Apparently, when Captain Burkett came to the end of the northern leg of the course, at Lone Rock, he ran into a blinding snow storm and 64 kilometre- (40 mile) an-hour winds. Unable to obtain a clear sighting on Lone Rock, he dared not turn into the narrow western entrance of the Waubuno Channel.
At that point the Captain turned back and headed for the gap among the islands between Moose Deer Point and Copperhead. Although his navigation was on the nose, he had no way to know of an uncharted shoal in the middle of his projected passage. Normally, this shoal was 6 metres (20 feet) down, but the southwest gale changed all that. Seeing sprouting breakers here, the Captain dropped anchors, but the anchors did not catch. Years later, divers found a small anchor lying loose on the bottom and a larger anchor standing straight up, with five turns of anchor chain around the stock. The ship had shifted and come to rest when the main anchor chain caught a pinnacle of rock on the bottom and held. There, the Waubuno tossed in the breakers. It was only a question of time before something gave. Hence the distress signals. Suddenly, the foredeck gave way, the anchor was loose, and the ship was back in the gale. Downwind was an exposed rock called Burkett Rock. The paddlewheeler found it — hard. The engine-room machinery went to the bottom, the flotation hull ended up at Wreck Island, the ship split lengthwise, and everything else disappeared.
No survivors and no bodies were ever found. All of the life-preservers were later discovered among the wreckage, but no bodies. Why were the passengers not wearing life-preservers? What happened to the passengers? A mystery!
The tug Mittie Grew was sent out to search for the missing Waubuno. At the gap in the islands south of Copper Head, the tug saw evidence of a shipwreck. Wreckage lay scattered for miles, including a paddlewheel box and a lifeboat bearing the name of the Waubuno, but no bodies and no passengers. They had simply disappeared.
A short time later, several lawsuits were brought against the Beatty business. A special panel of experts in the courts presented such conflicting testimony that the court was unable to reach a decision on the case. It was concluded that the wreck was a great mystery, which would only be solved “when the sea gives up its dead.”
The town of Parry Sound survived the blow. Passenger and freight steamers became numerous. These ships were admirably well-fitted and furnished for their service. In the South Channel between Parry Sound and Penetang, the sidewheeler City of Toronto ran daily trips. The City of Parry Sound, the Northern Belle, and the Atlantic called in to Parry Sound on their semi-weekly trips. Steam yachts and tugs of the Parry Sound Yachting Fleet, as well as those of Galna & Danter, were present in force.
Parry Sound, 1901: the Belvedere Hotel. Many grand hotels like this one were eventually lost to fire.
Archives of Ontario
In 1888 the Districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound were formed into a United Provisional Judicial District and Parry Sound was named the District Town.
On January 21, 1926, the Georgian Bay Creamery Limited purchased River Street property and commenced operations in March of that year. The creamery closed down a few years ago, but the building had a few incarnations and is now Orr’s.
At one time, Parry Sound hosted numerous tourist hotels. There was the Montgomery House owned by Joseph Calverly in 1881; this hotel served lumbermen and miners. The Canada Atlantic Hotel, operated by C.A. Phillips, had a beautifully appointed dining room. The Mansion House, on the corner of James and Mary Streets, was situated where the Brunswick Motor Hotel stands today. The Victoria House was on James Street, and just outside the town limits was Rose Point Hotel, owned by W.R. Thomson. There, guests enjoyed cruises on the Thomsons’ steam yacht, the Carlton. And there was the Hotel Belvedere situated on the hill looking out over magnificent sunsets on Georgian Bay. It was a three-storey structure with double verandas. Fire took this glorious hotel down in the 1950s, and today it is the Belvedere Heights Home for the Aged.
Gone are all the grand hotels, the ships and the yachts. Some beautiful old homes remain. Industry has been kept at arm’s length and the cultural life has found a niche of its own. There is The Festival of Sound (no pun intended) and Art in the Park. The surrounding townships have artists tucked away in every corner — inspired by this rugged land. The waterfront is beginning to develop, with two fine restaurants and an airplane service. The main street has potential but remains, as yet, undeveloped. The new four lanes of highway 400, north from Barrie, are begging for a new vision for this town. William Beatty had a dream and saw it come forth. What will the new dream be?
Pickering
In 1669 a French trader by the name of Pierre arrived at the Seneca village of Ganatsekwyagon, just east of the Rouge River in Scarborough. From there he set off across country to Lake Huron. In October of that year, Francois de Salignac de Fenelon, the first missionary to arrive in what is now Pickering Township, landed at Ganatsekwyagon.
Francois settled near the shore of Frenchman’s Bay and opened a mission school. His first winter there was one of the worst winters on record. The frost penetrated so deeply that the ground remained frozen until June. As a result, Fenelon ministered to starving Natives at Frenchman’s Bay. Food was so scarce, he was reduced to gnawing on the fungi that grew at the base of pine trees. Poor diet and rudimentary conditions led to the death of many women during childbirth. His main concern, at the time, was to prevent the Iroquois from placing live babies in the graves with their dead mothers. His attempts often failed, since few of the remaining women in the village were able or willing to care for the tiny orphans. The missionaries themselves attempted to care for the helpless infants, but were not often successful.
In 1791, surveyor Augustus Jones was authorized to survey the land between the Trent and Etobicoke Rivers and divide it into a series of townships. When Jones arrived to survey Pickering Township, he named Duffin’s Creek, a stream of water flowing into Lake Ontario, after a trader by the same name. Although he seems to be somewhat of a myth, Duffin is said to have lived there. His cabin, it is said, was always open to travellers, one of whom found the door ajar, signs of a struggle, and blood on the floor. Duffin was gone and never seen again.
William Deak, another fur trader, settled at the mouth of Duffin’s Creek in 1799. Between 1801 and 1807, a small group of houses formed a settlement at Duffin’s Creek. In July 1807 David W. Smith, surveyor-general of Upper Canada (1792–1804), sold an 850-acre block around the creek to Timothy Rogers, a prominent Yonge Street Quaker. He began to build a sawmill and a gristmill near his house, southeast of the Kingston Road bridge, but four years later he was forced to sell his property and enterprises to settle his debts. He considered Pickering Township to be the centre of Quaker settlement in Upper Canada. Roger’s grandchildren settled in both Pickering and Newmarket and pioneered the Imperial Oil Company development in Canada, as well as the Elias Rogers Coal Company. Although the Quaker population had increased the size of the settlement, it still only consisted of a few homes. By 1825 the population had reached 675.
During the early 1830s, Charles Fothergill, the noted naturalist, author, and politician, conceived an elaborate plan for a new community to be called Monodelphia. Churches, a tavern, a printing office, some mills, and a distillery were all part of his plan. Fothergill’s plan failed, but his scheme brought further construction of homes and he himself lived there from 1831 to 1837.
In 1846 the population of Duffin’s Creek was 130. There were now four churches, a grist-mill, a brewery, a