Early Days in Richmond Hill: A History of the Community to 1930 : electronic edition. : The Neighbours at Mid-Century

Chapter 7 The Neighbours at Mid-Century

Table of Contents

	Title Page
	Author's Preface
1	The Road through Richmond Hill
2	First Peoples on the Land
3	The European Settlers Arrive
4	From Miles' Hill to Richmond Hill: The Birth of a Community
5	Tories and Reformers
6	Stagecoach Lines and Railway Tracks
7	The Neighbours at Mid-Century
	Beyond the Village Centre
	Assorted Residents of Langstaff Road West in the Early 1840s
	Langstaff
	Hallowe'en Pranks at Langstaff Corners
	Elgin Mills
	Entertaining Girls at Twickenham Farm
	Jefferson, Bond Lake, Oak Ridges
	"The Passing of Headford Mill"
	Headford and Dollar
	Carrville, Patterson, and Temperanceville
	Markham and Whitchurch, Vaughan and King
8	Fire Brigades and Fence Viewers
9	Picture Post Card Village of the 1880s and 1890s
10	Rails through Richmond Hill
11	The Flowering of Richmond Hill
12	The Village Transformed
	Epilogue
	Appendices
	Table of Illustrations
	Index

Markham and Whitchurch,Vaughan and King

All these smaller communities, plus Richmond Hill itself, drew much of their strength from the agricultural prosperity of the surrounding townships. By mid-century, Markham and Whitchurch townships to the east and Vaughan and King to the west had passed beyond the pioneer stage into mature agricultural areas, where wheat and mixed-farming supported a dense farm and farm-service population. Population growth was especially dramatic in the two southern townships. Between 1830 and 1850, for example, Markham more than doubled its population from about 3100 to 6900 people, while Vaughan's total increased between three- and fourfold, from 1700 to 6300.

In short, the news from Richmond Hill's neighbouring regions seemed entirely positive. With bustling hotels catering to travellers at Langstaff Corners,Bond Lake, and Oak Ridges, with a busy tannery at Elgin Mills and an even-busier implement factory at Patterson providing workers' jobs, with rumours of oil at Headford, with agricultural prosperity general throughout the surrounding townships - Richmond Hill faced the second half of the nineteenth century with some optimism, despite being bypassed by the steam railway line.

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