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​​​​​​​Keefers’ considerable influence on Canada

From Thorold Township and Town, 1786-1932 Published by John H. Thompson 
the-keefers

In 1866, the Fenian raids created considerable anxiety in this district. When news of the threatened invasion was brought, many persons living near the border left their farms and took as many possessions as they could, in wagons, to Pelham and the western townships. The raid was a very mild invasion, but the fright produced by it was greatly augmented by the wild rumours that were afloat.

A comparison of the census of 1871 with that of 1881 shows that the population of Thorold township, not including the town of Thorold, had decreased from 2,501 to 2,456 between these dates.

Encouraged by the discovery of natural gas in the southern part of the county, a company was formed at Thorold in 1887 to bore for the same natural product. A well was sunk near the High School to a depth of 3,000 feet, when gas was reached. A considerable volume came up at first, but the quantity was not large enough to be of any profit to the shareholders. Salt and oil also were found nearer the surface.

The later life of the township was comparatively uneventful. Agriculture was improved, and the people profited by the many inventions of the age, but life was not different from that in any other of the older rural districts in Ontario.

The younger generations were worthy successors to the old Loyalist settlers. Thomas C. Keefer was twice named president of the Canadian Society of Engineers, and twice won the Governor’s prize for his essays on railways and canals. It was he who chose the site for the Victoria Bridge at Montreal and drew the plans for the structure, although his name has been omitted from the list of engineers on the tablet at the bridge. 

Before the Canadian Pacific Railway was built, he wrote papers urging its construction, showing plans and giving a description of the proposed route. Scarcely less important as an engineer was his brother, Samuel Keefer, who was also president of the Society of Engineers for one term. He superintended the building of the stone locks on the old Welland Canal, while the planning of the Parliament House at Ottawa was also under his supervision. He built the Suspension Bridge at Ottawa, then the first of its kind in Canada, and was one of the engineers who planned the first Suspension Bridge at Niagara Falls, which was completed in 1868; at that time the latter structure was the longest span in the world.

Joseph Hobson, for many years sheriff of Welland county, was also a native of Thorold. Another Thorold citizen, Matthew Royal, achieved no inconsiderable fame as a dramatist in the United States. While Thorold is proud of all these honours gained, yet she glories not so much in a few isolated cases of brilliancy as in the general high average of intellect and character that distinguishes a Canadian township.