Page 12 Ilderton and Area Villager • July-August 2025 Anthony and Mary Ann’s second son, Thomas Patrick (T.P.) (1854-1924), married Margaret Ann [Guilfoyle] (1881-1962) in 1901, and they had three children – Mary Ann, Hazel Florence and Thomas Gordon. T.P. was given the 100-acre family farm in 1888. T.P. helped establish the Ilderton Telephone Company and also served as a Township Constable. In 1924, T.P. was injured while plowing with a horse-drawn plow and died. The property and farmhouse were passed to his son Thomas Gordon (nicknamed “Tippy” when he outgrew being called “Little T.P.”). 1867, they donated additional land to replace the log building with a brick building farther away from the intersection. This structure still exists today. In 1821, their eldest son, Anthony Cooper Hughes (1821-1906), was born in the original log cabin. Anthony married Mary Ann [Patrick] (1821-1902), and they had seven children. Anthony and Mary Ann received title to the home farm property on February 20, 1868. In 1881, Anthony and Mary Ann built a new brick house on the property, and the original log cabin was reconstructed at the rear of the brick house to make a summer kitchen and woodshed. In the early 1990s, it was designated as one of the early dwellings of Middlesex County by the Township of London Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC). When Anthony died in 1906, he was recognized as being the “oldest pioneer of London Township”. Seven Generations for an Ilderton Pioneer Family by Beverly Hughes, Middlesex Centre Archives Joseph Cooper Hughes (1785-1879) was born in Ireland. He married Allice [Burns] (1798-1878), who was born in England. In 1818, they decided to join the second wave of settlers to immigrate to the wilderness of Ontario, Canada. Together with Joseph’s brothers, Richard and Anthony, they boarded the “Fidelity”, a “free ship” paid for by the British government. They sailed across the Atlantic to Montreal, Quebec, and boarded an open river boat to Kingston. From there, they took the Lake Ontario steamboat “Frontenac” to Port Talbot. In 1819, they settled on Lot 21, Conc. 11 of London Township. In the book London Township Pioneers, Joseph was given credit as being one of the original settlers to the area. Early pioneers were required to perform certain duties prior to receiving ownership of the land they had chosen. Within two years, they had to build a dwelling at least sixteen feet by twenty feet in a clearing. They had to clear and fence five acres for every one hundred acres they possessed, and clear and open half the road width (thirty-three feet) in front of their property, leaving no trees standing within one hundred feet of the road. They had 10 children and farmed this 100-acre piece of land under a “squatter’s rights” deed until they were able to travel to Goderich in 1845, where they purchased the parchment “Crown Deed” for the home farm. In 1844, they donated a small piece of property on the south- east corner of the home farm to be used as a school. The first structure was a log buil- ding built close to the inter- section of Ilderton Road and the Cameron Sideroad (now Wonderland Road North). In
In 1932, Thomas Gordon (1906-1990) married Gladys Marion [Poole] (1910-1997) and in 1946 had a son, Beverley (Bev). In 1969, Bev married Beverly [Garrett] and moved into the house they had built on the S.S. #8 school property on the southeast corner of the farm. They have two sons – Brent and Donald. In 1997, after the deaths of Thomas and Gladys, the family farm property was passed to Bev and Beverly to continue farming. Unfortunately, the brick farmhouse sat vacant for many years. In the Fall of 2022, Brent and his wife Rebecca [Ott] decided to begin restoring the 1881 farmhouse, and by the Spring of 2025, they sold their house in London and made the farmhouse their new home. One of their sons, Nathaniel, lives with them and is the seventh generation to live on the property over the past 206 years, and the sixth generation to live in the 1881 farmhouse.
They have tried to keep many of the historical fea- tures of the house. Unfor- tunately, the original slate roof was beyond repair, so it was replaced with a steel roof in a similar slate- grey colouring. The original windows were restored, the
Photos: Left – S.S.#8 class picture (1916). Above (top) – family picture beside the farmhouse (1902). The group in the centre, left to right, is Anthony, T.P., Margaret Ann and baby Mary Ann Hughes. Above – The farmhouse in 1989. For those of you who have driven by and been curious about the activity going on over the past few years at 13762 Ilderton Road, Brent & Rebecca are planning to hold an “open house” for viewing on Sunday, August 17 from 1 pm to 5 pm. There will be no admission charge, but a financial donation to the Middlesex Centre Archives would be appreciated. stone foundation and bricks were repaired, the inside walls re-plastered, and the original wood floors refinished. The basement brick flooring with clay-tile drainage was removed, repaired and re-laid. Many layers of white paint on the wainscotting and trim throughout the house were removed, and all were returned to their original dark-brown colouring. Several pieces of furniture from previous generations are still in the house.
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