The Brick Town
An Introduction
“In Bowmanville we had quite a gala day on Thursday last, when the Fireman’s Annual Gathering took place. The “brick town” has seldom looked so gay or lively.”
—The Gossiper, The Canadian Statesman, 12 September 1872
“To palliate the shortness of our lives, and to compensate our brief time in this world, it is fit to have such an understanding of times past that we may be considered to have dwelled in the same. In such manner, answering the present with the past, we may live from the beginning and in a certain sense be as old as our country itself.
—Peter Ackroyd, English Music
“A rationale extension of bygone religious systems, fairy tales, and above all of psychoanalysis into architectural expression becomes more urgent every day.”
—Ivan Chtcheglov, as quoted in “Lipstick Traces” (Greil Marcus)
Long time residents, particularly those born in Bowmanville, often seem to pronounce their hometown’s name as “Boneville”. The Canadian Statesman once reported that a New England newspaper used that spelling because a reporter interpreted it this way after interviewing an old lady who had been born here.
A local history can not avoid being at least partially an exercise in this kind of nostalgia—a looking back to a supposed golden age in which folks met each other daily on the town’s streets, were proud of their home town and shared common institutions like their local public school where they met those both like themselves and different. Nevermind that the reality was often at odds with the memory. It at least had to have elements of truth to be preserved in such sepia tones.
The story of Bowmanville, Ontario contained in these pages is told from a point of view. The past may not have been as rose-hued as we’d like to imagine, but it had real elements of public affinity in which folks saw themselves as part of a larger polity, one based on human comradeship and not the private pursuit of consumer identity.
One can read different points of view today which suggest either that we are returning to a more clamorous public sense of obligation and lifestyle, or another which argues that our real destiny is a soothing, mall-like existence of private realities.
What is particularly apparent, however, is that regardless of what takes place (and it will probably be a mixture of the polar opposites), successful urban living, as opposed to that which just gets by as a collection of gated communities and monster stores, will be based on the uniqueness and community spirit of a place. It will embody what James Kunstler calls, “chronological connectivity”—in which the past is allied with a vision for the future. The development of these types of places, now commonly referred to as renaissance communities, is controlled to a greater extent than might be thought by local residents.
This book is intended to be an archive of memory restoring a picture of Bowmanville’s past and suggesting means through which a local renaissance could be formulated. As such it is often critical and harsh in its judgement, but at the same time generous in its appreciation of the errors and intentions of past actions.
We cannot escape our past, but its joys and sorrows are such that we should not want to do so. Maybe it is pure fantasy to imagine that local streetcorners could be invested with tales of whimsy, but if it can be for Italian landscapes or a Brooklyn neighbourhood, where myth informs almost every turn in the road and which are distinguished by local idioms and foods, than why not so for a Canadian place.
Bowmanville is at the edge of the Toronto region and as such its identity as a small town may not exist for long in the future. It may be positioned to become simply one additional residential enclave for a larger region—one which has no special character. Or it may, if it so chooses, select a future based on building a unique image from the town’s own history. In so doing it could become the kind of place people travel for miles to visit, businesses crave the opportunity to locate in and where common people celebrate their style of living. We’ve all visited these kinds of places, usually on holidays. My particular favourite is Cooperstown, New York which would be just as wonderful even if the Baseball Hall of Fame was not there.
The fact that film makers continue to use Bowmanville for their productions which in recent years have included The Private Capital and Wind at My Back, suggest that some have noticed the town’s special quality.
Change is a constant. Just as the area’s native population gradually departed, so has the sentimental old town of Bowmanville lost its antique character. In the process, however, its very name is now threatened and a burgeoning and perhaps inevitable population growth often seems to have little connection to past tradition.
This book asks, perhaps idealistically, why can we not design the future life and appearance of Bowmanville to conform to its authentic past? Why not plant classic trees on new streets to match the wonderful old oak tree that survives on Beech Avenue? Why not configure new streets to match the present grid system that links neighbourhoods of varying backgrounds? In combination with major streets crossing the grid at an angle why not create odd parcels of land such as are found in the old part of town? Why not mix land uses so that a resident of a new subdivision could walk to a corner store or community centre? Why not lobby to have trains run locals to downtown Toronto as they once did? These are pictures from the imagination. There are dozens of these examples from Bowmanville’s history in which the past can live in the present.
I admit of a certain affection for Bowmanville and environs based both on a family history with the area and a more recent residence. I have been told by one historian that the first Humbers in North America were based in Bowmanville, but had left by the early 20th century. More significantly my mother’s family on her father’s side descended from the Candlers, the family of one of Bowmanville’s esteemed 20th century citizens, Stuart Candler.
As a citizen of Bowmanville since 1974 and a resident of Beech Avenue, which I have no hesitation in describing as one of the wonderful little streets of the world, I have watched a brief period of the town’s history in which some of its unique businesses such as the Glen Rae Dairy have disappeared while other companies such as the local foundry were saluted in 1996 as examples of industrial excellence.
Changes in the Province of Ontario’s planning laws in 1996 threaten the fumbling attempts to re-write the design of urban places in which a denser urban fabric, community connection and inter-related land uses might have been found. It is clear, however, that the realization of such a vision will never be initially determined by legislated convention, but will emerge only from public sentiment.
This book is intended to be an affectionate ramble through Bowmanville’s past as an instructive preview of a community life based on the fullest and most authentic demonstration of human living.
Bowmanville began life in the late 18th century in the valley of the Bowmanville Creek below the present day Vanstone Mill and was known, among other names, as Darlington Mills. It spread east along the present Highway two and through the 1830s, gradually becoming known as Bowmanville. With independent municipal status as a town obtained in 1858, it was located in the south end of Darlington Township which in turn was part of the western edge of Durham County, itself a part of the combined counties of Northumberland and Durham.
Significantly in 1852 two brothers, Alsay and Thomas Fox, produced brick from land roughly conforming to the present Memorial Park. With new houses and businesses being built daily, the demand was brisk such that by 1872 the anonymous Gossiper writing in The Statesman referred to Bowmanville as “The Brick Town.” While others used the description of “the cow town” in reference to the running at large of cows in the south ward, I prefer the more prosaic and tactile image of the brick town as a metaphor for Bowmanville, even though some locals noted the brick was not always of the best quality and has tended to crumble on application of cleansing compounds.
Bowmanville remained