Wilder Babcock’s Tavern
190 years ago Wilder Babcock broke his wagon through the dense bush of what is now Flambourough in Southern Ontario and built what some called the wildest tavern in the region...
A commemorative clay smoking pipe dating to the mid 19th century featuring a Grand Trunk Railway Train.
He wasted no time in establishing a reputable saloon for the tired and weary travellers of the day. Certainly crude by today’s standards but the men and women of that era didn’t ask for more, simply to be out of the elements was a blessing. And so the drinks poured, the clay smoking pipes burned and the boisterous voices of his cliental echoed through the wood.
Those were days of corduroy roads, from which stories have been passed down of hats floating ominously, without owners, on the surface of hidden and treacherous bogs. When wolves cried out in the darkness. When strangers whispered of conspiracies and political plots, for the days of war with the American neighbours was very real.
For so many of us, those times are very little more than a dry history book or forgotten high school lessons. Last summer I had the opportunity to change that, in a dramatic way. I was able to literallytouch the past through my own amateur archeological dig.
For years, quite literally, I had driven past a barn only feet from a busy highway. For unknown reasons it always commanded my attention as I passed. Though near ruin, it had tremendous character. You could almost fall back in time as you rode past it. Through a little very simple research in books at the local library I was able to discover its colourful past. With the permission of the property’s current owner I was able to actually meet Wilder.
Front and back view of an 1826 coin that literally flew from the ground and bounced off my chest as I pulled some rhubarb plants to clear an area to search...
