Since I was a child, I’ve had an interest in the lost or hidden cemeteries around town. If you have joined me on one of my heritage walking tours, particularly my ghost walk, you will recall me talking about all the burial grounds that are still there, under buildings, pavement, and quite often, in the…
Tag: Genealogy
Interviewing Family, Friends Helps Capture Local History Before It’s Lost
Capturing our local history to ensure that it is never lost, and readily available to generations to come, is a topic close to my heart. I have been interviewing people and conducting oral history interviews for years, back to my university days. Now that I am getting a little older, it is my passion to…
Interviewing Family, Friends Helps Capture Local History Before It’s Lost
Capturing our local history to ensure that it is never lost, and readily available to generations to come, is a topic close to my heart. I have been interviewing people and conducting oral history interviews for years, back to my university days. Now that I am getting a little older, it is my passion to…
Stories Of Newmarket’s First Settlers Preserved In Burying Ground
The Pioneer Burying Ground on Eagle Street is the final resting place of some of our earliest settlers. The story is as much a story of the people who are buried there as it is one of a heritage site. The first official map of the Village of Newmarket in 1862 shows that the Boultons…
COMMUNITY ANGEL: Newmarket ‘History Hound’ Barks Up The Right Historical Tree
You may know him as the Newmarket History Hound, a longtime Newmarket resident who shares his vast historical knowledge about the town, its people, its successes and challenges with energy and passion. Richard MacLeod, who is a go-to resource for anything about Newmarket since the town’s founding as a trading post and milling centre in…
Ila Haines Kept Memories Alive Of Growing Up In Early 1900s Newmarket
I want to touch on one of the real pleasures of getting involved in our local history: the incredible people you chance to meet. Very few of you who grew up in Newmarket and area do not know the name Ila Haines. I want to share my recollections of two conversations I had with Miss…
Meeting Houses Reminder Of Newmarket’s Early Quaker Settlers
Three Quaker meeting houses stand front and centre for having a key role in our past. A huge wave of immigrants from the Pennsylvania area of the United States began arriving in our area beginning in 1801. Known as the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), they established homesteads along Yonge Street from Aurora to Newmarket…
Architect John Stokes Helped Shape Face Of Early Newmarket
We are travelling back to the year 1849, when a young man who would have a profound influence on Newmarket and what was then York County arrived from England and took up residence in what is now Sharon. John Stokes was one of Newmarket’s most respected businessmen and a prolific architect, whose designs of places…
Stickwood Walker House A Heritage Tribute To The Founding Family
An historic property in the news this week is the Stickwood Walker farm, located on Mulock Drive, just east of Leslie Street on the south side. This one-and-a-half storey Gothic Revival house is constructed of grey/white brick and rests on a stone rubble foundation. Over the years, it has had a number of names; the…
Many Of Newmarket’s Prominent Families Called St. Paul’s Their Spiritual Home
Over the next few months, it is my goal to highlight the history of the many churches in our town, beginning with St. Paul’s Anglican Church currently located on Church Street at D’Arcy Street. While the current structure was erected in 1884, there are many predecessors as far back as the early 1830s. Rev. Adam…
