Kathleen MacFarlane Lizars - Historian & Author
Historian Kathleen MacFarlane Lizars d.1931 was born in Stratford, Ontario and was educated in Toronto and Scotland. For many year she was the private secretary to the Hon. John Robson when he was he Premier of British Columbia.
With her sister Robina she wrote In the Days of the Canadian Company (Toronto 1896) and also in the Coles Canadiana Series) ; Humours of '37 (Toronto, 1897) and Committed to His Charge (Toronto, 1900). She published the Valley of the Humber in 1913 in Toronto, where she died.
The book from which this cover is replicated, makes mentions on page 112 of the Indian burial grounds on the Baby Estates. Home Smith was her nephew, both sharing Stratford as their birthplace and he was well aware of her writings.
Book from: Fairlane Books at URL
{ Valley of the Humber, 1913 }
Lizars' Family - Daniel H. Lizars, Judge (1822-1894)
The Lizars family were influential early residents arriving in dramatic fashion aboard a chartered schooner - The Robroy -from Scotland to the Huron Tract in 1834.
According to family legend, Lizars' grandfather after piloting the schooner due to the ship's captain falling ill, ran it onto a sandbar interrupting a church service atop the bluffs
causing the congregation to run down the hill and rescue the stranded family and their belongings in small boats. Daniel H. Lizars was 11 years of age at the time.
Life was especially harsh for the "bookish" Lizars as they were unfamiliar with farming virgin land. He was called to the bar in 1853 and began his professional career in Goderich and Stratford. Mr. Lizars was appointed County attorney in 1858. His wide knowledge of the law and his mastery of its principles earned him a summons to the County
bench in 1864, followed in 1877 by a master in chancery and local Judge of the High Court of Justice in 1882.
His daughters Robina and Kathleen famously wrote "In the Days of the Canada Company" - a witty and sometimes wickedly scandalous commentary on the early history of the Huron Tract.
Robert MacFarlane, polititian (1835-1872).
Born in 1835 in Lanark County, Robert MacFarlane set up his law practice in Stratford in
1857 with Daniel H. Lizars. MacFarlane had been a Liberal member of parliament and was
re-elected in 1867 to represent the Perth South riding in the first parliament of the new
Dominion of Canada. He died in office in 1872, at thirty-seven years of age. Most members
of the House of Commons, including Sir John A. MacDonald, accompanied his body to the
train station in Ottawa. He was brought back to Stratford by "a deputation from St. Marys,
Downie and Stratford" and was buried here with his infant son. Stratford's local paper The
Beacon Herald, reported that "the funeral was perhaps the most imposing ever witnessed in
town."
Information from Avondale Cemetery, Stratford Ontario
