William was noted in the 1871 Census as being Anglican, which would have presented some challenges while living in Churchville. The closest Anglican churches were Trinity Anglican in Streetsville and Christ Church in Brampton; neither of which was convenient to the village. The only documented Anglicans who lived within the vicinity of Churchville at that time were the Hardys, Elliotts, Arnotts, Frasers and Hoopers. These families would later go on to found their own church in the village. 

     William first appears independently in historical records in 1853, serving as a general blacksmith in Meadowvale. He was married to his first wife, Jane Irwin, in 1856 and their first child, Robert “Henry” Hardy was born later that year. A second son, William George, was born in 1859. The 1861 census shows them living in Meadowvale; William was 30, Jane was 29, Henry was 5 and William Jr. was 2. A daughter, Evangeline (Annie), was born in 1862.

     William is first noted as a blacksmith in Churchville in 1864; a position that he held for forty years. That year Jane and William had one more child, also named Jane, but called “Jennie”. William’s wife, Jane Irwin, died around this time and it is possible that these events may have been connected. Regardless, William was now a bachelor trying to run his own business with four children. Fortunately, he had a large family and community in both Churchville and Meadowvale to lean on for support. 

    William married his second wife, Sarah Elizabeth Irwin, in 1867. Though she bore the same maiden name as his first wife Jane, they were not related. It is likely that their home was situated across from the intersection of Hallstone and Creditview, as their first purchase in the village was Lots 6, 7 & 8 in Lot 14, Concession 3 WHS. They bought these lots from Fletcher Hall on October 18th, 1867. William and his new wife welcomed their own first child, Mary, that year.

    A son, Irwin Hardy, was born on December 19th, 1869, bringing the number of children to six. In April 1871, the Canadian Census reported the following in their household: William Hardy 40 yrs, Elizabeth Hardy 28 yrs, Henry Hardy 14 yrs, William Hardy Jr. 12 yrs, Evangeline (Annie) Hardy 9 yrs, Jane Hardy 6 yrs, Mary Hardy 3 yrs, Irwin Hardy 2 yrs. The Hardys are noted as living between Jane Allen and Luke Marchment. 

    Sadly, in September of that year, William’s daughter Evangeline (Annie) died on Sept 7 1871. She was buried with her mother Jane Irwin Hardy in the Churchville Cemetery. William and Sarah Elizabeth welcomed another child that year: Lancelot, named for his grandfather in Meadowvale. William and Sarah Elizabeth would have another child together, in 1874. They named him Jonodab, after his uncle who was the village cooper in Meadowvale.

    Despite the emotional roller coaster that the Hardy family had endured, William’s exceptional talent as a blacksmith and innovator was earning him a remarkable reputation in his field. For much of the 19th century, three blacksmiths served the community of Churchville simultaneously: Maurice Joice, Zalmon Hall and William Hardy. Records are scarce and it is unclear whether they worked together or catered to different needs and operated individually, but William Hardy was the most documented of the three. He was noted as making horseshoes, gates and ornamental pieces, but seems to have specialized in designing and building farm implements; especially ploughs. In 1874 it was noted by AH Crozier that Hardy’s ploughs had won prizes in all of the major shows in Canada. That year one of his designs took the top prize at the Provincial Agricultural Exhibition (precursor to the Canadian National Exhibition) in Toronto.

    William’s most impressive accomplishment reportedly happened in 1876. George Murray, a local barrister whose family built and lived at the large brick home at 7895 Creditview Road, approached Hardy with a deal: Murray would organize and pay to have one of his ploughs shipped to Philadelphia, to be entered in the International Exhibition. The two would split any resulting rewards 50-50. That year the International Exhibition used a different grading system than other fairs, instead judging in advance and rewarding any plough that was displayed with a medal and certificate. Hardy and Murray’s plough was described as being made from solid steel. Hardy received a medal and diploma. He later sold the patent for $1200; a considerable amount of money for a blacksmith living in a rural community to receive. It is equivalent to about $53,391 in 2026 Canadian funds. It is unclear whether this amount ended up being split with Murray.

You can see examples of of the diploma and medal below:

     This financial boost seems to have opened up new real estate opportunities in the village for the Hardy family. On January 27th, 1877 they sold Lot 6 for $100 to a group of trustees for the Methodist Episcopal Church in the village (including Levi S. Hall, Alexander R. Calder and H. Baskerville). The trustees used this lot to build the Temperance Hall, which also served as a Sunday School and community “town hall” when required. The land record described it as being “in trust for the use of the Temperance Society, and for the use of a Sabbath school and for Public Meetings of a moral and social character.” You can read about this building in our Temperance Hall article. This is the lot where the white frame church now stands. 

A few days later, on February 10th, 1877, William purchased Lot 35 from blacksmith Maurice Joice. This is the lot on the north side of Fogarty’s Store. The frame structure of the smithy is clearly visible in several pictures that have survived from that time. 

     William and Sarah Elizabeth’s daughter Mary died July 14th of that year at age 9. She is buried in the Churchville Cemetery. The next year, William and Sarah Elizabeth welcomed one more child, Joseph. 

    As one of a small group of Anglicans to live in Methodist Churchville in the 19th Century, William realized a dream of building a new church in the village in 1878. A notice ran in the Brampton Conservator on February 19th of that year calling for tenders to build what would be St. John’s Anglican Church. You can read about the short history of St. John’s in this article.

     In 1879, the Hardys purchased Lot 15 from William J. Montgomery, adding their name to the list of people who owned Orange Church’s hotel over its 200-year history. Later that year they sold it to the final family to operate it as a hotel, the Kerneys from Meadowvale.

    Sarah Elizabeth died during childbirth in 1880 and it appears that the child died as well. She is buried in the settler section of the Churchville Cemetery, marked by a tall white monument near the road - the same plot in which William's first wife, Jane, was buried. That year William’s brother Jonodab purchased Elliot’s store in Meadowvale and William’s son William Jr. married Isabell Hanna. 

    The 1881 Census recorded: William Hardy 50 yrs, Henry Hardy 24 yrs, Jane Hardy 16 yrs, Irwin Hardy 12 yrs, Lancelot Hardy 9 yrs, Jonodab Hardy 7 yrs, Joseph Hardy 3 yrs. At 50 years of age with six children to support, William faced a difficult challenge. It would be 18 years before he remarried. 

    Not much is noted about him during the 1880s, though the arrival of the Credit Valley Railway must have had an impact on William’s life in the village. On November 23rd, 1881, his son Henry married Sarah Jane Black in Orangeville. William Jr. and his wife Isabella emigrated to Kent, Portage County, Ohio in 1883 to work on the New York Erie & Western Railroad. Railway work was a common option for rural village blacksmiths at this time, when demand for their services was waning. Irwin joined his brother there soon after.

    William’s son Jonodab died on May 23rd,1888 at the age of 14 from heart disease. He is buried in Churchville Cemetery.

    William was 58 in 1888, having lived and worked in Churchville for 22 years. One of his jobs in the village was to maintain the wooden bridge, which stood where the steel pony truss bridge is now. Like T.A. Fogarty, the postmaster who ran the store next to the smithy, William lived down at the south end of the village and commuted across the bridge daily. Minutes from a meeting of the Township Council that year noted that he was to be paid $14 for conducting repairs to the bridge.

     In 1889 William’s daughter Jane (Jennie) was married to Samuel Thomas Musson. Between 1903 and 1906 the two of them owned the farm that would eventually become Creditview Stables.

   A defining tragedy (amongst many) in William’s life occurred on April 18th 1893, when his son Lancelot was killed in Ohio. 22 year-old Lancelot had just arrived in Kent, Portage County, Ohio, to join his older brother at work on the New York Lake Erie & Western Railroad as a brakeman. During his third night on the job he was run over by a car. The local paper in Kent described the accident in extremely gory detail:

ANOTHER VICTIM
________
BRAKEMAN HARDY KILLED BY AN
ERIE COAL CAR
________

The Unfortunate Missed His
Footing - His Home at Kent.

Lancelot Hardy, Brakeman on the Erie railroad, was accidentally run over by the cars near McCoy at about 7 o’clock last Tuesday evening and was almost instantly killed. Hardy was about 21 years of age and for the last few nights had been working as brakeman with the local night crew, coming here from Kent, where he has two older brothers working on the road.

Between the rolling mill and McCoy St crossing, he tried to uncouple two cars but in walking along the track he stepped in an excavation and before he could extricate himself a flat car loaded with coal passed over him and killed him instantly. When his absence was discovered a search was instituted and his body was found near the track in mutilated condition. 

The remains were removed to Parks’s morgue, where they were dressed as well as possible. The right leg was cut off near the trunk and the foot was smashed. The car undoubtedly ran over his body as the abdomen was laid bare and the intestines protruded in every direction. The head is an unrecognizable mass of flesh. Both ears were cut off and the eyes were forced out of their sockets. 

The two brothers of the unfortunate young man came to this city from Kent this morning, and had the remains sent to their father’s home in Churchville, Canada, for interment this afternoon.

Coroner Kepler held an inquest at 1 o'clock and decided that Hardy had met death by being accidentally run over by cars while working.

During Hardy’s short residence in this city he boarded on Buckeye Street and was a general favourite among the railroad employees, both here and at Kent. He was an active member of the Independent Order of Foresters in the latter place.

Lancelot’s estate was not resolved until that December, when the New York Lake Erie & Western railway agreed to pay $572, minus a $22 administration fee. This would be the equivalent of about $23,883 CAD in 2026 dollars. All of this money was paid to William, back home in Churchville.

    William married for a third time on August 30th, 1898. He was 68 years of age and his new bride, Evolina Baker Burns was 64. Evolina was the widow of William Burns, who had tragically killed himself in the Credit River near their farm two years before. Evelina’s parents were John Baker and Diana Hall, making her Amaziah Church’s great-niece. Evelina had eight children of her own, though all were grown up or dead by this time. It is possible that William’s son Joseph was the only one of his children still living with him in Churchville at this point.

    William Hardy died on February 22nd, 1904 at the age of 74. The Brampton Conservator announced his passing, explaining that Hardy had just returned to Churchville from Norval and, while unhitching his horses, he fell to the ground and “expired almost immediately”. The article described him as a very honourable and well-respected citizen of the county of Peel. Unfortunately, William died without leaving a Will, creating a significant amount of work for Evolina to resolve.

     William Hardy left behind an impressive legacy in the village that deserves to be acknowledged. By all accounts he was beloved by his community. An (anonymous and undated) article written after his death, described his “exploits as almost legendary”, and that he could put all four shoes on a horse in one minute. It claimed that he was a skillful artist who made ornamental iron, gates and ploughs. The author also noted that his funeral was the largest ever seen in Churchville. 

    Despite the dramatic showing of public support, William Hardy’s final resting place in the Churchville Cemetery is now a bit of a mystery. There are eight Hardys buried in marked graves in the original settler section: Angeline, Annie, George, Jane Irwin, Lancelot (William’s father), Sarah Elizabeth and Evolina. When the new section of the Cemetery was opened up in 1890, William bought Plots 40, 41 and 57. None of these plots have markers and there is no existing record showing that anyone was ever buried in them. His name appears on Sarah Elizabeth’s stone, but there are no dates to indicate that he is there. His son Lancelot, whose remains were sent back to be buried in the cemetery, is also buried in an unmarked grave. 

   William’s third and final wife, Evolina, died in Churchville on March 23rd, 1922 and was buried in the cemetery.