Read the latest release from local author and historian, Ken Brown!
August 29, 1859: John A. Macdonald disembarked from the Cobourg train at the Ashburnham train station, across the street from Peterborough's current Ashburnham Alehouse. He strolled south along the tracks to the shores of Little Lake past the new Canoe Museum building location, then hiked east up a path to the Beavermead Farm House.
He was in town to meet with lawyer Robert Dennistoun and young widow Elizabeth Hall, owner of Beavermead Farm. His mission: to take over and develop the Beavermead lands to save Elizabeth and her four young children from destitution.
This book tells the multi-year story of that enterprise on behalf of the appreciative widow who, the following year wrote to "My loved John...love from loving Lizzie." It is a story that connects the history of an important Peterborough property with a little-known and extraordinary personal relationship on the part of Canada's most prominent historical figure.