Seaway News
Ask a Curator - June 2024
Many people are aware of the “Stormont Cottages” on and near the southeast corner of York and First Street West. The townhouses were built for workers of the Stormont Mill, which until 1961 sat on the site now occupied by the Cornwall Community Museum.
Some may also be aware of a few houses on Race Street once used for cotton mill workers.
A now shuttered brick house on William Street served as a home to cotton mill supervisory staff and later as Bingley Steel’s engineering office. Still other mill tenement houses on a no-longer-existing section of William Street near Edward Street were demolished in 1954 for cotton mill employee parking.
But how many recall the duplexes of the Canadian Cottons Terrace? From 1920 until selling to employees in 1955, Canadian Cottons owned the property on the northeast corner of Adolphus at Water Street. Terraced housing can still be found in the matching duplexes at 3/5 and 7/9 Adolphus Street. A 1953 newspaper article boasting of Cornwall’s nicer but lesser-known residential areas included a photo and mention of them. Parking behind the houses is accessed via a right-of-way from Water Street.
During that cotton mill era, the company owned a duplex at 17-19 Adolphus. The three-storey stone foundation structure now functions as a tenement house, having been split from two to three to 14 units.
The former company property at 11 Adolphus Street is home to a 1959 three-storey apartment building bearing the name: “The Dornell Terrace Suites.” It grew from eight to nine units in the 1970s.
Don Smith is Curator / Manager at the Cornwall Community Museum.
(all photos are recent images by Don Smith.)