After a few years, when the settlers had become somewhat established, steps were taken more generally, to procure stock, so necessary to give ordinary comfort to their families; while those who now entered the country brought cows with them. Although the cows and oxen were procured occasionally from Lower Canada; the most of them were obtained from the States; but the horses were in the main at first, brought from Lower Canada. Many incidents attending the long and devious journey through the wilderness, are still told. Thomas Goldsmith, before mentioned, who settled in Prince Edward, came into Canada by way of the Mohawk, Wood Creek, Oneida Lake, and Oswego river, thence to Cataraqui. He undertook to drive some cattle through the woods to Cape Vincent, piloted by a friendly Indian, to swim them across the St. Lawrence. In this journey he suffered almost every privation—hunger, fatigue, exposure. Resting one night in the ordinary manner, with his head slightly raised, upon the root of a tree, with no other covering than the tree’s branches, and sleeping very soundly, after a day’s walking, he became benumbed from exposure, and knew not of the rapidly descending rain, which had actually covered his body when he awoke. Yet this man lived to be ninety years old. Driving cattle through the woods was no easy matter, and dogs were often employed for that purpose. Ex-Sheriff Sherwood, in his valuable memorandum, relates an incident which throws light upon those primitive days. After remarking how well he recollects the pleasure, he and an elder brother experienced from a present made them of a cock and hen, no common luxuries then, and with what care they watched over them, he says: “let me tell you the tragic story of our little ‘Tipler,’ she had become famed for driving cattle, and we thought much of her. Two persons, one named Urehart, from the Bay Quinté, and the other Booth, started to go through the woods to Fort Stanwix for cattle, and prevailed upon my father to let them take poor little ‘Tipler.’ We saw them safe across the river; but, sad to say, neither the men nor Tipler were ever heard of after.”
John Ferguson, writing from Sidney, in July 1791, says that he cannot get horses for the farm until winter.