Blair(s) Settlement, also known as Centreville, was named for the large Blair family whose homes dotted Concession 9, which later became Perth Road and Country Road 10. James Henry Blair came to Canada from Scotland with his wife, Elizabeth, in 1827. They had seven children, four of whom were boys who established farms in the same area as their parents. Between the four boys, they had thirty-five children who all went to Blair Settlement School.1
Blair Settlement School, also known as the Centreville School, is located on the Perth Road, at the junction with McAndrew’s Road. On the map of 1862 the school is shown just east of Concession Road 9, in the northwest corner of lot 6. Like many others, it was a simple one-room, clapboard structure with a small vestibule.2 In 1919 the teacher was Gertrude Bradley, who taught eleven students, aged 6 to 15 years.3
In the 1800s and early 1900s, church services took place at the Zion Church. The location of this church is thought to have been on Lot 8 of the 10th Concession. The Athens Reporter and County of Leeds Advertiser reported that “successful” revival services were held there in November of 1890, by Rev. N. Campbell of Oliver’s Ferry (now Rideau Ferry on Big Rideau Lake).4 As well, The Daily Whig noted in 1901 that “[t]he meeting in Zion church on Sunday morning was well attended.”5
The Blair/Centreville Cheese Factory was owned and operated by the Derbyshires until 1898, when it was purchased by the then 25-year-old Sam McCann Jr. He and his new wife, Christina Blair, moved into the space above the cheese factory. They lived there with their daughter, Maria, until 1923 when they moved to Westport. By 1929, Sam McCann Jr. operated the Blair/Centreville Cheese Factory along with five other cheese factories in the area, namely the Ardmore, Mountain View, Ontario, Salem and Westport Cheese Factories. Forty-pound veneer boxes of cheese were delivered by the wagon-load every Friday for shipment. Initially the cheese was shipped on ice cut from Upper Rideau Lake, to Kingston in barges through the Rideau Canal system. Later it was shipped in refrigerated rail cars.6
By Allison Margot Smith
Municipal Heritage Advisory Committee, Township of Rideau Lakes.
[1] Neil A. Patterson, History of the Township of North Crosby and Westport (Westport, ON: Township of Rideau Lakes and Municipality of Westport, 2006), 73.
[2] Patterson, History of the Township of North Crosby and Westport, 42, 46.
[3] “Crosby to Salem Historical Driving Tour,” Frontenac Arch Biosphere, accessed July 27, 2020, https://www.frontenacarchbiosphere.ca/explore/tours/heritage-walking-tours/crosby-to-salem-historical-driving-tour.
[4] Staff Correspondents, “County News,” Athens Reporter and County of Leeds Advertiser, November 18, 1890, sec. Vol. VI, No. 46, 1, Lakes and Islands, Times Past: The Shared Digital Histories of Rideau Lakes & Leeds and the Thousand Islands.
[5] Staff Correspondents, “Blair Settlement Notes,” The Daily Whig, November 8, 1901, Our Ontario, http://images.ourontario.ca/Partners/kfpl/KFPL002788340pf_0434.pdf.
[6] Patterson, History of the Township of North Crosby and Westport, 66–67.
