This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old photos from the collection and one from the present day, as well as the story behind them.
Tucked between two red brick Victorian houses, this small residence has been home to many families.
Once known as the Township Line, Tiffin Street divided the Town of Barrie from the village of Allandale. It was renamed in 1910, following the death of railway man William Richard Tiffin, who came to Barrie in 1897 when he was appointed superintendent of the Northern Division.
Some of the house’s occupants were part of the neighbourhood, spending a few years in the little roughcast dwelling, before moving a street or two over, or moving on from Barrie. Some owned the property, others rented. Too many to inventory, we can note a few of the families who called this cottage home.
Born in 1860, Angus Luke Thurston, a miller, married Ida Farrell in the Dalston Methodist Church in 1886. In 1899, the Thurston’s lived at 32 Tiffin St., before moving to Toronto.
George Dewar, an engineer with the railroad, and his wife Jean, lived in the little home about 1903 before moving to Brock Street by 1911.
A widow and her daughter resided at 32 Tiffin St. in the late 1920s. Born in London, Middlesex, England in 1880, Lilly Drury married Arthur Hazeldean Padgham, born 1878 in Hawkhurst, Kent, England, on Christmas Eve of 1899. The couple had two sons, Arthur (Harold) Andrew (1900) and Harry Robert (1902). Harry Robert was adopted in 1904, remaining in Essex, England, while Arthur, Lilly and Harold relocated to Canada in 1906. Daughter Lily Elisabeth Beatrice was born in 1908.
While the family was living on Main Street (now Anne Street), Allandale, Arthur, a labourer and first committeeman of the Sons of England, died of pneumonia in 1919.
Again, an Allandale family would cross the town line to live in the little Barrie house. James Stinson, born in Palgrave, Ontario in 1875, came to Allandale about 1899. In 1900, he married Elizabeth “Libbie” Sheets. The couple had three children: George, James and Mildred. Stinson enlisted with the 177th Simcoe Battalion in 1915, shipping out to Europe in the spring of 1916. James served in France, where, as a victim of serious gas exposure, he was sent to England before returning to Canada in 1918.
After the war, James started his career with the railroad, in the motive power department, as a boilermaker and proud member of the Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Shipbuilders, Steel and Iron Workers.
The family attend Burton Avenue United Church. Previously renting 49 Gowan St., James, Elizabeth and Mildred took up residence on Tiffin Street. James was employed by the Canadian National Railway until 1939, when poor health forced his retirement. His carcinoma of the esophagus and leukoplakia of the mouth, a condition he had been enduring for 10 years, were believed to have resulted from his experience during the war.
When James Stinson passed away in 1940, the funeral service was held at his Tiffin Street home.
Yet another Allandale family would live in the house on the town line. Moving from their residence at 8 Cumberland St., a two-storey roughcast house built in 1879 for plasterer James Gibson, Garnet Plaxton, a carpenter, and his wife Edith Irene Brennan, moved to Tiffin Street.
Over time, many more families would call the cozy cottage at 32 Tiffin home.
