Cruising Ontario: Cheltenham and Terra Cotta Ontario in Colour Photos : Saving Our History One Photo at a Time (Series #235) (Paperback)

Cheltenham - In 1816 Charles and Martha Haines and three children left England for New York; the following year they arrived in York Upper Canada where Charles a millwright built mills. In 1819 the Chinguacousy Township survey was completed and Haines purchased 100 acres along the Credit River with a mill site west of Creditview Road. The Haines family settled in what he named Cheltenham after his birthplace. It is located north-west of Brampton.In 1827 he built a grist mill dammed the river and chiseled mill stones. In 1842 Frederick Haines the second son built Cheltenham s first store. In 1845 the first tavern was built and run by C. Spence. In 1847 to meet demand Haines built a larger mill with three runs of stone and he constructed a saw mill on the south side of the river. In 1848 William Henry built an Inn. In 1850 the first blacksmith shop was built. In 1852 Cheltenham post office opened with William Allan as first postmaster. By 1853 Cheltenham had three hotels. In the 1860s the commercial core expanded with the addition of four shoe stores a saddlery and two cabinet makers. In 1874 the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway arrived north of the village (later became CNR). In 1877 the Credit Valley Railway arrived about one kilometer east of the village accessed by Station Road. In the 1870s Kee s steam tannery was started and two distilleries produced Cheltenham Wheat Whisky . In 1887 fire destroyed a major block of buildings; rebuilding began. In 1914 Interprovincial Brick Company opened a plant just west of the village center.In 1822 Joseph Kenny was awarded a Crown Grant in Chinguacousy Township of 100 acres along the Credit River on which much of Terra Cotta now sits. It is located south of Cheltenham. In 1857 Henry Tucker purchased 40 acres from Kenny to build grist and saw mills powered by a dam and mill race on the Credit River. Simon Plewes bought the mills in 1859 and the hamlet became known as Plewes Mills.By the time a church the Wesleyan Methodist Church was built in 1862 the village had been renamed Salmonville for the annual spawning frenzy. A post office opened in 1866 and by 1874 there were thirty-four surveyed lots in the hamlet on the banks of the Credit River.This early community spread westwards and straddled the boundary of Chinguacousy and Esquesing townships. This divided the village schoolchildren their two schoolhouses being in opposite directions. By 1873 the village had acquired telegraph facilities two sawmills and a grist mill and in 1877 the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway arrived stimulating local industry and farm exports.Industry began with brickworks exploiting the local red clay and by 1891 the post office was renamed Terra Cotta. In the 1930s the brickworks became victims of the Depression and only a kiln chimney remains. Quarries east of Terra Cotta were established in the 1840s and the arrival of the railway broadened their market reach allowing local sandstone to be used as far away as Ottawa in the Parliament Buildings. In the 1940s community enterprise expanded into recreation. The river s abundant water resources were used to develop Clancy s Ranch as a weekend resort expanded in 1949 into Terra Cotta Playground and purchased in 1958 by Credit Valley Conservation