Granthurst

Granthurst, close to Zorra’s northwest corner, was named after Alexander Grant, who was postmaster when the Granthurst Post Office opened in his general store at the crossroads on July 1, 1890. The corner now is where Zorra’s 13th Line meets Road 96 and, before 1975, was known as the junction of East Nissouri Township’s Line 9 and Side Road 30-31. Across the road was a blacksmith shop, and down Line 8 was a sawmill which served nearby needs and companies in St. Marys, Stratford and Woodstock. The population of Granthurst was about 30 in 1899 and was served by stage twice a week. The scripture-based poetry of T. Watson, of “Granthurst, Ontario”, was published in at least one Ontario newspaper (the Aurora Banner) in 1909-1910 (at the time, Watson was Minister of the East Nissouri Baptist Church, now the East Nissouri Union Church). That may have marked the high point of Granthurst’s visibility as a named community, as the sawmill was sold and moved to Dorchester in 1908, and the post office closed at the end of August 1911 with the advent of rural mail delivery.