Brent Fullard has forwarded these photographs, taken in 1910 and 1912 (click on the photographs for a larger image, then use your browser’s “back” button to return). These are scanned images of photographs taken of the original photographs which are in photo albums created by Minnie Kennedy (see below).
This photograph was taken in 1912, of Newton Thomas and his best friend Arthur Dempster.
Newton Thomas is Brent Fullard’s grandfather and knew Arthur Dempster (a prominent Bala cottager) as they both went to the University of Toronto. Newton Thomas often visited his brother Ezra Thomas who owned Norman Island in Lake Muskoka (in the Seven Sisters Islands) which was renamed by him as Tonnenheim Island (which is German for “Pine Home”). Newton Thomas graduated in 1916 from the University of Toronto as a medical doctor, after having his education interrupted by World War I. His graduating class from the University of Toronto included Norman Bethune (also famous in Muskoka, the Wikipedia article is here) and Frederick Banting.
Arthur Dempster later received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and worked on the Manhattan Project. The Wikipedia article summarizing this is here.
This photograph was taken in 1910, of Newton Thomas with Minnie Kennedy, who was from Windsor and the daughter of a Methodist Minister. The background appears to show the south side of the north falls as level ground, this was before the highway was built.
This is Minnie Kennedy with Arthur Dempster, the photograph was taken in 1912. The north falls are in the background, with a hoist mechanism to adjust the stop-logs.
This is the Moon River, as photographed in 1912.
Here you can see the page on which the photograph is mounted in Minnie Kennedy’s photo album, where she has written:
- Above the photograph: “Muskoka, August 1912”
- To the left: “Newton – ‘a name far sounded among man for noble deeds'”
- Below: “At Bala”
- To the right: “To you I dedicate the hour in idle rhyme”
This shows just the photograph from the above album page.
This is Brent Fullard’s Uncle Newton Thomas Jr. in a recreation of the previous photograph, 80 years later.