The Kell family has been a fixture at Fennell’s Corners (located at the intersection of Highways 89 and 11) since 1858, farming the fertile soil there without interruption for more than 150 years.
The many Kells in Innisfil can trace their lineages back to a pioneering couple, William and Mary, who transformed forest into fields and laid the foundation for generations to come.
William Kell was born in Yorkshire in 1830, one of 10 children to Thomas and Jane Kell. Around 1850, William married Mary Faulkner, a woman 11 years his senior and quite possibly recently widowed. Realizing there were few opportunities in Britain, in 1851, the couple sailed for Canada and new ventures in 1851. After a brief stop in Markham, the Kells moved north to Innisfil to put down permanent roots.
William and Mary farmed well and raised a large family. They became intimately involved in church and community affairs within the small community of Fennell’s Corners. William even played a small but important role in the development of Innisfil.
Beginning in 1883, petitions for the incorporation of Allandale as a village began coming forward to the Simcoe County council. The petitions were ignored for a decade, but by 1891 the cries had become too loud to ignore any longer. In June 1891, William Kell was appointed Census Enumerator to ensure Allandale was large enough to warrant incorporation. After a thorough investigation, Kell determined that there were 984 inhabitants in the community and that it was indeed sizable enough to qualify. As a result, Allandale became a village, and W.P. Soules became the first reeve of the new municipality.
William undoubtedly was proud of his involvement in this historic decision, but his excitement was tempered by the death of his wife a year later. The widower survived his wife for 15 years, finally passing away at the age of 77 after a lifetime of toiling the land in 1907.
