Historical Plaques of
Perth County

Among the earliest settlers on the site of Listowel was John Binning who, tradition has it, became the community's first permanent settler in 1852. Within four years D. D. Hay, one of the most enterprising early settlers, had erected a sawmill and a settlement called Mapleton developed. On June 1, 1856, a post office named Listowel was opened and the community, with a population of 200, contained taverns and a general store operated by W. H. Hacking. Ten years later the population had increased to 800 and the settlement became an incorporated Village. The arrival of a branch line of the Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railway hastened the Village's development and it became a Town with a population of 2,054 in 1875.

A World War 1 flying 'ace', McKeever was born and raised in Elma Township. He enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1916 but, attracted by the life of the fighter pilot, transferred to Britain's Royal Flying Corps once he was overseas. From May 1917 to January 1918 McKeever was posted to the 11th Squadron on the Western Front. An outstanding operator of the two-seater Bristol Fighter, he, with his various observers or gunners, shot down some 30 enemy aircraft during reconnaissance missions and offensive patrols, earning the Military Cross and Bar and the Distinguished Service Order for his "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty". At the end of the war, McKeever returned home where, shortly afterward, he died as the result of a car accident.

           KENNETH MCLEOD  Recreation Director
           RICKY KAUFMAN        KEITH WIGHT
           JAMES HASTINGS       KENNETH HYMERS
           BARRY SMITH          BRYAN SEEHAVER
                   JACK RHUEBOTTOM

HAIL TO THE PIONEER
1832       IN MEMORIAM        1936
TO THE
PIONEERS OF NORTHEAST HOPE

The hemlock and the cedar
The spruce and monarch pine
Waved o’er the tents of Kedar
Where all the harvests shine

But who can tell the story     From dawn to dusk they wrought it
Of all the toil and stress     They smote it left and right
That wrought a land of glory   With blood and sweat they bought it 
From out the wilderness        Then passed into the night

From highland cot and lowland     Their hands were rough and horny
They wrestled o’er the seas       That ours might gentler be  
They left their homes for no-land The path was steep and thorny
A land of lakes and trees         That gained our liberty
                                           J. Lewis Milligan  

By 1851 Andrew West, a New York native, had opened a hotel in the recently surveyed township of Mornington. This building was the focal point around which a small community initially known as West's Corners developed. The hamlet grew gradually and a post office was opened in 1854. Ten years later the settlement contained a sawmill, a tannery, two churches and some 200 residents. About 1871 the name of the village was changed to Milverton, reportedly after a town in Somerset, England. With the arrival of the Stratford and Huron Railway in 1877 the market for Milverton's agriculturally based industries was greatly expanded and the thriving community, with a population of about 550, was incorporated as a village by a county by-law effective January 1, 1881.

In 1832, some three years after company surveyors had erected shanties near this site, the Canada Company, a large private land settlement agency, initiated the development of " Little Thames" as the market centre for the eastern Huron Tract. By 1834 a tavern, sawmill and grist mill existed here and a year later a post office called Stratford was opened. Settlement was slow until the early 1850s when the advent of the railway and the designation of Stratford as county town transformed the village into a thriving administrative and commercial centre. Expansion of the community was accelerated after 1871 when railway repair yards were located here and in 1885 with a population of 9,000 Stratford was incorporated as a city.

THE MARY BALLANTYNE NURSES' RESIDENCE, A MAGNIFICENT GIFT OF PRACTICAL UTILITY, WAS DONATED BY THE HONOURABLE THOMAS BALLANTYNE, CHAIRMAN OF THE CITY OF STRATFORD GENERAL HOSPITAL TRUST, IN MEMORY OF HIS NOBLE-MINDED WIFE. IT STOOD ON THIS SITE, 1903-1986, AS A SPLENDID MONUMENT TO THE GRANDEUR OF THE MORAL CHARACTER AND THE BENEFICENCE OF TWO AMONGST US WHOSE NAMES WILL NEVER CEASE TO BE REMEMBERED WITH REVERENTIAL ESTEEM AND HONOUR.

100 YEARS OF CARINGS.G.H

1885-1986 A.D.

FOR YOU THERE'S ROSEMARY AND RUE:
THESE KEEP SEEMING AND SAVOR ALL THE WINTER LONG:
GRACE AND REMEMBRANCE BE TO YOU

The Winter's Tale

Act 1V Scene lll

In 1913, Geodetic Survey of Canada erected an 85 foot high triangulation tower on the top of the hill facing you. Below the tower and referenced to tablets cemented into adjacent large boulders and to a property corner, lay triangulation station EASTHOPE - 13307. The concrete reference monument to your left (not its original position) was also used as reference to locate the station. This station was part of a network of triangulation stations used to accurately determine the position of points throughout Canada. Once determined these points became the basis for topographical and engineering surveys. The triangulation throughout Southwestern Ontario extended over fairly flat territory. The forest cover and topography necessitated the erection of high towers in order to obtain visibilty between stations. Night sighting - toil and later acetylene lamps- allowed sighting at greater distances than during daylight hours. The triangulation towers of the Geodetic Survey of Canada had two features which were distinctive - they consisted of two towers - one inside the other but not touching. The outlines of both structures were curved for greater rigidity. The inner structure consisted of a tripod, on top of which a very precise surveying instrument (theodolite) was mounted. It was surrounded by a four-legged scaffold which carried ladders, floors and lamp stands. Woven guy wires were attached to the top of the scaffold. The need for wooden triangulation towers was first eliminated by steel Bilby towers and later by satellite technology. This wooden tower bowed to a windstorm in May of 1920.

When opening Blanshard Township for settlement in 1839, the Canada Company made an arrangement with Thomas Ingersoll, a brother of Laura Secord, to build mills at "the Little Falls" of the Thames. In 1841-43 he erected a sawmill and a grist-mill and in return obtained 337 acres of land in this vicinity. The mills formed the nucleus of a settlement named St. Marys. In 1854 the community was incorporated as a village. The building of railways, 1857-60, stimulated development and in 1864, when St. Marys became a town, it was already the centre of lumber and limestone quarry industries and the adjacent prosperous agricultural region.

Between 1869 and 1939, about 100,000 child immigrants, casualties of unemployment and poverty in Britain, were uprooted from their homes and families. With hopes of giving them new lives in Canada, British agencies sent children to receiving homes like this one. From there, a few of the younger children were adopted into Canadian families, but most were apprenticed as agricultural labourers or domestic servants. Often deprived of education and the comforts of family life, Home Children suffered loneliness and prejudice. Their experience reveals a poignant chapter in Canadian immigration history.

Entre 1869 et 1939, le chômage et la pauvreté en Grande-Bretagne arrachèrent environ 100 000 enfants à leur foyer. Dans l'espoir de leur procurer une vie meilleure, des agences britanniques les envoyèrent au Canada dans des hospices comme celui-ci. Par la suite, quelques-uns des plus jeunes furent adoptés, mais la plupart devinrent des ouvriers agricoles ou des domestiques. Souvent privés d'éducation et des joies de la vie familiale, ces petits immigrés subirent les préjugés et connurent la solitude. Leur expérience demeure un témoinage poignant dans l'histoire de l'immigration au Canada.

Born on a farm near here, Meighen graduated from the University of Toronto in 1896, and in 1902 moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, to practice law. In 1908 he was elected to the federal parliament as Conservative member for that riding. He served successively as solicitor-general, secretary of state and minister of the interior under Sir Robert Borden, whome he succeeded as prime minister from 1920 to 1921. He again served briefly as prime minister in 1926. Leader of the opposition 1921-1926, he excelled as an orator and debater. Appointed to the senate in 1932, he resigned in 1942 to contest South York riding, was defeated and retired from politics.

A life-long member of the Stratford Parks Board, R. Thomas Orr was the driving force behind the Stratford parks system. Orr led the fight to save the riverfront and millpond from railway development and oversaw the transformation of the former industrial area into parkland. In 1936, Orr's plans to link Stratford with the birthplace of the English playwright William Shakespeare led to the creation of the Shakespearean Gardens. These parklands provided an inspirational setting in 1953 for the Stratford Shakespearean Festival. During his life of community service, Orr also helped to establish Stratford's library and the war memorial, to extend Highway 7 to Stratford, and to found the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority and the Stratford Historical Society.

An outstandiing Canadian scientist, McLennan was born in Ingersoll and moved to this house in 1883. He attended the University of Toronto where he later became Head of the Physics Department. His research and publications brought international recognition to the University's physics laboratory, which bears his name. A leading advocate of close ties between science, industry and government, McLennan was instrumental in founding the Advisory Council on Industrial and Scientific Research, later the National Research Council. His work in England on the magnetic detection of submarines and the use of radium in the treatment of cancer, his explanation of the yellow-green light in the spectrum of the aurora borealis and his success in liquefying helium, contributed to his world-wide reputation. He was knighted in 1935.

In the 1900s, concerns about the quality of rural education prompted the Ontario government to build four new Normal Schools to increase the supply of qualified teachers in the province. Identical Italian Renaissance buildings were constructed in North Bay, Peterborough, Hamilton, and Stratford. The Stratford Normal School attracted women and men from surrounding districts and educated them with an emphasis on conditions in the rural schools that employed most new teachers. Known as the Stratford Teachers' College from 1953 on, the school trained close to 14,000 teachers before closing in 1973. It is the only one of the four Normal Schools opened in 1908-09 to survive without substantial alteration.