Severn Bridge and Morrison Township History

History of Severn Bridge and Morrison Township

The following excerpt was taken from, "Muskoka, Past and Present", written by Geraldine Coombe published in 1976 by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited. The book is no longer in print, but can be found at your public library or through inter-library loan.

The first bridge over the Severn was built in 1858 after the government had decided to open the Muskoka territory for settlement. In order to delay the expense of improving the intermittent cart track from the village of Orillia to the Severn, it was decided to use the Washago Mills owned winter road, approximately two miles in length, from the top of Lake Couchiching to the Severn, which meant that settlers and other travelers from the south had to travel by boat on Lake Couchiching to reach Washago Mills.

A few people then settled at Severn Bridge, and the colonization road toward the present location of Gravenhurst was commenced. When the government locating agent, R. J. Oliver, met a group of intending settlers on October 1st, 1859, at Severn Bridge and issued about 17 locations on the colonization road in Morrison township, James H. Jackson had been appointed Postmaster and Hugh W. Dillan was operating an inn.

In the next year, (1860), Morrison Township was subdivided into farm lots by Public Land Surveyor J. O. Browne, The land on the east side of the Muskoka Road in Morrison proved to be totally unfit for pioneer settlement, with the exception of a strip along the south boundary and a small portion near Kahshe Lake. But on the west some fine farms developed around Sparrow Lake. About half of the township was settled very early.

The 1861 report of J. W. Bridgland, Superintendent of Colonization Roads, describes in detail the difficult traveling conditions of those early years:

... the Severn River is crossed by a Wooden bridge, supported by log crib piers and three sets of King posts - the Piers are weak and ill founded - the King posts and brace beams too ponderous for the foundation - the result is shown in the swerved and sunken condition of the Bridge. The Abutments are likewise very poor - The approaches are not carried out far enough to admit of an easy ascent so that in its present condition a short abrupt hill with a mud hole at its base has to be overcome from each side in order to ascend the bridge - The road from the Severn bridge for about two miles or more is in a wretched state - Bad mud holes, bad roots, and bad stones abound - indeed nothing but positive ingenuity, or invention, - offspring of necessity, avails a traveler to conquer certain impediments of the above nature.. . . Occasionally from the end of this defective part there are rough portions but the greater part of the remainder of the road to the falls [the falls on the Muskoka River, South Branch] is in a very tolerable condition.

James Hankinson Jackson, Severn Bridge's first postmaster, was appointed Clerk-Treasurer of the Municipality of Morrison and Muskoka at its first council meeting on January 16th, 1865. Some of Mary and James Jackson's ten children remained in the general area and some went much farther a field.

Mary Jackson had been born a Symington, a family which came to Canada from Ireland in 1840. After the Jacksons came to Severn Bridge, one of the other Symingtons came to settle in Morrison Township, bringing six sons. The locating agent, R. J. Oliver, mentioned this family specifically as being intelligent, industrious and desirable settlers. The Symingtons did not find the opportunities in Muskoka sufficient to hold them all, and the father and four sons moved on, one to the Canadian west and the others to Iowa and Montana in the United States, where they and their families flourished. U.S. Senator Stewart Symington of Missouri is a descendant of this family.

John Canning and his wife, both born in Ireland, brought ten children to Morrison to take up land between the Muskoka Road and Sparrow Lake, and these twelve people became the nucleus of the Canning's Corners community (at today's intersection of Sparrow Lake Route C and District Road 13). John Canning was a councilor on Morrison s first council after it separated from Muskoka on January 1st, 1869 (both townships then having sufficient residents to operate separately). The reeve of that council was Moses Davis, who had settled on too acres on the river just west of Severn Bridge.

Mayme Davis, a fifth generation descendant of Moses Davis, read a paper on Morrison's pioneers before the Severn Bridge Women's Institute in 1929 in which she recalled a militia company organized and drilled in 1866 by J. T. Bailey (he became Morrison's first Superintendent of Schools) because of the Fenian Raids, but "the war was concluded before they were needed". The designer of the monument in Queen's Park, Toronto, in memory of the men who fell in the 1866 Fenian Raid was Gus Frère, an early Severn Bridge settler.

The Bailey family started a Boys' Club, "made up of the more educated class, who met once a month to study science and other subjects," Mayme Davis wrote. In the early '70s there was a flourishing branch of the Independent Order of Good Templars, which "had essays on scientific subjects, such as astronomy, geology and botany".

In 1871 a new bridge was built over the Severn, described as one of the best bridges north of Toronto (and the second of six to date), and the Muskoka Road was planked. The men used portable sawmills along the road while planking it, as it was handier for them to move the mills than it was to draw the lumber along. The plank road was about 16 feet wide, built higher on one side for drainage. During bush fires burning trees fell on it and ignited the planks. Before the railroad reached Gravenhurst in 1875, stagecoach firms had as many as 100 teams of horses hauling passengers and heavy loads of freight from Washago to Gravenhurst and cutting the planks to pieces with their sharp shoes. A team coming on the plank road could be heard when it was miles away. On one recorded occasion, 16 double teams were used to take a government party bound for Parry Sound to Gravenhurst, where the party would transfer to a steamer.

After the railway had reached Severn Bridge in September 1874, Thomas Stanton placed a small steamer on the Severn waters to ply between Severn Bridge and Sparrow Lake.

The 1879 Guide Book and Atlas says that Severn Bridge had two stores, a hotel, post office, telegraph office, Orange Hall, and other buildings, as well as another hotel at the Northern Railway station south of the bridge. More than 100 settlers are indicated on the Morrison township map. Today approximately 2700 property assessments are listed in Morrison, breaking down into 2300 vacation lots and 400 permanent lots.