Pickering Village
Pickering Village is a former municipality and now a neighbourhood in the town of Ajax, within the Durham Region of Ontario, Canada. The Pickering Village derives its name from the former Pickering Township, which included the present-day town of Ajax and the city of Pickering. A small portion of the original settlement is now part of the Village East neighbourhood in the city of Pickering.
The Pickering Village emerged as a settlement at the intersection of Duffins Creek and Kingston Road towards the end of the 18th century. In 1807, Quakers led by Timothy Rogers established a major presence in the area, and built saw and grist mills. The area gradually developed into the main commercial and residential centre of the Pickering Township. It was incorporated as the Municipality of the Village of Pickering in 1953, around same time as the neighbouring DIL community in Ajax. In 1974, most of the Pickering Village, the Pickering Beach, and other areas neighbouring the DIL settlement merged with the town of Ajax, while the city of Pickering remains a separate entity.
Etymology and names
Since its establishment, the settlement that developed around the intersection of Duffins Creek and Kingston Road was part of the Pickering Township, which was named after Pickering, North Yorkshire. The settlement was the major population centre of the Township, and the local post office, established in 1829, was known as the "Pickering Post Office". However, the settlement itself was known by various names at different times.In its early years, the settlement was called "Duffins Creek", or simply, "the Creek". In the 1850s, it was known as "Canton", as attested by an 1855 map in the possession of William Murkar, the publisher of The Pickering News. Murkar, writing on Pickering's 150th anniversary in the 29 June 1961 edition of the newspaper, also cites an elderly lady who confirmed that the area was known as Canton when she worked for the family that owned the Spink's Mill.
By the time the village was formally designated as a police village under the County of Ontario, in 1900, it was firmly known as Pickering. When it achieved municipal status in 1953, it was incorporated as the "Municipality of the Village of Pickering". Since its amalgamation into the town of Ajax in 1974, it has been called the "Pickering Village" to distinguish it from the neighbouring city of Pickering.
History
Early settlers
The Iroquois Seneca people had established river-side villages such as Ganatsekwyagon on Rouge and Teiaiagon on Humber in what is now the Greater Toronto Area. However, the Duffins Creek was not as attractive for building a settlement, because of low navigability and the existence of a sand bar at its mouth which prevented boats from entering it. At least one Ojibwe family resided in the area, as attested by Arthur Field. This family lived at the east edge of the Duffins Creek marshes until the mid-19th century. In 1760, French missionaries from Ganatsekwyagon reached the Duffins Creek, but did not create any settlement there.Mike Duffin, a fur trader of Irish descent, was the earliest European to settle in the area that later came to be known as Pickering Village. A bachelor, he arrived in the area in the 1770s. Past Years in Pickering, a 1911 book by William R. Wood, describes him as a "King's County Irishman" who had come from "the Green Isle". Duffins cleared a few acres of forest land, but survived mainly by fishing, hunting, and eating tubers. He trapped animals for fur, and traded with the natives. A Methodist minister, who traveled across Ontario, used to meet Duffin when passing through the area, and found his dead body one day. Wood speculated that he may have been murdered by the natives. Another theory is that he was murdered by one of the travelers for whom he provided lodging. Duffins cabin was located on the east side of the Creek, north of Kingston Road. Augustus Jones, who surveyed the area for the Government of Upper Canada in 1791, named the Duffins Creek after him.
The municipality that contained the area was known as Edinburgh Township until 1792, when it was renamed to Pickering Township. Major John Smith of 5th Regiment of Foot, who had served the commanding officer at Detroit, became the first person to receive a land patent in the region. He was an absentee landlord, and his grant of 5,000 acres of land included a part of what later became the Pickering Village. The grant was inherited by his son David W. Smith, who received an additional 1,200 acres of land.
In 1799, the Government of Upper Canada converted the major trail in the area into the Kingston Road, which greatly contributed to increased settlement in the area.
Quaker settlement
In this first decade of the 19th century, a small number of Quakers from the United States migrated to the Pickering Township. The Quakers, who were anti-war and advocated pacifism as part of their religious belief, had migrated to other parts of Upper Canada during and after following the American War of Independence. In 1807, Quaker leader Timothy Rogers bought 800 acres of land in the Duffins Creek area, at 10 shillings per acre. He arrived in Pickering with his wife, most of his 15 children, and 20 other Quaker families. They settled around what is now the intersection of Kingston Road and Mill Street, and cleared forest for farming.By 1809, the population of Pickering Township was 180 people, most of whom lived along the Duffins Creek. The writings of Timothy Rogers' son Wing suggest that the area was remained densely forested at the time, home to "thousands of wolves, bears, deer, foxes, wildcats, or lynx, raccoons, and other small animals too numerous to mention." Wing states that the settlers were most afraid of packs of wolves, followed by the bears. There had been frequent encounters between these wild animals and the settlers, resulting in deaths of humans and domestic animals. An 1805 news report in York Gazette describes how a woman called Mrs. Munger shot dead a bear that attacked her neighbour.
By 1820, Quakers from the British Isles had started arriving in the area, encouraged by Rogers. The Quakers built several meeting houses, a small school, and the Pickering College in the Pickering Village. In 1842, there were 245 Quakers in Pickering Township, whose total population was 3,450.
Industry and businesses
built the first mill in the area, in 1810. His saw and grist mills were located around 5 km north of Lake Ontario. The dams constructed for the mills cut off the salmon off from their spawning grounds, and by the time of Rogers death, the salmon had practically disappeared from the Duffins Creek.In 1820, Alexander Wood of Toronto build the Elmdale grist mill near the intersection of what is now Church Street and Highway 401; the site was later occupied a Latter-day Saint chapel. The mill was rebuilt and changed owners several times, before being destroyed by fire in 1956. By 1825, there were two other sawmills in the township, one was on the Rouge below the old bridge, and one, and the other one probably higher up on the Duffins Creek. The lumber from these mills supported the shipbuilding industry at the mouth of the Rouge river. In 1837, a man surnamed Elliot, built a grist mill; it was later sold to Peter Head, and was known as Head's Mill. It gradually fell into disrepair, and was ultimately destroyed by fire.
Noadiah Woodruff of Pennsylvania, another Quaker, settled in Duffins Creek around the same time as Timothy Rogers. In 1808, he built a tavern to the west of the village, on Lot 17 Concession 2. The site later housed the Riverside Farms. Woodruff married Charity Powell, whose family owned a farm in the Pickering Beach area. Woodruff's sister Melinda married clock-maker Jordan Post, and their family acquired extensive lands in and around Toronto. In 1822, the Post family built the Post Inn on the south side of Kingston Road, around 3 km east of the Pickering village. It served as a home for the family, and also operated as a stage station, providing service for stagecoach driver, passengers, and horses. It shut down after the Grand Trunk Railway reached Pickering in 1856, rendering its services obsolete.
Samuel Munger built another tavern on Lot 16, across the Creek, on the east side of Brock Road, in Concession 3.
Hugh Brown's dry goods store was one of the first general stores in the Pickering Village. In 1857, Brereton Bunting, a migrant from England, bought the store and renamed it Old No. 1 store. The store was very successful, and sold a variety of goods including groceries, clothing, footwear, glassware, light fixtures, hardware, and medicine. His son Richard A. Bunting renamed the store to R. A. Bunting in the late 1880s. Bereton also provided other services, including issuance of marriage licenses.
In 1875, John L. Spink established Pickering's largest and most successful grist mill. The mill was located adjacent to the site of Head's Mill. Later, the location was occupied by Moodie's Motel/ Motor Inn, at the intersection of Kingston Road and Notion Road. The mill building was a five-storey high stone structure. The mill infrastructure was later expanded to included dams, a mile-long canal, a storehouse, and a Grand Trunk Railroad switch line. The mill changed owner multiple times, before being destroyed by a fire in 1934.
In 1883, the local farmers and other residents established the Pickering Cheese Factory as a joint stock company. Also known as the Pickering Butter and Cheese Company, the factory was located at the south-east corner of Kingston Road and Ritchie Road. The factory was not very profitable, and the stockholders criticized the board of directors for paying the dairy farmers over the market rate for milk. The factory ultimately failed because there were not enough farmers to supply the milk. In 1886, the factory was sold by auction. Attempts to reopen the factory in 1889 failed because of insufficient milk supply. The property of the factory was later turned into a subdivision.