About Us
HISTORY OF DEER HARBOUR
During pre-settlement days it is thought that the Deer Harbour area was inhabited by Indians. There was an Indian trail located on the hill near the present Church. It ran in an easterly direction from Tony Tank to Queponco, which is north of Snow Hill. The original deeds for the land mention this trail.
In 1680, Nicholas Toadvine received a land grant for all of the land from Tony Tank to beyond Deer Harbour. The Toadvine family has predominantly populated this area through the years with ownership of the lands passing back and forth among the branches of the family. When the Deer Harbour land parcel was being put together, the land north of the lake area was purchased from the Toadvines by the Morris Millworks Company.
After the Revolution, the creation of Millpond was encouraged by the Government. The low area where the golf course is was the bottom of a mill pond run established by the Toadvines. The Toadvine Mills, which consisted of a saw mill and a grist mill, were on or near Jackson Road and the pond to the west of the road was the outfall from the mill's wheel. Usually that dug out quite a pit, which is still in evidence today. When steam power came into being, most of the ponds upstream were abandoned due to minimal water supply. With the mill dam gone the water level of the lake dropped, making the lake nonexistent. The mill pond bottom became low marshland which was later used as a cranberry bog. The crosshatching of the bog was still visible when the Morris Millworks Company started dredging Deer Harbour Lake in preparation for the present housing development. There is a notation on the original deed of the area adjacent to the bog which was collectively called "Three Islands". Two of the islands were the wooded areas near the golf course which have since been filled in to become one island. The third was the area located approximately at the Grosse Point cul-de-sac.
It was at the request of Mrs. David Wimbrow (Nellie Toadvine) that some of the ancestral names be used in the development. The first Toadvines came from the Channel Islands, thus Grosse Point, Grand Sark and Alderney are Channel Island names. Nicholas Mews was named after the first Toadvine who settled this area. The other street names were chosen from the London Street Directory by E.S. Adkins. Union Church Road was named after the original Union Methodist church which was located in the wooded area that now stands on the right side of the road near the bend going east toward Salisbury. This church was thought to have been in existence in the early 1800's and was known as a northern Methodist Church. A southern Methodist Church, Old Bethel Church, was located near the residences of the Mumfords and Bowers. Jackson Road was named after William Jackson, a recent land owner with and adjacent to Jackson Road. It was previously known as Bussel's Road. The name of Deer Harbour, which has been given to the development and the main street through the community, was chosen for an original land grant made in 1715 near Powellville, to the Adkins Family.
(A special thank you to Margaret Toadvine, Stanton Adkins and David Wimbrow for the invaluable information they contributed to compile Deer Harbour's history.)