|
 The
brawny Scot on Lucknow's welcome signs illustrates the village's
Scottish heritage. Donald Dinnie was a champion wrestler and heavyweight
athlete of the world. In 1882, he competed in the Lucknow Caledonian
Games and, although he had no ties with Lucknow other than the Games,
he was a folk hero of his time and blended into the lore of the
community. The Games boomed for about 20 years in Lucknow in the
late 1800s.
The village was named after a town in India where, in 1857, a vicious
battle took place between the besieging native rebels and the liberating
British army. Horrendous tales of the Indian Mutiny, as it was called,
reached even the Canadian wilderness. "Sepoy" is a reference
to the Indian foot soldiers who fought on the British side in the
Relief of Lucknow. There are two theories about the origin of the
name of Campbell Street-one is that the main street was named after
Sir Colin Campbell, leader of the relief forces. The other is that
the street is named after Malcolm Campbell, the community's first
merchant. Several Lucknow streets bear the names of some of the
British generals involved in the Indian Mutiny: Ross, Outram, Havelock,
Willoughby, Rose and Canning.
The first settler to the as-yet-unsettled and unnamed Lucknow was
Eli Stauffer who constructed a dam and built a sawmill in 1856.
In 1858, Ralph Miller purchased a parcel of Stauffer's land and
built "Balaclava House", a log tavern. James Somerville
purchased the Stauffer mill and land rights in 1858 and had village
lots surveyed, earning Somerville the title of the "Father
of Lucknow". With the "Gravel Road" open into Kinloss
in 1866, the village continued to grow and had a population of 430
in 1868.
Lucknow Today
With a population today of 1100, Lucknow has a thriving business
community, a sports complex, six churches, seniors homes, schools,
service clubs plus cross county skiing and snowmobile trails. The
Lucknow Community Greenway with its 5-km walkway follows the banks
of three creeks where they meet with the Nine Mile River, and then
loops back into town. Anglers can dangle a hook for both warm and
cold-water species, including rainbow and brook trout.
|
