John Ballantyne (1825-1906)

He emigrated to Upper Canada from the Orkney Islands - a tale told by his great-great-granddaughter, Mrs Fischer, under the pen name Alex Paterson. He and his wife had 13-children and according to a family story when each of the children were old enough to leave home (fourteen years of age), "he'd walk them up to the King's Highway between Montreal and Toronto, give them a dollar and announce 'this is the road of life'".