Badenoch has retained strong sense of community

The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.

Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.

Old maps of Wellington County are peppered with several dozen place names of settlements that have virtually disappeared. 

Some of the lucky ones still have a building or two dating from the 19th century, and perhaps one of those blue signs put up by the county as a reminder of days when life was much different and travel more difficult.

Those old settlements normally had a store, and most a post office, and a scattering of other businesses: hotel, blacksmith and wagon maker were the most common. Many had churches and a few had a school within a stone’s throw of the store.

Easier travel with automobiles and better roads, the introduction of mail delivery and the disappearance of the small grocery store were major factors in the decline of the crossroads hamlets. 

Road widenings in the second half of the 20th century claimed most of the buildings that remained, and the ruins of those that had burned or been torn down.

Much less common were the communities that had no store or post office at their centre. A few have retained, quite remarkably, some sense of a community over the generations.

The Bon Accord settlement near Elora is one of those, but the outstanding example in Wellington County is Badenoch, in the southeast corner of Puslinch Township. This weekend (July 2007) the community will be celebrating its 175th anniversary. One factor in the persistence of Badenoch is that it is not near a major town. The closest settlement, Morriston, is about two miles west of the centre of Badenoch. The original area consisted of Lots 26 to 38 on Concession 8. Over time, lots on Concessions 9, 10 and Gore of Puslinch became absorbed into the orbit of Badenoch.

The community’s first settlers left Inverness County in Scotland in 1831. The men came first, and their families followed. Those first five families (McLean, Grant, Martin, Kennedy and McBain) knew one another in Scotland, and their ties, plus their common Scottish background and Gaelic language, gave the settlement its cohesion. They had planned their migration carefully, and intended to succeed as farmers in Upper Canada.

That first group spent the winter of 1831-32 in Glengarry County. The following spring two of them, Donald McLean and Peter Grant, scouted land in the Elora area, but rejected it as too remote, and retraced their steps to Puslinch. 

They made claims for lots on Concession 8 and 9, and constructed the first shanty. The rest of the party joined them there. Mrs. McLean, the first and for a while the only woman in Badenoch, looked after the household chores while the five men cleared land and tended the first crop of wheat.

Other Scottish families followed the first group, arriving through the 1830s. At the time of William Lyon Mackenzie’s rebellion in 1837, 29 men and boys in the community volunteered their services to the militia.

Though lacking the commercial enterprises that are normally the core of a community, Badencoch’s settlers made up for the deficiency with their school. 

The original building, a log structure 18-feet square on Concession 9, Lot 33, served from the beginning as a centre of community activities, including church services, political meetings and social events. A building of 300 square feet was obviously useless for both the social events and as a school, as the population of Badenoch grew.

A new school, also log but much larger, replaced the first one in 1850 or 1851. The site was new as well: Lot 31, Concession 10. That location was more convenient and central to the members of the Badenoch community. Residents petitioned the Puslinch council for improvements to the Concession 10 road to improve access. 

Enrolment at the school peaked at more than 90 in the early 1880s. Interestingly, the teacher in the 1840s, James McLean, conducted extra classes in Gaelic regularly, and he, other teachers and members of the community occasionally offered lessons well into the 1880s. By then the language had not died out in Wellington, but its use was restricted largely to conversations among older residents.

There were also regular religious services in Gaelic, at first conducted by Tom Wardrope, and after 1840 when Rev. William Meldrum lived in the community. Lauchlan Kennedy continued Sunday School lessons for adults, in Gaelic, until the late 19th century at the school. He, like Rev. Meldrum, was associated with Duff’s Church in Morriston, where many of the Badenoch residents were members. 

Though Scottish settlers dominated Badenoch, they were not the only members of the community. An American, John Linderman, acquired 600 acres on Concession 10 in 1832, and constructed a water-powered sawmill the following year. With a steady demand in the area for sawn lumber and a continuous supply of logs, Linderman operated the mill until his death in 1856.

Robert Forbes of Hespeler bought the mill. The Forbes family was dominant in the industrial history of Hespeler, eventually concentrating on textiles. In the 1850s Forbes was heavily involved in the lumber business. He constructed a second sawmill near the first one, converted the power to steam engines, fueled by sawdust, bark and slabs, and added shingle making to the operation.

Forbes sold the saw milling operation in 1871, when the supply of logs dwindled. It continued to operate sporadically until the 1900 era, and burned down in 1905. That was the end of industry in Badenoch, other than a shoemaker and the blacksmith shop.

The years before and after the First World War were difficult ones for small rural communities. Rural mail delivery and improved transportation to nearby towns undermined the communities and the local activities that bound them together. Badenoch withstood the pressures better than most similar communities.

Bell telephone strung lines to Badenoch farms in 1913, but electrical service did not come for another 35 years, even though Ontario Hydro constructed a major transmission line along Brock Road in 1909.

One activity that kept community spirit strong in the 1920s was girls softball. Badenoch fielded a team in 1920, playing in a league with Morriston, Aberfoyle, Mountsberg and other communities in the area. Boys softball teams enjoyed success in the 1950s and 1960s, several times securing the Ontario Rural Softball Association championship.

A major blow for Badenoch was the closing of its school, S.S. 9 of Puslinch, in December 1964. From then on, the public school students rode to Aberfoyle by bus. The old stone school, which had been modernized and renovated several times during its 75 years, became Badenoch’s community centre, continuing its role as the social centre of the community.

The largest event ever held at the school was an Old Boys Reunion, on July 26, 1933. A year of planning went into the event, under a committee headed by members of the original McLean family and other longtime residents who traced their families back to 1832.

It appears that the residents realized too late in 1932 that the community was 100 years old, so the ceremony was planned for 1933.

The weather that day was warm and sunny. That helped bring out a crowd that was estimated at between 2,500 and 3,000, virtually all of whom were descendants of the pioneers or who had other ties to the community.

During the afternoon the crowd watched baseball games and greeted old friends. A group of women had volunteered to put on a big supper. There were a few short speeches, and the day ended with old-time dancing on a wooden platform in the school yard. 

The next morning, those who were still in the area attended an outdoor church service, reminiscent of the old outdoor Sunday School sessions of Lauchlan Kennedy.

Organizers of Badenoch’s 175th anniversary celebrations would be delighted to match the crowd of 1933. Their program began at the community centre on July 28, 2007 at 3pm, and they were expecting to see everyone in the area with connections to one of Wellington County’s oldest and strongest rural communities.

*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on July 27, 2007.