Hello everyone. Happy New Year! I got some time off, so I thought I might like to “add” to this discussion about the ‘correct name’ or pronunciation for the former “swimming hole” located on the west side of Anne Street, that was directly behind the old Ball Buildall lumberyard. Basically that’s all it was. A dammed-up, marsh fed, silt & weed bottomed waterhole on the former Dyment property. I can still “feel” the memory of the muddy/weed bottom on my bare feet! But let me quickly add here, I and hundreds of other Allandale/Barrie kids considered it “our” swimming hole and it provided us with many a happy, hot summer vacation pastime. The “pond” and immediate surrounding land was taken over and maintained to a certain extent by the City of Barrie, perhaps the Parks & Recreation department contributed to its upkeep? Someone trucked-in tons of sand to ‘make’ a semblance of a ‘Sandy Beach’ on the North/East side of the pond where the silt & reeds where less prevalent. It was probably trucked over from the “other” pond off Edgehill Dr., which we kids referred to as “The Sand Pits” also mentioned in this discussion. A “Cement Block House” Change room/Washroom was built on the crest of the slope above the “Beach”. The old train; John F. Kirk, is now located (read: temporarily housed) at the Simcoe County Archives in Midhurst. Originally “brought in” (benefactors unknown) and located on the South side at the bottom of the “pond”. It was situated facing north just in front of a grated cement culvert. That allowed the ‘stream’ to carry on down to the bay to empty. Those of us who sought to prove our courage, or to ‘impress’ someone would run and leap down into the unknown muddy/dark water of the pond from this culvert. There’s another “memory” that comes to mind, of me climbing all over the “hot iron” of the old train on a summer’s day and sliding down the “Coal Shute” that was attached to the Old Work Horse… I guess the “City of Barrie” never heard of protective 8’ ft. high unscalable chain link fence back then eh! Sadly, all this came to an end on another hot summer day when they had to dredge the dark/muddy bottom to find a drowned body captured in the reedy silt. Not long afterwards the old train was moved to its new location on the Kempenfelt (dt) shoreline. Travis you are right in stating the ‘historical fact’ that the pond was on the “Dyment” property and it could be rightly said that this is “Dyment’s Pond”, a prominent Barrie family name to this day. However, Steve Howcroft is also right the pond was known to most, as “Diamonds Pond”. I believe that we kids and others, not knowing the correct spelling of the Dyment name “heard’ Diamond and consequently it became “Diamond’s “Pond. A similar misconception is the spelling of Allandale or Allendale or Kempenfeldt or Kempenfelt or the ‘correct’ pronunciation of ‘Wasaga’ Beach. Over the years the general public ‘adopts’ the prevalent usage and it becomes the ‘accepted’. So, it’s “Diamond’s Pond” with all due respect to the Dyment family. …as in the old newspaper adage; “When the Legend becomes fact. Print the Legend”.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 19:16:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015