HomeMy WebLinkAbout341Duotang bound book, 21 pages, written by Lena B. (Gibson) Chapman and F.M. Chapman,
dated June 23, 1939. A history of the Village of Audley and the surrounding area from c.1800
to 1939.
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HISTORY OF AUBLEY
BY: F.M. Chapman
Lena B. (Gibson) Chapman
June, 2939
BICKFRMG PUBLIC LIBRARY
CENTRAL BRANCH
"2
Much valuable local history is lost to succeeding generations by the paucity of family records.
Even church and school records are lost or incomplete in the many details that would interest
us today. Legal records are bare and uninteresting except in the matter of deeds, mortgages
and transfers.
Thus it is that much valuable pioneer information has perished. Many families, who were active
on the farms and lots in early days, will never be known. And this applies with no little weight to
the busy lives that once carried on their activities in Audley and on the surrounding farm lands.
Our inquiry into these events has revealed many interesting facts, and personal intimacies of
settlers and transient occupiers of land along the fourth concession line of Pickering for two
miles west of Audley, and to, and extending beyond the Pickering-Whitby townline to the east.
This part of the county was settled several years after the settlements along the Kingston Road.
The first settler in the Township of Whitby was in 1794, while it is recorded that there was no
house between Harmony and Lynde's Creek in 1804.
From this we deduct that it was between 1805 and 1825 that the first settlers cut a clearing in
this vicinity. Joseph Gould, in his story of the county, says there were no settlers back of the
third concession in 1823, although settlement in the rear of the county took place earlier than
this.
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Doubtless there were two streams of immigration here. Old country folk, chiefly from Ireland,
and the Quakers from Vermont and Pennsylvania. It was in 1835 that a Scotchman whose
name first appeared in the municipal records, being Alex. Dunlop, whose low stone house on
Lot 10 has recently been rebuilt upon by P.M. Yeates. Joseph Chapman from Vermont settled
about the same time on Lot 12. His descendants later acquired Lot 9 where F.M. Chapman
resides, called Grasmere Farm after the lake district in England.
But the largest settlement immediately surrounding Audley was apparently made by Irishmen,
members of the Roman Catholic Church who worshipped in Pickering Village, then called
Duffin's Creek, in a church which stood near the corner where Mitchell's Coal Yard is and
where the remains of a cemetery still exist. The names of these early settlers were: George
and Timothy O'Leary, Haley, O'Grady, O'Brady, later changed to McBrady, Jerry Moore,
McDonald, McCann, Raney, McCarthy and others.
About the same time several Quakers settled near here, being part of the immigration from the
New England States about the year 1812. Among these were Caleb Stickney who owned the
200 acres on the South-east Audley corner later owned by the Irving family; James Brown who
owned the 400 acres comprising Lots #9 and 10 in third concession; Richard Valentine after
whom Valentine's Hill between Lots 10 and 11—4 is still called; (the tragedy of the
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death of Mr. and Mrs. Valentine at the Scarboro crossing of the G.T.R. just built startled the
neighbourhood); James Carpenter Lots 3 and 4—3; Joseph Chapman Lot 11—3; Ambrose
Boon Lots 12 and 13--3; Richard Dale Lot 14—3; Cornelius Churchill, Geth Wilson and
Joseph Webster to the South. Nearly all old families gone. The descendants of these families
are now scattered over the continent. Only the Chapman and Brown families are now
represented here. F.M. Chapman lives on Lot 9, which his grandfather Eluid Chapman
acquired in the forties. W. Brown lives on the Irving farm and is a great grandson of Asa Brown,
one of the early Brown brothers who settled south of here.
After 1835 and to 1875 settlements rapidly followed. The tide of immigration from Great Britain
followed the good times. Many Yorkshire and Devonshire families came here. John Bell and
George Walters were from Devonshire.
Prices for farm produce during the Russian War, as well as in the Civil War in the United States,
rapidly cleared the land of its stands of pine, maple, beech, ash, elm, cedar and oak.
Much good timber was ruthlessly burned to get rid of it. The hard manual labor needed to
produce crops necessitated many laborers. Thus small houses sprung up on all concessions
and side lines. The fifth was settled by Irishmen who made you welcome to a meal of potatoes,
salt/and milk. Large families were reared, so that the local population then was easily three
times that of to-day.
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Brown's Corners
Settlements on the higher lands north of here preceded development here. Brown's Corners,
as Audley was first called after Abram Brown who kept the first hotel here, was a no-man's-land
as far as law and liquor dispensing was concerned. Thus the fun loving ones from all sides
came here through the bush on week ends for their sprees. Old men tell us that they have seen
horses tied to the trees on both sides of the roads, north and south, east and west of the four
corners, solid for a mile each way. Football, horse-racing and whiskey drinking made for a wild
donny-brook time. There were no liquor laws observed. Abram Brown kept a menagerie of
wild animals and deer near his hotel. His son, Thos. W. Brown, an eccentric fellow, lived in a
house on Lot 9—4 and was the community butcher for years.
The reaction to this rowdyism on the part of the better families, led to the building of a little
Methodist Church and soon the leaven had its effect. James Madill and Jno. Lawrence were
credited with being the builders, while Jno. Bell, Isaac Puckrin, Richard Squire and
W. Edwards and others backed the financial end. The Methodist circuit of Greenwood looked
after the preaching services. Temperance societies sprung up and the temperance debates in
the local schoolhouse were real affairs. It is told that John Black, a teacher in the first
schoolhouse, a frame one, which stood where the present brick one now stands,
held temperance
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lectures in certain evenings. Arthur McDonald, Stephen Brown and others were good debaters.
R. Haney, and Irishman owning Lot 9 in the fourth, had a whiskey still in the bush and brought
Hammie Dunlop, a son of Alex. Dunlop on the farm west of his, to oppose the school teacher.
Haney had primed Dunlop with a drink or two in order to let loose his oratory, but the heat from
the big box stove was too much for him. After his talk, Jno. Black called for replies.
Hammie was too far gone to talk. Old Dick Haney got up, ""John Black you're no good"",
said he, ""I brought a man to spake, and damn him, he won't spake. Come away home Biddie"".
A self-sufficient life
Local industries made the community fairly self-contained.
There was in the (Eighteen) fifties and sixties, a hotel, a blacksmith shop,
on the North-east corner a shoe repair shop, east of the hotel, a butcher shop on the south side,
a wagon and paint shop on the south-west corner, a stone house and three frame houses on
the south-east side, a tannery south of the wagon shop as well as a second blacksmith shop,
a lime kiln near Valentine's Hill, a workshop on the Chapman farm where Eluid Chapman
made coffins, sash, doors, plow handles, tools and furniture. A general store was situated on
the north side next/the hotel. A man by name of Wigmore ran an ashery in the fifth concession.
People made their
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own soap, clothes, carpets, butter, cheese, etc.
Then followed a period of rapid clearing of the farms, road-making by the old statute labour
method, and the erection of barns and houses. Several log houses were built in the earlier
days. The Elliott family on lots 9 and 11 in the third erected one that was only torn down in 1939
by the present owner, F.H. Westney. All the others have disappeared. Frame houses were b
uilt by Eluid Chapman on the farm now owned by Urban Blake, by Col. J.P. Rowe, by
Mel. Bryant, by J.C. Bryant and F.M. Chapman. A brick house was erected on the McCarthy
fifty on Lot 7, Con. 4 and by Selah Orvis on North-west corner of Audley. Stone houses,
like the one erected by George O'Leary on the present Squire's farm, and on the Dunlop farm,
and on the McGillivray farm Lot 1 appeared at this early date. When stone foundations for
barns became fashionable, many old structures were remodelled and stone stables with small
windows put in. Wm. Smith who lived on Lot 8, Con. 4 where Gardner Winter now lives, and
Wm. Boyes, a bachelor, who lived in a little house on the South side of the street in Audley,
were stone masons and did much of the local stone work.
Schools
In the matter of schools, the young community had several frame schools. One was situated on
the site of the present No. 5 brick school, and another on Lot 11, Con. 3 on the 4th on the farm
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now owned by W.H. Westney. The remains of this school house are part of the residence on
Lot 11, Con. 4 now occupied by George West. The frame school on Lot 7 was burned down
about 1865. Messrs. Nelson Chapman, Sr.; Isaac Puckrin and Adam Duff were the trustees.
The contract for the erection of the new school called for the erection of one similar to the one
built shortly before that in No. 1 section on the lake shore. The old contract is still in existence
and called for its erection for the sum of $1,138. complete without furniture. It was signed by
Adam Duff and Nelson Chapman for the section, and by Francis Clark and Hugh Bailie for the
contractors, Deverell and Spence. It was witnessed by John Shaw and Michael Mariarity.
The first school was built at the corner of the third concession and the Audley road in 1850.
This school house finished in 1867 is still standing and the present trustees have recently put in
a metal ceiling, repainted it, and redecorated the interior so that the room is in good condition
and as cheering to students as more modern rooms.
S.S. No. 5 has been long noted in the Township as a good school, having a long line of good
teachers and from which many public men, professional men and good citizens generally have
graduated. The present trustees are: George Puckrin, a grandson of the trustee who built the
school; F.M. Chapman, a grand nephew of another builder; and G.K. Pratt, the son of a
newcomer to the section.
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John Black was a teacher here in the old frame school in the sixties. Matthew Gold,
who recently died in England at the age of 104 years, was another teacher.
Other teachers were Bowerman H. Peters, Whiteman, W.G. Brown, Rogers, Jardine,
Armstrong (who married Kate McQuay - a local girl), Smith Curtis, McLeod,
Miss Addie Chapman, H. Webster, A.H. Halliday, Geo. Welbourne, H. Lawton, T.N. Davy,
(now Dr. Davy of New Jersey) , F.M. Chapman, D.D. McDonald - now Dr. McDonald,
Miss O'Reilly, Miss W.I. Chapman, C.A. Vickery, Miss M. Madden, Miss K. O'Connor,
H.W. Hyland, Miss H. Long, Miss M. Philip, Miss J. McKinnon, Miss G. Down,
Miss E. O'Connor, Miss V. Appleby, Miss Doris Gee, Miss Wilma Burgess,
Miss O'Brian and the present teacher J. Fife Innis, who has taught the longest continuous term
being here for nine years.
Some of the more prominent persons who attended school here were: Father McBrady,
Ex-Reeve E.L. Chapman, Ex-Reeve James McBrady, Dr. McCarthy, Alex. McLaren,
Mrs. A.C. Courtice, B. Madill, John A. McGillivray, K.C.; Dr. C.A. McGillivray, B.A.;
Bernard McBrady, M.S. Chapman, Mrs. Guernesy (Miss Dunlop who taught in the Ontario
Ladies' College), F.M. Chapman, B.A. (Editor of Farmers' Magazine for ten years and teacher
in Pickering College), R. McGowan, I.V. McBrady, K.C.; Miss Muriel Westney, B.A.; I.A.
Lawrence, Supt. Schools North Battleford; Arthur O'Leary, V.S.; Judge McGillivray,
Dr. T.N. Davy and many others.
Music teaching was a feature of the early days. Singing
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schools were conducted here by J.B. Madill (called singer Jim) and Robert Rankin who
brought a flute from Scotland, and who left in the California Gold Rush of 1849. Latterly,
Arthur Lynde of Whitby has been teaching music in the school, where singing is stressed
among the studies.
Grange and Patrons
The Grange movement claimed membership from this community in (1870) the 70's.
These attended the old Union Grange #108 which stood on
what is now the Irwin Apple farms (Red Wing Orchards) on the Kingston Road. Later the
Patrons of Industry held a flourishing branch here, meeting in the school house where as high
as 70 members held regular meetings. This was followed later by the United Farmers of
Ontario. Although no local opened here, this latter movement resulted in a government in
Ontario under Premier Ernest Drury who spent his first night after being sworn as Premier the
guest of Grasmere Farm here. Later this movement resulted in the Progressive Party in
Federal Politics, and South Ontario had a three-candidate election in 1921 with
F.M. Chapman of this place as standard bearer for the Progressives. He made a creditable run,
carrying into the city of Oshawa a majority over either of the old Party candidates. Hon.
Wm. Smith was the sitting member. Afterwards, Mr. Chapman continued farming at Grasmere
where he developed a big business in Jersey cattle and the Apple growing. For a few years he
was called as Outside Investigator for the Federal Tariff Board.
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The families who have succeeded the pioneer ones are many and only casual mention can be
made in this paper. George McGillivray settled on Lot 1 with his bride, a daughter of Chas.
Fothergill, M.P., and set out the entrance avenue of trees. Coates, Guthrie, Banbury,
Maddaford and Bentley followed. Samuel Bray lived on the Guthrie farm, Robb Bros.
were farther east. Pardons, Lynde's, Bell's, Baillie, Mayne, Trigg, Tweedie and McGowan all
east of here. The latter operated a mill on the McBrady farm here before moving to the
McGillivray place. George Walters carried on a blacksmithing business on the corners for
years. His residence was a stone cottage on the south side. Daniel McBrady, from County
Donegal Ireland, carried on a wagon shop on the South-west corner, part of the building still
standing. Frank Harvey was the hotel keeper for years. E. Maddaford kept the post office for
years.
The place was first called Audley in 1858 with A.W. Brown as
Post Master
*P.M. Maddaford also ran a shoe repair shop. Wm. Boyes, and Mrs.
Collins lived on the South side. A Bell family lived to the east of the little church. Grahams were
followed by W. Mercer who ran a threshing outfit. Holt, Bie and Neal families lived near here,
as did Huntly, Edwards and Grills.
It was a Lover's Lane
The fourth concession line early became a through highway to the western and northern parts
of the township. It is and was a pleasant road over which oxen and horses carried creaking
wains and
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maryach-made wagons, where laborers homeward walked from scythe and cradle,
and where the old story of love was whispered at many a gate. When John Hamer Greenwood,
a young lawyer of Whitby, travelled this way to court gentle Miss Hubbard of Brougham,
he often stopped at the Chapman home to ask in his spritely way of the frail Catherine for
""some pumpkin pie and a glass of milk"". Later this twain became the father of Lord
Greenwood and of Will Greenwood, an intimate friend of Catherine's grandson.
Selah Orvis purchased from the Madills the North-west corner farm and built a brick house,
large and roomy, chiefly, it is said, to entertain visitors to the yearly meeting of Friends on the
Kingston Road where he was a member. He was followed by Thos. Puckrin and now Pratt's
own this farm. G.K. Pratt built a cottage on the corner upon his marriage. Walter Pratt bought a
farm north of here. Webbs were former tenants for years. Another Orvis family lived north of the
corners. Two or three Madill families settled here and owned much of the land.
Duncan McLaren bought the 200 acres Lot 5, Con. 4, where a large family was raised.
This place was sold about 1880 to Isaac Puckrin who had settled here from Yorkshire,
England on the farm adjoining the school, and later bought 100 acres of Lot 4 from Madill's
where a large family was raised. He paid $12,000. for the McLaren farm now occupied by a
son Wm. Puckrin. The McLarens went to Chicago, and one son, Alex was a water barn dealer
and a judge at exhibitions. Some of the girls married into prominent families in the province.
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Isaac Puckrin married a Miss Brignall and by dint of hard work and a large family who
co-operated with them, they acquired over 600 acres near here. Several descendants still
occupy lands here.
The McQuays owned Lot 6 in the third and fourth. They raised a large family of two sons and
several daughters. One son, Thomas, was given Lot 6 in the fourth, and married Alvira
Carpenter, daughter of Ira B. Carpenter, J.P., of Lots 3 and 4 in the third. They had three
children when Thomas was accidentally killed in 1892 by a falling barn scaffold. The other son,
James, farmed awhile and then went west. He is still living with his son, Dr. McQuay,
near Whitby. The old farm was rented for years. Lock, Powell, Mercer, Holtby and others lived
there until purchased by Simon Puckrin and now owned by his son, Fred. George Puckrin,
another son, occupies the north 100 acres. He was married this year (1939) to Esther Betson,
whose father purchased the McGillivray farm. Another McQuay girl was the mother of
W.H. Guthrie now a resident here. Other owners of farms west of this were: Daniel McCarthy,
Lot 7, Con. 4; Richard Squire, Lot 6, Con. 4; Thos. McCann; Geo. Lawrence, Lot 7, Con. 4;
Nelson Chapman, Lot 7, Con. 3; Nelson J. Chapman, Lot 9, Con. 3; Richard Haney, Lot 9, Con.
4; Alex Dunlop, Lot 10, Con. 4; James Elliott, Lot 10 Con. 3; Adam Elliott, Lot 10, Con. 4;
Stephen Brown, Lot 10, Con. 3; Thos. Brown; Abram Ellis; John Bell; Geo. O'Leary;
M. O'Byrne; Wm. Thompson on the third; Samuel Bray; Wm. Smith, Lot 8—4; McNally;
Wm. Coakwell; Henry Blake; Mrs. Hopper; and R. McBrady and many others. The residents
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here now are Pratts, Puckrins, Lome Saunders, J. Ranger; Mrs. J. McBrady, Wm. Bell,
Wm. Guthrie, A. Betson, W. Brown, C. Clemence, Clements, Squire , Hedge, G. Winter,
R.P. Winter - who has built a new.Georgetown stone house on Lot 7—4, S.R. Wonnacott in a
new house on Chapman farm, Lot 9—3, F.M. Chapman, P.M. Yeates who has built a new
stone mansion on the Dunlop farm, Lot 10—4, Wm. H. Westney, F.H. Westney, Theo. Annan,
Col. Rowe on Stephen Brown farm, Daniels, Lavery, Gazely, Bentley, Greenlaw, Ellis, Bazely,
Fred Crawford, J.C. Bryant, C.S. Bryant, Urban Blake who has the old Nelson Chapman farm,
and W. Brown. The Irving family bought the 100 acres on the South-east corner from Caleb
Stickney.
While many of the early settlers here remembered the building of the Grand Trunk Railway,
it was as late as 1912-13 that the C.P.R. built a line here making a station called Audley on
Lot 8, Con. 3. The Canadian Northern a project by Mackenzie and Nann, also crossed north of
here, making a station on Lot 10-4 called Greenburn. This latter one has been torn up while the
C.P.R. this year carried the King and Queen over it through here, where over 1000 persons
gathered to see it pass. This community has real evidence of the railroad foolishness of former
days.
In 1926 a local Club was formed called the Audley Community Club which has done good work
along social and charitable lines. It meets monthly at the homes or in the schoolhouse.
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Farming methods have changed with the times too. In the early days grain-raising and
beef-cattle feeding were the main sources of revenue. Wagon loads of barley, oats and wheat
carried long lines of these cereals to Whitby Harbour and to Frenchman's Bay, where there
were large elevators.
Two dollar wheat and one dollar barley made boom times among the farmers. But periods of
depression followed and much lower incomes resulted when the American tariffs against our
barley and beef. From 1886 to 1896 was a black decade for farmers.
With the rise of dairying and the demand from Toronto for food, the character of the farming
changed. The shorthorn cow gave way to dairy stock, while fruit and vegetable growing has
increased farm revenues. Now nearly every farm owns a motor car, and many use motor
trucks. Purebred dairy herds of Holstein, Jersey, Guernsey, Brown Swiss and Ayrshire are
found here. Many silos are used for corn and alfalfa.
The change in women's work from the pioneer days has also undergone considerable change.
It was common to see women doing field work and even stable work then. Besides raising
large families they found time to assist outside. Now with smaller families and with better
water, light and power equipment, women do little beyond light gardening and an occasional
milking. Electric power with all its convenient accessories does much of the
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drudgery. The rise of the Women's Institute in the eighties has enabled women to be of service
to the social and economic life. A local was started here two years ago with Mrs. R.P.
Winter as President. Women also carry on many church activities of helpfulness.
An outstanding woman born here was Miss Ada Brown, daughter of S.K. Brown who
owned the farms where Col. Rowe and Theo. Annan live. She taught music at Pickering
College, then married Rev. A.C. Courtice, B.D., of the Methodist church and started a Ladies'
school called ""Birchcliff College"".
James McBrien, father of Sir James McBrien, was for many years Inspector of Schools.
He had a high regard for Audley School and the trustees who took great interest in the
character and work of the teachers.
At those times over 60 pupils were in attendance, and after 80 were on the roll. Nelson
Chapman, Sr., was particularly anxious as a trustee to have good work done.
He went on one occasion to the Normal School, Toronto, to seek a teacher from a personal
interview. He liked a man with snap and ""get-up"" as he termed it. Inspector McBrien was a
particular friend and often dined with him. A daughter, Addie Chapman, was at one time
assistant teacher in the school when the anterooms were used for class rooms.
Even in the eighties and nineties there were over 50 of an average attendance at this school.
To-day there is only about 25.
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School consolidation never had many friends in this section.
The former days had their gay and frolicsome times too. Perhaps local life was crowded more
with social life than it is now. When the settlers laid the corduroy roads along the fourth between
the thick stands of cedar and other timber, deer, bears, wildcats and an occasional wolf
roamed these farms in the fifties. (1850)
School picnics used to be held in the Irving grove which stood on the South-east corner of
Audley, also in the hardwood bush which stood on the corner of the McBrady farm.
The old teacher, John Black, used to parade the pupils down to this latter picnic grounds with a
big banner upon which was inscribed, ""Knowledge is Power"". Now school children attend the
school fairs at distant points as Brougham.
When Whiskey flowed like Water
A good story is told of Richard Haney who had a whiskey still in the woods near where the
C.P.R. now crosses Lot 9. Revenue officers from Muddy York, now Toronto,
were sent out to apprehend him. They drove into his yard and were invited in,
where Biddy had a kettle of hot whiskey on the stove. Hospitality was a mark of the Irish,
and so Dick gave them generously of the drink. Soon the liquor and the hot room produced
results, and the two officers of the law rolled over on the floor. Dickie called his boys to get
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the old grey mare and the democrat to take the unconscious officials up to the thickly wooded
Rouge River and leave them to sober in the bush. They reported, upon recovery,
to the higher-ups that they found no still on the Haney farm.
Another amusing incident is related by Thos. Puckrin. One teacher by name of Whiteman was
escorting one of the McLaren girls to Audley along with other young folk, when, one,
Andy Boyes, a rough Scotch horseman came along in his peculiar two-wheeled cart in the
centre of the road, crowding the girls off. Whiteman, as was the custom among the tony
gallants at that time, wore a high hat. He took the horse by the bridle reins and turned it off to
one side to save the girls from getting into the mud. Old Andy was enraged that anyone dare
touch his horse, and struck out with his cane as he passed the crowd, cutting Whiteman's plug
hat square in two. ""I'll tach ye to handle my harse"", said he.
Church service have been held in the little church here since its building. It is now supplied by a
minister from the Pickering United Church. Sunday School, Epworth League or Christian
Endeavor meetings formerly contributed much to the education of the young folk.
Thos. Puckrin was for years the S.S. Superintendent, and now at 80 years looks back upon a
long life of pleasant teaching. Many local and now far away residents, who worshipped here,
look back on the little Audley church with pride and affection. It has done a good work,
and is still doing so, although a change has come in
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church attendance.
Apples become commercialized
Apple growing has undergone quite a change, consistent with the changing times.
In early days every farm had its acre of apples, often as many as 30 varieties were grown on
the acre. A nursery on the Wilson place, A Quaker from New York, supplied many of the
varieties such as spy, greening, tolman, harvest, gennetting, cabashes, smokehouse,
maiden's blush, russett, colvert, duchess, astrachan, ribston, holland pippin, bishop's pippin,
seek-no-further, sheep's nose, gilliflower, alexander and rambo.
Then worms and scab were only incidental to production. Now commercial demands plant
fewer varieties and new apples such as Mclntosh, red, melba, lobo, blenheim orange,
courtland as well as the old northern spy, greening and tolman sweet are the main croppers.
Spraying the trees to offset worms and fungus, make apple growing a special business.
The tendency is to reduce the orchards on every farm and for some to specialize in bigger
orchards, where the work is commercialized. Spraying and marketing costs are heavy.
Several big orchards here now are making a special business of growing and marketing.
Wm. Bell on Bonny Bank farm left to him by his father, John Bell, and F.M. Chapman on
Grasmere Farm, specialize in the Toronto and Montreal markets, using power sprayers with
lime sulphur holofog, nicotine sulphate,
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arsenate of lead, and copper sulphate solutions in large quantities. The costs of producing
apples now runs into hundreds of dollars. P.M. Yeates has set out 1000 trees on the old Dunlop
farm.
Among the prominent residents of this district now are W.H. Westney and Frank H. Westney
whose father came from Scarboro and bought the Elliott farms. F.H. is a director of the Maple
Leaf Insurance Company, W.H. is a leading Holstein breeder. P.M. Yeates, a newcomer,
is an inventor, musician and financier. He has made a fine place of the Dunlop farm.
F.M. Chapman is a leading Jersey breeder, Secretary of the Ontario Co. Jersey Club and
President of the Ontario Co. Crop Improvement Association. Richard and Gardner Winter are
leading stone masons and small fruit specialists. George Puckrin on Pleasant Valley farm is a
general farmer. Robert Hedge and family operate the old Lawrence farm as a vegetable and
berry farm. Lorne Saunders is a chicken farmer. Chas. Puckrin owns a forest and stream club
and stocks it with pheasants and fish. W.H. Guthrie, a son of Richard Guthrie and
Sarah McQuay, runs over 400 acres of land in cattle feeding. Walter Pratt works in
General Motors and market gardens here. Ken Pratt has a Jersey Herd on the old Orvis place.
A.W. Betson has a big undertaking on the McGillivray farm. Thos. Puckrin and wife live with
their sons. Wm. Puckrin operates 300 acres with half cattle and sheep. Frank Puckrin owns
Tweedie farms to the east, and is a power farmer and owns three threshing and now combine
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machines. Walter Brown owns an Ayrshire dairy herd. Norman Irwin, the son-in-law of
George McLaughlin of Motor car fame, feeds Brown Swiss on the Carpenter farms.
Fred Crawford who married a daughter of Richard Puckrin with his sons operates 200 acres.
C.S. Bryant farms the old Thompson farm owned by his father, J.C. Bryant. George West
operates one of the Elliott farms as a market garden. Squire Brothers are cattle ranching the
old O'Leary farms.
It is a far cry from the times in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when hay, apples,
potatoes and dressed hogs had to be hauled to Toronto by horses over bad roads by our
fathers who were up nearly two nights and a day on the trip, to the present truck and motor car
day. The neighbourhood has been expounded, and trips of two hundred miles cause no more
worry and far less anxiety then the short trips of the horse and buggy age.
(sgd.) F.M. Chapman
June, 1939
Lena B. (Gibson) Chapman
"