Kinmount Gazette
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Kinmount Gazette KINMOUNT GAZETTE COMMITTEE A SUB-COMMITTEE OF THE KINMOUNT COMMITTEE FOR PLANNING AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Winter Blahs? Not in Kinmount! Winterfest and Loonie Auction Photos NEIGHBOURS AND FRIENDS 2 HUNTERVILLE 3 MYTH BUSTERS 6 KINMOUNT KIDS 8 SPOT THE SHOT REVISITED 9 THE HOT STOVE 11 EDITORIAL 15 Clockwise from top left: Kayla Burke and Brandi McNish show off their flag; Brittany Day in her winning card- board sled; Victoria Pony Club Members at Loonie Auc- tion; members of the Royal Canadian Legion Colour Party at Winterfest opening ceremonies; 5 and under par- ticipants in the best decorated cardboard toboggan con- test; Loonie Auctioneer Doug Pearson hoists a bottle at the Pony Club/Gazette fundraiser. Kinmount Gazette Friends and Neighbours: Victoria Road The small hamlet of Victoria Road wanted to extend the Victoria ern half of Victoria County! Main Street Kinmount is located just north of High- Road all the way to Manitoba! After the decline of lumber- way # 48 east of Kirkfield. The arrival of the Railway ing, Cattle ranching became Kawartha Credit Union is a The hamlet grew up at the brought a boom to Victoria the #1 industry. The Carden full-service financial point where the Toronto – Road. The village became the Plains is a flat, alvar with a institution with Nippissing Railway crossed centre for a surrounding dis- thin covering of soil over 19 branches the Victoria Colonization trict as business gravitated to limestone that produced fine in North and Road. The village was located the rail station. Within a dec- grazing grass. Victoria Road East-Central Ontario on the corner of 3 townships: ade, the village contained 5 was the shipping depot for from Trenton Bexley, Eldon & Carden. The General Stores, 3 Hotels, 3 local ranchers. to Victoria Colonization Road Livery Stables/Blacksmiths, a But times (and the economy Parry Sound. was part of the colonization huge grist mill, several saw- of North Victoria County) roads settlement scheme of mills, 2 Churches & several changed. Lumbering disap- the 1860s. The Bobcaygeon other service shops including peared as the forests were ATM available 24 hours Colonization Road (which ran an undertaker & a doctor! It through Kinmount) was so also featured an Orange exhausted. Farming in the thin 705-488-9963 successful, communities all Lodge, Masonic Lodge and a soils of North Victoria was over the area attempted to Carnegie Library! Victoria precarious at best and the poor replicate its success in their Road was actually larger than farms were gradually aban- and Victoria Road became a own corners of the Ottawa- both Kirkfield and Coboconk doned. Farmers fled to newly- village “off the beaten track”. Huron Tract. The Victoria in the 1800s. It boasted a fine opened Western Canada after Colonization Road started Town Hall and was the home Victoria Road settled into a long the 1890s. Mining, including between Lindsay & Oakwood of the North Victoria Agricul- decline until the hamlet ap- and ran straight north to an tural Fair. Victoria Road was the nearby Raven Lake Ce- proached “ghost-town status”. unresolved terminus some- considered to be the most ment Plant, also disappeared. Today, all the businesses are where in Northern Ontario. prosperous town in the north- The Railway was abandoned gone, with one exception and Several dreamers in the area Raven Lake Cement Company Midway between Victoria River allowed for a steady The next morning, all that Road and Corson’s Siding lies supply of electricity that was remained was a pile of ashes Raven Lake. The bottom of brought to Raven Lake by on the floor and a hand print this small lake contained a transmission line. Initial tests burned into the concrete floor. bed of marl; fine limestone of the marl deposit were dis- But alas, all good things must used to make cement. The appointing (it had too high a come to an end. In 1914, a arrival of the Toronto- lime content), but after further free trade deal with the USA Nipissing railway meant this exploration, more suitable allowed cheap American ce- deposit could be easily ac- material was discovered in an ment to undercut the Raven cessed for the production of adjoining swamp & the opera- Lake brand & the plant cement. In 1902 the Raven tion took off. At its peak, the closed. Time slowly de- Lake Portland Cement Com- plant produced 700 barrels of stroyed the traces of this pany was formed. A large kiln cement per day! Four 100’ plant, with the last vestige, the was built at Raven Lake to kilns were used round the steel roof beams, being sold process the marl. Clay was clock & 30 men were em- to Haliburton for the erection brought in by rail from Bea- ployed. The cement was sent of a rink in the 1930s. The verton. In order to process the to Toronto to feed the grow- Elliott Falls power plant was the Elliott Falls plant was cement, a large supply of ing city with concrete. kept operating for a few reopened and now provides electricity was necessary. The Raven Lake plant was not years, selling hydro to Kirk- hydro once again. In an era of Hence the company con- without its tragedies. Two field & surrounding towns increasing power demands, structed its own hydro-electric men were electrocuted in its (Norland, the closest centre Ontario Hydro is once again plant at Elliott’s Falls on the power station within a year. already had its own power examining the “small sites” Gull River north of Norland. The first worker accidentally plant.) In 1928 Ontario Hydro that served power generation A fall of 21 feet on the Gull touched a high voltage trans- purchased the plant & literally in the past. Today, every little former during a night shift. mothballed it. In the 1990s, bit helps. Kinmount Gazette Kinmount Village Part 1: Hunterville In the previous edition of the growth in the northern half of east side of the lot, the Hunter St, on the west side of the old Gazette (volume 2, issue 4), town, to be called section accessed by the cemetery. The old Bobcaygeon Road the lead story dealt with the “Bakerville”. The story of Bobcaygeon Road. crossed Dunbar’s Creek on Hunter St. Founding of Kinmount Bakerville will be in the next There are 2 “mill reserves” When the Road was rebuilt, the course Village. In the next few issue. identified east of the river: was moved west to its current site, editions, the Gazette will Hugh O’Leary bought out #1 at the dam & #2 at the destroying lots 3,4 & 5 west side of mouth of Dunbar’s Creek. Hunter Street & Mill Reserve 2. The detail the historyillage in its Cluxton’s holdings in 1883, Hunter’s saw & grist mill original Bobcaygeon Road culvert & formative years. This edition followed by Robert Bryans in deals with the south half of were built on Mill Reserve stonework can still be seen as Hunter 1886. Bryans lowered the the village, nicknamed #1. St crosses Dunbar’s Creek. “Hunterville” after its foun- price of village lots & sold The current Austin Mill is The Road then made a 90 degree turn der, John Hunter. Unfortu- most of the remaining inven- on the west bank & was around the rocky ledge occupied by nately John Hunter sold his tory. By 1890, most of built later, after the railway the John Hunter house (now Kinmount arrived in town. House Bed & Breakfast) to meet the holdings about 1870, just Hunterville was now built up The Bobcaygeon Road bridge. This section became Mill St. before the community as a town site. “boomed” as a village on the entered the village along The later Monck Road used the the county line from the Bobcaygeon Road bridge & went east Victoria Railway. It was the The north half of the 200 acre next owner, William Cluxton, south. The old road up the hill on its way to Bancroft. lot was the village site. The avoided the rock face at the Bobcaygeon St was the original who benefited. He had the lot Burnt River bissects the lot , site surveyed into town lots. ledge on the south edge of county line (Victoria on the west, roughly 50 acres on each side town, going past the pre- Peterborough on the east). The But Cluxton placed too high a of the River. Most of the early price on his village lots, sent Library & angling original Road followed this road which opened the door for allowance all the way from Bobcay- geon to Kinmount, but deviated west through the village due to the nature of the rocky ledges & river course within the village. At the north edge of town, the Road reverted to the county line. But the Bobcaygeon Road through Kinnount was situated entirely in Victoria County. Bobcaygeon St ran from the cemetery to the Monck Road. The west side (in Somerville) was surveyed as house lots. On the Galway (east) side, in Concession A, were 2 farms: James Mansfield (lot 41) and Cornelius Doherty (lot 42). However, the proximity to the village led to the road frontage of both farms eventually being surveyed into building lots as well. Water & King St were laid out south Continued on page 4 Offical Town Plan for “Hunterville”. Surveyed in 1874, this plan is still the basis for Kinmount Village today. However, the village did not develop as completely as originally planned! Page 3 Kinmount Gazette & Kinmount Village Part 1: Hunterville cont. from pg. 3 “Kozie Toes” of the dam, but were virtually was simply surveyed into Bailey Total Foot Care uninhabited. Lots 14-17 on blocks.