Hazard Farm

This photo depicts a neighbour with the Hazard’s ox in the late 1930‘s. The first farm was located on Lot 28, Concession 13 of West Ferris Township. It bordered the old road from Corbeil to North Bay that ended at the present ONR shops. William Hazard, the original settler on the farm, came from Parry Sound (descended from a Norwegian boat builder). Having seen the land as a trapper, William established ownership using “squatter’s rights”. 

The produce of the farm, mostly vegetables like cabbage, pumpkin, carrots and turnip, were sold or used in barter. The farm kept a team of horses, and seven milk cows. The children, two boys and seven girls, did much of the work when old enough. William Hazard continued to hunt and fish, and walked out to Highway 17 to work as an occasional foreman for the Department of Highways. Later, he bought thirteen acres of fertile land on Riverbend Road, with access to the LaVase River. There he continued to raise vegetables, catch catfish in Callander Bay, and run a door to door sales route.

Memories of... A Boy and His Ox
“When I was 11 years old a neighbour gave me an ox (a young bull) he did not need. I trained the ox to pull anything; it was stronger than our team of horses. With a sledge, I hauled loads of black muck from the swamp to be dumped near the driveway and sold as top soil when dry.

One day I came home and my mother broke the news that my father had sold the ox to a friend for breeding purposes. It was shortly after that, when I was 13, that he kicked me out of the house to look after myself. Fortunately, the father of a friend hired me (under the table) to work on the railroad, until I was old enough to join the army to fight the Japanese. When I returned I tried to buy a piece of the old farm (my father was dead), but Dupont would not sell. However, I purchased a piece of the Riverbend Road property from my mother where I married and raised a family.”

— Dalton Hazard