125 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 29, 1885

• Shelburne’s bachelors must be proud of the success of their third annual ball and supper. Last Friday evening was favourable and by 9:30 most of the invited guests had arrived. The Town Hall was beautifully decorated and here and there were amusing, though appropriate mottos indicative of batchelor sentiment. Said one: “The Duty of the Bachelors — to Ring the Village Belles.” Excellent music was furnished by Mr. O. B. Thompson and daughter, of Riverview, Mr. E. E. Triver and Mr. Romano, harpist, of Orangeville, and the festivities continued until about 4 a.m. Supper was provided in the Council Chamber by Mr. and Mrs. Stinson, of the Excelsior Bakery. Dr. Norton, on behalf of the bachelors, returned thanks to the guests for their attendance, while William Jelly thanked the bachelors on behalf of the married people for getting up this pleasing social event and expressed a hope that some of them would remain bachelors for another year.

• Mr. Seneca G. Ketchum, editor of the Dufferin Post, was in Shelburne Friday night last taking in the Bachelor’s Ball. Before proceeding to the hall, he discarded his walking boots for a pair of dancing shoes, depositing the former in a room at the Mansion House. Night stole on and about midnight a weary commercial traveller, Mr. H. A. Galbraith, retired to the aforesaid room and after extinguishing the light got into bed, as he thought the room had two beds and drummer, Harry Chisholm, was to have occupied one, but he stayed up too long at the ball and proceeded to the room. Upon looking for his friend Galbraith, he could not find him, but mysterious objects in the corner of the room attracted his attention and on investigating he found Galbraith who had made a mistake in the darkness, crawled into one of Ketchum’s boots, pulled down the tongue, drawn a stocking over himself and gone to sleep.

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 27, 1910

• At its meeting last week, Shelburne School Board appointed R. L. Mortimer as Board Chairman for 1910 and J. W. Hamilton, Secretary, at a salary of $20 and disbursements. R. A. Riky was re-appointed Treasurer at a salary of $25 and disbursements. The trustees learned that three applications for the position of principal had been received, but none with the proper qualifications. In a letter to the chairman, Inspector Cowley advised the board to offer a good salary in order to get qualified applicants. The following motion was made: That the secretary be instructed to advertise in Friday and Saturday’s Globe for a principal at salary of $1,400. If no applications from a properly qualified teacher be received, the advertisement to be repeated in the Toronto Mail on Thursday and Friday next following.

• At its meeting Monday night Shelburne Council gave third reading to Local Option ByLaw No. 260.

• At its first session of 1910, held in Orangeville Tuesday, Dufferin County Council elected Reeve J. Reith, of Grand Valley, as Warden.

• At last reports 42 bodies had been recovered from the Spanish River at Espanola, scene of a railway disaster Friday night, when several cars of the CPR express left the rails and plunged into the river.

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, January 31, 1935

• The annual meeting of the Dufferin Farmers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Company will be held in Shelburne Town Hall this Saturday. W. J. Jelly, of Shelburne, is president, and J. A. Richardson, secretary and manager. This year, an increase is reported in both membership and the number of policies written, along with a reduction in the cost of management. There were 2,761 policies in force at the end of 1934, totalling more than $10,000,000, on which reinsurance is carried on about twothirds of that amount. During 1934, $20,855.15 was paid for losses.

• The area’s fuel dealers are smiling these days. The only time in the last week that the thermometer has staggered up from th vicinity of 0º Fahrenheit was last Saturday and again Monday night, but outside of that the temperature has been running about 18 to 20 below in town and still colder in the wide open spaces.

50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, January 27, 1960

• Shelburne’s business section was saved from one of the most disastrous fires ever Monday night through the assistance of fire brigades from Dundalk, Orangeville and Grand Valley and the timely arrival of two Bell Telephone Co. aerial crews who, with their truck-mounted hydraulically lifted baskets were able to direct hoses into the heart of the flames in the three-story Maharg Auto Supply building.

25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, January 30, 1985

• Orangeville CAO Donald Lougheed said Monday Orangeville will have to initiate the annexation of Caledon lands in order to have an east-west bypass constructed around the town.