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HomeMy WebLinkAbout759"Article copied from the News Advertiser, August 14 1985, page c 1. WHITEVALE No longer a boom town but still a community. This is the third in a series of articles featuring the history and character of the north Pickering hamlets. This week, Whitevale resident Gord Wlllson takes writer Richard Beales for a tour of that historic village By RICHARD BEALES WHITEVALE It's about 45 minutes before sundown as I drive west along Concession 5 to the house of Gord Willson. When I arrive Gord's having after-dinner coffee on the back porch, with his wife and two out-of-town guests. I'm offered a cup. We chat briefly about the north Pickering hamlet of Whitevale, the Willson's chosen home At we finish our coffee and begin our walking tour, it becomes quickly apparent that Gord is my host in more than the literal sense. Here is a man who knows and loves his home. He shares more than information with me, he shares his strong feelings for the village, its history and its soul. I mention that a Whitevale house has recently been designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. The names of the present owners escape me, so Gord offers a few guesses. Finally, we remember together that it is the Rider house, on the north side of Whitevale Road (Concession 5). It's significant that the name didn't just leap up at him. Gord Willson's philosophy of Whitervale takes in the community as a whole; any number of houses would be logical candidates for historical designation, he notes. ""It's not that one house is historically significant."" he says. ""It's what it is as a collective that's important."" As a collective, Whitevale is a quiet community of vintage houses built around the central industry, the T. L. Wilson and Sons grist mill. The mill runs on water power drawn from the west branch of Duffins Creek, just as it did about 120 years ago when entrepreneur Truman P. White put it up. Today Gord tells me there are about 200 people in Whitevale. In the village's heyday - in the mid to late 1800s - there were 10 times that many. Around 1855, White bought out the 1820s vintage sawmill (now long gone) from village founder John Major. He also changed the name logically enough from Majorville to Whitevale. White built his vale into a boomtown, adding the grist mill, a cooperage, a planing factory and a $30,000 two-storey woolen mill. But Whitevale prosperity began unraveling in the 1880s, when a rash of fires combined with increasingly modern technology to force the village to its economic knees. Northern neighbors Today, the Wilson grist mill is all that remains. It draws farmers from miles around, because it's the only mill of its kind left in the area. Gord (no relation to the milling Wilsons) doesn't underplay the mill's importance. The community must feel a strong attachment to the land, he says, because a strong agricultural base is important to the mill's continued survival. ""If the land around it goes, the mill goes - and then you're just like Malvern, or Streetsvllle, or any of the small towns that have been swallowed up."" he says. See Community… Page C3 The T. L. Wilson and Sons Mill remains the economic heart of Whitevale. Extensive renovations have made the original Pickering Township hall in Whitevale the magnificent structure it is today. photos by Lois Aube. The Whitevale Craftworks shop is a testament to the community of Whitevale. In 1976, about 50 people pooled their efforts to restore a shop into a thriving business. The Whitevale house of John and Sandra Rider has been designated as historically valuable under the Ontario Heritage Act. House is designated Whitevale - A 125-year old Victorian Gothic House in Whitevale has been officially recognized as a building of historic and architectural value. A recent Pickering Council decision will see the Concession 5 home of John and Sandra Rider designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. The Riders will be eligible for an annual provincial grant of up to $2,000.00 to be used in maintaining their home. The house was orginally built as a home in 1860 by landowner Willam Marr Burton, was added to and bricked around 1876. The Riders fixed this date the from an 1876 newspaper found between the frame walls and the brick. The Riders describe their home as one of only two brick houses in the village pointing to the possiblility they were owned by members of the upper middle class." "Community spirit has been renewed FROM PAGE C1 Before 1973, there would have been no question of the loyalty of Whitevale residents to their land. At that time, however, the provincial government started an aggressive push to purchase north Pickering land for eventual use in the building of a mega-community called Seaton. Some people sold, some didn't, but the effect was drastic on a community like Whitevale. Gord estimates that about 60 percent of the hamlet's properties changed hands during the government's land-back drive. A few of the newer residents, especially a man called Tom Day, tried to shut down the mill and its noisy corn dryers. Most of the residents came to its aid, Gord recalls though more out of sympathy for a beleaguered businessman than out of any feeling for the village's agricultural roots. Day no longer lives in Whitevale. We stroll along Whitevale Road, past the mill and almost to Altona Road, then back through the valley and up the grade on the eastern side. Gord stops at the Whitevale Craftworks shop and fills me in on the spirit of the new community. The sense of community was not lost, he says, because ""a new community has arisen. But the one thing it doesn't have, however, is the sense of the land around."" The building was a shoemaker's shop that had fallen into dereliction by the time the Willsons moved to Whitevale, in 1966. Ten yean later, Gord bought it for the back taxes owing and with the help of the community turned it into a vital small business operation. About 50 people volunteered their labor over a two-day period, helping to fix up the shop like so many Mennonites at a barn raising. ""It was kind of a symbol of renewal in the town."" Gord recalls fondly ""People came in here and gave it care and love."" They've given the same care and love to their homes, which sit picturesquely along Whitevale Road. There's the white frame house belonging to the Homshaws - ""That's a beauty.""' Gord says. ""They keep that place in mint condition"" - the pretty, Victorian Metcalf house next door, and the Willsons' original Whitevale home, now bounded attractively by a decorative white fence. At the corner of Whitevale Road and Gladstone Street is the original township office, a magnificent sight in white, with blue trim and lattice work Gord says it looked nothing like this when it was the town office, though the ""huge"" renovation project has captured the same spirit. Sitting kitty-corner, on the south side, is a major part of the old Whitevale Hotel. It's now a private residence, too. Farther east, on the north side, is Whitevale United Church. It's one of the ""newer"" buildings in the village - that is, it's younger than 100 years old. The intricate brickwork along the front is a ""challenge to an artist."" Gord notes. We stop, and he asks. ""How far do you want to go? You could write a book about Whitevale "" At this, I thank him for his time, because the cook's tour has been more than enough for a newspaper article."