Right to left: Charles Dalby with old toll board, c. 1919 Toll Gate, west of Grafton, c. 1913
Photographs courtesy Grafton Women’s Institute
Toll roads may seem to be a recent phenomena in Ontario, but they are nothing new. Portions of the Kingston Road, now Highway 2 were once privately owned and operated. One such section lay between Grafton and Cobourg. Toll booths appeared along these private sections during the 1840s and remained for nearly a century. The last toll gates between Grafton and Cobourg disappeared in the 1920s. Charles Dalby’s wife minded the toll booth at Grafton for 13 years until the end of the First World War when Colonel W. Massey sold his section to the government.