One of the earliest settlers was Anthony McAllister, born 1797 in Northern Ireland, who arrived in New York on the brig Mount Bay on August 12, 1816 from Londonderry. It is not known if he went directly to New Brunswick but we can surmise that he lived there at least 15 years. On June 18, 1827, Anthony was married by an Anglican clergyman to the widow Susanna Ramsey. They lived on a rented 100 acre farm in the parish of Norton, King’s County. Susanna, daughter of Hector and Sarah Dickie, was born in Norton, N.B. in 1801, and the youngest of a family of 13 children. Her parents were United Empire Loyalists who fled from their cotton plantation in South Carolina at the time of the American Revolution. Hector and his sons worked their 500 acre land grant and were prominent in municipal affairs in Norton.

The land was very poor, which no doubt prompted their move to Upper Canada. The Erie Canal Inland Passage, opened in 1825, was the route usually taken by those came to Southwestern Ontario. This was the route taken by the McAllister and Dickie families when they left Norton. The first group settled around Burford in 1833 and sent word back telling of the fertile soil and good water they found. In July 1837 Susanna’s brother Hector Jr., his wife and three sons, their widowed mother Sarah, and Susanna and Anthony McAllister prepared to leave N.B. The McAllister’s four children ranged in age from 9 to 2 years, and Susanna’s 15 and 13 year old sons by her first marriage completed the group. Hector kept a diary of the trip from N.B. to Ontario. It appears they first went by sailing boat to New York and the on the tow boats pulled by horses from Albany to Buffalo, New York.

The following excerpt is from the diary: “The wind was sometimes light and sometimes a middling good breeze until Tuesday the 7th at 12 o’c., it sprang up the same course, a pretty fare sailing breeze. On having cleared Nantucket shoals we ran all night, at six in the morning of the 8 July we saw land to the leeward which proved to be Long Island. On July 10 we took a tow boat from New York to Albany, arriving the next afternoon. The same day we boarded a canal boat from Rochester and Buffalo; the fare was four dollars. There were many locks. I find myself much at a loss for language to even set the beauty of this country forth in its true light. The country appears to be better the farther we go, the fields of wheat very stout and heavy on the ground, large orchards, very fine cutting hay very much of it lodged. I saw large fields of peas and barley as stout as it could stand. I am told by many gentlemen that the country is even better back from the canal. Utica was a most delightful little town of much business. It exceeds all that I have ever seen. The country around it is very delightful. Farther on we passed by several salt works, one said to be 100 acres in mining. We reached Rochester on the 16th, a large town of very fine buildings. I did not think of seeing such a large town and such a stir of trade so far back in the woods. We find everything for sale that a man could wish.”

After 9 days they reached Buffalo on July 18th, a journey of about 900 miles, and continued by sailing ship across Lake Erie to Port Dover where they were met by relatives. The McAllister’s settled on the north half of lot 4, concession 3 of Brantford Township. Since concession roads had not yet been built, a trail was in use along the high ground of a range of hills that ran from Bishopsgate to Paris crossing concession 3 through lots 4 and 5. Anthony McAllister and John Aulsebrook on adjoining lot 5 erected their dwellings and barns on the south side of this trail. The trail remained in use for another 10 or 12 years. Their buildings were of rough board construction obtained from the saw mills in Burford Township.

On January 1, 1840 Anthony and Susanna’s last child was born in their pioneer home, a boy named Wellington. He and his wife Martha Rand acquired the farm in 1875 from his father’s estate. It is from this line that the present McAllisters in Bethel are descended.