Rosebank and Mary Roberts Road
by Peter Bland
This picture of happy children was taken in the summer of 1932 at approximately the
beginning to what is now Mary Roberts Road, the entrance to a property formerly known
as Rosebank.
Rosebank house farm was located just outside Baysville on the Dorset road now Highway
117. The initial land grant showed that the property stretched from just past the Dickie
Lake Road turnoff to Kings Road and from the Muskoka river to the Dickie Lake Road
boundry to the east. It had a number of early owners however after the First War it came
into the possession of J. Lea Roberts and his family. They farmed and began to take in
summer guests as people moved north away from the hot cities to the south. Over the years
Lea and his wife Mary gradually sold pieces of Rosebank when they needed extra money.
Lea sold the southern portion of Rosebank on the river, where he had pastured his cows, to
Carl Buck. This was after the Second War and Mr. Buck built housekeeping cabins along
the riverfront and called it Birch Glen Resort. It is now called the Landscapes. About 1953
he sold Rosebank House itself to the Canadian Youth Hostel but retained much of the
surrounding land. This land was later sold during the sixties and seventies piece by piece
by Mary Roberts. In the early 1980s when the Ontario government straightened Highway
117 Mary deeded her access road to the Township so it could be maintained and plowed in
the winter and they named it after her. In 1986 she sold her home on the riverfront and
moved to Toronto to be closer to her sister and family.
So in a physical sense Rosebank no longer exists. The barn and outbuildings are gone.
Rosebank house as well as the sleeping cabins, with one exception, are all gone. The
children in the picture would not recognize their surroundings to-day. The Rosebank era
was a simpler time when transportation was difficult and people depended on their friends
and neighbours, when mail was received from the post office or mail box once or twice a
week, when goods were more durable, lasted longer and no one threw anything that had a
use away.
I have this picture on my wall in our small cottage on the river and when I look at it, it
reminds me of those days and when I was a teenager spending my summers here on the
Rosebank grounds, with many friends, the sand beaches and rocky shores, the clear waters
and the beautiful lake. A place to relax and decompress and I realize that Rosebank still
exists in my mind and I hope in the minds of those who feel the same way.
Lea and Mary Roberts at Rosebank about 1946