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At the northeast corner of Galway Township , stood the settlement of Fortescue. The settlement had a post office & a school. The settlement also spilled over into Cavendish, Snowdon & Glamorgan Townships, making it truly a settlement on the fringe. The school was located in Cavendish Township , and was the only school ever operating in our neighbouring township to the east. This log schoolhouse still stands today on the Salmon Lake Road and is a summer cabin.

The Fortescue settlement was actually closer to Gooderham than Kinmount, but because it was in the municipality of Galway-Cavendish , its administrative headquarters was at Kinmount. Access to Kin-mount was by the Galway Road, or more directly, by the White Lake Road.  Mail came from Furnace Falls railway station & the nearest “big” shopping centre was Kinmount.

The settlement consisted of a few farming/lumbering families who hugged the shores of White & Fortescue Lakes & occupied pockets of land along the Salmon Lake Road.  These families included the Ford, Peacock, Switzer, Gill, Higgins, White, Flood, Hutchinson & Ferren families. The area was poor farmland and by 1940, the last “farmers” had left the area. They were replaced by tourists, who fell in love with the majestic waters of the local lakes.

The Fortescue settlement produced local poet Theo Peacock, who logged and trapped in the area and recorded his experiences in “Tales of the Trail”, a book of poetry. An-other interesting family were the St Georges, remittance men from Ireland . “Exiled” to Canada by a family issue, they later moved to Bobcaygeon (via Kinmount) where they used their classical educations to found a private school that became Hillcroft Hospital.

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