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The gateway to the 30,000 islands, Parry Sound, is situated on a bay, called a “sound,” in Georgian Bay, at the mouth of the Sequin River. The First Nations peoples called this sound Wau-sak-au-sing, meaning “Shining Lake.” It was Captain Bayfield of the Royal Navy who first surveyed the district and prepared a nautical chart of its waters, between 1822 and 1825. The Captain named the area Parry Sound, after Sir William Edward Parry, the arctic explorer.

The timber rights in the district were first owned, in 1857, by James and William Gibson of York County. They erected a water-powered sawmill on the Sequin River. The mill quickly became the nucleus of a settlement. There was a boarding house, a blacksmith shop, a few tiny log shanties, and a store. Early residents included Joseph Rogerson, Thomas Caton, D.F. Macdonald, Thomas McGown, and Frank Strain.

The actual founder of the town of Parry Sound was William Beatty. He arrived here from Thorold in 1863 with his father, William Sr., and his brother James. The Beatty family came in search of timber limits and fortuitously discovered that the Gibson timber rights were for sale. The Beatty property became known as the Parry Sound Estates. Their land consisted of the mill, several log cabins, and a 129.5-square-kilometre (50 mile) timber limit. Subsequently, they purchased an additional 2,000 acres of land at the mouth of the Sequin River. Today, this is Parry Sound.

Young William Beatty was enamoured of the rugged-shore country of Georgian Bay. His passion and love led to the development of a community. The land, where the business portion of the town stands, was cleared and laid out into village lots. The Beatty store, now the Beatty building, was constructed on the corner of James and Sequin Streets. Jim Beatty, direct descendent, still operates from this site today.

Tom Sheridan’s Boot and Shoe Shop on Sequin Street in 1908.

Courtesy of the Parry Sound District Museum

From the beginning, William Beatty, affectionately known as “The Governor,” took a strong stand against the legalization of liquor traffic in this settlement. He implemented the “Beatty Covenant”; this meant that all the deeds of land sold by him contained a clause stipulating that the holder of the land, whoever they may be, were liable to forfeit their title should liquor be sold on their premises. All such agreements were to remain legally binding for the lifetime of the parties signing, the lives of Queen Victoria’s children, and 10 months after the deaths of the parties involved. It wasn’t until 1950, after a plebiscite, that the restrictions were removed.

William Beatty was a well-educated man for his time, elected to the Senate of the University of Victoria in Cobourg, Ontario. William was a member of the Reform Party and a Wesleyan Methodist.

The Beatty brothers sold their mill and timber limits to Rathburn Company in 1871, and, only a few days later, Rathburn sold to A.G.P. Dodge and Company, who founded the Parry Sound Lumber Company.

While “Governor” Beatty worked to promote the well-being of his temperate settlement, another community was growing on the east shore of the inner harbour around a large mill built in 1873 by the Guelph Lumber Company. This settlement was called Carrington (later Parry Harbour) and posed a sharp contrast to Beatty’s Parry Sound. This was a wet community. Mr. McGee erected the first tavern, a tavern which attracted many thirsty lumberjacks. Author Adrian Hayes, in his book Parry Sound, describes some of the hotels in Carrington:

Taverns, by law, had to contain a minimum of four bedrooms with suitable bedding, beyond that required for the comfort of the tavern keeper and his family, and stabling facilities for at least six horses. There was to be both a dining room and a sufficiently stocked barroom to meet the needs of travellers. The Globe Hotel opened on November 19, 1874. This particular establishment flourished under a succession of owners, renovations and name changes. In its last incarnation it was the Queen’s Hotel. The Thomson House, owned by Robert Thomson opened for business during the summer of 1880. This was the first tavern on the site of the former Kipling Hotel, which burned on November 30, 1986. It wasn’t until 1887, when a special Act of Parliament called for the union of the two settlements of Parry Sound and Parry Harbour, that the two were incorporated as the Town of Parry Sound.

The Beatty family were also involved in shipping on Georgian Bay. They owned a steamship business called the Beatty Lines and were pioneers in the Canadian shipping industry. Tragedy befell their shipping lines early one wintery day in 1879. The eerie and mysterious tragedy was also the last voyage of the steamer Waubuno and foretold by the last dream of a young bride of only three weeks.

The Waubuno was built by William Beatty in 1865 at Port Robinson. The hull was towed to Collingwood the same year and there the machinery was installed. The Waubuno was the beginning of fame for the Beatty ship lines on the upper lakes. The Waubuno was also the beginning of Canada Steamship Lines and Canadian Pacific Steamships.

For years the Waubuno, a 200-ton wooden sidewheeler, made weekly trips between Parry Sound and Collingwood, carrying freight and passengers during the flourishing shipping trade on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. For the Beattys this lucrative business was heaven-sent, until a young bride of three weeks had a dream — a premonition of death.

On November 20, 1879, Mrs. Doupe, the new bride, and her husband, a doctor, retired for the night. They were to make their way from Collingwood to Parry Sound and from there to the village of McKeller, a few miles north in just two days time. There Dr. Doupe would take up the practice of medicine. That night, however, Mrs. Doupe saw the Waubuno beset with gigantic waves in her dreams. She and her husband, along with the other passengers, were struggling in the waters for their lives. She had foreseen her own death. Would they still board the ship?

The next day, news of her dream spread to the captain, the crew, and other passengers of the vessel. Although the story became a joke in Collingwood, many passengers opted not to sail in the face of this foreboding premonition.

Of that fateful day, David Williams, editor of the Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin, wrote, “Saturday, November 22nd, 1879, was a wild and winter-like day. The wind blew a gale and snow squalls were frequent. All the previous day it had been blowing great guns, and the Waubuno lay at the dock in Collingwood with one of the largest loads of the season, a number of passengers, a crew of 14, and all were waiting for the gale to abate sufficiently for her to start for Parry Sound.”

Neither gale nor a bride’s dream was going to stop Captain Burkett, master of the Waubuno, from setting sail. Besides, the Captain was eyeing the Maganettawan, a new ship put into service the same year by the Georgian Bay Lumber Company. It was lying across the harbor, loaded and ready to sail. The Maganettawan had beat the Waubuno on so many impromptu races along the North Shore that Captain Burkett was determined not to be out-sailed this time.

At 4:00 a.m. on November 22nd, the 150-foot steamboat silently sailed out of Collingwood without even a toot of its whistle to notify anyone of its departure. The gale, which had been blowing “great guns” for two days, had moderated. The trip to Parry Sound was short and relatively safe, normally, except for a 32-kilometre (20 mile) stretch between Hope Island and Lone Rock, where boats were exposed to open waters.

The bride and her husband had no chance to protest, since they were both asleep in their cabin when the Waubuno headed out. The ship was later sighted, on schedule, by John Hoar, the lightkeeper on Christian Island. At noon the Waubuno whistle was heard repeatedly by lumberjacks at Moon River. By then a heavy snowstorm was blowing, but no one thought anything of it. The ship often stopped for a whistle-pick-up of passengers among the islands. No one suspected that the Waubuno was in trouble. There was no reason to be anywhere near the Moon River, but rather safely in on the Waubuno Channel, north of Parry Island, and less than one hour away from her home port. What was she doing at the Moon River?

Apparently, when Captain Burkett came to the end of the northern leg of the course, at Lone Rock, he ran into a blinding snow storm and 64 kilometre- (40 mile) an-hour winds. Unable to obtain a clear sighting on Lone Rock, he dared not turn into the narrow western entrance of the Waubuno Channel.

At that point the Captain turned back and headed for the gap among the islands between Moose Deer Point and Copperhead. Although his navigation was on the nose, he had no way to know of an uncharted shoal in the middle of his projected passage. Normally, this shoal was 6 metres (20 feet) down, but the southwest gale changed all that. Seeing sprouting breakers here, the Captain dropped anchors, but the anchors did not catch. Years later, divers found a small anchor lying loose on the bottom and a larger anchor standing straight up, with five turns of anchor chain around the stock. The ship had shifted and come to rest when the main anchor chain caught a pinnacle of rock on the bottom and held. There, the Waubuno tossed in the breakers. It was only a question of time before something gave. Hence the distress signals. Suddenly, the foredeck gave way, the anchor was loose, and the ship was back in the gale. Downwind was an exposed rock called Burkett Rock. The paddlewheeler found it — hard. The engine-room machinery went to the bottom, the flotation hull ended up at Wreck Island, the ship split lengthwise, and everything else disappeared.

No survivors and no bodies were ever found. All of the life-preservers were later discovered among the wreckage, but no bodies. Why were the passengers not wearing life-preservers? What happened to the passengers? A mystery!

The tug Mittie Grew was sent out to search for the missing Waubuno. At the gap in the islands south of Copper Head, the tug saw evidence of a shipwreck. Wreckage lay scattered for miles, including a paddlewheel box and a lifeboat bearing the name of the Waubuno, but no bodies and no passengers. They had simply disappeared.

A short time later, several lawsuits were brought against the Beatty business. A special panel of experts in the courts presented such conflicting testimony that the court was unable to reach a decision on the case. It was concluded that the wreck was a great mystery, which would only be solved “when the sea gives up its dead.”

The town of Parry Sound survived the blow. Passenger and freight steamers became numerous. These ships were admirably well-fitted and furnished for their service. In the South Channel between Parry Sound and Penetang, the sidewheeler City of Toronto ran daily trips. The City of Parry Sound, the Northern Belle, and the Atlantic called in to Parry Sound on their semi-weekly trips. Steam yachts and tugs of the Parry Sound Yachting Fleet, as well as those of Galna & Danter, were present in force.

Parry Sound, 1901: the Belvedere Hotel. Many grand hotels like this one were eventually lost to fire.

Archives of Ontario

In 1888 the Districts of Muskoka and Parry Sound were formed into a United Provisional Judicial District and Parry Sound was named the District Town.

On January 21, 1926, the Georgian Bay Creamery Limited purchased River Street property and commenced operations in March of that year. The creamery closed down a few years ago, but the building had a few incarnations and is now Orr’s.

At one time, Parry Sound hosted numerous tourist hotels. There was the Montgomery House owned by Joseph Calverly in 1881; this hotel served lumbermen and miners. The Canada Atlantic Hotel, operated by C.A. Phillips, had a beautifully appointed dining room. The Mansion House, on the corner of James and Mary Streets, was situated where the Brunswick Motor Hotel stands today. The Victoria House was on James Street, and just outside the town limits was Rose Point Hotel, owned by W.R. Thomson. There, guests enjoyed cruises on the Thomsons’ steam yacht, the Carlton. And there was the Hotel Belvedere situated on the hill looking out over magnificent sunsets on Georgian Bay. It was a three-storey structure with double verandas. Fire took this glorious hotel down in the 1950s, and today it is the Belvedere Heights Home for the Aged.

Gone are all the grand hotels, the ships and the yachts. Some beautiful old homes remain. Industry has been kept at arm’s length and the cultural life has found a niche of its own. There is The Festival of Sound (no pun intended) and Art in the Park. The surrounding townships have artists tucked away in every corner — inspired by this rugged land. The waterfront is beginning to develop, with two fine restaurants and an airplane service. The main street has potential but remains, as yet, undeveloped. The new four lanes of highway 400, north from Barrie, are begging for a new vision for this town. William Beatty had a dream and saw it come forth. What will the new dream be?