Some of my earliest adventures exploring abandoned buildings were taken here in Milton, small farmhouses mostly. But what would have been amazing to check out was the Milton Pressed Brick Company. Formed in 1877 as one of the early large scale industrial setups in Milton. Milton Pressed Brick by the name not only baked their bricks, but they also pressed them. Which in the world of brick production produced a higher-quality product. By 1901 it was said that the company was producing some of the best bricks. The plant continued operation until 1974 and at the peak employed some 200 people. Yet today there’s littleRead More →

Like most history, there is always a bit of legend mixed in with fact and a fair amount of embellishment. That statement is even true when it comes to PL Robertson. If you live in Canada you know well the socket or square head screw, it’s standard across all provinces and all trades. Peter L. Robertson would often tell the story of how, as a screw salesman, a slotted screwdriver slipped during a demonstration and sliced his arm. Being both a salesman and an inventor, Robertson decided to invent a safer head for the standard screw. Although the more likely story is that Robertson sawRead More →

People, Places, and Things they all intersect with our lives in various ways and at multiple times, all according to a plan. I’m one who believes that everything happens for a reason; you may not always realise it at that time or won’t until much later. Take, for example, Southside Community Church; my family attended the church briefly when it first opened, but I became attached even attending Sunday School there before going to Knox later that Sunday morning. In High School thanks to a coworker of my mom, I went to the youth group there also, met many friends, or older siblings of thoseRead More →

My high school doesn’t exist anymore. Sure the building still stands, it serves a different purpose now, but the school I attended is no longer there. Everything got shifted to a new building and a new name. To be honest, I don’t miss it, or high school at all. High School was just a means to an end, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have any high points to my time there. First, I was able to seriously build up my computer skills, both in function and support. Second, my love of history, both in exploring and how I write about it was because ofRead More →

A school mate and I trudged along the small muddy path along the Mill Pond in downtown Milton, the pond that was created by Jasper Martin to help drive his grist and saw mills. But what I did not expect to find was an abandoned rail bridge. What made things all the more interesting is that the bridge did not match in with Milton’s two main rail corridors, this one was different older almost. But let’s go back, back to the middle of the 19th Century. The first major railroads to form in Canada West (Ontario Today) were Great Western, Grand Trunk, and Ontario, Simcoe,Read More →

If you’re of a certain age, you might recognise the title as being part of the school song for EW Foster. Foster is the school that I have some of the fondest memories from, and that’s even including High School. As a school, Foster isn’t that special, being built in the 1980s; it is a brown one-floor brick building with no details at all. Typical 80s, but I mean Milton has only one historic school that still stands. But the real magic of Foster happened inside the walls for me, from planting a maple key in a styrofoam cup in Kindergarten that grew to higherRead More →

I can probably trace my curiosity to peer behind the board up windows to Waldie’s Blacksmith shop. For much of my life, the building sat empty and abandoned. Sitting next to St. Paul’s United Church. But I also didn’t know the rich history behind the building that had captured that curiosity. James A. Waldie came to Canada taking over a business in Acton first before establishing his shop in Milton in 1865. The shop’s operations peaked in the 1890s when it operated around the clock employing five blacksmiths, two woodworkers, a painter, and a trimmer. After the death of James Senior in 1900, his sonRead More →

When I was little there wasn’t anything like Junior Kindergarten, in fact, it didn’t exist. Instead, we called it Nursery School, and honestly, it’s the same thing. The Nursery school I attended along with many of the kids that would go on to become my first circle of friends took place here at St. Paul’s United Church in downtown Milton. As a cooperative, parents would assist the teachers as volunteers, and for a fee, the kids could attend. Now the memories I have of nursery school are a little muddled, mostly from details that my parents have told me about. That I much preferred theRead More →

I’m not a farmer, in any sense of the word. I’ve never driven a tractor, milked a cow, tended a field. Yet for much of my life, I lived in a rural community. But Milton does stick to its small-town roots and one of the biggest ways that show is the fall fair. The Fall Fair is a local icon, the animals, the arts, crafts, and baked goods. The midway, salespeople, but the biggest part of it for me is the Demolition Derby. This might come as a surprise but I love a good demolition derby. There’s just something about having car on car destruction.Read More →

If there’s one thing that dominates the downtown of Milton is the churches, there are three historic churches and one new one that occupies the main street. This one is mine; I can say that because Knox Presbyterian Church is where I was raised other than at my childhood home. And today I still attend and help lead the congregation. The history of Prebyertians in Milton stretches back to the early days of the town’s first expansion in 1840. The first Presbyterian church in Milton, St. Andrew’s, saw the establishment in 1846 as a branch of the Church of Scotland. I say that only becauseRead More →