“There’s no ordinary person,” a friend once insisted to me, “each is extraordinary.”

He may have been right, more or less, and the proof is people such as Lena Fisher, who lived most of her life on a tree-shaded street in a town by Lake Ontario called Cobourg, about 150 kilometres east of Hamilton.

It’s not large (population about 18,000), with a downtown of defined character. In all, it’s pretty much the way historic towns ought to be. And it’s that way largely because of that woman, Lena Fisher.

Lena — everybody told me she loved big hats — was on town council at an historic point in the life of Cobourg, the early 1970s.

There was much talk back then of tearing down a building on King Street to make room for a parking lot. It was Victoria Hall, standing since the 1860s, beautiful and stately, a visual testament to Cobourg’s unique past.

It was designed by an architect of considerable renown: Kivas Tully, whose work included the original Trinity College on Queen Street West in Toronto. In keeping with its special character — and the position Cobourg then held in Ontario’s governance — Victoria Hall was officially opened in 1860 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.

In the 1970s, Lena opposed the movement to demolish Victoria Hall. She did it with such energy and gusto she gained wide public support to see the grand old building survive.

Today, Victoria Hall is regarded as one of Ontario’s great treasures, a noble edifice and the centre of much and worthy public activity in its art gallery, its concert hall and its beautiful council chamber — once Cobourg’s courtroom styled after London’s history-laden Old Bailey.

But most of all, the saving of Victoria Hall changed public thinking in Cobourg. The town became conscious of its special past, and its obligation to preserve it.

I’ve been to Cobourg several times, and watched its perimeter become like most others of towns near a major highway, a place of fast food and other outlets. But its heritage district is still close to resembling what it was in its remarkable years of the mid-1800s. So on one recent trip I stayed as close as I could to the historic centre. It was Woodlawn Inn, a graceful, shaded manor, dating to 1835 and just a minute or two by foot to the streets that recall a stylish past.

Back in the 1850s, it was seriously thought Cobourg was destined to be the capital of Ontario, maybe even the country.

Rich Americans loved it. So they built opulent summer homes, near the water, mostly along King Street. They even created a glamorous ferry service from Rochester, N.Y., so they could skim across the lake for a weekend in their mansions that were centres of much partying.

It went on for years well into the 20th century. Many of those homes still stand, graced by age but still a restful delight to the eye. When I walked the streets once with local historian John Jolie, he told me tales of that bygone age of opulence, with a touch of celebratory excess. Still, to the eye, the graceful lines of the homes are a real pleasure, an indicator of why Cobourg in its famous years was called the Newport of the North.

For me, however, the most important chapter of Cobourg history centres on the life of a man whose name is engraved in Ontario’s — and Canada’s — history: Egerton Ryerson.

He was a Methodist minister and journalist, who almost alone in Cobourg (in the 1830s) founded an academy soon to be known as Victoria College, of which he was first president. Today, it’s a much respected university on the campus of the University of Toronto.

Perhaps Ryerson’s even greater accomplishment was his leadership in creating the public school system of Ontario — which, in turn, influenced the formation of public education across the country. His name, which graces today’s Ryerson University, recalls one of Canada’s great visionaries and enriches Cobourg history. Today, a neighbourhood near the lake is named for him: Ryerson Commons.