The Historical Development
of Recreation at by Alexander MacDougall |
Introduction In
1978, young Alexander MacDougall, at |
Chapter 2 Early Settlement and
Recreational Use: The First Recreation Boom. The
development of In
tracing the original settlers of the lots
immediately surrounding |
Use of At this point in time, much of |
Use of It should be questioned why a small
lake in the middle of farming country could start to become a popular resort fifteen
years before the more spectacular resorts of Niagara and the St. Lawrence
Valley became popular. The most likely
reason for this is that of the location of the lake. As has been noted already, |
Credit for Information on Thomas Frame prior to
his arrival at |
Definitive evidence for recreational
use of the hotel by Frame is found in 1848.
In that year, Frame purchased the big island, St. Helen’s With the island fully at his disposal,
Frame was able to provide an extremely wide and varied program of events for
patrons to his hotel. Sailboat
excursions to St. Helen’s |
By the l880’s, the general recreation pattern
as described by Wolfe had been well established at The story of the hotel on lots 4 and 5 of
the first concession is perhaps the more interesting and better
recorded. In 1879, a fire destroyed
the Frame Hotel and Frame was forced to sell the property. The 1880 assessment rolls for |
In 1883, when Sleeman purchased the
property from George Martin, he rebuilt the hotel and installed a fifty
passenger steamboat called “The City of |
With full control of the lake property,
Sleeman began to work on plans and methods to direct as much of Guelph’s recreational
business as possible towards the new Lake Hotel, as it had been renamed. Sleeman had been mayor of Guelph for the
three years of 1880, 1881, and 1882.
During this time he had furthered his influence as not only a
prominent citizen of |
The activities of the guests were for the
most part initiated by the guests themselves. Individual and small group
recreational pursuits such as canoeing or badminton or fishing were common
occurrences. Yet there were also large
scale activities which the guests organized themselves. Things such as campfires, impromptu
concerts, small firearms or rifle clubs and even picnics were done solely on
the initiative of the guests. The
hotel management did have a hand in organizing such events as Thursday night
dances and hoe-downs or for an orchestra to come and play on a weekend. (12.) Organized picnics for special groups were
also a common function. Figure 2 shows
the |
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(The caption
translated ─ The picture was taken just before World War I and shows
city council members, civic officials, and representatives of the press at
one of the council’s annual picnics to Puslinch Lake. This was an event that was very popular in
those days; this particular event was during the term of Sam Carter as mayor
of the city. Among those in the group
are Mark Dulmage, George D. Hastings (mayor
1909-1910), Herb Steele, Fire Chief Smith, R. E. Nelson (mayor 1899-1900), T.
J. Hannigan, Sam Penfold,
Charles Burgess, and Eddie Taylor.) |
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The exact date is not
available for this photograph, which was reproduced in the |
Advertisements such as the one in
figure 3 also expound the virtues of |
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Figure 3: Hotel Advertisement –Pre World War I The advertisement
transcribed: This sheet of water is beautifully
situated in the middle of one of the finest agricultural districts in S. WHITMER, Manager. Address ─ Hespeler P.O. |
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Figure 3b (front side of
advertisement) |
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From the mid 1860’s on through the
early 1900’s, Sleeman had been quite anxious to
secure these additional charters because it meant control of not only the
commercial transportation between the cities but also control of the
transportation to |
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Guelph Railway Company
wagon at (Grundy Collection, |
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Guelph Railway Company wagon at
Puslinch Lake (Grundy Collection, |
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The extensions of the Guelph Railway
Company never materialized and the company began to sink deeply into
debt. When Sleeman had built the line,
he financed the project by selling some $50,0000 worth of bonds and borrowing
short term funds from the bank. By
1902, the Guelph Railway Company was in receivership, being held by the
banks. Sleeman’s
holdings at The City of |
The situation at the Parks Hotel was
not much different. The property had
changed hands several times from George Parks to Joseph Wayper
to Mr. McElary.
The Wayper-McElary transfer in 1922 was also
the end of the hotel. McElary, in turn, sold the property to Ross Barber, who
named it |
FOOTNOTES: |
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1. |
Annals of Puslinch 1850 to 1950 (Acton:
Acton Free Press; 1950) P. 80. |
2. |
Abstracts for |
3. |
Thelma Shipley, “Puselynch,
Posselinch, Puzzlewitch,
Puslinch.” The Hespeler Herald, November 12th 1954, p. 8. |
4. |
Ibid., p. 8. |
5. |
R. I. Wolfe, “The Changing Patterns of
Tourism in |
6. |
Thelma Shipley, The Hespeler Herald, p. 8. |
7. |
Verne McIlwraith, |
8. |
R. I. Wolfe, Profiles of a Province p. 174. |
9. |
Thelma Shipley, The Hespeler Herald , p. 8. |
10. |
John Mills, “Traction on the Grand” in Railfair Enterprises 1974. p. 33. |
11. |
“Just Like Muskoka at |
12. |
Interview with Mrs. Alice Simpson, daughter
of William Marriot, of Hespeler. |
13. |
From the Seiford
Collection, Barber’s Beach, |
14. |
From the pictorial collection of the |
15. |
John Mills, Railfair
International. p. 83 |
16. |
From the pictorial collection of the |
17. |
Leo A. Johnson, History of |
18. |
John Mills, Railfair
International p. 88. |
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