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| Duncan Donald Ferguson |
Our little slice of paradise has only been owned by one other family, the Fergusons. In the early 1920s, Duncan Donald Ferguson bought and built a house on this plot of land. The original house was smaller than what we removed as an addition had been built on the back and a brick porch to the front.
As the story goes, Duncan built this house because he fell in love with Charlotte and wanted to marry her. And having his own land and house was essential to this plan.
Griff, with the aid of his goats and cart, used to go down the hill and collect coal. Hauling his load back up, he would proceed to sell his coal to the neighbours.
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| Charlotte Griffith Ferguson |
Shafraaz picked us up a local history book from the Beverly Farmer's Market. I can not photograph it at the moment as it seems that I've temporarily misplaced it. However, it will show up, eventually. It's called
Built on Coal, A History of Beverly, Edmonton's Working Class Town by Lawrence Herzog. All of our notes, gleamed from conversations with Fergusons and relatives are sandwiched between the pages of this book. So, may be we can elaborate later. For now, this is all I can remember!
A new tidbit I've picked up recently about the area: Emily Murphy was a Justice of the Peace in the Beverly town hall!
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| Griff with Goats and Cart |
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| Original House |
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| Duncan Ferguson on Front Porch with Friend |
That is wonderful that you covered this history. It really is quite remarkable that you are only the second owners of that piece of property.
ReplyDeleteVery cool!
cool stuff! I'd love to hear more about the history of your new turf.
ReplyDeleteDonald Donald Ferguson was my Grandfather and I am afraid that your facts are wrong. The house was orginally the summer house of my Grandmother Charlotte Louise Griffith who had it built on two lots of land when she was teaching and her sister, Edith (Griffith) Dow had a house on another two lots of land down the alley. The goats belong to my mother Charlotte Patricia Ferguson, who saved and trained them. Joyce Schmidt
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this update and corrections Joyce. We would love to hear more!
ReplyDelete