News

The Legends Of Newcastle

Meet Farncomb LeGresley of Newcastle, Ontario. He was born in 1926 and he grew up in Ebor House, located at 573 Mill St S. The house was built in the 1860s by his great grandfather, Frederick Farncomb.

In October, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Farncomb LeGresley for the first time. To say that he is an interesting gentleman is an understatement. His creativity and wisdom are fascinating, and his ability to recite history like it was yesterday, is even more admirable. I probably could have listened to him for hours…maybe days.

Illuminating History

We are excited to share the mosaic tile, painted by local Newcastle artist, Patricia Vandenheuvel that has been submitted as our contribution to the Clarington Art Mosaic Project. Thank you, Pat, for painting a piece of Newcastle history for us!

Communities across Canada will participate by creating murals of trees to symbolize connection. Each of the 700 squares of Clarington’s apple tree mural will be a tile painted by a different resident.

Read more of the Fall 2021 NVDHS Newsletter…

The Dutch in Clarington

By Myno Van Dyke

Prior to WW2, Dutch Emigration to Canada was minimal. The year 1929 saw about 2,500 emigrants make their way to Canada; many came to farm in the Prairie Provinces. After World War 1, the supply of free or cheap land in the North and the Prairies declined rapidly. Immigration essentially came to a standstill during Second World War. By then, more Canadians were moving from farms and rural communities to the cities, which left a lot of employment opportunities in agriculture for those wishing to come to Canada.

Read more…

Three Identical Houses

By Leslie Wilson

Many houses, like all people, change considerably in appearance over the years. Did you know that 106 King Ave. East Newcastle (currently the Sunrise Griddle) and 118 King Ave. East Newcastle (currently Newcastle Hearing Solutions) began life as identical twins? In fact they had an identical triplet sibling; the miller’s house at 612 Mill St. South, in Bond Head!

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Ray & Mabel Goode

By Myno Van Dyke

Occasionally, I will feature some of the great people who were the early members and builders of the Newcastle Village and District Historical Society. This article is about Ray and Mabel Goode. Although they lived in Orono, they had a wonderful and generous relationship with Newcastle.


Mabel Lillian Clemence, was born October 8, 1923 at Lot 1, Concession 1 in Darlington Township. This farm property, called “Spruce Grove” was on the north side of Highway 2, just west of the Darlington/Clarke Townline. Her parents were William John Clemence, who was born in Hope Township, and Georgina Allan, who was from Fenelon Falls, Ontario. Mabel had 3 sisters, Mary, Isabelle (Sacerty) and Jean (Holmes) and 3 brothers, Allan, Charlie and Art. Their property was originally owned by William McIntosh. This house was originally built in 1828 and the Bemis family lived there at one time.

Read more…

Newcastle Community Hall Gets Exterior Facelift

By Crystal Yaki

Beginning in the late fall of last year, the historic Newcastle Community Hall has been undergoing an extensive renovation. The Municipality of Clarington has arranged for IRC Building Sciences Group to restore this historic building. The famous clock tower will have the clock faces repaired, along with the exterior wooden structure. Much of the work involved to restore the clock and other areas of the building will require that parts are removed and reconstructed off-site to match the original details of the hall.

Read more…

And browse all our previous newsletters

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!

Gordon Agnew- Newcastle’s Newspaper Man

George “Gordon” Agnew was born in 1910 in Peterborough, Ontario, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick J.Agnew. When Gordon was six years old the family moved to Orono, Ontario and Gordon attended OronoPublic School there. About 1926, Gordon’s mother passed away suddenly and his father Frederick was in poor health so Gordon left school at age 16. He began working for the Peterborough Canoe Company but after about a year had to quit that job because of crippling arthritis. Later, he purchased a printing press and started printing tickets, business cards and other items….

In 1946, Gordon and Verna moved to Newcastle, Ontario. Here he purchased a property on King St. East, and opened Kingsway Lunch. It was successful, but after a year, long hours and overwork necessitated its sale. Noticing the need for a local paper, Gordon signed an agreement with a Toronto publisher to re-activate the “Newcastle News” and after a year setting up the production of the newspaper, began publishing it on September 1, 1948. “We have felt this village is becoming too large to depend on district newspapers to supply a complete news service to our citizens, thus leaving many worthwhile projects unknown to many of the people,” he wrote in an editorial.

Winding back time at the Newcastle Community Hall

The Newcastle Village Community Hall clock tower has marked time for over 90 years within our Village. It was built by E. Dent and Company of London, the same company responsible for the manufacture of “Big Ben” – the iconic clock at the British houses of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. Imported by Wellington Foster, a long-time friend of Chester Massey and former Newcastle postmaster, the clock was donated to the Community Hall, which itself was a gift to the community from Chester Massey of Massey-Harris, and was opened in 1923.

The clock has to be hand wound each week. There are two weights that reach all the way down to the Community Hall basement, one for adjusting time and one for the bell. Many visitors to the clock tower over the years have signed their names on the walls of the tower. Is your name in the tower?

Read more of the Summer 2020 NVDHS Newsletter…

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!

Photo gallery from our Annual General Meeting on March 10, 2020. The NVDHS Preservation Award certificate was presented to Ben and Jenette Walsh of The Refinery Salon and Barber in recognition of their efforts to preserve and restore their premises at 39 King St. E., Newcastle.

Interesting “Show and Tell” items were presented by Jean Rickard, Erla Jose, Dorella Forget and Bill Lake, among others.

Photos by Bev Caswell and Paddy Duncan

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.

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 from the Spring 2020 Newsletter…

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.

Image by rawpixel.com

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.

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 from the Winter 2020 Newsletter…