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• 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...

• Windermere
  In the early 1860s, the government promoted agricultural settlement in Muskoka. Newcomers, including the Fife, Aitken and Forge families, settled near Lake Rosseau, working at farming and lumbering. In 1868, Windermere post office opened at the mouth of the Dee River to the north, but shortly afterwards moved nearby to the house of Thomas Aitken. Like others, Aitken boarded tourists in his home, at first informally. Once the railway reached the steamboat port of Gravenhurst...

• Disappearing Propeller Boat, The
  Popularly known as the Dispro, or Dippy, this small boat was first built on this site in 1916 by the Disappearing Propeller Boat Company Limited. Also manufactured elsewhere in Ontario and briefly in the United States, more than 3,000 were built and sold around the world when production ceased in 1956. Boat builder W.J. Johnston Jr. and machinist Edwin Rogers invented a device that allowed the propeller and shaft to be retracted manually or automatically...

• Cowley Fathers at Bracebridge, The
  The Society of Saint John the Evangelist was founded by an Anglican priest at Cowley, England in 1866. Bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, members of the order devote their lives to prayer and community service. The Society began its ministry in Canada in 1927 when three Cowley Fathers arrived in Emsdale to take charge of the scattered Anglican missions in Muskoka. They established a monastery in Bracebridge the following year. At a...

• Huntsville and Lake of Bays Railway Company, The
  When completed in 1905, the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Railway, or Portage Railway, provided a crucial 1.8-kilometre link connecting steamboats on Peninsula Lake to Lake of Bays and opened up North Muskoka to tourism and increased development. The railway was part of a larger navigation company owned by George F. Marsh and later sold to C.O. Shaw, owner of the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company in Huntsville and Bigwin Inn that opened on Lake of Bays...

• Dr. Henry Norman Bethune 1890-1939
  An internationally famed humanitarian, surgeon and revolutionary, Bethune was born in this house. He graduated from the University of Toronto's medical school during the First World War and saw extensive service in that conflict. While at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital 1929-1933, he gained widespread recognition as a thoracic surgeon. Increasing concern with social and political issues took him to Spain in 1936, where he organized Canadian medical aid for the Loyalist troops and set up...

• Explorers of Muskoka and Haliburton
  Following the War of 1812, expeditions traversed the wilderness between Lakes Simcoe and Muskoka and the Ottawa River, seeking a route across Upper Canada less open to attack than by the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario. In 1819, Lieutenant J.P. Catty, R.E., crossed by way of Balsam and Kashagawigamog Lakes and the York and Madawaska Rivers. Lieutenant Henry Briscoe, R.E., and Ensign Durnford, R.E., ascended the Muskoka in 1826, proceeding via Lake of Bays, Lake...

• Founding of Bala, The
  Thomas W. Burgess, Bala's first settler, brought his family here to "Musquosh Falls" in 1868, probably aboard the steamer "Wenonah." Burgess opened a sawmill and store to serve the pioneers attracted by Muskoka's free land grants. A post office, named after Bala in Wales and with Burgess as postmaster, was established in 1872. That year, the Musquosh Road linked Bala with Gravenhurst and, by the 1880s, the settlement was benefiting from a growing tourist trade...

• Founding of Baysville, The
  Surveyed in 1862 by Robert T. Burns, P.L.S., McLean Township was opened for settlement in 1868 under the Free Grants and Homestead Act of that year. The three lots on which much of Baysville is located were granted in 1871 to William H. Brown (1840-1920), a sawyer from the vicinity of Brantford. Brown, who filed sub-division plans in 1873 and 1875, built a sawmill, which became the nucleus of the settlement. He served as postmaster...

• Founding of Bracebridge, The
  In 1862, the Muskoka Road, a colonization route built to open this region for settlement, was completed to the first falls on the north branch of the Muskoka River. A settlement, including a tavern, a lumber mill and a store, soon developed and two years later a post office named Bracebridge was opened. When regular steamship service began on Lake Muskoka in 1866, Bracebridge became the northern terminus and prospered as the distribution centre for...

• Founding of Gravenhurst, The
  The Muskoka Road, constructed to open the district north of Washago for settlement, had reached this point at the head of Lake Muskoka by 1859. A community soon developed and, in 1862, a post office named Gravenhurst was opened here. Four years later, Alexander Cockburn launched the "Wenonah," the first steamboat on the Muskoka Lakes, and Gravenhurst was established as the southern terminus of navigation and the centre of a developing tourist industry. Lumbering further...

• Port Carling 1869
  The first white settlers on the site of this town, then known as Indian Village, arrived about 1865. In 1869, it was named after the Honourable John Carling, Ontario's first Minister of Public Works and Agriculture. Water transportation, so vital to the early farmers and lumbermen, was greatly aided by the construction of these locks, 1869-71, by the provincial government. The village was incorporated in 1896.

• Madill Church 1873, The
  This pioneer squared-timber church, one of the few remaining examples of its type in Ontario, was begun in 1872 and completed the next year. Following the surveys of Stephenson Township in 1862 and 1871, and the extension of the Muskoka Road to the site of Huntsville in 1870, many settlers took up land in this area. One of these, John Madill, donated an acre of land for the church and burying ground and the members...

• Muskoka Road 1858, The
  During the 1850s and 1860s the government attempted to open up the districts lying north of the settled townships by means of "Colonization Roads". Free land was offered to persons who would settle along the route, clear a stated acreage and help maintain the road. In 1858, construction began on a road from Washago to the interior of Muskoka. R.J. Oliver was appointed the government land agent at Severn Bridge and directed the progress of...

• Peterson Road, The
  The Peterson Road was named after Joseph S. Peterson, the surveyor who determined its route in this region. Constructed 1858-63 at a cost of some $39,000, it stretched about 114 miles between the Muskoka and Opeongo roads and formed part of a system of government colonization routes built to open up the southern region of the Precambrian Shield. Poor soil disappointed hopes of a large-scale agricultural settlement along this road both on government "free-grant" lots...

• Steamboating in Muskoka 1866-1959
  Steam navigation on the Muskoka Lakes began in 1866, when the paddle vessel "Wenonah" went into service. Built at Gravenhurst, she was owned by A.P. Cockburn (1837-1905), who served as the federal Member of Parliament for Muskoka, 1872-82, and for North Ontario, 1882-87. The "Wenonah" was the first of a line of ships known after 1872 as the Northern Lakes Navigation Company, and after 1949 as the Muskoka Lakes Line. Its ships were among many...

• Toronto, Simcoe and Muskoka Junction Railway Company, The
  This company was incorporated by the Government of Ontario in 1869 to build a line to Lake Muskoka from the Northern Railway of Canada, which extended from Toronto to Barrie and Collingwood. Pressure for its construction came from settlers and lumbermen in the Muskoka region and from Toronto businessmen anxious to develop the City's hinterland. Work was begun at Barrie in 1870 but was hampered by the rugged terrain and continual financial difficulties, which forced...