Henwood, O'Donoghue house, 185 Morgan's Road, Huntsville, Ontario, early photo.

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Description

Henwood, O'Donoghue house, 185 Morgan's Road, Huntsville, Ontario, early photo.

Notes

Concession 2, Lot 34, Chaffey Township. The exterior walls are constructed of fieldstone tooled to look like refined ashlar course work. The large pane windows have heavy timber sills, course stone lintels and wood shutters. Plain wood frieze boards outline the eves and gabels under the steep roof. William Henwood built the house in 1897. He first came to Muskoka in 1868 when he drove cattle from the Peterborough area to Hillside for the Reverend Robert Norton Hill. The story is told that he lost his way in a blizzard for seven days, and was force to chew his snowshoe thongs when he ran out of food. He married Sarah Francey at Cavan, Ontario in 1873 and they settled on the third concession, Chaffey Township. He had studied law but became a timber appraiser in Muskoka. Only six of the couple's eleven children survived childhood. Three died in a diphtheria epidemic in 1888. In 1889 William purchased Lot 34, Concession 2. In 1910 William and Sarah moved to Hershel, Saskatchewn, where they lived until their deaths. Their stone house in Huntsville remained empty for some years until Theodore W. Hutcheson purchased it in 1919. Theodore was the youngest son of George and Frances Ann Wilson Hutcheson. George Hutcheson operated a mercantile business on Main Street in Huntsville prior to the 1894 fire. Later he became a contractor responsible for the construction of several buildings on Main Street including the Methodist Church at the corner of Main and West Street in 1897. Theodore and his wife, Mary McIntosh, had lived in Swift Current, Sackatchewan, but returned to Huntsville where he operated the Rexall Drug Store at the northeast corner of Main and King Streets. Percy Fowler and his wife lived in the stone house during the winter when the Hutcheson's moved into town. The stone fireplace in the parlour may have been built during this period. In 1924 the Hutchesons sold the house to Bessie Boother and moved to Penticton, British Columbia.
Bessie was the wife of George Boother. They had been married in England. George came to Canada in the 1890s with his brother-in-law Frank Wilkinson to work on the railroad at Scotia Junction. Bessie joined him later and when the Booth Railroad was built, they moved to a log home at Cashman's Creek near Ravensworth. At the beginning of World War I, George was active in organizing a Kearney Battalion, then returned to England to join the British Army. Bessie remained at Ravensworth where she was postmistress and operated a grocery store. George was killed in the war and Bessie moved to Toronto for a time before returning to Huntsville and purchasing the stone house. Old friends from England, George Salter and his sister lived with her. George was an artist and had worked as an illustrator for the publishers of the Eaton's Catalogue. In 1931 Bessie returned to Toronto.
The new owners of the house, Mr. and Mrs. Brazier and their daughter had come from England to settle in the Berlin (Kitchener) area. Mr. Brazier was recalled to his British regiment but returned to Canada in 1931, living in the stone house until 1942 when they returned to England.
Retired businessman William Bombay and Mary Rennie Inshaw owned the house next before selling it to Roger Simmons in 1960. Roger was the son of Bruce Simmons, a Huntsville entrepreneur, who at one time was the owner of both the Dominion and Kent hotels. Roger was a forestry engineer, graduating from the University of New Brunswick. He returned to Huntsville from Edmonton with his family of five children in 1960.
At this time there was no indoor plumbing, and water had to be carried from a nearby spring. Part of the kitchen was curtained off for the weekly bath in a galvanized wash tub. The Simmons always had chickens, ducks and geese. The boys offered their ponies for pony rides at the local resort, Deerhurst, for twenty-five cents a ride. A large vegetable garden was divided into ten-by-ten plots for the children and were judged by the Huntsville Fall Fair officials along with produce entered in the fair competitions.
Numerous apple trees dotted the property. In 1966 the Simmons family moved to Englehart where Roger taught school.
Stanley Meyers, a Toronto school principal, purchased the property in 1966 as an investment and retreat. During this time the property was divided.
In 1977, the property was purchased by Brian and Deanne O'Donoghue. Brian was a land use planner with the Ministry of Natural Resources. The old stone-lined well was replaced with a drilled well and the original kitchen with its shed roof was remodeled using beams from an old barn in the Rosseau area. An old barn was moved to the property from the Barkway area. (information taken from Huntsville; More Pictures from the Past, published by a Committee of Heritage Huntsville, in 1998)

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