Ernestown: Rural Spaces, Urban Places

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada and Too Good to Be True: Toronto in the 1920s.

Today, Ernestown is a township of some 11,000 people on the northeastern
shore of Lake Ontario, just west of Kingston. It is a tribute to the
tenacity of tradition in this part of Canada’s most populous province
that the local history of the township is now available in such a
well-produced volume.

Ernestown is part of the Ontario whose history of mass agricultural
settlement goes back to the “coming of the Loyalists” in 1784.
Beyond its primary local audience, the book should interest students of
the continuing Loyalist strands in Ontario political culture as well as
students of the broader agrarian mainstream in 19th-century Ontario. The
growing cosmopolitanism of even those sides of current Ontario regional
culture still strongly marked by the heritage of the 19th century is
reflected in the chapter “Prehistory and Contact: Ernestown Before
1784,” which ends with an intriguing account of the local adventures
of Madeleine De Roybon d’Allone in the late 17th century. Larry
Turner, a professional heritage consultant and historian with two
earlier titles to his credit, has put together an expert and engaging
text, liberally illustrated with period drawings, maps, and photographs.
His book ultimately leaves the reader with a sense of how, even in a
“new country” like Canada, cultivation of local cultural heritage
can give fresh strength and meaning to the challenges that undoubtedly
lie ahead.