MY GREAT-GRANDPARENTS

Conrad Swalm and his wife came to Canada in 1834. They were poor people who lived in the city of Kassel in the province of Hesse in Germany. He worked in a grist mill where they had no elevators and his work was to carry one hundred and forty pounds of flour up three flights of stairs day after day. It cost so much to get married that they lived together in a common law way. They were on the water sixteen weeks crossing the Atlantic and arrived at the little village of Barrie, Ont., in December when there was eighteen inches of snow. My grandfather carried a six-year-old boy on his back and a basket of eats. Grandmother carried a four-year-old boy and a bundle of blankets. A child was born at sea and died enroute and was buried in the ocean waters. She stepped in his tracks as they plodded their weary way the thirty miles to what is now known as Duntroon which was then solid bush. The next year, after they had built a brush dwelling and the Canadian government had given them a cow and five acres to live on, Grandfather went to Markham to get a job in a sawmill owned and operated by Jacob Heise near Victoria Square. While he was away Grandmother got reading her Bible and found out she was never saved. This despite the fact she was a devout Lutheran and knelt on the docks at Hamburg, Germany, before boarding the ship, in front of hundreds of people, and said her prayers on behalf of the voyage. God spoke to her through reading about Cornelius and gave her a vision of these plain people for whom her husband was working and as yet he had not been home to tell her about them. She saw in her vision these men with beards and women with prayer veilings and God told her in an audible voice to go back with her husband the first time he came home and go to those people and confess that they were never married and ask them to marry them. This she did on the first occasion of Grandfather's return home. In two days they walked all the way to Markham (the only means of transportation) arriving at Jacob Heise's in the evening of a certain Saturday. Jacob Heise had already gone ten miles west to Peter Cober's to arrange for a meeting on Sunday. She was so eager to confess that they walked those ten miles. When they arrived at Peter Cober's they were disappointed to learn that Jacob Heise and Peter Cober had already left for Adam Miller's, nine miles still farther west on the Humber where the meeting was to be held on Sunday. She wanted to walk that distance too but they prevailed on her to stay at Peter Cober's home all night. The next morning she fasted and went out and prayed behind a big pine stump, asking God for courage to make her confession at the meeting. Mrs. Peter Cober gave her a horse and saddle to journey the rest of the way but she refused it and made an old friend of theirs ride whom they met that night and had recently come from Germany by the name of Melihi Eater. He was a delicate man and rode while she and her husband walked. They arrived at the meeting just as they were singing the last hymn.

Satan tried to defeat her but she arose and asked for the privilege to speak. She told of her marvelous experience up in the woods of Nottawasaga. The Holy Spirit accompanied the occasion and great rejoicing was manifest so that old brethren wept aloud and left the room. They were married by Peter Cober and returned to Nottawasaga. The young growing church of Markham sent ministers up to Grandfather's home on horseback every eight weeks to hold preaching services. After nine years Grandmother and Grandfather were baptized as the first baptized members of Nottawa district. She deferred baptism nine years until her husband was saved and came with her. In a few years Elder John Baker, a minister at Markham, moved to Nottawasaga to shepherd the work and later Elder Samuel Doner went and later Elder Charles Ditson came. Nottawa district grew until today she has one hundred and twenty members. The ministers who have served have been: John Baker, Samuel Doner, Alex McTaggert, William Klippert, Charles Ditson, Isaac Baker, John Hisey, E. A. Ditson, Isaac Swalm, Charles L. Baker and George Sheffer. The deacons who served are: John Baker, John F. Baker, Abram Doner, Josephus Baker, John Zeiggel, Aaron Sheffer, Harvey Sheffer and Thomas Hawton. The bishops are Charles Baker, Isaac Swalm and E. J. Swalm.