MURRAY & ME ~ A rare look back at the thirties in rural Ontario.

Author and historian Harry B. Barrett relates the historic installation of the controversial new hydro-electric power lines. He tells the story of travelling in a cutter and upsetting on a hill. "I remember our upsetting in the ditch. . . Suddenly I seemed smothered in snow from beneath and by the fur of my Grandfather's coon-skin coat."
The reader learns the origin and tales connected with such places as "Dog's Nest" and Port Dover. The author reflects on earlier days -- his conversations with old neighbours and friends -- to explain the financing and hardship in building the Hamilton-to-Port Dover Plank Road.
One can imagine Harry Barrett sitting around the kitchen table with his childhood friend, Murray Hammond, sharing the stories that eventually became the book, MURRAY & ME.

The book is dedicated to "the hardy pioneers of the Long Point County, many of whom were ancestors to Murray and Me, who toiled to turn the Carolinian Forests into the smiling farmlands and orderly communities that we enjoy today."

* Harry B. Barrett, MURRAY & ME, 1999, Patterson's Creek Press, Morris Printing, Simcoe, Ontario. Photo: Cutter circa early 1900's. Family photo album, Lorna