Newcastle on a Great Lake

Newcastle Village in Clarke Township, Province of Ontario, Canada

Newcastle Village is situated in one of the most highly developed and prosperous regions of Canada. It is on the north shore of one of the Great Lakes - Lake Ontario - which is 298 K long from east to west, and across the Lake - just 64 K away - is the United States of America.

Newcastle is in a part of the country that was once called "Upper Canada." To the east, was "Lower Canada," the area beside the St Lawrence River - the River that drains water from Lake Ontario into the Atlantic Ocean. The old city of Kingston, Ontario, is 222 K to the east of Newcastle, where Lake Ontario flows into the St Lawrence River, and further down the St Lawrence is Montreal. Of more importance to Newcastle Village life - both in earlier days, as well as today - is the city of Toronto, parts of which are just 48 K to the west.

At first there were two villages. Bond Head was the name given to the community beside Lake Ontario, while Newcastle Village was a mile & a half north, on the main road from Toronto to Kingston and Montreal. This road was first built in 1816 by a man named Danforth. It was a dirt road - a bush road -sometimes called the Danforth Road - sometimes called the "King's Highway" because it belonged to the King - and it ran from Toronto to "Kingstown." In more recent years the road became "Highway No.2" or "The Trans-Canada Highway," running 2326 K from Windsor, Ontario - at the boarder with Detroit, Michigan - to Halifax, in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada's great port on the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1860's, a Bond Head schooner, partly owned by Capt Frank Gibson, of Bond Head, with a Bond Head crew, took a ship load of barrel staves from Newcastle to Quebec city. Bond Head was called Port Newcastle at that time, and local ships kept up a steady trade with Toronto, Kingston and American ports.

Today goods from the Newcastle area might travel to Quebec by train, but more likely by truck on Highway 401 - an 8 lane modern "limited access" highway - the busiest highway in Canada - that passes between Newcastle and the old port of Bond Head. This is a big difference from the early 1800's when the main road out of Newcastle was often thick mud and the Lake was the best travel route in spring, summer and fall. At that time the old Danforth Road was usable when it was frozen - in the middle of winter.

In 1838, when the Bond Head Harbour Company was incorporated, Clarke Township was mainly forest and only partly farm land. Travelers on the Danforth Road said you could not see the sun at high noon because the trees of the forest blocked out the light. There were a few grist mills at that time in Clarke Township that ground wheat into flour as well as several saw mills, ready to supply boards for new barns, shops and houses. Both mills were run by waterpower.

The neighbours to the east of Newcastle were - and still are - Port Hope and Cobourg. When Bond Head Harbour Company was started a man from Cobourg - George Strange Boulton - gained control of most of the village land. A plan was drawn up, of village lots each one-fifth acre in size. These were house lots, and a number of carpenters began to built the houses and stores that were to become the villages of Newcastle & Bond Head.

One of the first to arrive in Bond Head was a foundry man named Richard Vaughan who ran a small blacksmith shop that made parts for mills and plows and other simple farm machinery. He was joined in 1847 by Daniel Massey - and thus was started one of the most successful Farm-Machinery Manufacturing Businesses in the world. In later years the company was know as Massey-Harris or Massey-Ferguson and sold equipment around the world. One hundred and fifty years ago the Massey Company played a very important role in village family life. In the same fashion today, many people in Newcastle work for - or sell goods to people who work for - "The Motors" - the local name given to General Motors of Canada, in nearby Oshawa, where hundreds of men and women build cars and trucks.

Soon after he arrived, Daniel Massey moved "his works" from Bond Head to Newcastle, to the main street, where there were several hotels, along with a tailor shop, a boot & shoe maker, a wagon maker, a livery stable, and several general stores. All these businesses have now disappeared.

In 1851 the harbour changed its name from Bond Head to Port Newcastle. In 1856 Newcastle was incorporated as a village. On October 27th in 1856 the first steam locomotive pulled a train through the village on its way from Montreal to Toronto - and Newcastle was connected by rail with the rest of the world. Some goods in Village stores now came from places like New York City. And with the railroad established Newcastle was able to ship local goods to distant places in the winter months. In 1865 Massey's Newcastle Agricultural Works sold 400 farm machines - some harvesting machines were sold to the Emperor of France. In October of 1882 telephone poles arrived in Newcastle and villagers were told they would have telephone service in just a few days.

When the great Irish immigration took place to Canada in the middle of the 19th century, most of the better land along the Lake had already been taken up by earlier settlers. By that time the Lake front was mostly English - mostly Church of England people. The back concessions - the area away from the Lake - tended to be Irish and Methodist - while Scots, mostly Presbyterians, were sprinkled through both sections. In 1861 citizens of Newcastle claimed to be Church of England, Church of Scotland, Episcopal, Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist, Presbyterian, Free Church, Bible Christians, Congregational, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Independent, and Unitarian. There was one man who said he was a Mormon and another a Quaker.

Five Ontario Historic Plaques have celebrated the lives of 5 men and their families in Newcastle Village. They are the Masseys, Bishop Brent, Samuel Wilmot, the Baldwin family, and Joseph Atkinson. Atkinson was born in Newcastle, his father was a mill operator, and Joseph became the famous owner of the Toronto Star newspaper.

In 1854 the Rev. Henry Brent became the pastor of St George's Church in Newcastle. He was the father of Bishop Brent, born in Newcastle in 1862. Bishop Brent was elected Bishop of the Philippine Islands in 1901 - Bishop of Washington 7 years later - but declined - Bishop of Western New York in 1918 - and he died serving the church in Lausanne, Switzerland.

When Newcastle became an official village in 1856, the first Village Council consisted of 5 men. Andrew McNaughton was the first Reeve and a member of a very successful family of village merchants. John James Robson owned some of the ships that sailed from Newcastle, and was president of Bond Head Harbour Company. William McIntosh was the village's first mill owner, John Treleaven owned a saw mill and was a principle builder of Newcastle houses, and Jacob Casselman was a Newcastle merchant. This first Council passed a law that a Newcastle Grammar School should be built - and they decided that the village could have 6 inns, and 2 saloons.

There is a fish in Lake Ontario called a salmon. It is a fresh water salmon and it is said that early settlers using sticks and speaks could catch as many as 1000 in one night - and this fishing was done in small local streams where the streams ran into the Lake. One man who had a great influence on the village was Samuel Wilmot. He became interested in the salmon as early as 1860 and build a "fish hatchery" at Newcastle - one of the world's first. Wilmot would eventually become head of fisheries for Canada, and in the 1890's he was running a small generating station which supplied Newcastle with its first electrical power - from sunset until about 12:00 midnight.

For many years - at least in the summer time - the harbour at Newcastle was a very busy place. A great deal of grain was shipped to the United States - wheat and oats, as well as flour. Also shipped in those early days were potash, pearlash, lumber, butter, lard, whiskey and potatoes. However, as the railroad became established the shipments at the waterfront fell off - and by the 1890's the harbour was in a "dilapidated state." Hart Massey, son of Daniel Massey took the farm machinery company to Toronto.. In 1896 there were 2 terrible fires on main street - and the village was much changed.

Hart Massey was the father of Chester - and Chester the father of Vincent Massey and Raymond Massey. Vincent was the first Canadian born Governor-General of Canada - and Raymond was famous for playing Abraham Lincoln in U.S. Hollywood movies. In 1923 Chester brought the Massey family back to Newcastle where he spent part of his summers - and he built the Newcastle Community Hall. This building held the local library and was a focal point for social gatherings in the village. Prior to this, plays and movies were presented in Alexandria Hall, a room over a local hardware store, which is now a computer shop - and a milk & magazine store

The Lovekins and Bates arrived in Clarke Twp in 1797 - the first settlers - and lived in log houses. Robert Baldwin Sr, with son W.W. Baldwin and family arrived 2 years later and they also lived in a primitive house - maybe a fur trader or Indian shanty that had been sitting empty by the Lake shore. It had a bark roof and a chimney made of sticks and clay. One corner was closed off for the daughters who slept on boards on the floor. A few years later the Baldwins moved to Toronto - and W.W. and his son the Hon Robert Baldwin were very much involved in Canadian politics. When William Lyon McKenzie, a Toronto newspaper publisher - who was very much against the government of the day - tried to start a Rebellion in Toronto in 1837, it was the Hon Robert Baldwin who was sent to Montgomery's Tavern - by Sir Francis Bind Head, the Lt Governor of Upper Canada, with a white flag to arrange a truce. The Hon Robert is given credit for being the man who eventually convinced Great Britain that her Colonies should have "home rule" - that is they should run their own governments, and be "self governed!"

Canada celebrates families that left the United States at the time of the American Revolution, left all their property, escaped to Canada, and started a new life. These people were - and still are - referred to as United Empire Loyalists (UEL's) and they settled in the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Lower Canada. They are also given credit for being the first settlers in most parts of Upper Canada. One famous gentleman who lived in Bond Head - part of a UEL family - was Myndert Harris, who often road a horse through the village and carried a sword. One family that should be mentioned in connection with early settlement in Newcastle - is the Walbridge family. They first arrived in America in the 1600's, moved to Canada in 1802, and came to Clarke Township in 1819. They were very successful farmers, and farmed land that eventually became part of Newcastle Village.

In 1916 Newcastle had a population of 700 people. Its chief industries were fruit growing and farming - and the village had an apple evaporator and several small flour mills. In the early 1900's general stores in the village still offered an endless supply of goods including , groceries, ladies furnishings, fancy goods, dishware, men and boy's clothing, trunks and suitcases, boots and shoes and dry goods. Newcastle has always been the centre of one of Canada's main apple growing areas. In 1915 there were upwards of 35,000 barrels of apples shipped - many going to England. The other crop now is corn - grown to feed the cows that supply milk to Toronto.

As the Community Hall was built in the early 1920's, villagers switched from horses to cars. Local farm families gave their farms to sons and daughters, and retired into the village. Our children are now bused to school - and our High School has moved north of the village. There was once a weekly Newcastle paper - the Independent - but villagers now read Toronto papers. None of the trains now stop in Newcastle. Every Newcastle family has a car - or 2 cars. Where there were once several blacksmith shops on main street - there are now several pizza places! As truck and car drivers fly by on Highway 401 - heading for Toronto, or Montreal - they don't realize that they are passing through an old historic Ontario community.

There are still a few giant maple trees lining some Newcastle streets - and the village is almost quiet again - and mostly peaceful - as it was in the days when the sidewalks were "board-walks," when people played checkers at one of the local general stores, or gathered to talk at one of the village blacksmith shops, and no one had a problem parking their horse and buggy.

History courtesy of Herb Taylor