Maitland: "A Very Neat Village Indeed"

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

This is an excellent and unique local history. Its strongest characteristic is that it is professionally written, edited, and printed — three traits very frequently lacking in local histories.

The first half of the work is a readable account of the settlement of Maitland, a small Eastern Ontario town on the St. Lawrence. Otto covers the period from the French occupation in the 1700s to 1867, the year at which most Ontario local histories begin. He touches on prominent families, industries, schools, mills, farms, houses, shops, and churches, plus the local occupation of smuggling.

Maitland was known for its distillery and for the Jireh Food Company, which manufactured special foods for diabetics before the discovery of insulin.

The second half of the work is a walking tour of the village, with notes on 40 buildings that were standing in 1867 (most of which exist today).

The book is well illustrated with maps, sketches, reproductions of historic documents and photos, and modern photos of historic buildings. The illustrations, even more than the text, indicate Otto’s interest in pre-Confederation architecture.

The work is not academic in tone, yet it conveys the information in a well-organized manner, giving precise dates and sources. The scholarship behind it shows, but it doesn’t detract from the book’s approachability. It is distinct from most small town histories in that it is more factual, has less conjecture and fewer reminiscences. This is scarcely surprising, considering Otto’s background: graduate of Cambridge, the University of Toronto, and Harvard, director of the Ontario Heritage Foundation, and member of the Toronto Historical Board.

A history and a walking tour together in one book make a unique, practical package. It’s a local history that will be used as well as read. This is a model of what a local history should be.