125 YEARS AGO Thursday, March 12, 1885

• Writing in the SHELBURNE ECONOMIST, its Riverview correspondent says local residents are busy getting their timber to market, a large portion of which is bought at the different mills which are quite numerous in the area. “I cannot help but notice that the ‘tall chimney’ prophesy is being fully verified in this locality, and if Sir Leonard [Tilley] and his associates should make another pilgrimage through Canada listening for an N. P. [National Policy] hum, they will be amply repaid by visiting Riverview and surroundings. During the last two years and within a radius of little more than one mile we have had four tall chimneys erected and all seem to enjoy a fair share of prosperity. Two of these mills have recently been erected by Messrs. Banks & Hunter at what is now called Pleasant Valley. I may mention, by the way, that the very pretty name given to this small town is slightly at variance with the present appearance of the place, but I have no doubt that at some not too distant day, when its proprietors have fully developed its resources and erected such buildings as they now contemplate, it will be a very pretty place. Someone has suggested that as it is a suburb of Riverview it should be South Riverview, and when Riverview elects its mayor and board of aldermen, it will be admitted into the confederation as the South Ward.”

• The storm of Monday last was one of the most severe of the season. Trains were snowbound near Markdale from Monday until Tuesday evening.

• An Ontario Government bill introduced last Thursday will give the franchise to almost all men of the province by reducing the qualification for owners, tenants and occupants from $400 in cities, $300 in towns, and $200 in villages and townships, to $200 in cities and towns and $100 in villages and townships. It is provided that in all cases only those resident within the electoral district shall vote, so that each elector has only one vote instead of being able to vote wherever he owns property.

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, March 10, 1910

• Judge McCarthy on Friday gave his decision re the disputed ballots in the Orangeville Local Option vote. He threw out 10 ballots, thus leaving the Bylaw two votes short of the number necessary to carry. The Local Optionists will likely appeal the decision to a higher court.

• Horning’s Mills: The roads during the past week have not been of the kind that tend heavenward while driving on and into them. The Shelburne snow plow passed through the village one day last week from up north, but for lack of motive power it was allowed to go down empty the 10 lots south of the hub, the farmers along the line being unwilling to put their horses on it. It may be a poor law, but it seems to be the best that we have got, for each beat to look after its own roads, and it is not a credit to the farmers on those beats to have allowed he plow to pass down without being in use, and if hard things are being said about the said farmers, it isn’t much wonder.

• A serious accident was narrowly averted on Saturday afternoon by the presence of mind and alertness of John J. Brown, a Sydenham township farmer. He was walking with his son along the CPR tracks and had gone scarcely 100 yards when they discovered a rail broken in two. Knowing that a way-freight was about due, he sent his son to the nearest house for something that would serve as a flag, while he ran up the track toward the freight. He was not a moment too soon, for engine 1745, one of the largest freight engines on the branch, was coming down the track at full speed with a caboose attached. Seeing Brown’s signals, engineer Peterson brought the engine to a standstill just in time.

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 14, 1935

• Shelburne will join in the celebrations May 5 and 6 marking the 25th anniversary of King George’s accession to the throne.

• Meeting at Caledon last week, Dufferin and Peel Presbytery of the United Church of Canada, unanimously passed a resolution introduced by Rev. Allan Ferry, of Corbetton, opposing “any further extension of the present grants to denominational schools.”

50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 9, 1960

• This winter has broken the snowfall record set last year and has already exceeded the precipitation recorded in 1947, when a large part of Ontario was snowed in for a week in late March. At the end of February the snowfall recorded by the Agricultural Weather Station at Redickville was 164 inches.

25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 13, 1985

• Orangeville should have a “transition house” in operation by late summer following purchase of a house last week, director Suzanne Heron said Monday. The 10-bed family resource centre is likely to open in late August or early September.