Clarenden Station

History

Clarendon Station got its start in the late 1870s as a small railway village. That came with the opening of the Kingston & Pembroke (K & P) railway.

The surrounding area was already occupied by a small group of homesteaders. In no way did it resemble anything like an organized community. The arrival of the new station village, named after the township, attracted much needed services. It also gave a sense of community to the scattered settlement.

Business began to pick up quite rapidly once the railway arrived. Shortly afterwards, the Campbell family opened a general store right alongside the tracks. Bramwell Watkins, who also operated the sawmill, served as postmaster from 1880 – 1895. Mail pickup and dispatch took place three times a week. Watkin’s Mill benefitted greatly from the railway. By the mid-1880s, they kept the station busy shipping telegraph poles, railway ties, cordwood and bark.

The hamlet grew quickly. By the mid-1890s it had acquired both an Anglican church and a public school, S.S. 11, Oso. In a mere eight years the population jumped from 20 to nearly 100. Stagecoaches rattled in and out from Ardoch and other neighbouring places, shuttling passengers over to the station. The store bustled with activity when farmers came in for their weekly shopping trips and mail pickup.

One family that figured prominently during Clarendon Station’s early days were the Burkes. Robert Burke Sr. was the local blacksmith. His son, Robert Jr., operated the hotel and livery. Miss Maggie Burke worked as the local dressmaker. Besides the Burkes, there was also a cooper and two express agents for the railway.

Fires, mainly incendiary in origin, plagued Clarendon Station throughout its existence. In 1917, one such fire destroyed the original K & P railway station. The CPR took over the K&P in 1912. Whether CP anticipated an increase in business, or period styles set the tone is impossible to say. Whatever the case, the railway chose to replace the station with a far more substantial and opulent structure. The station remained in use until the 1960s.

St. Barnabas Anglican Church was not so lucky. By the 1930s, the church had fallen into a serious state of disrepair. In 1936, it was down under somewhat questionable circumstances.

When the trains stopped running in the 1960s, there was very little left to sustain Clarendon Station until the arrival of Oskar Graf. Graf arrived in Canada from his native Germany in 1968 and settled permanently in Clarendon Station. Graf became renowned as a builder of superb handcrafted guitars. In 1973, he organized the first “Blue Skies” music festival, a celebration of folk music, held annually on his property. It draws several thousand people every year. Due to limited capacity, attendance to the festival is by invitation only. Besides the festival, Blue Skies offers music camps for both adults and children.

Today, although vastly diminished in size, Clarendon Station still retains a few vestiges of its former self. The schoolhouse closed in the 1940s and went through a number of incarnations. The Women’s Institute used the building from 1951 to 1993. Then it served briefly as a community hall. Now under private ownership, it is as an artist’s studio.

Since Clarendon Station owes its existence to the arrival of the railway, it is indeed fitting that the railway station still remains in its original location. Usually when a railway disposed of a station, the normal procedure was to sell the building and retain ownership of the land. In this case, the railway sold the land along with the station. The station is now a private home. There have been several owners since the early 1970s. The station is in a remarkable state of preservation. The post office, which from time-to-time, was housed in the general store closed in 1989. The general store is now also a private home.

A special thanks to the Reverend Dr. Paul Duarte for a fabulous tour of this most interesting place.