Sunderland Museum and Historical Society – 14 Church St N

This structure was built in 1972 as the Brock Township Public Library and was opened by Governor General Roland Michener on June 11, 1972. Margaret Doble was the librarian here from 1975 to 1991. Other members of the Library board were Dorothy Sugget, Norma Doble, Vera Wilkinson and Donald Wetherell.

The building was constructed through a provincial municipal Employment Incentive grant, the work of the Sunderland Lions Club and many volunteers.

After 2001, the Sunderland Public Library was moved to the Sunderland Public School on Albert Street, and this building was used as a museum by the Sunderland Historical Society.

This society began in 1989 and 2009 is the 20th anniversary. In 2002 they received a $25,000 grant from the Ontario Trillium foundation to modernize the building to allow for proper care of the artifacts and old documents. A new computer system and photocopying facilities helped members put much of the historic information on a retrievable database. The museum now has thousands of archived artifacts and a detailed historical genealogy on early pioneer families. The Society works with other researchers and museums in Durham and York regions and genealogists from all over the world through their website.

In 2003 this site became fully accessible with the addition of a wheelchair access, washroom and elevator.

The walking tours were made possible through a federal New Horizons for seniors grant in 2008.

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Saint Andrews United Church – 10 Church St N

Originally this was the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The congregation was formed about 1852. The Methodists at first had circuit ministers who would ride about the countryside holding services in local homes and barns. About 1873 the Methodists built a white brick church here for their Sunday services. The land was owned by Henry Breathor, and he sold it for $150. Before that, meetings were held from 1871 to 1873 in the old frame town hall next door. In 1907 a red brick church was designed by George E. Turner, and it was opened on February 23, 1908. A foul supper was held the next night, and pledges were taken to pay off the $12,500 cost of the new building. Within nine years the church was free of this debt.

In 1924 Methodists and Presbyterians joined to form the United Church of Canada. The Methodist Church was to be used as the place of worship and some of the furniture and the organ was moved from the Presbyterian Church on Albert street to this site. In 1928 the Presbyterian Church was sold to the King Edward Masonic Lodge Branch 464 Sunderland for $825. Recently the St. Andrews United Church celebrated its 100th anniversary and many changes have occurred since 1908. In 1946 the present pipe organ was installed and finally in 1951 the sheds for the horses and buggies were removed from the back of the church property. New stained-glass windows were added to the auditorium, and the heating system went from wood to coal and then to oil. In 1979, the Narthex and the sanctuary were both completely carpeted.

For increased accessibility a chairlift was added in 1980 and just last year a wheelchair access elevator was added, thanks to a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. This building is the site of many community activities and is used by the Lions Club for the music festival and the annual Christmas bazaar.

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Sunderland Town Hall – 120 River St

This town hall was constructed in 1906 on the site of a previous wooden frame town hall dating back to 1871. The architect and supervisor was George E. Turner. It is correctly named the Town of Berkshire Town Hall, Sunderland. It took two years for the hall to be constructed, and the final cost was about $6,000. The fire insurance map from 1910 shows that the hall was used as a farmer’s market downstairs and an opera house upstairs.

For decades now the building has been the social center of the town and township. It has been used for plays, musicals, fundraisers during the wars and for over 50 years it has been the site of performances in the Sunderland Music Festival. The new structure has served not only Sunderland but the surrounding township with its clerk’s office, council chamber, banquet hall, jail and small library.

During the Great Depression the jail cells were a place to stay overnight for jobless men passing through town. On the south wall of River Street is the impressive circular rose shaped stained glass window of Gothic design. Behind this window is a large second floor balcony with the original seats that were provided by Robert Charter, the local furniture dealer and undertaker. Those fold up seats still have a rack underneath to hold a gentleman’s hat.

At the southwest corner is the four-story bell tower where an iron bell once rung. The entire ceiling is made of tin metal plates impressed with detailed patterns. In 1991 a town hall restoration committee worked with Brock Township and the Sunderland Lions to bring the building up to fire code. They did major restorations to the washrooms and added an elevator. The windows are Romanesque with their round arches. Inside is a vaudevillian stage with an old-fashioned ticket room and a sloped concert floor.

In front of the town hall is the cenotaph built in 1922 to honour the men killed serving Canada in the armed forces in both World wars.

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Dr. Joseph Henry Oliver Home – 128 River St

This home was built about 1904. Dr. Joseph Henry Oliver and his family lived in this three-story house. His home had his living quarters as well as his office, consulting room and a dispensary. At one time he was the medical Officer of health for Brock Township. Dr. Oliver was one of the last country doctors to make house contact calls. Often, if a patient could not reach his office, he would gather up his medical supplies in all kinds of weather and go out to provide medical assistance. In his later years, the families of the patient would come and pick him up in a buggy or cutter and in the summer his daughter Bessie would drive him about.

He retired in 1954 at the age of 84 and lived to the age of 96. In 1914 his wife, Elizabeth Martha St. John died about six months after his daughter Bessie was born. She was raised in this house by her two aunts.

Dr. Oliver was a member of the official board of the Methodist Church and also served as a member of the 116th Battalion in World War I. As a veteran, he proudly attended the unveiling of the Vimy monument in 1936. A recently discovered receipt for $2 for a math exam showed that he studied at Trinity College in Toronto for his medical degree.

His daughter Bessie played the piano and organ at the Town hall and the United Church and was always running next door to the Town Hall to get books for children when the Library was there. Dr. Oliver’s two sisters helped to organize concerts and design the costumes for several plays at the Sunderland Town hall.

In the 1890s, Dr. Henry Oliver was a teacher at the SS4 Ridge School after he completed his high school education in Uxbridge. Gus Doyle, the Future town Constable, was one of his students. Dr. Oliver went to the University of Toronto and finished his first year. Then, in order to raise money to finish his degree, he worked as an assistant to a doctor in Northern Ontario for a few years. After he graduated with a medical certificate in Toronto, he returned home to Sunderland and was listed as doctor in the 1910 Ontario Gazetteer for Sunderland.

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St. Mary’s Anglican Church – 134 River St

This red brick church was built in the spring of 1874. The bricks came from the Cannington brickyard and were supplied by William Weatherall and John Wakelin. The masonry work was done by William Bacon, Charles Spearin and Mr. Reed. This building is one of the oldest structures in the village. The land for the rectory was donated by James Doble, who was a banker and owned many building lots in town. The rectory was located at the corner of Church Street South and Jones street on the northeast corner, and it was used by the ministers until about 1942.

At that time, four Anglican churches used the same minister for their services. The rectory was sold about 1990 to fund the new Town hall edition. The new parish hall behind the church was opened April 26, 1990. The new hall had a kitchen, washrooms and a full basement. At one time the minister’s charge included Cannington, All Saints, Sunderland, St. Mary’s, St. James, West Brock and the Anglican Church in Beaverton.

The building closed about 2003 as the congregation became too small to support the church and the facility was sold by the Anglican Syonode in Toronto. The cemetery for this church is west on Concession 6 River street to Durham Road 23. It’s called Thompson Cemetery.

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Dr. James McDermott Home – 160 River St

Dr. James McDermott served this community for a 50-year span from 1870 until his death in 1920. He had an ad in the 1872 directory for the county of Ontario about his drugstore in the port block.

J.M. McDermott M.D. Dealer in drugs and medicines, paints, oils and dyestuffs, perfumery, fancy and toilet articles, pure wines and liquors for medicinal purposes. In 1910 he supervised and financed the building of the Brock House Hotel. Also, by 1910, the huge building at river and Albers street was known as McDermott Block. The McDermott Block burned down in 1949.

Dr. James McDermott was born in Tecumseh Township in Simcoe county and there were 11 children in the family. His parents were born in Ireland. He and his wife Jane Campbell had three daughters, Edith, Josephine and Annie.

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The Fogg House – 198 River St

Back in 1904, Thomas Fogg, an affluent owner of the Nipissing Hotel at River and Church street in Sunderland, purchased this half acre piece of property for the sum of $300 from Julius St. John. The original deed of purchase still hangs on the living room wall. He built a new home for his wife and daughter in 1907. This is a fine example of Victorian architecture featuring an impressive sweeping veranda, three story bay windows and a number of stained-glass windows. Inside there is oak paneling and wainscoting in the dining room and front hall and ash wainscoting in the kitchen. The ceilings are made up of tin plate panels, panels and were common for this time period. The staircase was made of oak with turned spindles and newel posts. The floors were made of pine boards.

The Fogg family enjoyed their life in this fine home until Mr. Fogg lost most of his money through investments in the stock market. No one knows what happened to him after this misfortune, but his wife and daughter lived in the house, and they were unable to meet their mortgage payments. Finally, in 1936, with the House standing empty, an auction was held, but no one bought the house. Later, Armour and Enid, Martin and Lorne and Grace Banbury bought and shared this large home. Other owners were Stanley Doble, Fred and Mabel Wilson, and Gordon Lockey, a geography teacher at Brock High School. In 1967, Bill Yarima, another teacher at Brock High School, moved in with his wife Joan and their four children. This family has restored the house and have always been diligent in maintaining its original turn of the century features. Bill and Joan continue to enjoy this historic site that is over a hundred years old.

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The Blacksmith Shop – 135 River St

This building was once the blacksmith shop of Dan McIntyre. It was one of several dating back to the mid-1800s. Dan worked with several local apprentices to train them as blacksmiths. He taught William James Payne, who later started up his own blacksmith shop in Markham. Another local lad who worked for Dan was Fred Wilkinson, who had come to Canada as a Bernardo Boy in 1899 when he was only nine. An original round steel frame used for setting buggy wheels was taken from the front lawn and moved to the front of the museum at 14 Church Street north in the fall of 2008. This steel frame was a huge circle of solid iron that was about 4ft in diameter. It has a hole in the center and easily weighs about 100 pounds.

The maps of 1904 and 1910 show the blacksmith shop here at this location. Dan is listed in the 1891 directory as a blacksmith in Sunderland. Dan used the garage for the shop, and the home was later lived in by Ken Sheldon. One of the earliest blacksmiths in Sunderland was Thomas Colerin, who ran a shop from 1856 to 1883 on the northwest corner of River and Highway 12. His sons would later work for the T.E. Eaton Company, Toronto as wheelwrights fixing the delivery wagons. In 1883 Henry German built a blacksmith shop in Sunderland. In 1901 the village blacksmith was Thomas Warean and his son Henry. George K had a livery and blacksmith shop to the east of the CIBC bank and down the hill from 1907 to 1955. In 2009 this home was removed and the site now belongs to Brown and Breathor.

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The Nipissing House Hotel – 123 River St

In a picture from 1912, the building sign said Nipissing House Fogg. The owner was Thomas Fogg, and he ran the hotel from 1912 to 1920. He was listed as the proprietor in 1891.
About 1868, the Toronto Nipissing Railway had been built and ran through Sunderland to Cobeconk. The hotel was a long frame building that started at the southeast corner of river and Church street south ran to the west. The hotel was built in 1870. It was a great site for boxing matches, wrestling and dances. Mr. Collins, a local resident, had gamecocks at the back of the property and entertained the guests of the hotel with bird fights.

The original building started at the current laundromat at the SW corner of Church South and River and the hotel ran to the west. Eventually, the west end of the long building was cut away and turned 90 degrees to face north on River Street. That part of the building became Gordon’s garage and then became a private home.

In 1917, the walkway between the upper levels of the two buildings was taken down and it became a separate residence. At one time there were retail stores on the ground floor of the building.

Thomas Fogg lost most of his money through bad investments and part of the building was bought by John L. Gordon for a car repair service center. The business was sold to Goodison Threshing Mills and later became a Pontiac Buick franchise. Herb Thompson was an accountant there.

The garage was the site for repairing cars and also had a towing surface. In 1950, after the Great fire in Sunderland, the Gordons sold the Township of Brock a new GMC fire truck which still remains in mint condition in the fire hall just up Church Street North. Tom Longboat, the famous long-distance runner from the Six Nations Reserve, while at the Nipissing Hotel, he bet a man with a horse and buggy that he could outrun them. He easily beat the horse and driver back to the hotel. After 1930, Fred Wakelin opened a tailor shop in the part of the old Nipissing Hotel and made suit there for over 20 years before the Old Fields opened their bakery at the stop for variety to the east they were in the Nipissing Hotel.

In 1955 Gordon sold City Service Gas. Later, from 1952 to 1967, Stan Will and his wife Myrtle Snowden had a Tip Top tailor store here and they sold dry goods, clothing and chinaware. After that there was a florist shop. Carl Umphrey had a barber shop on the Corner and in 1967 the garage was sold to Charles Thompson and converted to a residence. Currently the Nipissing Hotel building has a laundromat at the east end and several rental apartments throughout the complex.

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The Old Drug Store – 108 River St

To the east of Stop four was the Rexall Drugstore run by James A. Anderson, who was a pharmacist in Sunderland from 1918 until his sudden death in 1948 while at a local baseball game. Saturday was the busiest day for the store, and he often was open till midnight. James Anderson had been a part of the medical Corps in the 182nd Infantry Battalion in World War I. Prior to the war a map in 1910 shows that the building was a barber in a tailor shop run by Arthur Brether.

Before the war, Jimmy Anderson had purchased the Harry Baldwin drugstore that was in the McDermott Block on River street and later moved to this location when he returned from overseas. Many of the old medicines and bottles from this store are located in the Sunderland Museum on Church Street. He sold perfumes, toilet articles, Kodak film, Nielsen chocolates and Niles family remedies.

Jack Anderson, his son, took over the operation of the drugstore after his father died and Cliff Miller was the pharmacist. Later Bud Green ran the store around 1959 and after this the business closed. Mike Sheridan started the Sunderland Pharmacy in the building directly to the east of the original drugstore.

When Mike Sheridan began the pharmacy next door in 1973, Mike the community had been without a pharmacist for 10 years. George Tassey could up to that point give out counter items but could not fill any prescribed medicines. In March 2009, the original old drugstore was torn down. This is now a parking lot.

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