HomeMy WebLinkAbout727Photocopy of an uncited newspaper article.
"Pickering Story
a Good Book On
Pickering History
The history and development of Pickering would not be complete, and in fact would
never have happened but for the fortitude and determination of the early settlers of the
Country.
Thanks to the efforts of one of the best known citizens of modern Pickering, William A.
McKay, who was the Minister, of Dunbarton United Church for many years, this story is
available.
The Pickering Story has one of the most complete histories of the Town ever recorded,
and the story of many of its oldest families is contained within its pages. The changes
that have taken place in the last decade, with two levels of Government buying up large
tracts of agricultural land, has finally removed many of these families from the lands
their forefathers struggled to develop.
The shame of this is that the change of ownership has not meant the betterment of the
lands, nor the betterment of the Town.
Read this description by one Wing Rogers, of his early settlement days in 1866.
In the first place the pioneer had often to make yoke of oxen, sled or cart with an
axe in hand, and cut his road as he ""goes"" run over logs and bushes, through brooks
and creeks through swamps and over hills and dales until with much danger and
difficulty he arrives at a much desired spot. Then he goes to cutting down trees to
build a shanty or log house, and before he is half ready, perhaps, to raise his building,
a few hardy sons of industry and toil raise the rustic log building, and now before it is
half finished, his wife and children have to move into this new' abode, run the risk of;
getting sick or getting their deaths in so many ways. There is much more in the
Pickering Story.
For instance, the story of how the Pickering Harbour Company is the reason for so
much controversy today.
The founder was Mr. William Dunbar, J. P. of Dunbarton, and his history is perhaps
an indication of the determination, initiative and courage of the early settlers.
William Dunbar was a native of Lawrence Kirk, Scotland. A carpenter and millwright by
trade, he carried on his business in St. Andrews and Larges of Scotland.
Unsatisfied with his lot in Scotland he, like many others since, emigrated to Canada
with his six sons and one daughter in 1831. The passage took thirteen weeks.
Firstly they went to Toronto following a familiar pattern, then moved to York.
Here he purchased, in connection with another Scottish family who are not named,
a piece of land on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, about twenty miles east of
Toronto. Here he established himself and drew around him a number of old
acquaintances and others from Scotland. It was this that gave the original locality its
Scottish character.
About 1849 he established, on his own land, the Village of Dunbarton.
The active Mr. Dunbar was a prime mover in the social welfare and religious
development of the community, and was an elder in the Church,
(Scottish Presbyterian).
Mr. Dunbar was the chief mover in originating the Pickering Harbour Company and
one of the heaviest . stockholders and also superintendent of work.
There was some difficulty in getting the deeds to his lands and he did not receive them
until nine years after he settled in Dunbarton.
It was probably this that made William Dunbar and his sons strong supporters of the
Reform Party. Dunbar senior and his two sons were arrested for being supporters of
MacKenzie in 1837.
Until recently the farm of the Dunbars was rented, but change has come and the farm
has gone the way of many others in Picketing."