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“Discoveries – Essonville Line takes one back into the past and into settlers’ lives ”
by Martha Perkins
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Built in 1888, historian Nila Reynolds says the minister at the time was Rev. Waltham “who baptized, married, buried, and preached at Ursa, Gooderham, the Madill Settlement, Wilberforce, and Essonville”. Beside the church was the Orange Lodge, which was transferred to Wilberforce in 1910 because of a population decline. “Grand master at this time was Howard McGuire, of whom it was said ‘He would gladly walk ten miles and back to attend either the Orange Lodge or a Conservative rally.’” This is, don’t forget, Tory hill territory.
There were a few holdouts in the area, however, as Mrs. Reynolds points out in her book, In Quest of Yesterday. “Mr. Sid Bradley vividly recalls Sir Sam Hughes campaigning at Essonville with speeches ablaze with Imperial sentiment. ‘They were held together with soft solder, always concluding with a flag-waving finale which brought down the house, in this case the entire community with the exception of John Sibley who, like Cliff Short of Tory Hill, stubbornly clung to his Liberal views.’”
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