By: Elva Bates

When the Provisional County of Haliburton was created in 1874, the Monk Road and the Buckhorn Road were, and still are, the main transportation routes serving Gooderham and Area.

The purpose of the Monk Road, as stated in many publications, was two-fold: first to make the lands between Orillia and Ottawa more accessible to settlers, and secondly to provide a military route should it become necessary to move troops because of the Fenian raids to the south. Although the road was built wider than the standard settlement road to accommodate troops on the move, it never served that purpose. Although today’s roadways deviate in some places from the original Monk Road much of the original route is still in use in this area.

The Buckhorn Road was established to provide access from Hall’s Bridge (Buckhorn) to the land owned by the Canada Land and Immigration Company, being the Townships of Dysart et al, which was trying to attract settlers from the south. It was a joint venture between the County and Town of Peterborough, the "government" and the Canada Land and Immigration Company.

Once the Provisional County was formed roads became the responsibility of the new Municipalities. The *map on the reverse shows the roads within the Township of Glamorgan as they existed in 1915. The Council of the United Townships of Glamorgan, Cardiff and Monmouth passed By-law No. 3 on June 30, 1874 that set out Road Beats "for the purpose of performing **statute labour", 4 of which were in the Township of Glamorgan. They are: Beat No. 8 – From the southern boundary of Monmouth to the 12^th Concession of said Township and that part of Glamorgan from the southern boundary northward including all lots in each Con. >From the 29^th lot to the eastern boundary of Glamorgan, ***Pathmaster – Sol’m Orser; Beat No. 9 – Beginning at the west end of Beat No. 8 to No. 15 lot, Pathmaster – Samuel Whittaker; Beat No. 10 – From 15 lot to west of Township, Pathmaster – John Williams; Beat No. 11 – From 15 Con. Beginning with lot 21 extending to the eastern boundary of Glamorgan (i.e., the Minnicock Lake Road) Pathmaster – Alex Main. I have outlined these Road Beats on the *map.

The *map is a portion of the map contained in "The GUIDAL 1915 POCKET MAP of HALIBURTON County" provided to the Project by Brent Davies. It is the oldest map I have seen to date that shows local roads.

For a description of **Statute Labour, I have gone on-line to the Statute Labour Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S20 which says in part "3. (1) Every person assessed upon the assessment roll of a township that has not passed a by-law to abolish statute labour is, … liable to …statute labour". The Act goes on to set out how many days of statute labour is to be performed for each assessed value. The Statute Labour Act that was in effect in 1874 could well have been the first such Act passed by the Legislature of Ontario. The present (1990) Act still applies to areas of Ontario, which are not under municipal organization.

I have been unable to find a definition of ***Pathmaster – it seems to be a word that is no longer in use as it does not appear in modern dictionaries. It seems reasonable to assume that the Pathmaster was the "foreman" over those liable to perform Statute Labour within the boundary of his Beat.