William Peter Adams was born in the United Kingdom in 1936, earned his B.A. at the University of Sheffield, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. at McGill University. He is married, has four children, and lives in Peterborough. He was founder of the Department of Geography at Trent University. He was chair in that Department from 1968-1977 and remained a professor while also serving as Dean of Graduate Studies, Associate Dean of Science, Associate Vice-President, 1977-1987. He was elected M.P.P. for Peterborough, 1987-1990, and elected to the House of Commons in 1993 where he is currently serving. He has published numerous articles on the Canadian Arctic, on the environment and other geographical topics, and has written and co-authored books in the same field. He has also been significantly involved in health issues, sports and athletics.
Dr. J. Harry Ebbs was born in 1906, Worksop, England and moved to Peterborough, Ontario with his family in 1912. He became interested in camping through the Y.M.C.A., and, later, at the age of 17, became more involved in camping as a counsellor, in 1924, at Camp Ahmek in Algonquin Park. Throughout his university career, he continued to work as a camp counsellor at Camp Ahmek, and later at Camp Wapameo, both Taylor Statten Camps. He graduated from the faculty of medicine, University of Toronto in 1931 and his medical career led him to remote settlements in northern Canada and to hospitals in India and Malaysia. He was later the senior staff physician at the Hospital for Sick Children, a professor of pediatrics and a director of the school of physical and health education at the University of Toronto. From 1938 to 1975 he was the medical director of the Taylor Statten Camps. It was while working as a counsellor at the Taylor Statten Camps that he met his future wife Adele Statten, daughter of Taylor Statten. They were married in 1935 and together had three children: Barbara Adele, Alice Susan, and John William. Throughout their lives, the Ebbs have been involved in organized camping in Canada and the United States, as well as in India. Both were honorary life members of the Canadian Camping Association and Dr. Ebbs was a governor of Trent University, where the Ebbs Camping Archives were established in 1979 to honor the Ebbs' contributions to the children's camping movement in Canada. Dr. John Henry Ebbs died June 1, 1990 after suffering a stroke the previous year.
The Theodore Thorne Hamilton family is associated with the earliest settlement of the Bobcaygeon area and later relocation to western Canada, where Theodore Thorne Hamilton was a telegraph operator with the Canadian National Railway. Hamilton was born 10 April 1890 in Bobcaygeon and died 3 August 1959. While in western Canada, he resided in Eudako, British Columbia.
John Northway was born on August 17, 1848, at Leat, near Lifton, England, the eldest son of Thomas Neathern Northway and Grace Doidge. In 1868, John left England for New York, where he was soon relieved of his watch and money. Disenchanted, he made his way to Canada, and went to work for a tailor in Embro, Ontario. From this inauspicious beginning, Northway became a merchant, manufacturer and financier with partnerships throughout the province and investments throughout the continent. Having achieved success, Northway sent his children to the best schools, and provided for them the formal education he had never received. John Northway founded two main companies: The Northway Company Limited, and John Northway and Son Limited. Upon his death in 1926, leadership of these two firms fell to his sons, A. Garfield and John A. respectively, under whose direction expansion and later retraction was carried out. The factory, begun in 1896 to supply the companies, was closed down in 1930. John Northway and Sons Limited came to have three stores in Toronto, and one each in Hamilton and Stratford. In 1957, this company bought the Brantford outlet of the Northway Company Limited, which A.G. Northway, who foresaw no successor, had been gradually disposing of. In January 1960, A.G. Northway died, and The Northway Company Limited was put into voluntary liquidation by its directors. In November 1960, the directors of John Northway and Sons Limited sold the company to outside interests. It has since disappeared.
The Honourable William Kerr, 1836-1906, was born at Ameliasburgh, Prince Edward County, Upper Canada, a son of Francis William and Olive Shelley Kerr. He attended school at Newtonville and later, Victoria College at Cobourg, Ontario where he received his B.A. in 1855 and his M.A. in 1858. Subsequently, Victoria College honoured him with a L.L.D. in 1887. William Kerr carried on his legal studies in the office of Smith and Armour (later Chief Justice of Ontario) in Cobourg. He was called to the Upper Canada bar in 1859 and practised law in Cobourg. He became a Q.C. in 1876. In 1896 he was elected a Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario. During his career, Mr. Kerr maintained his lasting association with Victoria College as a member of its Board of Regents, then as a senator. In 1885 he was appointed the University's Vice-Chancellor. He was heavily involved in the many land transactions undertaken by the University in Northumberland and Durham Counties. Mr. Kerr began his political career as a Town Councillor of Cobourg, from 1862 to 1867 and as the town's mayor, from 1867 to 1873. In 1874, he was elected as a Liberal member of the House of Commons for Northumberland West. He was unseated by petition on September 26, 1874, but was re-elected at a by-election on November 17, 1874. He was later defeated in both the 1878 and 1882 elections. On March 15, 1899 he was called to the Senate. Mr. Kerr was a Methodist by religion. On November 12, 1858, he married Myra J. Field, daughter of John Field M.P.P. They had seven children, three daughters and four sons. The oldest son, William F. Kerr became a partner in his father's law practice to form the firm Kerr and Kerr of Cobourg. After the Senator's death on November 22, 1906 in Toronto, William F. carried on the firm with a series of partnerships. John Wesley Kerr, the Senator's brother, was also a lawyer in Cobourg. He was called to the bar in May 1860 and was commissioned as a notary public in the same year. On June 27, 1870, he married Eva Fraser. It is possible that during his career he was Clerk of the Peace for the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham. He died on September 4, 1903.
Jean Murray Cole (1927- ), former journalist, is a historian and writer with special interest in the history of Peterborough County and in the 19th century fur trade. She was an active member of the Friends of the Bata Library and Jean a long-standing member of the Peterborough Historical Society and served as its president. Cole has published many books including "Exile in Wilderness," a biography of the Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factor Archibald McDonald, and histories of several townships in Peterborough County such as "The Loon Calls: A History of the Township of Chandos". She and her husband, Alfred, shared the editorship of a number of books including "The Illustrated Historical Atlas of Peterborough" which was published in 1975 and "Kawartha Heritage" in 1981.
Alfred O.C. Cole, husband of Jean Murray Cole, joined Trent University as Registrar and secretary of Senate in 1966. He was also a member of the history department and held the position of University Historian. He co-edited the Peterborough Historical Atlas, and in 1992, published "The Making of a University, 1957-1987". Alf Cole died in 1996.
Alfred O.C. Cole was born in 1925 and was the youngest son of Dr. C.E. Cooper Cole and Sarah Renwick Tuckett. He had three brothers and one sister, and was married to Jean Murray Cole. They had six children. Cole was an avid researcher and historian. He played a major role in the life and history of Trent University, as Registrar from 1966 to 1987, and as a member of the Department of History. He was a RCAF pilot during World War II, a political reporter for Toronto's Daily Star and Globe and Mail, and he served as an executive assistant in the Ontario Ministry of Public Works at Queen's Park in Toronto. He wrote articles, and books such as A Victorian Snapshot and Trent: The Making of a University, 1957-1987, both published in 1992. He and his wife, Jean, shared the editorship of a number of books including The Illustrated Historical Atlas of Peterborough which was published in 1975 and Kawartha Heritage, published in 1981. Together Jean and Alfred had six children of which one has followed into their literary footsteps. Alfred O.C. Cole died on October 20th, 1996.
Samuel Leggott was born in 1825 in England. He immigrated with his wife to Rochester, New York and later moved to Canada in approximately 1851 with their two sons, Samuel Richard and Thomas Walter (1850-1932). Thomas became a Reverend and married Lydia Knight. Samuel Richard married Annie Trude of Lakefield; they had 3 children, Samuel Trude (Truddie), William and Henrietta (Etta). Samuel Trude married Dora Pemberthy. He joined the Gas and Electricity Inspection Service with the Department of Trade and Commerce in 1922. In 1923, he was stationed in Belleville where in 1938 he became the District Inspector of Electricity and Gas. In 1905 the Leggott family purchased Reydon Manor (200 Queen Street Lakefield ON), the former home of Robert Strickland, son of Samuel Strickland.
Mr. John Tylor Lyon is a photographer in Lakefield, Ontario and the grandson of Harold Tylor.
Henry Lapp, son of Jeremiah Lapp and Sarah, married Hannah Hoag, daughter of Elijah Hoag and Lydia, on April 27, 1848.
The Doane family were a Quaker family who settled in York County, probably in East Gwillimbury Township, as early as 1815. According to the 1878 Atlas of York County, the family held land on concession 3, lot 15, in that township, more or less equidistant from Sharon and Queensville Post Offices. Other members of the family branched out to North King Township (third concession, near the Holland River), to Pickering Township, Toronto, the United States, and in one case, to the Baptist Mission at Cocanada, Madras, India.
The first McIntyre living in Otonabee, Ontario, was either Duncan McIntyre (1765-1840) or a cousin Archie McIntye. Duncan married Isobella Blair (1766-?) in 1793. They had eight children: Catharine, 1793-?; Janet, 1795-?; Isabella, 1797-?; Donald, 1799-?; Archibald, 1801-1889; John, 1803-1803; John, 1804-?; Duncan, 1806-?; and Margaret, 1809-? (born in Otonabee). Duncan became the first town warden and sat on the first board of trustees for the Presbyterian Church.
Thomas Choate, son of Jacob Choate and Fanny Marshall Burnham, was born April 3, 1809 near Cobourg, Upper Canada. His parents had emigrated to Glanbord from Enfield, New Hampshire in 1798, along with members of the Burnham family who were cousins of the Choates. In approximately 1801, they moved to Hamilton Township, north of Cobourg, where Thomas was born, and by 1812, the family had moved to Port Hope, Upper Canada. Thomas learned the trade of millright at Warsaw, New York, and also studied music at Batavia, New York. In 1830, Thomas married Mary Wright, daughter of Richard Wright and Ann Stuart of Skiberne, County Cork, Ireland. Thomas and Mary had five children: Thomas George, Anna Eliza, Mary Jane, Richard Marshall, and Jacob Stuart. In 1834-35, Thomas was sent to Dummer Township by his uncle, the Honourable Zaccheus Burnham, to complete the construction of a saw and grist mill, which had already been started for Burnham by Thomas Hartwell. By 1836, the mill was in operation and Thomas moved his family to what was then known as Dummer Mills and built a general store. In 1842, Thomas successfully acquired the contract for a post office, and since a post office, required a village name, Thomas chose the name Warsaw. In 1839, Thomas' first wife died and he married her sister, Eliza Wright. They had two children, Harriet Burnham and Mary, before Eliza died in 1845. In 1846, Thomas married Hanah Grover, daughter of Jonah Grover and Lucia Baldwin, of Norwood, Upper Canada. Thomas and Hannah had three children: Celestia Charlotte, James Grover, and Arthur Francis. Thomas' eldest son, Thomas George, when he was old enough, took over running the mills for Zaccheus Burnham. Thomas George later established his own chair manufacturing shop on Quarry Lake. Thomas senior's main interest remained in the running of his store and post office, and with his duties as a Justice of the Peace. Thomas also established and conducted a singing school and choir which was under his tutelage for 60 years. Both he and his son, Thomas George became involved in the local temperence society and in local politics. Thomas retired from running the store in 1889, at the age of 80, and his youngest son, Arthur Francis, took over the business as manager and post master. In 1897, Arthur established a second store, Choate Supply Store, at McCraken's Landing, Stony Lake. Thomas died in 1900, at the age of 90. The Warsaw store was sold in 1927, and Arthur Francis died in 1931. The Choate Supply Store remained in business, and was managed by Arthur's wife Vida. When she died, the store was then managed by their daughter Bessie. The Choate Supply Store was sold out of the family in 1949. Arthur and Vida Elora Smith, also had a son, Richard (Dick), who was born in Warsaw in 1880. Dick was to become a journalist, artist and musician. Dick began his career with the Peterborough Examiner in 1905 and in his early days, worked for the Montreal Herald, the Buffalo Courier and some newspapers in Calgary and Vancouver. In 1908, Dick married Mary (May) Dawson Donnell, daughter of Elizabeth Ambrose and James Rea Donnell. Dick also worked in the United States for some time, and at one point in his career was a member of the Congressional Press Gallery in Washington, D.C. He later became the editor of the Toronto Daily News, editor of the Toronto Sunday World, and an editorial writer for the Toronto Globe. It is unknown when he died.
Charles Cameron was born July 29, 1830 at Lossiemouth, Scotland. In 1856 he emigrated to Canada West and opened a business in the town of Peterborough. Three years later, Sophia Barron, also of Lossiemouth, followed Charles Cameron to Canada West, and they were married at Kingston, February 22, 1859. Together they raised four children: Annie Walker, b. 1859; Alfred and Albert, twins, b. 1864, and Sophia, b. 1868. Two other children, Clara, b. 1861 and William, b. 1866, died in infancy. In 1860, Cameron formed a business partnership with Donald McKellar, and as the firm of McKellar and Cameron, they opened a general store at the corner of George and Hunter Streets, Peterborough. They sold groceries and hardware, and acted as commission merchants. On December 8, 1869, the store was destroyed by fire. In 1869, Sophia and the three youngest children went on a visit to Scotland. Charles and Annie later joined them for Christmas in the same year. In the new year Charles returned to Peterborough and became an insurance and steamboat ticket agent. He continued in this line of work until 1903. He died a year later on February 25, 1904. His wife Sophia never returned to Peterborough; she died in Elgin, Scotland, April 29, 1873. It is unknown as to when the children returned to Canada. Albert Cameron went into a curtain and draperies business called Rumsey and Cameron. His twin brother Alfred became a Provincial Land Surveyor. Alfred married Jennie Rose on November 2, 1895 and together they had 8 children. Their first born died at the age of two. Three of their daughters, Jessie, Margaret and Jean remained in Peterborough throughout their lives, and they are responsible for the donation of this fonds to the Trent University Archives. The Cameron home on Chemong Road was dedicated as a women's shelter in 1996.
John Miller was born in Keene, Ontario and was the son of Isabella Brownlie Miller and James Miller. His siblings were William, Thomas, James, Peter, Isabelle, and Margaret. He attended Queen's University from 1882 to 1886 and worked for the Mail and Empire and the News as a journalist. He was also a world traveller and an avid canoeist.
John Merton Bowes was born in California in 1927. He first became a licensed real estate agent in 1950 at the age of 23. He began working in Toronto where he was the manager of Ridout Real Estate. He later moved to Peterborough, Ontario and founded his own firm, now known as Re/Max Eastern, in 1980. He went on to collaborate with Bill Cocks and together they established Bowes and Cocks Ltd., of which he was the president for 15 years. Bowes dedicated his career to ensuring that the development of Peterborough’s real estate was a reflection of the City’s needs as it doubled in population from 40,000 to 80,000 citizens in a few decades. One of his most notable moments includes his initial proposal of a toll road linking the QEW, southwest of Toronto, with Highway 115/7 in the 1990s. John Merton Bowes was the author of two books: Dreams For Sale – Make Me an Offer and Greater Peterborough – Building A Metropolis in Kawartha Cottage Country. He died in Peterborough in 2021.
John R. Marshall was born in England in 1876 and came to Canada in 1885. He was educated in Toronto. Much of his working life was in the employ of Canadian Nashua Paper Company from which he retired as general manager in 1945. During his 31 years in Peterborough he held senior administrative posts with the Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Education, the Public Library Board, the Peterborough Manufacturers' Association, the YMCA, St. Andrew's United Church, and the Civic Hospital. Marshall died in 1952.
John Quentin Brown (Quentin), U.E.L., was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Newton H. Brown and Grace Amanda Young, U.E.L. He worked for the Fairchild Aircraft Company between May 1939 and December 1941. In 1941, he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR). On active duty, Quentin served in Prince Rupert on HMCS French, on HMCS Malpeque and on HMCS Ontario demobilizing in December 1945. Correspondence from the War years exchanged between Quentin, his brother Robert and his sister Elizabeth is found in the book The Army's Mister Brown: A Family Trilogy 1941-1952, compiled by Elizabeth, Robert and Quentin in 1982; another brother, Harcourt Brown, was editor. After returning from War, Quentin earned a B.A. from McGill University in 1946 and a M.A. in dramatic art from the University of North Carolina in 1948. He married Myrtle Louise Stumberg of Alabama 28 August 1948 and together they had four children. Quentin worked in Ottawa at Crawley Films for 11 years. He moved to Boston and worked for the Educational Development Centre for 10 years where his main contribution was as producer of the Netsilik Eskimo film series—innovative films that focused on close portrayals of Indigenous people living in their own settings, with Inuit dialogue, and without English-speakers and talking heads. He also held a position at the University of Manitoba as Director of Instructional Media for seven years. In 1976, he moved to the Peterborough area where he was a researcher, amateur historian and writer; he was the editor of This Green and Pleasant Land: Chronicles of Cavan Township produced by the Millbrook and Cavan Historical Society in 1990. For a number of years, Quentin volunteered at Trent University Archives and was an active member of the Friends of the Bata Library at Trent.
John Wesley Pierce, 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).
John Gourley Pierce 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 Norton author, explorer, soldier, trader, and politician, led what has been recognized as a varied and intriguing life among the native populations of North America from Georgina to the Grand River in Upper Canada, where he was a close friend and adviser to Joseph Brant. Norton himself was of Cherokee descent on his father's side.
John Langton was born in April 1808 in England. He was educated at Trinity College in Cambridge and received his M.A. in 1832. In 1833 John emigrated to Canada and settled near Peterborough, Upper Canada. He represented Peterborough in the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada from 1851 to 1855. In 1855 he became the auditor of public accounts. Later, in the year of Confederation, he assumed the role of auditor-general of Canada and he held this position until 1878. He married Lydia Dunsford (daughter of John Harley Dunsford) in 1845 and together they had 5 sons and 2 daughters. John Langton died March 19, 1894 at Toronto.
John Huston was born in Ireland in 1790. He married Martha Middleton (1787-1867), also of Ireland, and they came to Upper Canada by way of New York. Together they had four children: Mary Anne, Jane, Eliza, and Joseph. On 28 October 1820, Huston was authorized by the government to assist in surveying the Peterborough area. He also worked closely with Peter Robinson in settling the Irish immigrants into Emily Township in 1825. As well as being a highly respected surveyor, Huston was a Captain in the Durham Volunteer Militia, and a Justice of the Peace. He died in Cavan on 18 May 1845 at the age of 55.
John Graves Simcoe was the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario) from 1791 to 1796. He was born at Cotterstock, England on February 25, 1752. He was an army officer and he was in charge of the Queen's Rangers in the American Revolution. While he was Lieutenant-Governor he established York and a roads system. He urged the formation of British institutions such as a university with preparatory schools. He left Upper Canada in 1796 in ill health. He died at Exeter, England on October 26, 1806. (Taken from: "The Canadian Encyclopedia." Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1985.)