by George Mathewson for the Sarnia Observer
(2003) Froome and Field Talfourd were not your typical pioneers when they ventured into the wilderness of Southwestern Ontario on horseback. The road came to an end at Warwick, so the brothers from England followed a trail blazed through forest and swamp to a small clearing on the St. Clair River, about where LaSalle Line is today. There they purchased 12 acres and a log house for $600 and set to work. The year was 1834.
Froome was as green a pioneer as they came. Four decades later he confessed in The Observer: “Until I came to Canada I had never with my hands done a day’s work.” Nevertheless, Froome and Field Talfourd created the village that came to be known as Froomfield. Built around a small water-powered mill, the community soon boasted four streets: Front, Cross, Church and Richard. Froome cleared 100 acres of forest, mostly black walnut, which he sold to passing freighters. And three years after his arrival, he married Eliza Johnston, the daughter of another settler.
English-based researcher Mary Brown paints a romantic picture of the scene. “The Rev. James Evans conducted the ceremony, following which Froome and Eliza rowed up the river in the moonlight,” she recounted for The Observer in 1998.
When the rebellion broke out in 1837, Froome somehow managed to muster a company of 100 men who patrolled the riverfront from Sarnia to Sombra. Afterward known as Colonel Talfourd, or Squire Talfourd, Froome retired as a superintendent in 1868 with an annual pension of $400. When he decided to return to England to live, the Chippewa of Sarnia prepared a huge feast in his honour. Touched by the gesture, Talfourd promised that every year henceforth, on his birthday, he would provide a feast for his aboriginal friends.
He later wrote to an English newspaper, describing his time in Canada as hard but rewarding work: “For 25 years in perfect health and comfort, I lived and thoroughly enjoyed the life.” According to elders from the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, the last of the Talfourd feasts was held on Nov. 4, 1902, the year of his death.