On the table in front of me is an old copy of the Northland Post by Alice Marwick, copyrighted 1950. Not my book :(, belongs to the late Art Brown. I was reading this book, and came across near the end of book, a bit of local history just north of Clute. A Peter Johnson bought a Bentley farm, and on that land he built one of the largest and best equipped barns in Ontario. L-shaped struture. One section was 110 feet long by 42 feet wide, tied up 90 head of cattle The other part of the barn was 70 feet long and used to stable 12 horses. three 45 foot silos, huge mows that stored over 400 tons of hay. The saying was...one might think that this is a fair-size barn to be built 250 miles from everywhere. In time he added and added more lands until he reached a total of 7,500 acres. anyways, when i was reading throught that, Lenny came in the door, she lives on that same old farm just mentioned in the Marwick book, and shortly later Bill Bentley came in, and it was his grandfather that sold a farm to the Pete Johnson mentioned in the book. So strange. my aunt had invited them to have cake and icecream as it was my birthday and since it was handy that Richard and me were there working putting her new kitchen floor down. It worked out neat. lol.My aunt took this picture of myself in work overalls and Lenny today, just before Bill came. What an interesting book to read. I borrowed it from my aunt and i know Lenny wants to read it as well, likely Bill too. The barn mentioned in book, I do have inside shots of it thankfully. No doubt in time, the elements will take its toll on it. But even today, empty and showing its age, one can still tell it was a grand barn. lenny said it was beauitful to work in, lots of light from the many windows and warm with the cattle etc. Lots of space to work in, nothing being cramped. Also known as a Beatty barn, as the designs were from the Beatty Bros. of Fergus Ontario who designed countless barns across Canada and even had the cast iron fittings like feed tubs and harness hooks with Beatty Bros. name on them from the foundries. Getting back to this Peter Johson, when the great dpression wiped him out, he came to Cochrane area in 1931 with 7.28 cents on him, a faith in the north, and a family of five children. He even had lived at Silver Queen Lake where he had settled on a settlers lot, had to be near water he said as he had viking in his heritage from Oslo Norway .By 1934, he had a sawmill at Frederickhouse River near clute. .That mill burned,yet he secured more timber rights and built a bigger mill. etc. In 1943, is when he began farming north of Clute where Lenny still lives today. Im going to look forward in reading this old book. :).
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:02:48 +0000
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