Bowmanville. William Humber
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Название: Bowmanville
Автор: William Humber
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: История
isbn: 9781459713314
isbn:
Turn of the century postcard scene of Bowmanville from the west.
In the area of Bowmanville, development at first seems to have been mainly on the western hill in the valley south of the present Vanstone Mill where, three or more stores, a large tavern and a cooper’s shop were located.9
Of that first community, David Morrison Sr. wrote in 1939, “There were several houses down that way (in the valley) and today they are all gone except one lone brick dwelling which was then known as Williams’ home . . . (the valley) was the principle business section of this corporation where besides an oatmeal mill there was also the Jacob Nead’s Foundry..a woodworking shop, and a machine shop. All those works got their power from the dam below the bridge . . . Then there was Gifford’s Tannery . . . The Milne Distillery with its long rows of cattle sheds . . . The soap making works . . . The old pottery works on the west part to the Vanstone Pond. The big departmental Burk Store, and the Squair Grocery Store.”10
The second piece of major importance for the future appearance of Bowmanville was the land transportation system. The first major east-west road in Upper Canada, as has been noted, was contracted to an American, Asa Danforth, in 1798 for a roadway forty feet wide between Kingston and Burlington. It cut across the future site of Bowmanville a short distance south of the present Highway 2. Absentee landlords on much of its progress throughout Ontario soon ensured the road’s general decline. Following the War of 1812 a new highway, the Kingston Road, was built from Kingston to present day Toronto following in many cases the old Danforth road.
In Bowmanville it crossed at an angle somewhat north of the older road, perhaps to take advantage of better crossing points on the east and west creeks. The layout of streets, parallel and in line with the Kingston Road and others in line with the north-south/east-west grid, parallel to Liberty and Concession streets, created Bowmanville’s distinctive layout of irregular sized blocks of land and street directions.11
The third piece was the ownership of Lot 11. According to Squair, in 1828 the Crown granted the University of Toronto this four-hundred acre strip of land, a quarter mile wide, bound on the east by Liberty Street running from Lake Ontario to present day Concession Street.12 This land conforms to Bowmanville’s core and its sale to raise funds for the university made possible the town’s eastward growth.
A similar scene of Bowmanville from the west. This time a very interesting shot of the town from afar, copied from what might have been a panoramic camera print. Presence of town hall in skyline, and other features, indicates the picture was taken between 1905-1910.
The final piece of importance to the eventual town was the arrival of Leonard Soper in Darlington. A year later he built a flour mill on part of Lot 9, Concession 1, purchased from Augustus Barber after whom the town’s creek system was named initially. The eastern waterway would eventually be known as Soper Creek, by which several mills arose, including MacKay’s—the latest version of which was built in 1905 and produced Cream of Barley. Today that building is occupied by the Visual Arts Centre. These four significant pieces of property, along with lots 12 and 10 continue to define the boundaries and layout of the town.13
In 1853 Bowmanville was incorporated as a village, but remained part of Darlington Township until five years later when it became a town.14 Thus began its period of political independence. Ironically, in its political realignment within the new ward boundaries of Clarington proposed in 1996, Bowmanville returned to a position of political submergence within what had once been Darlington Township.
As residents of Bowmanville looked forward in the 1850s a period of growth, prosperity, and unlimited ambition lay ahead.
Notes
1 Squair, The Townships of Darlington and Clarke, p.43.
2 Hamlyn, Lunney, and Morrison, Bowmanville: A Retrospect. (Bowmanville Centennial Committee, 1958), p. 1.
3 “It may be appropriate to note here that, of these three families, it was the Burks who were most closely associated with the development of what we now know as Bowmanville.” From Hamlyn, Lunney and Morrison, Bowmanville: A Retrospect, p. 1.
4 Historical Atlas of Northumberland and Durham Counties. (H. Belden and Co. 1878), p. 44.
5 Squair, The Townships of Darlington and Clarke, p. 53.
6 Hamlyn, Lunney and Morrison, Bowmanville: A Retrospect, p. 5.
7 Squair, The Townships of Darlington and Clarke, p. 56.
8 Fairbairn, History and Reminiscences of Bowmanville, p. 39.
9 Hamlyn, Lunney and Morrison, Bowmanville: A Retrospect, p. 5.
10 Heritage Walking Tour of Historic Bowmanville, The Belvedere. (Quarterly Journal of the Bowmanville Museum) No. 1. (Bowmanville Museum: 1993), p. 14.
11 “. . . we need not be too embarrassed when visitors to our town express surprise at our eccentric street system; the old section of the city of Boston has much this type of thing and Bostonians tend to regard it with a touch of civic pride . . .” from Hamlyn, Lunney and Morrison, Bowmanville: A Retrospect, pp. 4-5.
12 Squair, The Townships of Darlington and Clarke, p. 53.
13 Ibid, pp. 43-44.
14 Two Centuries of Change: United Counties of Northumberland and Durham 1767-1967. (Cobourg: 1967), p. 27.
Chapter Five
Our Bank
“The study of history can be very therapeutic, it’s far better than the couch.”
– Harvey Dyck, discoverer of Mennonite Archives in the Ukraine
John Simpson began his working career as a young clerk in Charles Bowman’s small store in Darlington Mills. The enterprise gave credit allowing new pioneers to survive and a grateful community took Bowman’s name. It was an important lesson for young Simpson. Hence, in 1856 when he was approached by Montreal businessmen connected with the Montreal City and District Savings Bank who were proposing a bank for Bowmanville, he agreed. In 1857 Simpson became the first president of the chartered Ontario Bank with a capital of $400,000.1
It was a bank that would support small merchants and farmers whose credit was several times better than the amount requested, but whose occasional shortfalls were annoying to traditional bankers. Simpson hated these ogres of finance and hoped to drive out their ultimate practitioner, the Bank of Montreal, for whom he had been local manager.
Simpson, a liberal within a Conservative company, was not adverse to using the bank to forward his own political interests. He was free in dispensing loans from the new bank sometimes to men with little credit but much influence in the game of politics. One of his “shopping” trips, however, landed a large lumber group who added their accounts to the bank.
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