and other local industries and institutions. Pickering College, a residential secondary school built by the Quakers near their yearly meeting house at Pickering, was among those institutions. The college stood on five acres of beautiful grounds with a winding, tree-lined drive that lead up to the fine red-and-white brick structure that crowned the hill. Sectarian difficulties within the Society of Friends (Quakers) in Canada forced the closure of this Quaker-run school in 1885.
Pickering was incorporated as a village in March, 1953, and on January 1, 1974, it was amalgamated with the Town of Ajax to become Ajax-Pickering.
Today a walking tour of the quaint village of Pickering allows the visitor to step back in time. Beginning at the eastern edge of the village, a 19th century home, circa 1898, numbered 145 Kingston Road, has managed to survive the march of time; at 135 Kingston Rd. E. stands a typical Victorian house built circa 1887. South on Mill Street is the Friends Cemetery where 15 or more Quaker families, who had joined in Timothy Rogers settlement, were buried. Apparently Rogers, too, lies here in an unmarked grave. The Quaker Meeting House, built around 1867 at 117 Kingston Rd. E., is now the home of the Doric Lodge. It was built as the Canada Yearly Meeting House to serve Upper Canada. The first session took place on June 28, 1867. The stone regency cottage at 124 Kingston Rd. E. was built around 1850. The attractive two-storey frame house at 107 Kingston Rd. was built circa 1911 for Dr. Fields, a general practitioner in the village.
A good example of late Victorian architecture incorporating polychromatic brickwork and Romanesque arched windows is a home, vintage 1870, at 97 Kingston Rd. E. Next door is a well-preserved red-frame cottage with an inviting entrance, built around 1842. This is one of the earliest houses in the village. Immediately opposite is a well-maintained Greek Revival white-frame house, built around 1880.
Turning north on Church Street and walking on the west side there is a white frame cottage, 22 Church Street N. This building was built circa 1880. A picturesque brick house with pointed gables at 68 Church Street south was built circa 1880. This home features a decorative front veranda with gingerbread and brackets. The spire of St. Francis de Sales Church (circa 1871), on Church Street S., was an early landmark in Pickering village.
North on Church and west on Randall Drive is St. George’s Anglican Church, built circa 1841. This church was built of brick that was supplied by the Grand Trunk Railway in exchange for a railway right-of-way. Church lands extended at that time as far south as the present 401 highway.
At 22 Linton Road is one of the earliest properties in the village. This 1.5-storey Ontario cottage, built around 1843, was an adaption of the Regency style popular in Ontario from the early 19th century.
Winding through the back streets are a host of historic buildings. For example, 23 Elizabeth Street is an archetypal Gothic Revival cottage. And there is much more!
Far from the death and starvation of the first winter here, Ajax-Pickering is now almost a suburb of Toronto. As a matter of fact, there is continuous development from Toronto through Ajax-Pickering, and Whitby to Oshawa. Despite all of that growth, the historic village of Duffin’s Creek remains visible.
Port Hope
The tall whispering pines in the Ganaraska Valley have always sounded a call of peace and tranquility for those who would stop to hear it.
The dense undergrowth on the hillsides provided abundant coverage for both rabbits and partridge. Deer and bear once roamed those forests in large numbers. It was here that a Mississauga tribe numbering 200 built their wigwams on the grassy slopes of the riverbank. They called their village Cochingomink. Like the Mississaugas, a fur trader named Peter Smith heard the call of this land and erected a log building in 1778.
Peter Smith’s mission in life was to establish a trading-post business, and he did. His skill as a hunter and trapper won him great respect among the Mississaugas, which helped his endeavour to profit. In 1790 Smith decided it was time to leave. Another trapper, named Herchimere, took possession of Smith’s cabin and kept the trading post going.
Unknown to Smith, his vision later spawned interest in the development of a community bearing his name. Only a year after his departure, the valley was surveyed, and the government offered grants of land to anyone willing to develop a settlement. Ironically, a United Empire Loyalist with the same surname, Elias Smith, and his friend Jonathan Walton, applied for settlement grants here.
On June 8, 1793, the soon-to-be fathers of Port Hope landed on the stony beach of their new home. This party of arrivals also included Myndert Harris, Lawrence Johnson, Nathaniel Ashford, James Stevens, and their families. By sunset a group of white tents dotted the flats across the creek from the trading post. By morning, construction of log houses, thatched with bark and with huge dutch fireplaces, had begun.
In no time at all, Smith and Walton helped to settle 40 families at a place later named Smith’s Creek in honour of the first white settler, Peter Smith.
In 1817 Charles Fothergill received authority to establish a post office at Smith’s Creek and was made postmaster. For some unknown reason, Fothergill was unimpressed by the name and proceeded to change it to Toronto. Two years later a petition was drawn up to request that the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada make the community a port of entry and clearance, where vessels from the United States could lawfully stop to discharge their cargoes. Inexplicably, this prompted the Executive Council of Upper Canada to require that the site be given yet another name. The inhabitants of the community met and G.S. Boulton suggested the name Port Hope in honour of Colonel Henry Hope, lieutenant governor of Quebec from 1785 to 1789. It was agreed. (It was 15 years later that the settlement of York adopted the name Toronto).
It was during these early years that some residents of Port Hope first encountered the “Haunted Meadow.” This swampy spot had originally been created as the result of a beaver-dam. It was covered with a dense undergrowth and was surrounded by wild plum-trees in great profusion. The presence of “will-o’-the-wisps” gave it an uncanny reputation. According to Tony Diterlizzi and Holly Black, in their book entitled Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, “The will-o’-the-wisps are spotted deep in forests, swamps, and other desolate places and appear as glowing orbs that move slowly over the landscape. These phantom lights are called by many different names. Elves particularly delight in using will-o’-the-wisps as a source of illumination and decoration for their revels.
“Lost travellers spotting wisps often believe they are seeing an artificial light and head toward it, causing them to become even more lost. Many have died, lost and alone, or fallen prey to some more dangerous faerie.”
Early settlers steered clear of the Haunted Meadow. These feelings were magnified by the mysterious disappearance of an orphan-boy who was said to have been ill-treated and ultimately murdered by a surly old settler adjacent to the meadow. The boy, it was rumoured, had been buried in the meadow and his ghost was known to wander at night. This tale was supported by the accounts of two bold young men who, throwing caution to the wind, went to pick plums one evening at the so-called charmed circle. They had scarcely climbed into the trees when weird, guttural noises could be heard, and a ghostly figure began to flit around. They retreated hastily — with a gruesome story to tell everafter!
By the year 1826, the village had grown to include four general stores, a distillery, a tannery, three taverns, and one hotel. That year the first regular mail stage began to run through Port Hope. The coach stop was the old inn at the present site of the Queen’s Hotel. In their heyday these stage coaches were large vehicles drawn by four horses, one of the picturesque elements that have rolled out of our sight today.
Commander John Tucker Williams established a 100-acre homestead in Port Hope in 1829. Williams named his house Penryn, after the village in
