The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
The Civic Holiday in August – or Simcoe Day, as some people now call it – is a holiday unlike any other on the calendar.
It has never gained the status of a statutory holiday, though most employers and public institutions observe it.
The origins of this summer holiday are somewhat murky. Several historians credit Toronto with declaring the first Civic Holiday in 1869, but there are earlier examples.
In 1863, 17 of Elora’s merchants designated Aug. 15 as a half-day holiday to allow their employees and families to go on a picnic.
A year later, these same merchants closed for the entire day on July 30. They arranged carriages to take their employees to Guelph, where they caught an excursion train for Niagara Falls.
Employers in other towns scheduled similar holidays through the 1860s. These were holidays only for the employees affected, though the fact that most of the stores were closed gave the town a holiday atmosphere.
Toronto may have pioneered the idea of a council resolution to declare a public holiday for all.
Whether or not Toronto can legitimately claim credit, the idea of an August summer holiday, with a local and community focus, quickly gained popularity throughout the province.
In Wellington County, Elora, Fergus and Guelph all marked the day in 1871 with a general suspension of business, supported by council resolutions.
As the name implies, each municipality proclaimed a day to be observed within its boundaries. At the beginning the date varied widely, from late July until late August.
In 1875, Toronto established the first Monday in August as its Civic Holiday, but decades elapsed before all places adopted a uniform date.
During the 1870s, one-day excursions and baseball games dominated Civic Holiday activities. For both, there were advantages to having staggered days. Teams could tour around the province, playing Civic Holiday matches in several localities over the course of three or four weeks. For the railways, excursion trains could run on many days rather than just one.
At the same time, the railways liked to see a degree of uniformity, with all the towns on a particular line observing the same day so that a train could be filled with passengers. The Great Western Railway managed to do this in 1876 by organizing an excursion trip to Kincardine on Aug. 2, a Wednesday. Elora, Fergus and Palmerston councils cooperated and declared that day their Civic Holiday.
The Great Western did much to promote Kincardine in 1876, linked to the rest of the province by its new line from Palmerston. Special weekend tickets at half fare, good between Saturday and Monday, were available during the whole summer.
On July 20, Guelph council celebrated its Civic Holiday early, by chartering a train to Kincardine for its residents.
On Aug. 2, Great Western officials ran two trains To Kincardine. One originated in Galt, and picked up additional excursionists in Hespeler and Guelph. A second train started from Elora a few minutes before 7am, with 150 Elora residents on board. Another 225 got on at Fergus, and more at Alma, Moorefield and Palmerston. From there it was a non-stop run to Kincardine and arrival about 10:30.
The excursionists, most armed with picnic hampers, spent the day poking around the town and boarding a steamship for a ride on the lake.
Some people rented row boats and sail boats, while others sat in the shade and watched an aerialist walk a tightrope between two tall chimneys. The crowd included many farmers enjoying a day off between haying and grain harvesting.
For the 90% of the population who stayed home, other activities filled the day. The morning in Elora featured a baseball game between the Guelph Green Stockings and the Elora Athletics for a 10-cent admission. About 300 people watched the Royal City visitors triumph by a score of 8-6. The junior Elora baseball team, the Clippers, went to Fergus that morning to take on the Victorias.
The 1876 holiday afternoon in Elora featured a lacrosse match. Elora’s team had built a strong reputation, and did much to promote the big game against the visiting London Dominions.
The weather turned hot and sticky in the afternoon. Adding to the discomfort of the players was the condition of the Elora field in Irvine Park, the present site of the Elora Community Centre. A private group had built a race track on the site, but the playing field in the centre still featured rough ground, stones and tall grass.
The scoring system used then differed from later versions of lacrosse. Games ended when a player scored, regardless of the length of time. The first team to capture three games won. In this Civic Holiday match, the first game lasted 45 minutes, but a couple of the later ones took only four or five minutes to play.
Elora captured the match, taking three of the four games played. The quality and skill of the play impressed the spectators, who responded with wild cheering. Pleased with their reception, the teams decided to play a crowd-pleasing 20-minute exhibition game to round out the afternoon.
The big local event of the 1876 Civic Holiday was not a game, but the Roman Catholic picnic at Kinnettles. Organized as a fundraiser by St. Joseph’s Church in Fergus, the event drew more than 1,000 people from as far as Arthur and Erin Township. Activities there included baseball, quoits (a throwing game similar to horseshoes) and croquet, which was then all the rage among the refined and gentile elements of the public.
The Battalion Band of the Elora Rifles provided music through the day, while people visited with friends, dipped into their picnic hampers, or purchased treats from one of the stands set up on the grounds.
The highlight of the afternoon was a popularity contest among three young women. The winner was decided by ballot, and ballots had to be purchased. Miss Barrett of Aboyne won the title. The contest raised a staggering $75 for the St. Joseph’s building fund, equivalent to about $7,000 in 2002 dollars.
In the evening, St. Joseph’s sponsored a dance at the Fergus Drill Shed, to music supplied by the Elora Quadrille Band (which included several players from the Battalion Band). The day included no religious elements whatever. It was planned to be attractive to Protestants as well as Catholics, though only a sprinkling of Protestants attended.
As a church fundraising event, the Catholic Kinnettles picnic ranked as one of the most successful and innovative ever held in the county.
The lamps were lit in Elora’s Drill Shed (the present liquor store) on Aug. 2 as well. The touring Theatre Royal Dramatic Company opened a three-night stand with a program featuring two plays, dancing and singing.
This was one of the major touring acts in Canada, but with so much else going on that day, the opening night attendance barely topped the 200 mark.
The program opened with a drama, The Snow Bird, followed by tap dancing and then a singing parody of Hamlet, which left the audience in stitches. The performance concluded with a farce, Old Friends.
Larger crowds turned out for the succeeding performances: Ben Bolt and The Artful Dodger on Aug. 3, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Good For Nothing on Aug. 4. The company then moved on to Fergus for a performance on Saturday.
The excursionists left Kincardine about 5:30pm, with a scheduled arrival in Elora by 9pm. A temperamental locomotive interfered with this schedule. Crews spent over two hours affecting minor repairs to the engine before it could resume its journey. Palmerston residents stepped off the train about 10pm, and those from Elora about an hour later to end a long day.
The 1876 Civic Holiday was typical of those of the 1870s and 1880s: held in the middle of the week, and featuring an excursion and spectator sports.
The summer season, and the fact that the holiday was proclaimed locally and often with a local event in mind, combined to give the Civic Holiday a community spirit: relaxing with friends and neighbours on an excursion, cheering on the local favourites at a game, or participating in a community event such as the Catholic picnic.
It is a pity that much of this spirit has been lost over the decades, and that the original notion of the holiday, as one for the municipality and the community, no longer figures largely in the public imagination.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Aug. 9, 2002.
