The government of Upper Canada assumed that practically all land would become farmland and surveyed most of Ontario into farm lots, organized into rows of townships. The earliest townships were located on Lakes Erie and Ontario. As time passed, successive rows of townships were added—continuing long after it had become clear that much of northern Ontario had little agricultural potential. James Kirkpatrick surveyed Fenelon Township in 1824, shortly after the first European immigrants moved to the Kawarthas—but before any lots were located in the new township. He was paid in land, receiving 4,147 acres, or just over 7% of the township—which he subsequently sold.

Surveying was based on English astronomer Edmund Gunter’s surveying chain (1620), which contained 100 links of 0.66 feet each, with a brass ring every tenth link. Eighty chains equalled one mile, while ten square chains equalled an acre. To survey the township, the crew carried chains through the forests, swamps and beaver meadows, guided by a compass, leaving marks on trees as they went. The township was divided into eleven concessions of 32 lots, each 200 acres being 30 by 66.67 chains, or 3/8 by 5/6 of a mile, aligned to north 16.5° west. These lots were called ‘double fronts,’ having a front on two concession lines, and the basic farm unit was often taken as half a lot, 100 acres, facing one of the roads. Fenelon had eleven concessions and Verulam ten, all containing thirty-two lots. The final concession and row of lots were narrowed to fit them between the surrounding townships. A road one chain wide was placed between each concession and every fifth lot.

All of these roads were supposed to be straight, which would have transpired if the survey had been done perfectly and the earth was flat. But every time that the surveyor walked up or down a hill (not to mention the curvature of the globe’s surface) or encountered an obstacle that it was not possible to reach a chain accurately across (for instance, Sturgeon Lake), an error was introduced. The Glenarm Road is a cross road that was supposed to be straight, and the jogs in the road reflect the fact that the adjacent concessions of lots did not actually line up.

Typically, the names of townships in Upper Canada had no relationship to the actual place—many were named after government officials, prominent Britons, or whatever struck the fancy of the official in charge at the time. For instance, Ops was an ancient Roman goddess of fertility. Fenelon was named after a Suplician Missionary, Abbe Francois Fenelon, who was a missionary to Quinte (Kente) in the 1660s—a century and a half before the township was founded. He is best remembered for criticizing Governor of New France Comte de Frontenac at Easter High Mass in Montreal. He is often mistaken with his more famous half-brother, also Francois Fenelon, who was the Archbishop of Cambrai. Cambray was later mistakenly named after the more famous Francois Fenelon, thinking he was the namesake of the township.

Samuel de Champlain is somewhat of a mysterious historical figure. Though he is a very memorable personality in Canadian history, there are a great many things that are not known about him—including the fact that there is no authentic portrait. In the centuries since Champlain passed, a great many people have filled in the blanks in his story with their own interpretations.

For much of the twentieth century, many people sought to elevate Champlain as one of the great founding figures of the Canadian nation. In other places, notably Orillia, statues were erected (of a man that there was no authentic image of!), and many people took pride in saying that such a famous person once passed through their place. Fenelon Falls was no exception. Local residents took pride in the fact that he once walked across their lawn as he portaged around the Falls—assuming that he must have portaged alongside the canal, which did not then exist! Others told stories about how he carved his initials in the Fenelon Gorge—just no one ever definitively identified the remains of his markings. Over the years, there have been a great many people who have told widely ranging stories of how he travelled through the Kawarthas, and what happened along the way.

As sensibilities have changed over the years, so have the stories. Champlain’s famous statute in Orillia has been taken down, as the very notion of celebrating him as a great founder of the Canadian nation has become something that many people find disagreeable. More recently, he has been called a murderer and gigolo. Today, it would not be so fashionable to tell stories of how the great Champlain once walked across your lawn.

As people have constructed memories of the great or terrible Champlain, the inconclusive historical record is often overlooked. For all of the talk over the years of how Champlain came to Fenelon Falls, it is not clear whether or not this ever happened. His accounts indicate that he travelled from what is now called Lake Simcoe to Lake Ontario through a waterway, that he describes. It seems that many people have assumed that because boats travel from Balsam to Cameron to Sturgeon as they navigate the Trent-Severn Waterway, that the same route must have been used then (centuries before the waterway was constructed.) By the eighteenth century, there were two routes from Sturgeon Lake to Lake Simcoe. One was via Goose Lake (near Cambray), the other via Cameron, Balsam and the Talbot River. Before Mitchell and Canal Lakes were created, both involved lengthy portages. Champlain’s description of the waterway does not match either historical route—could it be that he recorded it from memory after the fact?

So Champlain may have portaged around Fenelon Falls, or maybe not. He likely passed through what is now Fenelon Township. But probably we will never know for sure exactly where he travelled. But since no one knows what really happened, he will probably continue to inspire creative minds to fill in the details.

Fenelon Falls, like many communities in Upper Canada, was privately owned by land speculators. Originally granted to the Provincial Secretary and a Toronto banker, Duncan Cameron in 1832, (in that era, the ways that the so-called ‘Family Compact’ manipulated the land system to their advantage was a major grievance) the next year, he flipped the property to Robert Jameson for £500.

Robert Jameson was the grandson of Dublin distiller John Jameson and soon partnered with James Wallis (original proprietor of Maryboro Lodge) to develop the community. Both were younger sons from wealthy families, who would not inherit the family fortune back home, so they were seeking a way to maintain the social standing they had grown up accustomed to. The Jamesons’ family business needed no introduction—Yes, that Jameson distillery. Jameson’s whiskey was already world famous.

Jameson and Wallis’ venture centred around land speculation. They had an interest in 22.7% of Fenelon Township and 9.3% of Verulam. Much of the land was purchased from the Crown, or children of United Empire Loyalists who were entitled to free land grants that they did not wish to occupy themselves. As they were buying land on an open market, they planned to make improvements in the community, then resell the land at a profit.

As was common in nascent communities of that era, their improvements included a tavern, along with saw and grist mills. Wallis was also active in constructing the first Anglican Church—which was practically a state church at that time. As in Britain, taverns served meals and provided accommodations. In this era, when people walked or paddled to travel, each community needed a place to stay. In 1835, N.H. Baird visited Fenelon Falls and noted the newly-constructed tavern was an “inn of unusual extent and accommodation for a new country.” That year, Thomas Need spent New Years Eve “warming Wallis’ new tavern and it did very well.” In 1839, Anne Langton noted that it was filled for the Sturgeon Point Regatta. It is thought that tavern was located near the future site of the McArthur House (Subway).

In the end, Jameson & Wallis’ venture at Fenelon Falls proved unprofitable—they had been throwing good money after bad. As long as there was no shortage of government land, why would anyone buy their lots at a premium? But their misguided investments did help to get the community started. Both had to move on to other ventures. Jameson sold his share of the venture to Wallis in 1842, who would be remembered as a founding figure of the community. Robert Jameson died before cameras became common and there is no known likeness of him. The only image of the tavern comes from an Anne Langton sketch.

Fenelon Falls is very fortunate that Anne Langton spent a decade living at Blythe Farm on the north arm of Sturgeon Lake, beginning in 1837. Before the advent of photography (which reached Fenelon Falls in the 1870s), images of people and places were captured through art. Looking back to this period, most small towns have no visual record of their early history. Because Anne Langton had the time and talent to sketch, there are few places in Canada that were captured more vividly than the communities near her home.

Anne Langton’s Road to Blythe is the first depiction of Fenelon Falls as a whole. At the time, the best vantage for seeing the community was the Anglican Church hill—which for many years was the lookout over Fenelon Falls—and the actual site of the chapel. It was almost a century before the first aeroplanes made it possible to fly above the trees and actually see the whole community. It is likely that she had to imagine or exaggerate the perspective of some of the locations to make them fit.

Anne labelled the buildings that are visible along the top margin, which conveniently identifies them for posterity. Her family’s home, Blythe, is obscured at the left, and on the right she notes the locations of genteel settlers’ estates on Cameron Lake—close friends of her family. It is the only known depiction of the original store and tavern. Then as now, Maryboro Lodge (Mr. Wallis’s behind the trees) stood in the ancient oak grove overlooking the mouth of the Fenelon River at Cameron Lake.

Cameron and Sturgeon Lakes were unusual in having a conspicuously large number of aspiring young gentlemen (but few young ladies!), typically younger sons, who were too poor to live as elites back in Britain. They hoped that by emigrating to Canada they could elevate themselves to a status that they could not have afforded back home.

James Wallis, was one of these younger sons, whose family owned Drishane Castle and the Maryborough Estate in County Cork, Ireland. Being land speculators, Wallis and his business partner Robert Jameson owned Fenelon Falls, so Wallis could build anywhere that he chose. Having constructed their mills at the Falls, he settled on the ancient oak grove at the mouth of the Fenelon River on Cameron Lake. Unlike most of the surroundings forests, the oak grove was so severely eroded that only sparse, dwarf bur oaks grew. To gentleman, like Wallis, it was natural parkland. The oak grove extended along the waterway towards the falls (now Oak and Water Streets). Wallis reserved this area as his private parkland. Today, visitors to the museum may notice that foyer seems to be on the wrong side of the building—that’s because when it was built it was facing the downtown—with the lake behind. Of course, the French doors opened towards the river, which was great for hosting backwoods soirees.

Though it was no English country estate, Maryboro Lodge was conspicuous for its time and place. At a time when most local residents lived a shanty, it was the white, two storey building, standing on the shore the lake. Replicating fashions back home, Wallis had the exterior of the building plastered. But the climate of Canada was much harsher than Great Britain, so it was difficult to keep the building plastered. Architecturally, the building is unusual, being stacked deal construction. Deals were 3” x 9” timbers, often cut 12 feet long, which was a common dimension of lumber to export to Britain at the time. As he owned a sawmill, Wallis had ready access to sawn lumber, and stacked them with the narrow side down.

The name “Maryboro Lodge,” reflected the fact that it was not a ‘House’ as the landed classes would occupy back in Britain, it was a lodge in the woods. It was also not a particularly practical house. As originally constructed, it had two dancing parlours, a dining room and bedrooms, but no kitchen. However, for a bachelor hosting soirees in the woods, it was exactly what he needed!

Wallis’ speculative venture failed and when his holdings were liquidated, the community’s growth accelerated. Having been built in such a prominent location, Maryboro Lodge and the ancient oak grove always had a special place in the community. Churches would host picnics in the grove, and for many years the river was a popular swimming place. Today, as kids jump off the railway bridge, it’s something Fenelon Falls youth have done for generations.

From 1913 until the late 1950s, the Abbott sisters operated Maryboro Lodge as a tourist lodge, giving the name a different connotation. Picking up a tradition that dated back to Mr. Wallis, they loved to host afternoon tea—despite the fact the building did not have electricity or running water. After they moved to Waterman’s Nursing home in Lindsay, their nephew ensured that the building remained a public space, becoming Fenelon Falls’ museum. As it was generations ago, afternoon tea remains a popular tradition at Maryboro Lodge.

Fenelon Falls was founded long before the advent of the welfare state. At that time, the Church was an extremely important institution. It helped with education, care for the sick, elderly, and many other forms of charity. Churches were also community cultural facilities, hosting all kinds of events. The Church of England (Anglican) had a close relationship with the Government of Upper Canada. Like many other contemporary communities, Fenelon Falls was owned by Anglicans, James Wallis and Robert Jameson, who donated land to found a church. Through land sales, the state funded the Church of England.

Three aspiring young gentlemen, James Wallis, John Langton (Anne’s brother, later Canada’s First Auditor General), and Robert Dennistoun (later a Peterborough judge) were pivotal in establishing the Church of England at Fenelon Falls—fundraising, collecting subscriptions to support a minister and petitioning the governor for grants and a clergyman. Wallis personally conducted services until a permanent minister could be secured, and also donated lots for the chapel and parsonage (which was originally on the north side of Francis Street, near the lake).

Since Wallis owned the village he could choose any site he wanted for the church. St. James, as it was built, was literally a light on a hill, and local parishioners would have appreciated its symbolism: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” At the time, it was far more common for someone to be unable to read, than to be able to read, and not to read the Bible. Children would grow up learning by reading scripture (often from their minister), and it was generally accepted that society should aspire to Christian ideals. The founders of Fenelon Falls’ first church were realizing these social values.

In Upper Canadian public discourse, “religion” synonymous with Christianity. It was far more controversial that the state supported a particular denomination, than that it supported religion. At the time, the distinction between being Protestant and Catholic really mattered. By 1851 (when data becomes available) the religious affiliations of Fenelon residents were: Church of England 245, Free Church Presbyterian 115, Presbyterian 94, Episcopalian Methodist 46, Wesleyan Methodist 38, Roman Catholic 14, Quaker 12, Baptist 5, and None 21. So nearly half of residents were Anglican, though on the other hand, a slim majority adhered to other denominations. Because of the Church of England’s close relationship with the state, it was able to afford a chapel long before the other denominations, who typically met in private homes.

On May 6, 1838, Rev. C.T. Wade opened St. James Church, which was a small log chapel, built on the church hill, complete with a porch and belfry (now Old St. James cemetery). Anne Langton recorded “the pews are left without doors, to obviate exclusiveness, but as some of them are paid for by individuals, there will be some appropriation of them, and this in so small a place is undesirable.” On April 24, 1839, the congregation held a bee to make a road up the hill to the church, and that same year, they welcomed their first permanent minister, Rev. Thomas Fidler. He volunteered to teach school, however, attendance was spotty at best.

Rev. Fidler served the community until May 15, 1847, when he tragically drowned. He was trying to cross the Fenelon River above the falls, along with two brothers who were assisting him, named Sinclair. Though the waters were high with the spring run off, they paddled across above the falls to a landing and grabbed some branches. But they wanted to land at a point further downstream, so they let go. Swept out into the current, facing the wrong direction, they tumbled over the mill dam and falls, all three perishing.

The first St. James Anglican church burned around 1850, and was replaced with a much larger frame building on the same site. It would serve until the third St. James Anglican Church opened at the bottom of the hill in 1902.

From the beginning of European migration to the Kawarthas, the region had abundant forest resources—if only there was a way to get them to market. Pioneer farmers often burned huge trees, just to get rid of them. Some businesses were exporting timber from the Upper Kawarthas to Great Britain by the 1830s, but for many years they were small, and much of the mill produce was to meet local needs. To export timber, it had to be floated down the Trent River, then assembled into rafts to travel to Quebec City, then loaded on transatlantic ships—hopefully by the time it arrived in Britain, it could still be resold at a profit.

In 1854, the Canadian-American Reciprocity Treaty allowed Canadian lumber to be exported to the United States without prohibitive tariffs—the same year that Kansas was organized as a state. With European immigrants settling the prairies, they needed to import lumber. Once the Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway reached Lindsay in 1857, it became practical to quickly and economically move lumber long distances, including to American markets.

Some existing sawmills like Mossom Boyd of Bobcaygeon expanded to take advantage of new opportunities, while new mills were created in many communities like Fenelon Falls. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it was home to many lumbermen including R.C. Smith (later Howry), Greene & Ellis, Smith & Fell and Bradley Mowry (partnered at different times with George Brownlee and George Hilliard—later McArthur and Thompson). The Howry mill would become the largest in the region.

Over the second half of the nineteenth century, practically every merchantable pine that could be conveniently hauled to a waterway was floated down to a mill. By the 1890s, prime pine timber tributary to the Trent River was all but exhausted, and most of the large companies moved to different regions that had more marketable forests. But while they lasted, the timber firms included many of the area’s largest businesses. They were also the largest source of off-farm employment (and many farmers cut logs in winter to sell).

Each year, men would head north in autumn to get the camps and logging roads ready for the crew. (The first small-scale local operations relied on families, but the large, remote logging camps were a male domain.) Many of the crews were recruited in rural Quebec, where wages were lower, and where many men had developed the specialized skills—like squaring timber with a broad axe. The men lived in camps for the winter, felling trees with axes, then skidding and hauling them to the rivers, where they could be floated downstream come spring. The largest mills worked round the clock to saw up the trees, which were then piled to dry. They were then replied either on a rail car (if the company was fortunate enough to have a rail connection) or onto barges, which could then be replied once again onto a rail car—lumber would have to be restacked many times before it would finally be used!

In the nineteenth century, most families were farm families, so crops, livestock and handicrafts were of great practical interest to most people. When the Fenelon Fair was founded at Glenarm in 1867, it became one of the township’s earliest and most popular annual events. It was one of the rare occasions when the whole township came together, when families got to see others who did not live in their immediate neighbourhood. It was also an opportunity to learn about the practical skills that families used in their everyday lives—better crops, better livestock, and inspiring quilt designs.

In early years the fair moved around to different communities, before settling in Fenelon Falls. In the nineteenth century there was no midway, local volunteers hosted the activities themselves, and the fair focused on the competitions. In 1888, there was even a special prize of a fine loaf of baker’s bread to the parents who brought the fattest baby to the grounds—back then under-eating was much more of an issue than overeating. The main attraction was a trotting race between the Austin Brothers’ White Stockings and Joseph McArthur’s Billy Mac. John Aldous’ Little Hector, remembered as the fastest little horse in Canada, got his start at the Fenelon Fair. The horse races might be talked about long after the fair was over, but for those living off the fruits of their own labour, its serious purpose of seeing a better way of doing things might make a tangible difference in visitors’ lives.

In the interwar years, Fenelon Falls held a spring fair. In 1929 it took place at W.T. Robson’s farm equipment shop on Colborne Street. The drive sheds at the churches housed the livestock, which were brought down to the main street for judging. Wood chopping and horse drawing competitions entertained spectators, all accompanied by a band. Special competitions included ‘The Fellow with the largest family,’ a “slow race’ and a ‘tug-of-war between Fenelon and Verulam Townships,’ followed (of course) by a hockey game at the arena. Imagine the commotion it would cause to hold an agricultural fair on the main street today!

It proved difficult to maintain the fair through the strains of the Second World War, and from 1942 to 1954 the fair maintained its charter by holding field crop competitions which were judged standing in the field. Mac Murchison revived the fair, by holding a calf club competition at the Rotary Park (now the Ball Diamond). Junior Farmers took an interest and the rural schools marched from the arena to the park, each carrying a neatly stitched banner. These parades soon became an annual tradition, one of the students carrying a banner for the Red Rock School, Muriel Burnett, would go on to be a lifelong contributor to the fair.

Initially there was not much to the Fenelon Fair beyond the exhibitions, and there were not nearly so many classes as today. Founded in an era when families seldom travelled more than a few miles from home, and consumed little media other than the local paper, by the 1960s and 1970s, practically every family had television, radio, magazines and could drive their car to explore the wider world. The fair no longer served such an important function in broadening their horizons. And it continued to make do with makeshift locations, including the Market Square (now the post office).

The midway was introduced in 1960, and three years later, the Agricultural Society arranged with volunteer Graham Everett to use what was the original location for a few days in late August—20 acres subsequently deeded to the Township of Fenelon in 1980. Then the fair board was given the perpetual right to use the property to hold the annual fair. In the 1960s and 1970s, the fair used tents to cover its exhibitions—quite the ordeal given that it seemed like there was all of six inches of topsoil on the site. But once it gained a permanent home, the fair began to expand rapidly. Within a year it had a permanent display building, then gates sponsored by the Lions Club, while the Rotarians contributed the wiring for the exhibit hall. In the hands of a dedicated group of volunteers, the fair blossomed into a popular community event. In 1986 paid attendance reached 4500 people and four years later the organizers were honoured with a visit from Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander. The fair continued to add buildings, including the pole barn in 1993. Over the years, new events were introduced like the Mud Bog, where racing ATVs sent mud flying high in the air. The demolition derby was initially controversial, as organizers struggled to get past its sheer destructiveness, or to see how it related to agriculture. Today it is one of fair’s biggest attractions.

In Upper Canada most schooling was voluntary, especially in rural areas. By today’s standards, children grew up young, and were often at work as soon as they were able to help their parents. It was often said, that it was better for a young boy to have a strong back than a strong mind—a lifetime of hard physical labour awaited him. Most girls could expect a lifetime of domestic work. A large proportion of the population had limited literacy.

To the extent that there was schooling, it was typically done by volunteers as an act of charity. Near Fenelon Falls, the first recorded volunteer teachers were Anne Langton (arrived 1837) and her Anglican minister, Rev. Thomas Fidler (arrived December 1839). By March 1840, Anne Langton wrote that Fidler was teaching 28 students, “some much more advanced in years and accomplishments than mine.” Fidler taught his classes at the Anglican Church, while Anne instructed from her home at Blythe. At the time, there was no expectation that children must attend school, so attendance was spotty—because of the need for child labour, weather, road conditions and the general absence of clocks or watches. Fidler drowned when his boat was swept over Fenelon Falls on May 15, 1847.

By 1848, Fenelon Falls had a school building, but there is no known surviving description of it—it was presumably a log structure, with a single room. By the 1860s, Fenelon Falls was becoming much more populous and prosperous. The surrounding countryside, which had been sparsely settled at first, was slowly developing into farms. Before long, most lots had been taken up and some were beginning to take shape as farms. Large-scale lumber and timber exports were also becoming practical with the construction of a railway to Lindsay.

On August 29, 1868, Fenelon Township Council borrowed $2000 to build a new brick schoolhouse at Fenelon Falls. Completed in 1869, School Section #3 Fenelon was the largest school in the township, with three paid teachers, including a male staff member who had an annual salary “as high as $500,” which was a generous amount in those days. In the early 1870s, school attendance became compulsory and before long, there were 374 students attending the school. In March 1876, Peterborough architect John E. Belcher designed an addition, which was complete by August, allowing a new teacher to be hired for the next school year. By 1884, the school was again full, leading to the construction of a second school south of the river. Planned by Lindsay’s William Duffus, it used stone from the canal, being the only stone school constructed in Victoria County. Today it is the Masonic Lodge.

The original brick Fenelon Falls public school continued in service until 1953. For a few years, the Brandon House (northwest corner of Louisa and Colborne Streets) had supplemented the old school, which by then was undersized and out of date. It had just four classrooms and never did have indoor washrooms. In 1852, the Brandon House was demolished to make way for a new Fenelon Falls Public School, which was complete in 1953 and served until 1990. The 1869 school has been repurposed many times over the years as the Fenelon Falls Gazette office, a laundromat, the Pop Shoppe, Matthews & Associates, McColl Turner and more recently an apartment building.

As the first immigrants arrived in the Kawarthas, communications with the broader world were tenuous. Even on the most advanced sailing ships of the day it took weeks for letters to cross the Atlantic, while it took days to walk and paddle to the Upper Lakes from Lake Ontario. Where faster communications were needed, lights were used to transmit codes, but they required a network of signalling posts. The electric telegraph was adopted in Europe in the mid nineteenth century, then improved by Samuel Morse, a painter, who also devised a code for telegraphy that became the international standard in 1865.

Morse code represented each letter with a combination of dots and dashes and was designed so that the most common letters had the shortest codes. For instance, ‘E’ is a dot, ‘T’ is a dash and ‘Q’ is Dash-Dash-Dot-Dash. Like texting today, the messages were typically brief, but required a skilled telegrapher to be able to interpret the strings of dots and dashes just by listening to them. Common telegraphs are one directional. One party sends a message and the other receives it—there was no talking over somebody.

Telegraphy proved to be a revolutionary technology, and within a generation of the invention of Morse Code in 1837, much of North America was linked by telegraphs. Similar to telephones, cables were required to transmit telegraphs, typically on the top of wooden telegraph poles—what have since become known as hydro or telephone poles. Telegrams did become a common means of communication where rapid long-distance communication was necessary—but they were more expensive, and required briefer messages than the post. Telegrams were often used to operate railways; hence the telegraph office was typically at the railway station.

In Fenelon Falls, the telegraph preceded the railway. In 1870, work began on installing telegraph lines from Lindsay to Fenelon Falls, which subsequently carried on to Bobcaygeon. It took about 900 poles to connect the three communities—all dug without the help of hydraulic equipment. The line was operational that year, and in 1871, the Montreal Telegraph Company opened an office at Fenelon Falls. Three years later the Dominion Telegraph Company set up shop to compete. In October 1881, the two companies merged into the Great North-Western Telegraph Company, with George Cunningham as agent. Telegraphy declined with the advent of the telephone in the early twentieth century, but continued to connect railway stations for many years.

In the telegram pictured here, Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell was urging Mossom M. Boyd (the second Bobcaygeon Mossom Boyd, son of the famous lumber baron) to accept the nomination to be the local Conservative candidate. The PM said that Boyd was the “only means of saving riding… Don’t Say No.” But Boyd did say ‘no’ and the Conservatives (by then under Charles Tupper) were defeated by Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals in 1896.

Today, many people would find it odd to go furniture shopping at the funeral home. But in the nineteenth century, furniture making and undertaking were typically the same business, because both required the specialized skills of a joiner.

At that time, furniture or casket making was a skillful and painstaking art. Without the power tools that we take for granted today, a joiner had to carefully straighten (hardwood!) boards using hand planes, so they would neatly fit together into furniture. It took years to master these skills, and many villages like Fenelon Falls would typically only have one business with these particular abilities.

Brothers Humphrey and Lewis Deyman emigrated from Devonshire, England in 1871, setting up shop on the north side of Francis Street, west of Clifton in 1872. They soon moved to 54 Colborne Street (Bert’s Appliances/Highlands Propane parking lot) where the business would continue until 1956. Deyman’s made all kinds of wooden furniture, described in 1904 as, “every line of drawing, sitting, dining room and bedroom, kitchen and office furniture. Mr. Deyman makes a specialty of picture framing and carries a large stock of handsome mouldings. In 1912, Lewis’ son, Cecil “Dodger” Deyman, a famed local hockey player, partnered in the business and would succeed his father. Cecil travelled to Hamilton to take a course in embalming and furniture upholstery.

In the nineteenth century, death was very much a part of life. Most people died at home, with their family, and without the benefit of the painkillers that are often taken for granted today. Witnessing this experience, was often something that relatives would not soon forget. Often memorial services were held at home, as many rural churches did not have doors or aisles wide enough to accommodate a casket. Graves were dug by hand, which was typically more than a day of hard labour.

In 1956, Mendham Platten purchased the furniture and undertaking business for $12,000. He did not continue to make furniture and caskets. Instead, he also acquired Max Brandon’s striking house on Princes’ Street, at the head of Colborne Street, which he turned into a funeral home. Soon afterwards, the old Deyman’s furniture building was demolished to make way for a car lot at Armstrong Motors (Ford dealership). Since then the funeral business has been sold to Harold Wagg (1974), Paul Illman (1977) then Rob Jardine and Monica Bertrand-Jardine (2000).

In the 1870s and 1880s there were many reports that Kawarthas were infested by a terrifying creature, first recorded in the Bobcaygeon Independent in 1872:

“A strange fish of most monstrous size had been seen in Sturgeon Lake, that two persons (each in a canoe) had been compelled to flee for their lives, and that it had chased the [Steamship] Ogemah with extreme fierceness and voracity … [It was] as large as a saw log, with horns two feet long, a prodigious snake-like neck, and a gigantic head resembling a swan’s, plus the aforesaid horns.”

In the years that followed, observers debated what the mysterious animal might be: A giant sea serpent? A Reptile? A circus escapee? A whale? An alligator? It seemed a great many people had their own theory, but no one ever got close enough to give a definitive answer. One night a party of locals went out and fired on the creature, though they dared not approach it, and apparently missed. It was said that the steamer Coboconk was the only one with the nerve to draw near.

In the late nineteenth century, there were many reported sightings of water monsters. Predating the peak interest in the Loch Ness Monster by half a century, it seemed that many communities had their own uniquely dreadful creature. In those days, there was no television or radio, and many people amused themselves by gathering and telling stories with their friends and neighbours—and there were many blood-curdling tales to tell.

But there were always skeptics. Some thought that the famed monster was nothing more than a saw log. Another journalist remarked, “one result of the carrying of prohibition in Canada will be the disappearance of the sea-serpents that infest the lakes and rivers of that country”—prohibition was then a cause with broad popular appeal, and many local communities were dry for decades.

Despite the naysayers, there were regular sightings, especially on Cameron Lake until about 1890, though no one ever seemed to be quite sure what the monster really was. Then, after one last report from prominent Fenelon Falls resident W.E. Ellis, who claimed that it was actually a great spawning sturgeon, it seems to have disappeared. We will never know what became of the Cameron Lake Monster, but since it was in all the local papers it must have been real!

During the age of the steamboats and stage coaches, it took much longer to get anywhere than it does today. In that era, steam travel was associated with progress, because it was so much faster and easier to transport large quantities of goods than in previous generations when people paddled. Because journeys of more than 100 miles took days to accomplish, travellers needed places to stay along the way. One of the first buildings in many new communities was an inn or tavern—in Fenelon Falls, it had been operated by Robert Jameson and James Wallis.

Once the railway was completed to Lindsay in 1857, with co-ordinating steamship service, long-distance travel for pleasure became practical. Most of these long-distance travellers arrived on a steamship, and some would be continuing on to other communities, especially up the Cameron Road (a similar route to present-day Highway 35, through Rosedale, Coboconk and Norland). When they arrived at Fenelon Falls many needed a place to stay. Then, there was no lock to facilitate navigation from Cameron to Sturgeon Lake, so the community had wharves above and below the falls. For travellers arriving at the Lower Wharf (now the docks below Lloyd Kelly Parkette) in 1871, one of the first buildings they would see was the Quebec and Ottawa House Hotel, which John Swanton operated as a tenant.

In late March 1874, Peter Begin purchased the lease, brought in new furnishings and the liquor that would be needed to operate (hotels often served the double purpose of being the local watering hole.) On April 16, 1874, the Quebec and Ottawa House burned and by June, Joseph McArthur removed the rubble, as he prepared to build a new brick hotel.

The McArthur House Hotel opened shortly before Christmas that year, operating on a lease to Joseph’s brother, Alexander: “The house is very conveniently situated, being close to the steamboat wharf and in the centre of the business portion of the village, a location which will be appreciated by commercial men. The building is 66 x 72 feet and has a kitchen attached of 18 x 24 feet which is provided with every convenience. On the first floor there are four sitting rooms neatly furnished; the office is in the front, and the bar is situated in the back part of the main building. The stairway leading to the second flat is very much admired, it being of superior construction, the railing of which was made by a well-known manufacturer in Toronto. On the first flat there are three large parlours, all furnished in first-class style. A feature worth noticing is the harmonic piano provided for the accommodation of guests, which will not fail to be appreciated. The second flat contains a number of bed rooms, which together with those on the third flat number forty-two, they are all large and airy, and are furnished with oak and walnut furniture. The stable and sheds are commodious, and the house has all the requisites for a first class hotel.”

In the 1880s, as the Fenelon Falls canal was being excavated, there was a great quantity of stone right in front of the McArthur House, that needed to be disposed of. Some of this stone was used to build a livery stable in connection with the McArthur House Hotel (now the Fenelon Falls Brewing Company). In 1886, a third storey was added to accommodate more guests at the hotel. When telephone came to the community, the McArthur House was one of the first buildings served by this new utility.

Following Alexander McArthur, other tenants operated the McArthur House. After Joseph died in 1892, John Aldous moved to Fenelon Falls and took over the hotel in 1893, becoming its proprietor. By 1904, it was described as a “handsome three-story building and is fitted with an immense dining room, good sample rooms [for travelling merchants to display samples of their goods], a number of public and private parlors, and has first-class accommodation for fully 70 guests. In addition to offering first class accommodation for the tourist and commercial trade, it is supplied with large and splendidly kept stone stables, which supply every convenience for travelers driving in, or the farming community.”

John Aldous also owned Little Hector, “the fastest little horse in Canada.” One day, a boarder at the McArthur House Hotel, could not afford to pay for his stay, but offered Aldous a colt instead. Aldous was interested in harness racing and entered Little Hector in a competition at the Fenelon Fair, which he won with ease. As he travelled to fairs around the district, Little Hector showed his heels to the other contestants at every race. With a little training for horse and driver, Aldous was soon travelling to compete across Canada and the United States. By the end of the 1890s, Little Hector was routinely winning races on both sides of the border. He became a national celebrity, and even had a brand of cigars named after him.

Aldous owned the hotel until he died in 1936, and his family would continue to operate the property until 1947. A later description of the building explained, that “the main floor consisted of a large bar next to Townley’s; sample room for travellers; a pool room; a large dining room and kitchen, plus a card room. On the corner of the building was the Post Office for many years with W.B. Brandon as postmaster.”

Though Fenelon Falls was once home to multiple hotels, after the Second World War, the market for accommodations was changing. With the advent of automobiles, travel became much faster and more flexible. Instead of staying in the villages, many visitors enjoyed spending summer at waterfront lodges. By then, travel by steamship was becoming a distant memory, and even the railway was noticeably in decline. The grand Victorian hotels, like the McArthur House, were superseded by many more, though smaller, motels and lodges, that accommodated the ever-increasing number of visitors to the region. The McArthur House Hotel was reincarnated as Canadian Tire, and today is the building containing Subway. Though the third storey has been removed and much of the structure is extensively modified, it is still recognizable as the old McArthur House hotel.

Railways were a revolutionary technology—they made rapid long-distance travel possible (Lindsay to Coboconk in 3:35, which was a lot faster than walking!) and facilitated shipping goods long distance. Many towns grew up around a railway station, and some that were by-passed withered away. Some businesses, like quarries, were only viable if they had a rail connection. For most businesses, the railway would make a noticeable difference to their bottom line.

Railways were also extremely expensive for their time, and few were economically viable without subsidies. They needed a level route, which was extremely laborious to construct at the time, before the advent of trucks and excavators. In the 1870s, the Crown paid $8,000 subsidies per mile, and railway companies looked to supplement this by asking for bonuses from local municipalities. Often the route was chosen based upon which municipalities offered bonuses. Railways were often given ambitious names, to help attract investors. For instance, the Toronto & Nipissing Railway was completed to Coboconk in 1872, but never went any further.

The Toronto & Nipissing Railway by-passed Lindsay, which posed a threat to that town’s presumption that it would be the commercial centre of Victoria-Haliburton. But before the construction was even complete, George Laidlaw (who lived on the North shore of Balsam Lake) was already floating another scheme: The Lindsay, Fenelon Falls and Ottawa River Railway. Municipalities then divided along their commercial interests. Peterborough, of course, opposed the railway, while Lindsay strongly supported it. The railway had to cross the Trent waterway at either Fenelon Falls or Bobcaygeon, and since Bobcaygeon was not interested in voting a subsidy, Fenelon Falls was included in the proposed route.

Though many Fenelon Falls business owners were strongly in favour of the railway, voting a bonus was a difficult political issue. The recently completed Toronto & Nipissing Railway already ran along the west side of Fenelon Township, travelling through Woodville and Lorneville (AKA Midland Junction, joining the T&N and Midland Railways). At the time of the 1871 census, there were 690 households in Fenelon Township, and the railway expected tens of thousands of dollars, in an era when $1 per day was a common wage. It would be the equivalent today of every household having to give thousands of dollars for a public works project and people were a lot poorer back then. Despite the support in Fenelon Falls, it appeared likely the township as a whole would vote against subsidising the railway.

On June 5, 1874, the Village of Fenelon Falls separated from Fenelon Township so that it could vote a subsidy for the railway. One of the first acts of the new village council was to give $15,000, ensuring that the railway would come to Fenelon Falls. In Verulam Township, Concessions I to V north of Sturgeon Lake (essentially the northwest quarter of the township) petitioned their council so they could contribute $7156.90—which allowed part of a municipality to support the railway, without dividing the township. Since the Village of Fenelon Falls was created to bring the iron horse to town, it chose a train to be its logo. The event was not widely celebrated at the time, there was much more interest in celebrating the village’s centennial than there was in 1874.

For most of human history, it was artists who captured the images of people and places. Those who were wealthy enough to afford it, could sit (literally for days!) to have their portrait painted. Painters also depicted beautiful landscapes. Fenelon was fortunate to have Anne Langton, who sketched the development of the region in the 1830s and 1840s, but once she left, decades passed before there were any other known local images.

Photography became practical in France during the 1830s, and by the 1870s new methods had been devised that reduced exposure times to seconds. Photography started to become widespread, but was still a specialized profession—mass produced home cameras would have to wait for the twentieth century. Many towns were first photographed in the 1870s, including Fenelon Falls.

The image that appears in Fenelon Falls’ earliest photograph is one that might not be familiar to modern observers. It was taken just before many changes radically altered the appearance of this site. On the left is the timber slide, which was used for the annual log drive, and would persist into the twentieth century. In the background, the south shore of the Fenelon River has yet to be cleared and developed. On the right hand side, the corner of the old Wallis grist mill is visible, by then operated by R.C. Smith. It collapsed in 1883, and was replaced by the taller, square stone mill that was a local landmark until it burned in 1970 (Botany Spinners/Rosedale Furniture).

On the right hand side, in the foreground, lumber, or more likely mill slabs, are visible on the bank leading down to the river. Fenelon Falls’ sawmill was on the north shore (at this point there was not yet a canal) because it had many practical advantages. It was located beside the waterfall to use the water power, and the north shore was less precipitous than the cliffs to the south. Also, most of the population and businesses were located on the north shore. The lumber being produced at the mill was a bulky commodity and so it was manufactured beside the community’s wharf, where it could be loaded on scows to be towed behind steamships to Lindsay, where it was then replied onto rail cars for export.

This picture was taken at about the time that the Village of Fenelon Falls incorporated, specifically to bring the railway to town, and a few years before canal was built. The railway station would be built on the south side of river, spurring the development in the vicinity. The construction of the canal created Fenelon’s Island, while moving the wharf to the new north shore. Once the railway came to town, it no longer made sense to have the sawmill on the (soon to be) island, so R.C. Smith built his famous Red Mill on the south shore (Sobeys). Heritage House (R.W.H. Construction) was the company office. Within a few years, this scene was so radically altered that people comparing this photograph to later images from the same vantage might not realize that they are the same place. With the advent of recreational photography, this site would become one of the most commonly captured vistas in the region, photographed countless times. Who hasn’t snapped a shot of Fenelon Falls?

Once Fenelon Falls separated from Fenelon Township in June 1874 to vote a subsidy to build the Lindsay, Fenelon Falls and Ottawa River Railway, it did not take long for work to begin. Ground was broken in August, and two years later a fixed railway bridge was being constructed across the Fenelon River, immediately beside Maryboro Lodge (it was rebuilt as a swing bridge after the construction of the canal). The railway opened to Kinmount on November 9, 1876. For its first year of regular service, it operated two locomotives (Lindsay and S.C. Wood), fifty freight cars and four or five coaches. That same year, it received permission to extend its line from the head of William Street in Lindsay down Victoria Avenue to Russell Street, where it made a Union Station with the Lindsay & Whitby Railway. William and Alexander Mackenzie built the Kinmount station and engine house, as well as some bridges—William Mackenzie’s first job in his notable railway construction career.

While the Victoria Railway initially advertised locally for labourers, it quickly resorted to bringing in 365 Icelanders, along with a few Swedes who started work soon after the onset of construction. Though many were ill with dysentery when they arrived (over 100 died, especially children) and only one of the party spoke English, they persevered, living around Kinmount in unfortunate circumstances while they laboured on the track. Missionary John Taylor petitioned the government to grant them aid, and a number relocated in 1875 to settle at Gimli, Manitoba.

Constructing the southern end of the Victoria Railway was fairly straightforward, as it followed the Scugog River and northwest shore of Sturgeon Lake much of the way to Fenelon Falls. Though it required a few rock cuts, filling a stretch three thousand feet long at McLaren’s Creek, and a $20,000 bridge at Fenelon Falls, much of the land was relatively level, and the grades were often easily achieved just by skimming off the topsoil. To ballast the road, the company used a steam shovel named the Steam Irishman that moved 600 to 800 yards of gravel daily. But north of Kinmount, the route was far more challenging. Many rock cuts and trestle bridges were necessary, and a sink hole about four miles north of Kinmount continually surprised planners with the quantity of fill that disappeared. Crews resorted to driving piles into the mire to keep the track up.

By 1878, the railway was complete to Haliburton, and on November 26, a locomotive pulled in for the opening gala. It passed through an arch pronouncing that it brought “National Prosperity” and “Progress.” In hindsight, this event marked the completion of the Victoria Railway, but at the time local boosters were still expecting the line to be completed through to Mattawa on the Ottawa River. But as the sinkholes were filled and rock cuts made between Kinmount and Haliburton, it became clear that completing the line through what is now Algonquin Park to reach Mattawa would be very expensive. The promoters continued to demand funding to complete the railway, but they were never able to generate anywhere near the necessary amount.

It did not take long for the line to be renamed the Victoria Railway, reflecting its actual extent. In 1880 it was taken over by the Midland Railway, which built a Fenelon Falls station on the south side of Lindsay Street, two years later. The new station soon led to complaints that it was too close to the road, blocking traffic when trains pulled in. The Midland Railway was later amalgamated into the Grand Trunk Railway, then the Canadian National Railway.

The iron horse was transformative to many communities along its route. In the 1880s and 1890s, Fenelon Falls was home to the Red Mill, the largest sawmill on the Upper Trent Watershed, built on the south side of the Falls and served by the railway (it was larger than Mossom Boyd’s more famous Bobcaygeon mills). Lumber was bulky to transport and laborious to pile and repile. Without the railway, it is unlikely that the Red Mill would have ever expanded to that extent. Many communities along the line literally owed their existence to the railway, as trade and passengers concentrated around its stations.

The railway employed many workers, especially at Lindsay. It did not take long for the Haliburton sink hole to begin swallowing the track once again, as section crews were continually filling in under the rails all along the line to keep them level. The company hired clerks, freight handlers, maintenance crews, engineers and yard hands. As was often the case in the nineteenth century many of the jobs were dangerous. Until air brakes were employed, men manually clubbed the brake wheels to stop trains. To do this, and to switch cars, labourers were expected to climb on, off or between moving cars. Braking and coupling cars, were both notoriously risky jobs. Missing fingers was often taken as proof of railway experience. Despite the dangers, many farm boys (especially from Haliburton where shallow, rocky soils limited the returns from agriculture) were eager to secure a job on the railway. It was an escape from the constant manual labour that went into farming. The railway opened a whole continent of possibilities—it could carry you almost anywhere in North America!

When the first European settlers migrated to the Kawarthas, the construction of the Trent-Severn Waterway almost immediately became the political issue that could move mountains. Its proposed cost was easily enough to bankrupt the colony, but that would not stop construction. There were enough political elites interested in its completion that the colony could not say ‘no,’ so they built the easiest improvements first.

Fenelon Falls was more difficult than many of the other locks, given the height of the falls and the fact that it originally had a cascade above it (near the present-day train bridge). On the other hand, by 1880, a lock at Fenelon Falls would allow continuous navigation from Balsam Lake or Coboconk, to Port Perry, to Buckhorn—and when coupled with other proposed construction, it would open navigation on practically all of the Upper Lakes.

For any candidate to become Prime Minister, there would be a lot of pressure to complete the Trent-Severn Waterway. John A. Macdonald was a savvy politician, so during the 1878 election campaign, he raised the possibility of further work on the waterway, and won seats along the route, on his way to power. Then just before the election was called in 1882, Tom Rubidge was commissioned to make surveys at Burleigh Falls, Buckhorn and Fenelon Falls. On the eve of the election, tenders were posted, and when Macdonald was re-elected, the contracts were let on October 27. He had parlayed this round of improvements into two electoral victories locally.

Alexander Manning of Toronto and his American brother-in-law Angus McDonald received the job to build the Fenelon Falls lock for $105,701. Given the technology of the day, two locks were needed to overcome the 30-foot difference between Cameron and Sturgeon Lakes. The canal was to be a third of a mile long, 60 feet wide and 12 feet deep—deeper where the locks were located. Two days after being hired, McDonald was on site arranging for construction. He assembled a crew that soon reached 103 labourers, plus teamsters, and began blasting within nine days. He was not able to find enough workers locally so he brought in French Canadians, Greeks and Italians.

The largest part of the job was excavating all the rock, especially given the technology of the day. In an era before mechanized digging equipment, labourers and horses worked together to pry rocks free, used leverage or even a derrick to swing them up and load them, then hauled them out of the lock pit. Workers could remove the smaller rocks using wheelbarrows and hand carts. Where the bedrock could not be pried loose, workers drilled holes manually, often using hammers and bits, which were filled with black powder (gunpowder) for blasting. Excavation was a painstaking process.

In 1867, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patented dynamite, which he had devised as a way to stabilize nitroglycerin to make it safe and portable as a commercial explosive, complete with a blasting cap, to allow it to be safely detonated from a distance. It was said to be a thousand times more powerful than black powder, and the contractors at Fenelon Falls decided to give the new explosive a trial. McDonald and his workers lacked experience with an explosive as robust as dynamite, and at first used it like it was black powder, causing some massive explosions. It was literally raining rocks in the village, but no one was killed or seriously injured by dynamite, though there were otherwise accidents on the site. Before long, the construction crew learned how to handle dynamite safely.

The canal cut through the one of village’s mill sites and the ancient oak grove, where 50 trees had to be removed. By 1883, enough excavation was complete to begin construction of the lock. The walls were in place by 1885, using stone from Boyd’s quarry at Bobcaygeon—the blasted stone was too irregular to use on the lock walls. But the rubble was used to build other buildings, such as the livery stable for the McArthur House Hotel (Brewery) and the South Ward School (Masonic Lodge).

Despite everything that the government had spent building a lock at Fenelon Falls, it was not functional, because a ridge of stone at the head of the canal and the fixed railway bridge across the Fenelon River blocked traffic. Nevertheless, William MacArthur was appointed lockmaster on November 26, 1887, with an annual salary of $250, even though there was no boat traffic, though the pulp mill (at present day Garnet Graham Park) used the locks to bring up logs from below.

In 1889, William Kennedy of Bobcaygeon blasted the stone obstruction out of the head of the river. But still no boats could pass while the Midland Railway Company and the Federal Government litigated over who was responsible for building the new swing bridge. It was understood that if the bridge impeded a navigable waterway, the Railway Company was responsible for installing a swing. The Crown argued that the river had previously been navigable to the head of the falls and therefore the bridge rendered part of the river unnavigable. The company disagreed because there was scarcely any distance between the head of the rapids above the falls (which had been flooded by the dam above the falls) and the rail bridge. The judge found in favour of the railway, and the government’s new swing bridge was completed allowing the lock to open to traffic on December 26, 1893—just in time for winter.

A.W. Parkin’s Water Witch became the first boat to pass through the locks on May 12, 1894. In the meantime, the Anglo Saxon had sat at Fenelon Falls waiting to lock through, and by the time the works were operational, the ship was “a spectacle of ruin and decay,” so after removing the machinery, it was scuttled in Cameron Lake. Eleven and a half years had passed since the tender was let for the construction of the Fenelon Falls lock, but at long last, boats could pass from Sturgeon to Cameron Lake.

By 1880, Fenelon Falls was finally starting to come together as a village, having been founded by land speculators Robert Jameson and James Wallis nearly 50 years earlier. The main street was lined with neatly finished shops, and new houses that were the pride of families who had worked so hard to make a new home. Yet its citizens were all too aware of one shortcoming—built almost entirely of wood, nineteenth century buildings were terribly susceptible to fire. Cedar shingles caught very easily and carried fires far too rapidly. For centuries larger centres had regulated against building with wood, but it was the economical material that was at hand in the Kawarthas.

Villages relied on bucket brigades to fight the infernos. It was a testament to their tireless struggle that the village survived any urban fires. As a stream of hands conveyed water onto the flames, fearless men scrambled on the roofs checking the blazes started from sparks falling on the shingles. But it was almost inevitable that sooner or later, a fire would get out of control and sweep through a block, or even an entire village. Fenelon Falls’ bucket brigades fared pretty well on the whole, and managed to suppress most fires before they consumed whole blocks. Sometimes, the other buildings ignited by flying sparks were not adjacent to those that were already burning.

At 1 AM on April 21, 1884, the dreaded cry of ‘FIRE!’ rang through the village when something ignited the kitchen of George Crandell’s Hotel (now the site of Cornerstone Home Furnishings). At the time, Crandell was perhaps the region’s best-known steamship captain, a founder of Sturgeon Point, and the famed Sturgeon Point Hotel (which like so many landmarks burned). Village residents tried desperately to slow the spread of the flames, but there was little that could be done:

“During its progress great excitement of course prevailing, and, with few exceptions, all present did their best to save the contents of the stores and dwellings from the flames, which fanned by a strong wind from the north, leapt from building to building with such rapidity that in the first three or four, a great part of the contents, especially such as were up-stairs, had to be abandoned to destruction. No lives were lost, nor have we heard of anyone being in much danger; but two or three persons in Crandell’s had to run out with some of their clothes in their hands and finish dressing on the sidewalk. Though our village is pretty well off as regards water, all we have in the way of fire engines are two small affairs, which, though useful enough in checking an incipient fire or preventing imperilled buildings from igniting, are but wasting their energies when attempting to extinguish a fire which has got fairly underway. Therefore when, on Monday morning, they were doing good service by playing on the fronts of buildings facing the fire, Councillor Thomson almost created an insurrection by taking them away in the vain hope of doing more good with them elsewhere; but Mr. Keith managed to have them brought back, and if it had not been for his determination not to be burnt out if he could help it, there is very little doubt that his store and Mr. Deyman’s furniture rooms (across from Crandell’s Hotel/Cornerstone, now Highlands Propane) would both have been destroyed, to say nothing of the buildings in their vicinity. Indeed, for a time no part of the centre of the village was safe, the wind carrying huge flakes of fire and blazing shingles for long distances in all directions, and many stores and dwellings were only saved by constant watchfulness and water on the roofs.”

The villagers’ frenzied actions managed the contain the fire to the west side of Colborne Street and north of Francis Street, but it turned the corner (around what is now the Bank of Montreal), “where a small low house built of strips and plastered on both sides burnt so slowly that by desperate exertions the fire was prevented from spreading any further.” At the time it was an unspeakable tragedy—most property owners carried partial insurance if any at all. But it was also a moment of regeneration, as wooden buildings would be replaced with brick—beginning the creation of the modern façade of the village. Much of what we now think of as the ‘Victorian’ was built in the aftermath of the Great Fire of Fenelon Falls.

In the nineteenth century, most farmers relied on dug wells (which literally meant dug by hand!), while village residents often took their drinking water from the waterway. However, the waterway was also used for the disposal of human, household and industrial waste (especially from wooden manufacturing). Contaminated water led to many serious medical conditions, such as cholera and typhoid. Where spring water was available, it was much better than drinking lake water.

Fenelon Falls had the good fortune to have springs located on the hill on the north side of town. Village council spent its first 20 years debating what to do about a water system. Then, in April 1894, it approved Robert Jackett’s proposal to take water from a spring in Ann Ellis’ field at the head of Colborne Street, to feed a fountain in front of the Mansion House (Cow & Sow) at the corner of Colborne and Francis Streets. Samuel Brokenshire (a well-known Fenelon Falls pump maker) supplied tamarack logs that had been hollowed out to form pipes, and Jackett had the water supply working by July.

At the time it was built, it had been planned as a private venture. Subscribers would purchase keys to operate taps. However, this proved controversial as many village residents thought that the water system should have been free and public, and did not purchase keys. The next year, Jackett connected private properties to the water line, and even provided service south of the waterway by laying pipes on the bottom of the river.

To resolve the controversy over whether the utility should be public or private, village council gave Jackett a grant of $50 for the public use of the tap, then granted another $20 the following year. By the fall of 1898, the village was leasing the water system, and gradually the municipality took over its management. Before long, it became a service that practically everyone took for granted. In time, the tamarack logs were replaced by steel pipes, and Jackett’s system supplied the Fenelon Falls with water for nearly 70 years.

Fenelon Falls was home to the best waterpower in the region, which had been harnessed since the village’s first days to power saw and grist mills. By the 1880s, coal gas street lights were beginning to serve larger centres like Lindsay—electric arc lights were then a marvel. In 1884, the “Greatest Show on Earth” came to Lindsay. Though the main attraction was Jumbo, billed as the world’s largest elephant, the Barnum and Bailey circus showed visitors arc lights powered by a generator. In 1893, many of the wonderful things that electricity could do, notably lighting, was famously demonstrated at the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago.

Until 1890, the Estate of R.C. Smith, who had operated saw and grist mills, owned the Fenelon Falls water power. Since they were no longer milling on site, they leased this valuable right to neighbouring businesses. Findlay McDougall, John H. Brandon and Henry Austin leased ¼ of the water for their grist mill on the north side of the river (later Botany Spinners/Rosedale Furniture). They also took an interest in lighting the village, having the Victoria Electric Light Company install five street lights in 1894—near the Brooks Hotel (George Wilson), between the bridges, at the Mansion House (Cow and Sow), Dr. Wilson’s (Bond & Colborne) and the Methodist (United) Church. The new public service was immensely popular, leading to an expanded system with 30 more lights three years later.

After two fires at J.W. Howry & Sons sawmill on the south shore of the river in 1896 bankrupted the company, the Ontario Bank rebuilt the mill in 1897, perhaps largely to collect the insurance money. It soon closed, and the machinery was sold to outfit a mill at Victoria Harbour in 1898. This made 11/16 of the waterpower available. In July 1899, the Lindsay Light and Power Company began construction of a $75,000 generating station (now the Locker at the Falls) with an 11-foot steel flume, two Sampson turbines and a 400-kilowatt generator, producing three phrase current at 550 volts, which was stepped up to 11,000 volts for transmission to Lindsay.

In 1903, the Fenelon Falls Power Company sold out to the village, and seven years later Seymour Power bought out the Lindsay Power Plant, before becoming part of Ontario Hydro in 1916. For many years, Fenelon Falls was home to hydro-electric generating stations on either side commonly called the Fenelon power plant (north side) and the Lindsay power plant (south side). Though the first application of electric power was street lighting, over the course of the twentieth century, it went from being an expensive luxury residentially, to a necessary service that practically everyone took for granted.

The Largest Sawmill Ever in the Kawarthas – The Largest Fire Ever in Fenelon Falls

In 1892, J.W. Howry & Sons, a large lumber firm based in Saginaw, Michigan purchased timber berths from Mossom Boyd & Company, who were phasing out local operations, largely because standing timber was becoming too expensive. The Howrys began refitting the Fenelon Falls mill with new machinery, and even electric light. For 1896, they increased the annual capacity to about 40,000,000 feet, equal to about 1/5 of all lumber operations tributary to the Ottawa River, and triple Boyd’s former production.

On June 19, 1896 their lumber yard caught fire and soon the flames were jumping from pile to pile. The villagers rallied to try to contain the inferno, fighting desperately through the night. But it was not dark—the fire produced so much light that it could be seen 20 miles away, and W.T. Junkin recalled “you could see to read a newspaper on the Church Hill [across town, now the water tower and Old St. James] at midnight as plainly as in daylight.” By 10 pm Lindsay’s fire brigade and volunteer citizens had arrived by special train, and an hour later the Peterborough engine and fire brigade had joined the struggle. Boyd dispatched Bobcaygeon’s firemen and engine by the steamer Esturion. At this time not all municipalities had a fire engine, and they were not particularly portable.

The volunteers tried to extinguish the fire by throwing the lumber into the river. But then the river caught fire. In the mayhem, a rail car was driven into the river, that divers still find to this day.  When the smoke cleared, approximately $250,000 worth of mill produce had burnt, in an era when being a millionaire was like a billionaire today. The desperate efforts of all the volunteers managed to save the town, and the sawmill—only to see it burn in another fire on September 9.

The yard fire bankrupted the entire Howry firm, which had once been a major producer throughout the Great Lakes region—the second fire, only made them that much further from solvency. Not long after, John H. Howry slipped out of town on a special train, never to be seen again. His famed father committed suicide by drinking morphine on a train in Kansas City, leaving a note explaining that he was ending his life because of his financial troubles. Heritage House (RWH Construction) had been the office of the Howry Company (and its predecessor R.C. Smith) and survives to this day.

At the turn of the century, hockey was a relatively new sport, which was typically played outdoors, on natural ice, with wooden sticks and nothing like the equipment that is taken for granted today. Teams consisted of six skaters plus a goalie—since then the names of the positions have changed. At the time, there was more than one silver challenge bowl named after a politician—the National Hockey League would not be created until 1917. While today, fans watch broadcasts of their favourite NHL team live, at the turn of the century, hockey heroes were typically local personalities—whose exploits might be described in the paper. James Robert Stratton, who served in both the Federal and Provincial Legislatures at different times donated a trophy that teams in the district played for. This hockey circuit would become the Trent Valley Hockey League.

Fenelon Falls iced a great hockey team around the turn of the century, winning the Ontario Championship four times (1896-7, 1897-8, 1898-9, and 1899-1900) and the Stratton Cup twice (1901 and 1905). Pictured here is the 1901 team:

Back: Ceil (Dodger) Deyman (Rover), Herb Deyman (Point), Reginald Sandford (Left Wing).

Middle: Alvin Gould (Goal), R.S. Rowland (Manager), Edward Beteau (Centre).

Front: Charles Corbett (Captain and Right Wing), Bidwell Burgess (Cover Point).

Alvin Gould would become well known for operating a Fenelon Falls Pharmacy (now MacArthur Drug Store) and telephone office. Dodger Deyman’s family operated the village’s furniture and undertaker (at site of Highlands Propane, later became Illman-Platten, then Jardine Funeral Home)

In the early twentieth century, diplomatic relations between European states had been tense, two rival alliances coalesced and an arms race ensued. Then the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne led to a war with Serbia, a continental diplomatic crisis and then a war between the largest European powers. As is often the case during momentous historical episodes, the public perception at the time of what was happening might seem strange in retrospect. It seems that nobody realized how profoundly these distant events would change everyday life.

On August 7, 1914, three days after Great Britain declared war on Germany, in response to the invasion of Belgium, France and Luxemburg, the front page of the Fenelon Falls Gazette was filled with practical farming advice—how to care for poultry, horses and cattle. The newspaper reported, “a despatch from Ottawa says officials of the Department of Finance are inclined to the view that the Austro-Servian war will have no serious effect on economic conditions in Canada.” It also reprinted a column from the Toronto Globe, penned by H.G. Wells that would be quoted decades later, as a reflection of the sentiments of the time:

“At last the intolerable tension is over and Europe is at war. The monstrous vanity that was begotten by the easy victories of 1870-71 has challenged the world. Germany prepares to reap the harvest Count Bismarck sowed—that trampling, drilling foolery in the heart of Europe that arrested civilization and darkened the hopes of mankind for forty years.

German Imperialism, German militarism struck its inevitable blow. A victory for Germany will mean the permanent enthronement of the war god over all human affairs; the defeat of Germany may open the way to disarmament and peace throughout the earth. To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present conflict than the defeat and utter discrediting of the German legions, ending for good and all the blood-and-iron superstition of the Krupp flag-wagging, Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal and sham efficiency that centres in Berlin.

Never was war so righteous as that war against Germany now; never any State in the world so clamoured for punishment. But be it remembered Europe’s quarrel is with Germany as a State, not the German people; with the system, not the race. Older tradition in Germany is pacific, and the civilizing tradition and temperament of the mass of the German people is kindly sane and amiable. A disaster to the German army, if it is not accompanied by such a memorable wrong as dismemberment or intolerable indignity, will mean restoration for the greatest people in Europe to fellowship among the western nations. The role of England in this huge struggle is as plain as daylight; we have to fight if only on account of the Luxembourg outrage; we have to fight, for if we do not fight England will cease to be a country to be proud of. It will be a dirt bath to escape from. But it is not inconceivable that we should not fight, and having fought, then in the hour of victory it will be for us to save the liberated Germans from vindictive treatment, to secure for this great people their right to ‘a place in the sun’ as one united German-speaking State. First, we have to save ourselves and Europe, and then we have to stand between the German on the one hand and the Cossack revenge on the other.”

Many young men and women did answer the call to serve their country. As Wells had written, many did sincerely believe it was their duty to stand against German militarism, and absolutely believed in the righteousness of their cause. Many expected a quick victory. Instead, the Great War would turn into a bloody stalemate, that would profoundly change the world, even as far away as Fenelon Falls. Many young men were killed, many others were never quite the same, either because of physical injuries or the trauma of what they had seen. Horses suffered just as badly. At the same time, the necessities of war led to many technological advancements that would eventually be adopted into everyday life: tractors, airplanes, motorized ambulances and blood transfusions to name a few.

Some anglophile local residents joined British, rather than colonial units, which could lead to faster deployment, into battles with tremendous rates of casualties. Some of the families who were most enthusiastic about doing their duty lost multiple sons. Most local residents were recruited into the 109^th, then later the 252^nd Battalion. These units were never deployed intact, but were broken up to provide reinforcements for other units. Local soldiers took part in many of the most memorable battles on the western front. Fenelon Falls’ list of honour includes 235 servicemen who survived the war and 36 who died. Each village and neighbourhood had their own list. Even for those who did return, life would never be quite the same again.

By early November 1918, it was becoming clear that the German Army was on its last legs and that the Great War might mercifully come to an end. In late September, German General Ludendorff had concluded that the military situation was hopeless. On the night of October 29 to 30, a revolution began, which spread across Germany. Yet, after the war, German military leaders and nationalists would scapegoat the new republic, perpetuating a myth that the army had been stabbed in the back, not defeated.

As had happened in countless other communities caught up in the conflict, many soldiers would never return home, others were wounded, and others would never be the same again. In Fenelon Falls, the Reverend C.S. Lord of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church was one of the most active recruiters when the war began. His three sons enlisted and all reached the rank of Lieutenant. Vernon and McLean joined the air force, which was one of most perilous arms of service—new aces had a life expectancy of 11 days.  Vernon was captured by the Germans after crash-landing behind enemy lines when his engine gave out, but McLean was killed.  The third brother, Arthur served in the army, took shrapnel from a shell in the lungs, and returned to the front before having unsuccessful surgery.  He was sent home as an invalid, then died as a result of his injuries.

Similarly in Bobcaygeon, the Boyd families were strong supporters of the British Army, and their sons enlisted in British rather than Canadian units. W.T.C. Boyd lost both sons who enlisted, Thornton and Herbert, while his remaining son accidentally drowned in Pigeon Lake. W.T.C. died in 1919 of a broken heart.  It was often said at the time that ‘the cream’ of European society died in the First World War. While today many people will find such class perceptions jarring, it was certainly true that the ‘good’ sons, who dutifully did what they were told to do, were disproportionately likely to die. Nobody suffered worse than the junior officers, whose job it was to lead, instilling confidence as their troops set out across no-man’s-land.

At 4:30 am on November 11, 1918, the news reached Fenelon Falls that the dreadful war was finally going to end that day. Even before dawn, the news spread around town and by 5:30, the street party had begun “the ringing of bells and beating of drums soon awakened those that were still sleeping and the streets were soon crowded with hundreds of loud citizens.” By 11 am, programmes for the ceremony that was held that afternoon. “A parade was held in the morning, but the grand parade took place at two o’clock in the afternoon. It was headed by the returned soldiers, four of which were mounted on horseback, after which came the band. Others who took part in the procession were ladies dressed in the costumes to represent the allied countries, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of the boys overseas, the school children in charge of Principal D. Robertson, a couple of fife and drum bands, and a large number of patriotic citizens. It was without a doubt the best parade ever held in the village.”

Since the earliest days of Fenelon Falls, when Anne Langton used her imagination to depict a bird’s eye view of the village, a few inspired artists and photographers had done what they could to see the world from above. Pictures could be taken from the top floors or roofs of buildings. The odd adventurous soul might scale a tower. As photography became commonplace in the 20^th century, ever more images of the village were created—but still capturing the village from above required ingenuity. In 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright pioneered heavier than air powered flight in North Carolina. Aircraft became significant during the First World War and by 1919 commercial flights had begin.

During the Great War, aeroplanes had been used for reconnaissance, to photograph enemy positions and trenches. As the war ended, the potential for aerial surveying was apparent. Shooting an image straight down yielded a perspective that it would take a lot of painstaking measurements to create. Once these images were created and circulated, to see a community from above was a novel experience for people who had lived in the community all their lives, but had never seen it from above. In the years that followed, aerial photography became more and more common. By the 1960s, a great many locations had been shot.

When it was taken in 1919, this original aerial image of Fenelon Falls was very interesting picture because it showed the village in a way it had never seen itself before. Today it provides a unique view of what Fenelon Falls looked liked immediately after the Great War. Fenelon Falls’ island, which today is predominately greenspace was then cabins and a centre of manufacturing activity. The large building just west of the main street on the island had for many years been Frank Sandford’s carriage works and William Henry Walsh’s Woollen Mill. By the time the photograph was taken, both businessmen were nearing retirement age and Walsh was just selling dry goods. Across the road was the Grist Mill. On the north shore of the canal stood the McArthur House hotel (on the west side of the Colborne Street corner) and its livery stable (left). Both the second St. James Anglican church (on the hill) and third (on Bond Street) are visible, as are the United, Baptist and Presbyterian Churches. Just south of the Presbyterian Church, Dr. Hugh Johnstone’s home/office is prominently visible—his son George would continue the medical practice.

Mark Fell grew up near Bury’s Green, his father died when he was young and he joined the military during the Great War to escape his unfortunate situation. He later said that when he volunteered, he had just $1 in his pocket. He served in the 21^st Battalion, near Ypres from 1917 to the end of the War—in time to witness some of the most intense fighting. He was wounded with shrapnel in the left foot, but returned to active duty, and wondered if a shell hole in no man’s land would be his final resting place. While living in the trenches he wrote poetry to capture his sentiments. But he was one of the fortunate soldiers who survived the war and returned to Fenelon Falls.

He invested his gratuity to buy a cement block maker, cement mixer and 6 hp – 1 cylinder Fairbanks-Morse gas engine to run it. Mixing together sand, stone, water and cement, he was very particular about how he mixed each batch to produce high quality cement blocks, from a few forms. At his peak, he would make 60 blocks at a time. By the fall of 1919, he had made enough concrete blocks to cover the initial $1900 investment, and built a large proportion of Fenelon Falls—one block at a time. Examples of his buildings include the Fenelon Theatre, the Fenelon Dairy (Slices and Scoops), Pogue’s Garage (Daisy Mart, Re-max and Pharmasave), Bill Black’s Barber Shop (Fenelon Marketplace) and McFarland’s Store (Diana’s Gift Shop and Greenleaf Cannabis).

Needless to say, it took a very long time to make all the blocks, then lay them to create a building. Mark carried on making blocks until after the Second World War, but then curtailed his operations when Len Jubb started selling them at his building centre located at the Glenarm Road and Highway 35 (Now MR Flooring). Yet, Mark carried on his masonry and carpentry well into the age of commercial cement blocks. He was one of the hardest workers around, and earned a reputation as one of the region’s best builders, often labouring by himself. Not only did he build a significant proportion of downtown Fenelon Falls, but he built many local barns.

At its peak in the nineteenth century about a third of local adult males were employed in forest production. The shanties were full of tall tales of the daring exploits of these (typically young) men and their incredible feats of strength. Some of the wildest stories came on the river drive, which was not an occupation for the faint of heart or anyone who was overly concerned with their own safety. John Langton, himself a prominent gentleman, called them “a light-hearted set of dare devils and the greatest rascals and thieves that ever a peaceful country was tormented with.”

The drive began as soon as the ice broke up—the spring freshet made it far easier to float logs downstream. The waters were frigid and many river drivers could not swim, yet they worked on the logs wearing caulk (pronounced “cork”) boots, with cleats that allowed them to jump from log to log, in what would later be dubbed “the Log Driver’s Waltz.” The men camped on shore as they made their way downstream, guiding the logs past the rapids and waterfalls along the way. Despite their best efforts, every once in a while, a log jam would form—creating a perilous situation. A volunteer cracker would climb out over the logs, pry the key log free, then jump like a squirrel from log to log, hoping to get back to shore before the shuddering mass made its way past the waterfall or rapid. Each cataract has its own cemetery of the log drivers who died in an accident, once marked with wooden crosses, now typically long forgotten.

By the late nineteenth century the virgin pine forests had been cutover. Hardwoods had many uses, but they were more difficult to float downstream than softwoods like pine. Once an area was connected via railways, it made little sense to float logs when they could be loaded on a train car. With the advent of trucks and better roads in the 1920s, the log drives that for many years had filled the Fenelon River became a thing of the past, even as wooden manufacturing remained a large proportion of the local economy. For how important they had once been, few people noticed when the last log drive quietly made its way down the Trent Watershed.

In 1929 the Fenelon Falls Board of Trade planned a spectacular public event that they hoped would help put their community on the map as a tourist destination. The three-day long Monster Carnival, July 10 to 12, featured swimming demonstrations by world champion George Young and Ruth Towers. George Young was an internationally known swimming celebrity, who as a 17-year-old became the first person to swim across the channel between Catalina Island and mainland California. It took him 15 hours and 44 minutes to swim 35 kilometres, which earned him $25,000 and the title, “The Catalina Kid.” He became the world champion marathon swimmer. In the early twentieth century, before there was television or radio, such superhuman feats attracted a lot of attention from print media. Often sports that did not require (much) specialized equipment, were more accessible, hence interesting in that era. Anyone could imagine running, swimming or boxing. Back then, to have a champion swimmer, would be like having Sidney Crosby lead a hockey camp in Fenelon Falls today. Ruth Towers was another well-known marathon swimmer. The last day of the carnival featured another marvel—the world’s largest ox—who could carry eight adults at a time on his back, coinciding with the annual Orange Day Parade.

The carnival also included the Grand Opening of Byrnell Golf Course. It was named for the family who had owned the property for two generations. Richard Byrnell Sr. had farmed with his wife Sarah, while son Richard Jr. developed the property, building many of the cottages that became the Grove (i.e. Grove Road). The property passed in 1923 to Wilfred and Ella Havery (Ella was a Byrnell). While Byrnell Jr. had made his living by developing private cottages, the Haverys recognized that there was also strong demand for short-term vacation rentals as the Kawarthas had become a tourist destination. In those days, many families came to stay at a lodge, renting a room or cabin for a week or two. They built a main lodge adjacent to the farm house, then added the golf course to open coincident with the Monster Carnival.

While the event was headlined by world famous swimmers, there were many activities for visitors to enjoy. Colborne Street was home to a midway with professional equipment. Later on, “a snappy jazz band” played “the latest syncopations” for a street party. In the canal, there were swimming, canoeing and diving competitions, running races, and of course tilting. In this exciting sport, participants stood up in the canoe (sometimes even on the gunwhales), holding a padded wooden spear, each with someone steering their canoe from the stern. It was like jousting, with points awarded:

Forcing opponent to one knee: 5 points

Forcing opponent to both knees: 10 points

Forcing opponent to lose their spear: 10 points

Forcing opponent overboard: 25 points

And if being played with participants standing on the gunwhales:

Forcing opponent to step one foot down: 5 points

Forcing opponent to step two feet down: 10 points

It was not allowed to use the spear as a club or to grab the opponent’s spear

Canoe tilting was always an exciting public spectacle. For those feeling a little less adventurous, there were pillow fights, games of horsehoes and baseball.

Though the Monster Carnival included world class entertainment, the highest attendance was for the July 12 Orange Day Parade, which drew an estimated 12,000 people. “By car, boat, bus and train, people thronged into town from all over the district, and by noon the streets were literally jammed.” In that era, a large proportion of Protestants were part of the Orange Lodge, and July 12 was one of the most anticipated (though controversial) days of the year.  Thirty-six lodges took place in the grand parade, “an imposing spectacle,” which also included ladies in white dresses carrying coloured parasols. The Monster Carnival and Orange Day Parade was an event that Fenelon Falls would not soon forget.

Renamed Allen Wood Products after a 1942 Fire

In 1928, George Allen moved to Fenelon Falls, just as the last log drives made their way down the Trent Waterway and he purchased the old Mickle & Dyment sawmill on the south shore of Cameron Lake (now the Fenelon Lakes Club). He founded the Standard Pattern and Handle Company, making handles for axes, picks, shovels and other tools, as well as patterns for industrial use. During the Second World War, he was shifting production to war items, such as rifle butts and wooden doorknobs (a stopgap measure to allow more brass to be used for shell casings). The company required 100 workers, making it the community’s largest employer.

In 1942, the factory burned, but George rebuilt it as Allen Wood Products. During the final years of the war, George began to manufacture a few wooden toys, and once peace returned in 1945, this part of the business expanded rapidly. In the 1930s, most kids grew up with precious few toys, but after the Second World War, families enjoyed unprecedented prosperity.

Allen Wood Products soon became one of Canada’s leading manufacturers of wooden toys. One of their most popular items was called a bingo bed (today they are sold as pounding benches)—which kids loved, as it often drove their parents crazy! George Allen showed a lot of imagination in dreaming up toys that could be made using the machinery on hand, including figures made from beads (functioning similarly to the plastic action figures that came later), abacuses, hanging crib toys, doll furniture, croquet and baseball bats.

Some of the patterns that Allen Wood Products produced were already marketed in other countries—in that era, multinational corporations were not as prevalent as they are today. For instance, the company produced “Allen’s Canadian Toy Builder,” which later became the Tinkertoy, after the company acquired the marketing rights from the American company A.G. Spalding.

By the 1970s, the toy industry was changing, with the advent of offshore manufacturing. The company did their best to keep going, but then one day the bank showed up to foreclose. “There was no warning or nothing,” recalls employee Don Young. At the time, Tinkertoy was still a healthy franchise, and it remained the village’s largest employer—in that era, many youths got their start at Allen Wood Products. The bank auctioned the factory in 1974, and the next year Ingvar and Maud Skoog reopened it as SwedFurn. They brought back several former employees to make wooden furniture for major retailers like Sears, Simpsons, Hudson’s Bay, Mobilia, Nordic Craft, Scandinavian Design, Eaton’s, Ikea and Idomo.

Steamships began to serve communities in the Kawarthas before railways were constructed. By the late nineteenth century these two modes of transportation made it practical to import and export even bulky commodities, while allowing the region to become a tourist destination. In fact, transportation companies named and branded the region as the Kawarthas in the first years of the twentieth century. However, it would not be long before the large steamship companies like the Boyd Family’s Trent Valley Navigation Company and George Crandell’s line of steamers disappeared.

After 1910, the advent of motor launches and automobiles quickly impacted both railway and steamship lines. Suddenly, people were no longer constrained by the schedules and routes of the transportation companies. To the extent that roads and the waterway were developed, they could decide where and when they wanted to go. Railways were still an economical way of moving freight, but who would take the train if they could drive? Why would you buy a ticket for a steamship if you could drive much faster? How many people would go on a steamship tour, if they could tour around the lake in their motorboat?

As steamers disappeared throughout the Kawartha Lakes region, Sturgeon Point was a notable exception. It was founded as a cottage community by steamship owner George Crandell. Many of its early seasonal residents worked in Lindsay. Though steamships were slower than automobiles, the trip from Sturgeon Point to Lindsay was much shorter via water, than by driving around Sturgeon Lake—especially given the road conditions and vehicles of the 1910s. Captain Charles (Charlie) Gray operated the Lintonia at Lakefield, but soon moved to Sturgeon Point.

The Lintonia left Sturgeon Point at 7 am, stopping at Sandy Point, Greenhurst-Thurstonia and Pleasant Point, so that businessmen could be in Lindsay for 9 am. The return trip departed at 5:15, also carrying freight and mail. The steamer was popular for Sunday School picnics and excursions. Charlie’s wife, Minnie, did the baking to look after the passengers on excursions—for one trip she prepared 27 pies.

By the 1930s, even the Sturgeon Point route was no longer viable. If a passenger could drive, who would buy a ticket for a two-hour steamship commute to Lindsay? When Captain Gray retired in 1931, he became the last steamship operator in the region to offer regular passenger service. The white paddlewheel steamer, which had epitomized Victorian leisure, faded into history. The Gray family, continued to be very important at Sturgeon Point for decades to come. The captain’s son, also named Charlie, helped build or maintain just about every property at the Point. His sister Annie, became the community’s unofficial historian.

Up to the mid twentieth century, a large proportion of the metal goods that families used were made by a local blacksmith. Many crossroads hamlets had a blacksmith shop, and a village like Fenelon Falls would support several metal workers. Whereas today, many people go to the hardware store when they need to devise a way to do this or that, a century ago, many of those conversations would take place at the blacksmith shop, and the local blacksmith could fashion exactly what you were looking for. Some of the most common items fabricated were parts for machines or farm implements and horseshoes.

Dick Bulmer’s blacksmith shop was not just a place to get something fixed, it was one of Fenelon Falls’ most unforgettable social venues. Dick was a local legend, and people would drop by every day to visit. It was smoky, dirty and damp, being located in the livery stable that once served the McArthur House hotel. There was a trough in the corner where people peed. But none of that would dissuade the customary euchre games—often not far from where Dick was grinding or hammering away on his latest fabrication. His chums would be smoking their pipes and having a grand old time. To the old men who had spent their lives working as hard as Dick, the constant hammering would not be irritating—especially for those who were as deaf as a post. Dick would pick up the blackened cards and play a hand or two, then go right back to the forge.

Dick was perhaps the village’s most notorious prankster. Back in those days, many older residents had grown up in an era when there was no radio, let alone Netflix—they made their own entertainment. When someone new came in, Dick would act a little bit quiet, which was out of character for him. Then he would go to the window and pick up and old box, and blow off the dust. He would start telling the story about how his uncle went to war, and all they sent back was this finger. Showing it to them, he would encourage them to touch it, then just as they nervously reached out, the blackened finger would lift up—it was really his own blackened finger, projecting through a hole he cut in the bottom of the box. Some victims would literally run out the door screaming.

The only heat in the shop was the forge and a wood stove, which had benches where people would sit to warm up by the fire. Dick drove nails through the benches, so that the heads of the nails were on the surface of the bench. He took a 12 volt battery from a car, and ran the coil to all the nails, and wired it to a switch under his chair, where he had the best seat in the house for what happened next. When guests, like the local hydro crew, came in and sat down to warm up, he would flip the switch, and they would get a jolt. A natural reaction was to try to stand up by putting their hands down on the bench resulting in another zap, and if they touched each other, they might get yet another shock. As his guests were trying to sort themselves out, Dick was of course laughing oh so hard at yet another successful prank. At home he electrified a little silver book that he would leave out for an unsuspecting victim, entitled Female Sexual Behaviour. He quite enjoyed the day when he successfully pranked his minister’s wife with it.

Having started out during the Great Depression—when he might only make 25 cents a day, being a blacksmith was about the relationships he made with his visitors and customers. Before the introduction of school buses around 1950, many local high school students left their horses at his shop for the day. Garnet Graham learned about Yip Sticks from Dick—and would become as much of a Fenelon Falls icon. Long after he could have retired, Dick continued to work at the forge—for him it was more of a way of life than a way to make money. Few visitors would ever forget their visit to Dick Bulmer’s blacksmith shop.

Joe Handley was an adventurous entrepreneur who found a way to make the marginal lands of Somerville Township profitable. In the early nineteenth century, Somerville had been divided up for agricultural settlement, but as the decades passed, many lots either remained vacant or had long since been abandoned. Farm lots had little value because most families could not make a living on them. Joe would buy lots, cut the timber off them, then use them as pastureland for cattle. He built a business that included a sawmill at Crystal Lake (which later moved to Kinmount—his son-in-law was John Austin), as well as a sawmill and shingle mill in Burnt River.

The Great Depression was a difficult time for the local lumber industry, yet when Fred Chambers decided to sell his Fenelon Falls planing mill, Joe seized the opportunity in 1936. A planning mill would allow Joe to make dressed lumber and to produce finished wooden products, such as mouldings, windows and doors. The next year, he bought a tractor trailer so he could efficiently ship his produce to Toronto. Unfortunately, his new building burned in 1940, but was immediately rebuilt.

When Joe passed away in 1945, the business passed to his wife, Mattie. At the time, a woman running a business would not be treated the same as a man. The banks immediately called all the business’ loans and stickered over the lumber with their own stamps. Their son Ray was outraged to see how they were being treated, tore the stamps off the logs and then went from bank to bank to refinance the business. Only Lindsay’s Dominion bank would back the family.

Up to that point, Ray had driven trucks for the business, but had to switch to overseeing the planing mill in Fenelon Falls. Chester Godwin had also worked as a driver for the company and would work alongside him as a best friend. Whereas his father had been a risk taker, who would not hesitate to take on debt to expand the business, Ray was much more conservative. His sister, Berta Hickey would be the company’s bookkeeper from 1945 to 1992.

Many long-time customers remember the small sales office that once stood beside the planing mill, where Ray and Chester met their customers. They famously used a common men’s leather wallet for keeping all the cash that came in over the course of the day. Raised in an era when people did not watch television or even listen to the radio for entertainment, neighbours gathered to tell stories about people in their community. Before long, it seemed that a great many stories were circulating around Fenelon Falls about Ray Handley. He was certainly memorable. Few people who knew Ray would ever forget him.

The business has significantly expanded over the years. Yet, whereas in Joe’s day, tractor trailer loads of building materials were being produced by the business for sale elsewhere, today the trucks are bringing materials for sale in what is now primarily a retail operation. As the years passed, many products were more economical to produce elsewhere. The company built a showroom around 1980, only to have it burn in 1992. It was immediately rebuilt.

Ray would manage the business until his death in 1999, when it passed to his four sons—Ken, David, Bill and Joe. Today, Ken’s son Chris operates the business, alongside Erick Watson, who is Chester’s nephew. Two Burnt River families, the Handleys and Godwins have been there for each other, as they have worked together for as long as anyone can remember.

On December 18, 1937, Fenelon Falls gathered to witness one of “the most entertaining events ever held here. The kiddies turned out en-mass—more than three hundred and fifty of them and the grown ups forgot their duties and enjoyed themselves as much as the young folk. Streamers of flags were strung across the street and the gay colours of the children’s attire against the background of snow made a pretty picture. … by the time the fire siren announced the approach of the parade everyone was on tiptoe with expectancy.  Santa has chosen a yolk of oxen to drive his sleigh and came at the last of the parade.”  The parade featured Mrs. Claus, Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Dickens and the Duke of Wellington, while “the antics of a camel were one of the funniest features of the parade, and members of the Salvation Army were obliged to stop playing and laugh when it knelt down as it passed through their ranks.” At this first Santa Claus Parade, Santa gave children candy and oranges.

The inaugural event was such a resounding success that its organizers set about turning it into an annual celebration. While the first parade featured floats from four businesses (W.T. Robson, H.H. Moore, Andrew McFarland and Brandon and Gamble’s Hardware), it did not take long for many more members of the community to take an interest in entering the parade. By the 1950s, a great variety of businesses and community organizations were represented in the Santa Claus Parade, and many took the time to create elaborate entries. In 1951, Santa Claus arrived standing on the top of a cube van, sponsored by Robsons, and one float featured a costumed Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall, perched on the roof of a car—imagine the safety concerns about that one today! Another float carried the five little pigs. A few years later, Coburn’s Drug Store exhibited the old woman who lived in a shoe.

By the 1960s, a volunteer committee at the Chamber of Commerce was organizing the Santa Claus Parade. Santa Claus and his reindeer were transported by Ontario Hydro. For many visitors, the marching bands were a primary attraction, headlined by the Kawartha Kavaliers, who often immediately preceded Santa Claus. The bands were typically local, like the Lindsay Kinsmen Band, Sutton Scarletaires, Bobcaygeon Legionnaires, Lakefield Scottish Pipers, McIntyre Pipes and Drums, and of course the Fenelon Falls’ own Salvation Army and High School Bands. Few attendees would forget the Rotary Club’s Hobo Simfunny Band, which consisted of the members dressed in drag.

The Santa Claus Parade continued as a popular annual event, until 1999, when its innovative committee decided to switch to a night time parade. At that time, the name changed to Santa Day. Ten years later fireworks were introduced, reflecting how it had become one of the region’s most spectacular events. Always the last Saturday in November, in 2024, Santa Day marks its 25^th anniversary.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a night out at the Fenelon Theatre was much anticipated event for local families. It often involved stopping in for a treat at Northey’s Restaurant (later J’n B’s), which was located on the opposite side of Colborne Street. With a soft drink and popcorn in hand, families would settle in to watch favourite entertainers like Ma and Pa Kettle, Elvis Presley, and Audrey Hepburn. In a generation when most families did not have television, it was exciting to be able to see a motion picture. “Can you imagine the line-up when the theatre opened?,” Donna Logan recalls.

In 1948, Lou Consky and his father Abe commissioned the Fenelon Theatre—they also owned theatres in Minden and Haliburton. Mark Fell, Joe Gamsby, and Milt Perryman constructed the theatre using brick and handmade concrete blocks. In its early years, high school students often went to the show several nights a week. However, by the late 1960s many families were buying televisions. Early TVs were typically small, black and white, with limited viewing options. Into the 1990s, going to the theatre had a video and sound quality that could not be matched at home. Plus, visitors got to spend time with their friends.

In the twenty-first century, home theatres became commonplace, and with the streaming services available today, operating a theatre has become a challenging business. Long after the theatre had ceased to be an everyday outing for Fenelon Falls residents, it remained a local landmark. Its prominently located marquee was one of the most striking symbols of the village. In 2016, when the building was demolished, Steve Gibson donated the sign back to the community. Today, the sight of a Fenelon Theatre Marquee continues to welcome visitors to the village, after a group of dedicated volunteers found a new home at the Chamber of Commerce, creating as much of a landmark for the boats passing through the Fenelon Canal.

Up to the mid twentieth century, if a student was going to attend high school, their family had to figure out how to get them there. The public school system was based upon having a building within walking distance for all children—hence many one-room schools. But there were not many continuation schools (as high school was then called). It was relatively easy for students who lived in town to walk to continuation school. For many who lived further afield, it simply was not practical to complete secondary schooling.

Today many high school students take education for granted. Children who grew up in rural Ontario before the introduction of bussing, had to make an effort to get an education. Some took the train, but then they might not be able to attend all their classes, because they were at the mercy of the schedule. Some neighbours carpooled, but the roads were not plowed in the winter, so they would have to take horse and sleigh. Some boarded in town. One group rode the Burnt River Express—with students carried in the back of a van. Imagine what the police or school would think of that today!

Around 1950, school bussing was phased in, which allowed Fenelon Falls Continuation School to become the district high school. The continuation schools in Bobcaygeon, Woodville, Kinmount and Burnt River closed, as all the students in north Victoria County were bussed to a central school. At about the same time, winter snowplowing became the norm, which made winter motorized transportation feasible.

Once all the students from north Victoria County were centralized, Fenelon Falls District High School was able to offer amenities that would have been impractical when it had just four classrooms. A series of additions in the 1950s brought an auditorium/gymnasium, and specialized classrooms for science, typing and home economics. By the 1960s, practically any student could complete secondary school, and high school became a normal part of growing up. Just about everyone would make many happy memories of participating in school dances, clubs and sporting events—luxuries that their parents could never have enjoyed.

By the 1960s, the shortcomings of the original Fenelon Falls locks, constructed in the 1880s, were apparent. Made of wood and stone, they required constant maintenance, and the wooden lock gates frequently had to be rebuilt. By the mid twentieth century, the lock gates were steel, supporting a stack of wooden stop logs. To overcome the 24-foot difference between the level of Sturgeon and Cameron Lakes, two locks were needed. The first was located below the Colborne Street bridge, and the second above. When the locks were built, a steel swing bridge facilitated ground and water traffic. When they were constructed, in the age of horse and wagon, the hand cranks that opened the lock gates and swung the bridge were state-of-the-art technology. But by the 1960s, the swing bridge backed up ever longer streams of cars heading north to cottage country. As hydraulic equipment was becoming commonly available, manually opening the lock gates no longer seemed efficient. The time clearly had come for a new design.

Wilf Jackett was contracted to excavate the rock out of the pit. His son George and Garnet Harrison worked two winters loading rock into trucks to be hauled out of the lock. Being such a large job, located so centrally to the village, a lot of people watched and commented on the work being done. Many asked, how would they get the machine out when they were done?

The new Fenelon Falls lock opened in 1963, followed by a concrete bridge two years later. The new Fenelon Falls lock was made of concrete with steel gates—though some of the old stonework was retained at the lower entrance to the canal. A single lift raised boats the entire height, and it was positioned above the bridge, so that boats could readily pass under a fixed concrete span. The new design allowed traffic to flow unimpeded across the bridge, made it much faster for boats to pass through the locks, while vastly reducing the amount of labour needed to operate and maintain the lock. It was also less leaky. Whether by land or water, travelling through Fenelon Falls had become much more efficient.

Up to the mid twentieth century, Fenelon Falls’ island was a centre village activity. It was home to Flett’s Cabins, Lyon’s Motors, the Cenotaph, the old grist mill, a generating station, the Fenelon Falls municipal building, jail and fire tower. The federal government owned the land, and it had been developed on a 99-year lease. It seemed that everyone took for granted that the lease would be renewed. Then in 1961, Parks Canada gave notice to the businesses west of the main street—Flett and Lyon—to vacate, so that the government could transform their lots into greenspace and build a new lock station.

Alex and Gert Flett had retired a few years earlier, selling their business to Cliff Kittle. He hired Ivan Pollard to move the cottages to Front Street in Bobcaygeon. Aub and Lorine Lyon faced a more difficult situation, as their large building was both their business and home. They made verbal arrangements to have the buildings moved, but then the price went up beyond what they could afford. The family was in a difficult situation, as the RCMP was threatening to fine them $1000 a day if they stayed on the island any longer. So, they felt they did not have any choice but to sell the building to the mover for $500. Though Aub and Lorine were getting older, they managed to eventually work their way back to having a home and a business again—though it was very stressful. The cenotaph had already moved to the market square in 1957—which gave more space to gather, rather than being located alongside the main street.

Before the island was cleared, Fenelon Falls’ lock station had been located in a small wooden building, on the north side of canal, just west of the swing bridge. The eviction of the tenants on Fenelon Falls’ island allowed for the construction of a much larger, brick building, that remains in use to this day. Most of the island became greenspace. The buildings on the east side of the main street would remain for another decade.

Byrnell Manor began as a farm operated by Richard Byrnell Sr. and his wife Sarah. Richard Jr. began building cottages on the waterfront that became the Grove (i.e. Grove Road), then the property passed to Wilfred and Ella Havery (Ella was a Byrnell). While Richard Jr. had made his living by building cottages, the Haverys recognized that there was strong demand for short-term vacation rentals, so they built a lodge, Byrnell Manor, adjacent to the farm house. They opened the Byrnell Golf Course to coincide with the Monster Carnival in 1929.

When the Haverys retired to a bungalow next door, they sold Byrnell Manor to Frank and Anna Stukus. Frank was a retired fullback having played 18 regular season and 7 playoff games for the Toronto Argonauts. In 1938, he played defense alongside his brothers Annis and Bill, helping the boatmen win the Grey Cup. Though an injured knee cut his career short, he maintained his interest in sports, and went on to play rugby for the Toronto Indians, before buying that team in 1946.

When Frank moved to Fenelon Falls, he continued to operate Byrnell Manor as a tourist lodge, but it would become best known for its resident summer hockey camps. Many boys grew up listening to Hockey Night in Canada, or even watching on television (until 1968, regular season games were not telecasted in their entirety, the game began on the radio, and television picked up the feed part way through). With the help of his brother Bill, Frank put together many young boys’ dream summer vacation, a “Resident Summer Hockey Camp” where they could learn from their hockey idols.

At the Byrnell Manor Boys’ Camp in 1966, the coach was none other than Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt, who also stood behind the bench for the Boston Bruins. Aspiring young goalies could learn from Ed Chadwick, a former Leaf number one who was then playing for the Buffalo Bisons of the AHL. They had the chance to play with defenseman Pierre Pilote, a future hall of famer, who had won the Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL three seasons in a row from 1963-1965. He was accompanied by another future hall of famer, Allan Stanley, a rock-solid defender who helped the Toronto Maple Leafs to four Stanley Cups, including their last victory in 1967. Other instructors over the years included New York Rangers coach Alfie Pike, Red Sullivan and even MVP Bobby Hull came for one summer. Not only did the boys get to skate with hockey legends, they also got to enjoy all the amenities at Byrnell Manor—the golf course, water skiing, swimming in Cameron Lake and baseball. There was of course a football field, where Frank Stukus could show them a thing or two that he learned during his playing days.

For boys 7 to 17 who loved hockey, there was nothing quite like the Byrnell Manor hockey camp—at the cost of $100 per week. For those fortunate enough to attend, it was an unforgettable summer experience. In the mid 1970s, Frank took a job working for Etobicoke’s Parks and Recreation Department, and became an organizer for the Progressive Conservative Party. In 1977 a joint Bible College and Bible Camp purchased the property, where Rev. Winston and Joan Cross took up residence with their five children. Byrnell Manor was again transformed to accommodate the classes that Shiloh Bible College offered, attracting students from across Canada to pursue a three-year diploma.

In the 1960s, Fenelon Falls residents were very involved in their community. There was a lot of civic and national pride. Many older residents could remember when Great Britain would make far reaching decisions on Canada’s behalf—for instance going to war. Many of the community’s leading citizens were veterans, who had risked their lives for values like freedom. It would be another 15 years before Canada patriated its constitution. Today, many people take government and their country for granted. But in the 1960s, Fenelon Falls residents had a different sense of respect for their country.

As Canada’s Centennial was approaching, a committee formed to co-ordinate celebrations for the village, and practically every local organization took part—imagine having that level of engagement today! Celebrations began at midnight on New Years’ with a service of meditation and praise at the United Church—back then most people when to church. In mid-January, the village gathered for “the great ceremony of the Burning of the Christmas trees,” as the Rotary Club fed the flames for hours with the village’s withering evergreens.

Fenelon Falls’ Thursday (Book) Club sponsored a book week, where children from Fenelon Falls Public School (then located beside the United Church) dressed up as popular book titles: “Alice in Wonderland” (Mary Rose Graham) – “Heidi” (Julie McNamara) – Minehaha (Cindy Stephenson) – “Anne of Green Gables (Marianne McConnell) – “Hiawatha” (Roger McInnis) – “Huckleberry Finn” (Peter Swanson) – “Tiny Tim” complete with crutches (Phil Baker). The Public School also put on pageants, re-enacting the birth of the nation, while the High School made centennial signs. The Curling Club put on a bonspiel, the Anglican Church had a turkey supper, the United Church a Gingham Fair, and the Salvation Army brought in a Toronto band for concerts. The agricultural society put on a display of horses, quilts, home baking and flowers. The Museum hosted a garden party. But the highlight of the centennial was Canada Day.

On July 1 there was a “Monster Parade” with 32 floats, including the Rotary Club’s model of the steamer Wacouta, which even had a steam whistle. The Boy Scouts created a model of the first railway engine in Fenelon Falls. Many of those attending dressed in historic costume, and the attendees could be as much of a show as those participating in the parade on Colborne Street. Imagine the ruckus it would cause today if Colborne Steet were closed on Canada Day for a parade! In the evening, Fenelon Township and Fenelon Falls worked together to put on a fireworks display at Lakeshore (now Garnet Graham) Park. 1967 truly was a year of Celebration in Fenelon Falls.

Up to the 1960s, practically all rural students attended the neighbourhood one-room school. Organized before the advent of the automobile, most townships contained 10 to 15 school sections, so students would not have too far to walk. Students were expected to walk to school, across the fields, even in winter. The teachers were typically young and had to instruct all eight grades at once. Needless to say, they could not spend long teaching the curriculum of any one grade, and much of the time students were working out of their workbooks. For many years, once a female teacher married, she was expected to retire and look her their family. (Back then there were not the household appliances that we take for granted today—it was a lot of work!) Teaching at a one room school typically did not pay well enough to support a family. Often teachers would only stay for a semester, a year or two at a school.  Most one room schools never had running water, though in later years they may have had an indoor toilet—i.e. a hole in the basement floor.

Today, kids take for granted that everyone has access to the same education. The same could not be said prior to the mid twentieth century. Students who grew up in town went to larger schools. In Fenelon Falls, there was a class for each grade. Even in smaller communities like Burnt River and Coboconk, it was typically just two grades that were taught together. They could also offer Kindergarten and a library. There would be a secretary to reduce the amount of clerical work that teachers had to do. Not surprisingly, many young teachers who would make a career out of education transferred to the village schools, and many would never return to a one-room school. On the other hand, one room schools had a sense of camaraderie that village schools could never match. Older students learned to be there for their younger neighbours, and they did make neighbourhoods like families.

Around 1950, snow plowing and school bussing for secondary students became the norm, leading to the consolidation of village high schools into district high schools. Initially, one-room schools carried on, little changed from generations past. Then some neighbouring schools merged their classes—for instance, Grades 1-4 might be taught at one school with Grades 5-8 at the other. The Victoria County Board of Education was created on January 1, 1969, and immediately began the consolidation of the elementary schools. By the end of the year, local one room schools had closed, as students would be bussed to town. The schoolhouses were auctioned and typically renovated to become houses.

Though few doubted that consolidated schools made it much easier to teach and allowed students access to more resources, many neighbourhoods felt the loss of their one-room schoolhouse. At about the same time, many neighbourhood churches were closing as families would drive to service in town—or choose not to attend at all! At about the same time, televisions were becoming widespread, and it ceased to be the norm to spend the evening talking to your neighbours about what your horses and children did that day. In generations past, these small communities had grown as families worked together, at bees, while children would help each other learn at school. These neighbourhoods were like extended families—neighbours were there from each other from cradle to grave. But once the schools and churches closed, the next generation would not grow up with the same sense of community. It would not be long before neighbours no longer knew practically everything that was going on in each others’ lives, and the next generation would not be there for each other in the same way that their parents were. The era when everyone in a neighbourhood shared a common experience soon ended.

Up to the mid twentieth century, Fenelon Falls’ waterfront was the industrial and commercial heart of the village. The island that had been created by the canal was home to a cabin rental business, a woodworking business, a garage, a power plant (Fenelon Falls then had one on each bank), the fire tower, jail, municipal building and the old grist mill. For motorists travelling either direction on the main street, or boaters plying the canal, the massive, four storey stone grist mill was perhaps the most conspicuous building in town.

Fenelon Falls’ great stone grist mill was not as prominent economically as it was visually. The village’s first grist mill was built by James Wallis, who owned the village along with his business partner Robert Jameson. Wallis ran into financial difficulties, and R.C. Smith of Port Hope eventually purchased his mills, along with other property. In 1875, Smith began construction of an adjacent four-storey stone grist mill, to supersede Wallis’ old two-storey mill, but like his predecessor also ran short of cash, causing the work to cease until 1881. It was restarted, but the old Wallis mill continued to operate until its southwest corner suddenly collapsed in 1883, followed by the rest of the building later that month. Litigation relating to Smith’s financial woes, meant that it was not completed in his lifetime. A syndicate (Austin, McDougall & Brandon) purchased in 1896—twenty-one years after construction began—and succeeded operating it until 1917, when it was gutted by fire. But the old stone walls stood firm.

The interior of the mill was rebuilt after the fire and was repurposed many times. Around the 1920s, it was used to make bathtubs of a quality “that left much to be desired.” It was also a leather goods plant, a chopping mill. In 1935, it became home to the Fenelon Falls Garment Company Limited, operated by Emanuele and Aino Restivo. After Emanuele died in 1945, it was purchased three years later by Jack Barrett and Rev. Gosnell, who turned it into the Botany Spinners. About 30 women worked on site, spinning imported wool into skeins of yarn, which were dyed in Lindsay and sold to knitting mills. In 1968, Rosedale Furniture purchased the factory and operated it until another fire in 1970.

For Fenelon Falls residents and firefighters alike, the blaze of April 28, 1970 was unforgettable—it was such a large building, in such a prominent location. For several hours, crews from Fenelon Falls, Lindsay, Little Britain and Bobcaygeon did everything they could to bring the fire under control, but it was a massive four storey building and there was only so much that their streams of water could do when combating such an inferno. By the time the flames were extinguished, the building was thoroughly gutted, but the old stone walls still stood.

For nearly two years after the inferno, the future of Fenelon Falls’ island was debated. The waterfront was owned by the Federal Government, and many of the buildings had been constructed on a lease. Parks Canada was interested in creating greenspace and had already forced the removal of the buildings on the opposite side of the main street—formerly Lyon’s Motors and Flett’s Cabins. In late winter 1972, “a one-ton ball at the end of a crane reduced the stone walls to a pile of rubble,” marking the end of an era in Fenelon Falls. It would not be long until Fenelon Falls’ island became greenspace, and the power plant on the opposite side of the river was reduced in height and reconstructed as a restaurant. Then all of the industry that had once surrounded the falls had ceased. Rosedale Furniture operated for many years on Murray Street (now the Salvation Army Thrift Store). Today, the island contains a new power plant, constructed in the late 1990s, a viewing platform for the falls and gardens lovingly maintained by Fenelon Falls’ horticultural society.

Before the advent of artificial Christmas Trees, by early January, most families were wondering what to do with their conifer shedding its needles. Then someone had the bright idea: What would be more fun than having one enormous community bonfire?

In 1967, “the Great Ceremony of the Burning of Christmas Trees at Lakeshore Park [Garnet Graham]—on a perfect winter evening about 500 people gathered to watch Rotarians and others feed the flames with untold numbers of trees for an hour or more. The children were given free rides in Ski-doos by generous owners. It was amazing how quickly some kids would be unloaded and back up to the ‘boarding station.’ The shyer youngsters didn’t fare so well.”

By the 1970s, Christmas tree burning was a popular annual event, often hosted in conjunction with the Winter Games. Lloyd Kelly is fondly remembered dragging Christmas Trees from all over town, two at a time, to add to the burn pile. Belinda Wilson remembers, “for him it was a challenge to see if he could get more trees down to the park than the garbage guys could do.… I will never forget him running, dragging two Christmas tree by the butt-ends, behind him…. It was non-stop from the time he got up in the morning until his mom called for him to come home for dinner.” For his efforts to keep the village clean, Lloyd Kelly had the park behind the IGA (now Red Apple) named in his honour.

The Great Ceremony of the Burning of Christmas Trees was one of many events associated with the Winter Games that would never be socially acceptable today. The Rotary Club parked an old junker car out on the ice and held a contest to see who could guess when it would plunge through. There were ice floe races—where teams would paddle sheets of ice to race through the gorge. There was an activity at the Fenelon arena where groups of people would ski together on the ice on 2x4s. At the time, the winter games were much loved. But just imagine how people would react today!

In the mid twentieth century, many communities throughout central Ontario took an interest in their pioneer period as the last of the original settlers passed away. Fenelon Falls founded a museum in 1963 in the home of its one of its original proprietors, and when it celebrated Canada’s centennial four years later, many of the events stepped back in time to 1867. By the time the village of Fenelon Falls was preparing to celebrate its centennial in 1974-5, there were still some living memories of the actual event, as there were some participants whose parents would have lived in the village at the time it was incorporated—notably, Alice Hand, whose father E.D. Hand founded the Fenelon Falls Gazette in 1872. Once again, the celebrations would hearken back to the village’s founding moments.

Though 1974 was the actual anniversary of Fenelon Falls’ incorporation, the celebrations were postponed one year due to sewer construction. The festivities took place between May 30 and June 8, with the actual anniversary taken as June 5. The most anticipated event was a parade up Colborne Street on Saturday, May 31, which featured about 60 or 70 floats. Most were historically themed, and some of the spectators also came in period costume. That day, as throughout the celebrations, there were many ladies in long dresses and gentlemen in top hats. Memorable floats included a Fenelon Dairy horse-drawn milk wagon, the Kawartha Steam Club’s traction engine pulling a threshing machine, the Blythe Women’s Institute quilting, livestock, horses with carriages, Hepburn’s horse-drawn Imperial Oil gasoline wagon, and the Bury’s Green Women’s Institute’s entry: “Homemaking! Why Not?” Many of the families participating had been in the area for four generations. Garnet Graham served as the town crier, with his yip sticks, of course!

Many community organizations contributed to making Fenelon Falls’ centennial special. The event began with a game of “football in some style” at the Fenelon Arena between the CKLY No Stars and Lloyd Kelly’s Cataract Colts—at the time Lloyd was a much-loved local personality. A fashion show at the arena featured outfits dating back to the 1870s, including men’s bathing suits (which once were full body woollen). Afterwards the Chamber of Commerce offered a dance. The museum hosted a garden party, featuring the Lindsay Pipes and Drums, spinning, tatting, rug hooking, wool carding and butter making—historian Gladys Suggitt gave daily butter making demonstrations throughout the festivities. Public School students created original artwork, especially of the old bell tower, one of the recently demolished buildings that once stood on Fenelon’s island. The Salvation Army hosted a concert by their Toronto church band, while St. James Anglican Church also hosted a Toronto church choir. The committee hosted a dinner at the arena for everyone in the village who was born prior to 1900, and the Rotary Club facilitated a photograph of the village’s octogenarians.

Fenelon Falls marked the anniversary with one notable infrastructure upgrade—the construction of a water tower on the church hill, north of the former location of the Anglican Church. Since the first Anglican church was erected in 1838, it had been a local landmark, visible in the distance to visitors from the south. The second St. James Anglican Church had burned in 1967 (services had been held at the third St. James chapel since 1902) as Fenelon Falls was celebrating the dominion’s centennial. Then in 1975, as the village celebrated its anniversary, it received a new landmark on the church hill. Building a water tower there was controversial, but in the end, the site was chosen because it allowed for better water pressure. Today many villagers might find it curious that many people once got worked up over this very practical landmark.

When the railway first came to south central Ontario, it literally had the power to reconfigure the landscape. Being a railway hub would virtually guarantee some degree of community development, and several local settlements that were bypassed by the railway became ghost towns. Having a railway was so important economically that both the Village of Fenelon Falls and Haliburton County incorporated so they vote a public subsidy to build a railway.

For the first generation, the Victoria Railway was the fastest and most economical mode of long-distance transportation around. In 1880, travellers could get from Lindsay to Haliburton in 3 hours 45 minutes—it sure beat walking or taking horse and wagon/carriage/sleigh up the deplorable roads of the day. It was only because of the railway that heavy commodities like stone and ice could be sold to distant markets. But everything would change with the advent of the automobile in the early twentieth century.

The first generation of automobiles were notoriously unreliable, and it was not until the 1950s that roads were consistently plowed year-round and sufficiently improved to be comfortable for motorized transportation. Cars were faster than the train, and could go almost anywhere—not just to the nearest train station. Transport trucks had the same advantages of speed and flexibility. By 1960, very few people would take the train and passenger service was discontinued in 1962. Freight was carried on demand until 1978, but then a washout north of Howland Junction cut off the northern end of the route. When the bridge over McLaren’s Creek burned two years later, it was not worth rebuilding.

By the early 1980s, the use of the railway was just recreational. The last trip through Fenelon Falls was on Sunday, August 2, 1981, when the Cherry Street Gang from St. Catherines enjoyed their journey up the line. Soon afterwards the tracks were taken up and sat vacant for a while. Victoria County purchased the right of way in 1991. The Somerville and District Snowmobile Association managed to persuade County Council to turn the former railway into a recreational corridor, as they volunteered to finance the necessary improvements. Today, the Victoria Rail Trail is much loved, and it is used by far more people than ever took the train.

Garnet Graham had an energy and enthusiasm that few other Fenelon Falls residents could match. He was the town crier, he played Santa Claus, he served on village council, he was a very active Rotarian, and he was Mr. Yip—the personality that so many visitors to Fenelon Falls would never forget. Garnet took a simple magic trick, and turned it the most popular souvenir of Fenelon Falls—a popularity that was largely the result of how special he made it while demonstrating. Yip sticks (or whammy diddles) exist around the world, but there was only one Mr. Yip—Garnet Graham.

Wherever he went, in Kinmount, Fenelon Falls, Cobie or Minden, Garnet Graham would draw a crowd. His sidekick, Bobby Beau, was a dog that could add, multiply and climb trees. Few who had seen them perform together would ever forget it. Garnet would sell a “Three Piece Chicken Dinner” for a dollar—the buyer soon found out it was a dinner for a chicken. He peddled the actual water that Champlain paddled on—bottled straight out of the tap, Champlain did paddle through the Kawarthas after all. He’d demonstrate how to hook an elastic with the “Goes-Into”—when in reality there was no elastic. Through all of these magic tricks, he spread a lot of joy and raised money for countless local charitable causes.

In 1986 Fenelon Falls Reeve Barclay Taylor renamed Lakeshore Park as Garnet Graham Park. It was a fitting tribute, because his Yip Stick money had helped develop the park into the community space that so many people knew and loved. He was also a very active part of the Rotary Club as they worked towards the same goal. Garnet Graham spent so much time at the park, for a generation he was the personality animating the park. Living next door, countless kids would stop at his garage to enjoy learning his magic tricks. To visit the park today, is in many ways to see Garnet Graham’s dreams come true.

In July 1987, Fenelon Falls Reeve Barclay Taylor and the Chamber of Commerce arranged the Kawartha Challenge, a hot air balloon competition. The event would be something new that the community had not seen before, and it would be a great way to bring people to the village. It included midway rides, a musical performance by Brian Switzer, a pancake breakfast at the Fenelon Falls Legion, along with both bikini and sunshine boy contests—it was the 1980s after all! But the sight that few locals would soon forget was the balloons floating gracefully over the village.

A hot air balloon show was a big production that required plenty of volunteers. Twenty-four safety boats patrolled Cameron and Sturgeon Lakes, with at least two crew members in each vessel, just in case a balloon ran out of fuel over the water. Seventy more volunteers served as the ground crews, to help out where the balloons landed. Another fifty volunteers were the event crew on site at the fairgrounds. Visitors there could go up in a tethered hot air balloon, to safely have the experience of flying. The Fenelon Agricultural Society was on site serving beef on a bun—popular event fare in that era.

The event attracted twenty-two competing pilots, including local entrant John Adams. Owen Keown of California was the overall winner—but none of the pilots won the major prizes for specific achievements: a Jaguar replica, a Confederation Log Home, a Jeep, a motorcycle and a boat. John Williamson won the draw for a champagne balloon flight over the village on Sunday evening. At the Lions Club Sunshine Festival, Brian Beukeboom of Lindsay was the winning sunshine boy, while Karen Abbott of Fenelon Falls won the bikini contest.

As the first event was being planned, there had been talk of turning the Kawartha Challenge into an annual event, but it fell victim to sky high expectations. The anticipated attendance was 50,000 people and the organizers had been ready for that many people to come. When the estimated attendance was 18,000 people, it came as a disappointment, though it was still a very large event for the community. Many of the organizers were coping with the excess food and material. Though it would did not become an annual event, many people would cherish the memory of the day that the balloons came to Fenelon Falls.

Fenelon Falls’ Winter Carnival of the 1960s and 1970s was a popular annual event, featuring many memorable activities around town: the annual Christmas tree burning event, ice floe races, dances and who could forget broomball with Lloyd “Cannonball” Kelly. The event organizers made him a giant goalie stick from an appliance box, so that there was no way that anyone was going to score on him, and “Lloyd won every game he ever played.” Though the event was much appreciated in its heyday, it lapsed for many years.

In the mid 1990s, Carl Quaranto, Vera and Dr. Martin Young were looking to find a way to help Fenelon Falls beat the February blahs, and agreed that a community festival was the way to go. A committee soon formed, which looked back on the fun that the community had in the 1970s. Some of the popular activities, like pairs skating on 2x4s would no longer be considered safe. Others like broomball would be just as much fun in the 1990s. The committee wanted to make sure that everyone could win a medal, and the word was soon out on the street that “you can eat your way to a medal!” at the many church dinners. Ellie Arscott designed a logo and Erick Watson named the mascot Feneguin.

The inaugural Fenelon Falls Old Fashioned Winter Games took place on February 10-19, 1995. It featured a broomball tournament behind J’n B’s, a Valentines dance at the Legion, a karaoke contest at Taggart’s Landing (now the Fenelon Inn), a hockey tournament, the Penguin Ball, the Lumberjack Olympics and many church dinners. One of the most memorable events was the Celebrity Chili Cook-Off, where many locals brought their favourite recipe for their friends and neighbours to try. Drs. Martin Young and Paul Dickson won with their “Brand X” chili. Teams competed in the bed races, running down the hill on Colborne Street to the stoplights.

In the years the followed, the event evolved as the committee came up with many creative new activities. Local accountant Peter Shennett had once carried the Olympic torch, and organizers thought this was a great way to open the festivities. They modified his Olympic torch, and kept a flame burning on the island, near the waterfall. Scotty McGhee organized Tug-A-Truck for 1997—as teams would tow Fenelon Falls’ antique fire truck southwards on May Street. Over the years, new activities would include snow volleyball, bowling, shuffleboard bingo, sleigh rides, golf, a birdfeeder competition, badminton, the Loonie Olympics, a wine and cheese party at Wine Not? and a silent auction. The committee started to sell Winter Games themed clothing. Rick Hughes and Belinda Wilson wrote a song about the winter games. Though it was still a popular event, after ten years, the committee decided that the time had come to wind up the Old Fashioned Winter Games, so they donated the remaining money to Langton Public School and Fenelon Falls Secondary School to give scholarships for volunteerism and community service.

Many nights over supper, Marg Allen would talk with her daughter Kathy Arscott about how nice it would be to write a history of the village of Fenelon Falls. As Fenelon Falls’ Librarian from 1977 to 1993, Marg was someone who loved books, and knew a lot of people in the village. She had already helped to compile a history of Fenelon Township.

After she retired as librarian, Marg had more time to work on community projects. Having been an avid stamp collector since she was a girl, she and Kathy started to collect local postcards—which would help to illustrate the book. They decided to organize the book as a series of short histories of different properties in the village that were open to the public. It would be a lot of work to go around and talk to the owners and former owners of each business; along with everyone who helped community organizations to operate. Over several years, Marg, Kathy and Caroline Fenelius-Carpenter compiled each of the short stories. Countless people volunteered their time, sharing their stories and going through their photo albums, as the community worked together to write a history. The book came together just in time for the village’s millennium celebrations.

The original edition of Fenelon Falls Then and Now was much appreciated, and received minor updates in 2001. But it did not take long for the village to change significantly. Within a few years, many businesses had come and gone, and Marg began to talk about how nice it would be to update the book. Marg passed away in 2019, but in her memory, Caroline, Kathy, Belinda Wilson, Anne and Bob Gamsby updated each of the entries, for a 2020 edition.

Fenelon Falls Then & Now (2020) is available at the Fenelon Falls Public Library.

Fenelon Falls became a municipality to bring the railway to town. By the time the village was celebrating its 125^th anniversary, the railway had become a recreational corridor. Municipalities had come to focus on roads and providing recreational services to their communities. Long gone were the days when local government had to be within walking distance, because there might not be any other way to travel to meetings. Municipalities throughout Ontario were amalgamating.

The village of Fenelon Falls was a lot like a family. Many decisions were made at Reeve Roger Bellwood’s garage. If a local resident wanted to raise an issue, they could drop by Memory Lane Motors and talk it over with Roger, no appointment needed. Everyone involved in running the village knew each other well, and much of the work was done by volunteers.

There were often public discussions about whether it would be better to amalgamate municipalities. Would it then be more economical to maintain and plow roads? Then in 1995, Mike Harris became Premier of Ontario and his Common Sense Revolution required fundamental changes in the relationship between the province and municipalities, as services were downloaded onto municipalities, as funding was cut. Municipalities were told to amalgamate or the province would do it for them—and it may have been inevitable in any case. Could each little municipality afford to pay all the services that were downloaded onto them, like policing, on their own?

The municipalities of Victoria County did not manage to agree on a plan to amalgamate and the province appointed Harry Kitchen as commissioner, instructed to draft an order that would create a new municipality. He decided on a single tier municipality, the City of Kawartha Lakes, which came into being on January 1, 2001. It was extremely controversial, leading to a non-binding vote on a minister’s question, where the majority of local residents voted to deamalgamate. But the province did not act on the popular will.

In December 2000, Fenelon Falls Council met for the last time. Wayne Hutchinson recalls that it “was sad or bittersweet.… We knew it was all over.” There was practical business to do, disbanding committees so the new municipality could create its own committees. “We had a farewell cake, and said to each other, ‘it’s been good knowing you.’” The government of Fenelon Falls had been close-knit, and “we really did stay in touch.” Though they no longer worked together on council, many of the former councillors and employees continued to volunteer together, supporting community organizations, as they continued their work of trying to make Fenelon Falls better for the people who lived there.

After the last trip up the Victoria Railway in 1981, many people wondered what would become of the line and its buildings. Around 1983, the rails were taken up, and then the Village of Fenelon Falls purchased the old station. By then the building was getting a little run down, so it was restored by the municipality, including the installation of a cement block foundation in 1988—previously, the station sat at ground level to accommodate luggage and freight carts.

The old train station was repurposed as the Chamber of Commerce. When the train had been the principal mode of long-distance travel, many visitors’ first stop in the village was the station. As the Chamber of Commerce, visitors still stopped at the station for tourist information about which sites to see in Fenelon Falls. It was an interesting starting point for the Chamber’s village tours. However, it was a long way from the Fenelon Locks, and was not a convenient location for boaters. In 1999, the Chamber of Commerce moved to the corner of Water/Oak and May Streets, facing the canal.

In 1991, Victoria County purchased the abandoned rail line, and many expected that the municipality would sell the land to adjacent property owners and reap the windfall. The Somerville and District Snowmobile Association instead proposed to create a recreational corridor. The political issue became financial, but when the snowmobile association offered to pay to replace the McLaren’s Creek Bridge, it allowed the project to go ahead, creating the Victoria Rail Trail.

Since the Chamber of Commerce had vacated Fenelon Station, local artists were looking for a location to exhibit and market their works. In 2005, an artists’ co-operative opened the Fenelon Station Gallery and gift shop. Since then, many local artists have exhibited their art there. In 2023, the building was once again refurbished, while retaining the historic appearance of a railway station. On July 14, 2024, the co-operative celebrated the 150^th anniversary of the Victoria Railway and the rejuvenation of Fenelon Station.

Fenelon Falls’ first arena was built in the 1890s at a site which has since become the Post Office parking lot. Superseded by a much larger wooden structure at 45 Bond Street West, this second arena had become antiquated by the 1960s. The community rallied together, donating the money to build a cement block arena in the late 1960s—one dinner raised $13,000 and a door-to-door campaign another $15,000. Many local residents volunteered to work on replacing the arena.

Though the new cement block building had been intended to be a permanent solution, it tended to mould. Each year, Garnet Graham raised the money to repaint the arena, but no one had a way to get the mould problem truly under control. Though they had been adequate for the 1960s, by the late 1980s, the dressing rooms were small, scarcely able to accommodate the minor hockey teams of the day. The largest dressing room (#4) had a cement block shower, that was mouldy, with a drain that could not keep up with the influx of water. It would fill up until it overflowed the cement block designed to retain water, then ran to the drain at the centre of the dressing room floor. Minor hockey players would race to be the first one into the shower. The building was also not accessible and it was evident that something had to be done to build a new arena.

In 1990, the Rotary Club of Fenelon Falls raised $5000 to commission a study to determine the level of support, which found “overwhelming” interest in having a new arena. Gord Innes, a longtime member of the Rotary Club, recognized that the village did not have a community centre that was large enough to host a wedding, show or public event, and strongly advocated for building a community centre. In 1991, the Fenelon Area Community and Recreation Centre Committee Inc. formed, to design the arena and raise the funds needed for its construction. Fenelon Falls Reeve Roger Bellwood joined the committee and would become its chair. For many years, he was a tireless advocate for the project.

On August 3, 1993, Fenelon Township agreed in principle to provide land adjacent to the village’s Tennis Courts for the new arena, subject to the agreement of the Fair Board. In 1994, the village of Fenelon Falls agreed to lease the right to construct a hydro-electric plant at Fenelon Falls to Consolidated Hydro Limited, creating a fund to improve the lives of village residents. Though controversial at the time because it reduced the flow of water over the falls, it would contribute $1,000,000 to the arena in 2007. In the meantime, the committee hosted street dances, sold Nevada tickets and put on an Elvis Presley tribute show to raise money for the arena and community centre. As had happened when Fenelon Falls was building a new rink in the 1960s, many local residents and businesses gave generously. In 2001, Fenelon Falls and Fenelon Township were amalgamated into the City of Kawartha Lakes.

In 2002, the Recreation Centre Committee hired RAI Architects to plan the facility, which included an arena, curling club and community centre. In the years that followed, they secured approvals from the City of Kawartha Lakes. On March 8, 2011, Norlon Builders London Limited was the lowest bidder for the tender to construct the arena at $6,950,000 plus HST—allowing work to finally begin two decades after the project had been initiated. The City of Kawartha Lakes, Government of Canada and Province of Ontario all contributed equally to augment the funds that the committee had raised.

On October 23, 2012 the new facility officially opened. Because Gord Innes had advocated for so many years to construct a community centre, the committee secured approval for it to be named in his honour. The arena was named after the late Roger Bellwood, who had led the project for so many years, but passed away in 2009, before it could be completed. The arena included an NHL sized rink with seating for 280, while the community centre was designed to accommodate 350. It is a fully accessible facility. The old Fenelon Falls Arena was demolished in January 2016. Though the new facility was officially named after two volunteers who spent years advocating for the project, the City of Kawartha Lakes has largely discontinued the use of the official names, simply calling the building the “Fenelon Falls Community Centre.” The municipality has not responded to requests to have a storyboard at the arena to remember the volunteers guided the project to completion.