Alton One Place Study

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Ontario, Canada

A collection of historical home photos, cemetery photos, maps and documents

Heritage Caledon Twitter Feed includes many early historical records. https://twitter.com/heritagecaledon?lang=en

Alton Village and Links
Meek Family
https://www.oocities.org/ve6xv/index.html
https://meekgenealogy.com/Group_X/Vo1.htm
https://www.peelregion.ca/planning-maps/settlementhistory/
https://www.1000towns.ca/town/alton-ontario/
https://twitter.com/heritagecaledon?lang=en
https://pub-caledon.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=18129
History Canada ; Past, Present and Future: Being a Historical Geographical ..., Volume 2 By William Henry Smith
From Region of Peel 1565 Queen st, Heritage doc pdf
The townships of Caledon, Albion, and Chinguacousy were surveyed in 1818-1819 and opened for settlement the following year. In the northwest part of Peel County, now the Region of Peel, Caledon Township was divided into west and east sectors by Hurontario Street (Highway 10). According to Walton’s Home District Directory, by 1837 there were 750 landowners in Caledon Township living east of Hurontario Street, and 738 living west of Hurontario. By 1842, the population of Caledon Township was 1,920 and by 1846 there were three gristmills and one sawmill.

The Town of Caledon was established on January 1, 1974, as an amalgamation of Caledon, Albion, and the northern half of Chinguacousy townships. It is the northernmost municipality in the Region of Peel and is largely rural lands scattered with smaller urban centres. The subject property at 1565 Queen Street East is in the village of Alton, west of Hurontario Street, in the former Caledon Township.

3.2 ALTON HISTORY
When Canada was first settled, fast flowing water in consistent quantity was essential for generating the waterpower necessary to drive industrial machinery. The result was the clustering of the earliest mills and other industries along the larger waterways where “mill reserves” or “privileges” were identified.
At the village of Alton, the water level of Shaw’s Creek, a branch of the Credit River, drops about a hundred feet over a one mile distance, thereby creating sufficient power for nine mill privileges. These are marked on the first survey of Alton drawn in 1857. The availability of waterpower made Alton an early industrial leader in Caledon Township.
1 W.H. Smith, ed. Smith’s Canadian Gazetteer, 1846, p.27. The statistics in this directory, including the number of mills, is based on the 1842 census for Caledon Township.
Caledon microfilm partly nominal C-1344 not in LABC database.
By the 1846 publishing date of the directory, more mills may have been opened.

2 The 1877 Historical Atlas of Peel County gives 1834 as the founding date of Alton.

More recent archival research by Alton residents Anne Stubbs and David White indicates Martin Middaugh, Jr., was issued an Order in Council on April 19, 1816, for Lot 23, Concession 4, WHS (part of the northwest quadrant of Alton through which runs Shaw’s Creek). His brother George was granted Lot 25; and another brother, Joseph, Lot 26 (in 1820). Both lots are north of Alton. By August 1821, James Middaugh was associated with Lot 26, Concession 3, northeast of Alton. The dates if and when the Middaughs actually occupied these lots are unknown. Martin died about 1827 in Flamborough Township, but may have completed the dwelling and cleared the acreage required to achieve legal ownership of the Caledon Township lot.

The first Alton post office opened on March 1, 1854.
3 The Canada Directory for 1857-1858 describes Alton, giving its population as “about 200.” According to the Canadian Gazetteer and Directory for 1869, the population of Alton had reached 300 by that date.
The first railway through Peel County was the Toronto, Grey & Bruce Railway chartered on March 4, 1868, by George Laidlaw. Construction of this narrow gauge line (as opposed to the “standard” gauge) between Toronto via Bolton, Caledon, Alton, and Orangeville to Owen Sound commenced in 1869. “The first train from Toronto to Alton Station arrived at the latter point on Mon. Apr. 10, 1871.”
4 The line was “on the east side of second line about one mile from the actual village.” According to Ralph Beaumont in his 1974 Alton: A Pictorial History:
The second railway to pass by way of Alton was the Credit Valley Railway. This was another Laidlaw venture, the line to Alton being opened in December of 1879. In contrast, the Credit Valley was built of the standard gauge and was routed directly up the Credit Valley through Streetsville, Brampton and Inglewood to service the towns the T.G. & B. had missed. The Credit Valley Railway passed a good mile closer to Alton than the “Bruce” line, and soon became the favoured of the two for both passenger and freight traffic.

Eventually, in 1884, the T.G. & B. and the Credit Valley Railway were purchased by the Canadian Pacific. . . . Traffic over the “Bruce” to Caledon and Bolton was gradually rerouted down the valley line, until the former tracks sat idle the majority of the time.

In an 1882 directory of Peel County, Alton is described as: A village on the Credit River, township of Caledon, county of Peel. It has extensive water-power, and is only one mile distant from the celebrated Caledon lakes, famed for their abundance of speckled trout, and a great resort of American tourists. It is a station of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce and Credit Valley railways, and contains an office of the Montreal, Dominion and Great Northwestern Telegraph Cos. Lines, 3 churches, 2 saw mills, 3 flouring mills, 2 cabinet factories, a woollen factory and 2 hotels. Distant from Toronto 48 miles. Mail daily. Population about 500.
3 Online list of post offices and postmasters, National Archives of Canada.
4 Ralph Beaumont, Alton: A Pictorial History, 1974, “Railways.”