Top 3 Abandoned Places In Hastings Colonization Road

There are so many abandoned places in Hastings Colonization Road! This is a list of the top three abandoned places in Hastings Colonization Road. Browse through all abandoned places in Hastings Colonization Road

1. Millbridge (ghost town)

Millbridge (originally named "The Jordan") began as a small community along the Hastings Colonization Road. It(a)s location next to the Jordan River made it ideal for a mill operations town. It all began when a pioneer named Captain Ralph Norman constructed a trading post and mill nearby a bridge.

Millbridge grew to include three hotels, a store, grist and saw mills, schoolhouse, St. Oswald(a)s Anglican Church, and a community hall.

One of the hotels was given the nickname of "Cupids" for it was here that young girls were often picked up by young men. (Brown, Ron. 1997. Ghost Towns of Ontario. V1)

As with many of the towns along the colonization road, the farmers fled the land once the trees had been cleared and the difficulty of the farmland fully realized. By 1925 the area was almost completely abandoned.

Millbridge Station

Five kilometres to the east of Millbridge stood Millbridge Station. The station was a small village built
around 1900 to accomodate the Central Ontario Railway (COR). The village contained a station, store and workers cabins. The village also contained the magnificant red brick Hogan(a)s Hotel. The hotel was built in 1862. Today visitors can only visualize a time when visitors departing the train would stay overnight at the hotel.

Dennis Hogan opened the first post office (most likely from his hotel) and continued to operate it up until his death in 1908. The post office would be reopened in 1925 by Miss Ella Hogan until 1940. The village was eventually named Hogan.

Today the hotel is a private residence. Foundations from the station can still be found.

Directions: Take Hwy. 62 north from Madoc about 21 km to the Millbridge Road and turn west. Millbridge Station is on the other side of highway 62 about 2km east on the Stoney Settlement Road.

Heading north up the old Hastings Road from Millbridge you will drive through 5 other ghost towns before the road reaches Hwy 62 again. These are (from south to north): Glanmire, Murphy Corners, Thanet, Ormsby and Umfraville. All of them have write-ups and photos under "Hastings Colonization Road".

2. Ormsby (ghost town)

The Old Hastings Gallery
3103 Old Hastings Road
at the corner of Hwy 620
Ormsby, Ontario
K0L 1P0
http://www.oldhastingsgallery.ca/

Run by Gary and Lillian Pattison. Gary sells leg lamps like the one seen in "Christmas Story". He also played the french horn in the film's soundtrack with 4 other Toronto horn musicians back in the early 1980s. Check his photo below beside the lamp. His twin brother Ernie runs the tea restaurant across the street in the old schoolhouse.

Ormsby History:

In 1856, M.P. Hayes opened an agency in Madoc to get settlers to locate themselves on the new Hastings Road. 1 of 25 such road was built to lure pioneers to the highlands of central Ontario. The Hastings Rd. went from Madoc north to the Monck Rd. at Bancroft. Many settlers found conditions too harsh and left for the prairies. Ormsby (in Limerick Township) is the most intact of the road(a)s ghost towns. In its heyday it has 2 hotels, 2 stores, 2 churches (in my photos), a school, blacksmith, a sawmill and more. By 1893 the population was at 225 when the railway came through. The village(a)s station was called Rathburn. Today the population is far less.

For more info about the ghost towns along the Old Hastings Rd. check out this link: http://www.pinecone.on.ca/MAGAZINE/stories/OldHastingsRd.html.

The other famed ghost towns along the road are (from south to north): Eldorado, Millbridge, Glanmire, Murphy Corners, Thanet, Ormsby and Umfraville. All 7 have write-ups and photos on this site, so read about each and learn more about the Old Hastings Rd.

To see the old map of all the colonization roads check the photos below.

• In the middle of the 1900's Ormsby also had a Department of Lands and Forests fire tower lookout on the nearby hill. Many ghost towns had fire towers in or near them, such as: Pakesley, Key Junction, Dufferin Bridge, Pickerel Landing, Lost Channel, Byng Inlet, Cheddar, Uphill, Germania, Ormsby, Biscostasing, Milnet, Renabie Mine and Pineal Lake. For more info. on Ontario's Fire Tower Lookouts go to this link: Ontario's Fire Tower Lookouts.

Postal History of Ormsby

Opened in 1885 by George Jarman. Closed finally in 1970 when Miss Jean Park ran the post office..For more details check the link below..

3. Umfraville (ghost town)

Umphraville (aka "Umfraville") is the last of the ghost towns as one heads north along the Old Hastings Rd. from Ormsby. The area is extremely hilly, rocky, well-forested and swampy. Of all ghost town locations I have been to this one is the hardest to fathom as its population supposedly grew to 260 and was larger than Bancroft's 250. I really have my doubts over this number as it must refer to the residents its post office served to further abroad residents. The area has been fully reclaimed by the forest and to have that many people living here in the 1800's with such little evidence seems suspect.

Umphraville was founded in the 1860's by Irish settlers Dermot "Darby" Kavanaugh and his brother Patrick on the Old Hastings Rd. well north of Ormsby. They are claimed to have taken lots 55 and 56 in Dungannon Township in the area where the road crosses Egan Creek. (However, lots 55 and 56 in Dungannon Twp are actually located in what is now the downtown core of Bancroft. Darby had actually moved to Bancroft in 1897. Instead, they may have taken Lot 7 and 8 which is where Egan Creek crosses the road- check the map link below). Darby opened a combination store, hotel and post office.

William Jorman built a flour/saw mill on Egan Creek (apparently wheat and oats were grown in Umphraville). Benjamin and William Spurr opened a 2nd general store which lasted til 1890.

At its zenith Umphraville apparently had 4 churches, a school, a cheese factory, a tinsmith, a shoemaker and blacksmiths.

When the Central Ontario Railway passed well to the east, the settlers here fled.

All that remains are a few cedar and stone fences, a wooden home, foundations, a barn and its cemetery. The cemetery is about 1 km or more west of the Hastings Rd. along the Umphraville Rd. at the north end of the village. The cemetery is quite far back in dense bush so I think its clear this one-lane dirt road existed back in the 1800s. There are about 20 headstone markers or less on the property but it has been estimated that there may be 100 buried here. The most famed tombstone is that of Bridgeta Cavanaugh (with a "C" not a "K"). She was the wife of Patrick (check the photo below).

For the heart-wrenching story of pioneer, Anatasia Kelly, and the story of the Umfraville Cemetery read the link below. Many of the infants who died early deaths are buried in the cemetery without markers..http://www.countryroadshastings.ca/current-issue-s2.php?command=viewArticle&ID=46?tFeed=3

Post Office Records

D. Kavanagh 1864-1899 Resignation

Thomas Kelly 1899-1902 Resignation

James McCabe 1903- 1916 Closed R.M.D.

Heading south from here you will hit these other ghost towns (in order): Ormbsy, Thanet, Murphy Corners, Glanmire and Millbridge. All have write-ups with photos.