The Stanton family began their life in Upper Canada in Orillia, where young Tom found both a wife and the beginnings of his steamboat career. His wife was the former Ellen Franklin , who like the Stantons had arrived in Orillia with her family from Yorkshire England in the early Sixties.

Tom's Assistant Engineer's Certificate and Steamer Carriella -Tom found employment on Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe on various steamers, among them, the Carriella out of Barrie . He took his work seriously and earned his certificates first as Assistant Engineer and then as First Class Engineer. Captain Peter Lyon of the Carriella wrote him a letter of reference which reads: "I have great pleasure in bearing testimony to his skill as Engineer, his strict sobriety and thorough attention to his business." 

Stanton homestead with Tom, Ellen and 3 eldest children, about 1880.

In 1875 he and Ellen and their three oldest children, Albert, Alice and Marion, moved north to Sparrow Lake. He cleared some land on Shanty bay Point (today, Sparrow Lake Camp), built a pine log home, and, along with all the arduous tasks of homesteading, continued working for the lumber companies, hauling logs to the shore in winter and towing booms to the Severn mills in the spring drive.
 

Right - Steamer "Pioneer" with Tom and his family

His first vessel on Sparrow Lake, Pioneer, was what the Orillia Times described as a 'pretty little steamer' when it was launched in 1875. She was the first of a string of boats which Tom either bought or built over the next thirty years.
 

The later steamers---Spartan, Lady Franklin, Lakefield and Glympse---found new cargoes besides logs and lumber. After 1875, transportation was needed between Sparrow Lake and Severn Bridge to meet the trains of the newly built Northern Extension Railway. At Severn, the Stanton boats unloaded their passengers , collected mail, supplies (and before long tourists and cottagers) and headed back down the river. -> Right - Steamers "LakeField" and Glympse at dock

<-Left - The Original Stanton House Resort
Meanwhile, with no road into the west shore, and no schoolhouse within miles, the need to relocate the family home was becoming apparent. Tom purchased land on Lot 20 Concession 13 on the south shore, the future site of Port Stanton. A frame house was built on the present site of Stanton House and the family enterprises soon began to expand. Fishermen from points as far away as Pittsburgh were given permission to camp on the Stanton's point and before long they and their families were housed in more permanent cottages built on the property. Out of this evolved the Stanton House resort, and eventually the tourist centred community of Port Stanton, which was officially named as a Post Office soon after the C.N.0. railway arrived in 1906.

Above - C.N.O. station and Lakeshore House 

 Stanton Bros Store, Post Office and tea room ->

Tom and Ellen's two oldest sons, Bert and Frank opened the Post Office, general store and boat livery near the station, and Bert later built the Lakeshore House, to become part of the Bayview Wildwood complex of today.
 

.................The Legacy: Thomas and Ellen Stanton

Stanton House Resort, Bayview Wildwood Resort (and the Cottages of Port Stanton), Martin's Tourist Supplies, Stanton Airways. Did "Captain Tom" foresee the possibilities for his children and grand children on Sparrow Lake when he died in 1907?....It's hard to know how broad his dreams were, but the extent of the accomplishments he made in one life time certainly suggest that here was a man (and an equally remarkable life partner in Ellen) of more than ordinary vision. The breadth and depth of that vision are still being revealed today.