HomeMy WebLinkAbout771"Article from the News Advertiser, written by Gordon Zimmerman.
PAGE 8-THE NEWS ADVERTISER SUNDAY, MAY 9, 1993
Pickering Village - remembering when
By GORDON ZIMMERMAN Special
AJAX - The Atlas of Ontario County for 1877 includes a map of the Village of Duffins
Creek in the Township of Pickering (now known as Pickering Village in the Town of Ajax).
The northeasterly part of the village stretching along Hwy. 2 east of William St.
(now Church St. N.) was subdivided as Municipal Plan No. 11 sometime before 1871.
In the same atlas there is an artist's sketch of the Elmdale Mills on Duffins Creek at
Church St. S. that shows this subdivision in the distance. The Presbyterian church
and cemetery were across the street. St. Francis de Sales Church is visible on
Church St S. to the west. Pickering College was under construction up the hill behind
the highway frontage and the Society of Friends' Meeting House of 1867 is to the
east at Mill St. The Bible Christian church, which occupied the easterly quarter of
Lot 4, can be seen across from the Presbyterian church in the sketch.
In 1877 it would have been four years old and was of red brick with lighter colored
(probably yellow)
brick at the corners, eaves and arches over the windows. It had twin, arched entrances
and a small bell tower at the gable. Visible in a photograph of the church from later
years is the stuccoed, timber frame-with-mud-and-stone infill house that can still be
seen at No. 556 Kingston Rd. W. (Hwy. 2). This house and the next one to the west
are problematic because assessment records for 1877 do not list owners or tenants
for properties. In 1878, however, the Trustees of the Bible Christian Church sold the
westerly quarter acre of their one acre to Anselm Schuster. It may be that the building
half-hidden by a tree in the sketch is part of that now numbered 566 — a simple timber
frame and clapboard structure, 13 metres by 23 metres, single-storey, gable-roofed,
possibly one-roomed.
The structure of the original part of this house is an interesting example of Ontario
timber framing. It sits on a 600 mm thick rubble fieldstone walk.
The first person to reside in the building at #566 was Joseph Ellicott He was a
member of the Bible Christian Church and bought the quarter-acre lot from Anselm
Schuster in 1881. Because of the gap between severance of the lot in 1878 and first
occupancy in 1883 one has to conjecture whether the simple rectangular building
described above was not already on the lot prior to 1883.
Joseph Ellicott died on Sept 7, 1887, aged 73 years and was buried in the cemetery
on the south side of the 5th Concession (Whitevale Rd.) at Sideline 16, Pickering.
Mrs. Joseph Ellicott, nee Tolsher, continued to reside at No. 566 until her death in
1890.
Ownership of the house at 566 passed to the Ellicott estate and its executor, Harry
Ellicott, appears to have rented to others until 1905 when it was sold to
Thomas B. Marquis. The list of members of the Pickering Mechanics'
Institute for 1891 includes six Thomas Marquis and on that for 1895
Mrs. T. Marquis is listed.
In 1883 the Bible Christian Church joined with the Methodist Church congregation
who in 1879 had built a brick church on the Kingston Rd. in then centre of the village.
The church building on Kingston Rd. to the east devolved to a group headed by
William Dale Jr. The building became the place of worship for the members of the
Progressive branch of the Society of Friends. This branch had continued the operation
of Pickering College and ownership of that property remained with Canada Yearly
Meeting. The Orthodox branch, after the Separation of 1881 in the Society Friends,
retained ownership of the Yearly Meeting House at Kingston Rd. and Mill St This
schism in the Society so hampered the work of Canada Yearly Meeting that the
College was forced to close and remained so until 1892. When it re-opened the
principal was William P. Firth. He undertook to conduct Friends' services of worship
at the former Bible Christian church which was by then owned by a group of trustees.
In that same year W.P. Firth joined the newly-formed Pickering Mechanics' Institute.
Arthur G. Dorland in his memoir ""Former Days and Quaker Ways"" describes the
scene from the early 1900s — when he attended Pickering College — of the orderly
lines of staff and students descending the tree-lined drive from the college to attend
worship services in the Village: ""On Sunday morning a long me of students,
two by two, wound down the hill along the board walk under the watchful eyes of a
teacher to their respective places of worship in the Village.""
The one-half acre parcel of lot 4 that held the stucco house next to the church was
severed in 1903 with Robert Gordon buying the new lot. It may have been he who
built the present house at #562 with its fine coursed rubble masonry foundation and
narrow clapboard cladding, although the sketch in the 1877 atlas would indicate that a
building stood on this lot then.
By the time of the destruction by fire of Pickering College in December 1905,
therefore, all six, one-quarter acre lots of lot 4 of Municipal Plan 11 in the Village of
Pickering had buildings on them. From east to west the owners were: trustees for the
church building Sophia Dale, Robert Gordon, Thomas B. Marquis, Arthur Ridley,
James H. Rogers.
In February 1925 the church property passed from the hands of the Trustees of
Pickering Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends into those of private owners,
and eventually it became a service station and garage, to be replaced by the more
usual service station building that can be seen now at the corner of George Jones
St. All the other buildings on lot 4, and the one on lot 3 and the two on lot 2, remain in
external appearance much as they would have in 1905, representing a building
tradition of the 35 years from 1870 to 1905.
Cyril Morely, writing in The Village of Pickering, 1800-1970 observed that this row of
houses was changed little from the time he had first arrived in the Village; it would
appear that there has been little structural change since 1970 when he wrote.
The listing of the names of owners and tenants and trustees and exactors and
mortgagors of the house of Municipal Plan 11 includes many that are now well-known
and respected and ""in the history books"": Edmund Wright, William Dale, Miles S.
Chapman, Sophia T. Dale, William J. Clark, William Richardson, James Richardson,
Clarkson Rogers, Elias Rogers, Phebe Jane Wright, Robert Gordon, Edward Cornell,
Marion Cornell, Hannah Bie, James Logan, Christena Logan, Robert Annan,
Mrs. J. Post, Dr. H.B. Farewell, Hannah B. Farewell, James L. Palmer,
William James Clark, John L. Morgach, Thomas F. Law and many others.
It is difficult to think of any other frontage of 11 residential lots with as many
links to a community's past as this has and with as many different examples of
Ontario Victorian house building extant.
Living history
AJAX LACAC"