27 Division Street, Colborne
(c. early 1900s)
Roll No. 1411-012-020-25800 – Cramahe Township Ontario
Italianate Vernacular
No. 27 Division Street in the village of Colborne is a mix of at least two architectural styles. It has the tall narrow roundhead sash windows on the main floor, the three pane two story bay window, offset front door and hip roof of the Italianate style. However, the footprint is more square than the classic tall and narrow Italianate and it has a roof dormer which gives it the appearance of a two and a half story, much like the American Four Square. That feature may or may not have been part of the original building.
The enclosed vestibule on the front facade, is brick based with windows that have an interesting pattern of mullions. The concrete basement points to a post 1900 build date although it is not unheard of to find a rubble basement clad in concrete.
The residence sports the ubiquitous red brick of this part of Ontario and there is a chimney on both the north and south sides, also red brick.
There is a unique two story wooden addition on the north side which resembles a bow or bay window but has only one central window and a door at ground level.
There is an intact gambrel roof barn/carriage house on the north side of the property
History or Associative Value
The Dailey brothers (Joseph Nelson and Napoleon Bonaparte) bought the lot which is now No. 27 Division Street, in 1871. In the day, it was part of the lot next door (see No. 25 Division). Farmer Austin Dudley and family acquired the property in 1878 and sold it to general store owner Alexander Peterson in 1891 when they emigrated to Puget Sound, Washington. Subsequent ownership records point to a build date in the early years of the 20th century. There is an aerial picture which corroborates that information.
Additional Historical and Genealogical Information
27 Division Street
Reid Lots 256 and 271 (now 27 and 29 Division Street) were part of the property purchased from the Merchant’s Bank by Nelson and Napoleon Dailey in 1871 (see discussion under 25 Division Street). The Daileys sold Lots 256, 271, and 272, as well as some other properties, to Alexander Dickson and Thomas Glover on 4/11/1877. Neither Dickson nor Glover appear in any Cramahe census and I am unsure of their identity. They were listed as Colborne residents in the Land Office record of their purchase of land from the Dailey brothers in 1877 and their sale of the property the next year. In those documents, Glover was listed as an accountant and Dickson simply as “esquire”. There was an Alexander Dickson (1849-1924) who lived in Hamilton Township and a Thomas Glover (1847-1910), originally from Port Hope but eventually a resident of Lanark, but I can’t tell for sure if these are the same men that owned property in Colborne.
In any case Dickson and Glover owned the property for only a little over a year, selling it on 6/22/1878 to Austin Dudley (1832-1902). Dudley was a farmer living on Lot 18, Concession 5 in 1878. He married Nancy Jane Simpson (1832-1918) in 1858 and they had four children: Anna Estella (?-1867), Charles S. (1862-1920), Llewelyn S. (1863-1920), and Thea W. (1874-1901). Dudley transferred ownership of the property to his wife on 10/15/1889 and she sold it to Alexander Fisher Peterson (1820-1891) on 11/21/1889. In 1891 the Dudleys emigrated to Puget Sound, Washington.
Alexander Peterson was a general store owner (A. F. Peterson and Son). His wife was Mary Ann Pettingill (a. 1825-?) and there were at least two children, according to censuses: Martin H. (ca. 1855-?) and Nancy J. (ca. 1856-?).
Peterson died of heart failure in 1891 and the executors of his will sold the property to Benjamin H. Coyle (1867-1933) on 5/12/1898. Coyle was an apple dealer. I have provided details of the Coyle family in a separate write-up. Benjamin Coyle transferred ownership to his wife Cora (1873-1929) on 6/3/1902.
Cora Coyle sold Lots 256 and 271 to Rupert Joseph Clark (1876-?) on 7/30/1913. I can’t find much about Rupert Clark, other than that he married Ruth Peacock (1898-?) in 1923 and was listed in the 1921 census as a manager of something I can’t quite read, but it might say “garage”.
As with the previous property, I have no evidence whether either Dailey lived on this lot. I think that Dickson and Glover just bought it (with other properties) as a speculation. The Dudleys owned the property for over 20 years. Alexander Peterson only owned it for only a couple of years before he died, but his family owned it for seven years longer. The Coyles owned it for 15 years and Clark for at least nine years; he still owned it as of our cut-off date of 1921. All of these people owned other properties in town (usually including 33 Division Street just next door), so I can’t tell who might or might not have lived there. Benjamin Coyle was a resident of Division Street in 1911, but I am pretty sure he lived in the house at 33 Division Street, not 27 (see below). Rupert Clark was listed as a resident of Division Street in 1921.
For the most part, property prices aren’t helpful with determining the age of this house because all except the last transaction also involved other properties. However, Rupert Clark bought Reid Lots 256 and 271 for only $200, which doesn’t sound like the kind of price a lot with a house on it would have gone for in 1913. This suggests to me that Clark probably built the house, which puts its construction at sometime between 1913 and 1920 when it appeared in the aerial photograph.
