Victoria Road History Series
In 1858 Victoria County decided to open up Digby Township for settlement. By 1860 Victoria Road had reached Uphill and northward. Those early settlers are all gone and most of their homes and farms have disappeared with them. The only remnants are their gravestones in various cemeteries in the area and the rare relative who may still live in the area
The caches in this series will take you along this wonderful road and will provide some history of the lives that were spent here. I hope you can appreciate this environment for its wonderfully eclectic nature. This series is comprised of 6 caches which will provide the necessary information needed to find the 7th cache.
The series consists of the following caches:
Settler despair
Reflections on the past
Stampede
Be prepared to brake
The old drinking hole
4 corners on the North Star
Buzz saw
Record the code found in each of the 6 caches to find the coordinates for the Buzz Saw cache:
4 Corners of North Star
If you look around this intersection today you will see 4 houses comprising the 4 corners and a few more houses further south on Victoria Road. Back in the day, Uphill was called North Star. Local legend has it that it is thanks to the lumbermen that Uphill got its current name. Apparently, they complained that, no matter from what direction you travelled, you had to go up hill to get to the Longford Lumber Co headquarters located on the north east corner of this intersection.
"As the fortunes of Longford ebbed and flowed, so has the village of Uphill flourished or stagnated. When the Longford Lumber Co decided to make that spot its centre of operations, it was the beginning of the boom days for Uphill. A boarding house, large barns and a store were built by the lumber company while a post office was established also. Stores, as many as three, at one time, and the North Star Hotel flourished. For years, men for miles around flocked to Uphill in the fall looking for winter's work in the lumber-camps of Longford."
On the southwest corner of this intersection – a store has been present here since 1866 closing for good only about 50 years ago. The current building on this corner was the last store to exist in Uphill. Since the store closed, the building has been turned 90 degrees.
On the north east corner – the company store for the Lumber Co. which was torn down in 1897, the boarding house which still exists and this house built in the 1870s by James Porter, the “walking boss” or field manager of the Lumber Co.
Be careful when stopping for this cache. The traffic on Monck Rd can be heavy and fast. The owner of the property has given permission to use the driveway for parking.