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Woodstock, Ontario – My Top 16 Picks

Woodstock is located in the heart of South Western Ontario, at the junction of highways 401 and 403, 50 km east of London and 60 km west of Kitchener.  Woodstock is the largest municipality in Oxford County, a county known for its rich farmland, and for its dairy and cash crop farming.  As well as being “The Dairy Capital of Canada”, Woodstock also has a large industrial base, much of which is related to the auto manufacturing industry.

In 1792, Sir John Graves Simcoe became Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada and made plans for the development of the interior of Upper Canada. He envisioned a series of town sites linked by a military road and a system of rivers and canals, providing inland access during an era when commerce and settlements depended on major waterways. London, Chatham, Dorchester and Oxford were designated town sites with London as the defensible capital. The military road stretching from Burlington Bay through Woodstock to London provided an overland supply route for the safe movement of troops and settlers. Simcoe named this road Dundas Street after Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

To speed development in the sparsely populated interior of the province, Simcoe granted whole townships to land companies who were obligated to bring in settlers.

Simcoe passed through the area now known as Woodstock and noted it a suitable “Town Plot” and settlement began here in 1800.

In the 1830s, a different group of immigrants were encouraged to settle in Oxford to ensure this community’s loyalty to the British crown. British naval and army officers placed on half-pay looked to the colonies for a new career at the conclusion of military service.  The first to arrive was Alexander Whalley Light, a retired colonel who came to Oxford County in 1831. He was joined by Philip Graham in 1832, a retired captain of the Royal Navy, and Captain Andrew Drew, on half-pay from the Royal Navy, arrived in Woodstock to make preparations for his superior, Rear-Admiral Henry Vansittart, also on half-pay.  Half-pay officers went to considerable lengths to clear their chosen parcels of land.

Admiral Vansittart commissioned Colonel Andrew Drew to build a church (Old St. Paul’s) in a new area of Oxford that was known as the “Town Plot”. The men later quarreled, which led to the construction of a second church known as “New St. Paul’s”.

73 Wilson Street – Italianate/Second Empire – type of mansard roof with dormers, paired cornice brackets, bay window, window hoods – Woodstock Book 1

500 Dundas Street – the current City Hall was constructed of warm sandstone in 1899 as a post office; for over one hundred years it has been the center of the municipal and social life of Woodstock. The corner tower has four clocks. It housed the local government and served as lecture hall, opera house, and assize court. It is basically eighteenth century Palladian architecture. Round- headed windows with heavy surrounds reflect Italianate Revival – Book 1

Finkle Street – The Oxford Hotel, located across from Market Square and the Town Hall in Woodstock was built in 1880 as “The O’Neill House” in Romanesque style. It saw guests such as Oscar Wilde and Reginald Birchall. – Book 1

39 Victoria Street – Neo-Classical cottage is a 1½ storey buff brick home, hip roof, centred dormer; windows have wooden lintels and brackets supporting the sills; three panel double door on the storm porch has an interesting window shape in the door; field stone foundation – Book 1

447 Buller Street – Colonial Revival, shed dormer – Book 1

126 Graham Street – Park Place Retirement Centre – Second Empire style – mansard roof, window hoods, decorative cornice – Book 1

36 Wellington Street North – two storey turret, dormers, second floor balcony with spindle decorative work – Woodstock Book 2

48 Wellington Street – Italianate, hipped roof, paired cornice brackets, window hoods, corner quoining, entrance – Book 2

39 Victoria Street – Neo-Classical cottage is a 1½ storey buff brick home, hip roof, centred dormer; windows have wooden lintels and brackets supporting the sills; three panel double door on the storm porch has an interesting window shape in the door; field stone foundation – Book 1

419 Drew Street – Queen Anne – turret, some Tudor style detailing – Book 2

81 Light Street – triple gable Gothic Revival – verge board trim on gables, pediment – Book 2

415 Hunter Street – County Court House – 1892 – a massive building of sandstone in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with a complex roof line; oriel window; monkey heads are hidden among the capitals of the red marble pillars at the two front entrances, and there is a monkey at the peak – Woodstock Book 3

410 Hunter Street – Central Public School – built in 1880 – two impressive identical entrances, decorative brickwork separating the first and second floors, decorative gables on a steeply pitched roof, cornice brackets, saw tooth dentiling – Book 3

393 Hunter Street – Second Empire style – mansard roof with dormers with finials on window hoods, cornice brackets – Book 3

84 Vansittart Avenue – Parker House – built in 1864 – Italianate villa, small balconies, round-headed windows in groups, paired ornamental brackets supporting the roof,
3½ storey tower with decorative finial – Book 3

210 Vansittart Avenue – built in 1895 by Thomas L. Wilson, inventor of the first commercial calcium-carbide process for the manufacturer of acetylene gas. It was the residence of the Sisters of St. Joseph’s until 1975. It is a voluptuous house of irregular shape in Richardsonian Romanesque style using contrasting brick, cut stone and hanging tiles; offset tower with balcony and verandah, portico at the front entrance – Book 3

Kingsville, Ontario – My Top 12 Picks

Kingsville is located in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, west of Leamington, south of Lakeshore, southeast of Essex. It is primarily an agricultural community nestled along the north shore of Lake Erie. The terrain is generally flat, and consists of a mixture of various rocks, sand and clay. The town is about 570 feet above sea level.

Kingsville is home to the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary. Jack Miner was awarded The Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his achievements in conservation in the British Empire. Jack Miner is considered “the father of the conservation movement on the continent”.

The Town of Kingsville is rich in history and Victorian era architecture.

Kingsville bore witness first-hand to General Brock’s historic journey to meet with Chief Tecumseh on August 13, 1812. This meeting led to the capture of Fort Detroit and British control of the Michigan frontier; more than 2,000 muskets were captured and used to arm Canadian militia units. In the later 1800s, Loyalists from the area fought in the Fenian raids; many served in World Wars I and II in an effort to preserve our history, our land, and our stake in the future.

Kingsville’s harbor provides shelter for ships and provides commerce for the area.

93 Main Street – vernacular – Book 1

Essex, Ontario – My Top 7 Picks

Amherstburg and Sandwich, the first towns to be established in Essex County, were first settled in 1796 after the British evacuated Fort Detroit. The populations of both towns were augmented by people immigrating from the United States to the south after the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), especially from the City of Detroit by those who chose to remain British subjects, people known as “United Empire Loyalists”.

After the American Revolution and the War of 1812 (1812-1815), people continued to migrate north to the area, and came from the east from Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River of Lower Canada seeking land. Settlers began to move eastward along the north shore of Lake Erie.  Land was purchased from the Indians in the southern half of the current county. The British Court made land available for settlement provided that certain improvements were made to the land within a year and that it was not used for speculation. This area became known as the “New Settlement” (as compared to the “Old Settlement” of the towns of Amherstburg and Sandwich).  Settlers in the area included Hessians who fought for the British against the American rebels, and Pennsylvania Dutch (Mennonites).

In 1854 the Great Western Railway connected the Detroit frontier with the east, crossing Essex County. The Canadian terminal was in Windsor, which consequently forged ahead of the other towns of the county. Other railway lines were built that connected settlements in Kingsville, Harrow, Essex and Leamington.

By the late 19th century Essex County had seen fur trading and logging, land clearing and farming, road building and railway development, saw mills and gristmills, railway stations and water ports. By this time the forests were disappearing, replaced by fertile farmland.

Essex is a town in Essex County in southwestern Ontario with its municipal borders extending to Lake Erie.  The Talbot Trail attributed to the growth of Essex in the last half of the 19th century.

Essex was one of the first counties to be settled in Upper Canada mostly by French people in the mid-18th century. Around 1749, the first permanent settlements began to appear on what is now the Canadian side of the Detroit River which despite its name is a strait connecting Lake Huron and the smaller Lake Saint Clair in the north and to Lake Erie in the south, as part of the Great Lakes system.

Essex County is largely composed of clay-based soils, with sandy soils along the beaches and shores. For the most part, Essex County is flat farmland, with some woodlots.  When farmers first arrived, they encountered difficulty in trying to clear the extremely thick forests that covered Essex County. The farmers starved the trees from nourishment by cutting deep gashes in the bark, and burned them to clear the way to get to the fertile soils underneath. The fires were so intense that the reddish glow could be seen from Fort Chicago, 300 miles away, as millions of cords of wood burned.

On August 10, 1907, at the Essex Station there was a large explosion that sent shock waves across the county and into some parts of nearby Michigan.  A train cart containing 5000 pounds of nitroglycerine ignited. The blast sent debris over 600 yards away, killed two people and injured many more. The boom of the explosion caused plaster to fall from the ceilings of buildings in Windsor and windows to rattle as far as Detroit. The Essex Station was very heavily damaged.  The Essex Station was rebuilt to its previous form and remains a recognizable landmark in the town

80 Irwin Avenue – Neo-Colonial style – gambrel roof

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46 Alice Street – vernacular – chipped gable, dormer

78 Fox Street – Gothic/Georgian style – wooden building

Essex Railway Station – stone train station – 1887

Talbot Street North – Italianate, hipped roof, dormers, cobblestone basement walls

36 Centre Street – triple-gable Gothic Revival

122 Talbot Street South – Essex Manor Rest Home – two-storey, Queen Anne style

Waterloo, Ontario – My Top 12 Picks

Waterloo is a city in Southern Ontario. The Conestogo Parkway and Highway 8 connect Waterloo with Kitchener, Cambridge, Highway 7/8, and Highway 401. Waterloo shares several of its north-south arterial roads with neighboring Kitchener.

Waterloo was built on land that was part of a parcel of 675,000 acres assigned in 1784 to the Iroquois alliance that made up the League of Six Nations. Almost immediately, the native groups began to sell some of the land. Between 1796 and 1798, 93,000 acres were sold through a Crown Grant to Richard Beasley, with the Six Nations Indians continuing to hold the mortgage on the lands.

The first immigrants to the area were Mennonites from Pennsylvania. They bought deeds to land parcels from Beasley and began moving into the area in 1804. The following year, a group of twenty-six Mennonites pooled resources to purchase all of the unsold land from Beasley and discharge the mortgage held by the Six Nations Indians.

The Mennonites divided the land into smaller lots; two lots initially owned by Abraham Erb became the central core of Waterloo. Erb built a sawmill on Beaver, now Laurel, Creek in 1808 and in 1816 built the area’s first grist mill which farmers from miles around used to grind their wheat into flour, a very important staple.

In 1816, the new township was named after Waterloo, Belgium, the site of the Battle of Waterloo, which had ended the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. After that war, the area became a popular destination for German immigrants. By the 1840s, German settlers were the dominant segment of the population. Many Germans settled in the small hamlet to the southeast of Waterloo. In their honor, the village was named Berlin in 1833 (renamed to Kitchener in 1916). Berlin was chosen as the site of the seat for the County of Waterloo in 1853.

The inhabitants established Waterloo as an important industrial and commercial center. The village had a council chamber, fire hall, post office, library, and four steam-powered factories, including the Granite Mills and Distillery which became the Seagram Company.

The Grand River flows southward along the east side of the city. Its most significant tributary within the city is Laurel Creek, whose source lies just to the west of the city limits and its mouth just to the east, and crosses much of the city’s central areas including the University of Waterloo lands and Waterloo Park; it flows under the uptown area in a culvert. In the west end of the city, the Waterloo Moraine provides over 300,000 people in the region with drinking water. Much of the gently hilly Waterloo Moraine underlies existing developed areas.

Amherstburg, Ontario – My Top 10 Picks

Amherstburg is located near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County about twenty-five kilometers south of the United States city of Detroit, Michigan. The British military garrison, Fort Malden, was established here in 1796.  The town was developed by Loyalists who were granted land by the Crown in Ontario after the British lost the American Revolutionary War. The Loyalists built many of their houses in the French style of a century before, giving the new town a historic character.

The local public high school in Amherstburg is General Amherst High School and is named after Jeffery Amherst, 1^st Baron Amherst of Montreal, who served as an officer in the British Army and as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. Amherst is best known as the architect of Britain’s successful campaign to conquer the territory of New France during the French and Indian War when he led the British attack on Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island in June 1758. Amherst led an army against French troops on Lake Champlain, where he captured Fort Ticonderoga in July 1759, while another army under Sir William Johnson took Niagara also in July 1759, and James Wolfe besieged and eventually captured Quebec with a third army in September 1759.

From July 1760, Amherst led an army down the St. Lawrence River from Fort Oswego, joined with Brigadier Murray from Quebec and Brigadier Haviland from Ill-aux-Noix in a three-way pincer, and captured Montreal, ending French rule in North America on September 8.  In recognition of this victory, Amherst was appointed as the first British Governor General in the territories that eventually became Canada.

From his base at New York, Amherst oversaw the dispatch of troops under Monckton and Haviland to take part in British expeditions in the West Indies that led to the British capture of Dominica in 1761 and Martinique and Cuba in 1762.

Windsor, Ontario – My Top 13 Picks

Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada. The Detroit River is to the north of the city, which separates it from Detroit, Michigan. Windsor was settled by the French in 1749 as an agricultural settlement. In 1794, after the American Revolution, the settlement of “Sandwich” was founded. It was later renamed Windsor, after the town in Berkshire, England.

Sandwich, Ford City and Walkerville were separate towns until 1935 when they were annexed by Windsor. They remain as historic neighborhoods of Windsor. Walkerville was incorporated as a town in 1890.

The former Town of Walkerville was founded by Hiram Walker in 1858. The New England-born distiller bought two French farms on the south shore of the Detroit River, and the growth of his industry and the town it supported continued for seven decade under his family’s guidance.

Railroads played an important part in Walkerville’s history. First, the Great Western’s extension to Windsor in 1854 opened up opportunities for commercial expansion. Then Walker built his own line in 1885 with government financing, the Lake Erie Essex & Detroit River Railroad, which connected Walkerville with lake shore towns and farms, and extended as far as St. Thomas. The availability of rail transportation attracted other industrial enterprises to the area, and brought great prosperity to the Walker family and their town.

The Walkerville Land & Building Company was incorporated in 1890 with Hiram’s oldest son, Edward Chandler, as president. The Town passed a by-law in 1894 to provide temporary tax exemptions to attract new industries, and to encourage individuals wishing to build homes in Walkerville. Rental properties for the distillery’s employees were built. All of the community’s amenities were provided by Walker – a fire brigade and police, streetlights, sewers, paved roads and sidewalks, parks, a music hall, a school, library and church.

Walker Road’s east side was devoted to industrial manufacturing facilities. Its western edge had modest, brick, semidetached houses; Monmouth Road’s semis and terraces replaced rows of cottages, and employees were originally required to rent from the distillery. Argyle Road had a mix of terraces and vernacular houses for a higher rank of employee. Devonshire Road became the main street, with Romanesque Revival semis for management and the clergy. Later, distinctive houses of various architectural styles, popular in the protracted Edwardian Period (1900 to the 1930s), rose on the street, and spilled over onto Kildare Road. The concept was fully realized with the landscaped “island” developed as the site of St. Mary’s Anglican Church – the sons’ memorial to their parents, and the erection of Willistead Manor on the former Country Club and park lands.

The Arts and Crafts Movement, a philosophy of design founded in England about 1850, emphasized handmade architecture in an age when factory mass-production was taking hold. Every home Albert Kahn designed shows Arts and Crafts influence. Kahn believed that historic period styles were best suited to homes and public institutions, while factories should be utilitarian, brightly illuminated and devoid of ornament.

Hiram Walker was born in East Douglas, Massachusetts, and moved to Detroit in 1838.  In 1847 at the age of 30, he married Mary Abigail Williams and they had 7 children, two daughters, Julia Elizabeth and Jennie Melissa, and five sons, Willis Ephraim, Edward Chandler, Franklin Hiram, Alfred (infant), and James Harrington. Edward Chandler, his second son, commissioned the development of Willistead Manor.

He was an American entrepreneur and he purchased 460 acres of land across the Detroit River in the town of Sandwich, near Windsor, Ontario, Canada.  In 1858 the flour mill and distillery were completed. The flour produced in his mill benefited the County of Essex’s farming community with farmers from all around using the mill.

Mid-summer in 1858 marked the opening of Hiram Walker’s whisky operation. The same process which he had used in Detroit was now used in Windsor to distill his alcohol. Spirits were leached through charcoal, a process widely used at the time.  Walker began selling his whisky as Hiram Walker’s Club Whisky and it became very popular.  His Canadian industries quickly took precedent over that of his grain business still located in Detroit. As a result, Hiram Walker traveled by ferry to Canada from his home in Detroit on a daily basis. The trip was a lengthy process as the ferry that brought him to Canada dropped him off in Windsor, which left a long ride by horse and buggy to his flour mill and distillery. Throughout his life, Hiram Walker remained an American citizen but in March 1859 Hiram Walker moved to Canada in order to save time traveling to and from his Canadian businesses.

Waterford, Ontario – My Top 8 Picks

Waterford is located on Pleasant Ridge Road, or old Highway 24 in Norfolk County, south of Brantford, north of Simcoe and southwest of Ohsweken.  Waterford was established in 1794 with saw and grist mills on Nanticoke Creek. An early major industry was the agricultural implement factory built by James Green, a local merchant. The area surrounding the town is primarily agricultural land with tomatoes, tobacco and corn among the main crops. With the decline of the tobacco industry, area farmers have suffered, but ginseng is being grown on some farms. In 1979 a freak tornado swept through the town, knocked down trees, and damaged houses and public property.

Collingwood, Ontario – My Top 9 Picks

Collingwood is situated on Nottawasaga Bay at the southern point of Georgian Bay. Collingwood offers a combination of old time charm and history with recreation opportunities for skiing on Blue Mountain, and golfing.

Collingwood was incorporated as a town in 1858, nine years before Confederation and was named after Admiral Lord Cuthbert Collingwood, Lord Nelson’s second in command at the Battle of Trafalgar, who assumed command of the British fleet after Nelson’s death.

The land in the area was originally inhabited by the Iroquoian Petun nation, which built a string of villages in the vicinity of the nearby Niagara Escarpment. They were driven from the region by the Iroquois in 1650. European settlers and freed black slaves arrived in the area in the 1840s, bringing with them their religion and culture.

In 1855, the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron (later called The Northern) railway came into Collingwood, and the harbor became the place for shipment of goods destined for the upper Great Lakes ports of Chicago and Port Arthur-Ft. William (now Thunder Bay). Shipping produced a need for ship repairs, so it was not long before an organized ship building business was created. On May 24, 1883, the Collingwood Shipyards, formerly known as Collingwood Dry Dock Shipbuilding and Foundry Company Limited, opened with a special ceremony. On September 12, 1901, the Huronic was launched in Collingwood, the first steel-hulled ship launched in Canada. The shipyards produced Lakers and during World War II contributed to the production of Corvettes for the Royal Canadian Navy. Shipbuilding was one of the principal industries in the town, employing as much as 10% of the total labor force. Overseas competition and overcapacity in shipbuilding in Canada led to the demise of shipbuilding in Collingwood in September 1986.

242 Pine Street – Italianate with Gothic style frontispiece, verge board and finial, dichromatic brickwork

Toronto, Ontario – My Top 7 Picks

Toronto, the largest city in Canada, the provincial capital of Ontario, is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. During the American Revolutionary War, United Empire Loyalists fled from the United States to live on lands north of Lake Ontario. In 1787, the British Crown purchased more than a quarter million acres of land from the Mississaugas of the New Credit, and established a settlement called the Town of York. Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe designated York as the capital of Upper Canada. Fort York was constructed at the entrance of the town’s natural harbor where it was sheltered by a long sand-bar peninsula. The town was captured and ransacked by American soldiers in the Battle of York during the War of 1812, and the parliament buildings were set on fire.

In 1834, York became a city and the name was changed to Toronto. In the 19^th century, long-distance railway lines were constructed, including a route linking with the Upper Great Lakes. The Grand Trunk Railway and the Northern Railway of Canada joined in the building of the first Union Station. The railway brought more immigrants, and commerce and industry increased. Horse-drawn streetcars were replaced by electric ones in 1891. The great fire of 1904 destroyed a large section of downtown Toronto but the city was soon rebuilt with more stringent fire safety laws and the expansion of the fire department.

In 1954, the City of Toronto and twelve surrounding municipalities joined together into a regional government known as Metropolitan Toronto. The postwar boom resulted in rapid suburban development, and the metropolitan government began to manage services that crossed municipal boundaries, including highways, police services, water and public transit. In that year, disaster struck the city when Hurricane Hazel brought high winds and flash flooding causing the deaths of 81 people in the Toronto area, and leaving about 1,900 families homeless.

Toronto covers an area of 630 square kilometers stretching 21 kilometers (13 miles) from north to south and 43 kilometers (27 miles) east to west. The waterfront shoreline is 46 kilometers (29 miles) long. The Toronto Islands and Port Lands extend out into the lake. The city’s borders are formed by Lake Ontario to the south, Etobicoke Creek and Highway 427 to the west, Steeles Avenue to the north and the Rouge River and the Scarborough-Pickering Townline to the east. Today the city has a population of 2.6 million people.

The city is intersected by three rivers and many tributaries: the Humber River in the west end and the Don River east of downtown, and the Rouge River at the city’s eastern limits. The many creeks and rivers created large tracts of densely forested ravines, and provided sites for parks and recreational trails.

Toronto is a city of high-rises with 1,800 buildings over 30 meters (98 feet), most of them are residential having been built in the 1950s, while the central business district contains commercial office towers.

Delhi, Ontario – My Top 5 Picks

Norfolk County is a rural municipality on the north shore of Lake Erie in Southwestern Ontario.  The county seat and largest community is Simcoe.  Some of the most notable communities in Norfolk County are Delhi, Port Dover, Simcoe, and Waterford.

Surrounding its many small communities is some of the most fertile land in Ontario. With a mild climate and lengthy growing season, the region has long been the center of the Ontario tobacco belt. Many farmers have begun the process of diversifying their crop selections to include lavender, ginseng, hazelnuts, and wolfberries as tobacco consumption continues to decrease.

Delhi is located off the junction of Highways 53 and 3.  Founded by Frederick Sovereign as Sovereign’s Corners around 1826, the community was renamed Fredericksburg and eventually its present-day name of Delhi, the name usually attributed locally to a postmaster honoring a major city of the British Empire, Delhi, India.  Prior to 1880, this town was known for its lumber industry.