Perry
Township was surveyed and opened for settlement
in 1873. It was declared to contain 46,334
acres of land, of which two-thirds were reported
as being fit for settlement, with 1,610 acres
of water. William Slorach and David Gilruth
were members of the original survey crew and
decided to take up land with their families in
the new township, becoming its first settlers. At
the time, their nearest neighbour was Ernest
Norton Sr., who lived one mile north of Huntsville
at ‘Carpenter’s Hill’, on the
Old Muskoka Road.
William Slorach’s choice of land (Lot
17, Concession 9) was based on the fact that
the present day marsh at Scotia was at that time
a shallow lake. In the early 1880’s,
when they built the railroad from Toronto through
to North Bay, engineers chose to blast the rock
at the head of Ragged Falls, rather than re-route
the rail line around ‘Slorach’s’ lake.
This process allowed the water to drain away
and left Slorach’s home on the edge of
a marsh, instead of the lake he had found so
much beauty in. Although the lake vanished,
this newly created railroad siding resulted in
Slorach acquiring new neighbours.
The first post office in the Township was in
the Slorach home, with Slorach also acting as
the Township’s first postmaster. Being
a good Scotsman, Slorach asked that his post
office be called “Scotchtown”, but
as there was already a post office by that name
in Ontario, the authorities came as close to
it as possible and called it “Scotia”. By
1890, Slorach’s burgeoning community also
included a general store, blacksmith shop, inn,
church and school.
During this same period, two Concessions north
of Scotia, “Emsdale” was beginning
to form its roots. The first post office
was in Robert Scarlett’s store on the Old
Muskoka Road, approximately three-quarters of
a mile east of the present day village (at the
intersection of the present day Star Lake Road
and Old Government Road). With the railroad
being completed in 1886, the settlement moved
from the hill it was sitting on, to the valley
where it sits today. The village soon boasted
a railroad station, a general store, doctor’s
office, jewellery shop, four hotels, a planning
mill, a boarding house and a barber shop. A
school was soon built, along with an ice cream
parlour and bakery. A population of 357
people, plus railroad travelers and workers,
serviced the many businesses. Rumour has
it that Emsdale got its name from the aunt of
the well- known former Member of Parliament for
Parry Sound-Muskoka, Stan Darling. As her
name was ‘Emma’ and the new settlement
was located ‘in the valley’ (or ‘dale’),
the name Em’s Dale (shortened to Emsdale)
seemed to be well suited.
The beginnings of settlement in the south end
of the Township were at old “Cyprus”.
There was a store (opened by George Savage),
a post office (with William McCormick as the
first postmaster), a church, a hotel, a school
and several dwellings. When
the railroad came through the area two miles
to the southeast of Cyprus in 1884, the entire
settlement either moved or rebuilt their homes
along the tracks, calling their new settlement “Novar”.
The townspeople named their new settlement after
the Scottish hometown of the picturesque “Clear
Lake”. With a booming logging and
lumbering industry, Novar became the site of
many saw mills, including the one operated by
the McGillivray family.
Perry Township was incorporated in 1888. The
first meeting of the new municipality was held
on May 12th of that year in the old schoolhouse
situated on the Hillar Farm at Scotia, located
south of the Scotia Station and just west of ‘Thunder
Bridge’. The Council consisted of
Joseph Mitchell as Reeve, and James Hopkinson,
Thomas Downs, Win. McCormick and Orin. T. Hazelwood
as Councillors. The new Council appointed
E.B. Clearwater as Clerk at an annual salary
of $40.00. Edward Handy was appointed as
the first Treasurer at an annual salary of $10.00,
giving good and sufficient security in himself
for $500.00, with two other securities of $500.00
each.
In 1890, the “Perry Township Agricultural
Society” was formed. Later amalgamating
with McMurrich Township to the west, the Society
evolved into the Emsdale
Agricultural Society. The annual ‘Fall
Fair’, the showcase of the Emsdale Agricultural
Society, drew huge crowds and played an important
role in community life. Now, over a hundred
years after its founding, the Emsdale Agricultural
Society continues to showcase its annual Fall
Fair every August.
In 1896, railroad baron J.R. Booth extended
his railroad eastwards from Scotia to connect
to the railroad at Madawaska (which had already
been connected by railroad to Ottawa). By
1899, Booth had built the first leg of his railroad
from Scotia to Depot Harbour (near the Town of
Parry Sound). As there was no railroad
station at Scotia at the time, he used Emsdale
as the eastern terminus for this new railroad
line. Scotia (by this time known as “Scotia
Junction”), however, was not left out as
it continued to grow with railroad employees
as its residents, and it had three hotels for
rail travellers. In those days, if one
wanted to take the train to Parry Sound, one
would come to Emsdale for the night, then would
take the morning train to Rose Point, crossing
the bay by boat to Parry Sound.
As the Scotia to Madawaska railroad line was
being completed, “Kearney”, a hamlet
on the eastern side of Perry Township, began
to boom. Kearney was growing to the point
that in 1908, a parcel of land of 600 acres (2.4
square kilometers) was ‘broken away’ from
Perry Township and thus, the Town of
Kearney was incorporated.
With the onset of First World War and steel
becoming scarce, many railroad employees left
and went off to war. By 1920, Scotia Junction’s
main street was empty of most businesses, with
only two stores and one hotel remaining. At
this point, with the Grand Trunk Railroad now
in financial trouble, Canadian National (CN)
Railroad purchased Booth’s railroad in
1923. In 1933, when the railroad bridge
at Cache Lake washed out, CN decided that it
was not in its financial interests to repair
the structure, thus leaving Scotia Junction without
its railway access. While the rails may
no longer exist, this section of the railroad
has now become an all-season, multi-use, recreational
trail connecting Kearney with Parry Sound.
The biggest fire in Perry Township history burned
one whole block of buildings, in Emsdale. It
was said that the fire was lit accidentally by
a hobo, who came off of one of the rail cars
when it stopped, and settled down for the night
in the stables adjoining the blacksmith’s
shop. With all of the dry hay in the stables,
and with the wooden buildings all being joined
together, the fire was impossible to control.
The first volunteerfire
departmentwas
established in the Township in June of 1942. In
1953, the Township Council made the decision
to purchase modern fire fighting equipment for
the first time.
On one of its hills, Emsdale has an airport. During
World War Two (1941), the Royal Norwegian Air
Force trained at the Emsdale Airport. Rumours
circulated that some of the local farmers had
to goad their horses to gallop in order to stop
the Norwegians from landing their light planes
on their loads of hay. Interestingly, a
tourist’s road map put out by the Shell
Oil Company in the late 1930’s went so
far as to propose that, “the Emsdale Airport
stands to become one of the most important airports
on the Trans-Canada Air Service”. Today,
the airport remains active, but did not follow
this lofty prediction.
While Scotia, Emsdale and Novar are no longer
thriving business and manufacturing hubs based
around the railroad, the close nit community
residing in Perry Township continues to be active. Local
residents continue to enjoy residing in this
beautiful, non-congested environment. The
Township has also become more easily accessible
by car due to the completion of the four-laning
of Highway #11 through the Township in 2005.
As a result, recreation and cottaging continues
to be a major draw for urban residents due to
the Township’s many lakes and trails. The
Township boasts excellent trout and bass fishing,
and cabin and cottage resorts on the Township’s
lakes provide an abundance of activities for
the whole family. Brooks’ Falls park,
located on Deer Lake Road, east of Emsdale, is
regarded as a truly magnificent natural treasure
to the Township and to the many visitors that
it receives each year. More recently, Perry
Township has become an international destination,
as well, for tourists.
Click
here for Township of Perry History Photos.
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