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It can be assumed that human habitation arrived in this
area shortly after the retreat of the last ice age about ten
thousand years ago. These people, named Indians by Columbus
just five hundred years ago, were nomads and had to devise
some means of transportation. The earliest would have been
by walking and carrying their belongings on their back so
the pack sack was invented. Not much has changed since then
as every school student still has a pack-sack glued to the
back.
Because the glacier had left such a network of lakes and
rivers the Indians invented the birch bark canoe. This means
of transportation was adopted by the first Europeans to
arrive in this area. There are records near here on his trip
to Iroquois country south of the lake. In 1976 the
re-enactment of the La Salle expedition was staged at
Presqu'ile Point, but very few people witnessed this event.
This was to honour the trip La Salle made three hundred
years earlier on his way to the Mississippi River by canoe.
In winter the Indians invented the toboggan pulled by
domesticated dogs. The snow-shoe was also used from early
times.
As people acquired more worldy goods larger water craft
were invented. The first United Empire Loyalists arrived
just two hundred years ago by a large scow type of boat
known as a bateau. These crafts were propelled by human
muscle with oars or by horses or oxen by long ropes at
rapids.
Oxen were used to pull primitive sleds commonly called
stone-boats. The first roads came just over two hundred
years ago when Danforth surveyed what is now known as Dundas
St. To maintain these early roads toll-gates were installed
at selected intervals. There were several of these gates in
Brighton. In 1853 the busiest gate was on Cedar St. and
there are records of the millions of board feet of lumber
that passed through in that year. In about1880 the hops and
barley boom was at the peak. Every farmer from Gosport to
Hastings had a field of barley as a cash crop to pay taxes
or his mortgage payments. There are stories that horse drawn
democrats or light wagons once stretched from Gosport to
what is now called Spring Valley Park, waiting their turn to
be unloaded. These years were the peak of the schooner days
of shipping on the Great Lakes. The schooners were built
locally by people like the first William Quick and his
famous Amanda of the American Civil War period.
The first railway came to Brighton in 1856 and the
original station now known as Memory Junction was built. The
railway gave stiff competition to the ships, even the
steamers. The last of the steamers became excursion vessels
and the records show that the Rapids Kind docked at
Presqu'ile Hotel until about 1930 when 500 passengers would
come ashore for food and entertainment. Until about
seventy-five years ago every young bachelor tried to
outclass his rivals by having the finest rubber tired buggy
and the fastest trotting horse. About 1905 the first gas
powered automobile came to Brighton thanks to James Harcla
Morrow. Today you can visit the early storage shed near
Memory Junction with the name Morrow cast into the cement
ramp. About a hundred years ago there was the bicycle craze
locally and most of the social class owned one, thanks again
to the sales by J.H.Morrow.
What is locally known as No. 2 highway was paved by
concrete in the summer of 1926. Some of the earliest
transport companies operated by using war surplus trucks of
WWI with solid rubber tires. Great strides have been made in
this industry within living memory when you view the great
machines that operate today thanks to the 401 highway.
The tour buses that pass through Brighton today are a
great improvement from the early stage coaches of the last
century. there is still visible evidence of the stage coach
days in several buildings around the town. To name some; a
building for sale on No. 2 Highway west of Wood's Cemetery
another at the corner of Huff Road, Temperance Hotel at the
corner of Ontario St., the house just east of Creekside was
once Turkiston's Tavern. The Walas Funeral Home was built by
the Thayer family about 1890 as a stage house. One story of
the stage coach era was that a Mr. Weller personally drove
the Governor General of the time from York (Toronto) to
Montreal in a record time of 36 hours non stop.
The aeroplane became a fast method of transportation and
rapidly improved during WWI period. Trenton airport was
established during the depth of the great depression of the
1930's when young men were paid 20 cents a day and board for
a ten hour work day. The late Billy Fraser is given credit
for bringing the airport to Trenton when he was a member of
the Senate. He had made his fortune in the apple industry
both from his orchards and his cooperage mills making
barrels for the overseas market.
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