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Bradford Veterans Street Names

  • CA BWGPL 2022-10-27/0
  • Item
  • 2017-07-01

Research on street names in Bradford West Gwillimbury that are named after local veterans

David Di Giovanni

Bradford Times Article - Canada 150 Quilt

  • CA BWGPL 2017-05-11-01
  • Item
  • 2017-05-11

Event Date: May 11th, 2017
Event Type: Newspaper article
Municipality: Bradford, Ont.

Description: Bradford Times article describes creation of Canada 150 quilt and its creation and donation.

Nancy Young

Proclaiming Yonge's Bicentennial

  • CA BWGPL 2017-05-15-01
  • Item
  • 1996-08-21

Description: Celebrating Yonge street's 200 years of existing.

Bradford West Gwillimbury Times

Durham, James Blanchfield

  • CA BWGPL 2953

Event Date : Saturday, September 08, 1900
Event Type : Death
Municipality :
Community : Bradford
Street :
Lot :
Concession : 0
Description : Died at Durham Place" Bradford.Age: 71st year.Born in Township of Trafalger County of Halton on May 30th 1830.Married Harriet Saunders daughter of George W. Saunders St. Vincent Township County of Grey in 1855.Moved to Bradford from Barrie in 1860 to run the T. Smith & Sons' Sawmills. More than 20 years later the mills moved north and he became involved in farming. Leaves a widow and nine children: T.S. Durham of Sault Ste. Marie; Sidney of B.C.; Mrs. E.S. Meeking of Allandale; James E. of Tonawanda N.Y.; Edgar and Miss Ella of Bradford; Clara of the Jewish Hospital Cincinnati Ohio; Hattie of Sault Ste. Marie and Wilbert of Bay City Mich.Interred in Barrie Union Cemetery."

Thomas Wells Opens School

  • CA BWGPL 2017-02-02
  • Item
  • February 9, 1977

Bradford Witness
Volume 111, Issue 6
February 9, 1977
p.1

Bradford Witness

4-H Club Year End

  • CA BWGPL PH25651

Municipality :
Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
Lot :
Concession :
Description : 4-H Club Year End

Cookstown Public School was quite active last Saturday afternoon as over 100 women and girls attended the 4-H activity day, put on by 4-H girls from Bradford, Ivy, Beeton, Everitt, Bond Head, Tottenham, and Hill and Valley groups.

The girls put on charades about etiquette, discussed judging and arranging of flowers, and gave plans for arranging a birthday party, and voted on next year's projects which will have a definite focus on living involving spring cotton reviews.

In the afternoon the girls record books were on display for the mothers to enjoy, and they also showed their decorated boxes which were made to hold reference files. Plays and exhibits were offered in both serious and funny presentations in order to draw attention to the fun that can be enjoyed while serious learning is taking place.

Most of the theme centered around manners, etiquette and table setting. Comments were made to the girls by visiting home economists to assist them in future clubwork, and the Bradford leaders Mrs. Swan and Mrs. Klop were quite proud of the achievements of their girls.

Projects awards were given to DonnaLee Lloyd, Nancy Jean Clubine, Lynda Slingerland, and Cathy Lewis. Achievement awards were given to Judy McArthur, Lyna McVety, Susan Robertson, and Ellen Masin, and Linda McArthur. Now the girls can go on and work toward receiving County and Provincial awards in the years to come.

David A. Jones Made

  • CA BWGPL PH25685

Municipality :
Community : Beeton
Lot :
Concession :
Description : David A. Jones Made "Beetown" Famous

David Allanson Jones is credited as the founder of Beeton. He was the first commercial bee man in North America and made the community famous for its honey.

Honey bees were not native to North America and were brought in by the first settlers. Jones capitalized on the delicacy and won prizes and awards for his honey in fairs all over the world.

In 1874, Clarkville was renamed Beetown in recognition of Mr. Jones' work. The name has since become Beeton but the signs at the entrances to the village still use the beehive symbol in memory of Jones, who died in 1910.

Simcoe Centre MPP D. Arthur Evans was born in Beeton.

Probably the most famous person to call Beeton her home was Canadian radio star, Kate Aitken, who passed away last year. Mrs. Aitken remembered her childhood so fondly she often commented about Beeton in her radio shows. The history of the community is set down in her book, "Never A Day Too Bright."

Mrs. Aitken organized the first Women's Institute in Beeton in 1920 and was its first president. Mrs. Gordon Drury, curator of the Institute's Tweedsmuir History Book, said the first meeting was held in a building on the northwest corner of Main and Centry Sts. Each of the ladies donated a cup and saucer and at the second meeting, each donated a chair. To keep the place warm and cozy through the winter months, another lady donated a cord of firewood.

The Institute celebrated its 50th anniversary in October, 1970. One hundred seventy-four ladies have belonged to the organization since it began.

Each of the three churches in town has its wealth of history in the forming of the community.

Trinity Anglican Church was built in 1878 with the cornerstone laid by John MacDonald, M.P. There was probably another church on Main St. before fire destroyed the west half of the main block of stores (Jones' block) on the north side.

Mrs. Jack Camplin recalls the church was always filled for two services each Sunday, and the holders of rented pews had to be in their seats ten minutes before the service otherwise others were allowed to use the seats.

Rev. J. Cross has been the pastor at the church for the past five years.

St. Paul's Anglican Church was built in 1879 for $4,500 on land donated by the Hammell family. The opening service was preached by Bishop Sweetman on Feb. 10, 1880 and consecrated on Dec. 14, 1906 after becoming debt-free. The church seats 200 people and has a congregation of 100 families.

Church records indicate a congregation existed as early as 1867. Rev. William Davis has been the minister for the past five years.

Rev. Basil Das of Tottenham is the minister of the Presbyterian Church which was completed in 1890 and debt-free at its opening. It celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1941.

The original church, Second United Presbyterian Congregation of Tecumseth was started in 1859 and located on the south side of Main St.

The Beeton Telephone Co. is now part of the history of the community. In 1958 the company was sold to Bell Telephone when the dial system became widely used. Dr. McKelvey, the last president, said the company was formed in 1906 and owned the territory surrounding Bradford, Cookstown, Alliston, Rosemont and Tottenham.

Beeton was the first community in Ontario to have a covered ice rink. The old town hall was condemned and subsequently sold in 1947 for $5,500 and the money used to build the rink.

Dr. McKelvey, who was reeve at the time, said the arena didn't cost the ratepayers a nickel. The entire cost was raised through donations and social events.

A Look at Bradford Over 100 Years Ago

  • CA BWGPL PH25686

Municipality :
Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
Lot :
Concession :
Description : A Look At Bradford Over 100 Years Ago

Dear Sir:
This is a copy of a letter written during the 1860's by my grandfather, Philip Crowder, at Manchester, England to the Herald. I received a copy from an uncle, Albert Crowder, now at Bangor, Maine.

I thought it might be of interest to you.
Sincerely yours,

Philip. A. Crowder
Star Route
Deerwood, Minnesota

A Look Into History

Mr. Editor
Dear sir:

Wishing to try my hand at writing a small article for the Working People's Supplement to the Herald I thought I would write from memory, some account of the first village I settled in and of the life in the Inhabitants lead.

I emigrated to Canada nine years ago with my wife and two little ones, the oldest child not quite two years old, and arrived in the City of Churches, as it is by some called, but better know as Toronto; where I found to my surpirse, tram cars running on several of the main streets. I soon got work at my trade but it being slack time of the year for it and I being unaccustomed to their way of working, I earned but little money and so left the shop to work on a sewer which was being made in Yonge Street, where I worked 'til it was finished. I applied for work at their mill at Bradford, only forty miles "up the Northern Track", so I went home and got my dinner and a change of clothes and started at quarter to three from the "Northern Depot" for Bradford where I arrived just after six.

It was on this journey that I saw a little of what the country in Canada looks like. I had only been through old settled country before, with here and there a bit of "bush" left for firewood; but now I passed through some new cleared land with the fields full of stumps and log huts here and there, and through the Holland River swamp, (which is now cleared up), and then thought I had some idea of the back woods; how soon we think we have learned soemthing. Arrived at Bradford Depot, (station), I enquired my road to the mill, where I luckily found the clerk, who was busy that night, and he gave me an order for admission to the boarding house, where I had supper and was then shown my bed, there being three double beds in that room.

At the front of the house I found my fellow boarders, and part of my future mates, collected, some seated on benches, some playing quoits, some leaning against a fence dividing the yard from the railway; (the house being in the lumber yard, one line of lumber piles being within ten yards of the back of the house), and all indulging in rough jests. A good number of them, like myself emigrants - English, Irish, Scotch, with three of these I struck up aquaintance. One was a pit sawer from Banbury, another a Cornish youth, and the last a carpenter from Brighton. As dark came on we went to bed as our inclination led us. As half pat five we were called by a bell for breakfast, which consisted of the remains of salt pork boiled the day before for dinner, served with bread, fried potatoes followed by bread and butter and that by fat cakes and molasses with tea to drink. At five minutes to six the first whistle blew when all hands started for the mill to be in their places when the whistle blew at six. I was put at first in a gang of six or eight who were making a ditch to go between the river and cistern intended to suppply the boilers of a new mill they were building at a distance of about a furlong from the old one, the road and railroad lying between them. At half past eleven the whistle blew for dinner when I saw most of the hands that lived at the boarding house running as fast as they could for that most desirable place. I thought them a very greedy set of fellows until I arrived at the back of the house where I saw some of the last ones rubbing themelves with the towels and the row of unemployed wash-bowls ready for myself and the few elderly men that was (sic) staying there and so this tremendous rush was only to get the bowls with clean water ready in them without the trouble of pumping it. By the time I was ready the bell rang for dinner when all walked quietly into the dining room and took his place.

Dinner consisted of salt pork boiled with potatoes and some kind of garden vegetable when in season, followed by pies such as apple, pumpkin, and citeron (sic) and finish up with fat cakes and molasses and finished with a cup of tea. At half past twelve the whistle blew for work and at six to "quit", when we got our supper which consisted of bread and butter and preserved fruit and hot cakes and molasses. On Sundays we had a joint of fresh meat roasted, or rather baked, in the oven of the cook stove and sometimes someone or other of the luxuries usual in the homes of even the labourers of the county. It was here I saw green corn eat (sic) for the first time. I was highly amused at the sight but would not be tempted to try it. Perhaps some of my readers have seen a "cob" of corn or Indain corn in some corn dealers window. Well these are fathered when the grain is full not but begun to ripen, and boiled for twenty minutes, and served on the table, the diner takes hold of the stalk end with his fingers of one hand and spreads butter on the cob with a knife held in the other, he then takes hold of the other end of the cob instead of the knife and bites off the grain much the same as you may have seen some one pick a bone. It well repays you for any loss of dignity you may have sustaiend from the awkward looking position, at least I thought so the following summer when I was persuaded at the house of a friend to try just one cob and tried another without any persuading and so thought the Irishman who having arrived on Toronto in September thought he saw peas being eaten in a new way. After having devoured his corn asked the waiter to "Please to put some more pays on this stick."

After a few days I was fetched to work at the mill where there was about seventy men and boys working in about it. It is situated on one side of the Holland River in which the logs lie as they have been brought up the river by small steam tugs from Lake Simcoe. it is a large wooden building two stories high...

We Once Had A Fair

  • CA BWGPL PH25693

Municipality :
Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
Lot :
Concession :
Description : We Once Had A Fair

Forty-three years ago in Bradford the annual Bradford and West Gwillimbury fall fair was held, with horse races, livestock competitions, dances, and a midway.

The weather was almost perfect and the fair attracted crowds estimated at 3,000.

The celery harvest was under way that week as well, and Professor W.H. Day's 40 acres were described as an "animated hive of industry," with 250 men and boys harvesting the celery crop.

Twenty-nine years ago in Bradford a just-completed census put the population of the town at 1,373 an increase of 66 from the previous year.

A huge wasp's nest, measuring three feet long, was discovered in a barn at the rear of the Orange Hall.

The nest's construction was "like basket weaving, and is in lovely tones of fawn shade." The wasps were killed by "liberal applications of DDT."

Ruffetts' Celebrate 72 Years of Marriage

  • CA BWGPL PH25695

Municipality :
Community : Lefroy
Lot :
Concession :
Description : Ruffetts' Celebrate 72 Years of Marriage
By Georgina Mitchell

Bill and Susan Ruffett celebrated their 72nd anniversary last week, with many friends and relatives calling in to congratulate them.

Bill is well known for his recitations and he has memorized over 100 verses since retiring at the age of 80.

He recalls the first time he recited 82 years ago at the Churchill Presbyterian Church Sunday School concert.

Bill and Susan eloped when she was 16, and he 20.

The bride, born Susan Hardy recalls taking the train from Lefroy to Gilford (where her sister lived) and then north to Barrie where she met Bill.

The couple then walked to the Collier Street Methodist Manse where they exchanged vows.

Bill remembers having only $7 in his pocket, of which $2 went to the minister.

Bill began work at the ice company in Lefroy, and worked there from 1910 to 1930.

With the advent of electric refrigerators Bill turned to carpentry and built about 200 cottages before his retirement.

He continued to build bird houses as a hobby, and still does when the weather is favorable, with his son Charlie giving him a hand.

Bill and Susan raised a family of seven children, the oldest and youngest girls, with five boys in between.

They also have 18 grandchildren ranging in age from 12 to 42, 21 great-grandchildren, and one great great grandchild.

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