The following article was published in PelhamToday on December 31, 2025
The year 2025 was marked by a number of interesting local history initiatives, but was also over-shadowed by the passing of several stalwarts of the local history scene.
Mary Lamb, who spent much of the last 56 of her 94 years engaged in promoting local Pelham history, died on December 8, 2025. She was a President of the Pelham Historical Society, a local Town Councilor, a member of the Voice of Pelham ownership group, author of innumerable articles about the history of the Township and Town of Pelham and an advocate for historical preservation. Seventy of her articles were assembled into a booklet published by the Pelham Historical Society in 2012 titled Pelham: The Making of a Community. She was also the principal editor of the 1992 PHS booklet Mute Words, Living Voices: The Letters of Henry Giles and was particularly proud of her work with Catharine B. Rice producing the Pelham Historical Calendars.
On August 29, 2025 we lost Dave Bennison to his fight with liver disease at the far too young age of 55. Dave had built his Historical Niagara Facebook page over the last few years into a key part of the day for many of his 29,000+ followers. His down-to-earth style and passion for the history of Niagara appealed to many residents. He may have been the antithesis of an academic historian, but arguably had far more influence than anyone else in Niagara in disseminating our shared history. Not everyone knew that Dave had deep Pelham roots and many of his posts touched on our history. He had lived in Fenwick for five years in the 1980s and on Highway 20 in Fonthill for another 6 years in the 1990s. More recently he lived near the border between Pelham and Welland.
Another great loss for family historians in Niagara was Corlene Taylor who passed away on August 9, 2025 at 97. She was born in the farmhouse which became the Mayholme Foundation in St. Catharines. Mayholme is a wonderful repository of genealogical data, and home of the Esther Summers collection, which contains a huge amount of Pelham and Thorold related family history. Her Mini Atlas of Early Settlers in the District of Niagara: Book 2 written with Maggie Parnall was an invaluable resource for many of us prior to the easy accessibility of digital copies of those early maps.
I’ll miss all three of these inspirational leaders who contributed so much to the narrative of the history of Niagara.
All was not doom and gloom in 2025, however. Initiatives from the local libraries and museums, the Pelham Historical Society, the Town of Pelham, Ontario Ancestors and Niagara GeoPark helped promote and highlight local history in the past year.
Local Newspaper Digitization
By far the biggest local history story of 2025 for Pelham residents, and others interested in Niagara history, is the progress made on the indexing and digitization of local newspapers. There have been several initiatives which have come to fruition during the last year. These involve new digital access to newspapers in Hamilton, St. Catharines, Thorold and Welland. You may wonder why these would be of importance to Pelham. The simple answer is that for most of the history of Pelham prior to 1959 there was not a dedicated local newspaper. Instead, Pelham based correspondents have filed regular news reports in the newspapers of the surrounding towns, Welland and St. Catharines in particular, which local residents then subscribed to.
Torstar, the copyright holder for the St. Catharines Standard and the Welland Tribune, coordinated agreements among Newspapers.com, an Ancestry company, and several local libraries and archives (primarily Brock Archives and Special Collections and the Welland Public Library) to facilitate the scanning, indexing and digital dissemination of historical issues of those newspapers. The St. Catharines Standard is now available for onsite search and access at the St. Catharines Public Library and the Welland Tribune and several associated papers such as The People’s Press are available for onsite search and access at the Welland Public Library. Subscribers to the quite expensive Newspapers.com Publisher Extra Edition can also access these papers, as well as the Hamilton Spectator and many others, from home.
Image 1 – The People’s Press Banner of June 16, 1914
Thorold Public Library has taken a different approach with their collection of Thorold Post historical issues by hiring summer students the last couple of years to scan the old newspapers in their collection, with a view to making them freely available to the public on their website. This effort has been somewhat successful, but the quality of the scans is sometimes less than optimal, and the search capabilities are currently limited.
Pelham Historical Society (PHS)
PHS celebrated its 50th anniversary at its meeting on September 20, 2025 with recognition of its many contributions to the community during those years. A few of those highlights included publishing the Pelham Historical Calendar and its insightful articles for twenty-five years (1977-2001), contributing history articles to the Voice of Pelham in subsequent years, publishing four books on local history, maintaining a small archive in cooperation with the Lincoln Pelham Public Library and sustaining a monthly history seminar program throughout most of its history. Seven seminars were delivered in 2025 with both local topics and speakers from surrounding Niagara communities. The year 2026 will kick off with the popular Members’ Interests seminar scheduled for 2:30 pm on Saturday, February 28, 2026 at Kirk on the Hill, Fonthill.
Welland Canal Bicentennial
Speaking of anniversaries, the Welland Canal celebrated a very significant anniversary late in 2024. It has been 200 years since construction of the first canal began on November 24, 1824. Seminars commemorating the bicentennial were held at local canal community museums throughout 2024 and 2025.
Town of Pelham
The Town of Pelham has resurrected a few historical initiatives this past year. A summer student was hired to help research previously designated heritage properties and potential new ones. On July 22, 2025 eight properties were recognized with a certificate and plaque. In addition, notice has been served that the Fonthill Cemetery Mausoleum will be added to the designated heritage properties list and plans are also under way to designate the Old Pelham Town Hall in 2026. Robert Young of PHS wrote an excellent article on the OPTH which was published in PelhamToday on December 9, 2024.
Image 2 – Heritage Designation Plaque
The Town is also in the process of determining how to renovate and preserve one of those heritage sites, the Old Quaker Meeting House, now located in Fenwick.
The town also renamed the Meridian Community Centre food concession as Cook’s Corners this year, commemorating a former name of the Metler Road and Balfour Street area in North Pelham. Calvin J. and Velma (Horton) Cook lived and worked at that intersection for nine years between 1878 and 1887.
Ontario Genealogical Society (Ontario Ancestors)
Ontario Ancestors – Niagara Peninsula Branch, and its parent province wide organization, provide extensive resources to family history enthusiasts. These include free research services and seminars throughout Niagara Region (including at the MCC and local libraries), Webinars which are shared on YouTube, and many other research materials which can be accessed through the member portal of their website. Two new member resources which caught my attention this year were the Ontario Historical Society Century Farm applications from the 1940s and the Odd Fellows’ Relief Association life insurance applications from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Both collections were donated to Ontario Ancestors and are in the process of being digitized. I found two century farm applications for Pelham (Horton and Willson/Weed) and four for Thorold (Smith, Thomas, Upper and Vanderburgh).
I was aware that the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) had a very active chapter in Fenwick, located on the upper floor of what is now the Grill on Canboro / Green Lantern building. I was not surprised therefore to learn that nineteen Pelham applications have been indexed as part of the Odd Fellows collection. Unfortunately, none of these indexed files have been digitized yet, but this is something we can look forward to soon. The applications will contain a significant amount of personal and medical detail which may be of interest to family historians. To search the database index for local applicants, use post office locations (Ridgeville, Fenwick, etc.) rather than townships.
Image 3 – Odd Fellows’ Relief Association Application
Niagara Aspiring Global Geopark – History Expo
On Sunday, March 2, 2025 the First Niagara History Expo, sponsored by the Niagara Aspiring Global Geopark, was held at The Meridian Community Center in Fonthill. Over twelve exhibitors from Niagara museums, societies, educational institutions and other interested parties participated and 600 people attended. I understand that a similar event is planned for Sunday, March 8, 2026.
Other History Sites and Resources
The WellandHistory.ca website continued to post material to their website in 2025 and the Pelham History Group and the If You Grew Up in Fonthill Facebook pages also had some interesting posts.
All of the local museums and historical societies have plans for educational programs and events in 2026. Keep an eye on their websites if you have an interest in participating.