Looking Back

Photo: Parks

Very much Traill College’s centrepiece, Scott House was constructed in 1882 at 305 London Street, for Thomas Robinson. Since then, the building has been home to Adam Hall, a stove maker; G.A. Macdonald, former head of Quaker Oats; Vincent Clementi, an Anglican priest; and George Cox, a former mayor of Peterborough. In 1896 Cox was appointed to the Canadian Senate by then-prime minister, Wilfrid Laurier. In 1964, the house was purchased by Trent University and given the new name Catharine Parr Traill House. At that point the house was occupied by 20 young women and the college’s first principal, Marion Fry. Shortly thereafter the house was renamed Scott House to honour Jeanette Scott, a daughter of a famous settler in the area, Adam Scott.

Read about Catharine Parr Traill in the excerpt of Cecily Ross’ The Lost Diaries of Susanna Moodie on page 25.