Village Squire, 1980-08, Page 27should be erected here, as the Nine Mile River which enters Lake
Huron at this point furnishes water power, and forms a very
good harbour; but uncontrollable circumstances defeated this
laudable project and Port Albert's early commercial and
industrial institutions were summed up thus: two stores; one
saw, grist and shingle mill; two hotels; a post -office and
telegraph office, two blacksmith shops and being supplied with a
daily mail north and south by the Goderich and Kincardine
stage.
THE VILLAGE PROPER
The town plot consisting of over 600 acres trom North St. to
South Street is mostly south of the river 'hollow' and about one
mile square. The larger lots to the east were called 'park lots'
and are being used for camp sites and parks today. The town
proper was in the " hollow" along the river flats. Market Square
was laid out on the corners of Market and Arthur Streets,
following the design of English villages, and was to be in the
centre of a large business district on top of the south hill.
EARLY SETTLEMENT
Although there is no record of the exact date of settlement, it
was sometime between the years of 1837 and 1841. The early
settlers were Andrew McConnell (who was drowned in 1842
while on his way from Goderich to Port Albert in a boat); Jerome
Sharpe who built the first hotel around 1842 and who left shortly
afterwards and Stephen Martin and his wife Mary, a Chippewa
Indian who died in 1889 at the age of 105. The Martin
descendants still live at Port Albert.
The first town meeting (today it would be Township Council)
was held in Sharpe's Hotel in January 1842, with John Hawkins
appointed head councillor. He also attended District Council in
Goderich.
In the 1840's, the government provided the first grist mill on
the Nine Mile River (named because the settlers coming from
Goderich found it to be nine miles from the Maitland River). The
mill which was the chief industry for nearly a century had as its
proprietors, John Hawkins, James T. Crawford and in the 1870's,
James Mahaffey added a cooper shop to the existing stone grist
mill. He was making 75 barrels of flour a day and his boat the
'Enterprise' brought Manitoba wheat from Goderich as large
boats could not get up the River as it was not deep enough.
Excerpts from both the Huron Signal and Township minutes
describe the problems with the government in obtaining money
for the improvement of the Harbour (7 acres of land was deeded
as the Harbour Reserve). $6,000 was received in 1873 for
improvement, but was not finished, for in 1886 a petition was
laid on the table at Township Council by residents of Port Albert
seeking that a deputation be sent to Ottawa to secure if possible
a grant sufficient to finish the Harbour. The Port Albert
correspondent quotes in May 1885 "The pie crust promises of as
corrupt a Government as ever existed have again been broken.
The Port Albert harbour will this year receive nothing from the
Dominion Treasury. We're mighty mad."
BUSINESS THRIVED
However, business did thrive on the River through the years.
A large quantity of rock elm square timber was shipped from the
port to Quebec during the summer of 1885. Small schooners
loaded tanbark, wood and timber for Sarnia and Detroit. In the
1890's the channel was dredged and two piers were constructed,
one on each bank of the river.
The surface of the piers was not maintained and slowly
deteriorated but the piles were still sound in the late 1930's.
Fishing parties from a distance came almost every day in the
good weather to visit the piers and throw out their hooks to the
sportive herring and the cautious bass. Older residents of Port
Albert district do not find fish a favourite food as most of them
had to eat the seafood as it was a cheap staple diet in years
gone by.
FLOOD AND FIRE
In January 1900, the Nine Mile River raged across the valley
north of the Mill and demolished or damaged every building in
its path, including the road. The Royal Hotel, a blacksmith shop,
shoe shop and two residences disappeared. Four years later, the
grist mill was laid waste by a "suspicious" fire. The owner, John
Schoenhals, rebuilt the building of cement and produced his own
brand of flour.'North-Star". The grist mill ceased business in
the early 1940's, and was torn down in 1977 when the Ministry of
Natural Resources purchased the property to make way for the
new fish ladder.
CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS
Despite their full measure of hardship in crossing the Atlantic
in poorly fitted wind -ships and equally exhausting travel from
Quebec to the Crown Lands.the early settlers did not forget their
early religious training - the family worship and the community
prayer meeting. These residents were so community minded that
they built a Union Church in 1874 and Anglicans, Methodist and
Presbyterians came together as an act of love and devotion to a
larger cause.
James Young, a Presbyterian and George Caldwell an
Anglican agreed to donate one half acre each of their adjoining
farms for a church site. Prior to these years, saddlebag
preachers followed the blazed trail to the log homes and the
school house. It was not until 1889 that Christ Anglican
congregation built the present church, the only church now in
Port Albert. John Hawkins willed to the Anglican congregation
in 1856, land to be used for a cemetery.
S.S.#1 was built sometime between 1841 and 1847 and by
1890 there were 100 pupils in the two rooms. Sixteen more school
sections in Ashfield followed this first school. To -day the frame
school house built in 1873 still stands, however the children of
Port Albert are bused to Brookside Public School and the
secondary students attend Goderich District Collegiate.
ONTARIO WEST SHORE RAILWAY
This has-been railway had a very short life span for the
president of the company and some of his close associates
absconded with the funds. This railway was to have run from
Goderich to Kincardine along the Saugeen Line which was later
named the Bluewater Highway and is now Highway 21. The most
interesting aspect of this railway was that it was to be powered
by electricity which eh was to be supplied to the train through an
overhead cable making it similar in operation to the present day
streetcar.
The fact that no one completely understood this source of
Port Albert Dairy Bar In 1944. Maxine
McGee and an airman
VILLAGE SQUIRE/AUGUST 1980 PG. 25