What's New - December 1, 2023
New Book Coming - "A History of the Murray Canal"
The book is almost ready. Targetting February 2024 release. There will be events and communications at the time. Check the Events page on my main site for details when they become available.
Around Town Project
Early in 2023 I became a member of the Brighton Heritage Advisory Committee. In this role, I have been addressing historical plaques and such. We are renewing several of the plaques around Brighton and adding more. Another issue was the Walking Tour pamphlet which is due for an upgrade. In order to have history of properties to provide the basic information for a pamphlet, history of the properties must be done. I have been doing lots of these histories individually in the last few years, and took this opportunity to organize the tools and procedures for doing this research, in light of the much larger scale of work anticipated. I have dubbed it "Around Town" and it will eventually encompass the whole of the town of Brighton. Yes, literally, every address on every street. I know, it seems silly when you say it that way, but that is the reality. Just watch me. The immediate result will be a new Walking Tour pamphlet for Main Street in 2024.
I have completed Main Street as of December 2023. The first presentation on the north side of Main Street was in October 2023 and the next will be the south side of the street, in February. These talks are hosted by the Brighton Public Library, see my Events page for info re this and other speaking events.
Genealogy Stuff
Weir in Hamilton and Alnwick Twp.'s
An email from another researcher asked about the Weir family of Baltimore and I took a look. This name was in the area of Hamilton and Alnwick Townships, but I saw many disconnected people in my data. It turns out that these folks are from the same family that settled in Hamilton Township in the late 1820s, in the area south and west of the modern town of Baltimore. Subsequent generations relocated to Alnwick township, north east of Roseneath. This new data is now available in www.treesbydan.com.
Simeon Kellogg in Brighton
One of many families that received attention during the Around Town work is that of Simeon Kellog. He came to Brighton in 1830 and quickly had a hotel at the corner of Main and Prince Edward Streets. The Kellogg Inn contained a meeting room where movers and shakers gathered in April 1931 to select a name for the village sprawling along the Kingston Road. At the time, there were two hamlets, Bettes Corners at Ontario Street and Singleton's Corners at Prince Edwards Street and they tended to compete with each other, to say nothing of confusion in mail delivery. They decided it would be one village called Brighton. A later meeting sent a petition to the government complaining of the village not having a constable or municipal services, a problem that was not resolved until Brighton Township was created January 1, 1852. Simeon Kellogg left Brighton later in the 1840s and one of his sons would suffer the fate of being the only newspaper reporter with General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. His memorial stands on the windy prairie along with that of the general and all the soldiers who perished that day.
The Webb Place
A very interesting building that was highlighted by the research into properties on the north side of Main Street was called the Webb Place. It was identified by a very large two-storied brick house that had a distinctive tower on the front with two carved lions guarding the door. This property was assembled by Thomas Webb, a very active merchant in Brighton, and the house was built in 1880. It was there at 116 Main Street, often seen as a tourist attraction until time had its way and developers acquired the property in 1981. The house was torn down, the property broken up into modern house lots, leaving the streetscape east of Victoria Street that we see today.