Writer: Andrew Hind
Every historic building holds its share of secrets. The Maw House, originally of Novar and now part of the recreated pioneer village at Huntsville’s Muskoka Heritage Place, is certainly no different. Within this building, clinging to its log walls like mortar, are little-known tales of hardship, heartbreak, heroism, and indeed perseverance in the face of such setbacks.
The log home was built on Lot 28, Concession 14, Chaffey Township, in Novar, by Louis Edgar Mills in the late 1880s. The Mills family weren’t long for the property, however. Perhaps, like so many others, their spirits were beaten down by the difficulties of farming the terrain.
The lot and its home passed five different hands over the next three decades before it was purchased by Nawton and Minnie Maw in 1933. Somewhere along the way, a square-log addition was added to the original log cabin, more than doubling its size.
Nawton Maw was born in Yorkshire, England, on Nov. 6, 1870. His parents immigrated to Canada in 1878, settling near Sarnia. In 1894, Nawton married Florence Minnie Cameron. The couple would come to have seven children.
By 1924 the couple were residing in Novar in the log cabin built by Mills more than three decades earlier. Nawton died of pneumonia in 1933. The couple’s youngest son, 21-year-old John, who was known to everyone as Jack, and his Irish-born wife Florence, took over the home and farm. They would be blessed with six children, all born and raised in this little home.
Jack didn’t believe in idle hands. In addition to farming the land, he worked in logging camps and owned and operated sawmills – Jack was part owner of a mill in Novar, but when that partnership dissolved, he purchased a sawmill of his own in Katrine. Seemingly tireless, Jack also began a Christmas tree nursery, contracted his services for woodworking and stonemasonry, and rented cottages on Oudaze Lake.
“My father grew wheat, oats, and a variety of other crops, but when he bought the sawmill in Katrine he became too busy and thereafter only grew hay,” George Maw recalls. “He continued to raise livestock, though. We had cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks, so there was always plenty for us kids to do around the farm.”
In 1951, Jack built a more sizable house next door to the Maw House to accommodate his growing family. But Jack wouldn’t let the home go to ruin. Instead, he donated it – or at least the later square-log addition, as by this date the original cabin was rotting – to the Muskoka Board of Education in 1970 for use in an out-of-classroom education program. Later, in 1984, seven years after Jack’s death on July 2, 1977, his familial home was moved to its present location on the grounds of Muskoka Heritage Place.
The charming Maw House is one of more than a dozen heritage buildings preserved at Muskoka Heritage Place. “I’m really proud that the family home is in the museum educating people about history,” says George Maw. “When you’re growing up in it, you don’t think your home is anything special. But there are so few log cabins around, I see now that it is a reminder of our past.”
For more information on the Maw House see Founded on Stone: Tales of Early Parry Sound District
For more great stories from the past visit Muskoka Heritage Place!
88 Brunel Rd, Huntsville
