Piece of Muskoka history found in Florida garage sale

Mounted on yellowing, brittle cardboard, the watercolour on birch bark hid, sandwiched in darkness, for untold years. It depicts three sides of what appears to be an octagonal cottage. Two tiny figures are heading down a long path to a dock at the water’s edge, where two more figures row by. The hand-painted caption at the bottom reads “Killkrankie, Lake Joseph, Muskoka.”

How did this Muskoka scene end up in a yard sale in Tallahassee, Florida, hidden behind a framed print of a little girl?

That’s what Tallahassee resident Deborah Gallentino would like to know. She is not a collector, but has held onto the piece for six years.

“I bought it because I liked the frame,” says Gallentino. “I think it was a couple of dollars. I’m sure the people having the yard sale had no idea it was behind there. I suspect that’s how it made its way to Tallahassee, Florida.”

She does not think she’s kept the frame that first piqued her interest.

Killiecrankie (the caption on the watercolour is misspelled) was built on the shores of Lake Joseph, not far from Port Sandfield, in 1886.

The original property of almost 19 acres was, from 1877, part of the farm of John and Margaret Biggar. The property was used for grazing cattle, and after the Mackenzie family had the octagonal cottage built with the labour of eight Scottish carpenters, a fence was erected to keep cattle from roaming where they pleased.

Killiekrankie was equipped with a 10-foot-by-150-foot wharf, but on some occasions, the family was not able to dock because log booms had been chained to shore. In May 1899, the family made a special application to the land registrar and was granted, at no cost, the water lots by the Crown.

The Mackenzie family’s history is well worth touching on, and is chronicled in a book printed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the cottage in 1986.

Euphemia Marshall Grieve was born in Scotland in 1836 to a family of coal miners. After her mother died in 1851, her father sent her and a younger sister to visit an aunt in Kingston, Ontario. She remained in Canada when her father died and eventually received a substantial inheritance. The family history says it’s likely Killiecrankie came into being in part thanks to the legacy made possible by Scottish coal mines.

Euphemia married William Innes Mackenzie in 1855. He was born in Scotland in 1825, and worked for the North of Scotland Bank, then as bookkeeper for a wholesale dry goods business in Hamilton, Ontario. After moving to New York City, Mobile, Alabama and his first wife’s death in childbirth, he ended up working with his brother in retail in Ingersoll, before meeting Euphemia.

The early years of their marriage were something of a whirlwind. He worked as a financial manager for a prominent railway contractor, and then his brothers sold him a retail business they owned in Hamilton. When it became clear the business was heavily in debt to angry creditors, he quickly moved the family to Detroit, before moving to England around 1860.

Between 1856 and 1872, the couple had seven children — three boys and four girls — and after a decade in England, returned to Ontario so William could build railways.

The railway boom and bust of the 1870s left the family in dire financial straights.

Mackenzie found stability again as the manager of the Toronto House Building Association in 1874, which was active in the acquisition and subdivision of estates in west Toronto to create the Parkdale area. Parkdale became its own town in 1885 before it was annexed by the city in 1889. William I. Mackenzie became known as “the father of Parkdale” and died in 1903, three years before Euphemia.

In the meantime, Muskoka and Killiecrankie had become integral to the family life.

In the 1880s, Euphemia Mackenzie complained of the effects of the long, hot summer in Toronto to her doctor, Emily Stowe, the first woman to practice professional medicine in Canada.

Dr. Stowe prescribed a getaway to her island on Lake Joseph. Mrs Mackenzie and her sister stayed as paying guests at the Stowe cottage for several weeks in 1884 or 1885, and was so inspired that the family purchased the Biggar farm property on the nearby mainland.

Dr. Stowe might have inspired the cottage’s design by making them aware of the theories of Orson Squire Fowler, the chief proponent of octagonal dwellings.

Fowler was known widely as an expert on phrenology, the belief that the contours of the head defined the individual.

In the mid-19th century, Fowler published The Octagon House: A Home for All, or A New, Cheap, Convenient, and Superior Mode of Building. An octagon encloses approximately 20 per cent more space than a comparable square with the same perimeter. Fowler espoused that an octagon house was economical to construct, allowed more natural light and maintained moderate temperatures.  

The book led to a mini construction boom in the U.S. and also inspired Henry J. Bird to construct Woodchester Villa in Bracebridge.

The name Killiecrankie is quintessentially Scottish. The Pass of Killiecrankie was the site of a battle where Highland forces loyal to James II faced the government. The highlanders won a speedy and decisive victory, but it was their last.

Killiecrankie was more than an octagonal cottage — it was a colony of family members that spent their summers on separate properties on the shore for much of the 20th century.

Eight lots were purchased by the Mackenzies in 1889-90 for prices ranging from $100 to $300. Subsequent lots were purchased in 1924 and 1944.

The many fascinating stories of the families that occupied the lots could fill many future articles. Among their ranks were men who went away to war and never returned, world travellers and many star regatta athletes. Perhaps one of the most interesting was the Mackenzies’ youngest daughter, Euphemia Catherine “Kate.” She never married and came to be the ruler of Killiecrankie, which was the centre of activity on the shore.

She was Donald Beveridge’s great aunt. His grandmother was William and Euphemia’s daughter Charlotte Elizabeth.

“About 1889, my great-grandmother said to one of her sons, Samuel Ridley Mackenzie, that my grandmother needed a cottage of her own because she had two or three kids,” says Beveridge. “She gave him $500 to build a house and told him he could spend whatever was left over for his medical education.”

Beveridge first visited the cottage when he was six weeks old. His mother used to bring the family up from Virginia to escape the heat.

“That house provided fun and satisfaction in Muskoka for many, many years,” he recalls. “It was finally abandoned about 1946. My grandmother left half the property to my mother and my father built the new house. That was true generally throughout the family.”

He says property values and the need to create fair arrangements in multiple-child families are two of the factors that led to the splintering of the family colony.

“It’s sad. Some years ago, I was raking the path along the water’s edge, until I realized that no one uses the path anymore,” says Beveridge. “The family enclave is gone.”

Three families with ties to the original clan remain where once a dozen properties housed dozens of relatives.

The old cottage burned during the summer of 1999, and the family sold the land. A large residence now occupies the spot.

It lives on in memories, photos and that old watercolour. The family history reveals a clue as to how it ended up in Florida.

Euphemia Mackenzie purchased two houses in Tallahassee, Florida in the 1880s, but sold them after the economic depression of the late 1890s. Mackenzie used to take her grandchildren to Florida, and Beveridge believes Kate Mackenzie also spent time in Tallahassee.

Local antique dealer Ted Currie, who takes special interest in Muskoka collectibles, says souvenirs and collectibles from Muskoka often turn up in the U.S.

“You had so many people going back and forth, bringing stuff with them and taking it back,” says Currie. “Great Muskoka artifacts are still found all across the States.”

He says the painting itself, by an unknown artist, is most interesting for the history it reveals.

“We had two octagonal houses in Muskoka — Killiecrankie and Woodchester Villa — there aren’t many houses associated with Fowler’s theories anywhere, so this is a great piece of history.”

As for the painting’s fate, whether it will return to Muskoka, assuming it ever actually was in Muskoka, is unknown. Gallentino says she’s had the piece appraised at $450 and may try to sell it online.

Special thanks to Julia Raybould and Jeffrey Dinsmore for loaning family photos and to the staff of the Muskoka Lakes Museum for locating and loaning Killiecrankie: 1886-1986.

See letter <a href='http://www.muskokasun.com/muskokasun/article/120025' target='_blank'>"Beloved Killiecrankie."</a>