THEN AND NOW: Carney and Crow’s Tavern city’s first ‘hotel’

This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old pictures from the selection and one particular from the existing working day, as nicely as the tale driving them.

The Barrie Lodge (94 Dunlop St. E.)

The pretty initially ‘hotel’ in Barrie was Carney and Crow’s Tavern, a log framework developed on the southwest corner of 5 Factors, about 1833.

When Joseph Crow left the enterprise in 1834 to set up his possess tavern on the new Sunnidale Highway, his stepson and lover, Richard Carney, renamed the tavern the Plough Inn.

In 1840, Carney served as a warden of Vespra Township and, in the course of the creating of the county courthouse, he was the clerk of the creating committee right until construction was completed in 1843. Richard Carney later moved to Owen Sound as a personalized house officer and the tavern was offered to Edward Marks in 1847.

Marks modified the name of the inn to the Farmer’s Arms, but by 1850, Edward Marks had bid farewell to the outdated tavern, developing a new brick institution on Dunlop Road East, recognised as Marks’ Lodge.

The first county clerk, Barrie postmaster, previous service provider and widower, John McWatt, experienced married Elizabeth Marks, 18 decades his junior and daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Marks, in 1848, just a scant thirty day period following the dying of his McWatt’s first wife, Elizabeth (sure, that’s three Elizabeths).

In 1856, John, Elizabeth and his three children moved to Collingwood so John could assume the situation of customs collector. A single calendar year later, his in-legislation, Edward and Elizabeth Marks, joined them. Edward would move absent in Collingwood that similar yr.

The Marks had leased the lodge all around 1853. In 1854, John Elgie of the Lake Elgie Lodge in Toronto, suggested his good friends and prospects that he had leased the institution regarded as the Marks’ Resort in Barrie.

Elgie declared that he experienced totally overhauled the inn, painting, papering and refurnishing during. He supplied private sitting down rooms with hooked up bedrooms, perfect for people, and had huge stables. Elgie renamed the inn the Barrie Lodge.

Daniel Farrager changed Elgie in 1858. The McWatts and the widow Marks returned from Collingwood in 1866, resuming procedure of the hotel. In 1868, Mrs. Marks the proprietress and John McWatt the superintendent introduced a brick growth of their resort, including nearly 30 heat and cozy rooms to the inn.

On McWatt’s retirement in 1872, Alfred Arnall turned proprietor of the Barrie Resort. The former yr, Arnall, section of a modest personal group, the Barrie Park Affiliation, shaped a a person-mile keep track of on a 47-acre parcel of land among Brock and Victoria streets, west of Anne road – a race study course intended to host the 1873 Queen’s Plate.

The hotelkeeper was also in the brewing organization with Robert Simpson’s son, Thomas, but by the mid-1880s, Simpson, Arnall & Co. was in problems and the business enterprise offered at community auction. The Andertons would get it more than about 1900.

Lumberman Nathaniel Dyment purchased the race-monitor residence for his Brookdale Stables, later advertising to William Wright, the mining and newspaper magnate, in 1925.

By spring of 1892, the Barrie Lodge was up for sale or rent. Boasting a fine track record from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Barrie Lodge with its appealing central downtown spot, just a just one minute stroll from the coach station, could be readily available to the ideal bash.

Was T.R. Skelsey the correct occasion? Thomas Spherical Skelsey, born 1854 at Bethnal Green in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, Higher London, arrived to Canada about 1871, settling in Toronto. Skelsey, worked as a lodge clerk in the late 1880s and in the early 1890s at the Rossin Dwelling in Toronto.

Thomas, his wife Martha and their five children relocated to Barrie, Skelsey leasing the Barrie Hotel in 1896. It was documented that Skelsey experienced renovated the full hotel, together with new sample rooms on the main floor and new plate glass windows. The bedrooms have been reported to be significant and airy, and the stables had been the greatest in town.

The Barrie Hotel available fantastic dining and a bar that featured prime-shelf wines and liquors alongside with the very best cigars.

In 1897, the handsome 2nd-storey balcony was extra to the front of the Barrie Resort.

Surprisingly, for this kind of a seemingly properly-appointed and effective establishment, the Barrie Lodge closed in the slide of 1897. The Skelsey family members had been gone and the household home furniture, including the beds and bedding, as nicely as the good liquors and cigars, have been marketed at general public auction.

Presumably, Skelsey returned to Toronto.

Martha passed away in 1902, and T.R. remarried Mary Ann Wooden. They all rest in Prospect Cemetery, Toronto.

In 1905, nearby Barrie hoteliers implemented new pricing: if you preferred to delight in the luxury of a whiskey, it was now 10 cents. As for steady prices, attendees ended up billed for hay regardless of whether they brought their individual or not.

Down the street to the east of the Barrie Resort, a fire ruined the Queen’s Resort on Feb 10, 1915. Three several years later on, the charred timbers, particles and ruins of the resort, remained untouched due to the fact the devastating fireplace.

The ugly home, a resource of contention, prompted town council to call on inhabitants to clear it up … specifically just before the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire frequented Barrie that summer season.

In 1924, the Lowe boys would give the Barrie Resort a new search and a new identity.

Thomas Lowe, born to Irish moms and dads about 1879, was a superb athlete developing up in Thornbury: a star on the lacrosse discipline, a baseball participant and champion velocity skater. Though he could have pursued sports, he desired to remain in the group, marrying Olive Mitchell from nearby Clarksburg.

Thomas had an early begin in the hotel company, working the Revere Resort in Thornbury, which his father had run. In the early 1920s, Thomas managed the World Hotel in Collingwood for a 12 months ahead of shopping for the Barrie Hotel, with his brother Richard.

The Lowes established to renovating the resort, increasing the range of beds to 40, with programs for even additional. Each home in the resort had new home furnishings, the dining place with its new lighting would seat 60 and the rotunda outfitted with snug chairs and all the trappings to make their visitors truly feel right at property.

The brothers even requested permission from the city to set up an electrical signal about the resort. In May 1924, the Barrie Resort reopened … as the Queen’s Hotel.

Thomas Lowe operated the Queen’s hotel until finally about 1935, prior to retiring and marketing the enterprise to a Mrs. Bell. The Lowes were being the last household to stay in the gracious dwelling at 168 Dunlop St. E., the former household of mayor Donald Ross, just a few blocks from the aged Barrie Hotel.

A recipient of the Heritage Barrie Heritage Award, the historic Queens Hotel proceeds to be a well known place to this day.