Streetsville's 150th: acknowledging our imperfections, celebrating our humanity

In 1951, the Streetsville Women’s Institute took up the challenge of Lady Tweedsmuir. The W.I, once a pillar of what we would today call “the civic and voluntary sector,” began gradually to compile a scrapbook of our local history.

“After all, it is the history of humanity which is continually interesting to us, and your village histories will be the basis of accurate facts much valued by historians of the future,” the widow of the Depression-era Governor General told the Ontario W.I. branches.

Pause for a moment. That statement implies a great deal. Is the “history of humanity” really embodied in “village histories” prepared by amateur historians? Such a claim would shock professional historians like R.G. Collingwood, who saw history essentially as a “science” and therefore the domain of experts. Such a claim would dismay the biographers of “great men”—and the great men themselves.

But most of all, Lady Tweedsmuir’s thesis would unsettle the boosters and the propagandists interested only in stoking some kind of chauvinistic pride or presenting surreal perfection.

The history of Streetsville, as told by the W.I., as told by the late Mary Manning, as told by those venerable and knowledgeable local elders who have passed away this year—Norm Potts, Hilda Arch, Betty Pinchin—as told in oral-history projects by immigrant students who have settled here more recently, that history is the “history of humanity” because it is random, because it is sometimes told imperfectly, and because it is about unheralded people who are decent on the whole, but imperfect nonetheless.

It is the “history of humanity” because it has the air of authenticity.

Of course, people have always tried to put their best foot forward. There was always some strutting and boasting. The W.I. reprinted an 1853 Streetsville Review advertisement for the Telegraph House Hotel: “No pains will be spared in administering to the appetites and comforts of his guests, as his table will always be supplied with as choice viands as the variest epicure could desire, and his Bar with liquors so generous that Bacchus could not fail to commend them.”

The publicity piece continues in that effusive vein.

But the amateur historians manage to gently and indirectly nuance the claims of that self-assured proprietor (James Waterson). They do so not by holding him up as some sort of fraud, for he surely was sincere, but by giving us a smorgasbord of other offerings. Yes, the hoteliers were trying to exceed themselves, but be aware as well of the stories of stench, and mud, and storms, and fires, and of those who would have objected violently to the very idea of an establishment—and six others like it! —serving “liquors so generous.”

And even when civic leaders tried to be on their best behaviour, things went awry. John Hyde, an energetic promoter with a spectacular three-storey hotel that could fit 500 people in its ballroom, decided in the 1860s to push to make bustling Streetsville the seat (capital) of the new Peel County. The mills were still flourishing. Affluent entrepreneurs and professionals were giving quirky names to their houses—names like “Noah’s Ark” and “Solomon’s Temple.” But the railways were bypassing the community. Something had to be done to preserve its predominance and glory.

Hyde travelled the backroads, cajoling and haranguing local farmers to support Streetsville. In Charleston (part of Caledon), he descended the stage to find that some miscreant had cut off the tails of his horse and the horses of his supporters! A major brawl ensued. Some of Streetsville’s lustre was lost, and Brampton eventually became the county town.

The Hyde story probably went through some contortions, as it was passed from generation to generation.  But because the amateur historians were close to the rumour mills, they could not really bring themselves to present an overly romanticized account of even a venerable personage like John Hyde.

The debts and legal squabbles of local namesake (and sometimes overly ambitious entrepreneur) Timothy Street (1777-1848) also do not escape the mention of the village historians. He was human. Just as a sincere Christian would actually feel comforted that the establishment of the Church was entrusted to that flawed mortal St. Peter, so too there is reason to be proud to be part of a “community on the hill” whose lights have often flickered, which remains a work in progress because of the accomplishments and the errors of those who have preceded us.

A KIND OF HUMILITY

Of course, our predecessors sometimes had an air of holy righteousness. Anglican minister Robert Jackson Macgeorge was the witty editor of the Streetsville Review in the 1840s and 1850s. “His virile helmsmanship put the little village sheet in the forefront of Canada West’s newspapers,” wrote William Perkins Bull in 1937. “Among the things he abhorred were toll-gates, rabid teetotallers and prohibitionists, railroads, mud, muddled militia, and stupidity in general.”

He was not the first to be vigorously confrontational. The Town Line Blazers, a Tory gang that opposed the famous political firebrand reformer William Lyon Mackenzie, were known for starting squabbles, even a huge food fight at Queen and Main. The 1832 fracas came to be known as The Battle of Mother Hyde’s Hostelry. “Rob Roy” (an alias), one of the more colourful amateur local historians of the early 20th century, made sure his newspaper readers would not forget such incidents.  

But living in close quarters with people who are different also imposed a kind of humility, an acknowledgment that we might not know everything after all. In the early 1930s, schoolteacher Elizabeth Hoople moved here and found a place that was surprisingly open to newcomers and new ideas. “It was a small village but it didn’t take me long to realize that there was something special and different about it,” she wrote in The Booster 40 years later. “It was the collective spirit of the place.”

Living in close quarters means that the histories so cherished by Lady

Tweedsmuir would be laced with sympathetic but fascinating accounts of everyday people -- individuals like Mary Ann Mullins. The “town character” (who died in 1885) had no family, was supported by the village council because of an illness, and would spend her days handing out trinkets from a basket.                                   

Or John Temple, who for years single-handedly ran the local public utility. It faltered perhaps more often than would have been the case in a large city, but there was Mr. Temple climbing up a pole. He deserved sympathy and patience.

Error and patience were even in evidence when the community decided to hold big celebrations. It was late with the 100th anniversary of incorporation, deciding to celebrate in 1959. The Order-in-Council incorporating the Village of Streetsville was signed by the Governor General of the Province of Canada in 1857. However, a special, retroactive Act of the legislature was passed the next year legitimating what the Cabinet had done. There had been concerns that the Cabinet had unilaterally exceeded its authority in not seeking the approval of the honourable members. Either way, the 1959 centennial revellers were not being punctual.

And even now, we say that we are “celebrating Streetsville’s 150th birthday,” though it’s really the “150th anniversary of incorporation as a municipality.” The community of Streetsville and the Streetsville name on the post office were around long before 1858.

So don’t be surprised if we celebrate the bicentennial 12 years hence!

But don’t shake your head, either. Warts and all, errors and all, there is reason to celebrate this community with a heart, no matter how old it is, no matter the imperfections of its pioneers and those of us who have come after.

NOTE: The Streetsville Historical Society will be issuing, this month, updated editions of Mary Manning’s History of Streetsville and of the Streetsville Women’s Institute’s Tweedsmuir History.