Town of Georgina
The Early Beginnings of Georgina
Harry Sullivan
"It seems strange to think that so recently as the days of the American Revolution, when Boston was already an old town and Montréal has a century and a half behind it, the Lake Simcoe country lay empty and uncultivated. The summer came and wend, the autumn forests turned to gold and scarlet, the winter locked the Lake in a great sheet of ice over which swept the blizzards of the Northern Snow-storm--and in all this man had no part. Only the rare and scattered Indians moved in bark canoes or huddled in winter lodges powerless against nature. It seems strange that the occupation of such a wonderful heritage should have waited so long" - Stephen Leacock.
So long indeed. It wasn't until after the winter's, blizzard-swept ice had melted away into the summer of 1819 before man would clear a spot and attempt to fill the land and till the soil of a newly-surveyed Georgina Township. He was Captain William Bourchier, a man whose ancestry included Earls, Chancellors, and a Bishop. A retired, half-pay officer of the Royal Navy with a desire to settle on the land less crowded than the more popular areas along the shores of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence. For him, like many others of his kind who would follow, "the lake location and untouched shorelines of Lake Simcoe were most appealing."
Captain Bourchier had come to Canada to command a frigate for the Royal Naval Service on the Great Lakes. But with the end of the Napoleonic era in Europe corresponding with the end of the war of 1812 with the United States, Capt. Bourchier became like numerous other "well-educated, cosmopolitan naval officers" who found themselves retired and requesting land from the government in order to build a new life in Upper Canada.
When the first land patent for Georgina was issued in 1819, it was the 28-year-old "retired" Capt. William Bourchier's name the parchment carried.
He was soon joined by his younger brother James O'Brien, 21, a Midshipman in the Royal Navy.
It wasn't long, however, before they would part ways again. The following spring (April 1821), William married Amelia Jackson, soon after sold his land to James, and with his new bride sailed off to the wars of India to resume his military career.
James along with a few other new land owners scattered about the area, turned their heads from the sea and with hammers, axes and plough in hand set about the task of building their township.
Little more than two months after William was wed, James followed suit. On June 24 he married Miss Jean Lyall and together they moved to Lot 1 Concession 7 where they began building what was soon to become a village called Bourchier Mills (later named Sutton).
After building a log cabin (nearby the present -day Co-op) for their home, James proceeded to construct a dam across the Back River. Having harnessed the river's ever-flowing energy he built a saw mill (the Co-op building now), a grist mill and by the late twenties he owned a general store, thus forming the core of the emerging village.
Having established himself as Bourchier Mill's first citizen the shrewd but respected businessman went on to become Pathmaster (assuming responsibility for his position of road) followed his brother's footsteps but achieving the "very important" position as a Justice of the Peace for his area and by 1832, when Bourchier Mills had the distinct honour of serving as Georgina's first post office, James was its first postmaster. Also in that year he became one of a number of early shareholder's in Lake Simcoe's first steamer, aptly named, the "Simcoe". Eventually he would would also own a woollen mill, manor house and cheese factory.
And so life in Georgina began. While settlers around Bourchier Mills were felling trees, growing wheat and starting families, growth was taking place throughout other parts of Georgina as well. (Settlement had begun around the Roches Point, Keswick, Belhaven areas as early as 1800 and until 1826, that area, then known as North Gwillimbury, had been united with Georgina, which included Sutton, Pefferlaw, Baldwin, Udora, Egypt, Vachell and Virginia. While united until 1826 for administrative purposes the two townships were split and it was not until 1870 that North Gwillimbury again became a part of Georgina).
The three principal areas of settlement during the 18th century were that of Sutton (Bourchier's Mills), Pefferlaw, and along the Lake Shore Road, between what is not Jackson's Point and Sibbald Point.
Originally, Jackson's Point was called Bourchier's Point after William Bourchier, whose original 2 000 acre land grant included that area. It changed to Jackson's Point when Capt. Bourchier sold his land there to his father-in-law, John Mills Jackson.
Mr Jackson had originally arrived in Canada from England in 1808. Dissatisfied with the political state of affairs of the day, however, he soon returned home where he created a sensation in England and Upper Canada by publishing a booklet entitled "A View of the Political Situation of the Province."
Unhappy with the way the public affairs were being handled in general, he was deeply troubled by the fact that, while a seventh of public lands had been set apart for an established church, the Lake Simcoe area during the 1820's remained without a place for public worship.
Eventually Mr. Jackson returned to Canada to settle at the place that still bears his namesake. And upon his return he once again took up the struggle to have a church built in the area. With public funds being scarce, however, and private donors being few Me. Jackson's fight would carry on for many years.
Life in Georgina was anything but easy in those early days. Even as the new township grew into its first decade, transportation to the nearest supply centre (Toronto) was extremely difficult. There was no public transportation until 1826 when a covered wagon service ran between Toronto and Holland Landing. Three years later the more regular Yonge Street Stage service began, but even with the initiation of the "Simcoe" in 1832, the lakes unpredictable waters, combined with terrible roads made any travel tedious at the best of times.
Growth, though slow was fated once it began, as Georgina's untamed beauty and ideal agricultural land continued to attract the hardy souls willing to take on the challenge.
None the less, some families east of Sutton the tiny village of Pefferlaw was beginning to hold. Like Sutton, Pefferlaw was founded mainly through the efforts of a single man; Capt. William Johnson, another retired Royal Navy Officer, and who was the second man to put his signature to a Georgina land grant, shortly after William Bourchier in 1819.
Capt. Johnson's retirement in the new land began after the battle of Waterloo and although his initial efforts to settle on his 1 000 acre property proved somewhat disastrous, with the stiff upper lip of his class, he pushed on.
Mr. Johnson's original plan was to build a mill at Baldwin. But when his material was swept away in a storm, he headed further east to another prime location on his property. By 1882 he had built a sawmill, woollen mill, and grist mill. And Pefferlaw was born.
In 1832 Capt. Johnson's brother Robert emigrated from Scotland and together they started the first store (the building still stands).
Baldwin too, sparked new life into the township, when a grist mill was eventually established there. It brought with it a store, post office, and other settlement and helped to contribute to the building of Georgina's foundation.
For some of the prominent families arriving from England, however the beauty of the wild and tree-lined lake shore seemed more appealing than settling in the established villages near by. And as life near the lake rolled on into the thirties, despite the arduous tasks of getting there, the Lake Shore area just north of Sutton was also receiving new settlers.
By 1840 Georgina's first school, which also served as a church and town hall, was built in Sutton. And though by 1842 the townships population still only counted at 586 residents, during the next three decades it grew to 1 987. by 1891, nearly 2 500 people were living on Georgina soil.
The year 1839 saw William Bourchier return to build his home, the Briar's which he sold in 1877 to Frank Sibbald (it is now owned by John Sibbald and serves as the Briars Country Club and Resort). By 1846 Sutton had grown to include a tannery, a tavern a blacksmith shop and "two shoemakers".
James Bourchier was by them selling one acre lots to new trades people and it was in that year also that he built his second manor home, which today serves as a commercial office building beside the Sutton Library.
And so it grew, more fine homes, churches, schools, and businesses.
In 1872 Sutton's first citizen died. But by the efforts and examples set by James O'Brien Bourchier, and the others of his day, he had left a township well established. As life moved into the seventies, eighties, and nineties the railroads and light industry were established further adding to its development.
Autumn forests still turn to gold and scarlet along the lake's shores, and the winter continues to lock its waters in great sheets of ice. Progress, arguable, still moves in a slow pattern, but ever since the bite of that first axe into the first log-cabin tree, never again would the blizzards sweep across empty and uncultivated land.
Source: Georgina Advocate - Our History December 1992. Reproduced with permission