Peterborough Normal School was officially opened on September 15, 1908 and operated until the late 1960's. The school was located in Peterborough, Ontario, and several hundred teachers were trained there over the years of operation. The first principal was Duncan Walker.
The Charles E. Goad map making company was established in Montreal, Quebec, in 1875. In its business of creating fire insurance plans, the Charles E. Goad map making company was the most comprehensive company in its coverage of Canada. By 1885, the company was firmly established in Canada and by 1910, Goad and his surveyors had created fire insurance plans for more than 1300 Canadian communities. When Charles E. Goad died that same year, the company was taken over by his three sons, who continued to run the business under the name Chas. E. Goad Company. In 1911 an agreement was reached between the Chas. E. Goad Company and the Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association, by which the Goad Company was to create and revise plans for the Association exclusively. The Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association was founded in 1883 for the purpose of standardizing fire insurance rules. This agreement ended in 1917, and in 1918, the Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association established its own plan making department. It was named the Underwriters' Survey Bureau Limited. At the same time, the Bureau acquired the exclusive rights from the Chas. E. Goad Company to revise and reprint the Goad plans. The Goad Company, which continued to exist until 1930, stopped producing fire insurance plans. In March 1931, the Underwriters' Survey Bureau purchased all of the assets of the Chas. E. Goad Company, including copyright. The Underwriters' Survey Bureau continued to produce fire insurance plans for the cities and towns in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes. The Canadian Fire Underwriters' Association remained responsible for the production of plans in the western provinces and the B.C. Underwriters' Association was responsible for plans in British Columbia. In 1960, these regional operations were amalgamated with the production of plans under the centralized Plan Division of the Canadian Underwriters' Association. In 1975, the Association changed its name to the Insurer's Advisory Organization, and at the same time, decided to cease fire insurance plan production and sell all plan inventory. This was the end of 100 years of continuous fire insurance plan production in Canada. (Taken from: Hayward, Robert J. "Fire Insurance Plans in the National Map Collection." Ottawa: Library and Archives Canada, 1977.)
St. Andrew's Church, originally a Presbyterian Congregation, was formally organized in Peterborough in 1833 by Reverend J. Morrice Roger of the Established Church of Scotland. The first place of worship was a rented building located on the north side of King Street, west of Aylmer Street. On May 30, 1835, St. Andrew's Church received a Crown grant which included the land on which the church now stands. In 1836, the first church building was built, made entirely of stone quarried from property owned by the church. By 1884, it was decided by the congregation that a new church building was necessary. The cornerstone was laid June 29, 1885, and on May 2, 1886, the new St. Andrew's Church was formally opened and dedicated. In 1924, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church became St. Andrew's United Church.
The Peterborough Presbyterial Women's Missionary Society is a community of Christians involved in local and world missions.
The Peterborough Social Planning Council (PSPC) was developed to promote greater co-ordination between different providers of social services in Peterborough and area. It was to provide consumers of social services the opportunity to have input into the social system and to identify the needs and problems, and receive recommendations about services and activities. The PSPC was to build a data base, to be open to the public, with information of existing services. In 1978 the PSPC reported on the task force on Children's Services. It conducted various research projects on existing and future implementation of social services. It provided a community forum for preparation of briefs in response to the published intentions of governments. The PSPC monitored the emergence of urban and rural planning developments. It also encouraged and assisted groups establish programs in needed areas. The PSPC was located on King Street in 1978 in space given to them from the United Way office.
The Peterborough Women's Committee was a local organization which lobbied at various levels of government and also provided resource material on women's issues. The committee opened a resource centre for women, published a directory of services available locally for and by women, and held all-candidates' meetings. The committee was in existence between 1977 and 1987.
The United Counties of Peterborough and Victoria were created in 1850 when a county system replaced the district system. In 1860 Victoria County separated from Peterborough County thus creating two separate counties.
The early 1940's saw the rapid development of Canadian-American relations brought about by the pressures of World War II. These new relations included military co-operation and economic co-operation exemplified by the Ogdensburg Declaration of August 1940 and the Hyde Park Declaration of April 1941. An area of concern for both Canada and the United States was the region known as the Canadian northwest (north of 60th parallel, west of the 110th meridian). After the Japanese attack on the military base of Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941, the United States military became increasingly concerned over the safety of Alaska. American military leaders decided that the Canadian northwest was the ideal region on which to build secondary lines of communication to Alaska. This led to the development of the Alaska Highway and the Canol pipeline project to provide transportation into and out of Alaska and petroleum products for the military bases which were quickly cropping up in the area. Both of these projects were under the supervision of the Northwest Service Command of the United States Military and lasted from 1942 to 1945.
Hart House was opened in 1919 at the University of Toronto, Ontario. It was a gift to the University by the Massey Foundation. Built by two Canadian architects, Sproatt and Rolph, it had a dining-hall for undergraduates, a faculty club, club rooms for graduate members, a music room, a chapel, a library, a room for debates, a completely equipped little theatre, a sketch room and various offices plus a running track, rooms for boxing, fencing and wrestling, a swimming pool, a billiard room, photographic dark rooms, a rifle range, common-rooms and guest rooms. Hart House was essentially a club for men. (Taken from: Wallace, W. Stewart. A History of the University of Toronto. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1927.)
The Province of Upper Canada, the predecessor of modern day Ontario, came into existence with the passing of the Constitutional Act by British Parliament in 1791. The passing of the Act divided the old Province of Quebec into Lower Canada in the east and Upper Canada in the west, along the present-day Quebec-Ontario border. The creation of Upper Canada was the result of several different factors. During the Seven Years' War, the French abandoned most of the region of the province of Quebec to the British and after the surrender of Montreal in 1760, the British took over the territory which was later to become Upper Canada. Also, in the 1780's, after the end of the American Revolution, thousands of Loyalist refugees flooded northward, across the border. The Constitutional Act was a direct response by London to the American Revolution and Upper Canada was to develop with tight British control. The first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada was Sir John Graves Simcoe. Simcoe's prime goal was to win the American Loyalist emigrants back into the British camp. Simcoe did not fully succeed in his goal when he retired in 1796, but the War of 1812 helped to further his cause and strengthen Britain's control over Upper Canada. Over time, the people of Upper Canada found the Constitutional Act of 1791 too rigid, and there was much pressure for change. A second wave of settlers came to the region between 1815 and 1820. These settlers were immigrants from the British Isles who came to the Canadas looking for a better life. By 1838 the population of Upper Canada had risen to more than 400 000 inhabitants. In 1838, the Governor General of Canada, the Earl of Durham, drafted his famous Durham report, calling for the re-unification of Upper and Lower Canada and creation of "responsible government". Britain approved the union of Upper and Lower Canada and on February 10, Upper Canada ceased to exist, and in union with Lower Canada, became the Province of Canada. (Taken from : The Canadian Encyclopedia, Volume three. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1985.)
Victoria College was established by the Methodists as an Academy in Cobourg, Canada West. In 1829 at the Conference of Methodist's conference it was decided to establish a seminary for preparatory education for males and females. The cornerstone of the College, which was known as the Upper Canada Academy, was laid June 7, 1832. The official opening occurred four years later on June 18, 1836. On October 6, 1836 the Academy was granted its Royal Charter for its incorporation. The Academy provided co-educational, non-denominational preparatory education similar to the grammar schools of the time. In 1841 a Provincial Statute elevated the status of the Academy to College. Thus on October 21, 1842 Victoria College started its first semester as a degree-granting institution. The College granted degrees in Arts, Science, Law, Medicine and Divinity. When it acquired its elevated status as a College women were no longer allowed to attend until 1880. From 1876 to 1878 a new building, called Faraday Hall, was built on campus to house the Science Department. This was sponsored by Dr. Eugene Haanel. The College enlivened the community of Cobourg by encouraging intellectual pursuits. The College gave a Conversazione, the first of its kind in Cobourg, after convocation. This allowed the students to march around to music since dancing was not allowed at that time in the College. On November 20, 1892 a Act was passed by the Province that federated Victoria College with the University of Toronto. At this point the college professors and students moved to Toronto and the building which used to house the College became in turn a Provincial Asylum, a Military Hospital, an Ontario Hospital and a training centre for the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services. (Taken from: Cobourg Early Days and Modern Times. Cobourg: Haynes Printing Company, 1981.)
Victoria County, formally established in 1860, is comprised of the Townships of Bexley, Carden, Dalton, Eldon, Emily, Fenelon, Laxton, Digby, Longford, Manvers, Mariposa, Ops, Somerville, and Verulam. The town of Lindsay in Ops Township is the county seat. The County is bordered in the north by the Muskoka District, in the east by Haliburton and Peterborough Counties, in the south by Lake Scugog and the Regional Municipality of Durham, and in the west by Durham and Simcoe Counties. It is 2 169 km square in area. The land in Victoria County was first opened for settlement in 1821 and the first settlers were mainly Irish, both Protestant and Catholic, and Scottish Presbyterians. By 1880, lumbering was firmly established as the main industry in the county. Quickly the region was stripped of its forests, and it was not until the 1920's that an interest in reforestation developed. Today, Victoria County is a prime grain producing region. As well, chemical industries and tourism make up the present day economic picture of the county. (Taken from: Mika, Nick and Helma. Places in Ontario, Part III. Belleville: Mika Publishing Company, 1983.)
The Victoria Museum grew out of the Peterborough Historical Society's efforts to preserve the past. They received $200.00 from the City of Peterborough; $100.00 from the County of Peterborough and the Society raised $100.00. June 22, 1897 was the official dedication of the Victoria Museum. It was called the Victoria Museum to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee. The Victoria Museum officially opened October 31, 1898. It was housed in the two front rooms, the large ground floor hall, the upstairs hall and two upstairs rooms at Inverlea House. The museum had a number of cases of birds and animals, Indigenous curios, old documents, antique firearms, an old canoe and displays of minerals. T.A.S. Hay became the first curator when the Victoria Museum moved from Inverlea Park to the top floor of the new library building on April 23, 1912. G.H. Clarke became the next curator as Hay died in 1917 and the Library Board took over stewardship of the museum. In the 1950's William Graff became the curator but by this point much of the museum's collection had been dispersed to other sources in the Peterborough area. The Historical Society re-established itself and the museum became renewed with display cases on the upper floor and in the basement of the library. Eventually the artifacts which were part of the Victoria Museum's collections and later under library stewardship came to be housed in the Peterborough Centennial Museum. The Centennial Museum originated from the need in the city for a new museum. At this point the Peterborough District Historical and Art Museum Foundation was established in 1961 to fund and establish a new museum and safeguard remnants of the Victoria Museum collection. On November 19, 1966 the Historical Society transferred ownership of the collection to the Foundation since the society was not incorporated. On October 28, 1967 the Peterborough Centennial Museum was officially opened on Armour Hill and the collections of the Victoria Museum became a part of the Centennial Museum's collections. (Taken from: Doherty, Ken. Preserving Peterborough's Past: 150 Years of Museums and History. Occasional Paper 16. Peterborough Historical Society, November 1995.)
The village of Ashburnham was situated in the north-west portion of Otonabee Township in Peterborough County. It is believed that Presbyterian minister, Reverend Samuel Armour, who arrived from Scotland in 1826, was its first settler. Prior to 1904, the village was a municipality of the County of Peterborough; in 1904, it was annexed by the City of Peterborough.
Peterborough is situated, for the most part, on the west bank of the Otonabee River which runs south into Rice Lake. Samuel de Champlain was the first European to cross the site of Peterborough. In 1819 Barnabus Bletcher, Thomas Edmison, John Farrelly, Charles Fothergill, Adam Scott and Thomas Ward entered the area looking for a suitable mill site. The mill eventually became a landmark to residents and travellers in the area until it burnt down in 1835. In 1825 Peter Robinson entered the area with Irish settlers. The area was originally known as Scott's Plains. In 1826 the settlement was named Peterborough in honour of Peter Robinson. The town had mills and churches to start with and eventually expanded with banking arriving in 1840 and water power in the 1850's. (Taken from: Illustrated Historical Atlas of Peterborough County, 1825-1875. Peterborough: The Peterborough Historical Atlas Foundation Inc., 1975.)
VOX was the student publication of United College, now the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
The Wallace Point Bridge and Road Company was created on October 31, 1866 for the express purpose of building a road and bridge from South Monaghan Township, County of Northumberland, across the Otonabee River, to Wallace Point, Otonabee Township, County of Peterborough. The total distance of the road, including the bridge, was to be 2 1/4 miles. It is unknown when the company ceased to exist.
John Gourley Pierce (1918-2003) was a Peterborough land surveyor and the son of John Wesley Pierce, also a land surveyor, and Mable Pierce. He graduated from Queen's University, served with the Royal Canadian Engineers in Italy and Europe during WWII where he won the Military Cross for Valour. On returning from the war, he joined his father's survey firm, which then became Pierce & Pierce Land Surveyors, in Peterborough, Ontario. In 1947 he completed the survey of the Ontario-Manitoba boundary started by his father in the 1920's. He was President of the Ontario Land Surveyors Association. He was also active in the community and earned numerous awards, among them a citation for outstanding contribution by the Ontario Land Surveyors Association, a City of Peterborough Award of Merit, Rotary's Paul Harris Fellowship, a Sir Sandford Fleming College Fellowship in Applied Education, and the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award.
John Wesley Pierce (1886-1949), father of John Gourley Pierce, was born in 1886 in Eaton, Quebec, the son of Reverend Barry Pierce and Catherine Farnswoth. He attended University of Toronto and was a member of both the Dominion and Ontario Land Surveyors Associations. He was responsible for the definition of the Ontario-Manitoba boundary, begun in 1921 and finally completed by his son in 1947. Until 1932, he worked for the Topographical Survey Branch of the Dominion Department of the Interior and traveled from New Brunswick to the North-West Territories. In 1932 he settled in Peterborough, Ontario and started the survey firm which would become Pierce & Pierce Land Surveyors. (Biographical account supplied by Catherine Cramer).
T.H.B. Symons was chairman of the Policy Advisory Committee to Robert L. Stanfield from 1968-1975. This Committee was established by Robert L. Stanfield in order to "revamp the [Progressive] Conservative Party in the wake of the Diefenbaker debacle, partly by attracting bright, new M.P.s, partly by trying to convince Quebecers that the Conservatives were more than just a party of les anglais" (Taken from: Tailor, Charles. "Radical Tories." p. 194).
The set of posters of the Russian Revolution were photographed at the Lenin Library in Moscow in 1966 by Italian photographer Caio Garruba and reproduced by him for publication in the West. The originals were created between the years 1917 and 1929, beginning with the October Revolution and spanning a 12 year period of unrest, counterrevolution, famine, foreign military intervention, and economic turmoil. Many were designed by renowned Russian artists, such as Moor, Apsit, Lisitski, Ivanov, and Mayakovski (information taken from the booklet which accompanies the posters).
Founded in 1931, Beta Sigma Phi is an international women's organization that focuses on stimulating personal growth and development of its members through cultural and social programs and through service to others. Members volunteer for such activities as blood donor clinics, daffodil day, and meals on wheels. The organization supports various charities. Beta Sigma Phi was established in Peterborough in 1944 and the Preceptor Psi chapter was established in 1969.
Shining Waters Presbyterial UCW (United Church Women) is a Peterborough, Ontario, organization. Prior to 2013, it was known as Peterborough UCW Presbyterial. Shining Waters Presbyterial UCW is part of a larger organization, United Church Women, formally established in 1962 through the amalgamation of two United Church women’s groups, the Woman’s Association and the Woman’s Missionary Society. As stated in Voices of United Church Women, 1962-2002, the UCW’s purpose is “to unite the women of the congregation for the total mission of the church and to provide a medium through which we may express our loyalty and devotion to Jesus Christ in Christian witness, study, fellowship and service.” (p.v)
The Serpent Mounds Foundation of Peterborough was founded March 22, 1956, as a non-profit organization. The founding members of the foundation all had a common belief in the ethnological and archaeological importance of the Peterborough Serpent Mounds and wanted to create a group whose interests would lie in protecting the site. In the past, the Serpent Mounds had incurred irreparable damage by well and not so well intentioned persons digging for relics. The purpose of the foundation was: to promote the systematic and sustained archaeological investigation of the Rice Lake Serpent Mounds; to assist in the development of the site as an educational and tourist centre; to co-operate with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Parks Division of the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests in these endeavours; to be a local focus point to stimulate interest in the work and support for it; and to provide and administer funds which would enable a thorough archaeological "dig" and study to begin in the summer of 1956 and to continue for four years following 1956.
Peppermint and Abraxas Press are privately owned by Richard Miller and operated out of Toronto. Peppermint Press was established in 1973 as the printer's private publishing company (Taken from: Kotin, David B. "Reader, Lover of Books." Toronto: University of Toronto, 1981.) and Abraxas Press was established in 1978. Private printing presses in Canada are usually Canadian-owned, owner-managed and limited to an annual list of one to ten titles per year, receptive to new writers, rarely profit-making and often subsidized by government grants. These small private presses often make contributions to the advancement of new literary work and to Canadian cultural life. (Taken from: "Literary Presses in Canada, 1975-1985: A Checklist and Bibliography." Halifax: Dalhousie University, 1988.) Some publications printed by Peppermint include "Pocket Pool: Poems and Parables" by David Berry in 1975; "The Lavender Nightingale" by Catherine M. Buckaway in 1978 and "Stories of the Witch Queen" by Gena K. Gorrell in 1985. Abraxas Press has published a number of broadsides and helped to publish "The Lavender Nightingale".
