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• Gull River and the Clergy House
  This site was an early Indian camping ground, the Gull River watershed being the hunting territory of bands living around Lake Simcoe who came by way of the Balsam Lake portage and Gull River waters. Before the days of the settlers, lumbering companies moved large quantities of white pine from the area and it is probable that they erected this building about 1870. In 1899, it was acquired by the Anglican Diocese of Toronto and during the early years of this century, served as headquarters for itinerant missionaries who travelled extensively throughout the surrounding district.

• Thomas Curtis Clarke 1827-1901
  The world of today differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Caesar; and this change has chiefly been made by engineering." These were the words of civil engineer Thomas Clarke, a New Englander who came to Port Hope in 1853 to work for the local railway. He married and raised a family here and, in the 1860s, was a partner in a Port Hope firm that constructed...

• Loss of the Speedy, The
  In 1804, an Indian, Ogetonicut, arrested near York, was accused of murdering a trader, John Sharp, at Lake Scugog. The trial was to be held here in the projected, but never completed, "district town" of the Newcastle District. On October 7, the schooner "Speedy" sailed from York. Her passengers in addition to the prisoner, included Solicitor General Robert Gray, Judge Thomas Cochrane, High Constable John Fisk and other participants in the trial. The ship appeared...

• Founding of Cobourg, The
  Saw and grist mills erected in this area during the first decade of the 19th century fostered the development here of a small settlement. The completion of the Kingston Road by 1817 facilitated its growth and within a decade it had a population of about 350. Known as Hamilton, then Cobourg, the community expanded rapidly as a commercial and shipping centre and as a port of entry, particularly after harbour improvements were completed in 1832...

• Victoria Hall
  One of the finest public buildings in Canada, this imposing structure was built as an expression of civic pride and confidence in the future. It was begun in 1856 and opened by the Prince of Wales four years later. Designed by the renowned architect Kivas Tully, Victoria Hall is classical in form and is distinguished by elaborately carved ornamentation, an elegant pediment supported by four Corinthian columns and a massive, column-ringed cupola. The building's interior...

• Founding of Colborne, The
  A store established here about 1819 by Joseph Abbott Keeler, a prominent early settler, provided the nucleus around which a small community began to develop. Within ten years a distillery and a blacksmith's shop had been erected. The settlement, named Colborne reputedly after Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne, soon emerged as a service centre for the surrounding region and, with the establishment of a harbour nearby for the shipment of lumber and grain, it prospered...

• Hewitt Bernard 1825-1893
  Born in Jamaica, Bernard immigrated to Upper Canada in 1851 and settled in Barrie, where in 1856 he established a law practice. He was chief clerk, 1858-66, in the office of the attorney general for Canada West, John, A. Macdonald, and later became his brother-in-law. Bernard accompanied Macdonald to the Charlottetown Conference (1864), and was the secretary of the Quebec (1864) and London (1866-67) Conferences, at which the groundwork was laid for Confederation. A lieutenant-colonel...

• Nine Mile Portage, The
  Site of eastern terminus of an Indian portage from Kempenfeldt Bay to Willow Creek and thence by the Nottawasaga River to Georgian Bay. In the winter of 1813-14, a force under Lieut.-Colonel Robert McDougall followed it on the way to relieve the isolated British garrison at Michilimackinac. That summer it was developed as a rough wagon road and till about 1829 was in frequent use for transport of supplies to Penetanguishene and the western military and fur trading posts.

• Franklin Carmichael 1890-1945
  An outstanding Canadian artist, Carmichael was born at Orillia, and studied at the Ontario College of Art and L'Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts at Antwerp. He had worked with Lismer and Varley in commercial art, and upon returning to Toronto in 1914, shared a studio with Tom Thomson. One of the founders of the "Group of Seven" and its youngest member, Carmichael participated in all the Group's exhibitions. His graphic style and sense of design led...

• Huron Fish Weirs, The
  In the adjacent Narrows joining Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching are the remains of Indian fish weirs. They were noted by Samuel de Champlain when he passed here on September 1, 1615, with a Huron war party en route to attack the Iroquois south of Lake Ontario. The weirs consisted of large number of stakes driven into the bottom of the Narrows, with openings at which nets were placed to catch fish. These weirs (claies) caused...

• Founding of Orillia, The
  In 1820, the government surveyed Orillia Township and a decade later located Chief William Yellowhead's Ojibwa band on lands near the "Narrows". By 1849, when the government laid out the Orillia town plot, these Indians had been moved across Lake Couchiching to Rama. The first white settlers arrived about 1832 and by the 1850s, the community had become an agricultural and lumbering centre with two churches and a population of some 200. Advantageous transportation links...

• Honourable William Earl Rowe 1894-1984, The
  A veteran parliamentarian who subsequently served as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, Rowe was born in Hull, Iowa and raised in Simcoe County. He early exhibited an interest in politics and in 1923 was elected to the provincial legislature as the Conservative member for Simcoe South. Two years later Rowe contested and won the federal seat for Dufferin-Simcoe, embarking upon a career in the House of Commons which, with the exception of one interruption during the late...

• Northern Railway Company of Canada, The
  In May 1853, the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Union Railroad Company ran the first stem train in this province from Toronto to Aurora. By January 1855, the company had completed its 95-mile "portage line" from Toronto to Collingwood. The line was renamed "The Northern Railway Company of Canada" in 1858. Companies closely affiliated with the Northern built connecting lines to Meaford, Penetanguishene and Gravenhurst. Through the Northern sought traffic moving between the upper lakes and...

• Gateway to Huronia, The
  From this lookout may be seen the bay which, during the first half of the 17th century, formed the western terminus of the 800-mile route connecting New France with the Huron settlements. Heavily laden canoes ascended the Ottawa, surmounted the rapids of the Mattawa and French Rivers, crossed Lake Nipissing and traversed the island-studded channels of Georgian Bay. Over these waters passed Recollet and Jesuit missionaries, Etienne Brûlé, Samuel de Champlain and other heroic figures of the French regime.

• Founding of Midland, The
  In 1871, a group of the principal shareholders of the Midland Railway, headed by Adolph Hugel, selected this location as the northern terminus of their line which then ran from Port Hope to Beaverton. Known at the time as Mundy's Bay, the region was sparsely inhabited, but the interest aroused by their action resulted in the survey of a town site in 1872-73. Most of the lots were owned by the Midland Land Company which...

• Henry Wolsey Bayfield 1795-1885
  Born in England, Bayfield joined the Royal Navy at the age of eleven and served in many parts of the world. While stationed at Kingston, Upper Canada in 1817, he was put in charge of the Great Lakes survey. Over the next eight years, he charted the coastal waters of lakes Erie, Huron and Superior. For much of this period Penetanguishene was his base of operations. Later, Bayfield surveyed the shorelines of the lower St...

• Founding of Stayner, The
  Settlement on this site began with the arrival in 1854 of the Toronto, Simcoe and Lake Huron Union Railroad (later the Northern Railway). Edward Shortiss and Charles Lount acquired land here, divided it into village lots and the first settler, Andrew Coleman, opened a hotel. He was followed by Gideon Phillips who established a sawmill. First called Nottawasaga Station, and later Stayner after a prominent local landowner, the community flourished as an agricultural and lumbering...

• Honourable Ernest Charles Drury, The
  A descendant of one of this area's pioneer families, Drury was born on this farm in 1878. His father, the Hon. Charles Drury, had served (1888-1890) as Ontario's first minister of agriculture. A graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College, E.C. Drury was appointed secretary of the Canadian Council of Agriculture in 1909, and became first president of the United Farmers of Ontario in 1914. The U.F.O. formed a political party in 1918, and with support...

• Wasdell Falls Hydro-Electric Development 1914
  Completed in 1914 after several municipalities on the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe had requested a supply of electric power, this was the first generating station constructed by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The natural formation of solid granite provided an excellent foundation for the development. The Wasdell plant operated as a separate unit serving the northern portion of Ontario County and the western portion of Victoria until 1924, when it became part of...

• Willow Creek Depot
  During the War of 1812, the Nine Mile Portage from Kempenfel(d)t Bay to Willow Creek formed part of the vital route, via Yonge Street, Lake Simcoe, the Nottawasaga River and Georgian Bay, which linked Upper Canada with the British posts on the upper Great Lakes. Here, beside the Minesing Swamp and one mile from the landing on Willow Creek, were stored the hundreds of tons of military supplies and trade goods that maintained the western...

• Franz Johnston 1888-1949
  This was the home and studio, 1940-48, of the noted Canadian painter Francis Hans (Franz) Johnston. Born in Toronto, he studied there and in the United States, and at first worked as a commercial artist. An official war artist, 1917-18, he participated in the first exhibition of the Group of Seven in 1920. With others of the Group, he captured on canvas the lonely grandeur of the Canadian northland, thus ending Canadian dependence upon Europe...

• Muskoka District Court House 1900
  Bracebridge has been a centre for the administration of justice in Muskoka since it held the first court sessions in the region in 1868. The province built this court house after Bracebridge became the District Town of the new District of Muskoka in 1898. It is an early example of a style of court house built by Frank R. Heakes, who became chief architect in Ontario's Department of Public Works in 1896. Its classical form...

• George Richardson, V.C. c.1831-1923
  Private Richardson won the Victoria Cross while fighting with the Border Regiment of the British Army in northern India during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-59. As part of a detachment sent to dislodge rebels in the hills of the Kewarie Trans-Gogra district on April 27, 1859, he displayed determined courage in having, though severely wounded, closed with and secured a rebel Sepoy [Indian soldier] armed with a broad revolver. An Irishman by birth, Richardson came...

• Woodchester Villa
  One of the finest octagonal houses in Ontario, this impressive building was erected in 1882 by Henry James Bird, a prosperous local woollen manufacturer. In its unusual design, it illustrates the architectural theories of Orson Squire Fowler, an American author and lecturer who claimed that many-sided structures provided healthier, more efficient environments for their inhabitants than rectangular buildings. In keeping with Fowler's views, the house was solidly constructed of fieldstone and poured concrete and contained...

• Founding of Huntsville, The
  During the late 1860s, a small agricultural settlement, founded largely through the efforts of Captain George Hunt, developed here. In 1870, a post office called Huntsville was established and the following year the Muskoka Colonization road was extended to this point. Improvements in transportation including the opening of a navigable water route north from Port Sydney to Huntsville in 1877, and the arrival of the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway eight years later spurred the...

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