Deptford, A Place Where Everything Began

In the novel Fifth Business, written by Robertson Davies, there was a very important setting called Deptford. Deptford was the place where the novel started with and it was also where the main characters of the novel came from.

Deptford was a small town located in Western Ontario, Canada, it laid on the Thames River about fifteen miles east of Pittstown, the country town and nearest big place. Deptford had an official population of about five hundred, and the surrounding farms probably brought the district up to eight hundred souls, and everybody knew everybody.

There were five churches in Deptford, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, and Roman Catholic. The Anglican was poor but believed to have some mysterious social supremacy. The Presbyterian was solvent and thought–chiefly by itself–to be intellectual. The Methodist was insolvent and fervent. The Baptist was insolvent and saved. The Roman Catholic was mysterious to most of people in town but clearly solvent. Deptford was dominated by Christian morals.

Deptford had one lawyer, who was also the magistrate; one banker in a private bank; two doctors, Dr. McCausland who was reputed to be clever, and Dr. Staunton, who was also clever, but in the realm of real estate–he was a great holder of mortgages and owned several farms; one dentist, a wretch without manual skill; a veterinarian, who drank but could rise to an occasion. There was a canning factory, which operated noisily and feverishly when there was anything to can; one sawmill and a few shops in Deptford.

Deptford was dominated by the rich Athelstan family, who had done well out of lumber early in the nineteenth. They owned the only three-storey house in Deptford, which stood by itself on the way to the cemetery. Most of the houses in Deptford were of wood, and some of them stood on piles, for the Thames had a trick of flooding.

Since Deptford was a typical small town and with low population, the relationships between neighborhoods were good, everybody knew everybody. This was the good side of small town life. A real community would pull together when there is an emergency. For example, when Willie Ramsay, the son of the owner and editor of the local weekly paper, was seriously ill, needs constant nursing, many people freely offer assistance to the Ramsay family. Also, when Mrs. Dempster was lost, a volunteer search party was quickly organized.

Although the village of Deptford has many of the sterling, moral characteristics associated with small-town living. However, in its heart lurks much darkness and evil as well, which can be shown through the example of Mrs. Dempster. Since everybody knew everybody in Deptford, people didn’t really have privacies. When Mrs. Dempster has been caught of having sex with a tramp, everybody knew about it, and people started to make rude jokes about Mrs. Dempster, which had made a big damage to the Dempster family.

After all, Deptford was a quaint, old-fashioned Canadian village in the novel Fifth Business, written by Robertson Davies. It had both good and bad side of small-town living. And it was the place where everything started.