We Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts

view from the hill

I've been dipping into Ron Brown's books about Ontario's train story (and its unhappy ending) recently. He's a prolific writer of ghost town books as well; I pulled my copy of Ghost Villages from the history shelf. The book fell open at Lonsdale - a ghost town?

So to verify this opinion (admittedly, it was ventured in 1978 and I have no way to check), I dived into my files and rediscovered some photos I'd taken  on a visit not long ago.

 Now, we've been there several times since, but my first visit was on a Hastings County Historical Society bus tour of Hastings County ghost towns. Later we returned to have the quiet hamlet all to ourselves, and enjoy this bucolic spot in the deep cleft of the Salmon River valley. It's fascinating to time-travel back to when it was a bustling industrial centre.

Harlan House chats with passers-by

Our most recent stop was late this winter. As we turned the corner at the top of the hill above the Salmon River - still charging out from under its winter ice - we slowed for a young woman carrying a roo in a pouch, leading a toddler brandishing a miniature snow-shovel. Signs of new life. No ghost town here.

And of course, anyone who knows the village knows it's alive and well. I cite the following evidence:

I would suggest unique and wonderful ceramic artist Harlan House whose studio provides a creative centre from its hillside location.

public domain, can't recall the source

Sure, the satanic mills of the 1830's and well beyond have long since stopped harnessing the river and weary mill workers, but the hamlet has been home to artists for many years. In fact, the place has a reputation as an arts community, artists tending to gravitate to picturesque, inspirational places.

brings out the artist in anyone's soul

There is an architectural renaissance about. The c.1868 Wesleyan Methodist Church is being restored. Artist craftsman Michael Rutland was commissioned to refurbish the windows in this wonderful stone church at the top of the village, which still holds a service every June.



'Books by chance or appointment' might be the sign in The Watermark Books window. Don't know when this treasure trove of collectable books is open, but I applaud the work and wisdom of the individuals who brought the lovely stone store back to life.

a fanciful Regency cottage restored

Brown's book shows the stone store in dilapidated condition, its future uncertain. Kudos to the folks who brought it back to life and beauty.

Further on, a very historic double stone house is reported to be home of the village's first telephone exchange.


Don't know much about this Regency restoration, but loved the rooftop monitor, the picturesque chimneys, the doorcase. Perched at the top of the hill overlooking the Salmon River gorge (the side lawn would appear to be at 45 degrees), it's just the spot for a Regency cottage (although it would have overlooked a great deal of industry in the early days.)

So does Lonsdale look like a ghost town to you? They appear to be doing very well, thank you.

No I don't want a Dentist!

 Lindsay readers, help me out here.

On our way out Kent Street West in Lindsay recently, we both fell in love with this Gothic Revival beauty, aloof on a wooded hill, just across from the hospital, looking down on speeding traffic and government and medical buildings.

Later, after several hours of walking about in the cold, my love insisted on driving back to this intersection to see if we could find out more. There's a sign along Kent with a street number - usually a tool to lookup more info on a historic property. Family and Cosmetic Dentistry, 317 Kent Street West. Nothing, absolutely nothing, except invitations to use the offered dental services, appeared during my decreasingly confident google search.

Ah, well, Perhaps there's a different residential address on the street along the other corner of the property. Adelaide. Nope. Even a snoop with Instant Street View yielded nothing. Then maybe that lane along the third side of the property, which we crept up for a photo? That private lane? Peel's Lane? Wrong again. Nothing. No Peel or Adelaide family histories online either, which could yield clues as to the origins of this astounding house.







So. I am stuck with a dentist. A dentist with brilliant taste in homes, who is likely contributing to the ongoing survival of this Victorian gem in Lindsay's encroaching business district.

This Used to be my Town too

E. Pierce postcard collection

Apologies to James Taylor for this title, and so much else. But the song suits today's feeling of nostalgia. I spent some time in Picton recently, my hometown. In actual fact, I grew up on a farm twelve long (in the day) miles outside of town.

This great divide was difficult to cross during my years at the high school in Picton. Looking back, I doubt I ever made the crossing, so strange does the town seem to me, even now.

But today, fresh on the heels of the encouraging announcement that Guelph's Petrie Building with its absolutely unique full sheet metal facade (the only one in Canada, it's said) has been granted a stay of execution by Tyrcathlen Industries' purchase , I felt impelled to visit a building in Picton with cast iron architectural detail, which figures in my own history.

The building I visited was the Chapman and Striker Drug Store, built around 1860. You can see it in the post card view above; its the one with two main floor awnings.


The ground level facade has changed, but the chanelled brick bands persist at the corners.

The best features remain - the cast iron hood mouldings over the windows. The detail is amazing once you look closely; the trim is different on the second and third storeys and yet again in the central bay which is set off by channelled brick pilasters.

The arched second floor hoods on the right and left sides of the facade are supported by consoles with acanthus leaf design. The straight centre lintel (with much of the iron cresting missing) is supported by consoles topped by a human head! The heads reoccur on the third floor, on a more complete decorative lintel, below some fine polychromatic brickwork smocking.

The scowling head makes me think of the signature 'Medusa heads' of James Bogardus, the American who invented decorative architectural cast iron. One of my next projects is to try to find the source of the cast iron elements on local buildings. I was delighted to see that the folks researching the Petrie Building had identified the source of their cast iron as Bakewell and Mullins of Ohio, who ran a catalogue operation selling cast iron bits. (It's not as crazy as you think - the railways were making everything available in the day.)

Eric's post card at the top of the post shows a cast iron railing mounted in front of the windows in the centre bay - another mail order item. Dover Press put out a replica of Badger's Illustrated Catalogue of Cast-Iron Architecture, originally published in 1865. The range of architectural cast-iron elements is astonishing. Have it on my booklist.

tell-tale rust 

Stokes and Cruickshank described the building as "perhaps the best preserved commercial block in Picton" (The Settler's Dream 1984.)

As family connections go, I am related to this Italianate commercial building in Picton. I told the story a few years back, so you can follow the link to avoid me repeating myself, or sit through a precis. This building housed a drug store and soda counter  - always smelled of perfume and coffee - intoxicating blend even today. Squeaky oiled wood floor, chrome and formica.

The drug store started around 1860, a partnership between a long-distant maternal ancestor Gideon Striker and his brother in law Reuben Chapman. After their deaths, the building was purchased by Charles Allison (the block is still called the Allison block; until recently high school associate Marilyn Hymus's gift shop Allison's occupied the east side). The drug store I grew up with, Teasel's, took over from Allison after 1927.

perfume? That would be Evening in Paris

Gideon Striker house (1868)

These two houses belonged to the partners in the pharmacy. The house to the left is Gideon Striker's (1868), which shows off its french doors and grand door-case still, along Main Street East. Striker went on to become an M.P.P.

Chapman's house was earlier (1857 or thereabouts); it still has some of the cast iron trim above the windows, and the brick quoins similar to those of the commercial building. The early parapet end building has suffered greatly at the hands of later renovations/additions.

Reuben Chapman house (c.1857)

The cast iron architecture story is one I find endlessly fascinating. If you are interested, the books of Margot Gayle are the best resource.


Here's a nice little summary.
Here's another enthusiast's blog with lots of video tours of iron fronts.
And here's something I wrote earlier this year.

The Nash-Jackson House story

 From the newspaper articles reproduced in the interpretive centre, it was clear that there was some debate prior to 1999, when heritage types were considering the move of this worthy Georgian style frame house to the Battlefield House Museum property in Stoney Creek, Ontario. There was muttering that visitors would get the two houses confused, or that somehow the significance of this important War of 1812 site would be degraded. Not only have those responsible for this National Historic Site NOT let that happen, they have enriched the visitor experience (and provided much needed administrative and display space which 'our' NHS Glamore would die for) and they have given lovers of c.1800 architecture a dream location to visit.

The plaque beside the white picket fence tells the story of this white clapboard house. The house began as a small one and a half storey frame structure around 1800, and remained, growing all the while, in the same family for 5 generations. The family were cousins of the Battlefield Museum house (the Gage House), so it's only natural that they would seek each others' company when things got tough - in this case, when the property was finally sold, and the house faced demolition or moving.

The solemn symmetrical facade, the grand neoclassical portico resting on (to me) slightly too large ionic capitals on fluted columns, sitting in a wide lawn bordered by white picket fence and tall old trees - what a vision, even on a dull day. Looks like it's stood there for 200 years.

And the interior! A beautiful gift shop, convenient offices and washroom, and several rooms of displays telling the story of the house, its family, the war of 1812 battle fought on this very property. And then there's the actual early 1800's parlour with its neoclassical mantel and chimney cupboards topped with elliptical arches with radiating reeded sunburst and keystone, and pilasters. Exquisite! 

is this little Gothic chair not a treasure?

Notice the stenciling which restoration work discovered below the ceiling? I spent a long time in "Grandma Nash's parlour" (that would be Anna Catherine Munn Nash to me, of course.)


And the really great news about the Nash-Jackson house? It's only the beginning of the historic house adventure that is Battlefield House Museum and Park.

Old Edwardians

Last Saturday we wandered (if wandering can be the right word for explorations when the fingers freeze onto the shutter, and the fur-trimmed hood drooping over the eyes prevents having a good luck before clicking it!) a number of Lindsay's commercial and residential streets, and found many spots to revisit in the summer. One of the things I noticed was rows of simple, formal, tall two and a half storey homes, with gable end recalling a pediment facing the street.

Usually a verandah (sometimes curved) or portico graces the front, its colonettes typically set on squat piers.  A large simple roof; undecorated chimneys. Often a feature window (tri-partite, such as Palladian) in the gable, Balanced facade and unadorned smooth brick (often the mortar is the same colour) provide a refreshing change from the Victorians' overwrought eclectic Queen Annes and Second Empires.

The style's influences were Classical, its attitude was order and simplicity. Appearing between 1900 and 1930, the style is called Edwardian Classicism.

Belleville

Another Edwardian Classical form is the four-square hip-roofed house. It usually has dormers in each roof section, the large roof with wide eaves supported by flat blocks (compare a Second Empire or Italianate's ornate brackets to appreciate the design change the style represents.) As things evolve, the classical detailing disappears, paving the way for the plainer non-historicizing Prairie and Craftsman styles.

This house in Belleville shows a synthesis of the two Edwardian classical designs.











The Hamilton examples are all from the Durand neighbourhood, and show the high style details one would expect from folks of considerable means.

Commercial Edwardian Classicism I'll save for another day. But for now, think Gibbs Surround. If you can't wait, have a look at this amazing blog by Classicist Calder Loth.

Thanks to John Blumenson's Ontario Architecture for helping me see all the elements in these sedate and lovely homes.

Station to Station

Stirling station - Rotary rescue

It's been a long flu season, and I've come through unscathed only to come down with Railroad Fever.
Granted this is a term associated with building that yankee Transcontinental Railroad (and with a not-bad rock-blues band) but I think I can safely use it to describe my growing enthusiasm about the railways (not railroads, my train friend Larry explains that RR is used in the USA),and their role in connecting small towns and villages and mines and forestry operations - and dreams- throughout the growing days of Upper Canada and beyond.

a VanHorne style station

I have looked at trains from both sides now (a few towns like Kingston have old rolling stock cemented in place in public parks, I have taken an historic steam train junket on the Royal Hudson in BC,  longed for the dirty old steam days while watching those bucolic intro scenes of Heartbeat, and visited some orphaned and abandoned train stations in various towns looking for rare stylistic features,) but not until this past few days did the railway story become a people story for me. The coming of the railway is all about communities' aspirations and ambitions. The stuff of crazy speculation, of tricky fiscal manoeuvres, of towns' rise and fall. And of people. Their hopes and heartbreak.

Domestic reuse - Tamworth

I am immersed in several books by the prolific Ron Brown. The fever began with research into the Grand Junction Railway and its importance to Hoard's Station (more to come in the next issue of County and Quinte Living.) I began to connect the bits and pieces I'd heard over time. And to connect all the tiny branch lines built by boosterish local consortia getting onboard to obtain charters  to link their towns with cities and lakeports, to move produce out and manufactured goods in, and transport people everywhichway, no longer having to depend on waterways which failed them in the long winters. I am starting to fully appreciate the pre-CNR/CP monopoly days of  rail transportation.

A working station in Napanee

Brown writes about the train stations in The Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore. Their neglect and demolition is such a loss of our history. Some still stand. Overlooked and underutilized, or converted to homes or cafes, they stand today in Belleville, Havelock, Tamworth, Queensborough, Napanee. My summer plan is to visit/revisit railway stations, learn about the local line which linked them, and so put together another piece of our history for myself.

The tracks were pretty much gone by the early 1980's, but passionate local groups have fostered the development of recreational trail systems along their lines. I know many folks who cycle and snowmobile these links with the past; guess it's time to join them.

Beautiful Blondes

Old County Court House

Coming from a red brick town as I do, I am always surprised and delighted to enter a community where the prevailing colour is buff (or white, as it was often called.)

40 Bond Street West (1870) 

The articles I've consulted explain it simply enough - it's all about the amount of iron in the clay. Higher iron content yields pink or red brick, As nearly all bricks were created close to home before the advent of the railway, the prevailing colours of some old brick neighbourhoods can be blamed on the local claybanks. Another article I read suggested aluminium was implicated, in inverse proportions, but I can't find that tonight.

straw-coloured Ontario farmhouse

I've also read that buff or yellow brick was considered more prestigious in some circles, for civic buildings,so that bricks of that colour may have travelled about a bit, once the railways made that feasible (if not particularly easy.)

stately Second Empire

Then of course, there are the wonderful outcrops of polychromatic brick here and there about the countryside. Another time, perhaps.

 neighbourhood in buff

For tonight, I just want to post these wonderful Lindsay homes of yellow brick.

Bond Street Tudor Revival

45 Victoria Victorian

serene Edwardian Classicism

eclectic Edwardian? - battlements, French doors, fish scale shingles

wintry Italianate

John Knowlson house - 43 Russell Street East

Sheriff John McLennan house (1875)

Pretty impressive when they're separated out from their red brick, stone and frame neighbours aren't they? Serene, stately, pale and aloof. No blonde jokes even come to mind.