July, 2018:

Belleville, Ontario – Part 2 – My Top 14 Picks

Belleville is a city located at the mouth of the Moira River on the Bay of Quinte in southeastern Ontario. It was the site of a Mississaugas’ village in the eighteenth century. It was settled by United Empire Loyalists beginning in 1784. It was named Belleville in honor of Lady Arabella Gore in 1816, after a visit to the settlement by Sir Francis Gore and his wife.

It is known as the “friendly city” because it offers big city amenities along with small town friendliness, and a pleasing mixture of the historic and modern.

Belleville became an important railway junction with the completion of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1855. In 1858 the iron bridge over the Moira River at Bridge Street was constructed. Belleville’s beautiful High Victorian Gothic city hall was built in 1872 to house the public market and administrative offices.

Due to its location near Lake Ontario, its climate is moderated by cooling hot summer days and warming cold days during the fall and winter.

Procter & Gamble, Kellogg’s, Redpath, and Sears are corporations operating in Belleville. There are many other manufacturing sector companies which operate within the City of Belleville, including Sprague Foods, Sigma Stretch Film Canada, Reid’s Dairy, and Parmalat Canada – Black Diamond Cheese Division, to name a few.

Belleville has an excellent yacht harbor, which is a picturesque stopping point for Great Lakes sailors and a favorite launch for sports fishing enthusiasts after walleye, pike and bass. Beautiful music chimes can be heard all year long from the City Hall clock tower, overlooking the new civic square and Farmers Market. Walking, biking and rollerblading can be enjoyed on the Bayshore and Riverfront Trails.

Bridge Street East – Belleville Armouries – The structure brings to mind a medieval fortress as evidenced in the solid brick construction, stone detailing and the use of three-storey towers flanking the entrance of the administrative block. It has a symmetrically organized façade with rough-cut stone window dressings, narrow vertical window openings, and its medieval detailing such as the string courses, copings and battlements. – Belleville Book 3

105 Bridge Street East – Italianate – hipped roof, 2½-storey bay with cornice return on gable, banding, Corinthian pillars on veranda, pediment – Belleville Book 3

128 Bridge Street East – Queen Anne style – turret, tall decorative chimney, decorative tympanums on the gables, pediment, open railing on the veranda – Belleville Book 3

252 Bridge Street East – hipped roof, 2½-storey frontispiece, dichromatic brickwork, bay window – Belleville Book 3

257 Bridge Street East – The Phillips-Burrows-Faulknor House – Glanmore National Historic Site – Glanmore’s property was originally a block wide and extended to Highway 2 (Dundas Street). Harriet Phillips inherited this property from George Bleecker, her grandfather. Glanmore reflects the tastes of the well-to-do in late nineteenth century Canada. The grand house, built by local architect Thomas Hanley, was built in 1882-1883 for wealthy banker John Philpot Curran Phillips and his wife Harriet Ann Dougall, the daughter of Belleville’s Judge Benjamin Dougall. It is in the Second Empire style with mansard roof with elaborate cornices and brackets, dormer windows, iron cresting, a built-in gutter system, and multi-colored slate. – Belleville Book 3

The North Drawing Room was used by Mr. and Mrs. Phillips for entertaining. Ornate columns divide the North and South areas of the double drawing room. The rooms could also be used as a ballroom when the carpets and furniture were removed. The coffered ceilings feature molded ornamental plaster and hand-painted designs. The decorative ceilings are complemented by the original settees, three-seated chaperone’s chair, and mantle surround. The clutter of decorative objects is typical of late Victorian style.

The 9,000 square foot home cost $7,000 to build in 1883. The impressive suspended walnut staircase cost $62.50. The spelter (a zinc alloy) statue lamps and the hanging vigil lamp are displayed in their original locations.

52 Queen Street – Queen Anne Villa – 2½-storey bay with trim and fretwork on gable; cornice brackets; bay window with iron cresting above, oriel window on side – Belleville Book 3

2 Forin Street – cornice brackets, pediment, transom window above door – Belleville Book 4

38 Forin Street – Gothic – verge board trim and finials on gables, round windows in gables, window voussoirs – Belleville Book 4

Alexander Street – hipped roof with dormer with a gabled roof and verge board trim and two windows; cornice brackets; two-storey bay window – Belleville Book 4

68 North Front Street – Belleville Funeral Home and Chapel – a Victorian mansion – three storey tower; dichromatic corner quoins; Mansard roof with dormers, prominent keystones, drip molds and engaged columns; engaged columns at front entrance with sidelights and transom window – Belleville Book 4

80 Highland Avenue – John R. Bush Funeral Home – Second Empire style – Mansard roof with dormers, cornice brackets, banding – Belleville Book 4

110 Bridge Street West – built in 1867 by Smith Steven, clerk in the Grand Trunk Railway solicitor’s office – excellent example of a family home owner of modest means; has original 6/6 pane windows, window sills, and shutters; acorn brackets extend under the cornice; the front door has narrow sidelights – Belleville Book 4

Belleville, Ontario – Part 1 – My Top 16 Picks

Belleville is a city located at the mouth of the Moira River on the Bay of Quinte in southeastern Ontario. It was the site of a village of the Mississaugas in the eighteenth century. It was settled by United Empire Loyalists beginning in 1784. It was named Belleville in honor of Lady Arabella Gore in 1816, after a visit to the settlement by Sir Francis Gore and his wife.

It is known as the “friendly city” because it offers big city amenities along with small town friendliness, and a pleasing mixture of the historic and modern.

Belleville became an important railway junction with the completion of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1855. In 1858 the iron bridge over the Moira River at Bridge Street was constructed. Belleville’s beautiful High Victorian Gothic city hall was built in 1872 to house the public market and administrative offices.

Due to its location near Lake Ontario, its climate is moderated by cooling hot summer days and warming cold days during the fall and winter.

Procter & Gamble, Kellogg’s, Redpath, and Sears are corporations operating in Belleville.  There are many other manufacturing sector companies which operate within the City of Belleville, including Sprague Foods, Sigma Stretch Film Canada, Reid’s Dairy, and Parmalat Canada – Black Diamond Cheese Division, to name a few.

Belleville has an excellent yacht harbor, which is a picturesque stopping point for Great Lakes sailors and a favorite launch for sports fishing enthusiasts after walleye, pike and bass. Beautiful music chimes can be heard all year long from the City Hall clock tower, overlooking the new civic square and Farmers Market. Walking, biking and rollerblading can be enjoyed on the Bayshore and Riverfront Trails.

234 Ann Street (corner of Queen) – Ilcombe – Queen Anne style – three-story tower, dormer, Ionic veranda pillars – Belleville Book 2

197 Charles Street – built 1872-1873 – mixture of Italianate, Victorian, Second Empire and Gothic styles – mansard roof on 3½-storey tower with small Gothic windows and iron cresting; voussoirs and keystones, dentil molding, bay window with brackets, pediment above door – Belleville Book 2

160 Charles Street – Second Empire – mansard roof, dormers with window hoods, polychromatic tile work, two-storey wing with ornate capitals on the two-storey veranda with open railing – Belleville Book 2

199 MacDonald Avenue – elaborately spindled railings on both lower and upper wraparound verandahs, Corinthian pillars, finial on gable – Belleville Book 2

Perth, Ontario – My Top 15 Picks

Established in 1816, the era when Upper and Lower Canada were British colonies, Perth was one of three strategic defensive outposts created along the Rideau Corridor after the War of 1812. Named after a town and river in Scotland, this small frontier center, located in a large wilderness tract, became the social, judicial and administrative hub for the Scottish and Irish who settled here. Many of the first settlers were military veterans on half pay, while others were military veterans from France, Germany, Poland, Italy, Scotland or Ireland who were offered land in return for their service. The first Scottish settlers came in 1816. Many of the Scottish immigrants were stonemasons; their work can be seen in many area buildings and in the locks of the Rideau Canal.

In 1823, Perth was named the capital of the District of Bathurst, and this attracted a large number of wealthy and educated settlers. When the Rideau Canal was built as a safe inland military route from Kingston to Ottawa between 1826 and 1832, it created a local economic boom. The Tay Canal, from Perth to the Lower Rideau Lake, was first constructed in the 1830s and rebuilt in the 1880s as a commercial waterway. The Tay has become a recreational and tourism area.

The last fatal duel was fought between two young law students on the banks of the Tay River on June 13, 1833, for a lady’s honor. In 1892, Perth produced the world’s biggest cheddar; it was made from 207,200 pounds of milk and was six feet high, twenty-eight feet in circumference and weighed 22,000 pounds. The mammoth cheese was shipped by train to the Chicago World’s Fair the following year.

Perth is the site of the first installation of a telephone other than Bell’s experimental installations. A town dentist, Dr. J. F. Kennedy, a friend of Alexander Graham Bell, installed a direct telephone connection between his home and office. By 1887, there were 19 telephones in Perth, with a switchboard in Dr. Kennedy’s office.

Westport and Port Elmsley, Ontario – My Top 5 Picks

Westport

Westport is a village in Eastern Ontario. It lies at the west end of Upper Rideau Lake, at the head of the navigable Rideau Canal system, between Kingston and Ottawa. The first settlers to the Westport area arrived in the period between 1810 and 1820. The land was originally granted by the Crown to a Mr. Hunter, but he never settled in the area and the land was purchased by Reuben Sherwood in 1817. Some of this land was later purchased by the Stoddard and Manhard families. Sawmills built by Sheldon Stoddard and the Manhard brothers in 1828-32, during the construction of the Rideau Canal, fostered the development of Westport.  Grist mills and wharves were soon erected and by 1848 a post office was established.  Within a decade the hamlet had three hundred residents and several prosperous businesses, including the General Store of Declan Foley and mills of William H. Fredenburgh, a prominent lumber exporter.  The community’s growth was stimulated by agricultural prosperity and the construction of the Brockville, Westport and Sault Ste. Marie Railway, completed in 1888 between Brockville and Westport, a distance of forty-five miles.  With several takeovers, the railway continued to run until 1952.

Port Elmsley

Port Elmsley is located in eastern Ontario in Lanark County on the north shore of the Rideau River between the town of Perth and the town of Smiths Falls.

Portland and Newboro, Ontario – My Top 12 Picks

Portland is a community located in Eastern Ontario within the township of Rideau Lakes in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville. It is north of Kingston and situated on Big Rideau Lake.

Portland was first settled in the early nineteenth century as one of the first settlements along the Rideau Waterway. With the completion of the Rideau Canal Waterway in 1832, steamboats and barges carried raw materials such as cordwood, maple syrup, potash, cheese, tanned hides and salt beef. Portland became a thriving village of trade with Kingston, Montreal and Ottawa.

The village of Portland took its name in 1843 from William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3^rd Duke of Portland, a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and served as Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1783 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1807 to 1809.

By the 1860s, the settlement had expanded considerably to require five hotels and, by the early twentieth century, cottages were built around the lake and the tourist trade began. Advances in rail and road travel and increasing tourism offset a decline in the role of agriculture in the economy of Portland. Tourism began to lead the economy and still does to this day.

An international speed skating tournament called Skate the Lake is held each winter on the Big Rideau Lake at Portland.

The settlement of the Newboro area was begun during the construction of the Rideau Canal in 1826-32. A major construction camp was located here at the Isthmus between the Rideau and Mud (Newboro) Lakes. In 1833, Benjamin Tett, owner of a nearby sawmill, opened a store and three years later a post office named Newborough was established. A small community including several stores developed as a trade center for the region’s lumbering industry and agriculture. About 1850 a tannery was established and within ten years two iron mines were opened. The ore was exported via the Rideau to smelters in the United States. A foundry and a steam sawmill stimulated growth.

In 1888, a branch of the Brockville-Westport & S.S.M. Railroad came to Newboro.  Trade and travel were now year-round. Produce of local farm and forest entered wider markets through Newboro’s cannery and mills. From Newboro Station, local scholars went to and from high school in Athens and Brockville.