New Friends and the Meaford 100 Mile Market

Time was quickly running out and there was still a lot I'd like to have seen and done in and around Meaford before I looked back on it in the rear vision mirror.

On Sunday evening, we went and visited a family with which we have made friends with in Meaford. I'm tickled pink that these were people that I became acquainted with via their Blogs, before I went to Meaford. So for a change, it was me introducing Megan to new friends in her own community!
We got to know more about each others background over coffee and it was such a delight to meet their mirror identical twin daughters aged about seven. I've always known what identical twins were but was unfamiliar with "Mirror" twins.
It is pretty self explanatory if you think about it, but just visit here for a very quick explanation.
Apart from being identical twins, their individual personalities are gorgeous too.

This friendship had led Megan and I to visit the Hundred Mile Market in Meaford that they have a connection to. It was here that Megan got to meet Natalie and in the process found special produce that agrees with dietary requirements.

When I asked Natalie about the Architectural style of the building, she produced from a nearby shelf, a book which was about all the heritage homes and architectural styles within the County. The cover had a nice coloured picture of this particular building. When I looked inside to see what was said about the cover picture, it said that the picture was of the Cleland / Clarke house.

It was built by James Cleland in the late 1870's and later sold to a Mr. Clarke. James Cleland was a prominent businessman in Meaford and acquired his wealth from Cleland Hardware of Meaford and the first private telephone line into the district in 1884.
James Cleland was born 1839 in Glasgow where all of my Cleland ancestry was from. He was Mayor of Meaford and then became a member of the Provincial Parliament. He had a son that took over the Hardware, another became a surgeon in Toronto, and another which I can't quite recall what business he developed, but I will follow that up.
One of my friends on Facebook is a descendant of his but lives at St. Catharines near Niagara Falls. Unfortunately we didn't get to meet this time around, but we will when I move there.


The Meaford 100 Mile Market is becoming very well known. The produce is sold on consignment with a small fee retained for operating cost of the market.







All the Organic produce, that includes vegetables, fruit, grains, flour substitutes?, meat, fish, dairy and poultry and many other things, is sourced from within a 100 mile radius. You will see the range of products on their website.