The Hinterland of Violence

Cate used to joke about how the first time she visited my home town it seemed like every landmark I pointed out was significant because of a murder that took place there. I'd always considered Smiths Falls to be a tough town compared to Merrickville or Perth (but not Kemptville) but not extraordinarily so. Sort of started to seem that way, though.

When I was in Smiths Falls earlier this week, I stopped by the library (an old Carnegie Library that has been recently renovated) and found a very comprehensive book on the town's history: Glenn J. Lockwood's Smiths Falls: a social history [...], 1794-1994. One chapter is titled, "The Hinterland of Violence" and it turns out that this reputation for violence is niether new, nor entirely unfounded.

During the early 19th century, when the village sprung up based on the building of the Rideau Canal and the railways, "The village on the Rideau acquired a notorious reputation for rowdiness, lawlessness and crime that was largely based on fact." (p. 214)

"[An] inhabitant complained in 1860 that most young men in Smith's Falls gathered together in a thieves' convention at the combined locks every Sabbath where 'grown up youths bathe and expose themselves' and where during 'Divine Service the devils work is planned and executed.'" The devil's work included "[t]heiving, swearing, yankee slang, shouting and unearthly screeches."

Various gruesome fights are mentioned, including "an assault by one man on another with a broken-bladed jack-knife during a quarrel while 'playing cards and drinking at a low groggery' in 1864." Apparently he was not, however, a member of of the gang of ruffians that the the Ottawa and Perth newspapers incorrectly refered to as the "Slashers". Everyone at the time knew they were called the "Thrashers".

120 years later, when I lived here not much had changed really. The town has grown much larger so there isn't really a mono-culture of crime, just a sub-culture, and it has mostly shifted away from the canal to the neighborhoods near the rail-yards (i.e. the other side of the tracks). But the young men, toothless and tattoo'd, still hang out on the corner of Beckwith and Main swearing, shouting and using Yankee slang, and the fights spill out of the bars on a regular basis.

Not really much point to this rambling either, just something I thought might be of interest to my friends who grew up there.

Cheers

PS Is "low groggery" British or "yankee slang"?