Colourful people. They lived just outside of societal norms, either by design or due to circumstances thrust upon them, and they fascinate me endlessly.
This particular tale of several entangled families living along the southwest edges of Kempenfelt Bay was particularly complex and found me scribbling in my notebooks far more than usual. You, too, may need a scorecard to keep up to these folks.
Their roots were in England. Each of them came to Canada for a better life in the last half of the nineteenth century and eventually found themselves drawn to the growing prosperity of our little town. They brought with them trunks and pieces of furniture, a lot of hope for the future and just a few secrets.
Thomas Pye sailed to this country in 1870. He worked as a hired hand on the Metcalf farm in Innisfil until marrying a young widow, Victoria Barnes Theakston, in 1883. Thomas Pye then set out to farm on his own account and moved his family to Oro Township.
It has been estimated that the railway lands at Allandale once had 10 miles of track in the area surrounding the train station, workshops and other outbuildings. By the turn of the century, there was no end to the steady stream of men coming to town to work for the Grand Trunk Railway as the demand for more railway employees was great at the time.
Thomas Pye brought his family to Allandale about 1903. For a while, they lived on Tiffin Street but later had a small home on a section of Gowan Street that is now Milburn Street. It was there that the 56-year-old railway labourer died in 1913.
Mr. Pye left behind his wife, now widowed for the second time, and a family of eight children and stepchildren, most of them grown up and on their own. Their lives were soon to be further disrupted by a world war and the increasingly frequent visits to the Barrie courthouse by one family member in particular.
Edward Albert Pye was the second of three sons born to Thomas and Victoria Pye; sandwiched between Samuel Eli and Sylvanus. Reading between the lines, I would guess that Ed had been a bit of a rascal, likely from an early age.
At 15, young Ed was rounded up along with two other local lads, for the theft of silverware from the caterers who were serving at a dinner and dance held by Mrs. Simon Dyment in the town hall. Less than three years later, Ed Pye was a married man, but that didn’t seem to put a stop to his light-fingered ways.
In fact, Ed got himself into a serious situation one August day in 1915, one that could have seen him either dead or serving a long stretch in prison if it were not for the very unusual sentence imposed on him by Police Magistrate Radenhurst.
A group of young men spending the summer at a camp near the Allandale railway lands were getting tired of being robbed. Their few belongings began to disappear whenever they left the camp and they eventually reported the thefts to the police. An employee of the Clarkson Hotel was implicated and, as soon as he was arrested, he began to sing like a canary and named his accomplice who lived on nearby Gowan Street.
When the constables called at the Pye home on Gowan Street, Ed was as polite as could be until told he was wanted for robbery. He then informed the officers that he wouldn’t go without a fight and slammed the door. Const. Roy Andrew pushed his way in and was met by a punch in the face before his quarry quickly headed for the cellar.
Ed turned and pointed a revolver at Andrew so the policeman let him continue his mad dash for the cellar window.
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
