By
Craig Widdifield
From
King Township Tapestry magazine, May-July 1998.
Warmer
weather has finally arrived and one great way to enjoy it is with a Sunday
drive through the back roads of King Township.
For history buffs, the drive can include stops at remnants of historic
hamlets established by pioneers in the early 1800’s. If you plan to head out on such a drive, New Scotland is a
beautiful area that beckons on a warm spring day.
Located
on the 16th Sideroad just west of the 7th Concession, the
hamlet was named by Scottish families who settled in the rolling hills of this
part of the township. The area reminded
them of their homeland and was well suited to raising sheep. It’s easy to see what attracted them. Today it remains on of, if not the most
picturesque locale in all of King.
As
outlined in the local history book Early Settlements of King Township,
Ontario by Elizabeth McClure Gillham, the Kelly family was one of the first
to settle in the New Scotland area in 1832.
Archie and Mary Kelly, along with their children, walked to the area
from York (Toronto), and spent their first night in a rough-hewn cabin of pine
brush and logs they hurriedly fashioned.
Not far from where they settled, a friendly band of natives had
established a community on the shores of a small lake, known today as Kelly’s
Lake……
The
New Scotland community bustled at one time.
It featured a sawmill, blacksmith shop and even its own public
school. Although the original wooden
schoolhouse has long since disappeared, the newer brick school, S.S. No. 5
built in 1898 remains as a landmark of sorts for New Scotland. The only other remnant of the community to
make it into the 1990’s was Northview Loyal Orange Lodge, 415. The lodge building was originally
constructed in 1846, and although it showed signs of much wear and tear,
incredibly, it remained standing 151 years later.