Kinmount Fair – Heritage Complex 2025
Trent Lakes Historical Society
‘Peter Robinson – the Next Generations’
Free with Fair Admission – open Friday, Saturday 10-6, Sunday 10-5
The South Building – Heritage Complex at Kinmount Fair
The Kinmount heritage Centre and Museum Peter Robinson Settlers storehouse display coming to the Fair.
On Friday of Labour Day Weekend, the Heritage Complex presents the Kinmount Fair Ambassador Competition at 2 p.m. After that, we will also have the Lion’s Club ‘Citizen of the year’ announcement, Next, Dave Liddell, a local musician will be playing and the 200th Anniversary PRS Display will be premiered. On Saturday, 2 musicians, Rob Wakelin and Craig Schroter will be entertaining the audience. We also host the Fair opening ceremonies dignitaries – rub elbows with local VIP’s! On Sunday, we have our ladies, ‘the Country Hot Flashes’ performing. All weekend, the Kawartha Lakes Museum will be showing an interesting display and video presentation in the South building. We will have our continuous demos of tatters and quilters and woodworkers and fur harvesters, as well as Don, the pioneer toy guy! And last but certainly not least, the Tea Garden will be serving up favourite snacks for all!!!
At Kinmount Fair in 2024, the Trent Lakes Historical Society previewed the 200th Anniversary of the arrival of 2024 Irish Immigrants to nine townships around Peterborough, Ontario. The interest was extremely high with the Kinmount Fair visitors, many of whom discovered connections or at least were history buffs and appreciated this ‘new’ information. This anniversary is especially important to the members of this Historical Society, as some are also actual descendants of the Peter Robinson Settlers.
2024 Kinmount Fair Heritage Complex – 200th Anniversary Preview
In 1825, nine ships carried them from Cobh (Cove) Harbour, Ireland, over the Atlantic Ocean to a new home with infinite possibilities. The British government sponsored the selection and the transport and also gave them free land and housing. They also provided the new pioneers with tools to work the land, provisions and ongoing rations to sustain them and their families for 18 months. These items will be on display in the Complex, as well as lots of reference materials and books for sale. Look for the ‘Nine Ships’ in the Big Tent!!!
The ‘Next Generations’ refers to the descendants of these initial immigrants. They are the children and grandchildren who grew up in Douro, Ennismore and Emily townships etc. who married and started their own families. They were just in time for more free land being distributed north of Peterborough – in our own Galway Township and area. A ‘generation’ or so later, it was just ‘opening up’ in the 1850s and 1860s, with Kinmount, the local village, being formed in 1859. A great number of these ‘next generation’ settled on the Galway Road and the Crystal Lake Road at that time. Our research will also be on display for sharing with Fair visitors. Our Society members will be in attendance to share their legacy and stories with everyone.
The Trent Lakes Historical Society has produced a ‘Driving Tour’ of these settlers’ lots, based on census and land records, atlases, family trees, birth and death records and cemetery records. Pick up your copy in the Heritage Complex. There are still PRS families on these original settler lots. We will have more details on our website to link the old and the new lots.
We will be displaying a replica cemetery with tombstones in the Heritage Complex, subjects having connections to the Peter Robinson Settlers of 1825. Many of these common surnames appear in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery on Galway Road. This historic and important cemetery will be addressed in the future (see photo below).
Our research has also shown that some of the subsequent generations migrated further afield, to the USA and western Canada, so the legacy expands but also gets further disconnected from this 200-year-old story. Genealogy, as we know is all about putting the puzzle pieces together.
Peter Robinson was the connection between the British government and the infant colony, Canada West (previously Upper Canada). He facilitated the project from start to finish and is believed to be the reason that Peterborough took his name, although there is evidence to suggest an alternate source.
Unbelievably, many descendants do not even realize that they are part of the legacy of these pioneers. Two hundred years is approximately 5 or 6 generations, so family history may or may not have kept the stories and shared history alive. Thankfully, there have been many books written about the scheme and the settlers.
This project has created more questions for future research, so our job is far from over. We will expand our data to include new findings and more connections. Descendants are still being born!!!
Literally thousands of descendants later, we celebrate the perseverance of these early settlers and Peter Robinson himself for succeeding in completing this scheme that has forever changed the landscape of history in Peterborough County.
Visit trentlakesheritage.ca for more information.
