William
Hindley of the village
of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England set sail from
Liverpool in the early 1800’s (possibly 1823)
in a sailing vessel and were enroute for six weeks before
landing at New York. He stayed with the family of George Lawton and married their daughter, Hannah. William
managed to save enough cash to start out for himself.
He located first on the south half of lot five, concession
one Yarmouth, building a log house and a barn along
the Lake Erie shore. The location of which slid into
the lake in the early 1940’s.
During
the Rebellion of 1837 Mr. Hindley was accused of giving
refuge to George Lawton and Fred Johnson who escaped
the law by fleeing to the United States. To keep from
being involved in further trouble, Mr. Hindley moved
to the Township of Don in Middlesex and took up 150
acres. After two years when things settled down he returned
to his farm and he purchased the North 100 acres of
the farm and built a new log house.
An
interesting feature of this old farm is that the fields
had names. There was a Spring field because there were
two springs running out of this field, a Pond field
because a pond had been scraped out to water the stock,
Fallow field, the last one to be cleared and it was
summer fallowed for a year before a crop was ever planted
in it. There was also a Colt field because William was
a great lover of horses and always had from sixteen
to eighteen horses pasturing in this field. A windbreak
of spruce trees was planted by Henry Hindley, son of
the first owner in the late 1800’s. The property
is currently owned by Verlyn Lanning.
Hindley Farm (about 1900)
Hindley Farm (about 1973)
