Ferry Company, her present owners. On February 11th, 1884, the Windsor town council passed a by-law granting a lease to the Detroit, Belle Isle & Windsor Ferry Co. (the company which succeeded the Detroit & Windsor Ferry Association), the lease being for the term from April 1st, 1884, to September 29th, 1888, the latter date being the one on which would expire the lease given by the Province of Canada to the Town of Windsor in 1863 to run for a term of twenty-five years. On the 3rd of October, 1888, the ferry company was given a renewal of the lease direct from the Dominion Government to run for a period of five years. About a year later this was extended for a further term of five years, and the lease has been further renewed in 1895 and 1905.

The ferry business has been growing steadily during the years, and other and larger boats have been built, among those being the steamer Promise, built in Detroit in 1892, and the steamer Pleasure, built in West Bay City, Michigan, in 1894. The steamer Fortune was sold and taken to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to be used in the ferry business there. Since 1894 three

still larger boats have been built by the company. These are the steamers Columbia, Britannia and Ste. Claire, making altogether one of the finest fleets of ferry boats to be found anywhere.

Nothing could illustrate the growth of the ferry company better than the increased size of the later built and larger boats, as shown by the number of passengers they are licensed to carry, as compared with the smaller boat, the Victoria, the Columbia being allowed to carry 3,511 passengers and the Victoria 600 passengers.

During the past thirty-five years the company has developed a large summer excursion business. For a while boats ran to the Sandwich mineral springs, during the period of 1876-1886. The Sandwich springs were situated on the Canadian side, about four miles below Windsor, and were noted for a flow of sulphur water which was supposed to have curative properties for certain diseases. The water was so strongly charged with sulphur that if a silver coin was dropped into it it would almost immediately turn black. Bath

houses were erected, and for a number of years the springs were well patronized until finally the flow of water stopped.

In 1885 a Mr. Geo. C. Buchanan, of Kentucky, opened an amusement park on the river front, just below the springs, and called it Brighton Beach. This only remained open for two or three seasons, and during that time the boats ran to both the Mineral Springs and Brighton Beach. Among the novelties of the Beach was a roller coaster, one of the first to be operated in this locality. Another feature was the staging of the then popular opera, "Pinafore," from the deck of a large sailing vessel anchored on the river front there. In the act where Dick Deadeye is thrown overboard (on the regular stage), in this case he was actually thrown overboard into the river.

In the early nineties there was open for a few seasons a summer resort on Fighting Island, a few miles further down the river, under the name of "Des-chree-shos-ka," an Indian term meaning "a place to catch good fish." A large casino was built for the summer trade and for a few seasons the resort was well patronized. The ferry company ran a line of boats to the island until the place was closed.

The last resort opened up was that of Bois Blanc Island. "Bois Blanc" is from the French, meaning "white wood." During the war of 1812-13 the celebrated Indian chief Tecumseh and his warriors encamped at Bois Blanc. It is now owned by the ferry company, and was opened to the public in 1898. A large casino and dance hall were built and the grounds improved and beautified. Since then a larger stone and steel dancing pavilion, with 20,000 square feet floor space, has been built; also a bath house, a women's building for the use of women and children only, and a modern cafe. The grounds have been still further improved by the laying out of play grounds for children and athletic fields, including six baseball diamonds. The island is situated eighteen miles below Detroit, at the head of Lake Erie, and the trip down the river is a most enjoyable one.

Belle Isle Park, owned by the City of Detroit since 1879, is a wooded island, two miles long, and contains 707 acres. It is situated three miles above the Woodward Avenue dock. In 1768 a Lieutenant George McDougall bought the island from the Ottawa and Chippewa Indian tribes for the value of about $975, and in 1879 the City of Detroit purchased it from the Barnabas Campeau

heirs for $200,000. Belle Isle is noted throughout the country for its location and its beauty, and is always visited by a great number of tourists who come yearly to Detroit during the summer season. The City of Detroit has spent large sums of money in beautifying the grounds and building an aquarium, conservatories, filled with plant life from all parts of the world, and also laying out a zoological garden, covering fifteen acres, and public play grounds, the latter being located near the centre of the island. Belle Isle has for a long time been the play ground of Detroit and Windsor as well. The ferry company has for years run a line of boats to the island, with a steadily increasing patronage, so that for some time past during the summer months boats between Detroit and Belle Isle have been run every twenty minutes during the days and evenings.

It must be said to the credit of the ferry company that during all of the years past, and with the multitude of passengers carried year after year, that its record has been singularly free from accidents.

NOTE.

[The foregoing instructive article is reprinted, with revisions, from the "Silver Jubilee" number of the Windsor Evening Record" of May 23, 1917,

Windsor being then 25 years a city.-ED.]

VII.

THE FOUNDING OF KIRKFIELD, ONT.*

BY A. F. HUNTER.

The circumstances connected with the founding of Kirkfield, a village of some importance in Victoria County, are worthy of a place in the annals of the Province.

In the autumn of 1859, three settlers from the vicinity of Queensville, in the Township of East Gwillimbury-Jacob Dixon, Jacob Belfry, and Silas Smith-took up locations on the site of Kirkfield, built log houses, and moved their families thither, and these became the first families within the village. Dixon started the first tavern, and Silas Smith opened a general store. At this time contractors were building the Victoria Road, and this made it necessary to have a place of accommodation and trade, as the nearest place on the west was Beaverton, several miles distant. Contractors and sub-contractors and jobbers of various kinds swarmed around the new village.

Dixon's public house was a hewed log structure with one room, serving as dining-room, kitchen and bar-room, where the township council meetings of the day also were held. Smith's store had the addition of an upstairs or loft where some other gatherings took place, as for example a Good Templar's Lodge. The doorway of Belfry's house was lacking in altitude, so much so that a person of ordinary height had to bend down to enter it.

A short way south of the corners at which the new village took its rise, when the above-mentioned settlers located here, there was an old clearing near the foot of the hill, overgrown with second growth pines, with the remains of two log cabins, dwelling and stable, where the pioneer of the place, Mr. Munro, had first settled some twenty-three years earlier, but he had afterwards erected more commodious buildings on another part of the farm and had moved his family to the new home. It was while this family lived in their first abode that the first white child was born on the site of the future village in 1839John Munro, who is still living about a mile south of the village. It was Mr. Munro, Sr., who named the village. The first white child born in Kirkfield after the beginning of the village was Robert Frederick Smith, who was born May 7, 1860, and is still living in the State of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. At the time of the origin of the village, there was a good farming settlement on the top of the hill southward.

The McKenzie family, of whom Sir William is a member, were also early residents; in fact, they owned some of the land (as a farm) upon which the village is now built.

Kirkfield is at the intersection of the Portage Road (from Lake Simcoe to Balsam Lake) and the eighth concession of Eldon. The first settlers in the

In the compilation of this article the Secretary is indebted to Lt.-Col. Geo. E. Laidlaw for some interesting facts gathered from Mr. Samuel Truman, and to others.

vicinity were largely Highland Scots, both Protestant and Catholic, with a few Irish and French families.

The first schoolhouse was built in the neighbourhood, on the sixth concession of Eldon, in 1851, and the settlers built a new schoolhouse at the village about 1857.

The late Rev. John MacMurchy, Presbyterian, was the first minister to preach in the vicinity, and afterward, about the time of the starting of the village, a Methodist Church and cemetery were begun.

At first, the Kirkfield settlers got their mail at Eldon post office, which was kept by a farmer named Macready on the Portage Road, three miles west of Kirkfield, but later (in or about 1860) Silas Smith got Kirkfield post office in his store, and was the first postmaster at the new village.

Some time later Smith took the contract for corduroying a stretch of the Carden Road, and also took out spars and masts, having as many as seven timber shanties at one time, but fire burnt up the whole work before it was off his hands and paid for, and he was a heavy loser. On account of his misfortunes Smith left Kirkfield in the spring of 1865, and settled at Sugar Creek, near Franklin, Pa., where he opened another store. In that vicinity he remained for the rest of his life, and died at Franklin so recently as March 13th, 1918.

Other settlers in or near Kirk field at the time were Patrick Mooney, who lived close to the village at its northern end, on the Carden Road, and his sonin-law, Macdonald, who opened a beer tavern in the village shortly after its beginning.

The environs of Kirkfield had then, as now, some natural interest. Grass River, whose water flows to Lake Simcoe, and along which the Trent Valley canal now runs, was known by this name in that day, and then also had abundant water, enough for boating with canoes and punts. At Balsam Lake, where the family of Mr. McInnis lived, fish, including eels, were caught in abundance, and the lake opened the way into the wide country to the northward, and also along the Trent Valley chain of lakes.