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RESTORE HISTORIC 128 Year Old House On Pioneer Waterdown Farm What would early settlers think if they could see the country today? One man who died 100 years ago, could see his home now he might think things haven't changed very much. In 1949, Mr. and Mrs. John B. NcColl bought the 128 year old Adam Ferguson house near Waterdown. Mrs. McColl said in a recent interview that they had tried to change the old stone house as little as possible. They did have to give it a new roof, a new road, electricity and plumbing. The house had not been modernized at all. The house nestles on a level under the brow of the escarpment, built there, Mrs. McColl speculated, to protect it from the weather. At the front it commands a view of Hamilton and the bay front. In the living room, kept cool and quiet by walls of stone over a foot thick, Mrs. McColl described some of the changes she and her husband had made. The floor, she said in the living room was new. Through most of the rest of the house the old flooring of short, broad pine planks had been left. A fireplace has been added in the living room. There are five of them on the main floor, all the others are the original ones. Mrs. McColl thought that the house might have been built in three sections. Several of the interior walls are of the same solid stone as the outer walls. The wide windows and doors can still be protected against sun and wind by hinged shutters which fold inside against the deep wails when not in use. In the basement the atmosphere of a century ago still exists. There's a well there, kept covered now. The massive hand hewn beams show the marks of the adse. A dark, stone floored root cellar holds shelves of modern cans and preserves in its cool depths. The narrow, turning stairway to the second floor is guarded by a slender bannister. Its curving top is covered by handmade inlays of solid walnut. Upstairs alterations are dormer windows cut into the sloping: roof, one end of the roof raised to make room for a bathroom. Downstairs in the hall beside the big kitchen is a series of old bells which still work. The Adam Fergusson who built the house was on of the founders of the town of Fergus. He was president of the Agricultural Association of Upper Canada, which in 1846, held a livestock exhibition which was the grandfather of the C.N.E. Mr. Fergusson arrived in Canada in 1831, liked it, and brought his family out in 1833. Mrs. McColl said the original deeds still exist. The house was built 1834. The boundaries of the land are now just the same. The land itself is being put to much the same use as it was when its original owner farmed it. Mr. Fergusson was a stock farmer. Where his cattle grazed, sheep and horses owned by Mr. and Mrs. McColl now roam. A good tug on bell pull reaching into another room rang one of these bells near the kitchen to summon the servants [Photo of bells near the kitchen used to summon the servants]