Of Haunted Houses...

Happy Halloween to one and all!  A successful day of haunting was held at The Park on Saturday.  Our thanks to Patricia and the Committee for organizing it and SPA for sponsoring it.

Growing up most of us had gone for the season by the time Halloween rolled around but the Anders, Clynchs and Gallaghers have all advised that the history of Trick or Treating is long and that failure to make it to all the houses would result in phone calls from community members asking when the kids were arriving.

While some of us missed out on that we still had the Haunted House...



The Britton House on Lake Avenue was built in the 1880s.  By the time this picture was taken in 1945, it was no longer lived in.  The Barr family purchased it that year from The Britton family and it come complete with a squatter.

Samuel Britton who first owned the cottage was born in Lindsay in 1863.  He was third generation to live there his grandparents, Jeremiah & Catherine Britton, having come in 1834 and purchased one acre of land at the foot of Kent Street.  They built a tavern, where the Academy Theater now stands and built a block of office buildings along the western frontage of the block.  Which still stands today

The family all lived in the house at No. 6 Rideout Street, which ran on the southern edge of the block.  Today the house has been beautifully restored.



Samuel Britton never married and had no children.  His siblings and there families made regular use of the cottage until they became to elderly to maintain the property and it was sold to the Barr family.  Unfortunately by the 1970s the building had become to unsafe to use but evening dare to run up to the porch happened through out the 1980s.  There was a birchbark canoe that used to sit on two chairs in the living room - it is now with Maryboro Lodge Museum in Fenelon Falls.  There was also an old ice box on the back porch.  But all it took was one "BOO" to send us all running.

What were your memories of The Britton House?  Were there any earlier haunted houses at The Point?