125 YEARS AGO Thursday, February 5, 1885

• “Free Lance,” writing in the Shelburne Economist: “The Warden’s Supper is an old and, as wold seem, established affair, but like many other things it has lost its usefulness, if indeed it ever had any. We do not object so much to the supper or to the amount it costs the County as we do to the principle or moral it teaches. The man who spends part of his income drinking and feasting while his children are uneducated, cold and hungry, is condemned by all rightthinking people; and, in like manner, the County Council that spends $100 of the County’s money drinking and feasting, while many of the county’s children and uneducated, cold and hungry, should be condemned by all right-thinking people. There are many charitable avenues open in the county, therefore we will make no suggestions. The new Warden will find no difficulty in expending the grant in some of them, and the gratification he will experience will be equal to that felt by the boys who cut and split the poor widow’s half-cord of wood, instead of building a great snowman on her doorstep.”

• The tea meeting in Riverview Church on Tuesday evening last was a grand success both in point of the number of people present and financial results. The ladies furnished an abundance of choice edibles, and the program of speeches, music, etc., which followed, was pleasing and entertaining. Mr. Theo. Hall, the Dundalk editor, made an excellent speech and quietly prompted the chairman to call upon the Economist editor to beat it. Revs. Snowdon and Shaw gave instructive addresses, the whole being interspersed by vocal and instrumental music. The proceeds amounted to $52.35 and as huge quantity of provisions was left over, a similar entertainment was announced for last evening.

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, February 3, 1910

• At its first meeting of 1910, Dufferin County Council was approached by a deputation from Lord Dufferin Chapter Daughters of the Empire. Mr. C. R. McKeown, MPP, who acted as spokesman, gave an outline of the work done by the Chapter in raising a fund for the erection of a hospital in Orangeville and appealed to the Council for a grant in aid of the project. The matter was presented to a special committee which will likely report during the present session.

• A party of eight young people left Orangeville for Caledon Friday evening to attend a ball, but came to grief four miles from their destination by the enveloping of horses, rig and human freight in a huge snowdrift into which they plunged. The service of 10 stalwart farmers, with horses and ropes, saw the party and equipment freed from the predicament several hours after the accident. The four young ladies were escorted to a kindhearted farmer’s. All arrived home Saturday morning, heads up.

• Shelburne curlers are taking into very serious consideration the question of a new skating and curling rink for the village that would be centrally situated, with a large area for curling and skating and spacious waiting rooms.

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 7, 1935

• Officers for Dufferin Farmers’ Mutual Fire Insurance, the head office of which is located in Shelburne, will be the same in 1935 as in 1934: President, William Jelly, Shelburne; vice-president, Josiah Marshall, Orangeville; secretary and manager, J. Austin Richardson, Shelburne; auditors, Samuel Patterson and William Reid, Shelburne.

• John Reburn, of Whitfield, will continue as President of the Dufferin Central Agricultural Society for 1935 and have the same officers and directors to assist him, the only change being the addition of Ed Oldfield, of Shelburne, as an honourary director. Postponed by a storm on Jan. 17, the society’s annual meeting was held in the council chamber of Shelburne Town Hall last Thursday.

50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 3, 1960

• Three Hillsburgh girls, students at Erin District High School, died in the blazing wreckage of their school bus last Thursday afternoon, after it was struck by a CPR freight train at the level crossing south of Hillsburgh. The train was on its way from Elora to Orangeville. Eleven other students and the bus driver, Calvin Leitch, 28, of Erin, were taken to hospital in Guelph, five being released after treatment.

• Dufferin County Council has authorized the issuance of $250,000 in debentures for the construction of the Dufferin County Home for Senior Citizens, to be located in Shelburne.

25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 6, 1985

• Judge Kechim Wang has disqualified himself from the case of the 13-year-old boy accused of murdering Daniel and Monique Babineau on November 4, 1984.

• A strike by Dufferin’s secondary school teachers has been averted.

• Dufferin-Simcoe MPP George McCague has been named Ontario’s Minister of Transportation.