Editor's note: The following, written by homeowner Su Murdoch, is a synopsis of the history of 47 Rodney St., which was in the news this week. For more on that story, click here.
Barrie was surveyed in 1833. By then, the use of the Nine Mile Portage at Barrie as the major route between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron (pivoting eastern and western Canada) was over. As there are no fast-flowing streams in Barrie for supplying water power to industries, the village struggled to survive.
In 1836, lobbying began for Barrie to become the administrative centre for the proposed Simcoe District. It was successful and in 1837 work began on building the required courthouse and jail.
One of the contractors for the courthouse and possibly the jail was English-trained builder John Pearson. His 1840s house at 16-18 Mary St., has the same transom window over the front door as 47 Rodney St. Some of the fireplace mantels and woodwork match.
The governor’s office in the tower of the jail has a fireplace mantel similar to Rodney Street.
Barrie Grammar School Headmaster’s Residence (c. 1849-1863)
Several officials were appointed to the new Simcoe District – notably County Court Judge James Gowan, who lived west on Blake Street, and Sheriff Benjamin Walker Smith, who would live at 47 Rodney. It also brought professional families like the Ardaghs, Strathys and Lallys, some of whom built houses in Barrie’s east end.
One of the primary concerns of these families (and others in the area) was a scholarly education for their sons, averaging ages 10 to 14. In 1839, all district schools in Upper Canada became grammar schools based on the English school system. Trustees for a Barrie Grammar School were appointed in 1843 and included the Rev. S.B. Ardagh at Shanty Bay and Judge Gowan. Frederic Gore was appointed headmaster.
The first classroom was in the newly completed courthouse. The out-of-town students were boarded in two houses on Mary Street. One was John Pearson’s house.
The officials and professionals who arrived in 1842 lamented the shortage of large lots to build their houses. The area east of the town plan of Barrie was surveyed and in 1846 registered as Plan 6 between Duckworth and Puget streets.
The Crown granted nine lots along the north side of Blake and south side of Collingwood Street, west from Rodney, for the Grammar School. These were across from Gowan's Ardraven estate, and halfway to the village of Kempenfeldt (as it was spelled) to the east.
Starting in 1845, Gore bought several lots between Rodney, Collingwood, Vancouver, and Blake streets. He had the house at 47 Rodney built as his residence by 1849, likely by John Pearson.
This is a late example of Regency-style architecture in Ontario and a rare choice for the northern climate of Barrie. The Regency style originated as the bungalow in India and was brought to Canada by British military officers who had served there.
The house has hand-hewn timbers measuring 12-by-12 inches and 12-by-14 inches, set in a frame construction with walls of hand split wood lath and horsehair plaster. The chimney bricks were likely fired in a kiln on the lawn. All the nails are blacksmith made, square type.
The hardware, floors, doors, trim, and windows that exist today are mostly original. The large windows on the south and west were essential to lighting the interior as electric and gas lighting were decades from invention. The southern exposure also added warmth to a house heated with seven stoves and a fireplace.
The front parlour of the house was the classroom for the first semester as the school at the northwest corner of Blake and Rodney streets was not completed until the fall of 1849. The parlour was used to meet parents and by the students for dances and social events.
Gore boarded up to 25 boys in this house. He had the house at 126 Blake built circa 1850 for more boarding students (and another nearby that burned). Other school-related buildings were erected along both sides of Blake Street.
Gore resigned in 1856. The Rev. W.F. Checkley became headmaster and rented 47 Rodney from Gore until June 1863, when it was rented by Sheriff B.W. Smith.
Many of the students who attended the school became prominent Canadians. (See online Dictionary of Canadian Biography and other sites for examples: Briton Bath Osler, William Osler, Featherston Osler, William Lount, D’Alton McCarthy, Walter Moberly, Charles Drury (father of Premier E.C. Drury), Thomas Edmonds Wilson, William Glenholme Falconbridge, etc.)
William Osler, who by 1900 was “the most famous physician in the English-speaking world,” attended the Barrie Grammar School in the early 1860s and boarded at 126 Blake St.
William was a lifelong prankster. He stole a melon from the garden at 47 Rodney, by then occupied by Sherriff Smith, was ‘gated’ and given a scholarly punishment by the sherriff. In reprisal, Osler climbed onto the roof and blocked the chimney at 47 Rodney.
The fire brigade arrived only to find smoke.
In 1865, girls were admitted to the school. It became a high school in 1868 and a collegiate in 1880. When the school building burned in 1916, a new Barrie Collegiate was built in the west end of Barrie and became Barrie Central Collegiate, which was recently demolished.
Sherriff Benjamin Walker Smith Family (June 1863-1972)
In 1842, Benjamin Walker Smith was appointed the first sherriff of Simcoe County. Politically, he was a Reformer. He had trained with famous chairmaker Chester Hatch in Kingston, ran a trading store at Roche’s Point and worked as a purser on a Lake Simcoe steamboat. A table made by Smith while in Kingston is still at 47 Rodney.
Smith moved to Barrie when appointed as sherriff. He became a director of the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railroad Company, promoting the construction of a railway between Toronto and Lake Huron at Georgian Bay. About 1851, he moved to the Georgian Bay shore at Collingwood and bought several hundred acres. He and a partner subdivided the acreage into building lots to sell and built a sawmill. Smith is the recognized founder of Collingwood.
On the July 1 weekend of 1859, Smith organized an excursion for future prime minister John A. Macdonald and several of the future Fathers of Confederation on board the steamer Ploughboy in Georgian Bay. A connecting rod to the engine snapped and gale force winds started to drive the ship onto the rocks. Smith rowed the lifeboat to Owen Sound and had a rescue ship sent out.
The passengers, and as a result the future of Canada as a confederation, were saved. They presented Smith with a silver jug engraved with their thanks for saving their lives on that ‘perilous night’.
In 1862, the Smiths returned to Barrie and in June 1863 rented 47 Rodney from Gore. The property was their residence, farm and market garden. They bought in 1871.
Smith died on the front lawn in 1875.
The next generations of Smiths served as deputy sheriffs.
In 1915, the original barn burned and was replaced with the existing horse stable. American businessman T. D. Rees was living in the circa-1895 house known as Glen Ormond at 11 Rodney/113 Blake. He saw the fire from his tower room, ran to help and stopped the fire from spreading to the Smith house.
The Rees house and gardener’s cottage, in view from a south window at 47 Rodney, are a daily reminder of the near-tragic event.
With the rise in popularity of the automobile, the Smiths established a picnic ground, then in 1936 started building overnight cabins on their front lawn (Blake Street frontage). This evolved into the Lake Simcoe Motel.
The motel property was severed in 1967. The Smiths lived at 47 Rodney until building a house next door in 1972 and sold to the owner of the motel.
Myself and Harry Laur bought in 1981 when Sheriff Smith’s grandson was living next door.
The motel burned in 2016.
Clues to past occupants survive as signatures in windows, on ceilings and on timbers in the house. Some of the furnishings are original to the Smith family.
The view toward other school buildings and neighbours along Blake Street has evolved, but several of the 19th-century buildings are standing. A watchful eye on Kempenfelt Bay and activities around the shoreline has been continuing for 173 years.
