Along with the wayfaring strangers and fisticuffs, were fires — plenty of them.

The mill industry was partly to blame; most homes were built out of wood.

Moses Ransom, the local barber, was in charge of the fire bell and if you spotted flames, you ran to him to spread the news.

Parker Crosby was one of the unfortunate locals whose dry goods store at Yonge and Richmond was destroyed by fire. It was a Sunday morning in the spring of 1866 and his store, along with Coulter’s tailor shop and Waterhouses's General Store, burned to the ground. A few other houses were also destroyed.

Undaunted, Crosby rebuilt his business at 10225 Yonge, using fireproof masonry and called it The Fireproof. Coulter, too, rebuilt — using brick this time.

Not long after these fires, the local school caught fire, then the stable and barn of the Halfway House Tavern burned to the ground.

The string of fires was followed by a concerted effort, over many years, to mount a proper way to contain the blazes until finally, in 1880, a new volunteer firefighter brigade was able to persuade council to buy a fire wagon, second-hand, for $750.

Yonge Street was lined with Ma-and-Pa shops and businesspeople often wore several hats, MacKenzie says. The pharmacist, for example, was also the farrier, shoeing horses in the back of his shop, doling out drugs in the front including his world-renowned elixir — a patented cure-all called “Sanderson’s Infallible Oil.”

If you needed a doctor, you likely went to the home — and hospital — of Dr. James Langstaff.

Folks got around by horse and wagon and most industry — the sawmill, a foundry, wagon works and distillery — relied on power generated by the Mill Pond. That may be why most of the settlement was on the west side of Yonge. Homes on the east didn’t sprout up until the rose-growing industry sprouted in the early 1900s.

Travelers heading north on Yonge Street during the late 19th century would recognize Richmond Hill from the spires of its four churches and for a long time, Sundays and church time were the only day of rest. But as the village grew, so did leisure time. Every year, on May 24, everyone flocked to the spring fair behind the old stagecoach stop hotel (southwest corner of Yonge and Arnold Crescent, later moved to town park near the current Elgin Barrow arena) to see tightrope walkers, horse races and if you were a new immigrant — which many people were — to make friends and learn how to farm in this new country.

“With everyone so close knit during those days,” MacKenzie says, “it must have been a blast living here.”