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house tour - heritage cambridge

some ladies who had volunteered for the tour had lunch at lily ruth on saturday and left behind this complimentary map and ticket. cafe13 is on the tour and the blurb gave me a little more insight into my block - known as the granite block.

Built as part of the Granite Block, between 1851 and 1862, this composite stone building more than any othr led old Galt to once being dubbed the Granite City. Brothers William and Robert Webster erected this Georgian stone building to replace an earier block that was destryed by fire. It is not only considered a fine example of pre-Confederation architecture, but also symbolizes the spirit of cooperation in the community established by six independent merchants who built it. For many years the Imperial Bank occupied the building's main corner, where Cafe 13 Bar & Grill now resides.

a picnic table?

today i had a daydream -- i was carrying a grungy white plastic patio table and a walking train of grungy white plastic patio chairs followed me, down ainslie, across the parking lot and onto the lane... two ladies had tea under an umbrella in the sun at our plastic patio table - now it's sparkling white everything is greener and gold-tinged - the ladies look into the distance, eyes squinting against the sun - the building is a backdrop in a field. a set for tea. also... there are 26 sets of windows, counting from water street east towards ainslie, which are nearly identical and match the "old galt" photo from cambridgeweb .

after the original style there are seven sets of windows of a more decorative style then five more of the old style, then...

how can i have not noticed this building before?

the first 26 window sets are held in walls of stone...a combination of a number of separate buildings, several of which have been rebuilt. a variety of commercial additions adorn the back lane - their roofs are patios for the apartment-dwellers above.

galtsite 1867

i found a map hanging in a pub in the building i am studying - in cafe13's "the galt club" (a rental room upstairs from the regular pub). here is a picture of that map, to scale (approximately), with the current area plan overlaid in red. this was pretty close to the beginning of galt. a little history:

"In 1784 the British Crown granted to the Six Nations Indians, in perpetuity, all the land along the Grand River six miles deep on each side of the river from its source to Lake Erie. The Indians, led by Joseph Brant, had the land surveyed in 1791 and divided into Indian Reserve lands as well as large tracts which they intended to sell to developers. One such developer was the Honourable William Dickson who, in 1816, came into sole possession of 90,000 acres of land along the Grand River which was later to make up North and South Dumfries Townships.

Mr. Dickson intended to divide the land into smaller lots to be sold, primarily, to Scottish settlers whom he hoped to attract to Canada. In the company of Absalom Shade, Mr. Dickson immediately toured his new lands intending to develope a town site which would serve as the focal point for his attempts to populate the countryside. They chose the site where Mill Creek flows into the Grand River and in 1816 the settlement of Shade's Mills was born. The new settlement grew slowly but by 1825, though still very small, it was the largest settlement in the area and was important enough to obtain a post office. Mr. Dickson decided that a new name was needed for the Post Office and consequently the settlement and he chose Galt in honour of the Scottish novelist and Commissioner of the Canada Company, John Galt. Settlers resisted the introduction of the new name preferring the more familiar Shade's Mills. After Mr. Galt visited Mr. Dickson in the settlement two years later, the name "Galt" received more wide spread acceptance.

In its early days Galt was an agricultural community serving the needs of the farmers in the surrounding countryside. By the late 1830's, however, the settlement began to develop an industrial base and a reputation for quality products that, in later years, earned the town the nickname "The Manchester of Canada". Galt was the largest and most important town in the area until the beginning of the 20th century when it was finally overtaken by Kitchener. The town continued its steady if unspectacular growth and reveled in its reputation as an industrial town whose products reached around the world." (http://cambridgeweb.net/historical/galt.html, april 23, 2009, 10:40 pm)

also...could this be my building?

this one definitely is (the building on the right):

(historical images from http://cambridgeweb.net/historical/oldpostcards.html)