Author’s Note–I read this wonderful essay on Facebook today by Wesley Parsons and he has graciously allowed me to share this with you. I also found some great postcards of Carleton Place also on an auction site that I posted along with the essay. Thank you Wesley!
Canada Day in CP is always a hustle bustle kind of day. When the sun is shining and the weather is right, there are thousands down at the park. This year was no exception, the rains slowed it down a bit here and there, but overall, a great day. My son is 12 now and has recently claimed all of Carleton Place as his biking home turf. He’ll leave from our place over near Notre Dame High School and head to Arklan or to friends on Mississippi or Crampton, or wherever. He’ll explore the town with his friends and come home with tales of discoveries.
“We found a path that was dirt and went for miles and it came out, and we were still in town.”
When I was young, that’s how the town was, all of it was home, not just our street, or our neighborhood but the whole town. Heck, at least once a summer we’d bike the back roads to Almonte for an Ice cream at Peterson’s. Folks say it was ‘safer’ back then and ‘smaller’ and a ‘different time’, but now I’m not so sure.
My boy was supposed to check in after being gone for 3 hours on Canada Day and at the agreed on time, I drove down to the park to find him. After 40 minutes of hunting around, getting madder by he minute, I gave up and came home. I decided he could peddle his butt home. (the fact that he was home when I got here did not improve my mood but hey, at least he was home).
Arvilla Moore at Lake Park in 1920’s.
At first my wife was concerned, and we had a big talk with him about checking in on time and safety. After awhile I got to thinking about it–even though I spent 40 minutes searching for him around that park and never found him–I did find 8 people that knew who he was, what he looked like and had seen him several times already in the past couple hours, and at least that many who said they’d let him know i was looking for him when they saw him next.
My point is this, our town is getting bigger, our numbers are getting bigger, but if you stay connected and just be friendly to people, it’ll always have that small town feel, that ‘home turf’ safety feeling that we grew up with. Thanks CP!
Author’s Note–Keep smiling Carleton Place and come and smile July 9th at the Carleton Place Farmers Market. You might win a prize! As Wesley said- let’s stay connected and just be friendly with people.
Looking at the lack of snow in this photo it looks like it could be this year. It is, in fact, the early 1900’s. This picture was taken at George Mather’s Sugar Camp near Middleville, with Elva Mather, George Mather, Evan Craig and Robert Nairn.
Here in Canada, where we’re partial to everything from maple bacon to maple glazed salmon, maple (usually maple walnut, to be exact) ice cream to maple flavoured popcorn.
April 9 1897–Sugar and syrup making have been excellent the past ten days. Large quantities of syrup have been brought into the village for sale from 7oc. to $1 per gallon
Sandy Iwaniw –When I was a kid, we made syrup in a sugar shack just like the one in the picture from the 1900’s. Once the sap was boiling we had to stay up to stoke the wood stove with wood which meant sometimes we were up all night helping dad. We had no hydro at the sugar shack and used kerosene lamps for light. I remember looking forward to this every year even though it felt like hard work for a kid. I loved to lead the work horses back with the vat of sap to the sugar shack.
( Photo- Ted Hurdis-Ted said: “In front of the falls in Almonte 1920. My grandmother Lillian Blakeley holding the baby , her sister Mae to her right (Mae Mulvey) great gramma Collison front holding my mother Grace hand”.)
A selfie isn’t fundamentally about the photographer’s relationship with the camera, it’s about the photographer’s relationship with an audience. In other words, selfies are more parts communication than self-admiration (though there’s a healthy dose of that, too) Our local museums love getting old photographs because sometimes you can see what the past was like in the backgrounds of these pictures.
I have been a groupie of many things through my life– lately, it is the historical photograph and recordings of Charles Dobbie.
Photos of a Fair, at Balderson, Ont., c. 1912. Charles Dobie-https://www.ontariohistory.org/fair.htm
The photographs below are from the Dawson Kerr collection in the Perth Museum, Perth, Ont. Mr. Kerr was raised in in the village of Fallbrook, Ont., just a couple of miles north-west of Balderson, where this fair was located (see Don McGregor’s email to me below). I had previously speculated on this website that the location of the fair was Fallbrook, but Don McGregor has set the record straight. The two photos show different views of the same crowd.
On Sept. 29, 2005 I received an email from Donald McGregor, who grew up on his grandfather’s farm which is shown in these photographs. I’ve combined his original email with two others of October 17 & 18, in which he answers my question about the fate of the original Balderson Presbyterian Church. He says in part:
” . . . The second complete set of photos is definitely identified as taken place at Balderson. The location is on the farm of James C. McGregor, presently occupied by James C. McGregor a great-grandson, and Howard J. McGregor a grandson.
The fair was set up with the tents just south of the present barn built in 1948, along side the Lanark Road (Hwy 511). I grew up in Balderson on this farm — Donald C. McGregor b. 1941.
The building on the extreme right of the panoramic view is a machine shed which was once the original Balderson Presbyterian Church built about 1839 and moved to this location . . . by my grandfather J. C. McGregor.
The “Old Church” as it was called in my farm days was moved to the very spot where the School Fair tent was located. The new Presbyterian Church was officially dedicated Sept 1904, although the old church was located temporarily close to the original location. It was therefore moved to the McGregor farm 1905. It remained as a machine shed for about 65 years until it was moved from the roadside location to an adjoining field in 1970. It remained there until it was torn down in July 1975. I was there the day that it was pulled down by chains from a tractor. Ironically, the morticed joints assembled by the earliest Scottish Presbyterians in 1839, sturdily held in place, and only after several attempts did the frame finally succumb and was pulled to the ground. Howard McGregor and his son Jim were responsible for moving and relocating and demolition.
The windmill as seen over the top of the barn, that part which is still standing at the east end of the barn beside the road, was installed in about 1912 ???
In the Perth Courier, there was reference to a prize list from this fair which I would believe included schools from the Bathurst and Drummond Twps. My uncle Neil McGregor participated in this fair and won a prize. He was born in 1901, and if attending this school would have been 10 – 11 years old.
(Quoting an) article from the Perth Courier re: School Fair at Balderson 1912 & 1913. Ten school sections were represented at the fair which probably included the schools of Bathurst and Drummond. The Balderson School was a union of both Bathurst and Drummond. In 1912 Neil McGregor won a prize for potatoes and in 1913 he placed 4th with another pupil for an oratorical presentation “Stick to the Farm”. Ironically it was Neil’s brother John (b. 1899) who was to be the farmer while Neil worked for a bank in Montreal.
The elm trees are evident in the photo. These trees lined the west side of the Lanark Road (Hwy 511) in front of the McGregor property. At one time there were close to 20 stately elms which must have been planted mid 1800’s. Several were gone before the 1940’s and the last was removed in the 1970’s for widening of the road. Also Dutch Elm disease had taken its toll, and wind storms. “
Balderson Photos 2015—Linda Seccaspina
photograph of a fair, Balderson, Ont. 1912—Second photograph of a fair in Balderson, Ont. The windmill seen over the top of the barn was installed c. 1912.
A selfie isn’t fundamentally about the photographer’s relationship with the camera, it’s about the photographer’s relationship with an audience. In other words, selfies are more parts communication than self-admiration (though there’s a healthy dose of that, too) Our local museums love getting old photographs because sometimes you can see what the past was like in the backgrounds of these pictures.
I have been a groupie of many things through my life– lately, it is the historical photograph and recordings of Charles Dobbie.
Photos of a Fair, at Balderson, Ont., c. 1912. Charles Dobie-https://www.ontariohistory.org/fair.htm
The photographs below are from the Dawson Kerr collection in the Perth Museum, Perth, Ont. Mr. Kerr was raised in in the village of Fallbrook, Ont., just a couple of miles north-west of Balderson, where this fair was located (see Don McGregor’s email to me below). I had previously speculated on this website that the location of the fair was Fallbrook, but Don McGregor has set the record straight. The two photos show different views of the same crowd.
On Sept. 29, 2005 I received an email from Donald McGregor, who grew up on his grandfather’s farm which is shown in these photographs. I’ve combined his original email with two others of October 17 & 18, in which he answers my question about the fate of the original Balderson Presbyterian Church. He says in part:
” . . . The second complete set of photos is definitely identified as taken place at Balderson. The location is on the farm of James C. McGregor, presently occupied by James C. McGregor a great-grandson, and Howard J. McGregor a grandson.
The fair was set up with the tents just south of the present barn built in 1948, along side the Lanark Road (Hwy 511). I grew up in Balderson on this farm — Donald C. McGregor b. 1941.
The building on the extreme right of the panoramic view is a machine shed which was once the original Balderson Presbyterian Church built about 1839 and moved to this location . . . by my grandfather J. C. McGregor.
The “Old Church” as it was called in my farm days was moved to the very spot where the School Fair tent was located. The new Presbyterian Church was officially dedicated Sept 1904, although the old church was located temporarily close to the original location. It was therefore moved to the McGregor farm 1905. It remained as a machine shed for about 65 years until it was moved from the roadside location to an adjoining field in 1970. It remained there until it was torn down in July 1975. I was there the day that it was pulled down by chains from a tractor. Ironically, the morticed joints assembled by the earliest Scottish Presbyterians in 1839, sturdily held in place, and only after several attempts did the frame finally succumb and was pulled to the ground. Howard McGregor and his son Jim were responsible for moving and relocating and demolition.
The windmill as seen over the top of the barn, that part which is still standing at the east end of the barn beside the road, was installed in about 1912 ???
In the Perth Courier, there was reference to a prize list from this fair which I would believe included schools from the Bathurst and Drummond Twps. My uncle Neil McGregor participated in this fair and won a prize. He was born in 1901, and if attending this school would have been 10 – 11 years old.
(Quoting an) article from the Perth Courier re: School Fair at Balderson 1912 & 1913. Ten school sections were represented at the fair which probably included the schools of Bathurst and Drummond. The Balderson School was a union of both Bathurst and Drummond. In 1912 Neil McGregor won a prize for potatoes and in 1913 he placed 4th with another pupil for an oratorical presentation “Stick to the Farm”. Ironically it was Neil’s brother John (b. 1899) who was to be the farmer while Neil worked for a bank in Montreal.
The elm trees are evident in the photo. These trees lined the west side of the Lanark Road (Hwy 511) in front of the McGregor property. At one time there were close to 20 stately elms which must have been planted mid 1800’s. Several were gone before the 1940’s and the last was removed in the 1970’s for widening of the road. Also Dutch Elm disease had taken its toll, and wind storms. “
Photos from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum–Explore Ontario by Bike- Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum –these postcards below are also available for sale on the Delcampe Auction site.
lindaseccaspina 