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• Thomas Curtis Clarke 1827-1901
  The world of today differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Caesar; and this change has chiefly been made by engineering." These were the words of civil engineer Thomas Clarke, a New Englander who came to Port Hope in 1853 to work for the local railway. He married and raised a family here and, in the 1860s, was a partner in a Port Hope firm that constructed...

• Loss of the Speedy, The
  In 1804, an Indian, Ogetonicut, arrested near York, was accused of murdering a trader, John Sharp, at Lake Scugog. The trial was to be held here in the projected, but never completed, "district town" of the Newcastle District. On October 7, the schooner "Speedy" sailed from York. Her passengers in addition to the prisoner, included Solicitor General Robert Gray, Judge Thomas Cochrane, High Constable John Fisk and other participants in the trial. The ship appeared...

• Founding of Cobourg, The
  Saw and grist mills erected in this area during the first decade of the 19th century fostered the development here of a small settlement. The completion of the Kingston Road by 1817 facilitated its growth and within a decade it had a population of about 350. Known as Hamilton, then Cobourg, the community expanded rapidly as a commercial and shipping centre and as a port of entry, particularly after harbour improvements were completed in 1832...

• Victoria Hall
  One of the finest public buildings in Canada, this imposing structure was built as an expression of civic pride and confidence in the future. It was begun in 1856 and opened by the Prince of Wales four years later. Designed by the renowned architect Kivas Tully, Victoria Hall is classical in form and is distinguished by elaborately carved ornamentation, an elegant pediment supported by four Corinthian columns and a massive, column-ringed cupola. The building's interior...

• Founding of Colborne, The
  A store established here about 1819 by Joseph Abbott Keeler, a prominent early settler, provided the nucleus around which a small community began to develop. Within ten years a distillery and a blacksmith's shop had been erected. The settlement, named Colborne reputedly after Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne, soon emerged as a service centre for the surrounding region and, with the establishment of a harbour nearby for the shipment of lumber and grain, it prospered...

• Barnum House
  A superb example of a prosperous Upper Canadian home, this elegant classical building was erected about 1819. Though its interior has been modified several times since, the façade remains essentially unaltered. In the first historic house restoration undertaken in the province, the structure was refurbished by the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario in 1940. Since 1982, its continued preservation has been entrusted to the Ontario Heritage Foundation.

• Eldorado Refinery, The
  A pioneering operation in the development of nuclear energy, the Eldorado refinery was established in 1933 by Gilbert LaBine, a veteran prospector, and his brother Charles. It extracted radium, used in the early treatment of cancer, from ore mined in the Northwest Territories. In 1942, soon after the uranium atom was split for the first time, the Canadian government acquired Eldorado to refine uranium oxide, a waste product in the radium extraction process. The only...

• Alderville Manual Labour School
  One of several technical training institutions operating in Upper Canada during the first half of the 19th century, the Alderville Manual Labour School was established here by 1839 by Wesleyan Methodist missionaries. The school was designed, as were others of this type, to assimilate Native children into the Euro-Canadian society that was growing rapidly within the province. To that end, it attempted to eradicate the traditional Native way of life, and stressed instead Christianity, the...

• Bluestone House 1834
  This fine limestone house, originally painted blue, was completed in 1834 by John David Smith. Born in New York City in 1786, he came here in 1797 with his father, Elias Smith, who had played a leading role in the founding of this community. The family received large grants of land in Hope Township, and John David Smith served during the War of 1812 as a captain in the 1st Durham Militia. A prosperous merchant...

• Church of St. Peter, The
  This Anglican church was begun in 1851 to replace a frame building erected in 1820. Distinguished by the stepped battlements of its façade, the new building was designed in early Gothic revival style by the noted architect Kivas Tully, who was later responsible for Victoria Hall, Cobourg. After the plan was altered, St. Peter's was constructed by the contractor, Samuel Retallick, and gradually encased the earlier church, which was dismantled. On October 15, 1854, this...

• Cobourg and Peterborough Railway 1852-1898, The
  Largely financed by the citizens and town, Cobourg's railway to Peterborough was chartered in 1852 and opened in 1854. Like many others of this period, it suffered from excessive optimism, land speculation and faulty engineering. Ice made the three-mile-long Rice Lake bridge unsafe and finally destroyed it 1860-61, ending use of the northern section. Reorganized in 1866, the remaining part carried considerable iron ore from Marmora. The line was acquired by the Grand Trunk in 1893 and closed in 1898.

• Founders of Campbellford, The
  In 1831, two Scottish-born brothers, Lt. Col. Robert Campbell and Major David Campbell, were granted 2,200 acres of land in Seymour Township, which had been surveyed in 1819. Robert, who had achieved an outstanding record in the Napoleonic Wars, died here in 1836, while David served as Crown Land Agent for the township, 1832-39. Here at "Campbell's ford," there arose a settlement that, about 1853, was named Campbellford. David Campbell, by then living in Cobourg...

• Founding of Hastings, The
  By 1825, James Crooks, a prominent entrepreneur and land speculator of West Flamborough, had acquired over 1,000 acres here at the rapids on the Trent River. He soon erected a small grist-mill but made no further improvements until the government began the canalization of the Trent waterway in 1837 and constructed a lock and dam at "Crooks Rapids." Crooks erected a new grist-mill and a sawmill and, in 1839, surveyed a village plot. Few lots...

• Founding of Port Hope, The
  Peter Smith, a fur trader, occupied a house here at "Smith's Creek" by 1788. The first permanent settlers were Loyalists brought to the township by 1793 by a group of associates headed by Jonathan Walton of Schenectady, N.Y. and Elias Smith, formerly of New York City. Walton and Smith were granted land after promising to build mills on the creek. The mills were operating by 1797 when Smith moved here and, in 1800, he laid...

• Gore's Landing
  Named after Thomas S. Gore, an Irishman who settled in this vicinity in 1845, the village of Gore's Landing prospered for a time as the terminal point of a plank road constructed from Cobourg to Rice Lake 1847-48. Among the well-known residents of Gore's Landing were: Archibald Lampman (1860-1899), noted poet; Derwyn T. Owen (1876-1947), Anglican Primate of All Canada from 1934-1947; J.D. Kelly (1862-1958), historical artist; and Gerald S. Hayward (1845-1926), a painter of...

• Harwood
  This area, purchased in 1828 by Robert Harwood, a Montreal merchant, did not begin to develop rapidly until the arrival of the Cobourg and Peterborough Railway in 1854. Harwood was surveyed in 1855, and the line, which transported passengers, lumber and goods to Peterborough, and later ore for the Marmora iron foundry, encouraged commercial development here. The near-by crib bridge, which carried the track across Rice Lake and on to Peterborough was, however, poorly engineered...

• Honourable James Cockburn 1819-1883, The
  A Father of Confederation, James Cockburn was born in Berwick, England and came to Canada with his parents in 1832. Admitted to the bar in 1846, he formed a partnership with D.E. Boulton in Cobourg, and in 1849 established a law practice independently. Entering politics, he represented Northumberland West in the Legislative Assembly of Canada, 1861-67, and served as solicitor general, 1864-67. At the Quebec Conference of 1864, he shared in drafting the plan for...

• J.D. Kelly 1862-1958
  John David Kelly, a gifted painter and illustrator, is best known for his meticulously researched paintings depicting important events in Canada's history. Many of Kelly's paintings and sketches were commissioned for reproduction and were widely distributed. The artist was born at Gore's Landing in 1862 and grew up in Percy Township. He graduated from the Ontario School of Art in 1882, contributed to the noted calendars of the Toronto Art League, and was active in...

• Marie Dressler 1868-1934
  Leila Maria Koerber, a talented actress and singer known internationally as Marie Dressler, was born in Cobourg. About 1883, she joined a touring stock company, later gaining recognition on Broadway in a series of successful comedy productions, including "Tillie's Nightmare". Although she made her first film in 1914, entitled "Tillie's Punctured Romance" with Charlie Chaplin, her real success in motion pictures began in 1930 when she played in "Anna Christie" with Greta Garbo. During the...

• Old St. Andrew's Church
  This church, built from local stone, was begun in 1830 on land acquired by the Presbyterian congregation from Joseph A. Keeler, a prominent local merchant. It was designed by Archibald Fraser, a Scottish architect-builder, in a plain and classically proportioned Georgian style and, upon completion in 1833, services were held under the direction of the Reverend Matthew Miller. Later in the century the interior was recast and a new roof featuring projecting eaves supported by...

• St. Mark's Church 1822
  Built in 1822, this Anglican Church was consecrated in 1828 and dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. With an enlargement in 1842, and alterations to windows and tower in 1851, the church approached its present size, form and Gothic appearance. A new St. John's was opened on Pine Street in 1869 and this building was closed. Re-opened in 1873 and rededicated to St. Mark, it became the church of a separate parish. Further alterations were...

• Victoria College
  The cornerstone of this building was laid June 7, 1832, and teaching began in 1836. First operated under a royal charter by the Wesleyan Methodists as Upper Canada Academy, in 1841 it obtained a provincial charter under the name Victoria College, giving it power to grant degrees. Victoria's first president was the Reverend Egerton Ryerson, newspaper editor and founder of Ontario's educational system. In 1890, the college federated with the University of Toronto and, in 1892, left Cobourg.

• William Weller 1799-1863
  This resident of Cobourg was the province's leading stage coach proprietor from about 1830 to 1856. His Royal Mail Line ran from Hamilton to Montreal, with links to other centers. In February 1840, Weller drove the Governor-General, Charles Poulett Thomson, from Toronto to Montreal in the record time of 37 hours and 40 minutes. Three times mayor of Cobourg, he was also chairman of its Harbour Commission, president of the Cobourg-Rice Lake Plank Road Company and organizer of the International Telegraph Company.