It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
Councillors of the newly incorporated village of Huntsville … sat down to their first council meeting at the courthouse on April 26, 1886. … They presided over a community newly carved from the bush, where there were no sidewalks, no street lights, no municipal waterworks or sewers. The reeve, Louis Edward Kinton, owned one of the only brick buildings in the village.
The reeve’s chair was hotly contested in that first election. Two prominent citizens, L.E. Kinton and Francis J. Howland, vied for the top position. Both had been active in politics in Chaffey Township. Both had helped convince the railway to swing its line up through central Muskoka. Howland, the village’s first doctor, was thought by many to have the advantage. In spite of this, Kinton won.
Kinton, a general merchant, had established a home and shop in Huntsville by 1880. He was described as a “cultivated citizen” who contributed much to the early cultural scene in Huntsville. His brother Mackie Kinton, later an important insurance agent in the town, came with him to Huntsville. He was later joined by his sister, Sara, who married William Randelson. His other sister, Ada Florence Kinton, was editor and illustrator of the Salvation Army’s War Cry… Her impressions of early Huntsville, recorded on her visits to the village from 1883 until her death in 1905, helped paint a picture of village life. L.E. Kinton held the reeve’s post for three years. Dogged by ill health, he died in 1890.
Excerpted from Huntsville With Spirit and Resolve by Susan Pryke
Written by Celia Finley and published on Huntsville.ca
See more Wayback Wednesday photos here.
Don’t miss out on Doppler!
Sign up here to receive our email digest with links to our most recent stories.
Local news in your inbox so you don’t miss anything!
Click here to support local news
I have a photo of the Markle family from much the same era, and I think it must have been taken by the same photographer, using the same backdrop. It likely was.
When these gentlemen posed, the town had 3 churches, an Orange Hall, a Temperance Lodge, Dr. Howland (bonus), a weekly newspaper, a telegraph office, freight office, 2 hotels, 5 general stores, a hardware store, butcher shop, shoemaker, a tailor, milliner, pump and wagon shop and 2 sawmills. Three days a week, the stage ran to town.
I saw photos of the old stage: my great-grandfather Ace Markle drove for a while. It didn’t look anything like the stages from the American south. Just a stout, durable wagon with a little covered section.
Dr. Howland was in Huntsville because 7 men guaranteed to make up any shortfall in the expected $600.00 subscription amount he came to town for. John Scarlett, Chas. Ambler, F. Hanes, H. Butler, Alan Shay, Milan Markle and Wm. Booth were the 7 who knew the town needed a doctor. The information is all in Capt. Hunts’ diaries.
All this had been created from raw forest in about 20 years. I don’t believe any one of these men were on any ‘sunshine list’. Just determined people with a vision and a purpose.