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Municipality :
Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
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Concession :
Description : WEGWHIST, the West Gwillimbury History Project, is nearing completion, but there are still some families to be tracked down. The Project is looking for descendants or relatives of the following pioneering families: Holmes, McArthur, Bannerman, Fisher, McKeeman, Jeffs, Armson, Boddy, Whiteside, Draper, Kidd and Rogers. Are these your family names? Do you know the history of your family in West Gwillimbury? Can you help fill in the gaps?

Municipality :
Community : Bradford West Gwillimbury
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Concession :
Description : Attention, writers! Do you love to write! Enjoy history? Have some free time? Then the WEGWHIST History of West Gwillimbury Project would love to hear from you. WEGWHIST has been collecting the stories of those who have settled or moved to the former Township of West Gwillimbury. Family stories, genealogies, farming records, old photos have been and are being collected by the team of volunteers - but someone who is skilled in the writer's craft is needed to help put it all together, in a readable form for publication.

Municipality :
Community : Innisfil
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Description : Other than the sound of wind blowing off the bay, or the hum of traffic, the long-abondoned Allandale Train Station sits in silence. But at one time, the station was a hub of activity characterized by the roar of steam engines, the laughter of passengers and the clickety-clack of wheels. As a teenager growing up in the early 1920s, John Smith vividly remembers the hustle and bustle of the Allandale Station. Back then, the yards were busy 24 hours a day, with several passenger trains arriving and departing daily. To accommodate such high volumes, miles of tracks surrounded the station. A large coal field sat just east of what is now the Southshore
Community Centre. The Allandale Train Station opened in June 1905 at the estimated cost of about $45,000. As the "flagship" station of the Grand Trunk Railway, the building was designed to offer passengers the very latest in modern day comforts. The tastefully designed building, which combined contemporary railway architecture and Italian design elements was considered to be one of finest stations in the porvince. The curved station, which was later purchased by Canadian National Railways in 1919, consisted of three sections, the depot, the dining hall, and offices. Each building section is linked with a covered breezeway. In the early days, the ladies waiting room occupied the front of the depot. The charmingly decorated room with spacious bay windows offered passengers a commanding view of the waterfront. To give the female passengers more privacy, there was a curtained alcove which separated this room from the general waiting area. Fell, who started working in the restaurant at the age of 16, said the dining area was divided into two parts. A fine dining room, which was known as the finest place to eat in Barrie, occupied one side of the building, and sat about 60 people. Al Burns, a retired railroader with 43 years experience, remembers the first time, he laid eyes on the building. It was back in 1944 when he was 19. But what was once a beautiful landmark is now a waterfront eyesore. The station was vacated in the mid-1980s because of lack of use of train transportation.

Municipality :
Community : Innisfil
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Concession :
Description : The INNISFIL Historical Society meets on the third Saturday of the month. The next meeting is on April 21st 2001. We meet at Knock Commujnity Centre 7756 10th Sideroad at the 9th Line, INNISFIL. Bill Warnica was the guest speaker in March. He spoke on the Myers family of INNISFIL. Before Stroud was called Victoria, it was Myer's Corners, named after the first to settle there, David Myers. The Myers were originally from an area know as Palatinate, now part of Rhineland-Pfaltz, part of Germany. Through the late 1600's and into the early 1700's, the Palatines were exposed to many hardships, decades of war and religious persecution. During the revolutionary wars, the Indians fought alongside the English in their fight with the Americans for their independence. One massacre occured about 1780, that devastated the community of German Flats, Killing many including Catherine Wolff's parents and grand parents. Catharine's grandmother was mistaken for dead and was scalped but survived and lived another 12 years. Catherine lived with the Wolever family until as a young woman she married Captain Myers. Captain Myers is listed as being charged with desertion on two occasions and appears to have gone off, leaving Catherine with three children. About 1806 George Frederick Hanning Werneke married the widow Catherine Wolfe.

Municipality :
Community : Innisfil
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Concession :
Description : At Churchill was the Episopalian Church. Although, I was baptized in that church, or rather in the old plastered church, in my early days I didn't know much about it. Jennie (or Jimie) Mathers was the choir leader and was an exceptionally good singer. There used to be preaching in James Sloan's wagon shop on a Sunday evening. For seats they used wagon hubs set on end, with planks on top, and a small table for a pulpit. About two miles to the south, we had Zion Church, where the cemetery now is. The ministers came from Bradford. They never seemed to get a grip of the people as they should have, Bethel Towse was the leading factor at this place. The Presbyterian Church at Cherry Creek held services at half past ten in the forenoon. A large crowd of people came here to worship God. A man called Alex Johnson led the singing. There was no musical instrument in use. Some good preachers came here. The folk came mostly from the north, some in double buggies and some in wagons. There was no Presbyterian church was built at Churchill, the Cherry Creek appointment was soon closed. The Church was moved a little to the south and is now (1932) used for a restaurant and service station. Across the road and a little to the north, we come to the Methodist Church, a frame structure with clapboard and three windows on each side. The top of the windows were fan-Shaped before the church was built, they had services in the school house.

Municipality :
Community : Bradford
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Description : "Well, many of us oldtimers actually still call it a township although it's really a town," shrugged Wallace, past-president of Innisfil's historical society. He and Warrington, the current president, have come together to talk about the past of a community that is 150 years old this year. In the 1700s, the western border of Quebec ran right near the current town of Innisfil. Back to the Seven Year's War and a time when England and France were fighting it out for a continent, from Louisbourg to the Plains of Abraham. The names of descendants and the cemeteries that dot the area, stones of white standing out against patchworks of green. Places like Cherry Creek, Allandale and Belle Ewart have risen and fallen in importance. Wallace said, "I think today Innisfil doesn't have anything big enough to call a town - really they're not much more than villages.

Municipality :
Community : Bradford
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Concession :
Description : Some historians pore over dusty tomes and draw all their knowledge from archival materials. Joe Saint knows the history books, but he is also a repository of oral tradition, a collector of tales and reminiscences. He can put a family name and a face to practically every historic building in Bradford. Joe Saint is 81, a timespan that encompasses a lot of changes, a lot of experience. Taking a driving tour with Saint is like getting a glimpse into the rich tapestry of Bradford West Gwillimbury's past. The Village Inn has a history. Built in 1910 by W.D. Watson, as a grocery store, it remained a grocery store until the mid 1930s. Then Jack Pong transformed it into a Chinese Restaurant, and in 1937, bought a liquor licence. All of Ontario was "dry" by 1916, but in the 1930s, Mitch Hepburn lifted Prohibition and introduced "local option." Some communities stayed dry, some brought in the alcohol - Bradford was the only community between North York and Barrie that had a beer licence. Aurora, Richmond Hill, Newmarket, all stayed "dry" by local option. "There were just too many church people, and too many bootleggers," says Saint. "Bootlegging in those days was an honest profession" - considered to be better than going on welfare. The owner of The Queen's Hotel didn't have the funds to buy a licence. A group of potential customers, tired of dealing with the bootleggers, reportedly chipped in to help pay the fees. Several of the homes on John Street East, including numbers 28, 34 and 49, were "floated" across the river to their present location, when the mill in Amsterdam closed. Actually, the homes were transported in winter, when it was easier to haul them across the frozen surface, Saint says. "There's a lot of history in this town. Some of it's good, and some of it's not... I didn't tell you the juicy stuff," says Saint.

Municipality : Toronto
Community : Other - Bradford
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Description : How do you keep six girls on the farm after they've seen T.O.? Well, you couldn't keep the Lee sisters away from Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing from 1947 to 1963. They followed each other through the school's hallowed halls to pursue a training that none of them regrets today. Over the weekend and continuing today, as the school's 1,100-strong alumni association celebrates its 100th anniversary in Toronto, the six have come from Canada and across the United States for a personal and pedagogical reunion. Once the two eldest sisters, Jean Moulding, now 65, and Charlotte Laubach, 63, set the pattern, it was hard for the others to break. But each had her own special reason for leaving the grind of their parent's farm in Bradford about 8 kilometres (5 miles) northwest of Newmarket. The youngest sister Barbara was only 5 when Jean left in 1947 for the bright lights and her three-year training. Like all her sisters, she says she'd do if all over again. For Margaret Evans teaching was her first choice but her mother pushed her to go to school, where she hated being the fifth sister there.

Municipality :
Community : Bradford
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Description : December 31ist marked not only the end of the old year and the Millennium, but the end of an era in Bradford. At the stroke of midnight, Lewis Ambulance Service ceased to exist, Flowing seamlessly into the new Health Trust Pre Hospital Services Inc., land ambulance providers for Simcoe County. Mac Lewis purchased the ambulance service 37 years ago, in 1963, as part of the Lathangue Kilkenny Funeral Home. The single ambulance - a 1954 Pontiac, equipped with 2 stretchers, Oxygen, bandages, and little else - answered 143 calls, staffed by Lewis and a number of part-timers. In 2000, Lewis Ambulance Service answered over 3,300 calls - "still with one vehicle," notes Lewis, but that vehicle is now equipped with a full array of equipment, from backboards to defibrillator, and staffed by employees that include 8 full-time and 10 part-time Level 1 Paramedics. There have many other changes over the last 37-plus years, especially in the attitude of the province towards private ambulance operators. Prior to 1963, there were 425 private operators in the Province. In 1964, they banded together to form the Ontario Ambulance Operators' Association, and began lobbying the government to set standards, for training, ambulances, etc. The government resisted until 1967/68, when it appointed Dr. Norman McNally as the Director of Ambulance Services - and within days, Dr. McNally was telling operators that thy were obsolete, and that the government would be taking over the service within 5 years. By 1975, the Province had purchased or closed all but 71 of the privately-owned ambulance services. Subsequent governments reversed the trend; it seemed that every time the government changed, the policy changed. Lewis not only has praise for Health Trust Pre Hospital Services, but for the direction that the County has decided to take. Simcoe County Council has approved expanding the service, adding 5 new stations and 5 ambulances, and up to 40 paramedics, to improve response times.

Municipality :
Community : Newmarket
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Description : The first resident of a clearing in the woods that grew into the Town of Newmarket was a Pennsylvania miller named Joseph Hill. He eventually lost all his property here in a court battle and, as war broke out in 1812, left for Pennsylvania rather than swear allegiance to the British Crown. Hill and another Quaker miller, James Kinsey, arrived in the spring of 1801 with Timothy Rogers' first group of settlers. They build a dam and mill where the Holland River and the old Indian trail crossed. Today we call his millpond Fairy lake and a heritage plaque stands close to where the mill was built. There was a small technicality Hill ignored - he didn't own the land on which he built and it was grabbed up 1802 by York mason Joseph McMertrie. But Rogers, who was anxious to see the mill and store in his new settlement survive, came to Hill's aid by buying the property from McMertrie in 1804 and turning it over to Hill. Enter Elisha Beman, a shrewd New York Entrepreneur with good colonial government connections. He bought land and built a mill upstream from Hill. This was the start of a feud which lasted until Hill fled back to the U.S.