The Old Store and Hotel At Palermo, ca1900
Description
- Media Type
- Image
- Text
- Item Type
- Photographs
- Description
- An image taken from a privately published book showing the old store and hotel in Palermo in about 1900. The hotel is the larger building west of the hydro pole, the people are standing in front of the store. You can see a bit of the distinctive tiered false storefront roof behind the tree - this is the store that stood on the north-east corner of the Dundas Hwy and (what is now) Old Bronte Road.
In 1900, Palermo had several general stores. In his essay, "Palermo; An Historical Description", written by Anson Buck, M.D., M.R.O.S., in about 1902, Dr. Buck wrote about the stores "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 store in this photograph is the one that was rebuilt after a fire in 1900.
Over the years, other proprieters and post masters/mistresses of this general store and post office besides Lawrence Hagar were James Dobson, G.S. Wood, R.B. McGill, W.P. Sargent and Eva Nussey.
The book referred to above was privately published by Herbert V. Book in 1963. It is simply titled "Family Records compiled by Herbert V. Book". The Library of Congress Number is 63-15463, author in the LC citation is Herbert V. Book, place of publication is possibly Detroit. 360 p. ill. CS71 B7247 1963.
- Notes
- Palermo, founded as Hagartown (also written as "Hagarstown", is a former village in Trafalgar Township, Halton County, Ontario. The village was established in 1805 by Lawrence Hagar, a settler to Upper Canada from Pennsylvania at the intersection of Bronte Road and Hwy. 5, (Dundas Street). The village was named Hagartown until 1836 when it was renamed to Palermo in honour of Horatio Nelson, Lord of Palermo for the opening of the post office.
By the 1870s the village had two stores, a hotel, wagon shop, blacksmith shop, harness shop, brick school house, churches, a telegraph office and drill shed. The main businesses were run and owned by the Hagar family in the 1800's. The village was amalgamated with Oakville in 1962 along with Trafalgar Township, and other nearby villages. - Inscriptions
- The Old Store and Hotel and Palermo taken about 1900, looking west. In the buggy is old Grandad Sargent who used to drive the mail to Bronte station.
- Subject(s)
- Local identifier
- TTFVS000578
- 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
- The Old Store and Hotel At Palermo, 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
