This came from a reader named Ken. He received this photograph from his grandmother in 1995, and was wondering if anyone knew anything about the barn pictured here?
Yawkey Farms was located (I believe) out towards the Brighton Beach/Ojibway area, and was so named due to the connection to the Yawkey family who were affiliated with both the Detroit Tigers and later owned Boston Red Sox.
Any memories, stories or general information about Yawkey Farms?
Have a safe and happy Halloween weekend.
now that’s a barn if i ever saw one.
here’s some history i dug up from the site “windsorscottish.com” turns out there was also a golf course associated with it. You can also find pretty much the same info on walkerville times. sorry about all the space i’m about to take………
“Disgruntled Scottish Windsorite George Mair decided, along with other local golfers, that the area was in desperate need of a more suitable golf course. By 1902, Mair had successfully solicited enough community support to warrant the establishment of a new club. Mair, appropriately, was elected the first president of the Oak Ridge Golf Club. The course was set out on 130 acres of land in the northwest corner of Ojibway donated to the club by the Detroit iron and lumber magnate William Clyman Yawkey. Mrs. George Mair secured membership subscriptions to the new club and raised enough money to erect a small clubhouse. Over the course of the decade, the Oak Ridge Golf Club enjoyed great success and an ever-expanding membership.
This growth, however, meant that the golf course and club house were soon incapable of accommodating increased demands. So in 1909, the Oak Ridge directors purchased a 53-acre property at the intersection of Prince Road and the Essex Terminal Railway line in Sandwich. The lease on the Yawkey farm expired as construction began on Prince Farm, so the Oak Ridge golfers reverted to Walkerville for the 1910 season. Their ripe enthusiasm for the new course infected the Walkerville golfers, and the two clubs amalgamated to form the Essex County Golf & Country Club.”
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i’m thinking the farm IS the neighbourhood of brighton beach. in a 1952 DTE shot, right at the end of Healey at the river there seems to be a large barn that looks like it was set up long before the neighbourhood popped up. i don’t know….pure speculation. more speculation for the location of the course at prince and the ETR. again in the 1952 DTE shots there looks like maybe he marks of an ancient golf course headed north along the tracks, but also south which would put the main body of the course under malden park OR a pile of garbage if you will.
again sorry for the taken space, but thanks for sharing that pic! i’m going to have to see if my mimi has any old photo’s i can put to use here.
i also ment to mention, that my mother always refers to the ojibway park area as “yawkey bush” as i’m sure many on this site still do. it’s also still labeled that way on windsor road maps and whatnot. that’s where my “location speculation” comes from.
have a good weekend everyone!
Thats my recollection too Ojibway was Yawkey bush, I spent many a day riding horses there.
excellant picture of great old barn.
isn’t it? that barn would have made an excellent place to sell old antiques or a great setting for a farmers market today.
i also remember a distinct difference in names between brighton beach and yawkey bush. the former being refered to as “dogpatch”. does that ring a bell for anyone else?
wow…that is one fantastic looking barn!!
I’ve always known that as Yawkey Bush as well.
OT – what ever happened to that small boat that was out front of the park?
Great picture. Oak Ridge GC, which became Essex Golf and Country Club was at the corner of present day Prince Rd and College Ave, where Marygrove is today.
We called the woods west of Broadway “Yawkey Bush” though it was certainly part of “Ojibway”. I lived on Healy Street in Brighton Beach from 1949 through the sixties but never heard it referred to as “Dogpatch” until I drove cab in the ’80’s. I guess that was city folk terminology!
The small boat Ric refers to is probably the one that sat by the creek on Matchette Road in Ojibway Park which came along much later. It was intended for kids to play on and mine did but it was likely a victim of safety concerns when they started removing all the really neat old playground equipment everywhere. I have a picture of that one somewhere. That was way south of Brighton Beach.
Healy doesn’t go as far as the river – never did. Chappus did and Page went down to the old River Road. Oddly I don’t remember the barn though I certainly would have been down to the river in that area many times and I do remember old house foundations. If it was in that area, you’d think there’d have been something remaining. I do remember a “riding stable” at the corner of Broadway and old Highway 18 (now “Ojibway Parkway”) but I don’t recall anything as imposing as that barn.
Interesting, the city’s history of Ojibway Park says Yawkey Bush was named after a family which lived in the area in the 1800s. Perhaps the Detroit industrialists were descendants. Yawkey Bush was renamed Ojibway after the land was turned over to Windsor in 1957 although the land was actually in the town of Ojibway which was founded in 1913 and did not became part of Windsor until the annexation of 1966. Details can be found here http://www.ojibway.ca/history.htm and there are helpful rollover maps to show then and now. The Oak Ridge golf course description referring to Prince Road and the Essex Terminal Railway sounds more like the vicinity of Mic Mac Park than Brighton Beach. But both border on the “Bush. “
Clair, Yes that’s the one I’m refering too. I loved playing on that thing, until the floor boards rotted and you could see right to the bottom of the ship. It was there thougout the 80s but I think it was gone by the mid 90s.
HELLO THERE…JUST TO ADD TO THE CONFUSION…WHEN THEY DECIDED TO BUILD ESSEX GOLF COURSE (ON MATCHETTE) THE TRACK OF LAND WAS BOUGHT FROM MR.YAWKEY….AND I’VE READ THAT HIS PROPERTY EXTENDED SOUTH TO MARTIN LANE.
ALSO – I WOULD LIKE TO ASK CLAIRE OR ANYONE – HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF AN ELECTRIC PARK / RESORT LOCATED IN BRIGHTON BEACH IN THE LATTER 19TH CENTURY??…SUPPOSEDLY IT WAS LOCATED DOWN ON THE OLD RIVER ROAD YOU MENTIONED.I’LL SEE IF I CAN FIND THE OLD ARTICLE I READ THAT INFO.IN…BUT I’M PRETTY SURE THAT THE OLD BRONSON’S WAS PART OF THE RESORT?? ANYONE EVER HEARD OF THIS – AND I’M NOT REFERRING TO THE OLD MINERAL SPRINGS IN SANDWICH.
I’ve heard what you speak of Robbie. It is discussed here:
http://cec.chebucto.org/ClosPark/Brighton.html
YUP…I JUST WENT TO FIND IT…AND YOUR RIGHT – EVERYONE SHOULD CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE…IT HAS ALOT OF NEAT INFO ABOUT THE AREA. WHEN I GO WALKING IN BRIGHTON BEACH NOW IT;S HARD TO BELIEVE A NEIGHBORHOOD EXISTED MUCH LESS A RESORT…THE AREA IS PRETTY DESTROYED BY ATVS.IT’S TOO BAD. THANKS JOHN.
Clare the riding stable you refer to is Stu. Lavoies riding stable. It used to be right next to ETR tracks off Broadway. I also was born and raised on Brighton Beach and lived on Wright St. north of Sandwich
Mrs. pinstripes was in the old ‘hood just this afternoon. Went to check on the chestnut tree that was in her childhood home’s front yard at the corner of Linsell and Broadway. She often refers to dogpatch as a great little community to grow up in. Her playground was from the Morterm docks to Lecours Texaco to Dainty Foods and back to the river. Imagine doing that as as an unsupervised 10 year old girl today. A lot of old names come to mind, Casey, LaFleur, Lecours and others.
What a great place to party in the 1950s when I lived in Windsor — Yawkey Bush! I had friends in LaSalle, too. What I do recall was seeing, not a huge barn like pictured, but remnants of a steel mill’s blast furnace, way north of highway 18! People back then referred to it as Ojibway Steel Company’s “ghost” as it never had a fire in it — an earlier depression that probably was a forerunner of the 1930s depression. Windsor could have been the steel city of Canada, but somewhere in history the concept materialized in Hamilton, instead. Now, this info may have been folklore, so — please refute or acknowledge this info, thanks. Oh, didn’t also a creek exist in that area which, further south, became River Canard?
weird i just read those articles the other day john!
Claire – i hate to dispute your memories, i really do, but i’ve got a 1949 photo infront of me showing only chappus and healey directly accessing old front road (or the river). in 1949 wright and page streets pretty much stop at cole ave. the barn i’m seeing still exsists up until at least ’61. so had you walked right to the interscetion of healey and old front road and looked to your left, there should have been some large structure of some kind. i wish i lived in this area at that time, it sure seems nice. i hope i’m right Claire cause if i’m not i’ll feel truly stupid and rude. if i’m wrong please except my appologies!
Ken – i was comparing old DTE energy aerial photo’s of brighton beach (1949) to satallite images on google earth of the area. in the aerials from 49, 52, and 56 the blast furnaces are still there. next one is 61 and they’re scrapped off the earth. they left scars in the shape of 6 or so white pads, which are still visible to this day on google earth if you look maybe 25 meters or more south of the ETR tracks on the morterm dock. i also have a picture of the furnaces…scary lookin things. there were some buildings built by the canada steel corporation, at least one still exists, the old stelco (i think) building at sprucewood and 18. the tin mill on weaver was torn down a couple years ago. both buildings can be found here on IM. but in all those DTE shots nothing ever seems to have been built around those blast furnaces….just trees. heck, there are houses on old front road that are like 150 meters from those furnaces! can’t see anyone living there if they were ever on at any point in history.
it’s sad to hear all your stories about living here. i work at the nemak windsor aluminum plant and i stare out into this overgrown abandonment every day. you can always tell where a house was because of a set of trees that don’t match anything else in the area, or a row of out of control hedges. now all i see are perverts meeting up with other perverts to do their buisness on an empty lot that at some time was someones home.
ALSO BEWARE TO ALL WHO CHOOSE TO EXPLORE THIS AREA: the port authority of windsor now owns this land and IS handing out 1500 – 3000 dollar fines for ANYONE found to be back there. if your just walkin around with a camera they may just tell you to get lost. but it is activly being patrolled now since this will be a border crossing soon enough. i witnessed two guys get a $3000 dollar fine, each, because they had dumped some leaves back there…2 bags of leaves.
boy do i wish i had a time machine…….
Aaron, my grandfather has told me stories about he and his brother playing in the overgrown sand traps from that golf course in the 30s… Interesting stuff……
that’s awesome Brendan. there’s just nowhere like that for kids to grow up in anymore. there’s really nothing worth exploring….everything that’s cool has a fence around it or has been plowed over. of course most kids today i wouldn’t think go outside to explore anyhow.
look how many memories and information come out from this one photo!
Aron thanks for the additional info. is there any way i can view the aerial photos? i’d like to see them. apparently someone in the yawkey chain was willing to rival hiram walker for beef and dairy cattle production. I have 2 other photos of this barn, it’s quite obvious it was built by someone with unlimited reasources, just by the magnitude of this building it had to be the talk of the town at sometime. thanks Ken.
no problem ken! all you have to do is google “DTE aerial collection” it’ll be right at the top of the results page. when you go to the site it will give you a map of of southeastern michigan and a bunch of dates on the right. select the date you want (i suggest downloading the hi-res) then it will give you a map of detroit with a bunch of green lines and numbers on it. click on the number that’s in the area you want to look at and the aerial will come up shortly.
hope that helps!
Despite the city’s claim (my post above) that Yawkey was a family living “in the area” in the 1800s, there is no mention of them in the online Canada census databases for 1871, 1881 and 1891. Also, Frederick Neal’s book “The Township of Sandwich” (1909) which details the history and families of the area has not a word about Yawkey. That is despite having a picture of the Oak Ridge Golf Links clubhouse,which we know was on the Yawkey Farm. “Lumber baron” William Clyman Yawkey of Detroit may have had a summer residence on his farm, but it is hard to find evidence the family actually lived here.
RWS IS RIGHT – THE YAWKEY PROPERTY WAS OWNED BY A WEALTHY MICHIGAN MAN – SO WILLIAM CLYMAN YAWKEY MUST BE THE GUY.I SWAER I READ THAT SOMEWHERE.
Robbie – I appreciate your comments, but the constant caps lock makes it hard to read. Brighton Beach was a really neat area – I used to deliver pizzas there in the late 90s/early 00s when the last remaining homes were still around.
I’m not sure if anyone else has seen this… I was looking up the history of the Essex Golf and Country Club and found this document, which mentions the Yawkey farm, part of which was rented to the Oak Ridge Golf Club for a course, back in 1909. here’s the link:
http://www.essexgolf.com/index.cfm?ID=582
I spent many, many days as a kid playing in Yawkee bush. The location was south of Chappus (formerly Chappell) and east of Matchette. The site is now the former landfill, directly across from Mic Mac ball diamonds. Ojibway park is further south, and is now a nature reserve owned by the COW. I also did some boyhood camping at Ojibway park, and can confirm the two are not one in the same.
My two cents.
(great website BTW)
Great information I’m working on a documentary on west windsor being my family has lived in the Yawkey / Ojibway / West Windsor since 1927 I want to record the stories and history before it is wiped off the map with the new bridge project. My father has lived on the same 500 ft stretch of Matchette Rd since 1939.
Great site!! Pat Davies, please keep me posted on your documentary. garygonefyshin@yahoo.ca
We used to rent horses at the Flying Dutchman to ride in Yawkey Bush in the late 60s. The Flying Dutchman stables were probably located on Matchette Rd. I think there were 2 or 3 different stables in the area.
My girlfriend grew up on Matchette Road in the late 50’s and early 60’s and has fond memories of Yawkey Bush.
Hi Aaron i worked for the city public works dept for 30 years and thats what the city referered to that area as dogpath when i was a kid i always heard it referred to as Yawkey Bush and still refer to it as that it always felt like a special place to visit
Hi Aaron i worked for the city of Windsor PWD for almost 30 years, i remember when ever someone was on restricted duties due to an ijury, they would always send people out to Dogpatch to clean up the junk i guess alot of junk and garbage have been dumped out there near the river after they built the berm people couldn’t get out there nice photo of the barn by the way
I’ve really enjoyed this read. How interesting. I’m still trying to find our if the Wright Mansion was located in Yawkey Bush/Ojibway/Brighton Beach ???
This has been a great resource. I live on Malden Rd in an extreamly old house and would love to find out more about it. The house backs onto the section of ojibway between malden and matchette. A neighbour has said it used to be the “Drouillard house”. Anyone know anything?
Hi julienne. Its hard to say without knowing exactly where your house is.
I wouldn’t urge you to say so either of course lol
It’s very possible though. I’m looking at an 1880s map and just north of
What today is Reaume, there is indeed a T. Droulliard listed. The house
However is marked on the east side of Malden. Would you say your house
Is close to that time period.
Looking at google maps, there is one property that really seems to match
The spot in the 1880s map and it’s located on the east side directly across
From Stewart. I can’t see the house because of vegetation, but it’s set way back
Behind a short wood fence and has a gravel wheel rut driveway.
From over head the property certainly looks like an old farm, and the roof seems
To have a very old design as well. This is my candidate, but you should definitely
Do some more digging! Thanks for being a care taker of one of these old homes
Regardless of who’s it was in he past!
Good luck!
Thanks, and i will look into this “T.Drouillard”, but this is not my residence. I am a bit north, with the Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Resurve,(www.ojibway.ca/history.htm) behind me. I did find a 1798 map, on a history of the ojibway prairie site, which shows a Simon Droulyar, in a “crown surveyor”, and i swear it is directly over where i would be. Haven’t been able to find much from this on the web, but i will be reaching out to drouillard’s.
I am C Boismier and grew up in “Dogpatch”. I lived on the corner of Healy and Reed. Those of you who were there in the 50’s,60’s, 70’s and so on know me. Mrs. pinstripes I believe I know you lol. I spent many of hours in all of the bush in that area, both Yawkey, and Ojibway, and any other wooded areas in that hood. There was no better place on this planet to have my childhood !!The names “Casey, Lafleur, Lecour, and so many more are familiar to me. As a matter of fact, Casey was my first friend ,and is still one of my very best friends today. Anyway, the point I wanted to adress was that Healy street did go all the way ro the river at one time,and there were many unseen alleys there also. Another not too well know thing about that neighborhood was that all along 18 hwy between Broadway and the raceway there is a curb poured there. It has been buried many years ago. There was to be a huge sub division ,or new neighborhood, as it would have been described in that day, to go there in the late 40’s, early 50’s. I don’t remember exactly. I know this to be a fact as my Grandfather was one of the men who worked on this project
I grew up on the far west end of Windsor on a street initially called Alberta but later changed to Armanda. It was between Malden and Matchette Roads. I went to John O Cahill Grade School on Springarden Rd as did many of the kids my age in that area. I fondly remember family names such as Lafleur, Casey, Todd, Kaza, Keczem, Labute Brendjar and so on. Back then in the 70’s, I remember riding my bike on Broadway, Healy, Chappus etc. It was a great time being a kid. I remember an old variety store on Sandwich Street near the old Power Plant, the riding stables on Matchette Rd called the Flying Dutchman and so on. I spent many a day riding my bike on the trails in Ojibway Park too. Brighton Beach was a big area of homes as I remember…I moved away from Windsor in the early 90’s and have not been back. Is the area once known as Brighton Beach with neighborhoods and my memories now gone? Does anyone have pictures from back then?
Hey Scott, my full name is Chris Boismier. I grew up there too. On Healy as I stated earlier. The name of the store you remember was Hawchucks, the other store was the gas station on the corner of Chappus and 18 highway. I was owned and operated by Mr. Paul Lecouer. The Neiborhood fondly known as “Dogpatch” or Brighton Beach, is currently being demolished to make way for the new Windsor/Detroit Bridge. It’s a damn shame. What would your last name be? I knew just about everone in that hood. Living on Armanda, I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Underwood family lol
Hi Chris…..Yes, the Underwoods lived down on Wentworth off Armanda…went to high school (Centennial) with them. Upon reading your entry, I recalled the name of the owner of the gas station right beside the railway…I went to grade school with his son Fred Lecouer. Yes…Hawchucks…I remember going there with Dennis Brendjar and getting a bottle of coke then walking over to a junk yard right near it. Do u have pics of the old Hawchucks Variety? I used to by CB Radio parts from a guy on Healy I thought….I think his name was Big Bopper. Is that park still on Broadway?
My father purchased a building on Sandwich Street in 1963 that was built in 1921 (now ROCK BOTTOMS), Marentette Hardware store was across the street, Frank the owner (he seemed old to me because I was only about 16 or so at the time) told me that the hand hewn beam in the basement (and it was old, hardwood, you couldn’t drive a nail into it) came from a barn in Yawkey Bush…but I wouldn’t know if this picture represents the barn…we used to rent horses from Peter Van Eerd(sp), the Flying Dutchman, and ride in yawkey bush and what amazed me was the sidewalks that ran thru the area, I think they planned housing in there at one time.
Hey Jim. I used to travel by city bus from my home near the Chrylser plant on Walker Road. to the Flying Dutchman all the time to go horseback riding. I was just a kid but loved that place.I can`t seem to locate where it once was using Google earth.
Jim The Flying Dutchman was lacated where Matchette Road meets the Expressway,Scott Broadway Park is still there and they will not be able to demolish it as it is an Erca protected area, thank God
I lived in Brighton Beach a kid. We lived on Scotten Rd. Some of the names of neighbours I can remember are Reaume, Bury, Saunders, Corrigan, Baltzer, Laframboise, Ketcham(?), Bolyantu, Lloyd, Toutant. My dad bought the lot on Scotten Rd for $200 and built a small two-bedroom house with no basement – white clapboard and few amenities.
Behind us(to the south) was a field (where we played baseball, and “war” and set off fire crackers). The riding stables (can’t remember the name of the owner but it was an older fellow, kind of stocky and they had a big stallion named “Trouble”. And he was trouble, as I recall!) Just beyond the stables was the Essex Terminal tracks and just beyond that was 18 highway. Across the highway and to the west of Broadway. was Yawkey Bush.
I kind of think that barn in the photograph was set back in from Hwy 18 just east of Broadway – closer to Broadway than Chappus. I think the Toutant’s owned that land, and farmed it (south of Hwy 18, between Broadway and Chappus) I don’t remember a barn like that down by the river at all, but may have been there earlier
The Catholic kids in the neighbourhood crossed the highway to go to St. Thomas Aquinas. The “Protestant” kids went down the street to the corner of Broadway and caught the bus to John O’Cahill. But first we had to ride all the way down to Sandwich St The bus turned around at Hawchuck’s store. The last family to be picked up where the Knolls – who lived right across from the store.
I have lots of memories of playing in the fields, the ditches and the woods We would roam for hours – often packing a lunch to take along with us. Our playground was from Brighton Beach, next to the old power plant, downriver to the Morton Terminal (where the teenagers would jump off the dock and swim between the lakefreighters and the dock, and all the way north through empty fields, and across 18 Highway, all through Yawkey Bush and up to Matchette Rd. When we got a little older, we also found the sand pits that were off Alberta St. (Now Armanda) There were sidewalks and sewers all through those abandoned fields, infrastructure for subdivisions that were never built, but abandoned when the depression hit. It was supposed to be called “Garden City”, according to the stories my grandfather used to tell me, and it was expected that they would be “suburbs” for people working in factories in Detroit, but living where real estate was cheaper – across the river in “Garden City.” But the depression hit before the houses were built and the sidewalks and sewers were all abandoned. We used to take the covers off the sewers and go down inside the labrynth below. Scary adventures in those days! It’s a wonder we weren’t killed – we used do ALL kinds of dangerous things – including jumping the trains to ride to LaSalle, light fires in the bush, swim in stagnant ponds, play down by the river – and this was all before I was 11 years old! Then we moved to boring old South Windsor…
Wow…reading the childhood stories of S.C. Stewart brought back many memories. When you referred to the sand pits off Alberta (now Armanda), I used to play there all the time…if I walked out back from my house on Armanda….there were ponds and a horse training track. You could get to the ponds off Werner and Wentworth. Do you also remember 7 Hills over by Sprucewood? What a great area…I had a mini-bike and would go all over the place…I remember being chased by Security at Windsor Raceway for being on that property. Good times and great memories. Where exactly was that area you were referring too that had sidewalks and abandoned sewers? As far as some of the names you mentioned…I remember Brenda Baltzer, Ervin Keczem, Jeff Lafleur, Butch Labute, Ellen Todd and so on. If I recall, was there not a trucking business at the corner of Broadway and Hwy 18?
I would love to get any info and pics of marentete hardware…..on sandwich st
i would love any windsor pics of old west side windsor, brighton beach area,ojibway,the race way…and i have a question prior to the mansions being built on normandy in lasalle behind zehrs,there used to be bike paths through brunet park and back in the bushes were old side walks that you passed as you rode through the trees ,what was here before brunet park?
So sad to read all these stories of people’s fond memories of a time long gone.
Similar stories would have went on like this for the last 260 years, as the area you’re all referring to was the earliest inhabited European settlement west of Montreal in all of Canada.
They are tearing this area apart for the new border crossing, and nothing can infuriate me more.
That area was set up so long ago (long before Ojibway was even thought of).
To be able to dig around that area has been a dream of mine for so long.
I remember skipping school to go swimming with Kc. We used to camp in Yawkey bush quite often. We would ditch school and go swimming down at the hydro dock in the canal. Then we would go home and grab our tents and sleeping bags and go camp. We rode our dirt bikes all over the place in our hood, and most of the trails that exist there today, including Yawkey, Ojibway, and the seven hills. It was the best place to live and grow up, I really hated to leave there. There were many families there that all knew each other, and we all knew each sibling of each others families by name. I will name a few families for example; Pare , Caza, Laframboise, Reaume, Lafleur, Joncas, Branton, Renaud,Guilt, Underwood, Evon, Labute, Casey, Todd, Moore, Osborne, Larondo, Laeivier, Lamaroo, Dubois, ……. And many , many more