Joseph Parkinson, Sr., was born in 1787 in Lancashire, England where he married Ellen Hodgkinson. During the Napoleonic wars the price of farm produce became very high in England and he embarked on farming on a large scale. After the Battle of waterloo in 1815, prices became demoralized and he made large losses. In 1818 he emigrated, put the remnants of his property into money and with his family came to the United States,settling in Susquehana Co., Pa. Three years later they removed to Seneca Lake, New York, where he accumulated quite a little property. In 1824 the younger portion of the inhabitants called upon him to contribute to a powder fund with which to celebrate the Fourth of July. This was contrary to his British instincts and he flatly refused their request. As a consequence they place a cannon in close proximity to this house anws shattered his windows. He immediately resolved to leave the country and, selling out his property, he loaded his household effects on an ox-cart and with his family walked to Canada. They arrived in Dundas early in the spring and Mr. Parkinson worked at his trade there during the summer, sending his sons to Eramosa to take possession of eleven hundred acres of land that he has bargained for in that Township. He and the others of his family joined them in the fall of 1824 and settled on Lot 12, Concession 1, where he lived until his death in 1851. |
