Apples, heavy horses and an ice house: The Ingram Estate (3 photos)

Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by René Hackstetter.

Count yourself blessed if you have ever been up close to a heavy horse.

If you are really lucky, a full team of Clydesdales or Belgians. Imagine them fully dressed in black harness and brass and you get the idea.

When I was a young geek at MSS, the two old Ingram brothers kept a pair of draught horses for their sugar bush, which stretched from their home and barn on Norene Street all the way to the old Penetang Road. Their brick home in the middle of an orchard had a barn, ice house and a fine English garden.

Alexander and Margaret Ingram settled in Midland in 1890 after their wedding.

Margaret was the daughter of Edward Archer, an old Elmvale family and Midland Railway employee. Her grandad was John Hamilton, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo and proprietor of the Hamilton Inn north of Hillsdale.

The “two old Ingram brothers” were the surviving sons, Alex, known as AA, a lawyer and his brother, George, who ran the original harness business on King Street founded by their father.

At the southwest corner of King and Dominion, raise your eyes above the shop's façade and it reads, ‘Ingram Block.’ Harness and stable requisites were essential in that era as the horse was central to the rural economy.

The Ingram sugar bush was severed and the new MPDHS built in 1954. Mid-century modern homes were built on the newly created street, now aptly named Ingram Crescent.

South of the sugar bush was Charlie Parker’s Parkside Pavilion, Alvin Steer’s White Rose Gas Station and Cabins and the Hartman farm along Yonge Street towards what is now highway 93. Stories for another day.

Many of these old landmarks are gone, however, one still savours the thought of draught horses and an ice house in town. The lovely brick house is sided in grey vinyl, the barn and horses gone. The ice house, likely the last remaining in Midland, a clear and certain link to winter on the bay with the arduous job of cutting, hauling and storing ice in sawdust.

One lone apple tree remained in my day, still bearing fruit, gnarled testament to an enduring variety, perhaps a Pounder, who knows - reminders of these old weathered Midland pioneers.

René Hackstetter Copyright June 30, 2020.