It Cost $100,000 To Construct It’s Now A National Monument

Victoria Hall is to be a nation- al historic site.

The 104-year-old building was once honored by the presence of a prince, and alternately damned by a portion of the present gen eration who claimed the old building was an anachronism.

In its chequered history it has been the seat for the tax collect- or, the house for the attendant, the meeting place for both town and counties council, the place for the road show, lofty soprano, stringed instruments, plays, Red Cross, the senate, the loafers, the pensioners, the police, "the Chamber of Commerce, the court, the inquest, the fashion show, and the jail bird , . . from the highest echelon of the oldest family to the latest common de- nominator.

Whatever Victoria Hall has meant to you in your childhood or your adulthood, coupled with your, imagination it has run through the sparkling years of colorful-history.

Only one other local institution surpasses the old hall in point of time and in interest.

It is no figment of boasting but a very-proud fact that this newspaper, The-Cobourg Sentin- el-Star is Victoria Hall's senior by some 29 years.

The passing generations of people in some 133 years have paid the greater homage, the forbearance, and the community pride in making its newspaper the strong and valuable commun- ity asset it is today, for it is alive and speaking in the terms of modernity while the old hall, decrepit in joints and spotted with history is part of another age.

The Cobourg Sentinel-Star is preserved of itself with the will to live, while the old hall which cannot exist without subsidy and visual aid is now assured that no group, or individual, by de- sign or otherwise, can tear the building down.

As a national historic site it will be preserved forever for posterity. No longer will The Cobourg Sentinel-Star have to wage war to prevent some un- thinking group from succeeding in a campaign to destroy its trea- sured presence. Now as an his- toric monument no human hand will be allowed to tear it down.

THE BURNET STORY

The Victoria Hall story is the tale of pride in craftsmanship, a story which is old but fresh to- day on the lips of John D. Bur- net, Ontario Street, former May- or of Cobourg, now succeeds by Mr. Jack Heenan.

An artistic Scot, William Bur- net, grandfather of J.D., was the contractor who erected the noble architecture known as Vic- toria Hall. There were three Williams in the Burnet ancestry, the First, the builder, the son, William A. and the other grand- son, William Ewart, brother of J.D, who passed away recently.

In a reminiscent mood, the last of the Burnet line, John D. Burnet told The Cobourg Sent- inal-Star that his grandfather William, the builder, first oper- ated a distillery at Grafton prior to 1860 when the hall was com- pleted.

In those days a distillery was operated under bond at its in- ception for seven years before

(Continued on page 2)

VICTORIA HALL

(Continued from page 1)

the output could be sold.

Just at the end of the seven- year period, when the liquor was ready for open market sale, the distillery was razed by fire, and the entire loss sustained. All that marks the site today at Graf- ton is the relic of part of s foundation wall.

Grandfather William and Un- cle Francis Burnet built and liv- ed in Stillbrook, east of Grafton (where the McEacherns resided until recently.) After the distill- ery fire, the Burnets came to Co- bourg and worked as contractors.

Cleveland Stone was imported to erect Victoria Hall, and the work required some four years to complete, at a cost of $100,000 to $110,000, a large sum for those days.

Another "Burnet" structure was Taunton House on Division Street. The brothers also built the houses contained in the area south of King Street, west of On- tario, residences for Fields, Munsons, the present Dr. Kerr.

The Burnets constructed Old Bailey, the Court House, within the massive building; they built the furniture, in fact every part of Victoria Hall.

J. D. Burnet states that he well remembers when the Opera House was heated by two great iron stoves, one on either side of the auditorium. Plumbing was installed in the early 1900s, and the contractor, he recalls, was a Mr. W. R. Whitelaw.

When the Burnets finished the building, said William's grand- son this week, they were paid for everything except the furniture ... for the simple reason that there was no money left to pay for the latter.

And, as it turned out, the town apparently felt they had paid out enough cash, anyway, and said they were going to pay no more so to this day the furniture is, more or less, a "gift" to the town.

Mr. Burnet said he has one brother, Frank, who is living in Calgary and is a widower.

Frank's daughter is married and lives on a ranch south of Cal- gary. (there is only the one dau- ghter).

Mr. Burnet said his father at- tended grammar school at the old Court House site and later entered employment at the Ship Chandler's Store, now the site of the Bank of Commerce. From the Ship Chandler's Store, Mr. Bur- net said his father went into bus- iness for himself, operating a grocery store, later the corner block became a family property.

Our people settled originally at Grafton, said Mr. Burnet, coming from Scotland, near Edinburgh. (They were the Bur- nets of Barnes in the Scottish lowlands).

FROM THE SENTINEL-STAR 1937

"During the regime of Colonel Boulton as Mayor of Cobourg, the magnificent Town Hall, "Vic- toria Hall", built by a Scottish contractor, William Burnet, who erected many of Cobourg's finest public buildings, was completed during the visit to the town by the then Prince of Wales, King l Edward VIIth.

"A beautiful ball room, with a spring floor, was especially built for the Royal guest, but, as this floor was made to sway with the dancers' steps, the Duke of New- castle, in charge of the Prince's tour would not allow him to en- ter the ballroom to open the fairy-like ball, given in his hon- or, until supports had been put beneath the floor. Charmed in- deed were those young ladies chosen to be the dance partners of the Royal Guest!

"A very amusing anecdote is related in connection with this ball. Some of the enthusiastic young damsels, after supper was over, brushed back to the supper room, and excitedly rushed up to the head waiter, exclaiming "Oh! tell us Sam, where is the glass the Prince drank from, and where did he put his lips?" 'Af- ter being pointed out the exact glass, and the exact spot, they all drank from it with patriotic emotion. Then said, "but how do you know, Sam, that that was the very spot?" The dainty damsels nearly fainted away when the darky waiter replied with fer- vour, "Because after the Prince left the supper room, I dun drink out of the very same glass, and " from that very same spot my- self."

"The Prince of Wales (Edward VII) spent a couple of days at "Hamilton House", a mile or so from the town, the home of the late Honorable Sidney Smith then Postmaster-General for Can- ada, now the residence of M(?) Tracey of St. Louis. The honor of the Prince's carriage was taken away, and the Prince was drawn- this long distance to "Hamilton House" by enthusiastic, , young Victoria college students. (Hamilton House, latterly Tracey home, was burned do about twenty years ago.)

"The day following the band the Prince of Wales and party were to take the tram to Peterborough over the Cobourg, Peterborough and Marmora Railways' Rice Lake Bridge, but, as the bridge had been put on wood- en piles (sometime later destroyed by the impact of ice) the Duke of Newcastle, fearing an accident would not allow the Prince to cross that way so he continued the trip in a pleasure launch.

“The first sod of the Cobourg, Peterborough, Marmora Railway had been turned a few years be- fore the Prince's arrival in Can- ada Mr. Stuart E. McKetchnie relative of the BouIton’s then Mayor of Cobourg, and the ceremony was accompanied by so much style and swank when Mrs. McKetchnie turned the sod that a wag present, amused by so much unnecessary fuss (as he considered) wrote the following skit:

"The thing is did!

The Pick-axe has been stuck

By lovely woman into frozen

muck!"