Port Hope is a heritage community situated
on the north shore of Lake Ontario in Northumberland County and offers both an
urban and rural paradise with the perfect combination of heritage charm, modern
vibrancy and cultural allure. The Ganaraska River runs through the heart of
town past historic buildings.
The Township was opened in 1792
and named in honor of Colonel Henry Hope, a member of the Legislative Council
of Canada.
Before Canada became a nation in 1867, Port Hope was already a boom town. Its main streets were thronged with horse-drawn carriages and farmers’ wagons, its plank sidewalks crowded with shoppers and merchandise. Wood-burning locomotives pulled heavily loaded trains through town on their way to a harbor filled with schooners and steamships. Solid brick commercial blocks and houses lined the streets.
The town grew rapidly from four
families of English descent who arrived by boat in 1793 and settled at the
river mouth. Until then the area had been home to aboriginal groups—Huron, then
Iroquois, and finally Mississauga—attracted by the salmon and sturgeon that
swarmed in its river.
The first European settlers came from the new United States. They had chosen to follow the British crown after the American Revolution. So had Elias Smith, a Montreal merchant who, with two partners, Jonathan and Abraham Walton, financed their arrival. In return for settling forty families on the land and building a sawmill and flour mill to serve them, the partners received a grant of land roughly the size of modern urban Port Hope.
More families arrived including
blacksmiths, carpenters, bricklayers, and merchants. The mills drew farmers
from fifty and sixty kilometers away. Grain that could not be milled was bought
by distilleries—there were eventually five along the river—that produced a
famous Port Hope whisky. Its most rapid growth began when railways
revolutionized travel in what is now Ontario. In 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway
connected Port Hope to Toronto and the Atlantic seaboard. Its viaduct over the
Ganaraska River was the second greatest engineering challenge on the route,
exceeded only by bridging the St. Lawrence River at Montreal.
Another railway heading north
from Port Hope opened up the vast timberlands and new farms of central Ontario
and stretched to Peterborough and Lindsay. Eventually it reached Georgian Bay,
at Midland. Down this line came great loads of timber and grain. Some went east
to England, but most was exported to the USA through Rochester across the lake.
Walton Street was named after
Captain Jonathan Walton who brought the first settlers here. The Walton and
Smith families were among the original petitioners for land grants and figured
very prominently in the Town’s history. Port Hope was incorporated as a police village
in 1834.
56 Queen Street – c. 1851-53 – The Town Hall has a center entrance with a round-headed fan-lighted transom on its seven-bay pilastered front. The building was designed in the Neo-Classical style. The central octagonal cupola has alternating four-paned, heavily mullioned transomed windows, and clock faces with Roman numerals. Louvered panels are separated by small slender Roman Doric colonettes.28 Bedford Street – This large 2½ story four bay brick house is built in the Romanesque Revival style with a large irregular plan, heavy masonry, steeply pitched roof, tall chimneys, recessed porch, and oriel windows. The imposing entrance way is composed of a shingled pediment and round arches of corbelled and stepped brick with decorative panels on either side of corbelled brick.42 Bedford Street – c. 1860 – mid-Victorian style – two storeys high with a hipped roof with extended eaves; wood band decoration below the cornice; transom and sidelights around front door; collared polygonal posts on the full-width veranda One Walton Street – The Waddell Hotel – c. 1845 – This three-story brick ell-shaped commercial block with residential space above fronts to Walton and Mill Streets. Its handsome facades include stone columns, pilasters and lintels at the ground floor level, rusticated stone quoins, eared wood window surrounds with cornices to architraves at the second floor, and a simpler treatment with wood surrounds to openings on the third story. The roof is gabled and turning the corner forms a hip. The Ganaraska River originally divided into two streams around the present Walton Street Bridge and the area where this building stands was an island. When the river was re-channeled the entire Mill Street area was built up from marsh and became another access route to the harbor. In 1844, Robert Needham Waddell had this prominent corner block constructed.29-33 Walton Street – c. 1845 – It is a brick commercial building with residential and/or storage space above. The corner is rounded to Queen and Walton Streets, and the block stands three storys high. A pilastered front of Greek Revival style is topped by a heavy wooden frieze and cornice. The frieze is pierced by stomachers, and the soffit contains mutules and guttae, characteristic of Greek Revival. There are six bays to the Walton Street facade, including one on the rounded corner, and six bays to the Queen Street facade. The windows on the second and third storys are headed by a plain lintel and supported by lugsills on the third story and a continuous sill, acting as a string course on the second story.81 Walton Street – The Walton Hotel, formerly known as the Queen’s Hotel, was built in 1870. A story was added in 1876 and in 1907, a story was also added on the south end of the building. As it stands today, the Walton Hotel is a three-story brick building on the southeast corner of the intersection of John and Walton Streets. The Walton Street facade is divided in three sections by brick pilasters that carry through the ornamental brick cornice. The narrower central panel contains parted round-headed windows on the third floor surmounted by an ornamental name panel. Below is a round-headed window. Both side panels are identical on the second and third floors and contain paired windows with segmental heads and two-tier brick labels. The upper windows have individual sills whereas the second-floor ones share a continuous sill. An intricate brick cornice extends along the Walton Street facade as well as along John Street. The Walton Street corner of the building is rounded.114-116 Walton Street – Russell Block – c. 1875 – This block is a three-story Second Empire brick building, four bays wide with a false mansard roof. The second story bays have semi-circular structural openings with decorative cast iron lintels. The third story bays are twin semi-circular bays separated by narrow columns and featuring decorative brick lintels. The facade of the block is pilastered from the second story to about one and a half feet above the third story bays. There are two large pilasters on either end topped with decorative brick capitals. The facade has a machicolated brick cornice with recessed panels below the wooden cornice of the roof. Henry C. Russell (1834-1911) was a cabinetmaker and furniture dealer.Walton Street – Italianate style – iron cresting above bay windows and entrance, cornice brackets160 Walton Street – Andrews Newman House – c. 1852 – This two-story, rectangular, brick-veneered house with medium-pitched roof with a flat center deck has three bays to both storys on the main facade. The windows have plain lintels and lugsills and are shuttered on the second story. A verandah runs across the front of the house, supported by turned wooden supports and decorative barge board. The door has a flat transom and sidelights. The larger front windows on the ground floor with recessed door case with sidelights and transom indicate this building may have started out as an Ontario Cottage. The first story windows are wider than the second story, and the lugsills narrower than those of the second story. Joseph Newman (1813-1859) was originally from Ireland, having arrived in Port Hope about 1838 or perhaps earlier. He was a baker, grocer and dealer in country produce with a shop on Walton Street.162 Walton Street – c. 1888 – George Hooker House – Built originally as a two-story shop and dwelling, this square house is constructed of brick laid in stretcher bond and has a medium-pitched hipped roof with a flat deck and plain-boxed cornice. On the east wall, where the main door is located, there are three bays on both storys. The windows have segmental heads with radiating brick arches, painted lugsills, and well-fitting shutters. A porch with five supporting columns is located off-center on the east wall.186-184 Walton Street – Williams Duplex- c. 1875 – This is a duplex, standing two-storys high with a gable roof. The composition is enhanced by a gabled “frontispiece”, which projects slightly from the facade. This in turn is graced by a bay window (at ground level), complete with cornice and brackets. At second-floor level, the “frontispiece” bears two windows. All the bays are segmentally arched, except the louvered attic vent, which is round arched.202 Walton Street – c. 1850 – McDougall Smart House – It is a vernacular house with an interesting main facade. The roof has a parapet gable roof trim, and it has no overhang where it slopes down on the north and south sides. Four single chimneys, two on either side of the gable peak, emerge from the parapet trim. The main facade has six openings: there are three equally spaced windows on the second floor, and directly below are two more windows and the new front door with its single sash transom above. There are four pilasters; just below the roof line, some brick dentations decorate the wall’s surface. Around the back door there is a small inner closed porch composed of panels of wood and glass divided by chamfered strappings. A large porch extends over this and down to the road. It has an elevated concrete floor on which stands four columns: these columns are square-based and have beveled edges. They are crowned with simple capitals, and from these, decorative supports and small brackets extend up to the roof.236 Walton Street – 7 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms – 3,500-5,000 square feet – 2½-story tower with mansard roof, cornice brackets238 Walton Street – semi-circular radiating fan window in the gable above the porch, sidelights, transom240 Walton Street – 3-story tower with mansard roof, iron cresting, cornice brackets spindles and decorative porch supports
