McKee has supplied us with lots of Vansickle history. The following is John Wesley Vansickle's description of his father, John, written in 1946.
John Vansickle and Amanda McLaughlin 1914 with John Wesley, Robert, David, George, Joseph, Fred, Tom and Henry, and with Edith, Myrtle, Harriot and Grace
" When I was fourteen he drew lumber from the mill of TP.Pearce in Marmora for the erection of the present home" approx. 1872. My Dad paid $11.00 a thousand and you could not find a knot in it. It was the choicest pine. The wolves used to come up on the roof of the old house which had been first the log shanty. They did not molest us but would kill our sheep within 25 rods of the house."
He then related how his mother carried his brother Robert when a baby, six months old, all the way to Marmora and back (28 miles) in one day to get to the late Dr. H.M. Jones to pull a tooth. John said, " My father was not established in the settlement many years before he came into possession of the property of his his brother and brother-in-law. This gave him 300 acres. Brother David decided to travel to the USA and his brother-in-law, who kept a small general store and Post Office in Vansickle for about two years, moved to Norwood where he retired. John put in 26 winters as foreman for the Pearce Company lumbering in the settlement. He was a member of the Orange Order of Norwood for about 50 years and had only missed attendance at only two walks. His name is among the honored in this part of Ontario. The land in the east side of the settlement, Hastings County, was deeded to John Wesley on .,August 25, 1888 from Thomas Peter Pearce of Marmora, Hastings County, (son of the old Pearce Family of Norwood Dummer area) for the sum of$400.00 Lot # 4, Concession 1(Lake Township) fortwo hundred acres.
