P.M. Grover was an early Norwood pioneer
His influence on the growth of Norwood is still evident today
Norwood was quite literally “hewn out of the bush” and it is thanks to the vision and commitment of our early entrepreneurs that Norwood was able to flourish. Peregrine Maitland Grover was one of the village’s earliest pioneers and his influence is still very evident throughout the village to this day.
Peregrine Maitland Grover, or simply P.M. to his friends and family, was born in 1817 in Grafton to John and Mary Grover, both loyalists from Grafton, Mass. As a young man, he travelled extensively around the country learning a broad range of occupations and skills.
In 1842, P.M. settled on Peterborough as his home and served as the manager of a general store. Seizing an opportunity, P.M. soon entered into a business partnership with another like-minded man by the name of James Foley. The Foley name is synonymous with Norwood as James opened the first store in the village in the 1837.
The Grover-Foley firm focused on general dry goods and lumber and stores of this nature were opened in Peterborough, Keene and Norwood. With his new connection to the growing settlement that would become Norwood, P.M. was introduced to Harriet Maria Keeler, whom he would marry in 1846.
Harriet was the daughter of Joseph Abbott Keeler, the founder of Keeler’s Mills. The following year, 1847, would see the Grover-Foley-Keeler interests become a true family firm after James Foley married P. M.’s sister Almira, who had by this time moved to Peterborough to help her brother run the stores.
Realizing that much of his business and family interests were now in Norwood, P.M. and his wife made the move to Norwood in 1852 and immediately initiated the construction of a new home that would become known as Balsam Farm.
In 1854, Joseph A. Keeler’s holdings were divided up between Harriet and her sister Eliza. The village had been surveyed and divided into town lots the previous year, so by the late 1850s an engineer, hired by P.M., had prepared a map of the village showing the proposed layout for most of the present day streets and roads that we still use.
With his new Norwood home now complete, P.M. and Harriet raised their two sons and one daughter. Built in 1852 the farm was a large “L”-shaped timber framed home located at the east end of Queen Street and was described in 1920 by a grandson in The Norwood Register as “a low and rambling frame structure, built well back from the street with a winding gravel path through tall shade trees, leading up to the front steps of the wide wrap around veranda.”
Balsam Farm remained in the Grover family for five generations, although in later years its use was limited to a summer residence. The house remained largely unaltered for over a century before renovations were started in the 1970s by a greatgrandson of the original P.M., in preparation of moving in after his retirement.
Unfortunately, fate had a different destiny for this Norwood landmark. Like so many of the village’s structural links to the past, Balsam Farm was destroyed by fire on June 22, 1977. While the loss of the 125-year old building was tragic in itself a news report on the fire noted that the “true value of the loss was immeasurable in dollars and cents due to the amount of antiques that could never be replaced.” It was builders and visionaries like P.M. Grover that helped to put the village of Norwood on the road to prosperity. Sadly, only bushes and grass now mark the site of the once warm and inviting home of one of Norwood’s founding fathers.
P.M. Grover’s interests extended into much more than just his businesses. His influence was also very evident with the spiritual and educational well-being of residents of Norwood. The property that the Norwood Anglican Church was built on in 1853 was donated to the parish by P.M. and a large stained window at the front of the church is dedicated to his memory. He also served as a school trustee for many years, he was the Reeve of Asphodel Township in the 1860s and served as county warden in 1867-68, he also served as a justice of the peace and in the first federal election following Confederation in 1867 he was duly elected to Parliament as the Unionist candidate for the Peterborough East Riding.
P.M. Grover’s Peterborough home is still standing; in 1847, before he decided to make the move to Norwood, he had a large two-storey stone house built on Rubidge Street. The home passed through a few owners including the Nicholls family and the Hamilton family before it was converted in 1952 to its present day function as the Peterborough Masonic Lodge.
It is generally accepted that Harriet Grover (Keeler) is the one that originally came up with the village’s name of Norwood. After her death in late December of 1901, it was noted in her obituary that she came up with the name at the request of her father during an early visit to the village.