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• John McIntosh 1777-1846
  McIntosh's parents emigrated from Inverness, Scotland to the Mohawk Valley, N.Y., and John moved to Upper Canada in 1796. In 1811 he acquired a farm near this site, and while clearing the land of second growth discovered several apple seedlings. He transplanted these, and one bore the superior fruit which became famous as the McIntosh Red apple. John's son Allan established a nursery and promoted this new species extensively. It was widely acclaimed in Ontario...

• Sydenham Public School
  This building, opened in 1853 as the Kingston County Grammar School, replaced the earlier Midland Grammar School, a log and frame structure located at King and Gore streets. The new building consisted of two classrooms and accommodated over 100 students on each storey. Its elegant symmetrical exterior, dressed stonework and expansive two-acre site testified to the importance of education to the local community. In 1876, the school was severely damaged by fire and subsequently reconstructed...

• Honourable René-Amable Boucher 1735-1812, The
  Boucher was born at Fort Frontenac (Kingston) where his father, an officer with the French colonial regular troops, was stationed. René-Amable also chose a military career and served in the Seven Years War with the French defenders of Canada. During the American Revolution, he was captain of a volunteer company of French Canadian militia and fought with the British under General John Burgoyne. In Quebec, and later in Lower Canada, Boucher sat on the legislative...

• Molly Brant
  Born about 1736, Molly Brant (Degonwadonti) was a member of a prominent Mohawk family. About 1759, she became the wife of Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in the Province of New York and a powerful figure in that colony. Well-educated and a persuasive speaker, Molly Brant wielded great influence among the Iroquois and was responsible for much of Johnson's success in dealing with them. Following the outbreak of the American Revolution she and...

• Fort Henry
  The first Fort Henry was built during the War of 1812 to protect the British dockyards in Navy Bay. The present limestone citadel, constructed between 1832 and 1837, replaced the old fort as part of a larger plan for the defence of the recently completed Rideau Canal. Commissariat stores were built to join the advanced battery with the main fort in 1841-42. Fort Henry was garrisoned by British troops until 1871, when Canadian Gunnery Schools...

• Kingston Observatory, The
  The first optical astronomical observatory in the province, the Kingston Observatory was established in 1855 after a solar eclipse aroused public interest in astronomical studies. Under the auspices of a committee of British military officers and "gentlemen amateurs" a frame observatory was built here. It was transferred to the control of Queen's College in 1861 and within a year a new brick structure had been erected on the site. Staffed by Nathan Fellowes Dupuis, an...

• King's Royal Regiment of New York, The
  The largest Loyalist corps in the Northern Department during the American Revolution, the King's Royal Regiment of New York was raised on June 19, 1776 under the command of Sir John Johnson. Originally composed of one battalion with ten companies, it was authorized to add a second battalion in 1780. The regiment, known as the "Royal Yorkers", participated in the bitter war fought on the colonial frontier. It conducted raids against settlements in New York...

• Loyalist Landing at Cataraqui 1784, The
  Following the end of the American Revolution in 1783 Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Quebec, approved the resettlement of loyalist refugees in what is now southern Ontario. Favourable reports on the Cataracoui area led to its occupation by British forces in the spring of 1783 and to the commencement of surveys the following October. In June 1784, a party of Associated Loyalists from New York State under the command of Captain Michael Grass, part of a...

• Militia Garrison 1837-38
  Commemorating the services of the first permanent Militia Garrison of Kingston, assembled by Lieutenant-Colonel R.H. Bonnycastle to defend this city during the Upper Canadian Rebellion. The mobilization saved Kingston from invasion since the regular forces had been sent to Lower Canada. The troops used this area as their drill ground. Queen’s Marine ArtilleryPerth ArtilleryFrontenac Light Dragoons1st and 2nd Addington Light Dragoons1st Hastings Light Dragoons1st and 2nd Frontenac2nd and 3rd Prince Edward1st and 2nd Addington2nd LennoxBelleville RiflesIndependent CompaniesTyendinaga Mohawks...

• Royal Military College of Canada, The
  Following the withdrawal of British forces from Canada in 1870-71, the federal government recognized the need for an officer training college in Canada. In 1874, during the administration of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, enabling legislation was passed. Located on Point Frederick, the site of the former Royal Naval Dockyard, the new college opened on June 1, 1876, with 18 cadets under Lt.-Col. Edward O. Hewett, R.E. Named the Royal Military College of Canada in 1878...

• Stone Frigate, The
  Once part of a large and active naval dockyard, this substantial stone building was erected as a warehouse for naval stores. Although initially planned in 1816, it was not completed until four years later when the need for storage facilities to hold gear and rigging from British warships dismantled in compliance with the Rush-Bagot Agreement had become acute. After the Rebellion of 1837, the building briefly functioned as a barracks for the naval detachment charged...

• Summerhill 1839
  This house, built in 1839 by Archdeacon George Okill Stuart, was known as "Okill's Folly." When the Province of Canada's first parliament met in the nearby hospital, the members were housed in Summerhill. Leased for government offices in 1842-44, it was later occupied by a school. In 1853, it was purchased by Queens College and served for several years as the university's only building. During most of its history, it has been used as the principal's residence.

• Bedford Mills
  In 1831 Benjamin Tett (1798-1878), later an important merchant at Newboro, anticipating the completion of the Rideau Canal, acquired a sawmill here on Buttermilk Falls. Tett and various partners, including the prominent Chaffey brothers, extensively exploited local forests and through the Canal sent timber, lumber, and cord-wood to American and St. Lawrence River market centres. Active trade and settlement of the district led him to build a store and, in 1848, construct the stone grist-mill...

• Holleford Crater, The
  A meteorite travelling 55,000 kilometres per hour smashed into the earth here eons ago, blasting a hole 244 metres deep and 2.5 kilometres wide. Aerial photographs revealed the crater in 1955, and since then scientists have pieced together much of its geological history. Analyses of drill samples suggest that the meteorite struck in the late Precambrian or early Cambrian period (between 450 and 650 million years ago). At first the depression filled with water, becoming...

• Samuel Thomas Greene 1844-1890
  Samuel Greene was the first deaf teacher to teach deaf children in the Ontario school system. An American by birth, he was educated at the National Deaf-Mute College, now Gallaudet University, in Washington, D.C. After graduating in 1870, he came to teach at the new provincial school for the deaf in Belleville (later Sir James Whitney School). Believing that the education of deaf children should be based on solid language skills, Greene devised a progressive...

• John Weir Foote, V.C. 1904-1988
  The only chaplain in World War II to receive the Victoria Cross, Foote was born and raised in Madoc. He entered the Presbyterian ministry in 1934 and enlisted in the Canadian Chaplain Service five years later. Assigned to the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, Foote distinguished himself during the ill-fated Dieppe Raid on August 19, 1942. Acting with utter disregard for his personal safety, he ministered to the wounded and carried injured personnel from exposed positions...

• Captain George Fraser Kerr, V.C., M.C., M.M. 1895-1929
  Born at Deseronto, Kerr attended schools here and in Toronto. With the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted on September 22, 1914 with the 3rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, and arrived in France the following February. He won the Military Medal at Mount Sorrel on June 13, 1916, the Military Cross at Amiens on August 18, 1918, and a Bar to the latter award at Queant later that summer. The Victoria Cross, the...

• McMartin House c. 1831, The
  The son of Loyalists from the Morrisburg area, Daniel McMartin (1798-1869) established a law practice in Perth in 1823. Well-educated and well-connected, he acquired prominent clients like timber baron Philemon Wright of Hull. McMartin chose a neo-classical design for his residence, then embellished it with unique stylistic features such as recessed arches and a cupola with flanking side lanterns. These are hallmarks of the Federal style of architecture that flourished in the eastern United States...

• Malcolm Cameron 1808-1876
  A prominent Upper Canadian entrepreneur and politician, Cameron was born in Trois-Rivieres. He began his business career in Perth, establishing himself as a general merchant and in 1834 co-founding the Bathurst Courier. In 1837 he moved to Port Sarnia where he developed lumbering, shipping and milling enterprises. Although a successful businessman, Cameron gained renown in politics. He was elected to the legislature as the member for Lanark in 1836 and, representing this, then several western...

• Bon Echo Inn
  In the early twentieth century many well-known Canadian artists painted and sketched in this area. They were drawn here by the striking landscape and the ideals of the owners of the Bon Echo Inn. Flora MacDonald Denison, a Toronto feminist, bought the inn in 1910. Inspired by the philosophy of American poet Walt Whitman, she set out to create a wilderness retreat for the avant-garde. Guests were offered painting lessons, amateur theatre, and poetry readings...

• Hazelton Spencer 1757-1813
  An important figure in early Upper Canada, Spencer was born in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. During the American Revolution he fought with the British forces and in 1784, when his unit was disbanded, he settled here. Widely acknowledged as a man of ability and stature, Spencer quickly achieved prominence. He represented this region in the province's first parliament (1792-96) and secured several judicial and administrative appointments. Continuing his distinguished military career, he was commissioned an...

• Madeleine de Roybon d'Allonne
  Of noble French birth, de Roybon was the first European woman to own land in what is now Ontario. She came to Fort Frontenac (Kingston), probably in 1679, where she acquired property from René-Robert Cavelier de La Salle, governor and seigneur of the fort. In 1681 she loaned him money to finance his explorations, and about this time he granted her a seigneury extending westward from Toneguignon (Collins Bay). On this land she built a...

• Founder of Pembroke, The
  Peter White, born in Edinburgh, was a merchant seaman when he was impressed into the Royal Navy in 1813 and sent to Canada. Following serve on the Great Lakes under Commodore Sir James Yeo, he left the navy and entered the lumber trade in the Ottawa Valley. In May 1828, he first visited the wilderness site of Pembroke and. Attracted by its timber potential, made his headquarters here. One of the area's principal lumber merchants...

• Gillies Bros. Lumbering Firm, The
  This firm was begun in 1873 when James, William, John and David Gillies purchased a steam sawmill here on the Ottawa River at Braeside. Building on the experience acquired by their father, John Gillies, who had begun lumbering in Lanark County in 1842, they had established themselves by the mid 1880s as one of the Ottawa Valley's large lumber producers. This position was maintained partly by the involvement of succeeding generations in the management of...

• Founding of Renfrew, The
  Attracted by the development of the lumbering industry in the Upper Ottawa Valley, a few settlers had located in this region by 1830. Six years later, Xavier Plaunt acquired land here near the second chute of the Bonnechère River and by 1848 was selling village lots and had provided land for the community's first church. In that year a post office, Renfrew, was opened and in 1851, the settlement contained a sawmill, grist-mill, tannery and...

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