Samuel Courtney's Well - Lot 5, Concession 2 OF, Nepean, Ontario
Posted by: 
elyob
N 45° 19.218 W 075° 51.630
18T E 432558 N 5018893
Park on Timm Drive.
Waymark Code: WMVR9X
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 05/22/2017
Views: 27
Abandoned for more than a century, this flatrock-constructed draw well is still easily recognizable. Discarded washing equipment lies nearby. The dry well is nearly three metres deep. It may have been filled in. Checking the standing water to the east, the well depth should be near the water table. Take care, there is no cover on the well.
The well is relatively central to the ruins of at least five buildings. The structure nearest the well was likely a residence, a log shanty over a basement with flatrock walls. The north-south trail immediately east of the well is the trail that waymarkers will follow north from Timm Drive for about 400 metres.
According to historical atlas and census material, this settlement belonged to Samuel Courtney. Samuel's parents were immigrants from Templepatrick, County Antrim, Ireland: Samuel Courtney and Jane Bell. By the time of the 1891 census, only four residents were left on site: unmarried farmer Samuel Courtney, his widowed mother Jane, his widowed sister Matilda Evans and her teenage son Stuart Evans. The matriarch Jane (Bell) Courtney died in 1895. Farmer Samuel Courtney died in 1898. By 1898, Stuart Evans was off teaching at the Ramsayville school in Gloucester. Soon after that, Evans was on his way to university in Montreal where he would be trained to be a doctor.
In the late 1890s, this site was abandoned. Jane and Samuel Courtney had died. Dr Stuart Evans and his mother had relocated to the city of Ottawa. Sixty years later, this abandoned site had become part of public access lands, the National Capital Commission (NCC) greenbelt. Agriculture continues today on many lots managed by the NCC. This area, however, has been dedicated to recreational uses such as trail hiking (and biking).
In the 1890s, there was no Timm Drive or equivalent to gain access to this site. From the south, the trail passing the draw well came from what is now Robertson Road. Continuing north beyond the well site, the trail connects with another north-south trail which was the formal road allowance separating lot 5 and lot 6. That road allowance extended from Robertson Road to the road now known as Corkstown Road.
I suspect that this site saw some limited agricultural use between the 1890s and the 1960s.