New Lowell United marks 150 years

by Trina Berlo

New Lowell United Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary this month with a community dinner and commemorative service.

Organizers say the events will be a great time to remember and reminisce.

“It is a honour for our current congregation to continue to walk in the steps of the faithful people that started a church in the community of New Lowell in 1873,” said Rose Cambourne, chair of the board of stewards. “From its humble beginnings of a small wooden structure, to surviving a devastating fire in 1909, and then the re-building of the brick building to our accessible renovations in 2016, we are striving to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ in our part of the world.”

The church’s history begins in the early 1870s when Mary Hay, wife of Robert Hay, who co-founded Jacques and Hay, a Toronto furniture manufacturer (1835-1872) that accessed timber at New Lowell, began championing the construction of a Presbyterian Church.

Mary Hay died in childbirth before construction, but the church was named the Mary Kirk in her honour, with kirk being the Scots word for church.

According to Sunnidale Looks at Yesterday, A History of Sunnidale Township, the church was first officially dedicated on July 5, 1874. “The event was cause for celebration In New Lowell,” it reads. “Robert Hay chartered

Human remains located along Highway 26

A large police presence on Highway 26 near Wasaga Beach last week was the result of an investigation after human remains were located in the area.

On May 24, at approximately 3:30 p.m., members of Huronia West OPP received information that suspected human remains were located by members of a land surveying company who were working in the area off Highway 26, in the Town of Wasaga Beach.

The investigation is being conducted by the Huronia West OPP Crime Unit, with assistance from the OPP Forensic Identification Services, the Office of the Chief Coroner, and a Forensic Anthropologist.

a special railway car from Toronto and filled it with friends who generously donated to the church. In fact the church received enough money, including a $1,000 endowment from Robert Hay, that it was left with no worries.”

The remains have since been confirmed to be human remains. A postmortem examination will be conducted to identify the remains and determine a cause of death.

Investigators believe there is no threat to public safety.