Ever hear of Edmanson's Corners? It’s a thriving town of over 35,000 in south Simcoe County. No? You should; you live there. Or, at least, in what used to be Edmanson’s Corners. Today the community is called Bradford.
The name Edmanson's Corners honours early settler John Edmanson, an Englishman by birth who was determined to make a new future for himself in Canada.
Edmanson arrived at what is now Bradford in the early 1830s among the first wave of homesteaders. He owned the land that today comprises most of the town’s south-east.
Edmanson built a hotel and tavern. For many years it was the only hotel in town, a place where weary stage passengers could rest. Edmanson prospered. He further lined his pockets with hold by selling town lots.
The settlement that formed around the hotel and at least partially on his sub-divided lots became known as Edmanson's Corners.
In 1840, the name was changed to Bradford, after the town in Yorkshire, England. Edmanson almost certainly resented the change – who wouldn’t? – but there was little he could do about it.
By this time, rumours of the railway arriving in Bradford sometime in the next decade or so led to rampant land speculation as people predicted – correctly as it turned out - an economic boom. The price of land doubled. Edmanson sold further town lots for an even more handsome return.
On Dec. 26, 1857, John Edmanson died a wealthy man. Canada had been good to him,
Just over a decade later, on May 23, 1871, a fire razed most of the community. Approximately 130 homes and businesses were reduced to cinders. Among the few left standing was Edmanson's Hotel.
Though the man himself is forgotten, John Edmanson’s one-time hotel still stands to this day, a private residence that serves as one of the oldest buildings in the Bradford-West Gwillimbury.
