This weekend on NewmarketToday, we begin a two-article examination of tombstones or monuments. I have been conducting walking tours of cemeteries for years and a major focus of these tours has been the history behind burial markers and the hidden language that the engravings on monuments represent. I have also conducted presentations on the topic…
Tag: History
The Story of Gamble’s Inn
This weekend on Newmarket Today we examine the first hotel in the Newmarket area, located in what once was the first white permanent settlement in King Township, established at the beginning of the nineteenth century at Armitage, located on the West Side of Yonge Street, just southwest of the town of Newmarket and bordering on…
Charles Thompson’s Little Known History
Charles Thompson, while he is perhaps little-known today, was once one of the most important entrepreneurs in Ontario during the first part of the 19th century. Most of the traffic, whether it be of the human or merchandise variety, which travelled from York (Toronto) north to Simcoe County, was carried on one of his stagecoaches…
Historians Balance Facts With Narrative To Bring Alive Our Past
Art or science? It’s a topic that has been under debate for many years, in fact dating back to my final thesis at university back in the 1970s. What is the nature of the study of history? Is it more closely aligned to the arts or the sciences? I invite you to join the discussion…
Infamy Of Rebellion’s Lount Put ‘Other Brother’ In History’s Shadow
It is often the case where one person is immortalized in our local history while others of equal importance are practically left by the wayside and yet they are most certainly worth remembrance. That’s the case with “the other Lount,”George Lount, who unlike his older brother, Samuel, has fallen through the cracks of our local…
Pickles And Packing Part Of The Lore Behind Newmarket’s Newest Heritage House
The future of the Charles Denne/Bosworth House is in the news this week with a move by the Town of Newmarket to designate the property as historic — a move that the owner resisted. At yesterday’s committee of the whole meeting, council voted to proceed with the designation — a decision that needs to be finalized at…
AGO’s The Grange Has Links With 2 Prominent Newmarket Families
On a trip to the AGO a few weeks ago, I visited The Grange and suddenly remembered its connection to Newmarket through the Boulton and Robinson families. The Boulton family was closely associated with the early history of Newmarket, the street running west from Main and Church streets was known until the 1860s as Boulton…
When Women Fought For The Right To Vote
Ontario became the fifth province to grant women the right to vote on April 12, 1917, after more than half a century of activism by the suffrage movement. My grandmother was part of this movement and so I have a particular interest in this part of our history. I fear that most women today do not fully appreciate the…
Your Memories, Photographs Vital To Preserving Our Heritage
I wish to solicit your kind assistance with several of the projects that I have on the back burner, so to speak. Several projects are merely awaiting additional information judged pertinent to the re-telling of the story of several local heritage topics of interest to yours truly and, more importantly, the community at large. If…
When A Little Village Became A Bustling Town
If I look back at the evolution of Newmarket, it appears that it was neatly planned by destiny. As I have previously mentioned in my articles, it is easy to see sharply defined transitions taking place at 50-year intervals – 1800, 1850, 1900 and 1950. However, given the rapid acceleration of economic, social, and political events after…
