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Artscene HISTORY: Y Halton author John McDonald has brought the man the region is named after to life with a book, titled Halton's Heritage: William Halton and Halton County. 33 · Friday, November 18, 2011 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.insideHALTON.com Teen wins LA Music Award By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Young Oakville musician Elyse Simpson is not new to winning awards, and now she's doing it internationally. The 19-year-old folk fusion musician has just added the Best International Artist honour from the Los Angeles Music Awards to her list of credentials. The awards honour independent musicians and were handed out at The Avalon Theatre in L.A. last week. To get her award, "It' really a people's Simpson beat out choice. That's why I'm hopefuls from as far afield as Jamaica, so honoured to get Austria, West Africa the award. I was and Italy. Audience selected by the people members chose who heard me." winners at a nomination performance Elyse Simpson, night earlier in the musician year at L.A.'s Whiskey A-Go-Go. "It's really a people's choice," Simpson said. "That's why I'm so honoured to get the award. I was selected by the people who heard me and they were moved by the performance. It meant a lot to me that that was the reaction." There were more than 110 nominees for a number of categories at the awards, and Simpson said she was surprised to win considering the level of talent in her category. At the awards ceremony, Simpson shared the red carpet with such performers as James Brown II, the son of the late James Brown, Michael Jackson bassist Alex Al, and Keith Olson, known for working with bands such as Fleetwood Mac and Santana. She also See Musician page 34 GRAHAM PAINE / OAKVILLE BEAVER The life of William Halton told in book By Kathy Yanchus METROLAND MEDIA WEST John McDonald has completed the formidable task of bringing to life a man dead almost 200 years. His insatiable curiosity for the origin of names led the Milton author on a fiveyear quest to uncover details about the man for whom this region is named, William Halton. Halton is not a significant historical figure, but a man who was undoubtedly involved in Ontario's early development. Family records showed the man existed but it was McDonald's research that linked him to the Halton region. What McDonald discovered was that in 1806, Halton served as private secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, Francis Gore who appointed Halton Provincial Agent for Upper Canada 10 years later. In this role, Halton lobbied for compensation for citizens of Upper Canada who had fought in the War of 1812. To accommodate an influx of settlers from the British Isles following the war, the Gore District was created, and was subsequently divided into the counties of Halton (for William Halton) and Wentworth (for Sir John Wentworth). It was a daunting, yet fascinating task to unearth the life and times of Halton, says McDonald, who has chronicled them in an illustrated, 296-page book, Halton's Heritage: William Halton and Halton County. We all live in this place called Halton, yet virtually no one knows the man existed, says McDonald. His meticulous exploratory research took McDonald to England, Bermuda and several Ontario locations, where he unearthed copious documents to facilitate his investigation. "He was very well respected, very compassionate," discovered McDonald who developed a great deal of respect for the man he came to know solely through archival writings. A second component to McDonald's book details how Halton county transitioned into a thriving regional municipality, as well as the origin of the names of more than 80 area settlements, some no longer in existence. The book also features a Halton chronology, the intertwining of both family history and Halton county/region history, See Research page 35