Two of our oldest archived photos:
Halton Volunteers preparing for Fenian Raids c.1865
Ballinafad log school c.1860
50 Years: Our Story
In 1974 the old communities of Acton, Georgetown and Esquesing Township were amalgamated by regional government into the new municipality of Halton Hills. Many of the identifiers of these communities were disappearing and worst of all, from an historical perspective, records and documents from the town halls were being thrown out. As a result the Esquesing Historical Society was established in 1975 with Weldon “Steamer” Emmerson as the first president. This fifty member society devoted much energy collecting boxes of municipal documents, telephone directories, photo and family papers dating back to the 1830’s creating an archive that is the most extensive in Halton. (The Spectator March 1987)
The following newspaper storyshows the bare shelves allocated by chief librarian Betsy Cornwall to the EHS for archive storage. This room, on the lower level of the library was formerly a fire escape stairwell. Mrs. Cornwall told EHS president, George Henderson, she hoped to hire a reference librarian to help coordinate efforts with local history collection. The archive, used by students and local researchers continues to be a joint effort between the library and historical society. (HERALD WEEKEND EXTRA, February 1982)
Map Restorations
The illustrated Tremaine map (1858) of the old Halton County was donated to the society by Mrs. Marion Young, a descendent of the McCulloughs whose farm house remains on the north side of Highway 7 at the bend into Georgetown from Acton. The restoration of the map became an important project of the 1980’s with a fund-raising total of $1500 for the project. The map remains fastened to the wall in the History Room for all to see. In recent years another map of The Township of Esquesing (1856) was donated by Rob Burnett. This map, which indicates the school sections of Esquesing Township, has also been professionally restored and mounted to the wall in the History Room. Other important contributors were Walter Biehn of the Georgetown Herald and Kay & Dave Dills of the Acton Free Press.
Independent Free Press: July 1992
Similar to Stacey Hunter’s work tenure in 1992, the society still obtains a summer student most years through the Ministry of Culture and Communications Experience program. Karen Hunter (left) who is presently the EHS secretary, continues to record and file documents and photos in the archives while Mark Rowe (right), archivist, continues to classify, digitize photos and save them to hard drives and the Cloud. The original single filing cabinet of photos has expanded to a collection of 29 000 photos of which approximately 6000 can be accessed on line.
Meetings and Activities
There have been many interesting and well received presentations from guest speakers as well as society members. Some of the largest gatherings were for Lucy Maud Montgomery in Norval, the Georgetown Runners Club, Halton Hills 50th Anniversary at the John Elliot Theatre and the history of the Avro Arrow.
Georgetown walking tour led by former councillor John McDonald in June 1975 (The Herald).
Essay Contest September 1984 (The Herald)
Field trip to the Rockwood Academy 2014
Mark Rowe leads a tour of Glen Williams cemetery in 2003 (Independent Free Press)
For decades the EHS has met on the second Wednesday of every month during the school year, usually at Knox Presbyterian Church. Several other venues were used depending on topics: Boston Church, Acton Town Hall, Halton Region Museum, Stewarttown School, etc. Before Covid, tea and dessert were available at each presentation thanks to Jan Raymond and Barbara Hale-Klusoczky.
EHS Publications:
The EHS has produced many articles and booklets over the decades thanks to excellent EHS writers such as John McDonald, Rick Ruggle, Elaine Bertrand, Jean Ruddle, Betty Brownridge, Dawn Livingstone, Mark Rowe and others. There are pamphlets recording the history of all the towns, villages and hamlets in Halton Hills. The most detailed historical accounts are the beautiful books shown below written by John Mark Rowe. The Acton, Georgetown and Glen Williams books are available for purchase through th society. Just email us or check the EHS web site. Bats, Balls and Sticks can be purchased from The Halton Hills sports Museum.
Library Addition and Upgrades
With the expansion and improvements to the Georgetown Library in 2011 the EHS had to find a temporary home for the thousands of archival materials. Arrangements were made with the Wellington County Museum to store our materials in their modern spacious facility. It was a monumental task! Volunteers from both the society and library team packed 230 boxes on Sunday and on Monday filled the large truck with the boxes and oversized bound volumes of newspapers in the morning and by afternoon unloaded them into the Wellington facility.
The new facility included a History Room , Homecoming Room for meetings, an additional archive room and modern racking shelves. The History Room, open to visitors every day, contains many reference books, maps, microfilm and other research materials.
The old archive room with new movable shelves on tracks is behind the wooden door on the centre left wall. The new archive office in this photo is used for documenting, scanning, storing large pictures etc. The moveable racking shelves in this room almost doubles the original shelving area.
Advancement in Technology
Over the decades we have seen amazing improvements in visual technology. Our newsletters are no longer type written and photocopied. Our presentations have evolved from “show and tell” or “real slides” to Powerpoint slides that can use the Internet in real time and those pixilated photos are now clearly projected onto the large wall screen. Below is an example of where we were forty years ago.
In 2009, Ron Raffan revamped the web site which had much accumulated web site “gunk” stored on two different servers. It was updated again in 2017 and continues to provide the public with dates of upcoming meetings, past newsletters, our contact information, email address as well as other links. Halton Images and Records can be accessed and researched by individuals from around the world, providing photos and newspapers without visiting the archives in person.
