Sunshine is a dispersed rural community in the municipality of

Morris-Turnberry The Municipality of Morris-Turnberry is a municipality in Huron County, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the north portion of Huron County, near the Bruce County border, southeast of Wingham. It was formed as an amalgamation of the former Morr ...

Huron County, Ontario Huron County is a county of the province of Ontario, Canada. It is located on the southeast shore of its namesake, Lake Huron, in the southwest part of the province. The county seat is Goderich, also the county's largest community. The populat ...

, Canada. Sunshine prospered as a milling and manufacturing town from the 1850s to the 1880s.

History

The early settlement had a water-powered sawmill on the

Maitland River The Maitland River is a river in Huron County, Perth County and Wellington County in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Shows the course of the river highlighted on a topographic map. The river is in the Great Lakes Basin and empties into Lake Huro ...

. The mill later converted to steam power, and lumber from the mill was manufactured into chairs at a nearby factory. Two churches were located at Sunshine: Bethel Church, erected in 1855, and the Sunshine Methodist Church, which opened as a loghouse church. In 1875, Sunshine Methodist built a frame church which was later bricked. Sunshine had a blacksmith, general store, and post office which opened in 1874. An

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

lodge was located there, which later became a

Foresters A forester is a person who practises forest management and forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including Restoration ecology, ecological restoration and management of Pr ...

lodge, and then

Sons of Temperance The Sons of Temperance was and is a brotherhood of men who promoted the temperance movement and Benefit society, mutual support. The organization was started in New York City in 1842. In the 1840s, it spread quickly across the United States and ...

lodge. The main street of Sunshine was gravelled, and the stores fronted onto a boardwalk. The sawmill and chair factory were destroyed by fire in 1878, and were soon rebuilt.

Decline

Sunshine declined in the 1880s as railway lines were built to nearby towns. Bethel Church closed in 1883, and the general store closed in 1887. When the availability of timber diminished—as farms in the surrounding had been cleared of trees —the sawmill and chair factory were dismantled and moved in 1888. Three houses remained in Sunshine in 1891. The post office closed in 1914, and the Sunshine Methodist Church closed in 1927. Sunshine Methodist Church cemetery remains at the settlement, with gravestones placed into a cairn.

References

{{Huron County, Ontario Communities in Huron County, Ontario Ghost towns in Ontario