The Fine Print: Plum Hollow's Witch

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Plum Hollow's Witch

By: Dennis Stein

Eastern Ontario is home to its fair share of strange and wonderful stories, told by local authors, reporters, and spoken of around many a campfire. One such tale involves a very special woman, who managed to achieve everything she did, despite the hardships she faced...
Although exact dates are sketchy, as is sometimes the case with people or events early in Canada's history, Elizabeth Barnes was born in either 1794 or 1800 in county Cork Ireland. She was supposedly the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and even though that was never confirmed, it is used to explain her unnatural abilities. At around the age of twenty, she eloped with a young man by the name of Robert Harrison to Canada, settling here in Ontario around Cobourg. They had a son there, but tragically, Elizabeth was widowed when Harrison died a few short years later. She remarried, to a shoemaker named Barnes, and they came to live in Sheldon's Corners, just outside of Athens. They had nine children, and lived in a small homestead, until Mr. Barnes decided to leave his family behind, with the exception of his two oldest sons, moving to Smiths Falls to make a living at shoemaking. Now alone and caring for seven children, 'Mother Barnes' as she had come to be known, began using her talents reading tea leaves to tell people’s fortunes. She charged 25 cents to earn extra money, and her fame quickly spread. People came from all over to consult her, by horse and carriage, for everything from lost livestock, to murders, and even buried treasure. Even Sir John A. McDonald consulted Mother Barnes, and was told, among other things, that he would become the leader of the new country. Entering the small house, people would be led to an upstairs room where Elizabeth would be sitting at a table with a pot of tea. They would be invited to 'turn a cup' and would have their fortune told...
Author T.W.H. Leavitt speaks of interviewing the 'witch of plum hollow' as he describes her in his book of the same name, and the designation stuck. Today the homestead where Mother Barnes lived is still standing, having been bought recently, and restored. Elizabeth Barnes died in 1886, and is buried in the Sheldon's Corners cemetery. She lived to be over ninety, and is credited with solving a murder, locating buried treasure, personal items, and unraveling 'ghostly events'.
Though she was not really a witch in any real sense of the word, nor did she live in Plum Hollow, Elizabeth 'mother' Barnes is and will remain another of the interesting stories in our area. One can envision the wise old woman, sitting with her pot of tea as she looks into the future...For more historical articles, visit www.thefineprints.blogspot.com.

No comments:

New Stuff!

Space Mail

The main console came to life, and LEDs began to light up everywhere in the darkened cockpit. It had been three months in cruise mode, and an audible beeping woke her from cryogenic sleep. Kara was drowsy, not with it yet. The computers came back online slowly, and the bay where she slept lit with a faint light. She was cold. Yawning and rubbing at her eyes, she sat up, sweeping blonde hair out of her face. The console was flashing with an indicator for a message waiting. Can’t even wait for me to be conscious, she thought sarcastically. There were several hours to spare before there was any need to make corrective maneuvers in her ship’s course in order to dock with the atoll, so she reached for her housecoat and told the galley computer she wanted her tea. It was ready in an instant, and she held the acrylic mug in both hands, feeling the warmth promised by her favorite morning drink. Was it morning? she mused briefly. It certainly didn’t feel like it. Reading the incoming messages, Kara shook her head. They knew she was the only one inbound to them, knew that she had their precious spares aboard. Still, the bullshit. She tapped out a quick reply, and headed to get dressed, the shower on board being little more than a tight closet. Kara spent a lot of time to make sure she was as well groomed as possible, an ingrained idea that she followed on a daily basis. It was better than nothing, and she always arrived smelling much better than her male counterparts. ‘Mailers’ were a group that were different than most others. Tough. Able to weather any storm. She hadn’t even glanced out at the stars today, she suddenly thought. Something she normally loved about these long runs between humanity when Kara first took this job. As the shower door closed and sealed, the small ship sped forward, having dropped from lightspeed, gliding effortlessly through the vacuum of space…

The atoll ‘Constellation’ was a massive vessel, well over two miles in length at this point in time, and carrying almost three thousand people. Massive solar sails stood erect off the cruiser’s surface, feeding power to all of it’s internal needs. The atoll was one of several, spread throughout the galaxy, and it’s interior had become home to humankind. The hum of the ion drives could be felt even out in the coldness of space. Pinpricks of light pierced the hull, windows out on the only solace that humans had now. The bridge of the ship stood up on a spire above the main body of the hull, like an eye on it’s surroundings. The commander sat here. It had been a long day for everyone, and he sat in the command chair, reviewing the day’s logs. Food shortage. Problems with waste disposal. Electrical relays that had begun to fail. He needed those replacements, or it would soon be a dark atoll, regardless of the output of the sails. Danek put his face in his hands, tossing the tablet aside. Too much today… All of the critical systems strung together throughout the ship were showing their age, and he wondered if it wasn’t simply the sheer size of the vessel that still made it habitable at times. Today alone the power had failed on part of the concourse level, the atmosphere generators dropped their output levels, and the waste recycler had stopped for several hours. If one of the main ion drives suffered a failure, the atoll would be adrift, helplessly tumbling through space. He stood up from the command chair, walking forward to check on the sensor banks, flat screens laid out on a desk-like console. Nothing but the service drones, flying around the hull to perform inspections. He needed those spare parts. The other atolls were just as desperate, their mining and manufacturing just as taxed as the constellation. He looked up briefly, everyone was at their post. The dozen or so people still on the bridge looked at their panels, working diligently.

New Stuff!

The White Room

He had not slept again. Days and nights were the same here, after all. No changes in the amount of light, and everything was devoid of colour. For his own safety, and that of others. His room was very carefully designed, round with no edges, even the locked doorway was seamless, the lighting a harsh bright white glowing from behind translucent panels in the ceiling. Color was not a good thing for him. The table he sat at was of course entirely white. The same for his chair. A bed at the other side of the room was little more than a futon, but again, white. No color anywhere. His hair had been shaved, a precaution against him pulling any of it out and seeing it's brown strands, and he was clothed in white, a simple t-shirt and pajama pants, white pull-on sneakers and gloves. Without any mirror in this cell, he could not even look upon the color of his own eyes. He sat at the table quietly, waiting. A voice over some hidden loudspeaker had told him to do so a short while before.