F.W. Haultain, the son of Major General Francis Haultain, was born at Brussels, Belgium, November 7, 1821, and was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, England. He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, March 19, 1839, and after serving many years in Canada, retired as Lieutenant-Colonel in May 1860. He then settled at Peterborough, Upper Canada, in September 1860, and almost immediately became involved in political life. He won the general election of 1861, defeating W.S. Conger by some thirty votes. In 1863, he stood aside while Conger was acclaimed to the seat, but, upon Conger's death in 1864, re-entered the fray to defeat Charles Perry by one hundred and six votes in a rather warm campaign. Haultain died in 1882.
Reverend C.W. Hedley was a minister who was serving in Peterborough, Ontario in 1895 and 1896. Some of his time as minister was served at the Otonabee mission.
Professor Brian Heeney, born 1933, was the Academic Vice-President and Provost of Trent University. He came to Trent in 1971 to become the Master of Champlain College and a member of the History Department. He later became the director of the Bata Library and was appointed Academic Vice-President and Provost September 1, 1981. Heeney was educated at the University of Toronto, the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge Massachusetts, and Oxford University. He was the assistant curate at All Saints' Cathedral in Edmonton from 1957 to 1959 and was the Anglican chaplain and a member of the History Department at the University of Alberta before coming to Trent University in 1971. Throughout his career Heeney's interest lay in the study of the religious and social history of Victorian England. He was the author of several books including "Mission to the Middle Classes", and "A Different Kind of Gentleman: Parish Clergy as Professional Men in Early and Mid-Victorian England." Professor Brian Heeney died September 17, 1983. (Taken from: "Trent Fortnightly" Vol. 14, No. 3, 1983.)
Margaret Ash Heideman received her Master's Degree from the University of Toronto. She was married to Alan H. Heideman. Margaret was an active member in the University Women's Club and arranged events with such people as contralto Maureen Forester. Other visits to Peterborough were arranged with Betty Jean Hagen and Hilda Neatby. Margaret wrote book reviews for the Peterborough Examiner under the editorship of Robertson Davies.
Geta Helme, an English teenage girl from Lancashire, found herself in Germany studying music and the German language when England declared war on Germany in 1914. She was one of three children of Lillian (Young) and Robert Helme, a prosperous linoleum manufacturer in Lancashire. Helme was also the granddaughter of Egerton R. Young of Canada.
Gavin Henderson was born in 1911 and raised in England. In his early twenties he visited Canada with a friend. In 1934 Henderson emigrated to Canada and worked in the Eaton's art gallery in Toronto. He attended monthly meetings of the Toronto Anglers and Hunters Association.
Eventually Gavin came to know Frank Kortright and when a conservation council was established Kortright offered Gavin the position of secretary in 1952. Working in the council enriched Gavin's circle of acquaintances in the conservation and preservation fields. As editor of the Council's Bulletin he read everything he could that pertained to conservation and preservation. Throughout all of this he pushed the concern of conservation to the masses. He wrote articles in the Ontario Naturalist, gave lectures and briefs to government agencies, speeches and seminars to espouse his cause. He left the Conservation Council in 1965.
Henderson was appointed a member on a standing committee advisory to the Minister of Lands and Forests 1959-1970. He was also director of the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada. (Taken from: Wareki, George Michael. "Protecting Ontario's Wilderness: A History of Wilderness Conservation in Ontario, 1927-1973." Doctoral Thesis, McMaster University, 1989.) He founded the National and Provincial Parks Association of Canada and was the first executive director from 1964 to 1974. He has sat on a number of committees and associations involved in the conservation and preservation of Canada's natural resources. In 1985, he received Parks Canada's National Heritage Award. In 1989 he received the J.B. Harkin Medal from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. His leadership helped save Quetico Park from large scale commercial lumbering and prevented massive resort development at Lake Louise. He helped to establish ten new national parks, two of which, the Nahanni and Kluane, were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites. For this service to Canada Gavin Henderson was recognized and on October 27, 1993 he was invested into the Order of Canada.
Dorothy Choate Herriman was born in September of 1901 at Lindsay, Ontario, the daughter of William Choate Herriman (Medical Director of the Ontario Hospital, Orillia) and Nellie J. Williams (daughter of Lewis Williams of Johnstown, Pennsylvania). Her family is related to the Choates who were early pioneer settlers in the area. She spent her childhood in Kingston, Toronto and Orillia. She was educated at the Model School in Toronto, Orillia Central School, Orillia Collegiate Institute, Havergal College in Toronto and the Ontario College of Art. She served, for a time, as secretary to the Canadian Author's Association.
She was a poet and published a volume of poetry entitled Mater Silva in 1929 by McClelland and Stewart. She had numerous other poems published in newspapers and literary journals in Canada and England. Dorothy died in 1978.
Bruce Hodgins was born in 1931. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Western Ontario; his Master's degree from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and his Doctoral degree from Duke University in North Carolina. Before he became a professor at Trent University he was a history professor for 3 years at the University of Western Ontario. He taught at Prince of Wales College at Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. While he was in Charlottetown he met Carol, his future wife. By 1963 they had two sons. In 1965 he joined the faculty of Trent University and he taught Canadian Politics. From January to June of 1979 he was an Acting College Head. From 1980 to 1984 he was the Department and Program Head of History and from 1986 to 1992, and 1995, he was Director of the Leslie M. Frost Centre. Bruce's parents established the Wanapitei Wilderness Camp on Temagami. He became the camp's director in 1971 and played a major role in running and developing it. Bruce is an active member in a canoeing organization in Peterborough that also includes other members of the Trent and Wanapitei communities.
Stanley Hodgins was born in 1900 in Manitoba. He was raised in Stratford, Ontario and when he was old enough started to teach school near Kitchener, Ontario. Later he became a public school principal. He met Laura Belle Turel and they were married in 1926. Just before their marriage Laura Belle had graduated as a registered nurse from Hamilton General Hospital. They honeymooned on a canoe trip in Algonquin Park. Eventually they would take their two sons, Larry and Bruce on canoe trips. In 1943 Stanley became camp director at Camp Wabanaki near Honey Harbour in Georgian Bay. In 1956 they purchased Camp Wanapitei Limited, from Ed Archibald. In the purchase they acquired a chateau, a number of buildings, tent floors, an ice house, dining hall and canoes. The Camp opened under the directorship of the Hodgins. It was co-ed with boys and girls as well as men and women forming a group that would be community based and informal and relaxed. The ideals and beliefs of the Hodgins, which were part of Camp Wabanaki where the Hodgins were previous to Wanapitei, were brought in Wanapitei. A youth camp was offered as well as a spring season. Canoe tripping played a major role in the life of Camp Wanapitei. Eventually they expanded their canoe tripping to four week trips that took campers to Moosonee and Ottawa. As well there were numerous regattas every summer. In 1971 a cooperative company, called Camp Wanapitei Co-ed Camps Ltd., purchased the youth camp from Laura Belle and Stanley Hodgins. The Hodgins kept the Chateau and continued to operate it. The president, and camp director, of the new private Camp Wanapitei was Bruce Hodgins. In 1973 an adult tripping program was offered and organized by Bruce and Carol Hodgins. The youth camp offered woodcraft, swim instruction, sailing, crafts, canoe re-canvassing, square dances and special activities for the younger crowd. By this point in time the canoe tripping encompassed rivers and lakes in Northwestern Quebec and Northeastern Ontario. Trips were still going to the James and Hudson's Bay. The camp had also led trips down the Nahanni and Coppermine in the Northwest Territories and trips into Manitoba, British Columbia and New Brunswick. In 1989 Laura Belle Hodgins (nee Turel) died. In 1990 legal ownership of the Chateau was transferred to Bruce and Carol Hodgins and the Chateau property was transferred to Larry and Bruce Hodgins. Stanley Hodgins died in 1993. The dreams and ideals instilled, at Camp Wanapitei, under the Hodgins directorship continued with the younger Hodgins. The Canadian Studies program of Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, took trips to Wanapitei every September. In 1991 the Chateau received an official Heritage Building Designation. The trips and camping continue on into 1996 and the future.
Owen Hoey was a farmer who resided on the south half of Lot 16, Concession 3, Seymour Township from 1853, until his death in 1877.
Katharine Hooke (nee Grier) was born in 1932. She married Harry G. Hooke (1930-2013) in 1954 and they had two children. The family moved to Peterborough, Ontario in 1961 and spent summer vacations at nearby Stoney Lake. Harry (Hal) Hooke became director of part-time students at Trent University. Katharine Hooke served on the board of trustees of the Canadian Canoe Museum and has received Civic Awards for her volunteer work in Peterborough. She is a researcher and writer of local history and is the author of a number of publications: St. Peter’s on-the-Rock, Stony Lake, Ontario: seventy-five years of service (1989); From campsite to cottage: early Stoney Lake (1992); From Burleigh to Boschink: a community called Stony Lake (co-written with Christie Bentham, 2000); The Peterborough Club chronicle (compiled by Niklas Rishor, Danielle Allen, edited by Katharine Hooke, 2009). Hooke is the niece of the late explorer, George Mellis Douglas (1875-1963) of Northcote Farm, Lakefield, Ontario.
Sir William Pearce Howland was born at Paulings in New York State of the United States of America on May 29, 1811, the second son of Johnathan Howland and Lydia Pearce. He was educated at the Kinderhook Academy; and in 1830 he came to Upper Canada. He first settled at Cookstown, near York (Toronto), where he went into business with his brother. In 1840 he purchased the Lambton mills in York County; and shortly afterwards he established a wholesale grocery business in Toronto. Though he was sympathetic to the Reform movement, he refused to implicate himself with the Rebellion of 1837. In 1841 Howland became a naturalized Canadian.
In 1857 he was elected as a Reformer to represent West York in the Legislative Assembly of Canada; and he continued to represent the constituency, first in the Assembly, and then in the House of Commons until 1868. From 1862 to 1863 he was Minister of Finance in the S. Macdonald-Sicotte Government and in 1863/64 he was Receiver-General in the S. Macdonald-Dorion Government. In November 1864, he entered the Great Coalition with the portfolio of Postmaster-General. When George Brown retired from the cabinet in 1865, Howland, with William McDougall declined to follow him. In 1866 Howland's portfolio was changed to finance. In 1867 he was appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in the first cabinet of the Dominion of Canada. The following year, Howland retired from office to accept the Lieutenant-Governorship of Ontario, a position in which he remained until 1873. He then retired from public life. He continued in business until 1894, and he died at Toronto on January 1, 1907.
Sir Samuel Hughes was born January 8, 1853 at Solina near Bowmanville, Canada West. He was educated at the Toronto Model and Normal School and also attend the University of Toronto. He received honour certificates in English, French, German and History. While he was still in his teens he took part in the second Fenian Raid and from this battle he received a medal. He had 3 brothers and 7 sisters. His father and one brother were school teachers and with their encouragement he became a teacher in Belleville, Lifford and Bowmanville. He also taught at the Old King's Grammar School in Toronto as English and History Master from 1875 to 1885. He was the author of a school geography and a County and Railway Map of Ontario. In 1872 he married his first wife, Caroline J. Preston, at Lifford, Ontario. She died a year later. In 1875 Sam married again. He married Mary E. Burk, daughter of Harvey W. Burk who was liberal M.P. of West Durham, Ontario. Samuel started the Millbrook lacrosse team. Throughout this time he participated in the militia and politics in which he had a long career. At age 32 he moved his family to Lindsay where he had bought the newspaper The Victoria Warder. He was publisher from 1885 to 1897. He was a Member of Parliament for Victoria North in 1892 and in 1899 went to the Boer War in South Africa from which he was dismissed for military indiscipline. In 1911 he won the militia portfolio of the Borden government. He foresaw the World War I and he helped Canada prepare for it by building armouries across Canada. He stepped up the training program for the Canadian Militia and he was able to place in the field four divisions, complete with artillery, and all details. In August 1915 he was knighted by King George V. After the Ross Rifle fiasco he was forced to leave the Borden government in 1919. He stayed in politics for the Victoria/Haliburton Region until his death on October 24, 1921 in Lindsay, Ontario.
Robert Lloyd Hunter was born August 19, 1914 to Cecil Hunter and Josephine Sipprel. He went to Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario. He received a Bachelor of Commerce and Law Certificate from the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall. From 1939 to 1942 he served as Lieutenant of the 7th Toronto Reserve Regiment and from 1942 to 1945 he served as Captain with the 26th Field Regiment. In 1944 he married Hope Hazen Mackay and they had three daughters. In 1947 he was called to the Bar in Ontario and from 1947 to 1950 he served as a solicitor with the firm of Fraser & Beatty in Toronto. Subsequently, he was Vice-President and Director of Pitfield, Mackay, Ross investment dealers. He was an avid collector of Canadiana (Taken from: Who's Who in Canada. Volume 73). Robert Hunter died in 1986.
John Huston was born in Ireland in 1790. He married Martha Middleton (1787-1867), also of Ireland, and they came to Upper Canada by way of New York. Together they had four children: Mary Anne, Jane, Eliza, and Joseph. On 28 October 1820, Huston was authorized by the government to assist in surveying the Peterborough area. He also worked closely with Peter Robinson in settling the Irish immigrants into Emily Township in 1825. As well as being a highly respected surveyor, Huston was a Captain in the Durham Volunteer Militia, and a Justice of the Peace. He died in Cavan on 18 May 1845 at the age of 55.
John Hutchison was born in 1797 in Scotland. He was the cousin of Arthur Fleming, who was father of Sir Sandford Fleming. He studied medicine at Glasgow University Medical Faculty in 1815 and came to Port Hope, Upper Canada in late 1818 by way of New York. Hutchison was granted land in Monaghan Township. He remained there until the late 1820's when he settled in Cobourg.
By 1830, Dr. Hutchison had moved into Peterborough. To prevent the doctor from leaving the city, the citizens of Peterborough built him a large stone house (north side of Brock Street, West of Bethune Street). In 1847, while treating a group of immigrants with typhus fever, Dr Hutchison succumbed to the disease, and passed away in July of the same year.
Ross Irwin was born in the Village of Cambray, Victoria County, in 1921. In 1929 his family moved to the Village of Oakwood in the Township of Mariposa. He joined the Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in 1942 and served in Italy and Northwest Europe. Following his discharge in 1946 he worked in Peterborough for a short time and then enrolled in the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph in 1947. Upon graduation he received an appointment to the faculty of the College. Later he became a professor in the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph. Ross married Doreen Webster of Oakwood in 1949 and they have two children. (Taken from: Mariposa: The Banner Township. Lindsay, Ontario: Ross Irwin Enterprises, 1984.)
William H. Ives was a builder and a contractor in Colborne, Ontario, at the end of the nineteenth century.
Elgie Ellingham Miller Joblin was born April 6, 1909 in Toronto to Flora Gertrude Elgie, of Toronto, and Frederick George Joblin, of the Isle of Wight in England. Elgie married Helen Majorie Smith of Rawdon Township on October 21, 1936. He studied at Victoria College, Emmanuel College and the University of Toronto. His M.A. thesis was entitled, "The Education of the Indians of Western Ontario". He was ordained as a United Church minister in 1936. He served the Aboriginal Peoples of Ontario as a student and minister in South Caradoc from 1936 to 1944. He taught and supervised the residential school at Muncey, Ontario from 1946 to 1957. He was the Assistant and later the Associate Secretary for Home Missions from 1957 to 1971. He served at Coboconk, Ontario, until his retirement from the ministry. He died in 1993.
Emily Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake--double wampum) was born in 1861 on the Six Nations Indian Reservation near Brantford, Canada West, to a Mohawk Chief, G.H.M. Johnson (Chief Owanonsyshon--the Man with the Big House) and Emily S. Howells. She had one sister, Evelyn Helen C. and two brothers; Henry B. and Allan W. The family belonged to the Church of England. Pauline contributed constantly to a number of periodicals such as Toronto's Saturday Night, Harper's Weekly, the New York Independent and other magazines. She was a poet who wrote about Indigenous ways of life as she knew it from her own background. (Taken from: 89-013, Box 1) She wrote about a number of Canadian themes and between 1892 and 1910 she gave a number of speaking tours across the country. She spoke at small communities where she read her poetry. Her first collection of poems was called White Wampum and it was published in 1895. She then published Canadian Born in 1903, Flint and Feather in 1912, a volume of tales called Legends of Vancouver in 1911 and a novel titled The Shagganappi in 1913. Emily Pauline Johnson died March 7, 1913 in Vancouver. (Taken from: The Canadian Encyclopedia. Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1985.)
Julie Johnston, née Dulmage, is an internationally known author of children’s novels, plays, and short stories. Born in 1941, Johnston was raised in Smith Falls, Ontario. She then moved to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto where she received her degree in Occupational Therapy in 1963. She married her high school sweetheart, Dr. Basil Johnston, in the same year. After a few years of working in hospitals in Perth and Kingston, followed by adventures in Europe, they eventually settled in Peterborough, Ontario in 1970. At this time, Johnston stepped away from her career as an occupational therapist to raise their four daughters, Leslie, Lauren, Melissa, and Andrea.
Her love of writing began at a young age, writing school plays and short stories that lead to neighbourhood productions for her daughters and their friends. Johnston eventually began taking classes at Trent University in 1975 and graduated with a degree in English in 1984.
Encouraged to pursue a writing career, Johnston began submitting short stories to writing competitions in Canada. In 1979 her first submission was a play titled “Frost” that won first prize in the Ottawa Little Theatre’s annual Canadian Playwriting Competition, sparking her pursuit of a career in writing. The next two decades were full of positive experiences and many challenges. Johnston was signed to Stoddart Publishing and published her first novel “Hero of Lesser Causes," which won a Governor General’s award for Children’s Literature in 1992. Her next novel, "Adam, Eve and Pinch-Me," was published in 1994 and also won the Governor General’s Children’s Literature award. Stoddart Publishing eventually dissolved, and Johnston published five more books with Key Porter Publishing. These books were titled, "The Only Outcast," "Love You Like a Sister," "In Spite of Killer Bees," "Susanna’s Quill," and "Accidental Lives."
In addition to two Governor General’s awards, Johnston has many other accolades that she earned during her career. She was awarded an Honourary Degree of Letters from Trent University in 1996. She also won Mr. Christie’s Book Award and the Violet Downey Book Award for "Hero of Lesser Causes" in 1993. Johnston also served on review committees and gave numerous workshops and speeches, including the Margaret Laurence Lecture at Trent University in 1997.
Richard Johnston was born August 8, 1946 in Pembroke, Ontario. He was raised near Peterborough, Ontario and educated at Trent University, where he worked as an administrator and counsellor after earning his Bachelor of Arts in History and English. He later became a community worker and administrator, specializing in the problems of the elderly. He also worked as an organizer for former NDP leader Stephen Lewis, and ran for the party leadership in 1982, finishing second to Bob Rae. He served as chair of the NDP caucus, and chair of the Legislature's Social Development Committee. He also participated in select committees on the constitution, health care and education. He represented Scarborough West from 1979 to 1990, serving his last three years as the New Democratic Party's critic on education; colleges, universities and skills development; and women's issues. He was also the party's spokesperson for the disabled, and was responsible for issues affecting Metro Toronto. During his six years as Community and Social Services critic, Richard fought both inside and outside the legislature on behalf of the poor. In 1982, he publicly highlighted the plight of the poor by going on a one-month "welfare diet," living on the report called "The Other Ontario", which exposed the extent of the province's hidden poverty. In early 1987 he and his colleagues presented their report to an independent social assistance review committee. The report, called "Toward a New Ontario", recommended an overhaul of the existing social assistance system and a series of other policy changes to bring a new independence to Ontario's disadvantaged. He was a strong advocate of disarmament and in 1986 was able to move the Ontario legislature to declare Ontario nuclear-weapons-free. Also in 1986, Richard travelled to Nicaragua where he helped build a school and medical facility. From 1991 to 1995 Richard was chair of the Ontario Council of Regents. In 1996 he became a member of Trent University's Board of Directors and in 1998 became President of Centennial College in Scarborough, Ontario.