What’s in a Name?
The following was written by Jane Love for the President’s Message in the Roseland Club Newsletters of October and November, 1996 . . .
What’s in a name? Plenty, as I have discovered. For many years now, I have wondered how our unassuming neighbourhood club came to be known as THE ROSELAND PARK COUNTRY CLUB. Rather an ostentatious title, don’t you think? I now realize that every word reflects some aspect of Roseland’s history and it is a history worth protecting.
To understand the complete picture, we have to go back to 1834 when St. Luke’s Anglican Church was first built in the village of Wellington Square. The first rector of St. Luke’s was an itinerant minister from Ireland, Rev. Thomas Greene. He married a girl by the name of Kate Killaly who was “Greene” in more ways than one — Irish by birth and blessed with a very green thumb. She had a particular passion for roses. The Greenes bought a 200 acre farm in this area and, in 1840, built a substantial brick house with a large verandah at the corner of Hart and First. Before long, Kate Greene’s garden was a mass of blooms and the farm, originally christened “Highview”, became known as “Roselands”.
Kate Greene turned her green thumb to the planting of both roses and trees. She personally supervised the planting of the two rows of Black Locust trees that stretch from the front door of St. Luke’s to the lake. When she informed the gardeners that she did not think the stakes were properly aligned, they refused to move them and she came back in the night and moved them herself! A woman of spunk and spirit!
Trees in “Roseland” were set aside as clergy reserve. This meant that when a minister retired, he could cut down some of the trees and sell them for lumber — a home-grown pension plan! Unfortunately (fortunately for us), the clergy didn’t live long enough to need a pension plan and the trees remained.
The Greenes had eight children and one of their sons, Richard Greene, went on to become a minister himself. It is believed that Stephen Leacock used Richard Greene as the model for Dean Drone in the Mariposa Stories. As children, the Greene boys would climb the huge trees of Roseland and watch for the masts of the tall ships out on the bay. The ships were heading for “Pine Cove” at the foot of Wilkins Creek to pick up white pine for the masts of British ships. Apparently, when the Greene boys spotted a ship, they would carve the date of the sighting in the trunk of the tree. Somewhere in the gnarled bark of our Roseland trees are some of the earliest records of commerce in the village of Port Nelson!
The intersection of Guelph Line and Water St. (Lakeshore Blvd.) was actually a busy lake port in the late 1800’s. Wagons rumbled down the old corduroy roads from the north with their loads of grain and lumber. Ships from England and America met them there to buy it. There was a corner store, a post office and two hotels that were usually full to capacity. However, the arrival of the railway put an end to Port Nelson’s dreams of commercial success and residents of the area settled quite happily for a more relaxed, country lifestyle.
We can credit W.D. Flatt, Hughes Cleaver, and Ross Hart with the development of the Roseland area — an interesting story that, in the interest of space, I will get to it in the next newsletter. Any respectable neighbourhood needs a recreational facility, especially for the children. In the next newsletter, I will also tell you how the tiny ROSELAND RECREATION CLUB, built on Rossmore Blvd. in 1928, transformed itself into the beautiful ROSELAND PARK COUNTRY CLUB we enjoy today.
So who transformed the beautiful Greene farm into a residential area? W.D. Flatt, a lumber merchant, began the process in 1910 when he built a house for his own family at 3074 Lakeshore. He later sold the house to John Moodie (of knitting mill fame), who left it to his daughter, Mrs. Victor Vallance, who eventually lost it, after her death, to the wrecking ball. Flatt was so delighted with life in the country that he decided to build an entire suburban community along the lakeshore. By 1912, he had laid out the PINE COVE SURVEY from Guelph Line to Pomona on both sides of the“highway” and from there, he kept expanding eastwards. Mr. Flatt also built the Cedar Springs Estates and was very careful to set aside park property in all his surveys, a practice that other developers in our area fortunately continued.
In 1922, Ross Hart laid out the CHESTNUT PARK housing development which stretched from Guelph Line to Rossmore Blvd. on both sides of First. Rossmore Blvd. and Hart Avenue are named after him. Then, in 1923, Hughes Cleaver laid out the ROSELAND PARK survey along Balmoral Avenue, Hart Avenue, Princess Drive, South Drive, and Woodland Park Drive. That placed our club property right in the middle of ROSELAND PARK, hence the name. There were 10 houses in the area by 1924. The ROSELAND COURT (Roseland Crescent) extension was built in 1926. No building took place in Roseland between 1929 and 1937 and lots could be purchased for as little as $350.00. But times were tough and there were few takers. After the war, in 1946, real estate development took off again and ROSELAND HEIGHTS was built next to the old Robert Johnson farm, around Douglas, Robert, Johnson, and Wilton streets.
Gone were the days when residents had to chase a black bear out of the backyard after supper. A new era of genteel COUNTRY living had arrived. People “of means” came here to escape the smog, noise and hectic lifestyle of Toronto and Hamilton. Roseland was advertised as a country haven with all the comforts of modern-day life. In 1928, residents of the area built the ROSELAND RECREATION CLUB on Rossmore Blvd., mainly to give the children something to do! They offered baseball, lawn and alley bowling, tennis, swimming in the bay, horseshoe pitching, skating in the winter on the ice rink out back, weekend dances and even dance lessons! The club was incorporated in 1929 as the ROSELAND PARK COUNTRY CLUB and a kitchen was eventually added — for $600.00! In 1938, they moved the entire club to its present location and built the front lounge (the Princess Room) and the two basement rooms in 1952.
The first president of the club was E.W. Besaw, with Hughes Cleaver as the honourary president and Percy Winn as vice-president. Membership in the club was more or less what it is today — approximately 215 families. The Ladies Group was originally called the Sorosis Club (not to be confused with the “Cirrhosis” Club) and their works were mainly charitable. They supported the Infants’ Home in Hamilton, the Children’s Convalescent Home in Port Nelson and rolled bandages for the Hamilton General Hospital. Of course, they were also responsible for organizing all the social events of the club and incurred the wrath of the Board of Directors on more than one occasion for using the club too much! Increased use meant increased carrying costs and the Board was, of necessity, a frugal bunch. It is fun to go back and read the minutes from the Board meetings and the Annual General meetings — the same joys, the same problems!
So, there you have it. We are called the ROSELAND PARK COUNTRY CLUB for very good reasons and we still meet the original goals of the founders — to provide a quiet place in a beautiful setting where people of all ages can come together — just for the fun of it!
[TOP]