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162 Year Old Abandoned Farmhouse in Ontario Canada

Abandoned 162 Year Old Farmhouse in Ontario Canada

This now abandoned farmhouse dates back to the 1860’s when this huge brick home would have been one of the only structures for miles.

Now, the land is surrounded by homes and communities.

This home will soon be relocated and surrounded by sprawl and is one of the only areas for miles that has not yes been developed.

There are a few homes on this huge plot of once was once a vast farm, two of these smaller homes are likely to be demolished in the coming years.

There is a major development planned here and thankfully this main home will be moved and incorporated somehow into the plans, whether as a mixed use residential or otherwise.

Farming on this land dates back to the early 1800’s when the 1st owner was granted the land, he then gifted it to his daughter in 1826 and she then sold it in 1828.
 
The man who bought the land in 1828 then sold it to the man who’s name the property bears.
 
He used the land for milling and a nearby river for transporting of trees from the property to be used in ship building.
 
In 1860 he built this home to live in with his wife and daughter, servants and workers.
 
The man passed away suddenly in 1878, his daughter and her husband maintained the property until they sold it in 1888.
 
Between 1888 and 1949, the land was bought and sold several times until finally it was purchased in 1949 by a WW1 veteran and farmer, his name is also on the property title.
 
This family lived on, owned and operated the farm until 2018.
 
Now, the entire lot is owned by a property development company who plans to build a sprawling community of homes on the old farm, with this home (the original footprint minus any add-ons) being moved, preserved and incorporated into the final layout.

As often as this happens to me, I am always amazed that with almost 15,000,000 people living in the province of Ontario, someone who is connected to the properties I explore almost always seem to see my content.

It’s not always a bad thing however, such was the case yesterday.

It started with a comment on Reddit

“Oh this is a little heartbreaking.

I grew up in this house….”

Then, I received a message from this person:

“Hi there,

I was wondering if you had a full album. I used to live at ADDRESS REDACTED in the big house.

It was a pretty huge part of my childhood and I never went back once the developers bought the property”

We started chatting and I learned that the family who owned the property allowed this person’s family to live in the big brick house, completely free for 17 years.

The two families were friends and this person’s mother taught the owner’s daughter in school.

He went on to tell me:

“You should’ve seen it in its heyday. In the corner next to a tv was a massive grand piano. It was all beautifully done.”

He sent me a photo of him and his siblings at Christmas time to which I replied

“Oh wow, I can only imagine what Christmas was like in there”

He replied

“It was amazing! Truly my idea of what Christmas is was built in that place haha”

He said that eventually the owners “just said that they needed the house back for their son to work with them. Kind of hard to say no to someone who let you live in a mansion for 17 years for free haha.”

He added

“I remember when we left, we came back about a year later just to see how things were.

That back bathtub almost fell through the floor. Had we stayed longer, one of us would probably have gone through as well haha”

This was a great conversation and this person seemed to really enjoy the photos as well as the video tour, he said the couch and chair that I sit on in the video belonged to his dad, he noted that I was bang on in my assumptions of what each room was and that they did in-fact produce maple syrup on location for several years.

This final photo in this set was how the exterior of the home looked when he lived there!




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