Gosford – A Forgotten Hamlet in Elizabethtown
Gosford
This old community, lying in both Elizabethtown and Augusta Townships is reached by the Gosford Road which 
leads off the Brockville-North Augusta road eight miles northeast of Brockville.
The early history of this old Elizabethtown township community has been lost in the mists of time, but it is known that settlers were living here by the year 1800.
Old Gosford Cemetery was established by these pioneers but first burials have not been recorded. In fact the cemetery itself was not registered with the Land Registry Office in Brockville until 1865, some 65 years after the first internment took place.
The name of Gosford is probably taken from the village of Gosford in Ireland. The Champan family, long prominent in Gosford affairs, first appears in the records in 1812. In that year Irish emigrant, William Chapman, took possession of Lot 3, Seventh Concession of Elizabethtown. Chapman received a grant of 200 acres of Crown Land, located on the south side of the Eighth Concession Road. Chapman built a log cabin and cleared his land. Other settlers in the area were also clearing their acres of brush, and building homes.
The homes were connected by wagon trails, since there was at that time no recognizable road in the area. The wagon trails branched off from the Brockville-North Augusta Trail. In time, Concession Road Eight was constructed, and a log bridge replaced the ford which the inhabitants used to cross the creek running through Gosford.
The little Methodist Church in Gosford was built by Nicholas Burns in 1865. Nicholas Burns was born in Dublin, Ireland and as a lad of 19 migrated to Canada in 1820. He settled at Lamb’s Pond in Elizabethtown Township and when a community was developed there he was instrumental in renaming the hamlet “New Dublin”, obviously in honour of his own birthplace. Burns did not remain long in New Dublin, for history records that he established his permanent home on Gosford Road, east of the community know as Gosford about 1822.
Burns built up a prosperous homestead and was a highly respected citizen of the community until his death in 1884.
The Methodist Church he built occupies part of Lot 3 in the Seventh Concession of Elizabethtown. The church was built of stone quarried in the vicinity and then covered with rough cast. Land for the church and cemetery was donated by Aaron Healy and his wife Martha, the Healy’s were paid one dollar for the land. During the war years, the church went through rough times. Soldiers stationed at the nearby Landon Farm caused considerable destruction to the old house of worship. They damaged the organ beyond repair, broke windows and roughed up the furniture. The church deteriorated, the roof leaked, birds built nests in the rafters and grass in the cemetery grew into hay. In 1973 repairs were made to the church and the cemetery was cleaned up by willing volunteers.
Gosford’s old post office was located at the intersection of the North Augusta and Gosford Roads. It was known as Linden Bank Post Office, being located about a mile from the community of the same name.
(Recorder and Times, Darling Scrapbook No.3)
