Verulam Town Hall, Bobcaygeon

For the first generation after large scale European immigration began to the area, in communities like Bobcaygeon, Rokeby (as the village north of the river was then called) and Verulam Township, many of the public institutions were very rudimentary. They were typically run out of private homes or businesses. These settlements of just a few immigrants lacked the resources to have it any other way. By the late nineteenth century, the region was growing in population and prosperity, and constructing beautiful public buildings became a priority. Often town halls and post offices were conspicuous buildings—the effort that went into making the Victorian buildings beautiful often superseded the projects in any generation since.

Verulam Township was created by John Huston’s survey in 1823. British immigrants began taking up the newly created farm lots in the 1830s. The largest local business was Mossom Boyd’s sawmill, and by the 1870s, it had grown to become one of the largest and most famous enterprises on the Trent Watershed. As the countryside filled in with family farms, Verulam Township could afford to erect a beautiful town hall in 1874, at a cost of $1,200. The Reeve at the time was Charles Fairbairn, an ambitious farmer who would go on to serve as Warden of the County and Member of Parliament. Two years after the hall was built, Bobcaygeon incorporated as its own separate municipality.

The Verulam Town Hall was a public symbol of prosperity in an era when most people valourized ‘progress.’ By the mid twentieth century, though the community had continued to grow, and enjoyed many conveniences that would have been unheard-of in the 1870s, there was no longer the same value placed on having the town hall serve as a symbol of the community. It was repurposed as a firehall, requiring three large doorways to be cut into the brickwork. In that era, the original, double stairwell was replaced by a single set of stairs. When the building was originally built as a hall, it had a cedar shingle roof. In that era, fires often spread from one building to another, as sparks fell on the shingles, hence a ladder was attached to the roof to facilitate access should such an emergency arise.

While the building served as the Bobcaygeon fire hall, the Women’s Institute met at the back of the first floor. The WI room was used by the driver’s examiner, who came to town one day per week. In the 1950s, the hall located on the second story hosted many public performances, complete with a stage. Bobcaygeon did not have a movie theatre, so it was an important gathering place for the community. The old town hall has since been restored to resemble its original appearance, complete with the belfry, as it has once again repurposed to serve as the home of the Bobcaygeon Lions Club.