Mulmur: Then and Now

It was November, 2003. We were at the Royal Winter Fair, wandering the booths, me, thrilled with having just seen cows and pigs and goats and sheep and chickens..., Jim, slightly bewildered. We passed a booth with a tall, lanky cowboy behind a table, and a photo album showing yet more cows. And a price list for premium beef, raised on the rooftop of Ontario. That man was Crusty, owner of the Peace Valley Ranch ( http://www.pvrbeef.ca/ ; http://www.rawhide-adventures.on.ca/ride/index.html) and, in some small, bizarre way, agent of fate in our journey to Dufferin. It was driving to pick up our big box of beef that we first saw the Mulmur hills, and where the little seed of an idea was planted in our cold whithered urban minds.

Mulmur was once one of the least desirable locations in Dufferin, due to its relatively short growing season (yes, even compared to Melancthon) and that pesky Niagara Escarpment which rather buggers up any attempt to plow a straight field. That's what we liked about it. Unfortunately, that's also what the denziens of ex-urban artists liked about it as well, and anyone who has the independent means needed to create art for a living also tends to have the independent means to buy up scenic farm land and drive the prices through the roof. Mulmur is now the land of the eccentric middle-aged artist, with a few bewildered farmers thrown in for good measure. It wasn't always so, however, and here begins our tale.

The settlement of Mulmur began in the 1830s, by the same mix of English and Northern Irish pioneers that settled most of the area. Settlement in Mulmur was much slower than in areas to the south of it, however. By 1846, Mulmur only had 218 souls living within its bounds. One of the earliest settled areas in Mulmur was the area around what is now Rosemont. This is the location of the Globe restaurant, once the Globe hotel, and scene of an example of a distinct lack of cooperation between neighbours. From the Hills of the Headwaters site, "In the early days, Rosemont boasted four hotels, one of which was the Globe. One night, a fire broke out in the hostelry built where the Anglican church now stands. The wife of the owner of the Globe rose from her bed, and grabbing her husband's shotgun, ran outside in her nightgown and mounted guard over the well — the main source of water for the village, but located on her husband's land. She stood there, daring anyone to fetch water to aid her chief rival for business until the building was past saving. The pump she guarded so valiantly is still to be seen outside — a tribute to the competitive instincts of our forebearers!" One might also say that it is a tribute to the mean-ness of the Scots, but, just for the record, I didn't. Here is the Globe in DATE, with PEOPLE.

And now. It is a fantastic restaurant, and I can highly recommend it to anyone passing through this part of the world.

And the rest of Rosemont.

Rosemont also boasts a fantastic General Store, where they sell hippyish things like home-made bread and gourmet potato chips, and where they remind you sharply at the door to turn off your engine and wash off your perfume. And, of course, the ubiquitous Loyal Orange Lodge.

Driving west from Rosemont, you'll see a huge old building at the location of the former town of Mulmur Corners. Yes, there was a town of Mulmur within the township of Mulmur, just like Melancthon. It can be confusing, especially since many towns in the townships don't exist anymore. This huge old building is a former schoolhouse, seen here in DATE with its staff and students.

Most of the old schoolhouses have been turned into residences, but this one remains vacant.

This is the General Store and Post Office that used to be in the town of Mulmur, in DATE. I'm not sure why Mulmur corners, site of the first courthouse in the township, failed and Rosemont thrived. Maybe the citizens of Mulmur Corners were too nice to survive in the face of that spirit of pioneer competition that the citizens of Rosemont displayed.

The only other building in this hamlet that died in favour of Rosemont is this lovely old farmhouse.

If you continue west, then turn north at the corner of Airport Road and Highway 89, you'll get to the little village of Stanton, famous now only for its twee little shop, which, I have to admit, I've never been in. This is the Stanton Post Office, with the Love family standing in front of it. This photo is undated, but looks to be about 1880 or 1890.
The twee little shop is about all that is there now. Fine if you can live on fudge and christmas ornaments.

It was in a house near here that the women and children of southeast Mulmur gathered to wait out the non-existant Fenian raid in 1866. The good Orangemen of Mulmur feared that the Irish Catholics of Adjala (a township kitty-corner to Mulmur on the southeast) were preparing to rise up against them, steal their farms, make eye contact with their women, and start transubstantiating their bread. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Pope. Having arrived in Rosemont and not finding any thurible-waving mobs, the men of southern Mulmur, northern Mono, and southwestern Tosorontio started rallying for an invasion of Adjala. There was only one problem: the Catholics of Adjala, not having heard a thing about what it was they were supposedly doing, had clutched their rosaries, gone to bed, and fallen asleep in the middle of the second Decade. Thank goodness one man with a calmer head managed to convince the mob to let him ride into the lion's den and check the situation out. Dr. Robinson set off with his mob-appointed companion. It very nearly all went wrong again when the men didn't return in a timely fashion and the people became convinced that their good doctor had been compromised in some manner. The return of the doctor and his companion on the 11th hour (actually, on the fourth hour, and no one then had heard of the 11th hour expression, but it doesn't sound as good, does it?) quieted the mob yet again, and he was happy to report that, outside of a few barking dogs, not a soul stirred in Adjala, for ill intent or otherwise. TWEEDSMUIR PHOTO.

Travelling north from Stanton, one reaches the town of Mansfield, home of the liquor store with the most convenient hours in the county (since it is in a convenience store, not run by the Liquor Communist Board of Ontario). Mansfield is also home of a revolving door of failed restaurants and yet another Loyal Orange Lodge. This is the Mansfield General Store in DATE. So many of these photos are of general stores, btw, because often that was the only photographable act in town. The general stores were also post offices, lending banks, and social centers. And they tended to be better decorated than the Loyal Orange Lodges, the only other act likely to outnumber the stores.

And at a later date, with the porch closed in, though still, clearly, an early photo.

The Mansfield Gas Bar now occupies the building, a place where they sometimes have gas, and sometimes don't. Really, if we're talking about gas stations connected to old buildings, you're better off to drive the ten miles west to Masonville, a village that would have been included in the Melancthon post if there had been any historical photos of it. There you'll find a chip wagon, gas every time, and plenty of helpful advice on heritage poultry.

And look at that: Mansfield has one too! And they all look the same. You, gentle reader, should recognize that building by now.

Quite a lot of traffic can build up at the light in Mansfield. In summer, on a Friday afternoon, it can take 15 minutes or more to get through this light, as refugees from the city run from the assault of pollution, crime, and over-priced free range organic eggs. They come to the country, to their cottages packed like sardines along lake shores, in order to experience pollution, crime, and over-priced free range eggs in an entirely different environement. So long as they keep the price of eggs artificially high, I'll put up with them, and the rest of it.

North of Mansfield, Mulmur's quaint villages and eccentric millionaires (the non-eccentric millionaires live in Mono, but that's a post for another day) become more spread out, the scenery becomes fiercer, and the winds become... howlier. There are some fantastic out of the way spots that we'll have to highlight in yet another post. This post, being a then and now comparison, suffers from the lack of photographers or cameras available to the early pioneers of the area. And so, the history of beautiful places like Banda and Lavender will have to wait for a scenic-places-where-you're-kind-of-glad-not-to-be-in-the-winter post.

About the only place in the northern part of Mulmur where we have both historical photos and buildings left standing to photograph today is Honeywood. I love Honeywood. Some of the greatest people live there, including the owners of one of our kittens. Aaron Downey, hockey thug extraordinaire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJvHZn4MuvA) is from there. DOWNEY MUSKIE? Charlie's babysitter, who lauded his ability to get along with every dog, after a different place had nearly kicked him out for excessive humping, is from there. The Honeywood barbecue, admittedly not the best beef in the world, but the social event of the season, is there. They play cow patty bingo in Honeywood. What's not to love?

Jim was so impressed with this little red car that this is the only modern-day Honeywood scene we ended up with. That is, you guessed it, the Honeywood General Store.

In the middle of the township, south of Honeywood, was the hamlet of Whitfield. The area around Whitfield is some of the most beautiful in the township. Rolling hills, stone walls, beautifully kept up historic farms, and back lanes with sudden drops into the wildness of the escarpment walls, where high-schoolers park and make out. This was the Centre Road, which goes from Kilgorie to Whitfield, in early autumn. A lovely, slightly wild road in summer. I wouldn't recommend it in any other season.

The only building left in the town of Whitfield is the Anglican church, where they still hold services every other week, on a charge with the church in Shelburne. This photo is from ca 1910.

And now.

If you continue south, you will eventually get to Primrose. As it lies on the joining of Highways 10 and 89, it is a busy, modern intersection that doesn't much resemble what it was in the past. Primrose seperates the chaff from the wheat, when it comes to who is who in Dufferin. There, we find two burger joints. On the northwest corner, we have Superburger. Superburger is cute. Superburger has an old bus where you can sit and eat. Superburger has pictures of mooses on it. But Superburger doesn't have a liquor license. On the northeast corner, we have Champs. Champs is small. Champs isn't especially cute. Champs has no pictures of cottage creatures. But Champs has beer. And Champs has locals. Only the tourists go to Superburger.

There are only two historic buildings still standing in Primrose, the old house on the southwest corner, and the church, one concession down from the town itself. This is the old house ca 1920.


And now, abandoned.

We don't have a historic photo of the church, but it is such a pretty little thing that we'll include it here anyway.
And, finally, some gratuitous scenery shots that we took while out shooting the towns. This is an old stone wall near Ruskview, one of those places mentioned above, where you're glad that you don't live in January. Nice place in September, though!
A different old stone fence, also near Ruskview.

And a very bright tree near Earnscliffe, which isn't featured here due to lack of historical photos.

So there you have it. A few good tales and some lovely old spots. Next up is Amaranth, land of swamps and flying saucers. I promise, we'll get better about getting these out more often than once a year. At this rate, we'll have to live here until 2015 to get all the way down to East Garafraxa!

All historical photos courtesy of the Dufferin County Museum and Archives. No reproduction without written permission, etc. All modern photos are courtesy of Jim and Anna, and you can do whatever you like with them. Sources for historical information: LH-0009: Mulmur, the Story of a Township, LH-0056: Dean's Mulmur Settlement Period, and LH-0113: John Coburn's I Kept My Poweder Dry. Snarky commentary has no source, or, in fact, validity.

Not snowing at the moment.

Thunderstorms and vicious winds instead.

The fireplace is pretty heavy but blew over.

The shutter was pretty well screwed on but broke into pieces and flew off.

It came to rest in the woods.

I hope that'll be the extent of the damage though based on the sound of the wind I'm ready to find the house flown to Kansas.

Floored.

The baseboards are in and, though I say it myself, it all looks pretty impressive.

Apparently a cowskin for a rug and some faintly Sapphic images of early cowgirls at work are needed to complete the room.

OMG!

The Christmas Day goose with it's Cumberland sauce was fine, fabulous eating. But my, dinner on Boxing Day was gobsmacking, look at this:


This is a reduction of wine, broth, rosemary, and shallots.


And this is a Beef Wellington, a triumph of pastry over premium meat.

Lord Jesus! Is there better food on this earth?

Served with Yorkshire puddings and the sauce running over them, this was an orgasmic dinner.

Christmas Dinner.

A problem at Christmas is that unusally elbaorate meals entail dragging every pot and piece of tableware into service. And so it was that I was sent to fetch the extra bucket, the one hanging on the fence. Easy said! The bucket was full of water. Frozen water. I tried shaking it and pointing the hairdryer at it but, in the end, gave up on emptying it at the barn and dragged it up the hill. I tried thawing it in the sink. No luck with that but eventually putting it in the bath worked, the iceberg floated free. Lots of straw and mud and stuff in the tub of course.

Meanwhile the chef was at work.

This is a rice, flax, jalapeno and maple syrup dish.

This is a blend of bran, molasses, Marmite, apples and what-have-you.

The dishes on the way to the dinig room.

The first serving, steaming hot. Note the elegant serving dish, the rest of the year it's a mop bucket.

Dixie ate politely on her own, ever the lady. Donkey and Austin required management to keep from stealing each others' mash.

These diners show their appreciation by the style of their eating; they went at it like Labradors.




And by the spread of the remains.

The humans didn't have any such mixtures from the fringe of gastronmy, but we didn't go hungry.

That's a politically correct goose, purchased directly from a nearby mixed farm. Very good it was too.

Unless you're an Eskimo

or live in Melancthon, all pictures of piles of snow look a lot like other pictures of piles of snow. Scrolling back to January shows images much like these. Still this week we had a lot of snow. This is the driveway after I cleared it this morning.

and this is the lane to the barn which I cleared last night. Some drifting, some new snow, it had been clear to the ground for a blade width.

Piles of snow everywhere, always the problem of where to put it all.

The Rural Ritual.

Every second Saturday we have a little outing. We load up the garbage and recycling and go to the dump. The dump, or landfill, or recycling depot, is our main point of contact with the neighbours. It's the social equivalent of church in a secular age. There the gas station guy complains about people from Toronto who fill his bins but don't buy gas and the man from up the street who's building a mansion exhibits the packaging from his latest expensive acquisition.

This was setting out on Saturday, before clearing the snow and before this weekend's big storm. There was a couple of inches of snow then, there's eight now and very much drifting.


The heater is not one of the Toyota's strengths. It is possible to get enough heat to defrost the windshield but not soon after moving off. This is a problem with the Beetle too, that only has enough heat to clear the top of the screen after thirty miles or so.

Here comes the plough, a giant truck with a massive, almost tubular, blade. On wider roads they work in tandem, the lead one pushing the snow into the path of the next and the kerbside one dumping the lot into someone's driveway. Given the size of the machine and the noise of the blade on the road it's no wonder they don't notice knocking down the occasional mailbox.

In the woodland glade we heave our junk on to the stack for burial. It's cold out at the dump and so one must dress for the excursion, having to put on a snowmobile suit, coat, balaclava, hat, gloves and boots to move snow or rubbish around might be the worst feature of living in a winter climate. That or having to take it all off because you forgot to pee.

This is the appliances pile. It's all highly categorized though perhaps pointlessly, this must be year's worth of discarded fridges for a place where the coyotes outnumber the people.

These are the recycling bins, we used to have to sort the recyclable stuff but now it all goes in together. It may be that it's shipped to some third world country for collation and then back for recycling, like a Kenyan salad, but the suspicious of us wonder if it doesn't all end up in the same dump in Michigan as Toronto's garbage.

That's the glamorous part of the day. After that we go to the feedmill where the old guy in farmer pants speaks only to me, the man. He talks, of course, about the weather which, conveniently, keeps getting worse. It's hard to imagine a crusty old man in a feedmill commenting on good weather.