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Page 14 text:
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Chapter Three The Brief Years of Grandeur Sheriff Reynolds is said to have imagined himself to be one of the baronial lords of England who would one day entertain members of the royal family in his palatial castle. Though Trafalgar Castle was only partially completed in September 1860 when Edward, Prince of Wales visited Canada, the sheriff extended an invitation to the prince and his party to visit his new home. Time would not permit such a visit, so the sheriff had to be content to wait for another opportunity. Sheriff Reynolds, however, was among the party of officials on the platform to receive the prince at the railway station. Along with the Mayor of Whitby, and Warden of Ontario County, he escorted the prince to the pavilion where he read an address to the prince from the County and its people. The Mayor, H. J. Macdonnell, expressed some annoyance be- cause the sheriff was the first to read his address. He considered the head of the municipality should have the right, but the Governor-General, Sir Edmund Head calmed his ruffled feelings by apologizing for the error in not presenting him first. Sheriff Reynolds, however, was happy to have scored one up on his rivals again, and along with the mayor accompanied the royal party to Toronto on the steamer Kingston. At 10:20 a.m., Oct. 6, 1869, the prince ' s party arrived at the Grand Trunk Station. Members of the party included some of the most prominent personalities in Canada: the Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald; the Governor-General, Baron Lisgar; Ontario ' s Lieutenant-Governor, Sir W. P. Howland; Ontario ' s Premier, John Sandfield Macdonald; the mayor of Toronto, and officials of the Grand Trunk Railway and Bank of Montreal. The royal party proceeded uptown in a parade of 100 carriages, passing under evergreen arches erected for the occasion. They soon arrived at the site for the ground breaking, directly in front of Trafalgar Castle where the tracks now cross Gilbert Street. Platforms were erected for the visitors, where a crowd of 5,000 to 6,000 persons had assembled. After the reading of addresses of welcome by the mayor and war- den of the county, the Prince, accompanied by the Governor-General and Joseph Bigelow, president of the Port Whitby and Port Perry Railway, turned the first sod for the railway with a silver spade. About 11:30 a.m. the royal party and in- vited guests partook of a luncheon at Trafalgar Castle, which was adorned with flags for the occasion. Mrs. Reynolds led the prince into the drawing room, followed by the sheriff, leading Mrs. Young, the Governor-General ' s wife, Mrs. Howland, and Miss Macdonald, the prime minister ' s sister. In addition to the official visitors, many county dignitaries, including Mayor James H. Gerrie of Whitby, Ontario County Warden Joshua Wright, John Hall Thompson MP, T. N. Gibbs MP, Lt. Col. Fairbanks of the 34th Battalion, Joseph Bigelow and Ontario County Judge Zaccheus Burnham were present. Mayor Gerrie con- ducted the formal introductions. Following a boimteous luncheon, the royal party left Whitby by train. The visit of Prince Arthur to Trafalgar Castle was the crowning glory for Sheriff Reynolds and marked the beginning of the end of the years of grandeur for Trafalgar Castle. Debts were becoming an increasing problem for the sheriff, and by 1872, he was beginning to consider the sale of Trafalgar Castle. He had lived there 10 years in splendor, but the cost of such gracious living was too much for his pocketbook. In December of that year, a band of com- missioners headed by the minister of agricul- ture for Ontario was seeking a site for an agricultural college. Their itinerary included a visit to Whitby where they took soil samples in various parts of the town and visited Trafal- gar Castle for lunch. The commissioners agreed the castle would make an ample college which would easily accommodate 75 students, and be purchased for $100,000. Luck was not to be with the sheriff this time, for the com- missioners chose Guelph for the new school, where the Ontario Agricultural College re- mains to this day. As the sheriff sought some way to dispose of his costly castle, to a worthy institution throughout 1873, a small band of local men dedicated toward the establishment of a college for young ladies began to meet in Whitby. It was not long before they would approach the sheriff to discuss their plans. Southwest view of castle showing servants ' wing.
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Page 13 text:
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Whitby. At each side of the corridor adjacent to the conservatory were gentlemen ' s and ladies ' sitting rooms. Large oak folding doors were turned back to make these rooms and the hall into a grand ballroom. The remainder of the floor was devoted to bedrooms, some of which opened onto an iron balcony on the north side of the building over the bay window in the drawing room. These rooms are now sleeping quarters for the ladies ' college students. On the third floor were numerous bedrooms and water reservoirs, and a large billiard room at the end of the hall opening onto a bal- cony over the conservatory. A ladder leads to the roof where a fine view of Whitby and the surrounding country can be seen. In the basement were located the hot and cold air furnaces and large wine and beer cellars, all now sacrificed to modern renova- tions. The wing to the south of the main building, which was demolished in 1894 to build Frances Hall, contained a kitchen, laun- dry, scullery, larder, store room and pantry on the first floor. The second floor contained a nursery, governess ' s room, gymnasium, servants ' rooms, bath rooms and water closets. In the basement was a vegetable cellar. The entire castle was lit with gas manu- factured in a gas house adjacent to the build- ing, and carried through a half-mile of pipes inside the castle. The 73 rooms of Trafalgar Castle were serviced with hot, cold and foul air flues constructed through the towers, and all the main rooms had fireplaces. Thirty- seven bells were installed in the rooms to call servants. The flagstaff tower, where Frances Hall meets the original castle is the source of many legends. It is said that the sheriff hid from his creditors in a secret chamber be- tween the first and second floors, and that a tunnel once ran from the base of the tower across the fields to Lake Ontario. The secret chamber was discovered by some students in Dr. Farewell ' s time and was padlocked for many years afterwards. It was removed several years ago when the base of the tower was remodelled. No conclusive proof has been found for the existence of the tunnel, although there are stories that it was discovered during the building of Highway 401, 30 years ago. It is also said that during the 1950 ' s, a tractor plowing a field south of the college mysterious- ly fell into a gaping hole which opened up under it. The corner stone of Trafalgar Castle, in- scribed NCR, 1859 was located over the south door of the flagstaff tower but was placed on the corner of the tower after the recent renovations. The newspapers of the 1860s praised the castle as the largest private detached mansion on the continent and proudly listed the vast amount of materials used to build it. Among these were 165 cords of rubble stone, 1, 500 square feet of rock face plinth, 2, 500 cubic feet of Ohio free stone, cut, moulded and rubbed; 125, 000 white bricks, 430, 000 red bricks, 1, 500 barrels of reached lime, 1,200 cubic yards of sand, and 275, 000 feet of lum- ber seasoned on the property for a year before building commenced. Trafalgar Castle took three years to build and was ready for occupancy in 1862. To landscape the grounds. Sheriff Reynolds trans- planted about 100 trees from the north part of Whitby Township at a cost of $464. Some of these trees cost $16 to $20 apiece. The castle was the showplace of Whitby during its brief ownership by the sheriff and was the centre of the social life of the Town of Whitby. The sheriff was to be host to a prince and prime minister and countless local dignitaries before he was forced by financial troubles to abandon Trafalgar Castle for a more modest home elsewhere in town. However, he did not lose his interest in the castle, for he served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ontario Ladies ' College till his death, and visited his former home on many occasions. The grand staircase and window.
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