Early Peterborough Tourists: Captain Basil & Margaret Hall
A definition of “tourism” is: “the activity of touring, especially for pleasure”. Today, people visit Peterborough and the Kawarthas from all over the world, but who were the area’s first tourists? One of the early accounts by someone who could be considered a “tourist” to Peterborough was contained in Captain Basil Hall’s three-volume Travels In North America, 1827-28.
Basil Hall was born 1788 in Dunglass, Scotland, to Sir James and Lady Helen Hall. He joined the Royal Navy at age 14 in 1802, serving in Spain and America during the Napoleonic Wars, and in many other parts of the world before his retirement in 1823. He wrote several books about his travels. In 1825 Captain Hall married Margaret Hunter of Edinburgh; the newlyweds travelled in Europe and India, then throughout North America. 
It was during this latter trip that they visited Peterborough. On their way from York (now Toronto) to Kingston, the Halls stayed overnight in Cobourg; then, very early on 23 July 1827, they left on an excursion to Peterborough, which they reached that evening – after a 30-mile trek by road and boat which left them “more dead than alive with fatigue”. In her diary, Margaret comments on the beauty of Rice Lake and its islands, the “wilderness” along the Otonabee River, vicious mosquitoes encountered, and Peterburians whom she met – including Thomas and Frances Stewart and Mrs Samuel Armour.
Captain Hall spent much of his visit interviewing settlers from the 1818 Cumberland Colony and the 1825 Peter Robinson emigrations to discover whether they considered their re-settlements successful; it seems that they did.
On the rainy morning of 26 July, the Halls left Peterborough. After another arduous trip – by boat, wagon and gig, and foot (when both of their vehicles broke down) – they reached Cobourg about 9:00 p.m. that night. The next morning they set out by coach for Carrying Place and Kingston.
Having read the Halls’ accounts of their treks between Cobourg and Peterborough, I appreciate that today one can make the same journey by car on paved roads in less than an hour – and that these 19th-Century tourists were made of stern stuff!
By: Don Willcock,
The Peterborough Museum & Archives,
300 Hunter St E, Peterborough 705-743-5180
www.peterboroughmuseumandarchives.ca
Photo Credit – Hutchison House Museum
