Perhaps one of the defining historical moments of my generation was the arrival of Hurricane Hazel in Newmarket and the subsequent effects of this event on our town and region. I will confine myself to York Region and the resulting devastation, what happened, how it happened and what changes resulted. Floods were a regular occurrence…
Month: July 2020
Years Of Hardship Plagued Newmarket Settlers After War of 1812
This is the second of my two-part series of articles on the War of 1812 and its impact on Newmarket. When the war ended in 1814, several military men and their families, most accustomed to a comfortable life with an established church back in England, began to settle around Newmarket. Many had forsaken American homes to begin…
Newmarket Men Stepped Up To Bravely Fight In War Of 1812
We step back in time to the period around the War of 1812 in this first of a two-part series. I hope to convey a sense of local life, observe how the war affected the fledgling hamlet of Newmarket and examine its lasting impact here. Along the way, we will meet a few individuals who became…
Newmarket Citizens Once Paid For Their Own Coveted Streetlamps
In today’s world, we tend to forget that life was very different if not downright harsh for our ancestors and the absence of electrical power and public lighting services was one of the realities that our ancestors had to endure. When the first buildings began to appear in Newmarket, only the sun, moon and stars…