Mary Allen Stories...

The Mary-Allen neighbourhood has several majestic houses, many of them on George Street.  You can download a walking tour of the neighbourhood at this link . One interesting house is 39 George Street.  It is a mirror image of a house at 50 Albert Street.  Both houses were constructed by Charles Moogk , Waterloo’s first Civic Engineer as well as an architect and a builder.   The Albert Street house was built in 1903 for Herbert Snyder of Snyder Brothers Company (furniture and upholstery), and 39 George was built for his brother, Alfred, in 1905.  (Their father, Simon Snyder, lived next door at 43 George Street).  Both houses are concrete wall construction, a new concept at the time.  Both cost around $7,000 to build.  39 George Street c.1940, constructed by Gharles Moogk and built for Alfred Snyder of Snyder Brothers Co. in 1905. In 1945 Edward Bordman and his son, Harold, bought 39 George Street.  Edward supplied the down pay...

Part of a c.1895 birds-eye view  of the town of Waterloo, looking NE. Image courtesy of the Waterloo Municipal Heritage Committee.   Who were Mary and Allen? We’re not sure, but we have a reasonably good idea who Herbert and John were. Street names in the Mary-Allen neighbourhood seem to read like the branches of a family tree: George, Mary, Herbert, Allen, William, John, Moore…  But for whom are these streets named? Some of the information in this post comes from research-in-progress left by the late Waterloo historian Ellis Little , who had started a file on Waterloo street origins and land surveys.  Click on the link to read about Ellis, a thoroughly knowledgeable scholar of Waterloo history.  After his death in 2004 the Waterloo Public Library local history room was named in his honour, and it acquired his research papers for public use.  Ellis Little’s early research on street names included few source references; more digging will be ...

When you stroll through our Uptown neighbourhood you will notice Norway spruce trees dotting the landscape. Soaring in many back, side and front yards, they are all a uniform size. These trees were planted by schoolchildren in the 1920s. A Norway spruce behind 40 George Street. Before Elizabeth Ziegler Public School was built our neighbourhood kids went across King Street to attend Alexandra School (ingeniously re-adapted into condos in 2000). To celebrate Arbour Day, every student was given a seedling to take home. Years ago I met the woman who grew up in my house in the 1920s. She and her brother, children of George H. Skelton, each planted a Norway spruce in the backyard. Hers has survived and towers above our house at 40 George Street. Arbour Day was started in Nebraska in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton. He was a journalist from the east coast who eventually became Secretary of the Nebraska Territory. He recognized the need for trees as a source of shade, for wind...

The Grand Trunk Railway came to Berlin (Kitchener) in 1856, drawing the region within reach of the far-flung world, and broadening its cultural, commercial and industrial potential. In Waterloo, the land made available by the 1855 Hoffman survey (see the blog post  Mary Allen Beginnings, Part 1 ) meant that commercial and industrial enterprise could now gain a better foothold. The population increased to more than 1,200 by 1861, and would continue to grow steadily into the thousands during the late nineteenth century. Click to enlarge, then open image in new tab for full size. Part of Tremaine's Map of the County of Waterloo, Canada West, 1861. By the mid-1800s, Berlin and Waterloo were surrounded by subdivided farm lots. One undivided lot, “Saml. S Snider” (circled), shows the size of the original, nearly 450-acre lots as created in 1805. Streets shown include Erb (1), Albert (2) and King (3), as well as Mary and John in the future Mary-Allen neighbourhood (4). ...