A short distance west of Mount Albert lies Holt. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it small today, Holt was once a thriving hamlet with a commercial core and full of hopeful settlers.
The community was founded in the early 1830s, literally rising out of the woods with the arrival pioneers that included Samuel Douglas, Thomas Fields, James Hopkins, John Leopard, Richard Rowen, and Charles Traviss. At the time, the settlement was known as Eastville.
Around 1835, these men and others joined together to build a school, SS#6, on the northwest corner of the Mount Albert Road and Concession 7 (McCowan Road) intersection. In the 1860s, a new frame school was built a short distance away from the first, facing McCowan.
By this time, the school had been joined by a handful of businesses and a small but distinct community had taken shape.
The largest and many would argue most prominent business in the young community was Joseph Armitage’s roadside inn, located on the north-west corner. Born in East Gwillimbury in 1825 and the product of one of the region’s oldest families, he opened the Eastville Hotel sometime in the 1850s, catering to weary travellers. Assisting him in its operation was his able wife, Elizabeth Anne (nee Pegg).
The Eastville Hotel thrived until Oct. 29, 1869. Late that night a fire broke out in the stable. Fuelled by dry hay, the stable burned to the ground before anyone could react, claiming the lives of three horses. Driven by wind, the flames jumped to the hotel as well, causing extensive damage. The fire, according to The Irish Canadian publication for Nov. 3, “is supposed to have been the work of an incendiary”. In other words, arson. Armitage rebuilt under the name Armitage Hotel.
Englishman John Quibell and local born Annie Elizabeth Atkins ran the village general store. They were granted a post office licence in 1863 and were quick to change the community’s name from Eastville to Holt, after the town in England where John was born. The Quibells ran the store until their retirement in 1889.
Holt was also home to not one but two carpenters. Leonard Lepard (also spelled Leppard and Leopard) was born in the vicinity in 1830, the son of John Charles Lepard, who was one of the first children born in Newmarket when he entered the world in 1805. The Lepards were members of The Children of Peace, who built and worshipped at the Sharon Temple.
The other carpenter was Evan Morris. His father had immigrated from Wales to East Gwillimbury around 1839, while Evan was still a toddler, and passed on his knowledge of carpentry to his son. Evan Morris opened a shop in Holt, but there likely wasn’t any animosity between him and Lepard – after all, they were brothers -in- law through Morris’ wife, Lavina.
Finally, Holt also included a blacksmith shop on the southeast corner and a Weslayan Methodist Church, built in 1863. The population stood at around 50.
Holt was then at its apogee. It never grew beyond being a mere hamlet. Soon, communities that were connected to the rail-lines being across Ontario (like Mount Albert) or to the important economic artery that was Yonge Street (like Holland Landing) - or both, in the case of Newmarket - were leaving Holt in their wake, developing strong commercial and industrial cores that sucked the life out of the small village.
Joshua Armitage, in particular, felt the impact. As trains siphoned away road traffic his hotel suffered, and he was forced to close sometime in the 1870s. By the time of the 1881 census he had turned to butchery, a far cry from running a hotel.
Holt, for its part, remained a farming community, nothing more. While other towns grew in leaps and bounds, Holt settled into a placid routine.
Lingering into the 20th century were the church, store, store and post office. The church closed in 1905, was re-opened by Free Methodists a few years later, and eventually then closed yet again as the congregation moved into a modern building that still hosts sermons to this day. James Knott ran the store for nearly half a century until his death in 1948. The school, meanwhile, was almost half a century old, so in 1908 a third and final school, this one of brick construction. It, too, closed when schools were centralized around mid-century. The school was turned into a private residence and remains so.
Confirmation of Holt’s demise can in 1969 when Maud Viola Holliday, postmistress since 1969, was told to close the post office.
Today, one would never know that Holt, while never large, was once a thriving community.