HomeMy WebLinkAbout2199Article by Isabel Champion. 1979.
Markham 1793-1900.
Markham: Markham District Historical Museum. Pp. 246-248
BELFORD
Tremaine's map of 1860 shows no Locust Hill, but does indicate Belford Post Office. It was
the arrival of the Ontario and Quebec Railway (C.P.R.) in the 1880s through the eastern
section of Markham that made Locust Hill a place of some importance. The village is
located in lots 10 and 11, conc. 10. Samuel Reynolds, a Loyalist, settled lot 10 about 1799,
coming from Duchess County, N.Y., by way of New Brunswick, where he had been in 1783.
He died in 1843 and “Margrit”, his wife, in 1851. The 200 acres were divided: 60 acres for
Justus Reynolds, 81 acres for William Reynolds, and the rest for son-in-law William Clarry,
married to Jane Reynolds, b. 1830. Lot 11 was settled by Abraham Moore (Mohr?), who
came to Niagara in 1799 and with the Marrs reached Markham on May 2, 1802, with his
wife Mary and family of six. One son, Peter, was a wagonmaker at Sparta in 1851. John
Wurtz (Wurts) was also in this group and settled lot 13, conc. 10, where in 1850 his son,
Elias owned 100 acres, and Jacob Camplin the other 100.
William Button acquired the E 1/2 of lot 11 in 1846, Christian Reesor the W 1/2. In 1844,
Capt. William Armstrong of Markham Village bought 50 acres from Azariah Reynolds, and
his son William Armstrong, b. 1840, who came there in 1866, bought 35 acres from
Chauncey Reynolds. This property was called Locust Hill Farm.
In Miles’ Atlas of 1878 these settlers’ address was listed as Belford at the corner of the
Town Line and the 5th Line of Pickering, lot 9, conc. 11, where William Boyd ran a store and
post office in the early 1880s; somewhat south of the store was a hotel operated by Alfred
Oxford. Tom Poacher, an auctioneer, operated the Maple Leaf Inn, a temperance house, at
the corner of the 11th Line and the road allowance between lots 10 and 11; this inn burned
about 1880.
When the district residents learned that the Ontario and Quebec Railway was to be built
through their area, those interested in establishing a station on the new line held a meeting
on March 26, 1882, in Cooper’s Hotel, Whitevale. Whitevale had flour mills and a brush
factory needing such an outlet close at hand. James Taylor chaired the meeting. Others
present were David Nighswander, who had a store on the sideroad (Highway 7), A. B.
White, miller, John Pike, Martin Hoover, Deputy Reeve of Pickering, and William Marr
Button, through whose St. Clair farm the railway was likely to pass. A deputation was
appointed to approach the president of the new line, Mr. Osler of Toronto. The outcome was
a station with an agent’s apartment north of the sideroad on the Button farm, not, as some
favoured, on the Town Line. It was called Green River Station and not Belford. However,
there was confusion about the names, and the station was renamed Locust Hill, after the
Armstrong farm where these fine trees were a remarkable feature.
Soon, the Nighswander store, Sandy Duff’s blacksmith’s shop and the Wesleyan Methodist
church, built in 1856 on the south side of the sideroad, were surrounded by a number of fine
homes. Locust Hill became one of the busiest stations between Toronto and Peterborough.
Flour, brushes, livestock and milk were shipped in quantity; a mill and elevators were built in
1887 east of the station by William Armstrong and Peter Reesor Hoover. On the east bank
of the Little Rouge, a creamery was operated (1893) co-operatively under John Pike,
President, D. Nighswander, Secretary, and William Armstrong, Treasurer; later, the
creamery was bought by Albert Reesor.
The Standard Bank operated a branch in Nighswander’s store and hotel. The Nighswander
brothers, David, Henry, Michael and Tillman, bought their acre of land from William
Armstrong; later the three houses built on their property west of the store were rented for
$36 a year each.
In earlier days, the mail for Belford arrived in Markham by stage from Toronto, and later by
the Toronto and Nipissing Railway. Martin Hoover then took mail for Green River by horse
and gig. When Belford office closed in 1889, Locust Hill post office, recently opened, then
took care of the mail for the area.
This prosperous community in 1890 rebuilt their Methodist church on the north side of the
sideroad on lot 11 W 1/2, conc. 10, on land given by Mrs. Christian Reesor.