The Riordon family genealogical website

When you are tired of the city’s din,
And you are sick of the traffic’s boom,
Come out with me, where the life if free
To live where there is room
For a man to sun and stretch himself,
To roam through the forest wide,
To explore alone, through tracks unknown,
To learn where the beavers hide.

We left the city’s noise behind
The monotonous roar that kills,
We left the strife, and the shut-in life,
Set out for the distant hills.
To a little isle on a lake we knew,
To a life both free and gay,
Where the air is clean and the spirits keen,
And there’s peace from day to day.

Where the frogs croak loud in the early morn,
And the winds sigh through the pines;
Where the bathers lie, when the sun is high
Stretched on the beach in lines;
Or else they tramp ‘long forest trails
And climb the hills around,
Then sit and munch, their sandwich lunch
By the streams, which there bound.

Where the sun calls up the sleepers all
To greet another day,
Where the laughing loon, with his doleful croon
Shoots round the lake in play;
And the sleepers rise, to take their dip,
To swim in waters cool,
Then dress in shorts, or clothes of sorts,
For freedom is the rule.

Where there’re crackling fires in the open hearth
When cool the air outside,
And the sun sinks low, with a golden glow,
In the glorious eventide;
Where the nights are long and the air is still,
With friendship and good cheer,
Where the northen light and the moon shine bright
And twinkling, tell if another day,
As fair and warm as this;
Time flies away, from day to day

On this isle of perfect bliss.
Here in the wild we dwell at peace,
Alone ‘mid nature’s joy;
So far from man, there’s nothing can
Our happiness destroy.

Written by Betty Goold-Adams at Amherst House,
1st December 1939

The following is written verbatim from a clipping in the belongings of the late Patsy Bennett:

Mtl “Star” June 17/58 (Mtl – Montreal)

C. C. Riordon

Stephen Leacock was the first to go. Now “Carl” Riordon. And so it may be a long time before the corner where they held forth daily in the University Club sparkles again with quite the same wit, probing conversation and not quite such orthodox views as the uninitiated might expect to hear. Where Mr. Leacock’s roots were academic, Mr. Riordon’s were industrual. But between them were the firm bonds of a feeling for history, a love for all that is, and was, Canada, and a sense of humor.

Charles Christopher Riordon was one of a pioneering family in the development of Canada’s great pulp and paper industry. The first family mill in 1862 produced 25 tons of paper monthly. When he sold the Riordon Pulp and Paper Company to Canadian International Paper in 1925, it had large mills at Hawkesbury and Timiskaming. Family properties at one time or another also included both The Mail and The Globe in Toronto. Mr. Riordon was on of the organizers of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association and its first president and, despite his age–he was 82 when he died during the weekend–was still a director of several financial and industrial enterprises.

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We look forward to hearing from. In the meantime, we wish you happy searching and hope this site will offer you something of interest.

The Webmaster

THE EARLY SCOTS AT MONTREAL By Col. Paul Phelps Hutchison

This articles homepage is can be found here: http://www.scotsgenealogy.com/online/early_scots_at_montreal.htm

During the French regime there were a few of Scottish descent here but they were exiled Scots who had become soldiers of the French monarchy. One recalls a French soldier like the Comte de Fraser or the eleventh governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay, whose Chateau still stands opposite Montreal City Hall, perhaps partly because it was kept in such good condition by another Scot, William Grant, who purchased it in 1763. When, however, the Scots really descended upon Montreal was soon after the conquest. Montreal capitulated on September 8th 1760. Some of you may remember the story: how the plan was for three British armies to march against the city for a simultaneous attack, even if in those days there was no telegraph or wireless to co-ordinate the troop movements. One force under Sir Jeffery Amherst came in from the west; another under a Lowland Scot, General James Murray, came from Quebec City; and the third moved north from Lake Champlain. Amherst arrived first and settled his troops for the night in a field which is now the Cote des Neiges Reservoir. He planned to move the next morning down the gully between the two hills to attack the little city on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. But that night the French plenipotentiaries came out to negotiate for the surrender at the farmhouse, which later became known as ”Capitulation Cottage”. It was in the reservoir field and not, as many have thought, the bigger freestone house known as ”Amherst House” further along Cote des Neiges The latter at the end of the Victorian Era was owned by Lieut. Colonel J.A.L. Strathy, who commanded our local regiment of Highlanders from 1893 to 1897; he knew the history of the district and gave his home the Amherst name.
(Read on …)

When you are tired of the city’s din,
And you are sick of the traffic’s boom,
Come out with me, where the life if free
To live where there is room
For a man to sun and stretch himself,
To roam through the forest wide,
To explore alone, through tracks unknown,
To learn where the beavers hide.
(Read on …)

Libera, me , Domine,
‘Tis a vast economy,
Wading off a siege of cares, —
Shrinkage, over-head, repairs;
Then to gain the utmost skill,
With a flourish of the quill,
From too flatulent a plea,
Libera me, Domine
(Read on …)

John Riordon: 1833 – 1884
Charles Riordon: 1848 – 1931
Carl Riordon: 1876 – 1958

WITH THE DEATH in Montreal on June 14, 1958 of Charles Christopher (Carl) Riordon there came to an end an epoch which is without parallel in the pulp and paper industry of Canada.
(Read on …)

He had great faith in human nature.
He fully believed that most persons were honest and dutiful and capable of many sorts of work.
He urged emancipation from superstitions and appetites.
His strength and solidity were based on a strong sense of humour and a comprehensive philosophy of life.
He had no strong desire for external possessions, but he possessed his own soul and had no demons.
He had great faith in his own convictions, and while not given to dispute, he was not inclined to conciliate opinion.
He was rich in friends and enjoyed life with them as he went, so that when he lost, a friend by death he did not seem to have any vain regret for neglect to give all he could while they were alive.
(Read on …)

Here is a small poem which my grandfather enjoyed. It originally came from the magazine – Silva.

Tea

From the faucets of the fountain, from the bottles of the bar,
I have sampled many gargles, ’most as many as there are,
But the one that’s first and foremost, if you put it up to me,
Is a steaming cup of ashes, swamp-juice, soot and tea.

At the take-off of the portage, when a man is damp with toil,
Heat and deer flies are forgotten when the tea comes to a boil.
In the silent winter’s muskeg, when the snow has blocked the trail,
Hope and faith and courage await the bubbling of the pail.

Propped with rocks beside the rapids, jabbed into the forest mould,
Ten thousand blackened tea sticks mark the campsites of the bold.
Fancy drinks may please the townsman, do to flirt with now and then,
But the silent places witness, tea’s the drink that’s drunk by men.

Anonymous