This week we welcome Tom Cruikshank. With an abiding interest in local history and heritage architecture, these are subjects Tom has pursued in no fewer than five books. His work includes Old Ontario Houses, Old Toronto Houses and The Settler’s Dream. For the better part of 25 years, he worked in the Canadian magazine industry, first as editor of the locally produced Century Home and later, Harrowsmith Country Life. He is currently at work on an inventory of the older buildings of Hamilton Township. He sometimes uncovers strange stories! The incident is long forgotten, but in 1895, a mailman “went postal” and shot a prominent lawyer to death at his desk in his downtown Cobourg office. It was a bizarre and dramatic scene that plays out like a psycho-mystery movie.
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Part 2:
Word on the Hills Radio Program 
A fascinating insight into the history of the heritage of Hamilton Township and some of the great stories that historian and author Tom Cruikshank has unearthed during his research. This interview puts me in mind of conversations I had 40 years ago with an architect, Wentworth Walker of Toronto, who was documenting some of the older buildings of Cobourg and Port Hope. Thank you, Tom, Gwynn and Felicity.