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HomeMy WebLinkAbout326Article taken from The [Toronto]Telegram, Feb. 10, 1951. O}, ƒJ ±` . ONTARIO /\ ?. §� \ : . "TREES AND 2 KIRKS STILL THERE BUT DUNBARTON AREA CHANGING ""SETTLERS"" POUR IN SECOND TIME IN HISTORY By Dorothy Howarth Telegram Staff Reporter. The Telegram. Toronto, Saturday, February 10, 1951. Dunbarton, Feb. 10 — Dunbarton, a cluster of old trees, houses, two churches, two stores and a garage on No. 2 highway has not changed much since Miss Annie Clarke Brandler, 83, was a girl. From the highway it looks the same, she says. But along the back roads, bush and farm are gone, replaced now by the homes of hundreds of workers who commute to Oshawa's General Motors and the new Johns-Manville plant at Port Union. The once two-room school now has eight rooms, crammed with 260 youngsters. School board member and local merchant W. R. Lynde thinks, if things keep going at the rate they are, another wing might have to be added soon. The newcomers hail from Western Canada and England and sundry Ontario points. They came to find work in the factories. The first settlers came to find work, too, but they came primarily to own land. ""Many of them were renters over in Scotland,"" says Miss Brander, ""and they came over here to take out Crown land and clear it and make a farm. I've heard my father talk about it. The first to settle right here, across the street, was William Dunbar."" According to a book , 'Past Years In Pickering' by a Claremont Presbyterian minister, William R. Wood, the Dunbars came to Canada about 1786, from Laurencekirk, Scotland. In 1831 they settled on Lot 25, Concession One, in the Pickering area. KIRK WAS CENTRE Other Scots followed and, of course, social life centred around the kirk. ""The white church was first,""says Miss Brander. ""That's Erskine church, about a mile -and-a-quarter back yonder. Everybody used to go there. Then they decided to have only one congregation, but being Scotsmen - you know how stubborn they can be, they couldn't decide where to build the new church. The result was another church -a brick one - in Dunbarton. But that didn't end the dispute. The man living right next door to the Dunbarton church still went back yonder to the Erskine church and some of those living near the Erskine church came down to Dunbarton. I remember the day they had the social on the lawn at the beginning of that church,"" says Miss Brander. ""It rained. We had to empty the teacups and hang the table cloths up to dry."" A copy of the Pickering News dated June 25, 1886, tells the same story too, with embellishments that would drive a modern city editor mad. ""The rain had slightly upset the plans of the ladies, having saturated the tablecloths and besmirched the cups and plates; but as the sun reappeared so did the cheerfulness of their f aces , and with the energy and speed peculiar to the fair sex, they got everything washed and the tables reset and decorated in short order."" Later, the same leisurely account says ""croquet and drop-the-handkerchief, not to mention Jacob and Rachel, were the amusement of the young people until a late hour."" WAS SECRETARY Miss Brander, who has the minutes she wrote as secretary of the first ladies aid meeting, retired from active service last week after 65 years of teas and socials and lectures and money-raising schemes to help keep the church going. Later it became the Dunbarton-Erskine Presbyterian Church and is now Dunbarton United. The spry old lady with the bright young eyes still remembers people referring to Toronto as Little York and can tell the story of how, during the Mackenzie rebellion, two Dunbar boys, Alexander and William, were arrested and sent there to jail because of their Liberal sympathies. She remembers " "people talking of Canton, that later became Duffin's Creek, and is now Pickering Village, and she remembers the stage coach. So does Ben Woods. He ought to remember it. He started driving it when he was 18 years old, from Dunbarton to Toronto and back every day with the six post offices on the route. He started from the old Adelaide st. post office and delivered to Norway, Birch Cliff, Scarboro, West Hill, Highland Creek, Rouge Hills and ended at his own Dunbarton Post Office. ""Only day I ever took off was the day I got married when I was 19. I didn't take a honeymoon because the fellow that I got to drive in my place wasn't good with the horses,"" says 73-year-old Mr. Woods. ""The Mail Must Go Through"" was no cliche to Ben. It was the truth. If the road was too blown in winter (the roads were always bad in those days) he'd stable his precious horses at a nearby farm and hike the rest of the way with the padlocked canvas bag on his back. The freight had to wait - and the passengers, if any, - in the dead of winter. TEN PASSENGERS ""Carried 10 passengers, sat facing each other, like that one you see at the King Edward they use in summer. Put the mail on top, up where I sat, and some of the freight."" The freight was usually butter, packed in rhubarb leaves to keep it cool, eggs and farm produce to be traded for groceries."" Ben handed in the grocery list at the store, left his freight and returned later for the orders. ""If there was any money due, the grocer put it in an envelope and I delivered it to the housewives on the way back."" Passengers paid 60 cents return from Dunbarton to Toronto. The stagecoach was a Government contract let from $1,100 to $1,300 a year to a man who owned a coach and a dozen horses . He had to feed and pasture them himself and keep his coach repaired - and deliver the mail. The contract didn't include delivering groceries. It was run on a strict schedule. ""You had to take the time sheet in to be signed. Then they knew you couldn't stop at the taverns too long,"" says Ben. Favorite Toronto haunt for farmers and coach drivers was the old Clyde Hotel, now a factory. ""All you could eat for 25 cents and they took your horses away and watered and fed them. I used to pick up copies of the old Tely and the Mail at the Adelaide st. post office too. Always got them back to town by evening and that's as good service as they have today - sometimes better,"" says Mr. Woods with pride. COACH FELL APART But when the street railway began to follow the city's skirts as they spread outwards, first to Gerrard and Main, then the Hunt Club, Halfway House, Scarboro and West Hill, Mr. Woods saw the end coming. ""Finally they put in the rural route with the mail boxes and I returned the stage coach to the original owner, the man who ran the old Ontario Hotel -I think it's a factory in Toronto now - and it sat there in front of the hotel until it fell apart."" Then Mr. Woods became a construction worker for Hamilton Bridge and later a farmer. Now he is retired but considering the possibility of selling used cars. ""No, sir, I don't think the appearance of this place has changed one bit in my time - except along the back roads. That's where the new houses have grown up. Most of the old-timers are gone."" W. R. Lynde in the general store, though, can be considered an old timer, even if he isn't in that age group yet. His people came to Whitby before 1803, before Whitby was even a village. ""They used to pronounce our name like Lioned then, but they tell me one of my grandfathers sent his daughter to college and she heard about Jenny Lind, the Swedish nightingale, so after that they pronounced it like the singer's name."" WOULDN'T LEAVE In business with his father is Donald Lynde, army veteran and member of the church board. He doesn't see why he should leave the hamlet for the big city. ""We get into the city any time we like and we have all the advantages here,"" he says. Donald Lynde is also the postmaster. Lynde Sr. worked for General Motors for 30 years as a foreman, ""but I didn't really start to work until I came down here,"" he says. And he likes it much better than his factory job. ""You're meeting people all the time. And I'm Kiwanis Club treasurer and member of the school and church boards. There are so many things to do here. There's our Kiwanis park to be completed and looking after our big new church. No, sir, I wouldn't leave it for any money now."" "