Frederic Cumberland

Frederic Cumberland. . , The Barrie Betrayal , Construction of the new Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Union Railroad rail line north from Toronto to Allandale may never have been completed without Frederick William Cumberland taking control of the engineering in 1852. An economic decision was made to turn the new rail line northwest from Allandale to Collingwood, bypassing Barrie altogether. When accused of betraying Barrie, Cumberland is said to have infamously responded that “he would make grass grow in Barrie streets and would pave Allandale streets with gold!” , Cautious Expansion , In 1854, the multi-talented Cumberland left to resume the architectural practice he founded earlier in Toronto. When the railway went bankrupt in 1857, he returned as a director and two years later was made General Manager of the reorganized Northern Railway. Under his careful supervision, rail service expanded only when the timber resources were depleted along the line as lumber was the major source of freight revenue, or when he was forced by the competition. , The Rise of Allandale , About 1863 he designed the first brick railway station at Allandale. It was Cumberland who jointly managed to bring the Hamilton and North-Western Railway line to Barrie. Meanwhile, his list of achievements in architecture, politics, banking, the militia, other railways, and business mounted. , Tribute , When Cumberland died on August 5, 1881, the Barrie Northern Advance newspaper named him “one of the shrewdest, most enterprising and most successful among the class he represented.” In December 1881 a bronze monument of Cumberland designed by Canadian sculptor F.W. Dunbar was commissioned by the employees and placed at the Allandale rail yard as a tribute (see the west side of the Southshore Centre). It reads: “Erected by the men of the Northern and North-Western Railways, 1881.” The employees chose to place the monument in Allandale as “the little village which constitutes the hub of the extensive railway service that has grown up under his masterful management.”