Map 35. Central Paris. The Lower Town, including the main shopping drag Grand River Street North, is on the peninsula between the two rivers. The older Upper Town is on the west side of the Grand around the end of the Dundas Street Bridge. P in the free municipal lot on Broadway Street West between Mechanic and William Streets. Paris is usually very busy in the summer, but at the moment the reconstruction of Grand River Street North has lowered footfall considerably. There’s plenty of congestion on the roads, however.
The word Paris on the map covers the central block of Grand River Street North, currently closed to traffic. Small red dots show local trails, chiefly along the Nith. Mauve dots on the east bank indicate the S.C. Johnson Trail. Abbreviations: AH = Arlington Hotel; BH = Levi Boughton House; CN = Railway Bridge; D = Penman’s Dam; NB = Nith Bridge; PM = Penman Manor; PP = Penman’s Pool; PT = Grand River Portage; PV = Penmarvion; SJ = St. James Anglican Church; TH = Old Town Hall; WB = William Street Bridge; WH = Asa Wolverton House; WM = Wincey Mills.
425. Paris (pop. about 15,000) is fortunate to have had two excellent historians. The first was F. Douglas Reville, author of History of the County of Brant (first published in 1883), and the second, Donald A. Smith, author of At the Forks of the Grand (first published in 1956). I have included excerpts from these works in many of the entries below.
“In 1830, the new village was still officially known as the Forks of the Grand. Capron disliked the name … He wanted to call his village ‘Paris.’ Of course the plaster of Paris beds suggested the name; but so did the white plastered houses, the Grand River with its two two elm-crowned islands, the beautiful heights that encircled the Forks, and a strange and subtle beauty that pervaded the place and entranced all who felt its presence. But the villagers shrank from ‘Paris’ – a name then associated with mobs, guillotines, and ambitious ladies” (Smith 19).
426. Hiram Capron (ca. 1852) by Robert Whale, courtesy of the Paris Museum and Historical Society
”The central figure in the early history of Paris is that of its founder, foster father and first Reeve, Hiram Capron. Those few who remember him in the prime of his vigorous manhood recall his erect figure, dark brown hair, keen, observant, yet not unkindly-looking eyes, curt speech and frequent jest. To most of the Paris friends who have given us the advantage of their recollections of Mr. Capron, he appears as an old man, still vigorous, with white hair, and compelled by rheumatic contraction of the sinews, which had almost dislocated the head of the femur from its socket, to hobble about by aid of two stout sticks. But in manhood or old age he is remembered by all as keen, shrewd, generous, under a mask of reserve” (Reville 465-6).
The first legitimate settler at the Forks was William Holme, an English-born Quaker, in 1821. His elder brother John had bought a parcel of land, including all of what is now Paris north of the Forks, from William Dickson (see #370 above). In 1822 John transferred the deed and mortgage to William. But William was a gentleman, and no founder of settlements. Capron (1796-1872), an American but neither an Empire Loyalist nor a Pennsylvania Mennonite, was. The founder of Paris, hearkening to the notion that young men should go west to make one’s fortune, was full of can-do Yankee spirit.
Hiram Capron was born in Leicester, Vermont, managed a blast furnace in Manchester, New York, and subsequently became a traveller for iron goods while looking for an opportunity to start his own foundry. He first visited Holme at the Forks in 1823 and was captivated: “I gazed spellbound upon the beautiful valley, then in its natural beauty and rugged grandeur, before the ax had robbed it of its stately oaks and wide-spreading elms. And before mounting my horse, I made up my mind to own this lovely valley” (Capron quoted by Smith 10). In 1829 Capron visited Holme again and agreed to pay him $10,000 for his land, buildings and plaster-mining rights.
Capron and his family moved to the Forks in May 1929, bought the lease of strip of land including what is now the Upper Town, and divided it into lots. He insisted that the settlement be called Paris – as an American, he thought of the French as revolutionary allies. And like many Americans who settled the Grand Valley, he probably assumed that the territory would be subsumed into the Republic one day. Upper Canada under the Family Compact was hardly a democracy. However, after Responsible Government was instituted after the 1837 Rebellion, he and many other of the local Americans changed their tune: “On the slightest pretext they would ostentatiously display bigger Union Jacks than their neighbours, and utter more sonorous platitudes concerning the glory of the British Empire and the Majesty of its Queen” (Smith 87).
Paris in its early days particular was indebted to Americans, who included many of the businessmen, innkeepers, stage drivers, and the builders Boughton and Wolverton (see #451 & 452 below). As local worthies had names like Zacharias Clump, Trueworthy Smith, and Increase B. Coon, “one might suppose that the early village was a Yankee colony” (Smith 85).
427. Lumps of Grand River Gypsum, courtesy of the Paris Museum and Historical Society.
“The European Paris – as its Latin name, Lutetia Parisiorum, imports – was named from mud; the Canadian Paris was named from gypsum“ (Reville 463).
Not exactly. Lutetia does connote “mud” or “swampy ground” in Latin, but the French capital takes its name from the Parisii, a Gallic tribe that lived in the marshy Seine valley. The butte of Montmartre above Paris was known from very early times as a source of gypsum, namely calcium sulphate dihydrate, a softish white mineral used as a fertilizer and as the basis for plaster, stucco, drywall, medical casts, etc. – hence “plaster of Paris.” Abundant gypsum was discovered by pioneers in beds near the confluence of the Grand and Nith Rivers. The little settlement that was first known as “The Forks of the Grand River” was renamed “Paris,” not only for plaster of Paris, but also because its founder Capron had great ambitions for the hamlet in its striking location at the Forks.
428. ”We … are within close view of the railway bridge. It spans a space of seven hundred and eighty feet, and the railway track at its summit is ninety feet above the river. It is built of iron and wood-work, on the “Howe truss” principle. There are one hundred and forty feet distance between each of its pillars of massive stone. It was built by Mr. Farrell, from the plans of a Mr. Wallace, of Buffalo. By one of those exceptional escapes which sometimes occur to baffle the common sense of experience, the builder, Mr. Farrell, while walking on the summit, lost his footing and fell ninety feet down into the river, and, except for a few days confinement, was unharmed” (Reville 464).
The Paris Railway Bridge is a steel deck truss bridge, with diagonal members joining the top and bottom chords. It was built about 1860 for the Grand Trunk Railway. The line that crosses it, now owned by CN, is still active. The cut stone piers have been reinforced with concrete on the downstream side.
429. The Railway Bridge viewed from downstream, with Penman’s Dam near its foot.
“Beyond the Lower Town bridge is the railway bridge … crossing from side to side of the northern hill. It is raised on massive stone pillars, and the train moves slowly and carefully over it. Still the height is fearful, and as one looks, one is apt to remember how on one occasion, when a freight train was passing, the last car broke loose and plunged over the fenceless verge into the abyss below. Fortunately no one was on board of that car” (Reville 464).
430. In the early days, the Nith rather than the mighty, unpredictable Grand was used to power the mills of Paris. By 1849, for example, the Nith was supplying 87 horsepower to eight industries. But then in 1854 a dam and mill race on the Grand by Willow Street were constructed. And right away mills and factories (almost all of which have now vanished) were built to harness the 800 horsepower provided by the mill race. What’s left of the race is visible in the far right of both these last two photos.
“The Nith and the Grand have had a very great influence upon Paris. Without the power developed by one or other of these rivers, there would have been no way of grinding either gypsum or the grain of the pioneer, or of sawing the logs that were floated down on the spring floods, or of driving the simple machinery of the first industries … Without the rivers, there would probably be no Paris” (Smith 88).
431. (Top) The Grand River portage is next to the abutment of the Railway Bridge on Willow Street. À propos: the Mohawk name for the Grand is O:se Kenhionhata:tie, which means “Willow River,” after the many willows lining its banks.
(Bottom) Downstream paddlers lift their craft out of the water here and up the bank with the help of the roller ramp, carry them along a wooden boardwalk until they’ve passed Penman’s Dam, then relaunch them at the end of the boardwalk by Elm Street. They should be aware that there’s a dangerous “boil” or undertow just below the dam. From that relaunch point there’s a clear run down to Wilkes Dam in Brantford, though watercraft should keep to the main channel as rocky side channels can be very shallow in summer.
432. (Top) The view downstream of the William Street bridge that joins the Lower Town on the west bank to the flats on the east. That’s the point where the Grand was usually crossed in the early days of Paris, often simply by wading when the river was shallow enough.
(Bottom) Canoeists who have portaged around Penman’s Dam take a break before continuing downstream.
“The Grand River was crossed by a rope on which a basket was slung, in which the passenger placed himself and was drawn by another rope to the opposite bank, but this method fell into disrepute on account of an accident that took place in the spring of 1837. The waters of the Grand River were more than usually flooded and fierce, as they swept round the bridgeless Lower Town peninsula. A Mr. Torrance … was crossing in the basket as usual to the eastern shore. About midway the basket slipped, and trying in vain to cling to the swaying rope, Mr. Torrance was swept away by the flood. He was never seen again” (Reville 465).
433. (Top and middle) The picturesque backs of businesses on Grand River Street in relation to the river, as viewed from the William Street Bridge. Those balconies confidently suggest that floods on Grand River Street are a thing of the past.
(Bottom) A high open terrace gives diners a great view of the Grand.
“Before 1850, and for some time afterwards, Grand River [Street] from the corner of Dumfries Street down to the Nith Bridge was steep and hazardous; and between the Nith Bridge and William Street, it ran along the sloping bank of the river about eleven feet lower than it does today. Often this lower part was swept by the floodwaters of the Grand: water poured through the shops and stores along the bank” (Smith 55).
434. This was the lively scene in July 2021, mid-pandemic, looking north up Grand River Street. It’s lined with independent stores, eateries and bars catering to a large volume of tourist traffic in the summer months.
“The main street, Grand River Street, is gay with stores, glittering and bright coloured, to attract that sex to whom shopping is the best substitute for Paradise” (Reville 463).
435. But as I write in the summer of 2025, everything has changed. The centre of Grand River Street is fenced off while The Downtown Dig takes place, only narrow sidewalks allow access to the businesses, and the street is sadly almost devoid of visitors. If you plan a visit to Paris, better to wait until the Dig is Done. The renovated Grand River Street will reopen to vehicular traffic in the fall of 2025 … or so the story goes.
Check out the masterplan here. And learn what the Dig has uncovered here.
436. The imposing bulk of the Arlington Hotel at the northwest corner of Grand River and William Streets. Its original was built, possibly by Hiram Capron, in about 1850 and faced with plaster of Paris … what else! Pennsylvania-born businessman Orrin D. Bradford bought it in 1864 and it became known as the Bradford House. In 1883 new owners built this huge yellow brick extension (the modest original building still stands next to it) and renamed it the Arlington Hotel. So there’s been a hotel on this site continuously operating for 175 years.
In 2018 the Arlington was renovated into a boutique hotel with 23 literary themed rooms. The themes include, in alphabetical order: Maya Angelou, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Agatha Christie, Leonard Cohen, Leonardo da Vinci, Emily Dickinson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sigmund Freud, the Brothers Grimm, Ernest Hemingway, Stanley Kubrick, Stan Lee, Edgar Allan Poe, Monty Python, Dr. Seuss, Mary Shelley, Nina Simone, Hunter S. Thompson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and (phew!) Virginia Woolf. As a big fan of many of these luminaries I’d be spoiled for choice!
437. Here’s the paradigm of the quirky independent store ethos in Paris: the Dog-Eared Café at 121 Grand River Street North, right opposite the main entrance of the Arlington. It’s a bookstore-cum-café (or vice-versa) where you can purchase an appropriate volume to start reading in situ with coffee and a snack, and finish in your literary-themed room across the street.
A message from the proprietors: “We’re a comfortable couch and a good book; a warm, carefully crafted coffee drink sipped slow to wash down a rich treat savoured. We’re good music and honest conversations, evenings spent with your community, a craft beer or local wine shared with laughter in your ears, the world’s demands left at the door. Welcome to the Dog-Eared Café. Welcome to our home. Please don’t jump on the furniture.”
438. The William Street Bridge, with the dam and Railway Bridge farther upstream, from a downtown river overlook.
”The Grand River, now so harmless as it ripples over its pebbly beach, was very different during the spring freshets of thirty years ago. Then the water was so high that rafts of pine lumber were floated down to the Paris saw-mills. It was customary also to carry down in scows the gypsum from the upper beds to the landing place at the Nith, where it was conveyed by ox-teams to the plaster mill kept by Mr. Hamilton, a little further west. The only bridges then used were of wood, and were not unfrequently carried away … Mr. Walter Capron has told us of a scene he witnessed when, one spring day, a number of people returning to their homes across the river found the bridge swept away; there was no bridge nearer than Galt!” (Reville 464).
439. The view down William Street from the western foot of the bridge. The buildings, left to right, are Paris Baptist Church, the Arlington Hotel, and a commercial block on Grand River Street.
440. The original Paris Wincey Mills complex was constructed in 1889 in the downtown core near the Forks. It was powered by a mill race on the Nith. Wincey, a.k.a. linsey-woolsey, is a twilled fabric of wool and cotton in combination. The mill was closed in 1959, and later this surviving building (top) was taken over by Canadian Tire. It relocated in early 2013 and the building was left empty. Wingbury Properties bought it in 2014 as a “pet project,” with the idea of “creating a community gathering spot” with industrial chic décor. There’s abundant office space with views on the second and third floors, and the ground floor (bottom) features retail tenants, a market hall, a restaurant/cafe, and a test kitchen. “The temptation in these old factories is to drywall over everything and start fresh. But the Wincey Mills chose a different route. They cleaned and sealed the bricks, but left the distressed paint finishes intact – along with old notes and autographs people had written on the interior walls and structure through the decades. They were preserved under a clear coat for posterity, and make great conversation starters.” (Business View)
441. A mural on Mechanic Street.
”Nor has art been unknown to this town. Poor Tom Rhodes, an artist of the true Bohemian type, wandered hither. When he could get no sale for a picture Tom was not above painting signs, and even in this, the lowest branch of the pictorial profession, his deft hand and skilful colouring gave a dash and finish to his works, several of which still swing in the wind over hotels and stores in the Upper Town. Tom was ‘a fellow of infinite humour’; could turn a tune and cap a joke with the best. Everybody in Paris liked him; but, alas, he chiefly sought after those friendships which begin and end with the whiskey jar. His ready skill in portrait-painting was remarkable; some of his pictures are still preserved in the town. Constant handling of pigments containing lead, joined with his intemperate habits, brought on paralysis. He sleeps in the Town Cemetery, leaving happily no near relative to mourn over his fate” (Reville 488).
442. The bridge over the Nith on Grand River Street, currently closed to traffic. A solid spandrel arch bridge built in 1934, it’s the crucial link between the Upper and Lower Towns, so its closure to vehicles has meant that traffic in and out of central Paris is now seriously congested. On the bright side, you can stand on the bridge in peace and quiet and admire the views in both directions.
443. (Top) The view northeast from the Nith bridge (#442 above) over its confluence with the Grand. On the opposite shore, I glimpsed something moving …
(Bottom) … a white-tailed doe followed by her cute, dappled fawn, apprehensively dipping its feet into the Grand and gingerly following mom along the shoreline.
“[In] the country of this Neutral [Attawandaron] nation … there is an incredible number of stags, great abundance of moose and elk, beaver, wildcats and black squirrel – a great quantity of wild geese, turkeys, cranes and other animals, which are there all winter. The rivers furnish excellent fish; the earth gives good grain, more than is needed. They have squashes, beans, and other vegetables in abundance” (Joseph de la Roche Daillon [d. 1656], Recollet missionary to the Hurons, on his sojourn among the Neutrals in the valley of the Grand; quoted by Smith 82).
444. The view southwest from the Nith Bridge. About 125 km long, the Nith is the southernmost of the major tributaries of the Grand. It’s named for the River Nith in Dumfries and Galloway, southwest Scotland, that empties into the Solway Firth. The first gypsum deposits in Paris were found on the bank of the Nith to the left of that canoe.
“The old cedars and tall elms interlace their boughs one to the other so closely as almost to exclude the rays of the noonday sun, and the wild ivy and other climbing plants hang in graceful festoons from tree to tree. Wild flowers in great variety decorate the ground, and lift their heads to catch each ray of sunshine which can struggle through the umbrageous canopy above them. The plash of the river is heard pleasantly in the distance, and the scared birds rise with an alarmed note at the unusual sound of human footfall” (Hiram Capron on “The Jungle” on the west bank of the Nith, quoted by Smith 14).
445. The footbridge over the Nith at Penman’s Pass. This is where a dam and mill race, long gone, powered the huge Penman’s #1 Mill. There’s a pleasant if often busy riverside trail along the west bank of the Nith, marked with red dots on Map 35 above. You can access it here or from another footbridge at the end of Mechanic Street in the centre of town.
In Paris business circles “the dominating figure was John Penman. His parents, both from Scotland, lived for a time in New York City; but about 1860 they migrated to Woodstock, Ontario. There the father established a small textile mill … In 1868, since their business was growing rapidly and they needed more water-power, the Penmans moved to Paris … In 1883 … John Penman reorganized the business and renamed it ‘The Penman Manufacturing Company.’ Then he and the company began to buy up a number of shops and and mills on the Willow Street race, together with their water rights … Penman was keenly interested in civic affairs; but since he refused to renounce his American citizenship, he could not hold public office” (Smith 64).
446. “The Nith, as ambitious in its impetuosity though inferior in majesty to the noble stream it is about to join, sweeps in a semicircle round the Lower Town. Its naiads do not disdain to minister to human industry” (Reville 463).
The view downstream from the footbridge above. On a hot summer’s day, the shallow Nith does indeed allow naiads to disport themselves in midstream, while we enviously sweat on shore.
447. “On the east bank of the Nith, is the Penman Manufacturing Company’s factory. It is a spacious and stately building, quite unlike the popular ideal of a factory; four stories high, and with lofty, well proportioned apartments … Four hundred persons are employed in this factory, of whom two-thirds are female. This firm manufactures all kinds of men’s underclothing shirts, drawers, jackets besides socks, gloves, neckties and rubber cloth. They turn out four thousand dozen of shirts and drawers every week. Their specialty is the use of very fine wools. They employ both Canadian and foreign wools; Canadian from Lower Canada or from Hamilton, foreign from England and the Cape of Good Hope” (Reville 477).
“From 1907 to 1928, Penmans brought to the town 700 British hosiery workers who became the core of the mill workers’ community. Most were unmarried women, recruited from Lancashire and Yorkshire for their skills with hosiery machines and knitted fabric. In the 1930s Penmans operated its Paris mills with day and night shifts, and the whistle indicating shift changes was a memorable feature of daily life” (Penman Textile Mill National Historic Site).
This mill complex at 140 West River Street, first established in 1868, became the largest woollen knitted goods producer in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. What remains are three large industrial buildings and a tall brick smokestack. Since 1989 It’s been a National Historic Site of Canada. And since 2012 the buildings have been redeveloped and the site has been well preserved as an upscale condominium development called Penman Manor.
Paris has become a bedroom community for larger cities in the area, such as Hamilton, Brantford, and Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, and you’d expect its population, and housing stock, to grow accordingly. BUT (and it’s a big one), this means that the car traffic will increase yet further in a town neither suited nor ready for it. There are no buses in Paris itself, no buses or trains between Paris and other cities. None at all! There’s a ride-booking operation called Brant Transit, but it uses SUVs and vans and only operates between Paris and Brantford. For a serious consequence of this car dependency, see #453 below.
448. On our way back downtown, let’s make a short detour to Penmarvian, Paris’s grandest nineteenth-century McMansion.
The Stone House, a modest two-storey dwelling in Greek Revival style at 185 Grand River Street North was built by Hiram Capron for his family in 1845. In 1887 the house was bought by John Penman and extended and “upgraded” into a three-storey Victorian castle with tower, turret, arches, decorative ironwork, etc. Penman renamed it “Penmarvian,” a combination of his and his wife’s surnames. Penman died in 1931 having willed his house to the Presbyterian Church as a retirement home for their clergy. By 1970 the Church could no longer afford to run it, and it lay empty until 1978. Soon thereafter the owners of a nursing home bought it. It required considerable addition and internal modernization to make the grade as a nursing home, the purpose it currently serves. The over-the-top character of the building exterior has been nicely preserved.
449. “At the very edge of the steep hill-side is a row of buildings, out of repair, but not unpicturesque” (Reville 464).
Now let’s visit the Upper Town. This little row of houses still stands on the north side of the steepest section of Grand River Street, the street (currently closed to vehicles) connecting the Lower and Upper Town. And even today, as the patches of peeling paint reveal, the row is “out of repair, but not unpicturesque.”
450. St. James Anglican Church, at 8 Burwell Street. This was the first cobblestone building in Paris.
“It is built in the cobble-stone masonwork peculiar to this district. These cobble-stones, rounded by extinct water-courses, are heaped in great hill-like banks on the west side of the Grand River. They are laid in the mortar lengthways, the ends pointing outwards, and though more expensive than ordinary stonework, form a wall which is both strong and picturesque. This church, at least the nave or main part of it, was built in 1841. The roof is flat, the windows are of the kind designated by architectural experts ‘Carpenter’s Gothic,’ and the west end is surmounted by one of those nondescript belfries, terminated by a tin-covered spirelet so often seen in country churches in Canada, and whose real origin is in the renaissance style imported into Lower Canada by the French in the eighteenth century” (Revell 480).
“The tyranny of the State Church … rigidly enforced a law which ordained that none but Church of England ministers could solemnize a marriage. The marriage monopoly in this part of Canada was held by the Rev. Mr. Luggard, who lived a few miles out of Brantford. Now the law of marriage fees was that a marriage solemnized at the parson’s house cost only a dollar, whereas, if he was called on to drive to any distance, the fee was five dollars. Mr. Luggard accordingly was urgent in inculcating on all whom it concerned that the orthodox way to get married was to drive to a hotel in Brantford, where he would meet and unite them, receiving in return the five dollars, supplemented by the ‘first kiss,’ which was then one of the ‘benefits of clergy.’ But oftentimes the bride was of an economical turn … and insisted on driving to the parsonage. This the reverend gentleman considered to partake of the nature of ‘schism’; … in fact, such marriages were immoral, and struck at the root of all true religion. To mark his displeasure, he would only consent to unite such couples in his woodshed, amid surroundings and odours anything but suggestive of sanctity and refinement. These woodshed weddings were held in abomination, and the would-be brides of the settlement preferred to drive over the boundary to the States. There the marriage, which of course was perfectly valid here, was solemnized promptly enough” (Reville 467).
451. “The art of cobblestone masonry was brought to Paris by an American, Levi Boughton, who came here from Normandale, Albany County, New York State in 1938 with his wife Sida Mann. Mr. Boughton’s craft was very far from new, having been introduced into Britain nearly 2,000 years ago by the great Roman builders. Cobblestone construction survived in southern England and one or more masons are believed to have brought it from there to New York State where several hundred cobblestone houses are still extant. Intricate in design and expensive to build because of the time involved, the masonry consists of horizontal rows of small, round, smooth, glacial-deposit stones set in mortar with a line of mortar in between the rows and often points of mortar between each stone. This facing is tied into a solid rubble wall by every fourth or fifth stone which is longer … Boughton’s arrival here was toward the end of cobblestone’s popularity so the building period in Paris and district lasted a scant 20 years. The houses were too expensive to build as it took many months to size the stones and lay the courses (rows) on the walls, so they were soon supplanted by the square-cut, stone houses built by a group of Scottish masons of this district” (Kay Tew Marshall, quoted by Smith 86).
(Top) Close-up of a cobblestone wall.
(Bottom) Levi Boughton’s own cobblestone house (built 1851) at 19 Queen Street. Boughton (1805-95) and his wife had 16 children. Boughton himself died at the age of 90 and is buried in Paris. His house, which, though only one storey, has 12 foot ceilings, seems to have been preserved in excellent condition.
452. The Asa Wolverton House.
“Wolverton operated a sawmill on the Nith near what is now Penman’s dam, and built many shops and houses in Paris, including his own remarkable home, 52 Grand River Street, and that of his son, one door further east. It is said that Wolverton was a Southerner, and that he brought a number of negro workmen with him” (Smith 63).
Many rumours, not all true, accreted around Asa Wolverton (1804-61), a successful Parisian sawmill owner, lumber dealer, and contractor. He was almost certainly not from the Southern States. He immigrated to Upper Canada in 1826 from Cayuga County, New York (though he may have been born in Scotland). He did have Black servants, but these were probably freed or escaped slaves that he and his wife took in. It’s unlikely that the Wolverton house was a station on the Underground Railroad, however. He and his wife were childless, so this beautiful Greek Revival property of almost 5,000 square feet only had one bedroom! However, it boasts a cobblestone smokehouse and steps down to a heated fishing cabin on the Grand. In recent years it’s been a bed and breakfast and tea room, and since April 2024 it’s been on sale for $2.2 million. (If you’re in the market, you’ll be relieved to know that it now has 3 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms.)
453. Q. Oh dear, a derelict, boarded-up, about-to-be-demolished church! What gave?
A. Actually it’s the Old Paris Town Hall. Until recently there were exciting plans to renovate it at considerable cost.
Q. So what’s with that NEEDLE WORKS sign? And what were those plans?
A. The building was completed in 1854, the first secular building in Canada in medieval Gothic style. As with such small town municipal buildings, there were many demands to use its spaces. The basement was fitted out with jail cells and the ground floor had offices for councillors and a market. There was a boys’ school in one of the rooms until the boys started vandalizing the area. On the second floor there was an assembly room that later became an opera house and later still a theatre and cinema. Early in the twentieth century, the town council vacated the building. In 1915 during WWI its basement was used to manufacture artillery shells. In 1917, the building was purchased by Charles and Chester Wheeler and became the Wheeler Needle Works. Years later in 1954, the factory was sold to Mary Maxim, the mail order craft sales operation. In 1984, Mary Maxim moved out and the building became an auction hall.
In 2016 by the County of Brant bought it after receiving a million dollar donation from Linda Schuyler, the TV producer best known for the Degrassi franchise. She’s the daughter of former Paris mayor Jack Bawcutt. The building was to be redeveloped as the Bawcutt Centre, a community hub and new central public library branch. Getting on for $40 million was raised to further the project BUT … it died in January 2025 because the plans provided for only 27 parking spaces while local bylaws demanded 99!
If such a fiasco is to be avoided in future and the town isn’t to be totally clogged with traffic, Paris will have to do some serious thinking about how to move people around that doesn’t involve cars. Meanwhile the fenced-off National Historic Site rots on its large lot on Burwell Street. For more on this, check out here and here.
454. The view of downtown Paris from a high point on the S.C. Johnson Trail that we’ll follow along the west bank of the Grand to our next destination, Brantford.
So, au revoir, Paris. People love you, that’s for sure. You managed to tame the two rivers that flow through your centre. But can you neutralize the threat posed by the automobile and mass tourism? Think hard, invoke the spirit of Hiram “King” Capron, and let’s see what you can do.
Holmström Ruddick 