Description : Tom Fuller Remembers Working on Marsh with Professor Day

Tom Fuller is one of many long-time Bradford residents who has a wealth of information about the town and surrounding area's past, as well a as few good anecdotes.

This article is the first of what is hoped to be many featuring some of our long time residents wo have a good story to tell.

Mr. Fuller was one of the early workers on the Holland Marsh. He knew and worked for, and later alongside Professor William Day, who is generally credited with "creating" the rich farmland of the area.

When Professor Day died in his fields on July 5, 1938, Mr. Fuller was nearby. He served as pall bearer at both Professor Day's and his wife Ethel (Williams') funerals.

The first job Mr. Fuller has in the marsh was in 1927 as a diver, swimming down under the dredges that had been used to construct the canals. His job was to undo bolts, in order to dismantle them.

"I'd dive down, take the wooden deck plates off, come up and have a cigarette, and go back down again," Mr. Fuller said, in an interview at his home in town.

He got the job because he knew how to swim. He had arrived from Australia on "Friday, the 23rd of May," he says, and he needed a job.

He was 19 at the time, having arrived in Australia three years earlier from his birthplace of London, England.

He left for Canada with friends, and ended up in Bradford because his older brother Bill lived in town.

At that time, the canals that outline the farming area had been dug, and all that was left was to build a dam to link the two, he says.

"They buried old car bodies by the dozens to get a footing, then planting willows to anchor it," Mr. Fuller says. "That's when I met (Professor Day) and found out he'd planned and supervised the draining of about 10,000 acres."

Mr. Fuller remembers how the marsh came to be drained and eventually became one of the richest agricultural areas in the province. He doesn't think enough people remember Professor Day's part in making a dream he and few other shared, become a reality.

While there had been plans as early as the late 1800's to drain the area to use the peat for fuel, it was not until about 1910 that a Bradford grocer, David Watson, approached Professor Day at the agricultural college in Guelph.

The professor tested the muck soil and decided it was ideal for vegetables.

At the time, hay was harvested from the area to make mattresses.

Horses were used to cut down the hay, and Mr. Fuller says they were equipped with wooden "shoes," so they wouldn't sink too far down into the mucky soil.

Professor Day developed a syndicate that purchased 4000 acres by 1912. But the draining of the area was delayed by the war and depression.

After many submissions to the local councils in Bradford, King and West Gwillimbury, provision was made for the draining in the Municipal Drainage Act of 1924.

In that year, Professor Day resigned his position as head of the agricultural and engineering departments at the Guelph college, and moved to Bradford.

"He gets 100 per cent credit," Mr. Fuller says. "Many farmers here had useless land but when it was drained, it became valuable."

But it was to be many years yet before the marsh was to produce at its potential.

Mr. Fuller worked on the finishing portions of the drainage, and for a few years left the marsh to work at the Toronto Furniture Company on Holland Street East, next to Spence's Mill.

"We made reed and fibre furniture - summer furniture," he says.

When the depression hit in 1929, Mr. Fuller went back to Professor Day for a job.

"He had the land going by then," Mr. Fuller says. "The wages were good, 20 cents an hour. I worked that year cleaning up the crop." Professor Day owned a large portion of the land at that point, Mr. Fuller says.

"But it didn't do him any good because of the depression. You couldn't sell anything. They were really hard times. Married men worked for 17 cents an hour, single for 15 cents...I got a raise as foreman the next year and got 20 cents."

Most of the crops were lettuce and celery, and those were considered luxury items during the depression, Mr. Fuller said.

A lot of other men who worked in the marsh still live in the area, he says, and as he starts to name them off, he says he'd better not forget anyone, or he'll hear about it.

"Harold Taylor still lives in town, and Homer Henbest. His father was principal of the school at Amsterdam."

Amsterdam was a community between Bradford and Holland Landing, Mr. Fuller explains.

"Harold's mother was a teacher there, and his dather was a minister."

Other names Mr. Fuller remembers from the early 30's on the marsh included Wilbert Mullus, Herb Taylor, Bob Edney, Bill Semenuck, Frank Marino and Gordon McKelvie.

"I musn't forget any, they'll never forgive me," Mr. Fuller said.

There were also many families from Holland Landing -- the Fosters, Ellis', Wests, Landridges, Thompsons and Bekes, who were from Amsterdam.

"I worked for Mr. Day from 1930 till 1938, when he lost his land. He lost everything," he says.

"You have to keep in mind the great depression. We had thousands of crates of celery and lettuce. They were considered luxury foods which no one could afford.

Although Professor Day, along with many others, recognized the potential of the marsh, it was never really successful because of the depression, legal entanglements, and the Canadian farmers who weren't used to farming the muck soil.

While Tom Fuller Remembers 1930 as the year Professor Day visited the Dutch embassy in Toronto, other reports state the Dutch ambassador, John Snor, visited the area and decided farmers from the Netherlands would be ideally suited for the land.

Fourteen families that had settled in the Hamilton-Burlington area were convinced to come to the marsh, and settle in the southeastern portion. They were helped out by a three-way loan of $600 split evenly between the three levels of government.

When the three municipalities involved couldn't come up with their portion, Mr. Snor obtained the money from his government.

The first small settlement on the marsh was named in honor of Mr. Snor and his daughter Anne. The Dutch heritage of the hamlet of Ansnorveldt is still felt in the community just south of Bradford.

The first two years, 1934 and 1935, were not very successful, but by the next year, farms were flourishing.

Professor Day, "saw the marsh become successful," Mr. Fuller says.

"He talked to himself quite a bit...I remember his looking out and saying he wished his father could see him now, how successful he was."

The professor was speaking of the success of the farms, not his own financial success, Mr. Fuller said.

"He never cared about making money."

The marsh never really took of financially until halfway through the war, Mr. Fuller says. The government needed crops for the troops in camps all over Canada, and many of the vegetables were purchased from the marsh farmers.

Before that Professor Day had lost much of his land because he couldn't sell his crops. But he kept a small parcel, and called his farm KingGwillimBradGardens.

It was on his farm on lot 8, as Mr. Fuller describes it, that Professor Day suffered a heart attack.

"I was on my own lot, number 5, and he was on lot 8, I saw Bill (Day) go roaring out saying something was wrong."

"It was mid summer, a hot day. He had a heart attack right in his celery field."

Mr. Fuller continued farming for a few years after Professor Day's death, and decided h was going to expand his small roadside vegetable stand into the largest on the highway.

It was not to happen though. While at his friend Ron Bedford's cottage on the Severn River one day in the spring, he heard the news the Germany had invaded France.

"I'd been listening to that, and watching the trains go by taking the first divisions to fight."

"I told my wife one day I was going to Barrie and when she asked why, I said because I had joined the army."

Mr. Fuller fought in France, Holland, Germany and Belgium.

"I was taken prisoner in the last month," he says. "On the 10th of April we were out in Germany between Bremen and Hamburg."

His brother has taken over the farm, and when he got back to Canada, Mr. Fuller was determined to get back on the land.

He knew his land on the edge of the marsh had been farmed for enough years that it wasn't as productive as it could be. He wanted to get more toward the centre of the marsh, where he says the land is better.

He got his land, and made a living selling his produce from his oldest son George's truck, which they drove throughout the area - Queensville, Keswick, Jackson's Point, Sutton are the places he mentions.

With the money he made, he was able in 1958 to pay off the mortgage on the home he bought through the Veteran's Land Act in 1946.

He still lives with his wife Ethel in the home at the corner of Colborne and John Streets.

"This house was built in 1945," and was at the limits of the town then, he says.

"The fence at the back is from the 1800's. North was the Stoddart farm."

"There are boards in this house from the old Good's Elevator," that was built in the mid 1800's near where the GO train station is now, he says.

"It was pulled down in 43 or 44. Don (Collings who built the house) knew where to get good wood."

When he "retired" from farming, he worked for eight years at the Federal Farms chip plant.

"Do you remember Mad Hatter chips? I cooked Mad Hatter chips and cheesies."

After he "retired" from that job in 1965, he went to work in the town liquor store, where he had worked in the farming off-seasons in the past.

After four years in the liquor store, he finally settled on a real retirement.

The spry 78-year-old is kept busy around town and in his large backyard garden. He does the shopping because his wife is mostly confined to home with arthritis.

"I do everything," he says. "Unless I get a chance to go fishing, and if I get a chance, well that takes precedence over everything."

Art Janse has been involved in the Holland Marsh all of his life, as a resident, a farmer, a Town employee for 45 years, and drainage superintendent for Bradford West Gwillimbury and King Township. Janse is retiring due to the response from many of the farmers to his ideas for the Holland Marsh Drainage Scheme improvements that would also improve the safety for motorists. The project has a high price tag of bout $17 million but Janse has won the right to assess upland residents a share of the cost, and has made the case for contributions from municipalities, OMAFRA, Transportation, Natural Resources and Environmental Ministries, and Conservation Authorities.

Description : "If even the "tail end" of a hurricane were to hit southern Ontario, the Holland Marsh could face serious flooding, with damages in the $110-$200 million range. The problem? Since 1954, when Hurricane Hazel cause extensive flooding, the south canal has silted in. The Holland Marsh Drainage Committee is considering every option but even with the Roads department picking up a portion of the cost, the amount the marsh farmers would have to pay would be crippling."

"In Memory of William Henry Day, Professor of Physics at O.A.C. Guelph, whose foresight and energy were principal factors in the development of the Holland Marsh Gardens. He came to Bradford in 1924 and harvested his first crop in 1928. He died suddenly while at work in his garden, July 5, 1938.
Erected jointly by county of Simcoe, Townships of West Gwillimbury and King and Village of Bradford 1955."

Professor W. H. Day, who initiated much of the work in the marsh operated the Kingwilbra Gardens beside Bridge Street. Tom Fuller Sr. was one of the workers on the marsh for the professor. Mr. Fuller recalled getting paid 17-cents an hour and then getting a rather substantial raise to 20 cents an hour. The work crew included Arthur Taylor, Jack Geddes (killed in action during the Second World War), Wilbert Mulliss, Bruno and John Carvalho, Frank Maurino, Herb Taylor, Homer and Howard Henbest, Gordon McKelvie, Bob Edney, Charles Hansford, Joe Sangdrige. In the photo, top left, A. Moffat, S. Foster, H. Taylor, Tom Fuller, A. Doan, J. Foster, W. Semenuk, B. Cudmore. Middle Row: N. Gilfin, A. West, M. Thompson, R. Smith. Bottom Row: J. Ellis, H. Ellis, Hunter, J. Sadur, M. Zlotkin.

List of plans & maps donated by Art Janse that relate to the Holland Marsh Scheme.

One year after Hurricane Hazel, before the canal was dug out.

Pumphouse on Canal Rd. for the Bradford Drainage Scheme. Built in 1949, now renovated.

Description : Early Days of the Marsh

Today, one of the richest and most widely known Garden Tracts in Ontario is the Bradford or the Holland Marsh. In the vegetable stores across Canada and in parts of the United States you will see potatoes, celery, lettuce, onions, and carrots, etc., bearing the label "Bradford Marsh" or simply "Marsh" as a sign of quality. But, the Bradford Marsh was not always a gardener's paradise. Unbelieveable as it may now seem, it was once nothing but an impassable marsh of Tamarack swamp, covering thousands of acres.

Beginning about Schomberg and flowing, or moving in a very sluggish manner in a northeasterly direction towards Lake Simcoe is the stream known as the Holland River, so named after a Major S. Holland, Surveyor General of Canada, who in 1971 visited the river in making a general survey of the Lake Simcoe region. This is the main river and it is joined by an eastern or Holland Landing tributary at a place called Soldier's Landing or Soldier's Bay about seven miles from the mouth. At one time, navigation to Lake Simcoe points from Soldier's Landing consisted of small craft. In 1850, when boats were larger and the western or main branch of the river was found to be much easier to navigate, having deeper water and broader streams and not so choked with marsh as the eastern branch, the steamer "Beaver" went on to the Bradford Holland River Bridge.

In 1819, the first settlers in South Simcoe, the Wallaces, the Armstrongs and the Algeos, crossed the river with great difficulty and landed at what is now known as the old wharf in the Scotch Settlement. Here for some years was the only river crossing and that was by a ferry pulled by ropes.

But by this time, the settlement at Bradford had become an accomplished fact and the question of some method of crossing the marsh and so as to give easier access to the Holland Landing had arisen. Petitions were sent to county councils and to the Government and finally under the constant urging of William Armson, Reeve of West Gwillimbury and Warden of the County, money grants were given and a road was made from Bradford to the river by laying logs across a width of marsh and filling in with earth. This was the corduroy road, the logs of which were still visible many years afterwards. Then to cross the river a floating bridge was laid down and a through direct road from Bradford to the Landing was completed and the Marsh was at least partly conquered. The ferry at the old wharf was discontinued.

In 1837 George Lount, Government Surveyor, surveyed as a townsite, the spot on the south side of the river just beyond the floating bridge, known as Amsterdam and the streets were laid out bearing such good Holland names as DeRuyder, DeWitt, VanDyke, Rubens, etc., but the townsite remained as only a townsite and no town arose, so in 1869 a lumberman named Thompson Smith acquired the patent of the unused site and built two sawmills, one on each side of the road just beyond the bridge. And the marsh was still largely unconquered. Rafts of logs were brought up the river by the tugs Victoria and Isabella, and this helped to keep the river fairly clear of weeds. The wreck of the Isabella lay near the railway bridge not so many years ago and it now probably lying on the bottom of the river.

The superintendent of the sawmills was James Durham and in 1870, Mr. Durham cut the floating bridge in two in order to get his logs through and this caused a lot of trouble but led to the erection of a bridge above the water. This bridge was 420 feet long and was complete in April 1871, the builder being Thomas McKonkey of Gilford.

To the many men working in the mills the great marsh became a familiar sight and the thought entered someone's head, why not cut that marsh grass or hay, twist it into ropes and sell it, and so was born the marsh hay industry and some use at last was made of the great wasts of land. The hay was twisted into long ropes. Later, hay-balers were brought into use and the hay was baled instead of twisted into ropes.This marsh hay was used for stuffing mattresses. Marsh hay twisting and baling went on for years and might still be the only marsh industry had not a bright idea entered the head of one D. W. (Dane) Watson, an intelligent, energetic young farmer of the Scotch Settlement who, however, had come into Bradford and acquired a grocery business where the Village Inn now stands.

This bright idea was, why not dredge a canal and drain the marsh and so turn waste land into productive soil? Mr. Watson got Professor Day of Guelph Agricultural College, interested in his idea and so was laid the germ that has sprouted into the now famous Bradford Marsh Gardens.