called “Zeb,” or “Old Zeb” (died 1928?), itinerant seller of coal oil (kerosene) in southern GC. Zeb Leblanc transported the coal oil about the countryside, from home to home, in a barrel on a horse-drawn cart. The coal oil was said to have been smuggled into Canada over the St. Lawrence from the U.S.A., the smuggling being sometimes done in the winter on the ice. One of the “characters” well known in old GC, Zeb Leblanc lived in a little log house at Sandfield Mills on the North Branch, just west of the GC border. He is remembered as having been a veteran of the American Civil War, who fought at the Battle of Shiloh (1862). His stories on the subject of the war are said to have been well told and valuable. A photograph of Zeb Leblanc, in a snowy landscape with horse and cutter, has been at least twice printed (Grant, Murray).

MacGillivray & Ross 595 * Ross, Lancaster, 144 * Marland Murray in HHCT 133-134 * Rhodes Grant, ii, 16-17, 131 * anecdote, presumably about the same Zeb Leblanc, Fraser (1959), 224