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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.