Never before on the tour! Christmas-card perfect! Enjoy this tastefully restored home decorated in a style in keeping with the age of this home.
We love the large mud-room at the side. And at the rear of the home, overlooking the farm fields, is the coziest sunroom with a wood stove to keep you warm.
From the kitchen through to the dining room and living room, and then on to an upstairs that goes on forever, we know you will leave with some Christmas spirit and that feeling you have when you are home.
These folks are into vintage items. Mixed in with the homeowners’ creative personality, this one will be a wow! If only there were a sleigh ride to sweep us off into winter wonderland. (Hmmmm, we’re thinking about it!)
Heritage Home Partner: Arcana Windows
Decorator: This homeowner is crazy about Christmas! She will be working with experienced home tour decorator Donna Doucette to pull out all the stops!
Specialty Vendor #1: Dale Garvin returns with his popular fruit cakes. A portion of sales is donated to Hawkesbury and District General Hospital.
Specialty Vendor #2: Dunrobin Distilleries. Enjoy some samples, then visit their location at 10 Terry Fox Drive in Vankleek Hill.
House History
2850 Cassburn Road
In 1827, James Garland Sr., age 30, emigrated from Ireland with his wife Ann Jane and one child. It is unknown where they lived on arrival. It can be assumed that they lived at this location in a log house prior to final purchase.
In 1851, James Sr. finalized the purchased of 100 acres at this location. James & Ann Jane Garland lived here with their family of three sons and one daughter.
In the 1851 Census, the house was described as: sided timber, 11/2 storeys – plus 1 vacant building. The vacant building was likely their initial log house.
In 1858, another 50 acres was added to the farm, for 150 acres total. James Garland Sr. died in 1859.
His detailed Will ensured that the farm continued with sons Samuel and James Jr. He also instructed the two sons to, “ensure that their mother and sister are cared for with food, clothing, necessary comforts for their natural life.” When their sister married, she was to receive £20.
The 1891 Census for West Hawkesbury provided house information that matches with what we see today. The Garlands, Samuel 49, farmer and wife Annie 46, with their three children – Ellen 14, James 12, Robert 8 – ‘lived in a two-storey brick house which had 11 rooms.’
The mention of the brick house in the 1891 Census is a reminder that the local brick yards near Vankleek Hill were at their most active during this time period. As brick was viewed as a fire retardant, bricking over timber frame houses was common.
The sawmills in Vankleek Hill, such as the Vankleek Hill Manufacturing Company on Mill Street (today Mill Street Park & Community Centre) , were busy supplying turned posts and varieties of gingerbread styles to enhance home exteriors.
Samuel Garland died in 1913. His daughter Nellie Brown was the Executrix. Like his father, Samuel left instructions for his wife Annie: “my wife shall be comfortably supported and maintained during the remainder of her lifetime upon my home farm where we now reside.” Annie: “shall always be entitled to all such rights and privileges in the dwelling house we now occupy and in the outbuildings appurtenant thereto and on the said premises.”
Samuel also instructed Nellie that when her mother died, she was to sell the farm. Annie died in 1917, and after 66 years, the farm was sold out of the Garland Family.
Other than a reference to ‘premises,’ no details about the house appear in the sale documents. However, we are provided with details of the successful Garland Family farm operation.
“Together with the goods and chattels hereinafter mentioned – four horses, ten milch cows, five heifers and one bull rising two years old, eight calves, two pigs, all the hens and chickens on the premises (about 100 or 125 in number), seventeen turkeys, two sets of double harness, two sets of single harness, one cart harness, one double waggon with rack, one cart, two sets of sleighs, one single sleigh, one buggy, one cutter, one Berlin sleigh [rectangular box style sleigh], one market wagon (two seats), one binder, two mowers, one rake, three plows, one disk seeder, one harrow, one cultivator, one roller, one fanning mill and all the hay forks, shovels and axes on the premises, one stone bolt, one wheelbarrow, one cream separator, one kitchen stove and all the milk cans and milk pails on the premises – all the oats, corn, hay and straw on the premises and all the wood except the sleigh loads, all the potatoes except six bags …”