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Yo i o ‘9 \ I REMEMBER Reminiscences of Colborne By Jim Bell COLBORNE ABOUT 1900 (Continued) A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Division Street. Of course there were some things that I left out. My memory is not infallible. I am always glad when someone checks me up. It shows that people are inter- ested and are reading what I write. The other day, I receiv- ed a letter from a patient in Sidbrook Hospital in Cobourg. She said, and I quote “Your articles bring back things that I had almost forgotten.” The letters and the personal expres- sions of interest that I have re- ceived are very gratifying and f am thankful because it has given me a new interest when I really needed one. Now for Victoria Street in 1900 or there- abouts. We will take the East side first as it will be the shorter. On the corner was the Bailey Homestead. The frorit of the house was very much as it is to-day. The rear apartment was added later. The Baileys first started their Soap Factory in a little frame building where the Registry Office now stands, When it became too small, they moved to a larger building just about where W. G. Irvine’s residence is now. I remember the factory very well. Their main product was ‘Bailey’s Electric Soap’. My mother used to send me down with ten or fifteen cents to buy scraps that were left after cutting out the bars. It was much cheaper to buy it that way than to pay five cents a bar at the Grocery Store. The brick house now owned by A. J. Dance was already there and was owned and occu- pied by a family whose name was Johnston. The old jail or lock-up was either just north of the Soap Factory or just south of the Johnston house. I was never very familiar with it so cannot say for sure. On the south, there was nothing till you came to the corner house where Bruce Spencer lives. This was the old Charles Bridges place and Mr. Spencer has had it renovated into one of the nicest homes on _ the street. C. W. Ramsay, a tailor ‘who worked for V. G. Cornwall, lived there at about the time of which I am writing. The other corner, the late John Wright’s place was a drab clap- board place and I wouldn’t be sure but that we lived there at about that time. I know that we lived there for a while be- fore moving to Toronto Street. Beyond that was the flats where cows pastured in summer and boys skated in winter. There were more houses on the west side of Victoria Street for some reason or other. Per- haps it is because the majority, of people like the front of their, houses in the shade in the afternoon and evening. Charles Yule owned and lived in the big brick house on the corner, in fact I think he had it built. | John Reeves, who had a feed. store about where the Town! Hall is and lived where Mrs. Haynes lives. That house seems to have been destined for mus- ical people. Miss Annie Reeves, later Mrs. Henry Foik, was org- anist and choir leader of the! Methodist choir for a number of years. Two Miss Haigs lived in the Harnden house and Miss Nichol, the school teacher in the next one, now occupied by Mrs. Island. Jos. Morrow’s place came next and it was and is one of the oldest houses in! Colborne. From the parsonage on ths corner of North street sout' ‘can reeall only one reside Mrs. Mason lives there noy A the time of which I am wr.ting William Button lived there. There were five girls in the Button family and T ti nk they can claim a unique vecord as everyone of them st‘ lives in Colborne. On the corner of Creek street was a foundry and on the other Jerry Scripture’s Saw Mill. Next to that was an old frame building sometimes used as an apple evaporator. I re- member two seasons when it, was used as such by a company, from Belleville. They employed | about ten men and twenty-five women. It ran a night shift for the steam driers and the light- ing was all with lanterns. I worked there one season and I think it was twenty-three or four lanterns that I had to clean and fill every day. Last on my list is the Ives Planing Mill. At that time it was one of the best equipped mills in the country. The big brick building still stands and has been used for various enterprises since. The George Ives Co. were con- tractors as well as mill operat- ors and built the big brick Chas. McCallum house just north of the Registry Office.’ They also made the alterations: to the original Methodist — schuir-' ch and built the Sunday Se hool Hall at the back. |