Historical road trips

If you’re looking for a safe diversion during this COVID-19 lockdown, you might want to consider the Historical Road Trips in Hastings County.

The Hastings County Historical Society is putting together a series of short historical road trips.

The 45-kilometre trips take the tourist to five historical plaques throughout the County.

Society President Richard Hughes tells Quinte News there are about 100 of these plaques throughout the county.

One marks the smallpox epidemic in Tweed  in 1884.

Hughes says 200 people caught smallpox and 40 died.  He says it marked a beginning of public health care in the province.

The plaque at a tiny cemetery south of Madoc is for Englishman Henry Gowan, who had searched for the John Franklin ship in the Arctic before eventually coming to Canada.

Hughes says the idea is to put together a series of five 30-minute programs, each on a specific itinerary.

He added, “You can travel an itinerary in one part of the county and take in the beautiful countryside and villages.  Stop at five historical plaques during each trip. They will be built around Madoc, Marmora mining, the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, rural Belleville and Quinte West, Bancroft and the north.”

You can go to hastingshistoricalplaques.ca for maps of the road trips, and videos of some of the plaques are already on YourTV and YouTube.