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Greetings, Friends!
Since our meeting at
Limehouse in the spring, the steering committee has been working hard to
try to protect the Fallbrook farm from demolition. Now, summer is well
on its way, and many events have occurred in our quest to preserve the
site of Fallbrook Farm. After our April meeting, Credit Valley
Conservation Authority (CVC) agreed to secure the house, which they
did. Tom Murison, a well known restoration consultant undertook to do
an Historical Investigation Report of the site. His findings are
comprehensive and run to 41 pages, including many pictures. Tom looked
at the farm house, from the perspectives of the techniques and the
materials that were used in its construction, and the surrounding
landscape. He also investigated the stone structures that had been
variously identified. Together with the land registry records, and
through the use of dendrochronology, he was able to demonstrate the
story of the log cabin, from the time when William McClure purchased the
property from the Canada Company, in 1855. It was to this cabin that
the Scottish emigrants, Donald McKay and his wife Jessie, and young son
William came in 1877. From then on, the property was a homestead, until
it was taken over by CVC in 1973. It continued to be inhabited by
tenants, until 2001. Since then, minimal work has been done, and the
stone walls round the house have been raided for fire pit stones.
Tom noted that the cabin was
constructed using sawn logs that were cut in the winter of 1855 (see
below), and probably built the following spring/summer. The McClure
family owned the property, and it is believed that they used it as a
wood lot. The cabin was possibly used as the miller’s house. The fact
that Tom’s examination of the logs showed them to be sawn rather than
hewn, led him to investigate the area, particularly the stone structures
that were in the neighbourhood. He was able to locate the remains of two
mills, one a saw mill, the other a grist mill, a dam and slipway, and a
beautiful stone bridge, similar in size and construction to those he had
seen in Scotland. He was also able to identify a previously excavated
and recorded Late Woodland Indian site, with a longhouse and
accompanying out buildings. He detailed the renovations that the McKays
did to the cabin/house as the family grew. Many features are consistent
with those that characterized Scottish buildings of the day. This site
shows signs of human habitation for over 500 years. While the Native
site has been excavated and documented, there is a need to excavate the
areas where Tom has calculated the saw and grist mills were located. He
spotted soot marked bricks in the area, and other signs of human
habitation.
We attended a meeting with
the Heritage Halton Hills Committee (HHH) and representatives of Halton
Hills Municipal Council, at which Tom presented this report. On the
basis of this information, we requested that both parties review our
request for Heritage designation of the Fallbrook site. The Council
asked for time to review the report, and asked us to appear at the June
23rd council meeting. Later, due to a long agenda, we were
put over to July 14th meeting. We felt that the report and
power point presentation was very positively received, and that our
request for designation would be approved, but at the meeting it was
another story. Again the question of money, and a business plan and
fundraising were the topics that were first and foremost on the table,
not the historical value of the site. HHH had no representative there,
nor had sent a deputy. The question raised by one of the HH councillors,
as to whether or not financial responsibility had anything to do with
the historical/heritage value of the property deemed necessary for
designation, was never answered! Fortunately, one councillor proposed
that our case be deferred for four months, by which time we were told
that we had to have a business plan and fundraising in place. Anyone
wishing to help us in preparing this business plan will be warmly
received. We appear again at the November council meeting. In the
interim, we are approaching Ontario Ministry of Culture in quest of
Provincial designation. We will also be undertaking incorporation as a
non profit organization. These two items should give us the tools to
access Foundations for funding e.g. Trillium Trust Fund. Without
designation, this site and its history are in jeopardy.
On the genealogical side, we
have records of many family members who lived on the farm, and/or near
by. We have also traced most of the tenants, and their families. Work is
continuing in collecting stories and memories of those who were there
when the land was being actively farmed.
We really do need your help.
We need media contacts. We need you to write to Mayor Bonnette, your
MP, and MPP, to the Minister of Culture, to the Toronto Star, Globe &
Mail and National Post. Call your local Cable TV station and ask what
they are doing to bring this story to the community.
We look forward to another
gathering in the Fall, when all the autumn colours are at their best,-
Perhaps,
“Fall at Fallbrook”
Please contact us at
fallbrook@live.ca
Note;
Dendrochronology: the technique of dating a tree or log using the
pattern formed by the annual growth rings revealed by taking a core
sample, or slab with the bark attached. The sample is compared to a data
base which will provide matches similar to those used by fingerprinting,
or the UPC codes used in marketing. Thus the date the wood was cut can
be extrapolated. Tom is experienced and a respected expert in this
field. Article Toronto Star, dated June 2008.
We thought
you might enjoy this rare picture of the splendid Fallbrook Bridge taken
in 1921. If you zoom down, you see the bridge in all its original
splendour. If you zoom up you see Donald McKay (beard), his son Sandy
(cariole), and his grandchildren Rachel and Sandy who visited every
summer from Owen Sound.
We will be
completing our last update with specific details about political figures
and how to find them quickly. Please wait and enjoy the rest of your
summer. Rumeur has it that we will have a hot and sunny fall. So keep
the faith. Merci, Sandy McKay Friends of Fallbrook. |
