The Huron Expositor, 1970-04-02, Page 4THEY'RE HE
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EA:WPM EXPOSITOR, SEAFORT11, ONT., APRIL"2, 1970
ortdville Native Lives
In 'House of Four Judges'
By W. K. ELLIOTT
01 the judges who presided
over Huron County from Con-
federation to the present, four
resided,. successively, in the
mid-Victorian house now knoWn
as 85 Esssex Street, Goderich.
was built for the first of the
four, in 1877, occupied by the
Second as tenant, and the third
acquired it by marriage. It is
now the home of His Honour
Glenn Hays, Provincial Judge,
who bought it in 1951, after three
years as Crown Attorney, upon
removing to Goderich from Sea-
forth. Judge and Mrs. Hays have
furnished this fine old house with
careful regard for its spacious
rooms, high ceilings, unusual
lighting and original fireplaces.
Drawing-room, dining-room and
bedrooms contain antique furni-
ture of great interest.
The house is unique in Go-
derich, and illustrates an archi-
tectural design rarely seenelse-
where. Mr. Arthur Wallace, a
noted Hamilton architect who re-
cently restored the interior of
Dundurn Castle (and is writing
a book about the MacNab man-
sion), describes the Hays house
as follows: "One of the more at-
tractive types of the Gothic re-
vival, mid-Victorian. It is a sym-
metrical design not usually as-
sociated with the picturesque Go-
thic idiom, but the steep pitched.
roof, barge board eaves and de-
tails were derived from the Eng-
lish Tudor period. The central
porch looks to be a later work,
perhaps an open verandah clOsed
in.
"Two fine examples come to
mince One is at Tyrconnel, near
the centre of all this land he
"built in 1877 (contractor uniden-
tified) a hduse for Wilmot R.
Squier. who had begun the prac-
tice of law in-Goderich in 1870
and in 1877 was appointed county
judge.
His tenure on the Bench co-
vered only four years, and there.-
is not a great deal on record
about him, as he went from here
to Hastings county. He was study-
ing at :Osgoode Hall from 1864
to 1869, and pay have acted as
a solicitor in Goderich . before
being called to the Bar in 1869,
It is known that he was initiated
in Maitland IMasonic) Lodge in
Septeinber, 1868, and therefore
probably living in Goderich• be-
fore finishing his lafw course. He
filled successively senior chairs
in Maitland Lodge and became
worshipful master in 1871-72.
Judge Squier in 1881 descen-
ded the Bench and he and his
wife, Mary, quitclaimed the re-
sidence property to F, S. Steven-
son, apparently an executor of
the Kirkpatrick estate. The exe-cutors sold the house and four
lots, to James Shaw, said to have
come from Rock Island, Illinois.
(Mr. Shaw got a "bargain" at"
$3,500.) •
—Alfred F. 'Shaw, executor
named in James Shaw's will, sold
the placefin 1889 to James Shaw's
daughter, Ida Howard, who had
been married to Edward Norman'
.Lewis on November .9th, 1888.
Miss Julia Lewis (now Mrs. Me-
re) inherited from her mother
' ',and Was living in the
house lvhen Mr. Hays bought it.
His- Honour James Masson,
county judge of ,Huron from 18690.
to 1902, was born in Belleville,
and after graduating from Os-
goode Hall practised law in Owen
Sound. From 1887 to 1896 he
'vas Conservative M.P. for North
Grey. Upon .appointment to the
Bench in Huron, , he came to
Goderich and rented the 'Shaw
House" being second of the four
judges to occupy It. Later the
family removed to the*ACheson
house on Nelson Street, now a•
nursing home, and when Illness
caused Judge Masson 'to retire,
the family removed to Toronto.
While there the young people re-
ceived their secondary educa-
tion, which in the case of two ,.
sons was part of the preliminary
qualification . for distinguished
careers in medicine.
In Owen Sound, James Masson
married Jessie Morrison, a
daughter of the Rev. Duncan Mor-
rison', minister Of Knox Presby-
terian church for many years.
A sister Elizabeth Morrison,
was the wife of Dr. H. E. Strang,
who was a teacher in OwenSpund
before coming to Goderich as
principal of the collegiate insti-
There were 10 Massons and
nine Strangs when all were at
home, and on the first Christmas
the Massons were in Goderich,
the two families had ,dinner at the
Shaw house. Uncle James,
big, handsome man," danced with
the youngest niece, Jessie Strang,
now Mrs. Jessie Morrison Hew-
son of Niagara-on-the-Lake.
' Judge and .Mrs. Masson had
eight children. The eldest, Thom-
as Morrison, never lived in Go-
derich, but married a Goderich,
girl, May Allen, daughter of A,
McD. Allan, a merchant who later
represented Ontario in Britain
when the Province was developing •
fruit exports. roin Masson was
executive vice-president of
Aikenhead Hardware when he re-
tired to Oakville,. He died there in
1956.
• Margaret Masson was mar-
ried to an Englishman, D. A. Boyd
and went to i'fruit ranch in the
Okanagan Valley of B.C. They
had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest son, James Masson
Boyd, is a Shell Oil official,.
Emilie, as Miss "Tiny" Mas-.
son, Organized (about 1900-01)
one of the first chapters of the
Children of the Empire, spori-
sored'av the I.O.D.E. They were
the original Maple Leaf Chapter.
Emilie married_ a. Toronto busi-
ness man, A. H. Jeffrey; they had
two sons and two daughters.
James ,Masson became a sur-
geon specialist with the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minn. His
wife was an American; they had
four 'children. Dr. James mar-
ried a second time ,when over 80,
and is living retired in Rochester.
• Louise trained in New York
a.S.,a nurse and went overseas in
War I. She did not marry, and
died a few' years ago. Harold, re-
membered by fellow-students as
a• happy, active lad, died in Go-
derich in his 'teens. Stanley
volunteered in War I and was
killed in action on the Somme.
He was not married. Duncan
Morrison Masson. also served
overseas in the firstaver. He is
now reitred from the staff of the
Mayo Clinic. He had four chil-
dren.
Edward Norman Lewis, born
in Goderich in 1858,• was a sonof
Ira Lewis, Crown Attorney and a,
grandson of Ira Lewis, a United
,Empire Loyalist who settled in
the Brockville area. Racially, the
family is Welsh. E. N. Lewis was
a man of hale-and-hearty type,
and when campaigning for the
House of Commons had an amu-
sing story and a pat on the back
for all and sundry. Between ses-
sions, he was a•diligent "fence-
mender" in his constituency. He
retrieved West Huron from the
Liberals in 1894, but by only 93
votes, and in 1908 the margin
dropped to 62, Even in the Con-
servatiVe sweep of, 1911 he was
ahead (of M. G. Cameron) by only
175.
"Ned" Lewis was prolific
of ideas.. He was an early and
often ridiculed,,,advocate of day-
light saving tfth e; fought for ru-
ral mail service and saw it
inaugurated in, 1908, and long
, before the proposal was seri-
ously , considered at Ottawa he
urged appointment of a Cana-
dian ambassador to •Washington.
Having sailed in youth; he pres-
sed for installation of wireless
on passenger ships and for adop-
tion of the Plimsoll (load) line
on freighters.
Though over age for active
service in War I, he was ap-
pointed by. Sir Sam Hughes to
command the 55th Battery,
C.F.A., and took a course at
Kingston: After taking 'the bat-
tery overseas in •September,
1916, he returned to recruit
other units, and was given rank of
lieutenant-colonel,
Many • distinguished guests
were entertained in this house.
In Judge Lewis' time, especial-
ly in the 13 year's during which
he was a Member of Parliament.
' Judge Lewis suffered a break-
down in health in the Fall of
1930,' and after treatment in To-
ronto General Hospital was
transferred to- Allan Garden
(Continued on Page 5)
Port Talbot, where the 'big' house
was the Anglican rectory. The
other, a fine cut stone house, is
in the conatry near Waterdown.
This house would date from about
1870."
For about one-third of its
90-odd years, the (Hays) house
reposed in • horse-and-buggy
times. Cars had not arrived in
Goderich when 'Judge Masson,
in poor health, found the, walk
to the courthouse too much and
moved to Nelson Street: Gaso-
line-powered vehicles came
the . time • of E. N. Lewis, who
had stabling on the place for
four horses. An ancient hitching-
post in front of the house is a
Goderich "original'', but -at one
time stood elsewhere. The house
Tilas 12 principaly Vbroad
Antral hall 9pt i ghto;,
, to the' sitting-room, then 'the
dining-room, on the left to the
drawing-room, and leads to theta
kitchen, breakfast room and den.
There are. four bedrooms, re-
placing the original six if the
main part .`of the house; in the
,rear are the former servants'
' quarters. There are three fire-
places downstairs. 'A :capacious
one in the den was installed by
Judge Lewis after seeing that of
.Dr. Woods in Hayfield. The others
are in the drawing-room and
dining-room. "
Most of .the original pine
floors remain, though there 'is
now some hardwood. The wide
_stone foundation is carried into
several interior walls in the
basement. Of the verandahs,
built by Mr. Lewis, only part .
remains of the One along the
south side of the house. Origi-
nally there were interior window
shutters in most rooms, and
these have beett retained.
A tall sideboard in the dining-
room -is of historic interest,
in that it belonged to the Van
Egmond • family of Egmondville,
but its exact age has not been
deterniined. One bedroom suite
was formerly the property of
Ira Lewis, father of Edward Nor-
man Lewis, who for more than
a half-century was Crown At-
torney of Huron.
' In addition to the original six
lots comprising one and half
acres bounded by Essex, Elgin
and Picthn Streets, the lake fron-
tage across Essex Street was
also included in the original pro-
perty with a summer house °A
the lake bank' opposite the front
door`, between where the Lee
and Currie summer homes now
sit. This lake frontage was sold
off by the Lewis family, whoalso
owned the lake frontage on Essex
south of Britannia Road.
Extensive outbuildings, in-
ciuding a finely constructed arn,
with stabling for four horses, and
quarters for smoking meat, were
removed by the present owners,
who later sold off some of the
frontage on both Elgili antiPicton'
to rear of the property.
The fine spruce and pine trees
on the property and on the lake
frontage were planted during the
Lewis occupancy, as were the,
large, Camperdown elm (u'mbrel-
'la) trees on both sides of the
ho,use. The cedar and much of
the other planting was added by
the present owners.
First of the•lots herein men-
tioned Was sold by the Canada
COMpany as No. 291, a quarter.
sere, to Harmon S. Cutting, in
1838. This venturesome inxestor
sold; i8 pounds sterling and re-
old' two years later to James
Gentles for 110 pounds. Farther
alOng in 'the 'record of trans-
actions is a,tax saio, invalidited
in the 1860's, arid in i8/6 John
C. kirimattick acquired Lots 291,
340 end 341 from the executers
the 41111afri 1}+IPIOnleY• estate
aAd added Lot 282 by purchase
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