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The Herald Home Newspaper oi Hills Second Clan Mil Registered Number THE HERALD WEDNESDAY JUNE Postage Guaranteed IT SO per year Copy Price Fifteen CenU Acton Is Century Old History Is Its People BYCRLIA SAXON new town of Hills Acton is a history of fond memories of happy Acton is years old on July doomed to progress To many It their ancestry days gone by 1 is a delightful mixture old But to a few of the remaining Laura Wiles To the present generation To oiks who contributed to the Actons longest continuous ourth generation Ac- this progressive town resident Ruby Clark Actons THIS PICTURE of the Anglican Church Sunday school picnic is dated a little later Judging from the clothes Jean Lasby former owner of the Station Hotel remembers when half the town crowded onto a train and went up to Kitchener Park for their annual Sunday School picnic Perhaps your grandparents are in the PERHAPS SOME of the will recognize themselves and their friends In this picture It looks like a wedding with all the fancy dresses and gay flowered bonnets Actually it is the annual Sunday school picnic with the members of Knox without a hat Ruby Clark Presbyterian Church commented Picnics have Nobody went anywhere come a long way since 1910 CHILDHOOD MEMORIES Looking Back On Early Life In Acton Childhood memories Or second and third generation like Ruby Clark Laura Wiles and Charles Lands borough are skating on Hendersons Pond behind the Free Press skating from the dam on Mills St across the Mill Pond Fairy Lake all the way to Beaver Meadows sleigh riding down the hills on Main Street right down the road hitching a ride on the back of the long bobsleds that used to carry logs to the saw mill where Lake view subdivision now stands when all the churches had baseball teams and provided entertainment for townsfolk by playing each other torch light parades to the train station to greet the win baseball lacrosse or hockey teams Everyone carried lighted that had been saturated with coal oil to school house when Mr Stuart was principal and Robert Little was the first Acton Roots Deep For Price Family The Price familys roota are deep in Acton Doug Price the caretaker of Robert Little School is a fourth generation Actonian The old Price homestead was started by Evan and Sally Price when they emigrated from Wales in They built their home on an old Indian trail which ran from the fifth line to the seventh line Just below Balllnafad This was the only road open for travel between Acton Georgetown and Guclph When the Grand Trunk Railway was being built the workers stayed at a camp down the sixth line from the Twice a week Sally Price would walk down to the camp with a basket of eggs on one arm and a basket of butter on the other to sell to the work men In 1837 the peppy Utile grandmother carried victuals to the hiding place of William Lyon and later sheltered him in her home despite the fact that they were high church and Tories There was reward of three thousand pounds on his head When asked why the did not give up the replied Drat It l want any blood money on my hands No matter what the weather or road conditions Granny Price went far and near to help friends In need She was so adept at midwifery that Dr Freeman of Georgetown would refuse to go if he knew Granny was going to be there He claimed Id only be in the road anyway Evan price died in 1857 and Granny died in 1872 Their son James married and lived in the house until it burned to the ground in 1912 They sold the farm and moved to Acton But the old original bam is still standing on the properly Five of the seven children of Herbert and Emma Price are still living in Acton lives on Willow St Abble lives Herbert on Elmore Drive Norman on Bower Ave and Douglas lives on Main St Margaret resides in Niagara Falls and another son Camp bell has passed on Every time we drive past the old barn on Highway we feel a twinge of emotion remarked Doug Price Even though we never lived there we feel that the place is very much a part of our lives school Inspector going to Acton High School In the old stone building that was formerly the residence of Peter Smith when all the churches had driving sheds for the horses and buggies like the one that still stands behind the Baptist Church at the corner of Mill St and Elgin when half the town crowded onto a train to attend the Sunday school picnics at High- pot Lowpolnt Park in Rock- wood or Blue Springs or Kitchener Childhood memories for Charles La rough are of his dads butcher shop at Mill and Main Streets his dads boat rental when he had to pay Mr Beardmore a one dollar lifetime fee for the or putting the Landsborough boats on ores Lake Lake Charles memories of later days include playing in the Acton Citizens Band when George Mason was bandmaster Charles also played for many years with the Lome Scots Regimental Bond in Georgetown under the direction of who was also bandleader of the Acton Citizens Band for several years Laura Wiles recalls the days when her father William was transferred from Toronto to work In the warehouses in They lived on Church St across from the Catholic church for many years until about 1929 when Laura and Harold took over the candy store on Mill St When the Gray Coach buses made their ap pearance the Wiles ran the bus depot for many years For Ruby Clark former school teacher Acton memories end In 1913 when she went to Toronto to teach From 1910 to 1913 many of our senior citizens were In Miss Clarks grade one and two class at Acton Public School For Ruby Clark the fondest recollection of old is when you knew every person and his J oldest living descendant and Jean and Mary former owners of the Station Hold Mary Mrs Osbourne 1 remembers falling off balcony of her fathers hotel on Mill SI when she was four years old You know the hotels in those old western movies with the big cement verandah down stairs and the big wooden balcony upstairs held up by Killers she recalls Well I over the railing and smashed my head a little and broke my teg ONE DOCTOR The one doctor in town was out on confinement but Marys who was used to up the cattle fixed It up as good as new He placed boards on either side of the leg and bound it all up with a sheet and went back together without any trouble she reports After that Sam our father took the verandah and the balcony off and rebuilt the hotel He added all the red brick part that comes out to Mill St said Jean Lasby Mrs Jean Precious Dad opened the new Station Hotel on July 1 1913 Originally it was Bells Town built in ihe I870s by Wm Bell Following that it changed names and owners many times It was called the Queens The Ross in House The Depot Hotel and the Station Hotel Jean recalls the day her father look her out of school when she was twelve years old the eldest of six children He told her Youre mothers on her deathbed so now Its up to you the oldest to keep thinas going So I had to do the cooking or the hotel patrons get Ihe Kids off to school make all beds Jean continued I was still making the beds when the men got home at night because by the time I got finished cleaning up after the breakfast it was lime to start dinner BOILED EGGS Back in those days breakfast wasnt boiled eggs and toast Hotel patrons were usually hydro gangs or telephone gangs who usually stayed Four or five weeks while they were putting in a line somewhere They went out to physical labour at 7 clock In the morning and had to have a good breakfast We would have give them steak or pork chops one morning lamb chops another morning and fried potatoes every morning besides a big bowl ct porridge a big bowl of fruit such as prunes or applesauce On top of that they would have as much bread and toast as they could stuff into them end all the tea and coffee they could con And they were all back again at clock for soup and roast and potatoes and vegetables and pudding or pie And at night returned for another meal of sausages or liver and more potatoes or a big stew Jean remembers the first morning she got breakfast she had to feed people That wasnt counting her dad brother and four sisters In hose days there was no hydro no telephones water had to be carried In pails from down Mill St across the road from the Baptist Church The property was a livery stable at that lime They ran a horse and buggy taxi service to and from the trains BUSINESS We did an awful lot of business from the tracks Mary recalls would come down to the hotel get a sandwich for a nickel Everything was a nickel In those days a glass of but termilk a cup of coffee a piece of pie They didnt even sit at the table lo eat It they would stand at the old bar like do in cowboy movies eat their lunch and go back to their work at the tracks Jean added There was so much freight in those days that there was always a bunk car beside the tracks with a bunch of fellas on doing some kind of work at the station Nobody knows more than I do because Id Just get out of that place and the bell would ring and I was back Into it Id run up and downstairs half a dozen times to get one bed made The Lasby girls enjoyed their work because they always met such Interesting people They said you meet good and bad people In every business but Ihey made it their business to pick out the good in everybody no matter how odd they seemed Jean recalls one particular gentleman a Prudential In surance agent from Guelph who walked with a limp but never complained He told her The pain goes down my leg and out my tig toe Old she called him was particularly fond of Jeans rhubarb pie Except that every time she made rhubarb pie she forgot to put the sugar in and old would ask No sugar again today Jean Years afterward when Jean was working in Toronto she was sitting on a streetcar when she recognized a boarding passenger as Old Simpkins He sat down across from her and looked and looked and sud denly exclaimed for all to hear Rhubarb pie without sugar To which Jean retorted That pain went down your leg and out your big toe 1 She says the onlookers must have thought they were a pair of lunatics but we knew what we were talking about During the prohibition years when Old Sam lost his liquor licence he did everything to keep his hotel business At that time he had the only hotel in Acton He worked two farms one at Blue Springs the other the property wnlch is now the Homes subdivision He grew all the vegetables and things that the girls served In the hotel In 1932 he got a licence to serve beer and gave up farming PANELLED DOORS The girls often wondered why anyone would put while paneled doors with fancy while knobs on a bam until their dad ex plained that upstairs over the stables used to be the town entertainment hall known as Bells Hall It was used for dances parties travelling shows ana auction sales And heard during the Boor war they had recruiting In there Jean remarked but then what would 1 know about that stuff That was before my time Mary worked In the hotel most of her life until her son Sam took it over Because she was widowed with her father put her children through school in return for her services at the hotel Jean as if she hasnt had enough still works in the kit chens occasionally for the new owners when they arc short of help It is now owned by brothers Nick and Ell who are now undertaking the first major renovation since 1913 They have removed the big old lobby with the two fireplaces and the spiral staircase to do away with wasted space One of the fondest memories of the two sisters Is that there wasnt a lock in the place We could go to bed at night and leave the whole place open and know that nobody would bother you You couldnt do that THE PRICE FAMILY of Acton goes back four generations to 1B40 when Evan and Sally Price built the old Homestead on what now and Sixth Line before Acton was a village The house burned to Ihe ground in 1912 while occupied by son Herbert The family moved to Acton Above left Evan and Sally Price right Herbert and Emma Price and two of the five children still living in Acton below James Price son of Evan and Sally and his wife and children A HYDRO GANG from Toronto putting In a hydro line through Acton The men would stay at the Station Hotel for four or five weeks until a Job was finished Jean at twelve years old would cook breakfast of pork fried potatoes preserved fruit and toast and coffee for men every morning ACTONS BASEBALL team sometime around A few of the boys have been idenlified as Ernie Brown who owned a grocery store on Main St with on his hat and Cam man who worked for many years at the Acton Post of Boyd Clark brother of Ruby Clark retired schoolteacher who still lives In Acton Would anyone like to guess who the rest would be JEAN AND MARY Mrs Precious and Mrs Osborne In front of the old Station Hotel now live in the house next door former residence of old Doc town vet and policeman Right Sam Lasby before the fireplace of his hotel after major renovations In 1913 A FEW FOLKS remember going to the old two storey brick when Mr Stuart was principal The photo Is dated 1912 Front Earl Vincent Ethelred White Boyd Clark Back Ernie Speight Mr Stuart and Cam Clark RETIRED SCHOOLTEACHER Ruby Clark remembers the days when they had torchlight parades to greet the homecoming ball teams at the station They would soak In coal oil and light them Her brother Boyd Clark deceased la pictured wearing a Morriston shirt other players are unidentified