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The Brunelle Homestead was built in 1870 at the end of Concession 17 in the Township of Tiny on 420-acre at the top of Nippissing Ridge1. If you look to the Northeast, you can see Carhagouha, the site of the first Catholic mass celebrated in Ontario2. The kitchen overlooked Nottawasaga Bay to the Southwest and Collingwood’s Blue Mountains. The sun rises over Wasaga Beach and sets on Christian Island.
The Brunelles were married in 1867 and raised a family of 12 at this location. The Homestead included livestock, pigs, chickens, and partridges. They also tended an orchard, a vegetable garden, and potato fields. The dug cellar construction of stone and mortar was partitioned to store 1200 bags of potatoes in one section, and 150 to 200 barrels of apples, garden vegetables, preserved fruits, pickles, and maple syrup in another. There was space for the wood-burning furnace and most of the firewood needed to heat the house during the winter months3.
Théophile was more than just a simple farmer; he was an innovator and a forward-thinker. He used brick cladding over a unique horizontal wall design made of wooden planks stacked from the foundation to the metal gable roof with projecting dormers. When the wall plaster needed repairs, he installed a metallic decorative covering. Pink wallpaper with a Rococo design from the Victorian era and other decorative touches, such as the frieze on the staircase, were signs of rather refined taste for a family living in the countryside. This home was also one of the first to have a telephone installed in the Township of Tiny4.
Théophile Brunelle House 3D Renderings
Théophile Brunelle House 3D Renderings
He was the first to purchase a harvester, a potato planter, and a potato digger. An announcement dated October 18, 1907 mentioned the perfect apples from the Brunelle orchard which attracted the admiration of Queen Alexandra during an exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace. Théophile was also an award-winning maple producer who exported maple products internationally. He had clients in France and America and received a gold medal in December 1914 for a collective exhibit of maple syrup and sugar, awarded by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition5.
Furthermore, Théophile was considered a hero in the township for having killed a wolf that had terrorized the community over a two-year period. Blinded in one eye in a childhood accident, he was the least likely among the skilled hunters who had tracked the animal to actually succeed at the task, yet it was he who fatally wounded the beast on September 2, 1904. To celebrate the occasion, Théophile offered a Thanksgiving High Mass at Sainte-Croix Church in Lafontaine6. Before the wolf’s demise, the residents of Lafontaine and the surrounding area were not a united community given that various family groups had immigrated to area from different regions in Quebec and did not intermingle. The banding together against a common enemy, the legendary wolf, unified the community. Since then7, there has been a sense of solidarity in Lafontaine.
Sources
1 Jos. E. Brunelle, The Brunelles at Wright Avenue: The Canadian Genealogy of my Family 1636-1973, Scarboro, Ontario, p. 36.
2 Ontario Heritage Trust. Fiducie du patrimoine ontarien, « Samuel de Champlain » https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/fr/pages/our-stories/exhibits/snapshots-of-franco-ontarian-heritage/aboriginal-french-exchanges/samuel-de-champlain [consulté le 28 juillet 2022].
3 Jos. E. Brunelle, The Brunelles at Wright Avenue: The Canadian Genealogy of my Family 1636-1973, Scarboro, Ontario, p. 41.
4 Jos E. Brunelle, The Brunelles at Wright Avenue: The Canadian Genealogy of my Family 1636-1973, Scarboro, Ontario, p. 36, 45-46.
5 Jos. E. Brunelle, The Brunelles at Wright Avenue: The Canadian Genealogy of my Family 1636-1973, Scarboro, Ontario, p. 47.
6 Daniel Marchildon, Légende du loup de Lafontaine, http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/fr/article-241/L%C3%A9gende_du_loup_de_Lafontaine.html, consulté le 1er juin 2023.
7 Thomas Marchildon, Le loup de Lafontaine, Sudbury, Société historique du Nouvel-Ontario, 1955, p. 39