Travelling north from the boundary line, we leave lnkerman (Freiburg ... Tavistock), pass through Sebastopol and Balaclava in that order, three hamlets, along with Strathallan or Alma, with Russian names. Their names would indicate an intense interest on the part of the new settlers from Germany in the Crimean War (1854-56), in which Britain, France and Turkey fought to confine the Russian Bear within the Black Sea. In that day, how did the news creep into this backwoods area?

Mr. Emerson Weitzel tells of the settlement here and remembers the hotel on the south-east corner, and the moving of another house west to the Daum farm. Some apple trees were still standing on the north-east comer in 1967 and may have formed a part of an orchard on this spot, on what is affectionately called Speck or Pork Street.

In Rev. J.G. Litt's history of Zion United Church (formerly E.U.B.) in Tavistock, he refers to worship moving from private homes into the so-called Ratz's Church near Balaclava, nearly two miles north of Tavistock, on the corner of Maple Street.

Mr. George Wilhelm of Woodstock, father of George and Harry on the 11th Line, related to me that his grandfather Theodore Heidemann, some seventy years ago, used to operate a cooper shop near this cross-road, on the east side of what is now Highway 59, opposite the home of Lorenz Arnold, now owned by Mr. Joe Dietrich. It was no doubt, near the log house last occupied by the Dewberry family, torn down some years ago and set on the Perth Pioneer Village in Stratford. His brother William used to buy the apples in the neighbourhood, pack them in barrels and ship them to market. In the September 25, 1902 issue of the Tavistock Gazette we read that Mr. Heidemann had purchased 3000 bushels of apples, and that a carload of these was leaving Shakespeare for the Manitoba market.

Hearsay, pretty well substantiated, has it, that the Krug Furniture Company of Chesley had its origin here.

The site was on the north-west corner of the intersection, now part of Lester Wettlaufer's farm.

LOOKING UP MARIA AND WOODSTOCK ST. N.
(1) McKay or Masonic Block, (2) Lemp Block, (3) Commercial Hotel , (4) V. Stock's Store, (5) Siegner's Harness Shop,
(6) Siegner's House, (7) Jack Vance's House, (8) Schaefer or Roth Block