1910 Mill St. Acton
ACTON WEST, an Incorporated village in Halton County, Ontario, on the Grand Trunk Railway. (main line to Sarnia) 35 miles from Toronto. It contains 5 churches (Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and Disciples of Christ), 15 stores, 3 hotels, 1 flour and grist mill, 1 glove factory, 3 tanneries, 1 planing mill, a branch of the Merchants’ Bank of Canada, telegraph and express offices and a printing office issuing a weekly newspaper., Pop. 1,484. ...from Lovell’s 1906 Canada Gazetteer
A village in the Township of Esquesing, County of Halton, Ontario. It is situate on the Grand Trunk Railway, and is distant from Toronto 35 miles, and from Guelph 13 miles. Prior to 1872 it formed part of the Georgetown Circuit.
Acton History
Ezra Adams is usually recognised as the founder of Acton. He was a saddlebag Methodist preacher whose health had failed by 1822 from the grind of travelling. He probably hired himself to Silas Emes to clear the land for Emes to be able to claim a patent on it. In return, Adams got half of the land. So Adams became owner of the eastern half of Lot 28 Concession 2 Esquesing Township. This was on the western side of Main Street from about River Street to Cobbleshill Road.
Soon he was joined by his brothers Rufus, in 1825, and Zenas, in 1827. Rufus got Lot 28 Concession 3, which was parallel to Ezra’s land but ran from the east side of Main Street to Eastern Street. Nearly all of the early settlement was on his land. He built a house at the eastern end of St Alban’s Street. Zenas, like Ezra, was a saddlebags preacher and he too was taking a break to recover his health. Zenas received Lot 27 Concession 2 south of Ezra but also bought the southern half of Rufus’ land. So all of the land from the southern side of Mill Street to Agnes Street belonged to Zenas. The streets here were named for Zenas’s children. Zenas too built a house on the southeast corner of Church and Main Streets, and, under a worse-for-wear exterior, it is still there. Ezra’s house kitty-corner from Zenas’ on the northwest corner was demolished to make way for a parking lot. (Pave Paradise, put up a parking lot!)
Later, other people began to join the settlement, including Eliphalet and Patience Adams, the brothers’ parents. About 1835, Miller Hemstreet built a log cabin and store on the west side of Main Street just north of Mill Street. He may have let his young employee Dan run the store because the store had a sign stating Danville Grocery (or possibly Dan’s Village Grocery?) . Soon the settlement began to be named Danville after the store.
By 1830, Ezra was ready to get back on the circuit, returning to his land in 1836 to build two mills. He built a gristmill on the land occupied by the present mill, and the lake he created by damming the stream is the present Fairy Lake. The sawmill he built was where the stream crosses Main Street south of Church Street. These mills attracted people to the site and soon a flourishing village sprang up. The village at last became known for the Adams brothers as Adamsville. Ezra finally settled in what is now Drayton in Peel Township. He may have sent one of his flock when Robert Swan came south to buy the remainder of Ezra’s land. In 1844, Swan built a store and post office near the corner of Main and Knox Streets. The name Adamsville had already been given to another post office so Swan gave his post office the name Acton. Soon more of Swan’s friends arrived: the Nicklins, Matthews, and Moore families. John Nicklin bought the old Adams mills from Swan and James Matthews succeeded Swan as the postmaster, retaining the job for seventy years. Nicklin may have been the man who hired John Plewes, a newly arrived Yorkshireman, to run the gristmill in 1850. The mill was where his sons Simon and William learned the trade, before moving to Terra Cotta and Kimberley after John died.
The leather industry for which Acton is known began when Abraham Nelles opened a tanning factory in 1842. At about the same time, a young Liverpudlian, George Beardmore, and his brother Joseph started a leather company in Hamilton. Joseph died a few years later, but the company flourished until 1854 when a fire destroyed everything. Beardmore started up again, this time in a small factory in Guelph. In 1865, he bought the factory in Acton, which had changed hands several times by then. Although George Beardmore died in 1893, the family kept the business until 1944, when it was taken over by Canada Packers. The present leather store on Eastern Street was once part of the Beardmore warehouse.
…from “One-day trips through the history of Southwest Ontario”
Methodist preachers Ezra and Zenas Adams and their brother Rufus settled on the west branch of the Credit River in the 1820s. A community of pioneer families grew around the Adams family farms. Nicklin’s saw and grist mill and Nelles’ tannery operated here by the early 1840s. They were the nucleus of a hamlet first named Danville, then Adamsville after its first settlers and, by 1844, Acton. In 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway arrived, stimulating growth east along Mill Street from the river to the railway station. By 1869, Acton had some 700 inhabitants and boasted woodworking mills, tanneries, glove makers and a carriage works. It was incorporated as a village on January 6, 1874....from Ontario’s Historical Plaques
Members:
Ruth Ann Brown (Hall)
Ida Louisa Francis (Nicklin)
Flora Miehlhausen (McNabb)
Mary Catherine Nicklin (Swackhammer)
Mary Ann Wilds (Van Vlack)
Mary A. Williams (Keenan)
May Worden (Duignan)
Notices:
Death of a Methodist Pioneer Preacher.
Acton Free Press (Acton, ON), 26 Mar 1896, p. 3, column 4
The Rev. Samuel Fear, one of the pioneers of Methodism, died at his home in Elora on Sunday at the age of 91 years. Mr. Fear was a native of Nottingham, England, and came to Canada about fifty-six years ago, and was sent as a Methodist missionary to what is now the County of Peel, thence to the County of Ontario: after which he was stationed in Guelph, Goderich, Owen Sound, and other places. On account of his advanced age he was retired in 1876. His wife died some years ago. Rev. Mr. Fear was frequently in Acton attending district meetings and other services in the Methodist Church. During his last visit here, three or four years ago, he was the guest of the Misses Nelson.
Rev. John Quinsey Adams was born on June 19, 1828 in Esquesing Twp. Acton Ontario and was baptized by Rev. L.D. Rice on September 1, 1844. He was the son of Rufus and Maria. Episcopal, nephew of Rev’s Ezra and Zenas Adams
Rev. James Broley was born on August 22, 1835 in Cty Tyrone, Ireland and he and his family emigrated to Canada in 1837 and settled Vaughn Twp. (York Cty.) He died in Fergus (Wellington Cty) on September 2nd, 1890 aged 55 years. He was married in 1861 to Maria Matthews of Acton Ontario and they had four children.
Cameron, Rev. L. was married on December 21, 1864 to Jane Kennedy by Rev. William S. Ball of Guelph. Groom is from Acton; Jane is the second daughter of Mr Kennedy from Craigmoriston near Guelph.
Ministers:
1858-1860 Rev. Richard Lyle Tucker
1872 Rev. Robert Phillips
1888-1890 Rev. Gorham A. Gifford
1891-1893 Rev. Joseph Edge
1893-1894 Rev. William Bryers
1899 Rev. Thomas Lottridge Wilkinson
1900 Rev. William Bryers
1900-1901 Rev. Joseph Messinore Hagar M.A.
1914 Rev. C.D. Draper
1915 Rev. Arthur I. Terryberry
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