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Waterloo County
Waterloo County held its first council meeting on January 24, 1853 on this site, at the newly built county courthouse in Berlin (now Kitchener). Council's 12 members came from five townships (North Dumfries, Waterloo, Wellesley, Wilmot, Woolwich) and two villages (Galt, Preston) and selected the reeve of Waterloo Township, Dr. John Scott, as the county's first warden. With the establishment of Waterloo County emerged a series of enduring institutions, including roads and bridges, a judiciary... -
Burwash Industrial Farm
Burwash Industrial Farm was established in 1914 based on the revolutionary premise that low-risk inmates would benefit from the exercise and skills learned while working outdoors at self-supporting institutions. Burwash Industrial Farm accommodated between 180 and 820 minimum and medium security offenders with sentences of three months to two years less a day. Over time, it grew to occupy 35,000 acres owned and 101,000 acres leased, housing three permanent camp sites, several temporary ones, and... -
Holland's Landing Depot
The Royal Navy Depot Holland Landing, constructed during the War of 1812, stood just north of this site on the east bank of Soldiers' Bay. Its buildings and other facilities served as an administrative and transshipment centre within a network of roads, waterways, portages and posts that connected Lake Ontario to the upper Great Lakes. To avoid American forces in the Niagara-Lake Erie-Detroit River corridor, British authorities moved vital supplies from York (Toronto) through this... -
Armenian Boys' Farm Home, Georgetown, The
On July 1, 1923, a group of 50 Armenian boys arrived at this farm site from an orphanage in Corfu, Greece. The 'Georgetown Boys,' as they came to be known, arrived in Canada between 1923 and 1927 – 109 boys in all. The orphans were survivors of the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923). Their plight touched the hearts of thousands of Canadians, who raised significant funds and lobbied the Canadian government to bring them here. Under the... -
Founding of Georgetown
After British officials acquired a block of land from the Mississaugas in 1818, the initial survey of Esquesing Township was undertaken in 1819. A township surveyor, Charles Kennedy, and several of his brothers settled lands located in the Silver Creek Valley. George Kennedy dammed the stream running through his property to establish a sawmill and later a gristmill. This provided the nucleus of a small settlement, known as "Hungry Hollow." The York to Guelph Road... -
Catholic Colored Mission of Windsor, 1887-1893, The
The first Roman Catholic mission for Blacks in Canada was established in Windsor in St. Alphonsus Parish in 1887 under the leadership of the Very Reverend Dean James Theodore Wagner. The "Catholic Colored Mission of Windsor" was created to serve disadvantaged Black children, while encouraging Blacks in Windsor to adopt the Catholic faith. It was first located in the original frame church building at Goyeau Street and Park Street East. With the support and partnership... -
Loyalists in Upper Canada, The
When United Empire Loyalists who had “adhered to the Crown” during the American Revolution and, in most cases, served in volunteer regiments, came to settle in this province in the 1780s, the region was largely uninhabited. These Loyalists, all of whom had suffered persecution and confiscation of property, were granted land in the vicinity of the Bay of Quinte and the Upper St Lawrence, Niagara and Detroit rivers. They laid the foundations of a new... -
Jean Baptiste Rousseaux 1758-1812
Rousseaux was the first European to settle in the Toronto area. He and his father were interpreters for the Indian Department and were licensed to trade in this region. In 1787, Jean-Baptiste married Margaret Clyne, a ward of Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, and by 1791 he had built a trading post here at the Toronto Carrying Place. When Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe arrived by schooner to establish the provincial capital of York in 1793, Rousseaux piloted him... -
Major-General The Honourable Aeneas Shaw
Aeneas Shaw, a son of Angus, 9th Chief of Clan Ay, was born at Tordarroch, near Inverness, Scotland. A Loyalist, he served in the Queen's Rangers during the American Revolution, and later settled in what is now New Brunswick. Commissioned in the reorganized Queen's Rangers, he went to Quebec in 1792 and from there led the Rangers' first division to Upper Canada. The following year he settled at York (now Toronto) and later built a... -
Thomson Settlement, The
The first permanent resident in Scarborough Township was David Thomson, a Scot who came to Upper Canada with his brother Andrew in 1796. Each was granted 400 acres, and David built a log cabin on his property that year. He was soon joined by other settlers, including his brothers Andrew and Archibald. The Thomsons, who were stone masons, worked on the first Parliament Buildings at York (Toronto). A road connecting the settlement with York was... -
Founding of Weston, The
Settlers were attracted to this vicinity in the 1790s by the area's rich timber resources and the water power potential of the Humber River here. By 1792 a sawmill was established on the west bank and within two decades a small hamlet, known as "The Humber", had developed. About 1815 James Farr, a prominent local mill-owner, named it Weston after his English ancestral home. The community subsequently expanded along both sides of the river until... -
Yonge Street 1796
The shortest route between the upper and lower Great Lakes lies between here and Georgian Bay. For John Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada's first lieutenant-governor, this protected inland passage had strategic military and commercial potential. He founded York (Toronto) in 1793, then ordered a road built to replace native trails that led north to Lake Simcoe and its water links with Lake Huron. Completed on February 16, 1796, it was named after British Secretary for War... -
York Mills
In 1796, Thomas Mercer, a Loyalist, acquired some 200 acres of land in this vicinity. James Hogg, an enterprising Scottish emigrant, purchased part of this property about 1818 and built a grist-mill on the west branch of the Don River near here. In the 1820s, the mill became the nucleus of a small settlement known as Hogg's Hollow. The first St. John's Anglican Church (1817) was among the earliest built north of York. When the... -
First Mennonite Settlement, The
Following the American Revolution, Mennonites living in Pennsylvania began to come to the Niagara Peninsula in search of good farmland. A small group settled on land west of Twenty Mile Creek in 1786. Then, in 1799, Jacob Moyer, Abraham Moyer and Amos Albright scouted land in the vicinity of Vineland and Jordan and secured a 1,100-acre tract. They returned later that year with a number of families. Others joined them the next year. These industrious... -
Founding of Chippawa, The
In 1792-94 a village grew up near Fort Chippawa on Chippawa Creek at the end of the new portage road from Queenston. In 1793 the creek was renamed the Welland River, but the village, where a post office was opened before 1801, remained "Chippawa". It was largely destroyed 1813-14 when British and American forces fought for control of the Welland River. Portage traffic revived after the war and continued until Chippawa became an outlet for... -
Founding of Queenston, The
Following the loss, after the American Revolution, of the Niagara River's east bank, a new portage around Niagara Falls was established in the 1780s with Queenston its northern terminus. Wharves, storehouses and a block-house were built. Robert Hamilton, a prominent merchant considered the village's founder, operated a thriving trans-shipment business. Known as the "Lower Landing", it was named "Queenston" by Lieut.-Governor Simcoe. During the War of 1812, the village was badly damaged. Here lived such... -
Founding of Port Colborne, The
In 1831, the Welland Canal Company selected Gravelly Bay as the southern terminus of their waterway connecting Lakes Ontario and Erie, and in 1833 asked the permission of Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Colborne to name the site "Port Colborne". The Hon. William H. Merritt, president of the Canal Company, had streets laid out on both sides of the canal in 1834 and, with several partners, built a gristmill by 1835. Initially the community's economy depended largely... -
Founding of St. Catharines, The
Before this region was settled, several Indian trails intersected here at a ford in Twelve Mile Creek. They were improved by early settlers and a church was erected at the crossroads by 1798. A tavern soon followed and a settlement, known as St. Catharines or Shipman's Corners, developed. After the War of 1812, the community expanded largely through the efforts of William Hamilton Merritt. He was the chief promoter of the first Welland Canal, built... -
Founding of Thorold, The
During the construction of the original Welland Canal, 1824-1829, a number of communities sprang up along its length. Here, on land belonging to George Keefer, a village known as Thorold had developed by 1828. A large flouring mill was built on the canal and the Thorold Township post office was moved from Beaverdams to the new settlement by Jacob Keefer. By 1831, two sawmills were in operation and in 1835, the village contained 370 inhabitants... -
Founding of Port Robinson, The
Port Robinson, the southern terminus of the original Welland Canal, opened in 1829, was named for John Beverley Robinson, chief justice of Upper Canada. The village grew rapidly when hundreds of Irish immigrants laboured on the "Deep Cut" between Allanburg and this site. A company of Negro soldiers stationed here about 1843-51 enforced order along the canal. Port Robinson benefited from frequent canal improvements, and trade and industry, including a shipyard and dry docks, flourished... -
Great Fire of 1916, The
On July 29, 1916, fires which had been burning for some weeks around settlers' clearings along the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway were united by strong winds into one huge conflagration. Burning easterly along a 40-mile front, it largely or completely destroyed the settlements of Porquis Junction, Iroquois Falls, Kelso, Nushka, Matheson, and Ramore. It also partially razed the hamlets of Homer and Monteith, while a smaller fire caused widespread damage in and around Cochrane... -
Founding of Cochrane, The
For centuries the site of Cochrane was used by indigenous peoples as a summer camping ground. Later it became a stopping place for fur traders en route to Moose Factory. In 1907 the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway (later Ontario Northland) chose "Little Lakes Camping Ground" to be its junction point with the National Transcontinental (later Canadian National). The town site was named for the provincial minister of lands, forests and mines, Frank Cochrane was... -
Founding of Kapuskasing, The
In 1911, the National Transcontinental Railway, then under construction, reached the present site of Kapuskasing. Three years later during the first World War the Canadian government established in the area a prisoner of war camp and an experimental farm to investigate the agricultural potential of the Clay Belt. The prisoners cleared land and worked on the farm. In 1917, the Ontario Government launched near here an ambitious land settlement scheme for veterans. The detention camp... -
Founding of Sudbury, The
The establishment of a Canadian Pacific Railway work camp here in 1883 stimulated the growth of a frontier community. Within a year a bustling settlement containing boarding houses, stores and a hospital had emerged. Though it suffered a temporary set back in 1885 when track-laying crews moved westward, Sudbury quickly revived. Located in a region rich in timber and mineral resources, it developed as a service centre for logging and mining operations. In 1892, with... -
Canada's Pioneer Airlines
In February 1926, J.V. Elliot and Harold Farrington, each flying a Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny", made the first in a series of passenger flights from here to the isolated Red Lake mining district. The following month, a Curtiss "Lark" flown by H.A. ("Doc") Oaks inaugurated a regular service from Sioux Lookout to Red Lake. That December, Oaks organized Western Canada Airways, whose aircraft were based at Hudson. One of the earliest airlines in Canada, it was...