Articles

Maintaining a record of our local history and encouraging people to be interested in various aspects of the past is a lot of what we do as MCHS, but now and then we just have to make a little history ourselves. Our Blocks & Blooms…

When the railroad from Port Hope to Millbrook opened in 1856, extending to Lindsay and Peterborough shortly afterwards, our region was transformed from a rural backwater to a transportation hub.

When the railroad from Port Hope to Millbrook opened in 1856, extending to Lindsay and Peterborough shortly afterwards, our region was transformed from a rural backwater to a transportation hub.

By the 1840s, Cavan’s population had grown to several hundred and a rudimentary civic administration with elected councillors and an appointed clerk was in place. In the mid 1840s, a wood frame municipal structure was constructed in Millbrook (the largest community) at the site of…

There is a plaque along the west wall of St Thomas Anglican church in Millbrook “In loving memory of William Henry Bateson…. killed at Passchendaele Nov 6th, 1917”. His name is not on our local cenotaph and I have wondered about this over the years.

John Deyell assisted Samuel G. Wilmot in the first survey of this area in 1817 and is credited with naming Cavan and Monaghan Townships in honour of his Irish birthplace. An extraordinary entrepreneur, John Deyell lived to age 103 and is credited with significant…

John Deyell is generally acknowledged to be Cavan Township’s first settler, arriving in 1816. He and his family were certainly among the first to put down roots. He had a long and remarkable life, and he left his mark.

From This Green & Pleasant Land, p. 303: “The Millbrook and Cavan Historical Society was born on Nov. 24, 1978….The immediate burning cause was the preservation of the old mill from which the Village takes its name; there was a move afoot to tear…

The following history has been gathered from an interview and subsequent newspaper feature written by Melodie McCullough for the Peterborough Examiner, March 22, 1999. The article was sent to the Historical Society by Jan Rowland, Cedar Valley Road, Fraserville. For 35 years, Clifford Larmer…

Tracing the history of the recently restored cabinet that now houses displays in the Millbrook branch of the Cavan Monaghan Library, led us to Reg Fowler. Reg’s uncle Dave owned Fowler’s Men’s Wear, which he took over from his father George who ran it…

The Resource Room of the Millbrook Public Library is named in honour of Harry Williams. So, who was this fellow? The fine citizens of Millbrook may have thought the same thing as a dashing young man in a Barbour motorcycle jacket rode his motorcycle into…