The southern Ontario plain meets the Niagara escarpment
where Silver Creek village was established. This spot accommodated
a wagon road up the escarpment, steep though it was. A clear stream
of water rushed down the hill.
The origin of the place as a village begins about 1849. The steep
road at this spot slowed all traffic to a crawl so in 1850 John
Graham opened a saw and gristmill with the creek as its power
source. As wagons and riders waited their turn to ascend or descend
the escarpment or waited for their products at the mill, Graham
provided a tavern and a general store to meet their needs. Seemingly
overnight, a village sprang up.
The planking of the road to the base of the hill by a joint-stock
company prompted the construction of a tollbooth at the top of
the hill. A further economic boost followed in 1852 with the announcement
of the route for the Toronto-Guelph Railroad. The land prices
on the escarpment soared as quarries were established to provide
gravel while the soaring pines on the escarpment were culled for
the firewood needed to stoke the boilers on the trains.
This frontier-style village attracted labourers, both the hard-working
and criminal element. Crime in the area soared as the Jones’
gang used nearby caves to hide stolen horses. Store robberies,
burglaries and home invasions were reported. A counterfeiting
operation and a murder in 1859, topped off the violence!
The opening of the Grand Trunk railroad through Limehouse added
to the prosperity of the place. Graham sold off village lots,
sold his tavern to James Preston, his store to John Foreman, and
the mill to George Murray and George Crawford. Thomas Carbrough
had a distillery running to use the excellent waters of the Creek
for refreshment, while John McFerran ran a blacksmith and wagon
shop.
Once the boom subsided, a considerable village stood above, below
and on the escarpment face. Probably in the late 1850's a Wesleyan
Methodist congregation began meeting in the village and soon built
a church at the bottom of the hill. By 1861, the township school
for
School Section #14 was moved to the village on Lot 26, on top
of the escarpment. The village even had a post office by this
time under the auspices of John Foreman.
James Preston died in 1865, leaving the tavern in the capable
hands of his wife. Mrs. Preston carried on the taverns’
reputation for a blazing fire, home cooked meals and good ale.
The tollbooth continued collecting money although the road had
fallen into disrepair, inciting public indignation beginning in
1868. They moved the booth to 22 Sideroad in 1869, where it was
promptly burned. They rebuilt it and continued to collect tolls
until 1876, when Halton County took over the road.
In the 1870s the church was ministered through the Acton circuit,
eventually closing by the end of the decade. A brick schoolhouse
was built in 1871 at Lot 29, Concession 7, to replace the Ballinafad
school that had closed in 1869. In the meantime, SS#16 was created
at 22 Sideroad in 1856. Many Silver Creek students attended this
stone school until it closed in 1963.
SS#16 Stone School ........EHS p12512
 |
Mrs. Preston lost her liquor license in 1876. She sold the
place in 1879 to William Perryman.
Perryman got the liquor license back, but the hotel suffered
two fires that destroyed the place. The former Methodist Church
was finally moved onto the site to serve as a hotel. Perryman
continued to serve the area until the growing strength of
the Temperance movement closed him down about 1887. |
As the village houses needed repair they were torn down or removed.
The cold clean water that once turned the mill waterwheel was
inspiration for the construction of a 400,000-gallon reservoir
for the Georgetown water works system in 1891. A ten-inch water
main was laid down the centre of the 8th concession to supply
Georgetown with fire hydrants and running water
. Silver Creek Service Station
 |
The bend in the road was eliminated in 1916 when Trafalgar
Road was straightened. A new age in transportation dawned
when the road was paved in 1924. Silver Creek service station
built by A. C. Patterson, opened in 1932 at the top of the
hill. It was enlarged in 1936 and sold in 1947 to C. McCluskey.
The business carries on to this day. A general store was reopened
up the road from the service station and operated until the
1970s.
|
The original houses of the Miller and Varey families at the base
of the new road, were demolished in 1960 for road widening, leaving
only a cluster of houses on the former bend in the road and at the
27 Sideroad. In the 1960s the village started to grow again as commuters
built their homes at the top of the hill and clustered around the
27 sideroad, which became a cul-de-sac when the Highway 7 to Acton
was rerouted.
The quarries have continued just west of the village at the top
of the escarpment to this day, currently owned by the Duff family,
who once worked with the Graham family to ensure the prosperity
of the Village more than a century ago. A great deal of the stone
used to build the international bridge at Buffalo came from the
quarries at Silver Creek in 1873.
The establishment of the Bruce Trail in 1967 brought hikers through
the lovely vale where the walls of the Georgetown reservoir still
stand and where the Silver Creek still splashes down the escarpment.
Old houses were replaced with modern ones. The United Nations designated
the Niagara Escarpment as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1990. An
archeological dig in 2000 revealed traces of the Miller house and
the general store at the base of the hill. The four lanes of Trafalgar
Road cover the site today.
Today, Silver Creek is one of Ontario’s "lost hamlets",
now little more than a memory of times long gone.
2004
Esquesing Historical Society
P.O. Box 51
Georgetown, Ontario
L7G 4T1
Many thanks to the Silver-Wood Women’s Institute.
ISBN 0-921901-27-5
John Mark Benbow Rowe |
|
