Perth County History +

Click here to view the exhibit poster exploring the History of Perth County. 

Keep reading below to learn more about the Early history of Perth County!

Early History of Perth County

As the continental glacier receded thousands of years ago and the environment warmed, Indigenous peoples cared for the land that is now Perth County. We recognize and are grateful for all First Peoples’ continued stewardship of the land and waters.  

The Canada Company formed in England in the 1820s. Their goal was to buy land to sell at a profit for their investors. The Company purchased approximately a million acres known as the Huron Tract from the Crown (part of the Huron Tract Treaty) which they then promoted to European settlers looking for farms. By 1828, Fryfogel’s and Seebach’s taverns were established on the new Huron Road. Land just north of the Huron Tract was often referred to as the Queen’s Bush. Elma, Mornington and Wallace Townships were all carved from this area.

Municipal Government in Perth County

“Municipal government in Perth County began with the holding of township meetings in four townships around Stratford in January 1836 under the authority of the London District Court of Quarter Sessions... The township ratepayers had a very limited degree of democracy in electing pathmasters (road superintendents), fence viewers, pound keepers (animal control) and a township clerk, as well as school trustees. All money and taxes were dealt with at London, and after 1841 when the Huron District was formed, at Goderich. Democracy only arrived at the upper tier in 1842 with the establishment of District Councils which were made up of councilors directly elected from each settled township. These took over the power to make local bylaws from the local Court magistrates. The head of these new councils was appointed by the Governor-General and called the Warden. Councils were granted the right to elect their Warden in 1847. 

The full municipal system that we know today, with its two tiers of local government, was created in 1850 with the Baldwin Act, the first municipal act. This gave the townships and cities, towns and villages, their own incorporated municipal councils headed by reeves or mayors. The old District Councils were replaced with County Councils which covered smaller areas. In this process, the counties of Perth and Bruce were carved out of the Huron County that replaced the district, although they remained part of the United Counties of Huron, Perth and Bruce until they could build their own court house. The new County Councils were made up of the reeves from each municipality within the county except cities and separated towns…

When the new Perth County Council met for the first time in the Court Room of the new Court House at Stratford on January 24, 1853, at 12 noon, the council consisted of eight reeves and two deputy reeves representing all eleven townships. The township of Mornington was still attached to Ellice, and the townships of Elma and Wallace were attached to Logan. Downie and Blanshard Townships had the most people and therefore were represented by two members. However, none of the villages (Stratford, St. Marys, Mitchell and Shakespeare) were incorporated yet. The total population of the county was about 18,000. The first Warden of the new county was William Smith of Downie who had also been Warden of the provisional county in 1850 and 1852.

The development of the county proceeded very quickly, with the incorporation of Stratford (1854), St. Marys (1855), Mitchell (1857) and Listowel (1867) as villages. These took their own seats on county council. However, the first two later separated from the County government – Stratford when it became a city in 1885 and St. Marys after it became a town in 1864. In the 1870s, Listowel and Mitchell became towns within the county and were joined by the village of Milverton in 1881. So from 1885 to 1997, the county consisted of fourteen municipalities – eleven townships, two towns and one village.” 

Maps of Perth County

In 1951, County Clerk-Treasurer Fred Armstrong dug out an original 1879 Atlas from the Perth County vault and it was noted that over 100 years ago that April that Perth's first Warden was appointed. The Atlas contains an early history of the County as well as several town and townships maps; click here to view the entire Atlas digitally. The Warden, Willliam O. Gaffney, was thrilled and suggested that Perth County should have some sort of history complied. An article appeared in the London Free Press marking the occasion. Below is an image from the article, click here to read the full article.  

Warden William O. Gaffney (left), Clerk-Treasurer Fred Armstrong (middle), South Easthope Township Reeve J.J. Krug (right), 1951, courtesy of Western University Archives & Special Collections. 

For a comparison of Perth County, here is the County map from the original 1879 Atlas (left) and a Road map of the County from 1940 (right). 

 

Note: At the bottom of the list is a small selection of photographs of past Wardens. Names with an * beside them note that there is a photo of them at the bottom of the Wardens List.

A selection of photographs of past Wardens:

 

 

Click the image above to view a larger version of the poster.

Perth County's first courthouse stood north of the Avon River in Stratford, just east of St. James Anglican Church, overlooking William Street. 

A land registry office and county jail were built on the same property. These buildings were required before Perth County could completely separate from the former Huron District / United Counties of Huron, Perth and Bruce. Perth County Council reluctantly complied and began operating in their new buildings in 1853.

Officials declared that their offices weren't much bigger than the cells in the jail, describing them as “dark, miserable little dens…arranged on each side of a narrow passage…like rat holes.” The courtroom had windows set high above the floor causing severe problems with ventilation.. Each year a grand jury of 24 people was selected to report on the conditions of all county property and frequently their findings were critical of the court room and the dampness of the jail cells. Finally, a judge moved his court to the spacious concert hall over at the Stratford Town Hall and County Council decided to make a change.

In March 1884, prominent architect George F. Durand (1850-1889) was hired to design new buildings to stand on one of the most prominent sites in the city. As a result, Perth County moved from having the worst set of county buildings, in Ontario to the best. Local contractors, Scrimgeour Brothers, who had their shop nearby, began construction in 1885, with the jail opening in 1886 and the courthouse in 1887. 

Today, Perth County has one of the most magnificent courthouses in Ontario with many of the original building features intact. It is an excellent example of High Victorian architecture, combining bichromal masonry and a variety of other building materials, not to mention architectural styles.

Italianate brackets adorn the cornice, while Queen Anne style is evident in the medieval tower, moulded brick chimneys and multiple paned windows. Richardson Romaneque features include the round arch windows stretching over two stories, heavy doors, rusticated basement foundation, wall dormers which peak with a gable at the top, and miniature columns. 

Durand was involved with many prominent building projects, including the New York capitol building in Albany and Upper Canada College. He left a marvelous legacy of exquisite buildings in this area - the Stratford Pump House (now Gallery Stratford), the original Stratford Hospital (now Avoncrest), and Knox Presbyterian Church in Listowel along with the Perth County Court House and Jail.

Click here to view the exhibit posters on the Perth County Courthouse. 

The Stratford Beacon Weekly newspaper had a front page story on April 29, 1887 under the headline “Handsomest and Best Appointed Courthouse in Canada.” The article goes on…”with the single exception of Hamilton perhaps, Perth County will have the finest county buildings in the Province, both as to architecture and internal finish and equipment. The finishing touches are being put to the outside, with the placing of the terra cotta figures in their places. In the basement are a number of fire-proof vaults for public documents; the janitor’s rooms, well lighted and comfortably finished; the heating apparatus, consisting of two large boilers for distributing hot water, and closets and urinals fitted up in the most modern style. Internally, the building is a model of elegance, the finishing being in white pine and the stairway and furniture of oak, all brightly finished.

The first floor will be occupied by the various officials, legal and municipal, each office having a private room and vault for the safe keeping of documents. This floor contains the offices of the sheriff, county clerk, county treasurer, local registrar, with the county judge’s and county attorney’s rooms. On the second floor are the court-room, council and grand jury room, petit jury rooms, law library and barristers’ rooms. In the court-room itself from the judge’s chair to the dock for the prisoner, everything is on a costly and magnificent scale. The floor, from the recess for the judge’s seat to the windows on the other side of the room, commanding a fine view east on Ontario-st, is on a gentle rise, and is traversed by a series of wide steps. The centre chandelier is a beautiful and noteworthy object, and will contain about fifty lights. The chandelier for the grand jury room is also a beautiful thing, made up of four branches of three lights each in imitation of wax candles. Just inside the main entrance, to the right, is a fine slab of Tennessee marble, on which are inscribed the names of the present county council, the buildings committee and the architect, Mr. G.F. Durand; the sculptor, Mr. John Matheson; and the contractors, Messrs Scrimgeour Bros. This slab will be framed in a massive ornamental border of terra cotta.

At the first landing of the main staircase is a grand stained glass window, the various panes of which are symbolical of the arts &c [etc.]. The top pane is taken up with the Canadian coat of arms. The floor of the tower room and first floor hall are laid with English tile. Viewed externally, the building is plain, but, aided by the trimmings, which are of Credit Valley red stone, and the various panels in terra cotta, it presents a pleasing look and is a pile of which Perth may well feel proud. In the centre pediment is a panel with three figures that in the centre representing Lax, and the cherubs on either side bearing respectively the Scales and Sword of Justice. Under each of the three centre windows are two panels, representing Justice with the Sword and Scales; Architecture, Mechanics, Agriculture and Art. In the centre pediment are also two medallions with heads representing Manufacture and Agriculture, and crowning the pediment will be a lion holding a shield. Over the main entrance is a panel bearing the Perth County coat of arms, with the inscription County of Perth Court-House. In the front of the tower are inserted two fine medallions in the design of a rosette.

Two such medallions appear also on the south side of the building, which with the north side, is rather scant of ornamentation. The inside is nearly finished, except the putting in of the furniture, which is being manufactured in a neighbouring city. The work on the outside is keeping pace with that of the inside, with a view to, if possible, holding the next assizes in the new

The official opening for the Perth County Courthouse took place on May 9 1887. County Judge James Peter Woods declared that it was "a beautiful temple of justice erected in place of the old courthouse where people were in danger of their lives. The building is a credit to the county and an ornament to the province." building which will be formally opened in June. The supervision of the work has been in the hands of Mr. J.R. Kilburn, architect and over the whole Mr. William Davidson, the county clerk has exercised a watchful care, and it need not be said that he has had a keen eye to the public interests. The building, with its surroundings, will, when finished, be another monument to the skill of Mr. G.F. Durand, the rising architect, to whom the design was entrusted.

Fun details to note: The architect added his signature to one of the terra cotta panels on the front of the building. If you look closely, you can see "G. F. Durand / Architect" engraved into one of the tools on the terra cotta tile (left). Another signature was found on tone of the tower bricks, it reads "W. McMillan". It is assumed that one of the workers who built the tower also left his mark.

Click the image above to view a larger version of the poster.

Click the image above to view a larger version of the poster. 

Lorne Brothers spent many hours searching for a "match" to the face in this painting [see painting on right] after it was discovered in 1973, finally finding one among a group of "Perth's Parliamentarians of the Past" in the Stratford Beacon's 50th anniversary edition of 1905. A note found tacked to the back now identifies the subject as Robert McFarlane M.P. for Perth in 1867…Painting found above the false ceiling of the women's washroom in the courthouse... Someone remembered seeing the name "Forster" on the frame. 

Robert MacFarlane was born in 1835 in Lanark County. He set up his law practice in Stratford in 1857 with Daniel Home Lizars. When Lizars was appointed County Judge in 1864, MacFarlane entered into practice with John Idington, who became Perth County’s Crown Attorney and Clerk of the Peace, and later, a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada.  By this time, MacFarlane had been a member of parliament for a year, having beaten T.M. Daly in a hotly contested election. He was re-elected in 1867 to represent the Perth South riding in the first parliament of the new Dominion of Canada. 

MacFarlane died in office in 1872, just thirty-seven years old. He and his wife Mary had buried their only child, an infant son named Woods, earlier that same year. Most members of the House of Commons accompanied MacFarlane's body to the train station in Ottawa. He was brought back to Stratford by "a deputation from St. Marys, Downie and Stratford" and was buried in Avondale Cemetery with his son. The Stratford Beacon newspaper reported that "the funeral was perhaps the most imposing ever witnessed in town."

Though J.W.L. Forster was only a young apprentice artist when MacFarlane died, it is clear that he later painted portraits based on photographs and descriptions of historical figures. The tragedy of MacFarlane's sudden, early death and his connection to the first Dominion Parliament would have made him an appealing subject for Forster. Forster's cousin, Dr. F.J.R. Forster, lived in Stratford and may have brought the story to the attention of the artist.

That the painting is a portrait of Robert MacFarlane by J.W.L. Forster is clear. How on earth this portrait of a prominent citizen, rendered by an internationally renowned Canadian artist, ended up on top of the false ceiling of the ladies washroom of the Perth County Courthouse remains very unclear.

Click the image above to view a larger version of the poster.

Click the image above to view a larger version of the poster.

Click below to learn more about the Perth County Jail and the Land Registry Office buildings.

Perth County Jail

The present Perth County Jail was designed to match the courthouse by the same architect, George F. Durand, and erected at the same time. It opened in 1886. The province took over operating the jail in 1968.

Land Registry Office

In 1910, a new land registry office was built at 24 St. Andrew Street to replace the original 1850s building still operating at the apex of Hamilton and Mornington Streets. While not designed by the same architect, 24 St. Andrew Street was built to match the 1880s County Courthouse and Jail.

In 1957, the current registry office / Service Ontario building was built by Pounder Brothers. At that point, 24 St. Andrew St. was used for other county services, most recently from 1981 – 2015 as Stratford-Perth Archives. The Archives new home is a state of the art, purpose-built building just west of Stratford.