Harriet Asby Peacock
Description
- Media Type
- Image
- Text
- Item Type
- Photographs
- Description
- A professional portrait of Harriet Asby Peacock, wife of William Peacock.
William Peacock had been a seaman and then captain before retiring in England. He and Harriet came to Halton in 1832 with six of their eventual eleven children. They lived for a time at Palermo where William built St. Luke's Anglican church and did the beautiful wood carving inside. They were also able to purchase a homestead in Merton where William and Harriet gave land for the Merton school although William felt he was too old to erect the building. The Merton farm was on the current site of the Deerfield Golf Course.
Merton school S.S.#15 was first a log building. A brick one was built in 1857 that was demolished to make way for the highway, and third school was built in 1923 that closed in 1958 when the new Palermo Public School on Old Bronte Road was opened.
The school was active in the life of the community with literary and drama clubs, and an active Home and School Association. - Notes
- The Merton area (Lots 26-35 2SDS Trafalgar) was settled as early as 1810. The first settlers were David Utter, Joseph Smith, William Bates, Cornelius Tipps and Henry Cale. The community adopted the name "Merton" when the post office opened in 1852. The name was likely chosen to commemorate the battle of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson as other local villages had chosen Bronte and Palermo. The post office remained open until 1917 when it was replaced by rural mail service from Bronte.
Merton boundaries were present day Burloak Drive to 3rd Line, the railway tracks near Lake Ontario north to Upper Middle Road. The intersection of Bronte Road (originally called Station Road) and the Queen Elizabeth Way (formerly Lower Middle Road) was the centre of the Merton area.
At its height, the community of Merton had about 50 buildings including a school, a blacksmith shop, post office, sawmill, gristmill, coal merchant, hotel and stagecoach stop, railway station, the church and cemetery. Orchards and mixed farming flourished. - Subject(s)
- Personal Name(s)
- William Peacock, b. April 26, 1796 d.March 27, 1875 ; Harriet (Asby) Peacock, b. August 10, 1798 d.January 8, 1882
- Local identifier
- TTOIJMH0002
- Collection
- Trafalgar Township Historical Society
- Geographic Coverage
-
-
Ontario, Canada
Latitude: 43.48341 Longitude: -79.71632
-
- Copyright Statement
- Copyright status unknown. Responsibility for determining the copyright status and any use rests exclusively with the user.
- Recommended Citation
- Harriet Asby Peacock
- Contact
-
Trafalgar Township Historical Society Sponsor: Jeff Knoll, Local & Regional Councillor for Oakville Ward 5 – Town of Oakville/Regional Municipality of Halton
