10314 Highway 1: The Goodspeed House

Architecture Style: Queen Anne

Built: 1903

In his lifetime Dr. Calvin Goodspeed studied in England, Massachusetts, and Germany, and served as Principal at New Brunswick Baptist Seminary, Theology Professor at Woodstock College, (Woodstock, Ont.) , McMaster (Toronto) and Baylor (Texas), pastor of Maritime Baptist churches, President of the Maritime Baptist Convention and Editor of The Messenger and Visitor and The Canadian Baptist. A tireless and uncompromising author and lecturer on disputed theological issues, his impact on Canadian Baptist intellectual life endured for decades. In 1911 he and his wife Anne retired to Paradise, to their newly-built home on the river. An active church member here, he was a favourite of children, willing volunteer, and special speaker. He died in 1912, and his imposing monument stands in the Paradise Cemetery.

Anne Goodspeed sold the house to Rev. Abner McNintch, whose parents lived with him. Next, in 1917, came a retired farmer from Clarence, Byron Chesley. Twice a widower, he lived here with his third wife Sarah Jane and his younger sister Maggie, who had collapsed while walking to school at the age of 14, and never walked without crutches again. Byron was an avid gardener. He sold his vegetables in the village and landscaped his beautiful Queen Anne house with flowers and shrubs. The people of Paradise rarely created such gardens, and his were admired.

When Jane died in 1947, this house passed to her niece, Catherine Black. Catherine and Ovid raised three sons here: Tom, Bob and Gerry. The Blacks radically changed the house by removing the middle story and building a service station at the front of the property, which “Blackie” operated. This garage was later owned by Audley Thompson.

Frances and Carl Blynn, the next owners, built a pleasant windowed room in the back. From this room, the view of that deep, still part of the river once known as “The Potash” remains.