Special Projects

The Lloydtown Cairn

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The Society's first project was a proposed Lloydtown historic cairn to be built to commemorate the founding of the village by Jesse Lloyd. A committee (Alex von Svoboda, Len Osin, Murray Sheardown, Alden Winter and Victor Marchant) was appointed to explore various aspects of the proposal and would present recommendations to the Society. Mr. Winter said he had permission to "exhume old stones from the original Lloydtown Mill site" and also from the Jesse Lloyd homestead. It was stated that there was "ample road allowance" for the cairn and "no foreseeable change in road plans."

 

Read the full story here.

Lloydtown Cemetery

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In the 1990s many concerned residents and descendants of the families represented in the Lloydtown Cemetery observed that the grave stones and overgrown vegetation needed attention and called for restoration of the venerable site. In 1998 the King Township Historical Society established a committee under the leadership of Jim Connell, a Pinkerton descendant, with the goal of raising funds to restore the monuments. With support from private donors, the King Township Council, a benefit dinner featuring Pierre Berton as speaker and a Canada Millenium Partnership grant, the restoration project was completed in September 2000.

 

Read the full story here.

The Toronto Carrying Place Trail

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Throughout 1973 and into the new year, January 1974, KTHS debated the feasibility of marking roadsides near the supposed route of the portage trail beginning at Lake Ontario and ending at the Holland River on the way to Lake Simcoe. .

 

Read the full story here.

Eversley Church

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In September, 1974, “in a setting of flickering lights produced by the many lamps and candles placed in the church windows” the Society met to hear Elizabeth Gillham talk of early Eversley history, including the tale about the anxious bride waiting outside the log school-cum-church for the missing groom. As the story goes, one of the older boys watching the embarrassing situation from the classroom stepped up and volunteered to marry the bride, who accepted the offer! “They were happy ever after.” 

 

Mrs. Gillham wrote “Early Settlements of King Township Ontario” published in 1984 by the Township of King. She also assembled photographs published privately as her “Album of Oldies.” KTHS re-published this volume in 2009. In 1848 the graceful stone church was built just north of the log building and remains today as “a monument to the fine workmanship of the artisans of those pioneer days...".

 

 KTHS had joined the YPHS in May 1974 in order to assume custodianship of Eversley Church, thus by-passing the requirement of a lease. Funds from the Eaton endowment would be used for necessary repairs; installation of heating and electricity was recommended for all season-use. One hundred and ten years later the church was formally closed but is still owned by the YPHS.

 

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