Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
This picture is part of the collection of “Slides of Huntsville buildings by Dr. N.E. Hunt, 1980-1990. Views of Main Street and Heritage Buildings”.
You’ve probably passed by this house with the interesting porch at 15 Centre Street North many times. Huntsville is fortunate to have many of its heritage homes still standing.
According to Muskoka Digital Archives and LACAC (Local Architecture Conservation Advisory Committee), the house was built by Allan Shay, a United Empire Loyalist who came to Huntsville in 1863 from Dundas County. He married Mary Elizabeth Hanes, daughter of James Hanes, and eventually settled on Lot 13, Concession 1, in Chaffey Township in 1875. He bought out Henry Ouderkirk’s squatter’s rights. In 1876 he filed a survey and his first subdivision comprised four town blocks between Lorne and Centre Streets, creating Mary, Minerva, Caroline, and Susan Streets, after his children.
Later, he subdivided the remainder of his land, and continued the naming tradition, naming the streets Duncan, Florence and Cora. After erecting the first two-storey log house in Huntsville at the corner of Main Street and Centre Street, which although it contained eight rooms his growing family of twelve children outgrew, he built the three-storey house at 15 Centre Street North. Intricate wooden decorations can be seen on the upper balcony and the verandah. There is a bay window on the south side of the house and the roof was made of wooden shingles.
In 1890, Allan Shay sold a parcel of land bounded by Centre and Susan Streets to David Alexander and William Sutherland Shaw to establish a tannery in Huntsville. In 1905 the tannery re-organized to become the Anglo Canadian Leather Co. with Charles Orlando Shaw, a cousin of William Sutherland, as general manager and later president.
In the early 1900’s the Anglo-Canadian Leather Co. bought numerous properties to house its employees, including the property at 15 Centre Street North. It became known as the “Sullivan House” when it became home to Richard Joseph Sullivan and his family. Richard Joseph Sullivan (1878-1954) had come from Michigan to Huntsville in 1901. He started as a worker at the tannery but was soon promoted to foreman.
After the death of Richard Sullivan in 1954 the house at 15 Centre Street, was sold by the Anglo-Canadian Leather Co. to the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and it became a parsonage. In the 1970s the house was sold into private hands.
If you have a neat vintage photo you’d like to share in Wayback Wednesday, please send it to [email protected]
See more Wayback Wednesday photos here.
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