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…
Tag: Interview
Newmarket’s Champion Drum, Bugle Corps Demanded Dedication
The concept of the drum corps traces its roots to the American tradition of the Drum and Fife from the 1800s and bugle bands of the early 1900s. Today, those drum and bugle corps have evolved, spreading throughout North America and offering a disciplined display of musical pageantry. It is from this tradition that our…
Newmarket’s Club 14 Welcomed Soldiers, Lit The Fire For Romances
Let’s go back to 1942, when slow waltzes and lively swing tunes were the music of the day and Newmarket was at the height of its war-time activities. A small building on Millard Avenue, known as the old I.O.O.F (International Order of Odd Fellows) Hall was in the midst of its transformation into the Soldier-Citizen…
Most Of Newmarket’s Growth Came At The Expense Of Farmland
I have often stopped and thought of just how the tiny little town in which I was born back in the 1950s has become a major urban centre on the brink of becoming a city before my very eyes. Let’s take a look at the urbanization of Newmarket and, in particular, the development of the subdivisions that…
Disease Was Scourge Of Newmarket In Days Of Wells, Outhouses
Newmarket Had A Longtime Romance With The Train
As a young boy, I used to love to stand on the Queen Street bridge and watch the train go by, particularly the trains making their way across the country, and dream of places far, far away. This week, let’s look at the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and its descendant, the Canadian National Railway (CNR),…
Newmarket Had A Long Time Romance With The Train
As a young boy, I used to love to stand on the Queen Street bridge and watch the train go by, particularly the trains making their way across the country, and dream of places far, far away. This week, let’s look at the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and its descendant, the Canadian National Railway (CNR),…
Take A Peaceful Stroll Through Newmarket’s First Public Cemetery
NewmarketToday.ca brings you this weekly feature about our town’s history in partnership with Richard MacLeod, the History Hound, a local historian for more than 40 years. He conducts heritage lectures and walking tours of local interest, as well as leads local oral history interviews. You can contact the History Hound at thehistoryhound@rogers.com. I grew up the grandson of George W….
One Of Newmarket’s Oldest Shops Built Before Confederation
One of the oldest stores on Newmarket’s Main Street is the William N. Starr Building, located just south of the old Central Hotel, and later, the McCauley Block, which was destroyed by fire in 1968. It is a pre-Confederation building, constructed in about 1863, replacing a frame structure on the site. You will remember in…
Ontario’s First Female Apothecary Had Main Street Store
One of the casualties in the debate over the future of the Clock Tower building in downtown Newmarket on Main Street was the historic building to the south, known as the Charles Hargrave Simpson building. Boarded up and neglected, and with a demolition company’s sign now posted on it, this building was once home…
