Myrtleville: A Canadian Farm and Family, 1837–1867 by Beth Good Latzer (review)

498 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Myrtleville :ACanadian FarmandFamily, •837-• 867.SV. TI-IgOOD LATZEll. Carbondale, Southern IllinoisUniversity Press, 1976.Pp.xii, 3•2,illus.$9.85. Thisisthestoryof anAnglo-Irish emigrantfamily's experience in Canada. Allen Good,of Cork,wasthefirstmanager of theMontrealbranchof theBankof British North America.He wasappointedin •836 andsacked in 1837whenhequarrelled withPeterMcGill,president of theBankof Montreal,overMcGill's insistence thatall of the city'sbankersfollowhisleadin suspending payments of specie during the financialcrisisof that year.Goodmovedhis familyto the vicinityof Brantford, Upper Canada,wherehe hadpurchased land,andtherehetookup farming.The authorchronicles the subsequent historyof the family,of Myrtleville,and the assorted trials,tribulations, andtriumphsof itsinhabitants (including W.C. Good, theauthorof Farmer Citizen), to 1967. MrsLatzer's instincts aresound enough.Shehasaneyeforvividdetailandyetshe hasmadeaneffort toplacethecircumstances in whichthefamilyfounditselffrom timetotimeinabroader framework oflocal, regional, national, andworldhistory. In thisrespect the bookisveryreadableand evenentertaining. Nevertheless, it is essentially amemoirandwillbetreatedassuch because itlacks theessential perspectivewhichdistinguishes social histories from genealogical chronicles, a sense of the commonness ofhumanexperience. The veryfactthattheGoodfamilyhasoccupied Myrtleville continuously since i837makes themandtheirfarmunique inatleast one respect; andindeedthisisa chronicle of theuniqueevents in thelivesof successive generations of a uniquefamily,events to whichthereaderismadeprivywithout quiteunderstanding whytheyshould interest him.A furthercomplication isthatthe bookiswhollydevoid ofdocumentation ofanysort,making itdifficult forthereader togaugetheextenttowhichit isinformedbyresearch beyondtheprimarysources, and nearlyimpossible for him to assess the extentand the valueof the sources (exclusively, it wouldseem, familypapersin her possession) onwhichthememoiris based.If the documents whichshecitesverbatim are representative of the whole collection, particularly for thenineteenth century,thenthereare potentially rich pickings for thesocial historian if thepapers areeverconsigned toapublic archive. In themeantime MrsLatzer's bookwillnodoubtbeplundered forexemplia gratia of experiences commontoCanadianfamiliesin pasttime,experiences whichshemight havetranslated intoa muchmoreinstructive, andequally interesting, familybiography . The bookalsoserves asa timelyreminderthatin Canada,despite somerecent progress byacademic historians, thehistory offamilies andcommunities stillremains very much the purviewof amateurhistorians and genealogists. As legitimate branches of social history, familybiography, thehistory of thefamily,community studies, andprosopography allwarrantgreaterattention thanwehavesofar paid them. DAVID GAGAN McMaster University ...