Students Hear Village History
IRON BRIDGE — Mrs. Neil Draper and Mrs. William Boville, met with the grade 8 students at the public school Tuesday morning to give them the history of Iron Bridge.
Mrs. Draper, with pictures and clippings from the newspapers of yesteryears, gave them much information. The dates and names of the first settlers coming to this area in 1879 and the first post office and store in 1883.
She had pictures of the wooden spiles and buckets that were used when making maple syrup, a far cry from the plastic pipeline of today.
The first church was built in 1892 and burned before it was ever used. However the men built another right away.
A wooden bridge was built across the river in 1886, but only two men had crossed it when the water took it away. A year later the iron bridge was built. The first telephone system
came to the village in 1920, the first electricity in 1946.
Mrs. Boville decided to take the pupils on a magic trip having them leave their comfortable homes and go to the bush land where there were no roads, live on very plain food while they cleared land, built homes and roads.
At the end of the story she asked if any of the pupils would really like to live like this. Needless to say very few hands were raised.