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Escarpment Magazine Fall 2012
FEATURE
|
“
a drear y waste” - a brief histor y of collingwood
a brief history of collingwood
Over time
,
the
area came to be
known simply as
C o l l i n g w o o d ,
named in honour of
Admiral Lord Cuth-
bert Collingwood,
Admiral Lord Nel-
son’s second-in-com-
mand at Trafalgar.
Why the town was
so named is a bit of
a mystery—there’s no
connection between
Collingwood and its
namesake, nor are
there any historical
notes that relate to
the naming.
Long before the town ever existed, the area was populated by the Petun
nation. The indigenous tribe was pushed out by the Iroquois in the 17th
century, and about a hundred years after that, colonial descendents
moved in. The site for the town was selected by railway officials who
were looking for a good stop to establish a terminus on Georgian Bay
for the Ontario Simcoe and Huron Railway line out of Toronto. The site
was chosen in 1851 and the railroad completed in 1855. Shortly there-
after, Collingwood came into its own. With the railroad came industry,
and Collingwood transformed into a thriving port.
The change didn’t happen overnight: the town was founded on a
swamp, was once described as a “dreary waste along the bay,” and
in the 1870s through to the 1890s, pigs and cows wandered freely in
the streets. Moreover, Collingwood’s port economy was supported, in
part, by its many taverns and saloons. Collingwood had a reputation
for being a hard drinking town. In fact, nearly half the businesses in town
were drinking establishments and history is full of anecdotes that speak
to the town’s collective alcoholism.
In 1856, part of the crew of Malta, a schooner docked at Collingwood,
was taken into custody for drunkenness.
When their crew-
mates arrived at
the jail armed
and ready to
fight, the police
had no choice
but to free their
prisoners,
lest
they risk a full-
scale riot. In
1871,
drinking
had become such
a problem, the
Grand Trunk Rail-
way asked all sa-
loon keepers not
to serve alcohol
to railway em-
ployees due to
the unusually high number of alcohol-related injuries and accidents
along the line. In August 2011, CollingwoodWhiskey was launched at
the local LCBO. The whiskey, which is enjoying good reviews and pop-
ularity throughout Ontario, serves as a kind of tribute to Collingwood’s
hard drinking history.
Things calmed down a bit toward the end of the 19
th
century; Colling-
wood had become an important shipping link between the Upper
Great Lakes and theMidwestern United States. It wasn’t just freight that
passed through town, people, too, were coming and going from
Collingwood. The town served as a waystation for emigration to the
US and western Canada. In fact, there was so much traffic between
Collingwood and American ports, the town had a US consulate.
Although passenger traffic was important to the town, shipping and
shipbuilding were Collingwood’s primary industries for most of its his-
tory. In the beginning, shipbuilding was limited to wooden skiffs and
launches, and over time the industry grew and prospered until finally
corporate shipbuilding was established with the completion of the
Queen’s Dry Docks in 1886. The Dry Docks evolved into the Colling-
wood Shipbuilding Company which soon gained a reputation for qual-
ity and innovation.
*
BY C. RACHEL KATZ
A DREARY WASTE
The town of Collingwood, was officially named and incorporated on
January 1
st
, 1858,
predating Confederation by nine years. The town ex-
isted before then, of course, and was originally known as Hen and Chick-
ens Harbour. The name refers to a small group of islands just offshore.
Hen and Chickens Harbour
went by other names as well,
notably Blue Mountain Country
and Collingwood Harbour.
photo| Walter Lewis | Maritime History of the Great Lakes