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…
Tag: Oral History
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…
When A Runaway Wife Was A Man’s Stolen Property
An article in the November 1877 edition of the Newmarket Era tells a story that may seem a little strange to us today, though it would have been taken very seriously back then, which I think gives us a pretty clear glimpse into the social norms of the time and what passed for news back…
Newmarket: When Women Fought To Be ‘Persons’
Over the next few weeks, my articles will focus on the history of women’s struggle for equal rights in Canada, a topic that has been neglected in many of our history texts for far too long. This quest for equality is still very much on our lips today and I think it would be most helpful…
When Soldiers Came From Across Canada For Training
Let’s continue our look back to the years 1939 and 1940 in Newmarket’s history. When we left off last time, they were commencing the building of the Army Camp and the first soldiers were about to arrive in Newmarket. You can read part one here. Local businesses are starting to reap the benefits of having 3,500 new soldiers…
