125 YEARS AGO Thursday, March 26, 1885

• Alarming news is being received from the Northwest of an insurrection led by the notorious Louis Riel, who is said to have 1,500 half-breed followers and Indians. The telegraph lines have been cut and the rebels have seized the Indian stores at Duck Lake and imprisoned the citizens. It is feared that Fort Carleton has also been abandoned to the rebels. The 19th Battalion left Winnipeg yesterday, as did the Winnipeg Field Battery. The total force numbers about 350 men. A skirmish is reported to have taken place between the Mounted Police and the insurgents, and 15 of the former are reported killed.

• Notwithstanding the extreme cold of Friday last, Allen’s Hall at Horning’s Mills was packed with people who gathered to hear the musical and literary talent of the neighbourhood. The evening included music by the Glee Club and King Family of Shelburne, a juvenile band drilled by Mr. W. L. Roberts, songs, recitations, a dialogue, and an orchestra accompanied by organ.

• Horning’s Mills: Mr. J. F. Mathews is making quite an improvement on his store by building a piece to the rear of it, and it will compare favourably with any store north of Toronto when completed.

• Corbetton: Times have been very lively in our village lately. Farmers have been very active in getting out their wood and ties to the station yard before the snow leaves; winter is getting well advanced and spring time is coming, when their attention will be called more closely to farming.

• A meeting of the congregation of Shelburne’s Knox Church Tuesday afternoon last decided to extend a call to Rev. Mr. McClelland, of Toronto, late of Brooklyn, New York.

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, March 24, 1910

• The charge in police court preferred by the CPR against Jeremiah Hillock, of Amaranth, was disposed of on Friday last. The solicitor for the company, and conductor and engineer of the train and other witnesses were present. From the evidence it appeared that after the night’s Owen Sound and Teeswater trains had passed, Hillock, on reaching the crossing with a horse and cutter, mistook his way and entered the track at a skew and continued his way over crossings, cattle guards and roads until a few yards from Fraxa Junction. The night was wild and it was impossible for the engineer to observe any obstruction on the track, but he thought he had struck an obstacle a few yards of the junction, and on investigation discovered a man’s hat on the cowcatcher. They started down the track expecting to find the mangled remains of a human being, but instead found Hillock sitting on the bank whistling “The girl I left behind me,” while his horse stood nearby, both without a scratch but the cutter demolished. He had demanded pay from the railway for the loss of his cutter, but soon realized he had reason to be thankful that he and his horse were uninjured and was satisfied to make good the cutter, which he had borrowed from a neighbour. The defendant was fined $20, which is the lowest sum permissible by the Railway Act, plus costs of about $12.

• Orangeville will be dry after May 1st. Chief Justice Meredith has prohibited the County Court Judge of Dufferin, who was scrutinizing the Orangeville Local Option vote, from making any inquiry as to the right to vote of any person whose name is entered on the voters list unless subsequently to the list being certified he had become by change of residence being disentitled to vote.

As a result of the ruling the Local Option Bylaw was carried by six votes more than the required threefifths.

• James Hannah and Alfred Mandley will appear before Police Magistrate George Rutherford next Monday for disturbing the peace. They had a row with a young fellow named Little on a Shelburne street Saturday and in the scuffle that followed Little had his leg broken by one or both of the accused falling on him. Whether Little will also enter an action for assault we have not heard.

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 28, 1935

• Due to the efforts of Mr. A. McNaught, of Shelburne Hydro, and Mr. R. W. Brett, Hydro chairman, the radio reception situation in Shelburne, insofar as local interference is concerned, has improved considerably. This has come as a great relief to numbers of radio-owing citizens who are also hockey enthusiasts.

50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 23, 1960

• Orangeville Council has approved 1960 mill rates — 72 for residential ratepayers and 77 for commercial and business properties.

25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, March 28, 1985

• Youth Court Judge A. Ross Webster has found a 14-year-old Orangeville youth not guilty by reason of insanity in the strangling of Daniel Babineau, 14, and his sister Monique, 9. The boy was ordered held “in strict custody.”