115 Morrison Road - Graham House

The house was built in 1916 for Isabella Graham, a widow. It was later owned by Frank Chisholm (1863-1925) .

Isabella Graham was a widow with the last name Singlehurst when she bought this property (1916), and the census shows her occupation as "Income" which means that she was of independent means - lived off her investments. Between the time she bought the property and the time she moved in she married and took her new husband's last name but the house was in her name. We've made some plaques that have the occupation as "widow" but many prefer something else, and she was no longer a widow when she moved in.

This house was the first house built in the Morrison Survey. The property was originally part of the 200 acre Morrison Farm which ran from Lakeshore up to the railway. The farm was bought for development about 1912 by Frank Chisholm and his partner Robinson. Frank Chisholm lived with his family in the Morrison farmhouse during and after the First War. The small book, Oakville Past and Present, by George A. Griffin, was really an advertising booklet prepared to help sell the lots.

"They have divided this property into holdings of five acres each. These holdings are meeting with ready sale. The purchasers are mostly Toronto men of moderate means who wish to live in the country and at the same time have easy access to the city."

"The idea has become general. In fact, almost every man has the desire for 'a little place in the country."

"Oakville is naturally Toronto's and Hamilton's country home district. The question is just what to select."

"Is a fifty-foot lot outside the city with a house on it, surrounded by other fifty-foot lots with houses on them, any more desirable than the city lot with a house on it? Can the 'little plane in the country' idea be carried out on a town lot? It cannot be done. 'Life in the country' includes a cow, a pony, chickens and an abundance of fruit, vegetables, milk and eggs, - and these at first hand. Five acres of the right kind of land make a snug little farm. Five acres will keep a hired man busy and pay his wages, besides supplying the owner with all that makes life in the country enviable."

"Robinson & Chisholm are the pioneers of the Country Home Idea at Oakville. They are selling five-acre holdings with frontage on the 'Morrison Road,' which road, a mile long, they are presenting to the Township of Trafalgar. The Morrison Road is one of the beauty spots of the Oakville district, and a five-acre holding facing on it is something worth while - it has the making of a real country home. In a very few years it will be impossible to obtain anything like this within reasonable distance of either Toronto or Hamilton."

"Write or telephone what train you coming by and we will meet you at railway station, drive you over town and to see our properties. Examine our properties before you make a choice."

"Robinson & Chisholm, Real Estate and Insurance Brokers, (Phone 158), Oakville, Ont."

The First War pretty much stopped development, Robinson died not long after and Frank Chisholm died in 1925. Few houses were built.