A bright spot on Church Street
Our old photograph this week shows the lushly landscaped side yard of a house that once stood on the north side of Church Street east of Court. What we see in that photo (probably taken in the 1930s) is a far cry from what had been there back in the mid-1800s.
In the mid-19th century that area was at the very edge of development in St. Catharines. It was a good place to put annoying businesses — like lumber yards and planing mills. Such facilities made a lot of noise — the screeching sound of sawing the wood and the constant chugging of the steam engines powering the machinery. They were not desirable right in the centre of town.
So it was that first Israel Seaman and later Samuel Dolson operated a planing mill/lumber yard out there, on a large plot of land on Church Street between Court and King. Seaman was there by at least the 1850s, and Dolson had taken over the facility by the early 1860s.
In the late 1870s Dolson decided to exit the building materials business and instead devote himself to constructing and also designing buildings, becoming one of St. Catharines’ first notable architects. So in 1879 Samuel Dolson put his planning mill up for sale. By 1881 the mill buildings were vacant.
Within a few years that property became the site of “Maple Hill”, the new home of Captain James Murray and family — an extensive, two-storey brick house bordered by a decorative cast iron fence and having a carriage entrance on its east side, facing a circular driveway.
Capt. Murray had come to this county with his parents in the late 1830s. By age 17 he was sailing the Great Lakes. Within five years he became a ship’s captain, and in subsequent years he purchased several large vessels and began to make his fortune.
Capt. Murray eventually transitioned into the contracting business, executing major contracts during construction of the Third Welland Canal as well as numerous other major public works and railway projects around the Great Lakes.
All the while Capt. Murray and his wife lived in their “Maple Hill” residence. Capt. Murray died in 1895; his wife remained in the house until her death in
1903. Following that the property passed to their son-in-law, John G. Moore. Moore, a successful insurance agent and prominent on the board of the General Hospital, lived there until his death in
1952. It was during that time that our old photo of Maple Hill’s lushly decorated side yard and driveway was taken. Quite a contrast with the former planing mill and lumber yard!
After Moore’s death “Maple Hill” was torn down and by the early 1960s had been replaced with a modern, one-storey office building, 129 Church Street, occupied since by such organizations as St. Catharines’ Public Utilities Commission and, today, Community Care’s Housing Help Centre.