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THEN AND NOW: Couple willed Clapperton home to the church

Archdeacon Allan Reid and his family moved from vicarage on Collier Street to become first occupants of ‘new’ rectory

This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old photos from the collection and one from the present day, as well as the story behind them.

The Rectory  83 Clapperton St.

The early explorers and colonizers of Simcoe County may have been first on the scene, but they were soon followed by Christian missionaries.

About 1833, the first travelling Anglican missionary made his way around the settlements scattered across Upper Canada. The Rev. Adam Elliott came by canoe, horseback and on foot, performing services, marriages and baptisms until 1835.

In these rugged times, we can assume these ministers took shelter where they could, sometimes in a settler’s cabin (the pioneer version of couch-surfing?), holding gatherings in these primitive homes or crude barns.

In 1834, the Rev. T.H.M. Bartlett became the first rector of Shanty Bay in addition to holding services in private homes in Barrie. In 1835, he presided at the first service in the new Trinity Church in Barrie, located on Berczy Street near courthouse hill.

Rev. Bartlett was not happy with his living circumstances and was reassigned to York (Toronto) in 1842. Interesting sidebar: Toronto did not become a diocese until 1839, four years after Trinity! An Irishman, Rev. Samuel Ardagh replaced Bartlett as rector of Shanty Bay and first rector of the mission in Barrie, Trinity.

The parsonage that Bartlett had built was a log cabin with three small rooms. The home was not nearly big enough for the Ardagh clan, so the new reverend enlarged the log cabin, mostly at his own expense.

Even though he was the rector of Barrie, he continued to live in Shanty Bay. Rev. Ardagh repeatedly declined invitations to move to Barrie unless he was provided with a rectory.

In 1851, a rectory and school was built on Glebe land in the heart of the village of Barrie — approximately where the old hydro building was at the corner of Bayfield and Simcoe streets. But Ardagh never lived in this building. Rev. Nugent, assistant to the rector of Barrie, lived in the Marks Street (now Simcoe Street) rectory.

On Sundays, the schoolhouse was used for Sunday School, and, on slippery winter days when it was difficult for folks to make it up the hill to the Berczy Street church, services were held right there in the school.

In 1864, the new Trinity Church was opened on Collier Street and the property on Marks Street sold in 1870, when a new school, designed by Sherman Bird, was built. The school was later used as the parish hall until it was demolished in 1957. The Marks Street rectory and school burned in the fire of 1871 that wiped out the Glebe Block.

Rev. W.F. Checkley, headmaster at the grammar school, filled in temporarily as rector of Trinity between Rev. Nugent and his successor Canon Morgan, but did not require housing of the church. His accommodations were on Blake Street, a large comfortable home close to the school, so in addition to his volunteered services, he was not a financial burden on the church in the way of a requiring a dwelling.

A well-known home to Trinity’s clergy in more recent times, was the vicarage at 130 Collier St. It was purchased in 1921 and remained the church’s property until 1960, following a ‘miraculous’ event.

In 1959, Thomas and Hannah Dowler, willed their home at 83 Clapperton St. to Trinity Anglican Church. Archdeacon Allan Reid and his family moved from the vicarage on Collier Street to become the first occupants of the ‘new’ rectory. The interesting home on Clapperton Street sits on land that was originally part of Ardtrea, the enormous estate built by Thomas D. McConkey.

Like other Wellington Street ridge mansions, the McConkey property had once extended down towards the bay, but was severed off into lots over time.

But who were the people who made this incredible gift to the church?

Thomas Dowler, a teacher, had been born in Birmingham, England in 1856. Hannah Hamilton, a nurse from Toronto, was born in 1864. The couple married late in life: in 1921, Thomas, 65, a bachelor, wed the widow Hamilton, 57, in Muskoka, where they lived until moving to Barrie. Thomas passed away at the respectable age of 95, and following Hannah’s death in 1958, their generous bequest to the church was made.

The rectory on Clapperton Street was sold in later years and is now part of a multi-unit complex.