Do you live in a house built before 1920? We want to hear from you!

Newcastle, we want your houses on file! We’ve been talking about doing an inventory of our older houses in a more organized manner for some time – so now, as an adjunct to our digitization project, we are asking you to help us kickstart this project.

What can you do to participate?

If your house is from 1920 or earlier, we ask that you send us at least one photo, the address and any pertinent information you have. Fill out the simple form and then we’ll give you instructions for sending photos after you contact us. If you have old photos, we’re interested in those too. We can search old deeds to trace ownership, but if you have information on previous owners, builder or anything else unique, send it along. We’ll be featuring some of the houses on our website, Instagram, Facebook and in our newsletters. (We will contact you before doing that, of course)

If you own a house that is newer than 1920, but is in some way unique, we’d like to hear from you too.  Houses of interest would include 1930s and 1940s “kit houses”, architect-designed houses or a houses built with unusual materials or methods that could make them historically significant.

Submit your house!

Three of the eight banners on King Avenue between Mill St. and Baldwin St., honoring Robert Bothwell, Douglas Walton and Howard Quinney, who all served in World War II.

President’s Message

Dear Members and Friends,

Thank you for your continuing support of the NVDHS. Our Society has terrific support from members, Directors, Officers, volunteers, past and present residents of our Newcastle community and others. We are blessed to have such great support.

The NVDHS worked with The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 178 (Bowmanville) and the Municipality of Clarington on a “banner project” to pay tribute to our local veterans, deceased veterans and active service members or veterans who have a family association with the communities of Clarington, honour the contributions and sacrifices these veterans have made on behalf of our communities, our nation and the global theatre and to promote Remembrance in our communities. [continue reading…]

While the Historical Room remains closed at this time (mid-September), we continue our work behind the scenes. We’re answering inquiries by email and we’re still working on our big digitization project and hope to eventually have some online exhibits for you to peruse. Work will begin soon on an online version of our walking tour. As always, we appreciate your ongoing support and hope to see you soon!

Photos by Beverly Caswell

President’s Message

Thank you for your continuing support of the NVDHS. Our Society has terrific support from members, Directors, Officers, volunteers, past and present residents of our Newcastle community and others. We are blessed to have such great support. 

We have engaged a summer student to continue work on the digitization project. This work is being conducted at a secure off-site location. It is great that we have that option as we must maintain our momentum to complete the project and make our archives accessible to all users. This project has been ongoing for a few years and its scope includes getting all records under the stewardship of the Society into our database so that the records are easily accessible. Read more…

The Watson Wheelbarrow

Newcastle Village & District Historical Society recently received a donation of an interesting old wheelbarrow. This “Massey Harris #1” wheelbarrow was originally purchased by William R. (Will) Watson around 1910. The Watson’s had an apple orchard near the former town of Dixie, Ontario. In the early 1950’s part of the farm was expropriated to expand the Queen Elizabeth Way in what is now Mississauga. 

The wheelbarrow was passed down to Will Watson’s son Harold who purchased a farm just west of Bowmanville at what is now Bowmanville Avenue (Hwy #57) and Highway 2. Later, the wheelbarrow was passed on to his son Ted Watson who kept it on his farm west of Bowmanville. Read more…

From the Murky Depths

How many of you know that the cribbing from the original piers at Bond Head is still visible under the water to the west of the current piers? 

Completed almost 180 years ago, the piers, which were built on timber cribs filled with boulders, and the associated warehouse were the centrepiece of what was envisioned to be the village of Bond Head, built around the natural harbour at Graham Creek. 

The creek was dammed and several mills were built, along with 50 or 60 houses, several stores and taverns. Read more…

As most of you probably realize, we are not open, due to COVID-19. At this time, we do not know when we will be able to re-open the Historical Room, but if you have questions you’d like answered, please contact us and we’ll see what we can do! While we don’t have access to all of our files or any of our artifacts at this time, we do have access to our electronic files, and we might be able to help.

We hope that you are all safe and healthy, and look forward to seeing you when the Community Hall reopens.

President’s Message

Dear Members and Friends,

Thank you for your continuing support of the NVDHS. Our Society has terrific support from members, Directors, Officers, volunteers, past and present residents of our Newcastle community and others. We are blessed to have such great support.

We are pleased to announce that we have a new Board member, Crystal Northey. Crystal is a resident of Newcastle and has assumed a social media role. In January, we opened an Instagram account to share Newcastle history through this platform. The implementation has been a huge success; a recent posting of one of our historical pictures received in excess of 2,000 views. Read more…

On display now at the Historical Room

The pale white dress with green velvet trim on the left was once (in 1902) more colourful than it is today. Between the French lace inserts are hand embroidered flowers which were at one time a bright leaf green colour. The dress is known to have belonged to Olive Wilmot because the Society has a photograph of her wearing it. It was the type of dress worn by well-to-do women during the day around the house or to take afternoon tea on the lawn. It would not have been worn outside the home because of the length of the skirt (which drags on the ground at the back as a sort of mini-train) and would have become instantly dirty on a sidewalk or shop floor. Read more…

Preservation Award 2020: Uglow to Walsh

The Refinery Salon and Barber Shop at 39 King Avenue East is the winner of our 2020 Preservation Award. Last year, Ben and Jenette Walsh leased the building and converted the interior into a beautiful old-fashioned barber shop. Ben and Jenette live between Newcastle and Orono and frequently looked at the old building. Ben had a barber shop in Oshawa, but he grew up in Blackstock. Jenette is originally from Whitby and she had a shop in Courtice. They felt that Newcastle was the perfect spot to have their business and so far, they seem thrilled with the success of the shop. Read more…

Join us at the NVDHS Annual General Meeting

Tuesday, March 10, 2020, 7 p.m.
Lions Room, Newcastle Community Hall

• Find out what we’ve been doing for the past year
• Help honour this year’s Preservation Award winner; The Refinery Salon and Barber
• Participate in our fun and informative Show and Tell

The meeting portion will be short and then it will be on to the fun of sharing our interesting items of historical interest. Got an object from Great Aunt Bessie’s basement that you can’t quite identify? Something amazing you found at a garage sale last summer? Bring it in and share at our Newcastle mini-Antiques Roadshow.

Free refreshments.

Hope you can join us!

Dear Members and Friends,

As the Holiday season quickly approaches, I would like to thank our Members, Directors and Officers for their support of the NVDHS during the past year.

We have a terrific Board that meets ten months per year to address issues related to the growth and continuing success of the Society. I would like to thank each member of our Board for their terrific contributions. Paddy Duncan, Sher Leetooze, Erla Jose, Myno Van Dyke, Roger Farrell, Robert Malone, Ken Crichton and Greg Forget each bring unique and special talents which allows our Society to flourish.

I would be remiss to not acknowledge the contributions of our volunteers. We have had countless volunteer hours at our Society during 2019. A special thank you to Leslie Wilson (Stephenson) and Brian Wilson for their assistance and continuing work in organizing our records for the digitization project. A special thank you also to our high school student Heather Johnson for her amazing commitment and contribution to the digitization project.

We will never forget the commitment and contribution of the late Ron Locke who opened the doors at the Society every Tuesday and Saturday morning for many years. Ron also volunteered as the membership secretary for many years. We will miss Mr. Locke.

We have commenced decorating the Historical room for the upcoming holiday season. The Victorian Christmas cards are on display. I am certain that Christmas decorations and streamers will be abundant. With that in mind we are hosting Christmas celebrations at the Historical Society on Tuesday, December 17 and Saturday December 21 during regular operating hours, 9:30 a.m. to noon. Please join us for a bit of Christmas cheer.

Wishing you and your family and friends a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 

Thomas Wallace