Ada Kinton Depicts Pioneer Huntsville

Gravenhurst - Photo By Fred Schulz

ADA FLORENCE KINTON DEPICTS HUNTSVILLE IN ART

A talented artist, a competent writer, and devotee of the Salvation Army’s international mission-work, Ada Florence Kinton had a wide choice of vocations when she left England, in 1883, aboard the steamship S.S. Sarmatian. She could have had a lengthy career as an art instructor, with private schools in England or Canada. Ada most certainly could have sold her paintings, or worked professionally in the publishing industry as an illustrator. But she felt her passion for art, was secondary to a heartfelt sense of mission to help others. And she did. From the streets of Toronto to international postings, the poor and destitute always had a friend in Ada Kinton.

After the death of her father, (her mother died when she was 10), a devastating turn in her life, Ada had accepted an invitation from her brothers, Ed and Mackie, to stay with them in the pioneer hamlet of Huntsville, Ontario, where both were well entrenched in the business community. After a dreadful storm-plagued voyage aboard the Sarmatian, and a long and exhausting passage west by rail, north by steamship, cart and sleigh, Ada wrote the following description in a letter, posted to her sister Sara Randleson, at this time still residing in England.

"I am happy to say we have safely arrived at last, after being on the journey, on the cars and in the sleigh, from Tuesday evening until Sunday morning. We have just been two days short of three weeks since we left home (England). I didn’t seem to mind the jolting of the train nearly as much as usual. I suppose it was the dreadful shaking-up we had in the Sarmation in the storm."

The weary traveller writes, "We landed at Halifax on Tuesday, and got straight into a Pullman. There was quite a happy little party of us from the ship, and no strangers; about a half dozen young men and Mrs. Hooper (my cabin-mate) and I. We had the train to ourselves. There was only the Pullman and the mails and the luggage, so it was very cosy and select, and we were quite like brothers and sisters together, after the rough time we had at sea, and we walked about and talked. We stopped at meal-time at different stations, and ate steadily for twenty minutes. At Montreal we changed our cars, and from there to Toronto we met with all sorts of disasters. Amongst other things we got snowed-up, and had to wait patiently till we could be dug-out. That was in fifteen hours. It was breakfast time when we started, and happily we had a dining car attached. Eddy (her brother) teased me so about eating sausages at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour. Then we met a freight train off the track and had to wait for that. Then we heard there was a bad collision ahead of us. That took a long time to clear the track. Two freight trains had run into and over one another."

"Next our tender broke, and we had to wait till we could get a fresh engine. Five hours. Then we got to Gravenhurst, and I had my first sleigh-ride. I suppose I shall never forget it. The horses frisked along like kittens and their long tails and manes waved about so prettily. And oh, the ‘tintinnabulation’ of the bells, and the snow and the forest and the quiet of midnight," wrote the artist-voyeur. "Twenty-six miles’ sleigh-ride from Bracebridge to Huntsville. Supper at a little hotel; everyone silent, mutually afraid to speak. Don’t want to show I’m and Englander. Sleigh again. Almost oppressed with the beauty of the winter forest. Scenery gaunt and fantastic in the twilight. Saw grim, weird forms; wondered if there are any Canadian ghosts. Nice to look up, up, up, by the trunks of the slender, towering trees, and see the pale grey-clouds lighted by the snow beneath. Strange, lovely sleigh-ride, packed tight between Ed and the driver, the stars winking at us; the silent trees, the bush, swamp; Lake  Vernon, Huntsville; home in the distance."

She pens the following about her emotional state, and the adjustment from busy London, to the hamlet scene in the Muskoka wilds of 1883. "Began to feel utterly done-up and began to cry, but had to quit it; could not manage it and struggle through the snow at the same time. Arrived at the gate panting and gasping. Heard my brother Mackie’s voice again. Kissed Kitty; too agitated to sleep; woke at last in my warm cosy wooden room. Struck with the amount of comfort in this little Canadian village in the midst of the bush."

"The four months’ visit to Huntsville (which her diary covers), was spent chiefly in making exquisitely pretty watercolor sketches of the village as it was then," wrote her sister, Sara Randleson, in the accompanying text of the biography, "Ada Florence Kinton, Just One Blue Bonnet." She adds, "These  (sketches) are carefully treasured by Florence’s friends, and will be very valuable if ever Huntsville becomes a city. Considerable attention was also given to baby worship - a new thing for her." Ada joyfully helped out with the children in the Kinton home.

As if painting with words, as she planned out the subjects for her sketch pad, Ada wrote the following brief description of the village scene, as witnessed from the Kinton homestead:

"Cold wind and glare ice, thawed surface of snow frozen over again. Makes walking difficult. Village is very picturesque and quaint in the moonlight, like a lot of miniature toy wooden cottages, chucked down anyhow on the uneven ground, covered over with nice snow and just a light here and there, to make it look pretty; and then all around a dark bordering of great hills fringed with forest; and through the village the river coiling, and under the wooden bridge to the lake, all steely ice except in the middle, where the current is rapid and strong; a dark inky blue bit of stream shows itself in a fitful broken sort of  way. Wonder where all the water lilies have hid themselves?"

Observant and a visionary of her time, she could assess the changes to the scene about to come, and she would take a great interest in the welfare of the forests and wildlife it supported. In future issues, we will travel with Ada Kinton, as she roams back into the woodlands to sketch.......as she notes, before the woodsman’s axe fells what’s left of it.

More on Ada Florence Kinton in the next blog. Please join me for Ada’s field studies in the Muskoka woodlands of 1883.