Historical Fact of the Week

Every Friday a lesser known fact about the development of Peterborough, a Peterborough person, or just something fun you probably didn't know about Peterborough will be posted on this page! Feel free to suggest your own facts about Peterborough's history by sending us an email. We look forward to reading them!

September 3

The Little Lake Cemetery is Peterborough's oldest operating cemetery. Last month, the cemetery celebrated its 160th birthday. Many of Peterborough’s richest, strongest, and most provocative residents from the past have been buried here. (Source: Little Lake Cemetery Company)

August 27

Libraries have a long history in Peterborough. The earliest known library in the City was created in 1868, when the Peterborough Mechanics Institute housed a subscription library that allowed members who paid a fee to rent books. In 1882, with the passing of the Free Libraries Act, the City of Peterborough took over the Mechanics Institute’s library to make it the Peterborough Public Library. In 1911, the Carnegie Library was built at the corner of George and McDonnel Streets in order to attend to the increase in popularity from the community. The Carnegie building, which will soon celebrate its 100th birthday, is now part of City Hall. (Source: City of Peterborough)

August 20

The City of Peterborough is home to more than 100 designated heritage sites! These include five of the sites being featured in Doors Open Peterborough 2010.

August 13

Heritage Preservation in Peterborough has been an ongoing effort for many years. The first historical society in the area, the Peterborough Historical Society, was created in 1897 as a way of researching and preserving Peterborough’s people. Catharine Parr Traill, one of Peterborough’s earliest settlers, started out preserving the area’s natural heritage through a series of scrapbooks, sketchbooks, and journals, which can still be seen today at the Peterborough Museum and Archives. The City’s built heritage has been preserved through constant restoration efforts and creative adaptive reuse for heritage buildings. (Source: City of Peterborough)

August 6

The Art Gallery of Peterborough began in 1974 after a donation from a local teacher’s college of several works of art. This donation began a four-year search for a permanent location for the gallery so that the community could view the impressive works of art that the organization was collecting. In September of 1978, the City of Peterborough granted a lease to The Art Gallery of Peterborough for a heritage building and surrounding grounds for the sum of $10.00 a year. (Source: City of Peterborough)

July 30

Long before Niagara was manageable, the Otonabee was the best source of harnessed water power in southern Ontario. The Otonabee River brought timber from the northern woods of Haliburton and Peterborough county to the Centre of town, from here lumber rafts moved to Quebec City and to Britain. (E.Jones - An Historian's Notebook, 2009)

July 23

The Prince of Wales visited Peterborough in 1860, 40 years before he became King Edward VII. There were 15,000 people assembled on the lawn and hillside at the park below the Court House where he addressed the community. (E. Jones - An Historian's Notebook, 2009)

June 25

St. John's Anglican Church is Peterborough's oldest surviving church. This year, St. John's celebrates its 175th birthday!

June 18

The Otonabee River drops more than 100 feet (2/3 the height of Niagara Falls) in its first ten miles. As a result, the early settlers could only navigate as far as where the town of Peterborough was settled. (Source: Jones and Dyer, Peterborough - The Electric City, 1987)

June 11

In 1850, Peterborough was incorporated as a town with a population of 2,191. (Source: WelcomePeterborough.ca)

June 4

In 1884, Peterborough became one of the first cities in Canada to have electric streetlights.