Trafalgar Castle School - Yearbook (Whitby, Ontario Canada)

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Trafalgar Castle was built by him as a private residence during the period 1858-61. According to the Whitby Watchman its magnificence and its beauty were unsurpassed by any other building in the Dominion and when one looks at the lovely proportions of the rooms of the main building, the stately beauty of the hall and its staircase, the exquisite workmanship of the ceilings even now after sixty years of change, in the eyes of all those who have fallen beneath its spell, the splendid old mansion remains incomparable. No elaborate description of the size and number of the rooms or length} ' lists of the enormous amounts of building material used can adequately de- scribe the almost feudal dignity with which the castle stood out among the rambling homesteads and shops of the little town. It became the centre of the Page yinct(

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L ' to flee for his life across the border after having been severely wounded in the struggle. He later surrendered himself and was tried for high treason, of which charge he was honourably acquitted. During middle life he held many municipal ott ' ices both in Belleville and i ' (i(lc hhgMeen

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finest social life of the county. Many remarkable people eanie under its hos- pitable roof, among whom Prince Arthur was perhaps the most distinguished. Upon this occasion there were festivities of all kinds but the great event for which Prince Arthur had graciously consented to bs present Avas the laying of the first rail of the Wliitby-Port Perry Railroad. With such high hopes and and under such august patronage did the Push set out in life. In 1874, however, the lovely house then in the hey-day of its youth passed into other hands and upon that day its history as the home of the Reynolds family ceased and that of O.L.C. began. Dramatic and interesting as its life had been heretofore its sudden meta- morphosis from a private house into a college had in it elements scarcely less splendid. Its purchase did not only mark this change in the life of the building itself but it represented a triumph for the fervid Protestantism of the little town and the inauguration of one of the first great educational in- stitutions of the Methodist Church in Canada. In writing this little sketch it has been necessary to delve back among old books and papers and records and calendars and such like for facts and fables concerning the history of the school. One of the most interesting glimpses of its very beginning was provided by a letter from a son of the late Reverend J. E. Sanderson, the Methodist Minister in Whitby at that time. He says : — I remember while sitting at dinner in the old Parsonage at Whitby a wire came for my father from Toronto saying that twenty thousand dollars must be secured before the opening of the Bank the next morning or the property would pass into the hands of the Grey Nuns. My father did not finish his dinner but rushed off ' to raise the money. The Reverend Mr. Sanderson, with Mr. James Holden and others, had been advocating the purchase of the Castle for the Methodist Church as an ideal spot for a girls ' school for some time among the prominent churchmen of both the Town and of Toronto. It was their dearest wish to see such an institution es- tablished, and naturally when the property was in danger of falling into other hands, they were prepared to use every means in their power to prevent it. This event crystallized the opinion of the group of men interested in the project into immediate action. The money was raised and a stock comjjany formed who purchased the Castle, organized a board of Directors, with Mr. Holden, a resident of the town equally interested with Mr. Sanderson, as its first President, and the College was started upon the long road of its life. The old books in which the records of those first meetings are kept are almost falling to pieces. Many of the men whose names are written therein are long since dead, yet despite the clerkly style in which the by-laws, motions and remarks are couched, to read them is to reach back into the past and touch the lives of their authors. One feels that this meant more to them than a mere business enterprise. To many it was a matter of great personal pride and interest. On September 3rd, 1874, according to the minutes, James Hol- den, President, and John Rice, Secretary, were authorized by the Board to J ' (i( i ' ' riicntij