Palermo, Ontario, ca1900
Description
- Media Type
- Image
- Text
- Item Type
- Photographs
- Description
- A street view of Palermo, at Hwy. 25 (now Bronte Road) and the Dundas Highway (now Dundas Street) in Halton County. It looks like a cow with the two men in the road. The brick Smith foundry is on our left.
At about the same time, Palermo based Dr. Anson Buck wrote a historical description of Palermo, transcribed below here.
- Inscriptions
- Palermo; An Historical Description (Written by Anson Buck, M.D., M.R.O.S., about 1902 and recently found among his papers).
Palermo is a beautiful little village situated on 2nd line of Trafalgar township where it intersects Dundas Street. It is three miles from Bronte G.T.R. station and eight miles from Milton, the county town of Halton county, and contains about 150 inhabitants.
It was first called Hager Town after the late Lawrence Hager, one of Trafalgar's first settlers, who settled on his farm in the year 1805.
It was at a public meeting held at about the year 1835 and at the suggestion of the late Dr. Cobden, a retired surgeon, who had just returned from Sicily, that it was named Palermo, and a post office was established. It is next in importance to the incorporated towns of Milton and Oakville. Perhaps I should not give a second place to the Village of Bronte with its beautiful harbor and lake front.
Palermo has two churches, Methodist and Episcopalian, with a parsonage belonging to each. The former is furnished in good style and is a good home for the minister and his family.
Therre are also two halls, the Agricultural and Temperance Hall. The latter was built by the Sons of Temperance in 1857 and used by them as a Division room. The Palermo Division, No. 143, was instituted June 19, 1850, and has been run from that day to the present time, with the exception of occasional intervals when it seemed to lag. It has done a good work in inculcating termperance principles and promoting L.P.F. amongst themselves. Some 2000 have been initiated during the fifty-two years of its existence.
At present the village has two general stores, one grocery and two ice cream parlors in full blast during the warm weather. The first store was built in 1830 and wasn known as Hager's old red store. This with Mr. Sheridan's store built in 1835, and a small store south of Sheridan's were the only ones in existence here, and reigned supreme until the year 1843 when the corner store was built by Clubine and Johnson and sold to the late H.H. Switzer in 1846. He carried on a very successful business for nearly half a century, amassing quite a fortune. He was also postmaster and Major of the 20th Lorne Rifle Battalion of the county. Lawrence Hagar, the present occupant, succeeded him in 1887. In 1900, the building was destroyed by fire and phoenix like, the present fine structure sprang into existence the same year. Now, as in the past, it is occupied as a general store and post office, with two mails a day. The mails are carried by our genial townsman, George Sergeant (Note: more often spelled "Sargent") and son Walter, who are ever ready to convey passengers to and from the station as well as carry the mail.
The principal manufacturing business is the extensive agricultural works of J.A. Smith. Two general blacksmith shops, where Lyman Thirston and Duncan Peer do a thriving business. The harness shop of Philip Bluman and the Palermo Creamery do a steady and lucrative business.
The foundry was first established on a small scale in 1842 by the late Jacob Lawrence, when later he took his three sons into partnership. For a few years, it was run by horse power, which gave way to steam. Then was erected an additional and more commodious building. About twenty men were employed for many years. Lawrence & Sons turned out several most improved horse powers and separators and a large number of mowers, self rakes and reapers yearly. They kept up to the latest improvements along these lines, taking many prizes at the Provincial Fair from year to year. They also manufactured a large number of ploughs, straw and root cutters and almost every other article required by the husband-man in this rich and advanced agricultural section of country, unsurpassed by any for its fertility of soil and pure ozone. In the year 1817, the present large brick structure occupied by J.A. Smith was erected by the firm of Smith Brothers & Kendrick. For some years they did a lively business to the satisfaction of their many patrons.
In the year 1895 Harry Heeks established a creamery and ran it for several years manufacturing cheese, butter and cream, paying out large sums of money to the patrons. At the present time about $1500 a month is paid to them in the immediate vicinity, making about $20,000 per year.
In 1874 the North West Telegraph Company established an office in the village in the home of Mrs. Book, now the Methodist parsonage. The patient instructor was Colin H. Campbell, then a youth of fifteen. Miss Bertie Book, now Mrs. John Marshall, was the only person in the village willing to learn the art of telegraphing. The importance of telegraphic and telephonic communication to the outside world was certainly not appreciated by this important little village at that time.
In the year 1842, one of the three Grammar Schools in Upper Canada, now Ontario, was established there. Andrew Hall was the principal and classical master. Frank Barclay and others took charge of the Public School department from time to time. Mr. Hall conducted this school most successfully for a period of ten years, imparted a thorough classical and mathematical education to a great number of young men, chiefly residents of the county of Halton. Many of them have spent useful lives in the learned and other professions. In the year 1852 by some underhanded work this Grammar School was taken to the town of Galt.
Hotels have always occupied a conspicious place in the village's history, as the Dundas Street was the main road from Toronto to Hamilton, from the ealiest days the trail having been blazed through the forests by Governor Simcoe as early as 1808. In 1836 and 1840 two large hotels, one on the west the other on the east corner where built by the late Lawrence and David Hager. Theirs was a very lucrative business in catering to the wants of the public, when the county was almost a wilderness, as well as in slaking the thirst of many in the village and vicinity, who were in the habit of frequenting there. Later other hotels sprang up to meet the requirements of the stage coaching days until the year 1882, when they became a thing of the past and liquor in our quite little village of Palermo came to an end - I hope forever. It was largely through the efforts of the old Palermo Sons of Temperance, Division No. 143, during the fifty-two years of its existance that brought about new social conditions here.
The so called agricultural hall was built in the [18]60's as a drill-hall, when Fenian Raids threatened. The Hall afterwards was used for County or Township fairs. It is only in comparatively recent times, that Oakville has become the County Headquarters. - Subject(s)
- Local identifier
- TTRMW000326
- Collection
- Trafalgar Township Historical Society
- Language of Item
- English
- Geographic Coverage
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Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.43341 Longitude: -79.78293
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- Copyright Statement
- Copyright status unknown. Responsibility for determining the copyright status and any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Recommended Citation
- Palermo, Ontario, ca1900
- Contact
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Trafalgar Township Historical Society Sponsor: Jeff Knoll, Local & Regional Councillor for Oakville Ward 5 – Town of Oakville/Regional Municipality of Halton
