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Crandell Street How it got its name... HE CRANDELL NAME stands as an icon in Scu- gog’s history. Reuben Crandell and his wife Cath- erine were the first settlers of European descent in this region. They arrived here in 1821 after taking two days to cut their way through the bush from Whitby to their land just east of present day Manchester. Here Catherine gave birth to five children including their fifth child Caleb. By 1830 there were two rough trails running north from Lake Ontario into Reach Township. The Nonquon Road which had been a part of the Crandell’s journey ran from Oshawa following present day Simcoe Street to the ridges and then Old Simcoe to a small cluster of houses where Prince Albert now stands. The second road, known as Centre Road, followed Highway 12 to Manchester and then turned eastward along present day Highway 7A to what is now Port Perry. In 1832 Crandell decided to take advantage of the location of the two routes and bought 200 acres at their junction and built a tavern to take advantage of the few travelers who followed either route. In present day loca- tions his 200 acres lies between Reach Street and Highway 7A, and Simcoe Street and the Beer Store. He began a small settlement which was initially known as Crandell’s Corners but was later named Borelia, the western portion of Port Perry. Here Catherine gave birth to a further six children. It wasn’t until a decade later that Elias Williams bought the property which we now know as Port Perry. In 1844 Peter Perry bought the waterfront section from Williams and drew up the first street plan in Reach Township the following year. He gave names to its streets after his own family members; Perry Street, Mary Street after his wife Mary, John Street after their first son, and Cinderella Street (now Casimir) after their first daughter. Meanwhile Crandell had started to develop his prop- erty at Borelia and had sold off a number of lots to settlers. In 1854 he started to develop the eastern section of his property and had plans drawn up for his property adja- cent to Perry’s Plan. Not to be outdone by Perry, Crandell named his streets after his own family members. He named the first, Crandell Street after the family, then Caleb Street after their son born in 1830 and Clark Street after their eighth child born in 1837. Crandell later sold a large portion to Joseph Bigelow who in turn developed Rosa, Cochrane and Bigelow Streets. Caleb Crandell was listed in the 1881 census as a farmer but in reality he was a prosperous land owner hav- ing inherited much of the original land purchased by his father Reuben. He lived in an impressive house which still stands at the northeast corner of Old Simcoe and Hwy. 7A. Clark Crandell was listed in the same census as a drov- er. He lived comfortably from money earned by herding cattle from local farms to the railway stations at Port Perry, Uxbridge and Myrtle. Shortly after the census was taken in 1881 he and his wife Ruth suffered the loss of two chil- dren to the scourge of tuberculosis. At the beginning of September their 7 year old daughter Maggie died and then two months later their 4 year old son Nimrod died. All are buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in Prince Albert. The Crandell name lives on not only in Port Perry, but also in Manitoba. Reuben and Catherine’s eleventh child, Byron, born at Borelia in 1839 became a doctor and mar- ried Alice Rattenbury in 1865. Byron set up his medical practice in Clifford, Ontario. Their son Morley moved to Manitoba in 1887 settling about 25 miles northwest of Brandon. He bought a farm beside the CPR line. Here, he and his wife Mary Ariss be- gan a settlement which was called Crandell. Somehow the name was misspelled on an early CPR map and appeared. as Crandall. The error was never corrected and it remains as Crandall, Manitoba, today. By Paul Arculus Focus on Scugog FOCUS - SEPTEMBER 2009 22