Feature Article November 6, 2003
LAND O' LAKES NewsWeb HomeVanished Village Bus Tour
Its an idea worth exploring what happened to all of the small villages and hamlets that once flourished north of Highway 7? The Cloyne & District Historical Society organized a bus tour at the beginning of October that would allow people to see these places, or at least what remains of them. It was the first of what the society hopes will become a recurring tour, focusing more on places whose populations have dwindled because of economic or environmental changes, rather than ones that have actually disappeared.
The guide calls us the guinea pig tour. About 30 people (none of them under 40 besides myself - there go my hopes of meeting a cute history student) crowd onto a school bus for the journey along back roads. We pass by the spot where the Whiteware Hotel once stood. Originally built in 1864 the hotel burned down in 1963, and now theres just shrubbery left.
The tour then wanders past Myers Cave Lodge and the Twin Pines Resort and into Fernleigh. This village began as a squatters trail that was used in the 1840s up until the first settlers moved in around 1872. The name came from a discussion by a Sunday school class, whose members, upon seeing all the ferns, christened the town Fernleigh. Fleilers once operated a limekiln here, and a cheese factory was run out of the Free Methodist church. The church was never actually finished as a church, but made a passable factory.
The tour did include a stop at one non-existent village - the town of Playfair. This once-thriving hamlet was established at the same time as Plevna by Colonel Playfair. It once had accommodation for 75 horses or oxen and was a common stopping place for people passing through. By December of 1864, within three years of the villages beginning, there was a Playfair family homestead as well as a school, a sawmill and a flourmill. The flourmill closed in the late 1800s as people began taking their flour to Denbigh to be milled and the town became obsolete. All that remains now is a cemetery, not even under the Playfair name, but rather called Grindstone cemetery because of its proximity to Grindstone Lake, the closest location that people looking to visit it would be able to find on a map. Definitely one of the most interesting parts of the tour, seeing the cemetery is also a bit spooky. Out of the several markers still visible, only a few have names or dates on them and some are worn down to little more than stubs. Though the cemetery itself is large, there seem to be relatively few graves. Either the markers are gone or they were never put up in the first place, and theres a sense while exploring the graveyard that one might be walking over the resting places of many more people than the markers indicate. Of the few visible names and dates, one marker in particular gives an idea of how remote the town was, and how removed it was from any sort of hospital or medical facility. It records the births and deaths of three children, all who died within a few days or weeks of their birth.
The tour needs some fine-tuning, but it has definite potential as a historical interest attraction. It was a bit long and was held at a time of year when the cold and wind made it uncomfortable to stay outdoors, making it difficult to concentrate on history. Theres also a bit too much time between stops and a lot of time spent on the bus. However, with a bit of work, and by providing more information about the various villages, the Vanished Villages tour should turn into an excellent and very informative event.
