Orillia

I have 3 co-workers who are related to each other; Tracey, her daughter and her niece. Their roots run deep in Simcoe County and are mostly centred around the Town of Elmvale. Recently, Tracey asked me to take a quick look at their family tree and now I have 3 new distant cousins!

The chances seemed unlikely. Tracey’s ancestors have been living in this country for the better part of 200 years while I am an immigrant who only sailed into the Port of Montreal in 1967.

Having a rare surname in a family tree certainly helps though. In fact, I knew we had to be related as soon as I saw the name of Tracey’s third great grandmother, Margaret Tudhope.

If the Tudhope name rather sounds familiar, it should. This unique surname comes from only one place – the small village of Lesmahagow, in the county of Lanarkshire in Lowland Scotland and it is extremely well known in Simcoe County, particularly in the vicinity of Orillia.

In 1831, a group of some 50 people arrived in Canada with an organization called the Lesmahagow Emigration Society. The leader of that group was James Tudhope. His family included his wife, Christian Brockett, and their 8 children. Their daughter, Margaret Black, and her husband, James Black, were Tracey’s great great great grandparents.

But it was Margaret’s brother, William Brockett Tudhope, who started out as a blacksmith and progressed to wagon and carriage maker, who set in motion the career path that would help put the Tudhope name on the map in Simcoe County.

William Brockett Tudhope married Mary Reid in Oro Township in 1857. The eldest of their ten children, James Brockett Tudhope, was born there the following year. James B. Tudhope started out as a school teacher in Orillia but joined his father’s carriage company in the 1880s. In the early part of the 20th century, James B. Tudhope wore many hats – Mayor of Orillia, M.P.P., M.P., member of the Orillia Water and Lights Commission and, of course, founder of the Tudhope Motor Company which produced cars in Orillia.

The name is still very prominent today. The former Tudhope Motor Company factory, known as the Tudhope Building, now houses Orillia City Hall. Tudhope Park, on Lake Couchiching, is a 65-acre park located on land donated by the Tudhope family.

My own connection to the Tudhopes is my fifth great grandmother, Marion Tudhope, who was born around 1749 and is buried at Lesmahagow Cemetery where many of Margaret Tudhope’s ancestors lie. Our exact connection eludes me so far but Tracey and I are likely 6^th or 7^th cousins, or thereabouts.

The variations in spelling, as we travel backwards through time into the 1600s, complicate the search. The current spelling is one that was settled upon in more modern times but previous generations used Tytop, Tutop, Todhop and other forms of the surname.

Todhop may give a clue as to the origin of the name. When surnames arose in Lowland Scotland near the time of the 12^th century, most were either patronymic (a male ancestor’s name), such as Johnson, occupational, such as Baker, or geographical like Hill.

In the Scots language of the Lowland people, a tod is a fox and a hop/hope is a small valley. In centuries past, the forebears of the Tudhopes may have originated in a valley where foxes were common. This prominent Simcoe County family has come a long way from their rustic roots in the far away hills of Scotland.

Mary Harris
Barrie Historical Archive

September 20, 2020 marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Orillia native and former Ontario premier Leslie Frost.

Frost was born in Orillia on September 20, 1895 to William Sword Frost, a jeweller and former mayor of Orillia, and Margaret Jane Barker, who helped establish the Salvation Army in Canada.

Frost was studying at the University of Toronto when he volunteered to serve in the First World War in December 1915, at the age of 20. Frost was commissioned as a lieutenant and trained with the 157th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (Simcoe Foresters). The battalion shipped for England in October 1916. In August 1917, Lieutenant Frost was reassigned from the 157th to the 20th Battalion (Queen’s York Rangers) and arrived on the Western Front in the middle of the Battle of Passchendaele. Though he survived the battle, in March 1918 Frost was shot through the waist near Arras. He was evacuated to England, where he was treated at the Prince of Wales officers’ hospital in Marylebone. In December 1918 Frost was shipped to a hospital in Canada on the advice of a medical review board. He was finally released from hospital in September 1918 and officially discharged from service in 1919 with the rank of captain.

Frost went on to study law at Osgoode Hall, graduating in 1921. With his brother, Cecil Gray Frost, he purchased a law practice in Lindsay. Initially, the two brothers rented a former general store at Pleasant Point north of Lindsay and commuted to town by steamer. Frost bought the Pleasant Point property in 1925, later converting it into a family cottage.

Long an active member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, Frost was first elected to the provincial legislature in 1937 and never lost an election for the remainder of his career. He served as provincial treasurer and minister of mines in the Cabinet of PC premier George Drew from 1943 to 1949, when he became leader of the Progressive Conservatives (and premier of Ontario) in 1949 after Drew retired to pursue federal politics.

With his small-town values, progressive politics, genial nature and pragmatic attitude, Frost led the Progressive Conservatives through three consecutive majority governments, winning the 1951, 1955 and 1959 provincial elections. His premiership saw great expansion in the role of government in society and in public investment in the economy – from the creation of the 400 series of superhighways, the introduction of the provincial sales tax, and the establishment of public hospital insurance (the forerunner to OHIP) to voting rights for First Nations people and the merger of 13 neighbouring municipalities to create the City of Metropolitan Toronto.

Frost resigned as Conservative Party leader in 1961, at the age of 66. He was succeeded by John Robarts.

After retiring from politics, Frost remained heavily involved in governance, serving on the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto as well as on the Board of Directors of the Bank of Montreal, Canada Life, and other corporations. He also served as Chancellor of Trent University from 1967 to 1973.

During his retirement, Frost was also an avid naturalist and amateur historian, publishing the books Fighting Men, about the experiences of Orillia soldiers in WWI, and Forgotten Pathways of the Trent, which challenged previous historians’ conclusions about First Nations trade and warfare routes through southern Ontario. In 1969 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. He died in Lindsay on May 4, 1973, at age 77.

Written by: John Merritt, SCHA

Tudhope: A small family with big dreams.

Leslie Frost: Orillia’s Premier

Simcoe County Historical Association Land Acknowledgement