Normandale is a historic hamlet located on the northern shore of Lake Erie in Norfolk County. The hamlet sits on the ancestral lands of the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, the Neutral and the Mississauga. The first Europeans to explore this area were the French in the 17th and 18th centuries.
In the late 18th Century, the colony of Upper Canada was created by the British. The colony stretched from the Ottawa River to the western tip of Lake Erie. The first recorded settler in what is today Normandale was Samuel Long. He arrived in 1810 and set up his pottery workshop at the mouth of a creek that became known as Potter’s Creek.
In 1818, John Mason, a Welsh iron master arrived in the Long Point area looking for a place to set up shop. Learning of the abundance of bog ore in the marshes of the Long Point settlement and seeing the potential power source of Potter’s Creek, John Mason purchased the land around the creek from Samuel Long and built a foundry. However, the foundry was not in operation long before the chimney gave way. That same winter, Mason died.
In 1821, Mason’s widow, Elizabeth received a business offer from a ‘union’ of four men: Joseph Van Norman, Hiram Capron, George Tillson and Isaiah White. The four men wanted to purchase her late husband’s foundry. She accepted the offer and the four men started to repair the damaged furnace. Five years later, Tillson announced in the Gore Gazette that the foundry was in production.
Being the sole large producer of iron and iron goods in the new colony, business took off. As well, populations were growing and opportunities to begin other enterprises were plentiful. In 1825, George Tillson left the company to build the Dereham Forge on Otter Creek and later found what is today, Tillsonburg. In 1828, Capron sold his shares in the Foundry to develop land he purchased outside of Brantford on the Grand River – Paris, Ontario. The fourth partner, Isaiah White passed away around the same time that Capron left the company. His interests in the Long Point Furnace Company were purchased by Joseph Van Norman and his brother Benjamin.
Under the direction of Joseph Van Norman, the foundry was in operation until 1847. During its operation, the furnace was in blast 10 months of the year, day and night. When active, the furnace produced 4 tons of iron a day. The iron would be used to create farm implements, tools, kitchenware and stoves. It would also be cast into ‘sows and pigs’ that would later be forged into bars of wrought iron.
Van Norman and Co., also patented their own version of the cooking stove. Joseph Van Norman designed a stove that consisted of plates that were joined together using the tongue and groove method. The stove could thereby be easily disassembled and stored for the summer months. This is only one of the patents that Van Norman received during his lifetime. The foundry was very successful for approximately 20 years. However, due to free trade agreements, the near depletion of nearby bog ore and charcoal sources and the opening of the Welland Canal, the foundry at Normandale closed in 1847.
Normandale, entirely owned by Van Normans, was a company town that played an important role in the economic development of the Long Point settlement. It once had a population of approximately 400 people at a time where the entire population of Charlotteville Township was just over 1,300 souls. The company provided work for settlers in the foundry and in the construction of new factories and homes. As well, settlers of the surrounding area sold the bog ore that they had collected and charcoal that they had made from the trees removed while clearing the land to the Normandale foundry.
The Van Normans also ran a mercantile in the village. It was quite the hub for business activities. At that time, the only land access into the village were the trails of the First Nations. It was by water that most people and products came in and out of the village. Van Norman kept two schooners (10 and 12 ton) active with shipping his goods west to Chicago and as far east as Montreal. On the return trip to Normandale, the schooners transported supplies and merchandise to be sold at the village’s mercantile.
Among other company buildings, the Union Hotel was built during the zenith of the foundry, somewhere between 1827 and 1834. There is a story that the hotel was named in honour of the ‘union’ of men who started the foundry – Van Norman, Capron, Tillson and White; therefore, probably constructed at the beginning of the development of the business in the late 1820’s. However, the only known source to mention the establishment was a newspaper ad in 1835 boasting that at Union Hotel, guests would be offered the best wines, spirits and cigars. So, in order to keep a long story short, we say circa ‘1834’.
The Union Hotel operated as a hotel until 1870 and had various owners. In 1842, it was sold to John Shepherd who some think was one of the builders of the hotel. He quickly sold it to Cross and Fisher (founders of neighbouring Fishers Glen) who in turn sold it to John Post, the son of the original Innkeeper under the Van Norman ownership in 1844. John Post owned the hotel until 1859 when it returned to the Shepherd family. In 1870, the Shepherds closed the hotel and their daughter, Harriet E. Fisher moved in and operated a general store and post office out of it. She inherited the Union Hotel in 1891 after the death of her parents, John and Susan. Some believe that Mrs. Shepherd is one of the ghosts that are said to haunt the hotel.
Later in her life, Eliza Fisher, as she liked to be known, became quite ill and employed the help of Charles Helmer and his wife, Amanda or Mandy. In 1909, Ms. Fisher passed away and bequeathed the hotel to Charles Helmer. Charles Helmer was also a commercial fisherman who based his operations off of the western shore of what is today, the Normandale beach. Upon his passing, his daughter, Elsie McDonald (née Helmer) became the owner of the hotel and, she sold it to Ruth and Hal Peets in 1972.
In the early 1970’s, Ruth Peets drove to Normandale with her daughter Judy to see the Union Hotel after reading about it in a book about Historic Ontario. When they pulled up in front of the hotel, Ruth and Judy saw a little ‘For Sale’ sign in the window. The Union Hotel had suffered much deterioration over time – broken windows, missing clapboard and the two verandas that had adorned the front of the building had been removed. Nonetheless, Ruth and her husband Hal purchased the building and spent 17 years carefully and faithfully restoring it. They did almost all of the work themselves with some help from other family and community members. When the Peets sold the property to Debbie and Peter Karges in 1989, it was close to being completely returned to its former glory.
Under the Peets’ ownership, Union Hotel operated as a tearoom, craft shop and restaurant. There are many stories about celebrating a special occasion at the Union Hotel. The rescue and revitalization of the building and others in Norfolk County are the generous legacy of Ruth and Hal Peets.
In 1989, Debbie Karges purchased the hotel with the intention of finishing the restoration (the Ballroom) and operating the hotel as a Bed and Breakfast. Again with thoughtful attention, the Ballroom was transformed and the rest of the building was redecorated in Regency and Victorian styles. It was also during their stewardship that the hotel was painted in the present colours, using two of the most common colours for commercial buildings at the time of its construction.
Debbie and her husband, Peter ceased to operate the business around 2014 and made the hotel their private residence. For five more years, making a total of 30 years, Debbie and Peter faithfully acted as stewards of the building and in 2019, they sold it to us, your hosts Brian & Mark.
On May 1, 2019, we became the new owners of the hotel. Since that time, we have been renovating, restoring, and adding efficiencies so that Union Hotel can go on for many more years to come!