Audio Recordings

Part 1

Date of birth:   5 July 1891

Place of birth:  Onslow

Father:  Gardner Cone

Paternal grandfather:  Raymond Cone, who came from Vermont

Mother:  Ellen Fairburn Hudson

Maternal grandfather:  Henry Smith Hudson

Clifford Cone has lived in Shawville since 1915.  First he worked for Maitland, the barber, with whom he learned his trade.  His father was Gardner Cone, and his grandfather was Raymond Cone.  Raymond came from Vermont.  His father and his brothers had a little factory making axes, and a shingle mill in Onslow. They had the first steam engine in the county of Pontiac brought in from Shawville.  Mr. Cone often helped his dad put new steel on the axes and describes the process:

Mr. Cone:  “You take the bit of the axe, the cutting edge, and you cut that off, you split it up like that, and you make this bit of steel fit into it.  And then you take a welding heat on that.  I used to use a big sledge.  And he’d hit with the hammer, and he’d tell me, ‘You hit right.’  And he’d hit and take the hammer, and I’d take the big sledge and took a weld on that axe while the steel hung onto it.”

Interviewer:  “And you’d have it on a big anvil?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes.  And draw it out.”  

Interviewer:  “And you made new axes there as well?”

Mr. Cone:  “Not when I was there, no.”

His paternal grandfather was a farmer, and his paternal grandmother was of English descent.  His mother was Ellen Fairburn Hudson, of English descent on her father’s side, and Scottish on her mother’s.  Mr. Cone describes his genealogy in some detail.  His mother descended from Henry Hudson, the explorer.

Part 2

Mr. Cone’s oldest sister was Alice Mildred Cone, born May 19, 1882.  She married Tom Sheppard who worked on the railroad.  Next in line was his brother Herbert Gardner Cone, born August 14, 1885.  Nattie Elizabeth Cone was born September 3, 1889.  They were all brought up in Onslow, then they moved to Bristol a while, and then to Clarendon, to Shawville.  His sister, Francis Cone, was born January 27, 1894.  Of eight children, Clifford is the only one surviving.  His uncles moved to various places, including Saskatchewan and Pembroke.  Henry Cone, the oldest of his uncles on the Cone side, was the head of the electric light company in Pembroke.  Two of his brothers went out west.  His parents were Baptists.  When his family lived on Bristol Ridge they started going to the Pentecostal church.  

Interviewer:  “What about school?  Where did you first get your education?”

Mr. Cone:  “I never went to school a day in my life.”

When Mr. Cone moved to Clarendon he worked on the farm of Dave Dagg at Yarm.  Then he went out west a couple of falls to work on harvests.  They would go out by train.  It cost sixteen dollars to get to Winnipeg, and then a dollar-and-a-half a mile to get wherever they wanted to go from there.  They would stay each time for a couple of months.

Part 3

Mr. Cone did the harvesting work around 1912 or 1913.  One time they had a big load of grain, and the horses balked and wouldn’t go.  Mr. Cone got up on the load, sat down and waited, but a little while later a whistle blew for dinner, and the horses got going.

From early Shawville Mr. Cone remembers the main stores and working for Willie Maitland.  He said that when he was learning to barber he made a lot of mistakes.  When G.F. Hodgins was a Member for Parliament he came in for a shave, and Billy Matiland came over and said, “Go over and shave him; you’ve got to learn on somebody.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember George Caters, the water man?”

Mr. Cone:  “I just remember seeing him come up and down.  He used to sell coal oil.”

Interviewer:  “He was a carter.”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, I don’t know.  I guess he must have been.  I seen him different times going up and down the street.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the bakeries in town?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes, I remember the bakeries.  One of the first I really remember was Bill Sweeney’s.  He had quite a big family.  We bought bread at one time at six cents a roll.”

Interviewer:  “And was it good?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yeah.  Shawville bread was always good, yes.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the sash and door factory?”

Mr. Cone:  “I just remember it.”

Interviewer:  “You mentioned you remembered the Mike Murphy murders.”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, we were living in Charteris at the time, and I remember when word come back about the two men being shot in Shawville, Harry Howes and Bill Dale, and that Mike Murphy had shot them, you see.  And I think that was about in May 1910, as far as I remember.”

Interviewer:  “And the trial?”

Mr. Cone:  “And the first I remember was the trial was in this building [in Shawville], where they had one of the trials anyway, and I remember Todd Shaw testifying, and they asked him how far it was from one place to another, and he said approximately so and so, but I’d say to that I couldn’t remember too much about it.  ‘Cause it burnt down after.  There was a great big block over in that corner that weighed eight or ten tons–the house was built right over it– and another one over there about six or seven tons.  And there was another one down here–I built a chimney on it– weighed near to three tons.  When I built here different ones told me oh, I’d get something in cement. I’d blow that thing out of there.  I hadn’t any money to blow anything.  This was in the thirties; there was no money.  I took and I dug a hole and drowned it, sucked it down.  I put a prop in, you know, kept taking down, put a prop in, until it got deep enough, I took the prop out….”

Part 4

Interviewer:  “So you got rid of it just by burying it.”

Mr. Cone:  “Drownin’ it.”

Interviewer:  “How long have you lived in this house?”

Mr. Cone:  “Since about 1933.”

Interviewer:  “And you said before that it was the courthouse.”

Mr. Cone:  “It had been burnt down, you know.  The vacant lot, we built on it.  We bought that from a Miss McFarlane in Bryson.  I was to pay two-hundred dollars.  We had five years to pay for it at ten percent interest.  I didn’t have enough money to draw the writings.  We just drew them out ourselves and signed them, had a witness.  She drew all the writings out, signed them, and we signed them.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the hotels, Mac McGuire’s and the Russell House?”

Mr. Cone:  “I remember the Russell House, yep.”

Interviewer:  “And the fire that destroyed it?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes, I remember that.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember any particulars about it?”

Mr. Cone:  “No, not really.  I remember one time at exhibition time there was quite a crowd.  It was raining some, and the hotel was full there.  There was a man come in and was drinking, and he said he could beat anyone within twenty miles of Shawville.  Somebody jumped up on his feet and said, ‘Come on, Bob; you’re takin’ in too much territory.’”

Interviewer:  “I guess it was quite an active place, the old Russell House?  And they had a stagecoach?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes, they used to go from the hotel in the mornings and meet trains back and forth, evening and night.”

Interviewer:  “Were there a lot of travellers there?”

Mr. Cone:  “Commercial travellers.  They come in by train, go out to the country, and take orders from stores.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the PPJ Railway and the bonus controversy?”

Mr. Cone:  “I just remember them talking about it.  There’s one thing.  When the railroad come through here first, the working men most of them just dug holes like pits in the ground and covered them over and sat by them all winter.  They were like potato pits you know, and back up in where Jack Argue’s mill was, there were a whole row.  And I didn’t know what they were.  I asked somebody what them were.  You’d think them were pits dug for potatoes.  They used to sleep in those places, for men workin’.”

Interviewer:  “P.P.J.?”

Mr. Cone:  “Push, Pull, Jerk, or somethin’ like that.”

Interviewer:  “It was a pretty rough old railway.  You remember the bonus controversy?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, I just remember them talkin’ about it.”

Interviewer:  “What were your wintertime activities?”

Mr. Cone:  “Hibernating.”  (He laughs.)  “We didn’t have much of anything you know.  We used to make homemade skis or somethin’ like that and go out in a little hand sleigh and slide down the hills.  At Green Lake now we used to, my dad made a hand sleigh, four feet long, maybe a couple of feet wide.”

Part 5

Mr. Cone:  “And we’d slide down the hill, icy time on, the lake was flooded and ice on.  We’d slide down the hill on the lake and clean across the lake on the ice, oh, we’d go down there like a bullet, up along the sides and up and along the other side of the lake.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember them cutting ice up there?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, yes.”

Interviewer:  “What kind of travelling would you do before you were twenty-one?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, not very much.  I was in the camp a while way up here.  You could hear the trains blowin’ way up there in centre Massey; in the morning you could hear I suppose about twenty-five miles.”

Interviewer:  “What did you do when you were at the lumber camp?  What was your job?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, mostly trail cuttin’.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember how they drew the logs?”

Mr. Cone:  “They only had roads, main roads then you see, and they drew the logs out onto the lake.  In the spring they’d go out to the lake on the streams and the river.”

Interveiwer:  “Were there many teams of horses?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I don’t know.”

Interviewer:  “It would depend on the size of the camp.  Were you ever at a really large camp?”

Mr. Cone:  “No, no, not many men.”

Interviewer:  “What sorts of things were you interested in after you took up barbering?  What would you do as a hobby?”

Mr. Cone:  “I liked hunting and fishing, especially hunting.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember any stories?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I remember shootin’ deer.  I shot a deer up in Cawood here one time.  There was a man with me.  We come around the mountain, and there was a swamp and a chopping like where they cut the bush out in there, and there was a deer way down in the swamp in the trough, and there was a hound after him.  But the hound had porcupine quills in his feet and he couldn’t run fast; he just trailin’ on barkin’ and barkin’.  His feet was even bleedin’ on him.  So this fellow was with me just over a piece.  He started shootin’ and emptied the magazine.  He fired all the cartridge he had at the deer, still standin’ there in the old trough.  So I came over, and he showed me the deer.  I took a rest, I fired at the deer, I took the rifle off my shoulder, and the deer fell after it, so far away you know.  Must have been four hundred yards anyway.  And down the deer went.  “You got him, you got him,” he says.  I shot one shot, and he’d shot the whole magazine.  I took a shot.  It just happened to; it’s just a chance you know. You might shoot a hundred shots again.  You can’t judge your distance like that in a strange country.” 

Part 6

Interviewer:  “You said you remembered a story that happened at Green Lake.”

Mr. Cone:  “We were young at the time.  I was trappin’, setting some traps up along the lake, and about fifteen years old, and some mornings I go down to see my trap.  And nothing in it.  And I thought somebody had taken the mink out of it.  But it was sittin’ there undisturbed.  So anyway, I go down one morning, the sun was shining; it was in the fall late.  I was out on the side hill and lookin’ over the lake, and here I seen a mink coming down along the shore.  Being out around the brush pile and the logs you know, and it hid down behind where I had the trap behind a big log in the brush pile.  I thought, “Boy, I sure have you now.” And I heard the trap clink.  I heard the trap goin’ off.  Come down and look and the trap was off and nothing in it.  Now I seen that.  You wouldn’t believe it but…”

Interviewer:  “It must have been fast.”

Mr. Cone:  “I seen him coming right down, I heard the trap goin’ off, and he wasn’t there.”

Interviewer:  “Were there a lot of mink up there?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, there were some.  So another morning I was down there, same place, way over at the point of the island–there’s about thirty or forty feet between the point and the island.  We towed a big log down the lake and put it across and laid a big stone on it so it couldn’t get away you know, and we crossed from the island to the point and so on, back and forth.  So the water’s about six feet deep there under where the log was.  This morning I seen a squirrel coming across on the log.  He got about halfway over, and I seen a big splash in the water and a big trout just nabbed him.” 

Interviewer:  “The lake was full of fish then.”

Mr. Cone:  “And I never told anybody for a long time ’cause I thought they wouldn’t believe it.  But as I began to read after and see, they say they’ll do that.  Now up at Hurley Lake they caught a pike; there was a weasel in it.  I guess the weasel was swimmin’ in the water or out on a log, and he just made a drive and got it.”

Interviewer:  “Did you like to fish?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I used to catch trout on Green Lake.  I remember one time it was on Sunday–it was a cousin of mine and me and two brothers–and we were fishin’ quite a while and couldn’t catch’em so we started rollin’ big stones in and boulders and everything down in the lake like young lads.  And I said, “I’m gonna catch a fish.”  I threw my hook in, I started and I caught seven trout just as fast as you could catch’em.  And one of the biggest ones got away.  See it stirs the fish up you see.  Stirs the bottom up and the water and they come to see what’s there.”

Interviewer:  “So did you do that often after?”

Mr. Cone:  “Sometimes.  I remember one time at Phillips Lake we done the same.  Couldn’t catch anything.  We started throwin’ stones in so caught five trout fast as we could catch them.  It was Thomas Andrell owned the place at Green Lake.  Had sheep up there.  And one time Herbie Elliott, he come up and he had his dog with him, and he and our dog took after the sheep.  And they run them down the hill into the lake.  It was a lane there where the cattle used to get out of the water you know, and the dog went right down into the water after the sheep and tried to worry ’em and bite ’em, and Herbie Elliott, he pulled off his clothes and swam out in the lake, hit the dog over the head a few pokes and grabbed the sheep under his arm and arm around his neck and swam into shore with the sheep.  I thought I’d like to have a movie of it you know.”  

Interviewer:  “He must have been a very good swimmer.”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yeah.”

Part 7

Interviewer:  “Do you recall the cheese factories around here?”

Mr. Cone:  “I just remember them.  I remember the Lily cheese factory used to be out back between the lake there up near where Lloyd Dale lives.  I just remember all of them.  In fact, my father worked there a while when he was running his steam engine.”

Interviewer:  “He knew quite a bit about engines then, eh?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yes.  I seen him making rings of steel for big cylinders in the engines.  Now I don’t know how they ever done it because they hadn’t the equipment they have now.  He used to attach boilers and sell them and things like that.”

Interviewer:  “He did this as well as blacksmithing?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yeah.  I have his blacksmith tools here yet, most of them, the smaller…sledges, punches, hammers, all the way from a tack hammer all the way up to a twelve-pound sledge.”

Interviewer:  “He had all the equipment.”

Mr. Cone:  “He made other things, too, jackknives…  I have one here that he made; I had lost track of it for about fifty years.  When my brother died out west, my sister, Natty, sent some of his belongings home, and here the jackknife was in with the rest of it.”

Interviewer:  “It’s gotta be about a six-inch jackknife made of brass and pounded steel you said?”

Mr. Cone:  “He made them springs, too, perfect-like.  Nothing shoddy about it.  And he used to make cowbells, too.  I’d like to have got some of them, but I never got one.  And steam whistles for big steam engines you know?”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember how he made those?”  

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I remember.  I seen him makin’ them you know.  Oh I remember he made one for one of the big outfits of Braeside one time.  You could hear it clean across the river in the mornings.  He also made bear traps, ten dollars apiece; that’s what he made them at.   We have one here.”

Interviewer:  “How large would they have been?” 

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, it’s not a very large trap.  I could show it to you after a while.  Mosey Murphy had one out there, too, he made.”

Interviewer:  “Was there a lot of bear trapping in those days?”

Mr. Cone:   “Oh, a lot of ’em I guess trapped bear.” 

Interviewer:  “Did they use the meat for eating?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I don’t know whether they used the meat or not, but they used the grease, bear oil, you know.  This trap that I have I got from Sam Sparling out here.  He and his father and grandfather used to trap with it.  And the neighbors.  He claimed there were one-hundred and four bears caught with that trap.  Now I didn’t catch them, but that’s what he claims.  It’d be over one-hundred years old that trap.  So it could be that they trapped that many bear on it.”

Interviewer:  “And how did your dad go about making cowbells?”

Mr. Cone:  “Cowbells?  Make about the shape of a woman’s skirt, big at the bottom and small at the top.  But they had a bit of steel, and they shaped it out and welded it together.  To make the sound you had to run brass over that.  You have to melt the brass and run a brass wash all over that to bring out the sound you know.  Now I seen ’em meltin’ the brass.”

Interviewer:  “He would pour it over or dip it in?”

Mr. Cone:  “He’d just pour it over.  It brought the sound out.”

Interviewer:  “What other things do you remember?”

Mr. Cone:  “A pair of steel knuckles that he made.”  

Interviewer:  “Who did he make those for?”

Mr. Cone:  “For bolin’ people over.”

Interviewer:  “For himself?”

Mr. Cone:  “I don’t know.  I don’t know if he ever used them or not.  We have them here.”

Interviewer:  “Was he a big man, your father?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, not real big.  About one-hundred and ninety, two-hundred.”

Interviewer:  “Do you remember any other people who were particular friends of your father?” 

Mr. Cone:  “There used to be feuding and fighting places, you know.  They would pick a certain day, and a big crowd would gather to see them.”

Part 8

Mr. Cone :  “Once a fight was just about to start, [and one said to the other]:  ‘Do you want a fair fight, or just plain murder?’  I think they got stopped and didn’t fight.”

Interviewer:  “I understand you belong to the Knights Templar?”

Mr. Cone:  “I have the old badge here.”  

Interviewer:  “What does it say there?”

Mr. Cone:  “Independent Order of Good Temperance, IOGT, Maple Leaf Lodge, Yarm, Quebec.”

Interviewer:  “And when did you join that order?”

Mr. Cone:  “I joined around about 1905.”

Interviewer:  “And how long did it continue?”

Mr. Cone:  “I don’t remember.  We moved away from there, and I don’t know how long it went on after that.”

Interviewer:  “Were there many members?”

Mr. Cone:  “Quite a few.”  

Interviewer:  “And where did you meet?”

Mr. Cone:  “At Yarm.  At the schoolhouse.”

Interviewer:  “And were most of them pretty good followers of it?”

Mr. Cone:  “Most of ’em never drank after.”  

Interviewer:  “And what were the rules of the Society?  Do you remember?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, you’re not to drink, not to touch liquor of any kind.  Of course, we were young.  We thought a lot of keeping our word, and I never drank after.”

Interviewer:  “That would be how many years?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, 1905, and I’m eight-two past.”

Interviewer:  “So that would be well over sixty-five years.  And what would the meetings consist of?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, just have our meetings on certain things.  And we had a password, too.  Oh, it was more of a form you know.”  

Interviewer:  “Would you discuss certain topics?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes.”

Interviewer:  “What sorts of things would you talk about?” 

Mr. Cone: ” It’s so long ago I don’t remember.  It was mostly on liquor I guess.  We used to say, ‘IOGT.  I Often Get Tight.’” (He laughs.)

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the other barbers in town?”

Mr. Cone:  “Yes, I remember Johnny Maitland, Tom Burton, and there was a man named Archie Spence here for a while, Bert Wolseley…”

Part 9

Interviewer:  “Do you remember the brickyards?”

Mr. Cone:  “I just remember all of ’em, not particularly.”

Interviewer:  “How did you go about building your house?”

Mr. Cone:  “We built it nearly all ourselves.  We bought this lot from Miss McFarlane in Bryson.  We paid two-hundred dollars for it, or was to pay two-hundred dollars for it.  We had five years to pay for it at ten percent interest.  And we started from there.  I never paid a dollar down.  I had no money to pay down.  It was in the thirties.  We started from there.  We got the foundation dug.  Finally got the cellar dug.  And there were so many stones that I kept savin’ the stones I come to and threw them out on the sides you know.  I had almost enough stones to put in the cement for the foundation.  So after I got the foundation in, I’d just stand [the stones] up between the forms.  I got the first form, stand them in and then built the other forms.  And then after I got all ready and I got the joists on, the main beam, Tom Hogan, the carpenter, looked it over, walked all round and said, ‘You’ve saved ten bags of cement right there puttin’ them stones in.’”

Interviewer:  “What else do you remember about the Depression?”

Mr. Cone:  “No one had any money!”  (He laughs.)  “I remember people used to work fifty cents a day, a dollar a day.  If you got a dollar a day, you were fine.” 

Interviewer:  “What about food?  Did you ever go short?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, it was cheap you know.  You’d get butter for about twenty cents a pound, twenty-one cents.  Eggs about fifteen cents a dozen, or anywhere around there.  Bread, six cents a pound.”  

Interviewer:  “Do you remember as a child things being as bad as they were during the Depression?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, it was pretty near all as bad when we were young.  Just an existence; that’s all you could get.  Hardly, hardly no money.”

Interviewer:  “What made you decide to go into barbering?”

Mr. Cone:  “Well, I used to cut some hair in the country, some of my chums’ hair.  So I kept goin’ on and on different times and so some of those lads go into Shawville and met the other barber, Maitland, who said, ‘Who cut your hair?’  ‘Well, Cone.’  So he invited me out to learn the trade with him.  You put in six months and give him fifty dollars.  You put in six months to learn your trade; well, he let me in without payin’.  I didn’t pay anything for six months and then when six months was up, he started payin’ me small wages;  I forget now what.”

“Around that time they were looking for home rule in Ireland.  An Irishman followed a Scotchman and asked why they didn’t go for home rule in Scotland.  The Scotchman said, ‘Sure we’re ruling the whole world.’”

Interviewer:  “How about home rule in Pontiac?  Do you ever worry about the separation of Quebec?”

Mr. Cone:  “No, I haven’t thought too much of it.”

Interviewer:  “Do you have quite a few French people coming here?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, quite a few.”

Part 10

Interviewer:  “And the problems you had with the estate?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, yes, the estate was left in New York there through the Hudsons on my mother’s side, and we were heirs to that, and one time we thought it would be all settled.  We even had  papers made out that say McCoy’s here [the notary in Shawville].  We were to give a percentage to the lawyer and get this straightened out you see.  We thought it was all straightened out.  It was a large estate there.  There was a Trinity Church property on it, the Empire building was on it, in New York City, and there was money in the bank.  Quite a few million in the bank.  This was an estate of Dutch descent way back, and the Hudson River named after the Hudsons we had.”   

Interviewer:  “And there was no one that had a claim to this?”

Mr. Cone:  “No.  And I had a book, I have it yet, and magazines of worldwide circulation that said there wasn’t a one who on those properties could produce a scratch of a pen proving they owned it.  And to this date they can’t.” 

Interviewer:  “And when did this occurrence happen with you filing with the notary?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, about forty years or so ago.  I have the old papers here yet that say McCoy’s.”

Interviewer:  “And what exactly happened?”

Mr. Cone:  “This man that was lookin’ after it in New York and doin’ all this, he disappeared.  He just died, disappeared and never knew where he went to.  Never heard of him after.”

Interviewer:  “And you were led to believe you were goin’ to get something from this estate?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yeah.  The man disappeared.  Somebody else’d have to take it up you see and chase it and maybe they’d bump him off, too!  You know you’d have to get off the property or pay so much.  You knew what they do in New York, bandits and gangs you know.” 

Interviewer:  “But you’d still like to see this settled?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh, I would’ve like to have seen it, but it wouldn’t mean too much to me now.”  

Interviewer:  “You don’t think you’ll see anything?”

Mr. Cone:  “I don’t expect to, no.  There’s not a one of ’em that can produce a scratch of a pen.  They’re just squatters.  It was willed for ninety-nine years, those people and their heirs forever.  That’s the way it was drawn out.  Well, the ninety-nine years are up, it’s all settled, people built on it, and there’s lawyers and doctors.  You can’t tell who all.  Millionaires… “

Part 11

Interviewer:  “But as far as you’re concerned, you think things are better now than they ever were?”

Mr. Cone:  “Oh yes.  There was one time forty years ago, in those days you drive all over this country, and you couldn’t sell a washing machine.  Now everybody has a washer, you’ve got a dryer, you’ve got a deep freeze, television, radio, deep freeze, trucks and cars.” 

Interviewer:  “So you don’t see any reason for complaints at all?”

Mr. Cone:  “No.  No, I don’t.  I wouldn’t say now maybe somebody living in a big city paying big rent, they might find it hard.  But anybody living in their own house and having some money should be really thankful.”

 

Summary by Chris Seifried, with additions and transcriptions by Sue Lisk