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Hudson's Bay Post 1856
In 1856, the Hudson's Bay Company, faced with decline in trade at La Cloche on the mainland, obtained permission to establish a post at Little Current. A substantial log building, this community's first European structure, was built near here in 1856-57 by George McTavish, the clerk in charge of La Cloche. However, opposition from some Indians and resident missionaries to what they considered encroachment on the Reserve caused the government to rescind the Company's license... -
Founding of Sturgeon Falls, The
The development of Sturgeon Falls began in 1881 with the arrival of Canadian Pacific Railway construction teams and the opening of a post office. About a year earlier, the community's first permanent settler, James Holditch, had acquired land here on the Sturgeon River about two miles north-east of a former Hudson's Bay Company post, which he later purchased. The erection of sawmills and the rapid growth of the lumbering and pulp-paper industries stimulated the development... -
Founding of Parry Sound, The
About 1857, James and William Gibson erected a sawmill at the mouth of the Seguin River. William Beatty, with his sons James and William, acquired the mill in 1863, and the following year were granted a license of occupation for some 2,000 acres. In addition to lumbering, they laid out a town plot, promoted settlement, opened a store, built a church, constructed roads and operated boats on Lake Huron and a stage service to Bracebridge... -
Founding of Killarney, The
Etienne-Augustin de la Morandière, fur trader and founder of Killarney, settled here in 1820, when this locality, on the voyageurs' canoe route to the Northwest, was known as Shebahonaning ("narrow channel"). A substantial trading establishment, built by La Morandière on Drummond Island after the War of 1812, was destroyed by fire in 1817, and he moved here permanently after trading for a time at Flat Point, Bay of Islands. La Morandière raised crops and brought... -
Geraldton Gold Camp, The
Discoveries of gold in the vicinity of Lake Kenogamisis in 1931-2 mushroomed into an extensive gold-mining field in this region. Prospector Tom Johnson, mining promoter Joseph Errington and geologist Percy Hopkins played important roles in its establishment. Geraldton was founded and grew into the principal community. Of the twelve mines operating at the field's peak of activity about 1940, Little Long Lac and MacLeod-Cockshutt are probably the best-known. By 1971, when all operating gold mines... -
Mountain Portage, The
This portage around Kakabeka Falls formed a link in the historic Kaministiquia canoe route connecting Lake Superior with Lake of the Woods and the West. First recorded in 1688 by the French explorer Jacques de Noyon, it was later abandoned in favour of the shorter Grand Portage – Pigeon River route. The latter came under American control following the treaty of 1783, and in 1798 the older route was rediscovered by Roderick McKenzie. From 1803... -
Founding of Oliver Township, The
In the late 1860s, the need to develop a local agricultural base to serve the growing population of the Thunder Bay region became apparent, and when the 1873 survey of Oliver Township indicated that it contained good agricultural land, attention focused here. Active efforts were begun to encourage farmers from the region and elsewhere in Ontario to settle on the free grant lands in the township, and within five years some seventy families had moved... -
Japanese-Canadian Road Camps 1942-1944
During the Second World War, the federal government forcibly evacuated Canadians of Japanese ancestry from the coast of British Columbia. In the spring of 1942, several hundred young men were sent to Ontario to help build the Trans-Canada Highway. They were accommodated in four camps between Schreiber and Jackfish. Most soon left the road camps for work on farms or in lumber and pulp mills. Others, interned in prisoner-of-war camps for resisting separation from their... -
Robinson Superior Treaty, The
On September 7, 1850, a treaty was concluded at Sault Ste. Marie between the Hon. W.B. Robinson, representing the government, and nine Ojibwa chiefs and head men. Under its terms, the Ojibwa surrendered territory extending some 400 miles along the shore of Lake Superior, from Batchawana Bay to the Pigeon River, and northward to the height of land delimiting the Great Lakes drainage area. In return, the Indians were allotted three reserves, a cash settlement... -
Kirkland Lake Gold Camp, The
The Larder Lake gold rush of 1906 was accompanied by discoveries of gold at Swastika and, in 1911, the first strike at Kirkland Lake was made by William H. Wright. The Tough-Oakes became the camp's first producing gold mine in 1912. During the peak years of the late 1930's the Lake Shore, Wright-Hargreaves, Teck-Hughes, Sylvanite, Kirkland Lake Gold, and Macassa mines along the "Main Break", and other properties in the vicinity, employed about 5,000 men... -
Great Fire of 1922, The
On October 4, 1922, scattered bush fires which had been burning for some days north of Haileybury were united by strong winds into a holocaust which spread over most of 18 townships and took an estimated 43 lives. Burning out of control between the Englchart and Cobalt areas, it destroyed the communities of North Cobalt, Charlton, Thornloe and Heaslip, while Englehart and New Liskeard were partly consumed. The thriving town of Haileybury was razed except... -
Home Children
Beginning in 1869, British charitable societies removed children from slums and orphanages in congested industrial cities and brought them to Canada to serve as cheap farm and domestic labour. "Homes" were set up across the country to house the girls and boys until they were placed in service. Monitoring of the children after placement was superficial, leaving them susceptible to mistreatment. Child emigration was discontinued in the 1930s when the Great Depression created a labour... -
Thomas McKay 1792-1855
Born in Scotland, McKay emigrated to Canada about 1817 and worked as a mason in Montreal until 1826, when he began building the entrance locks of the Rideau Canal and the first bridge across the Ottawa River joining present-day Ottawa and Hull. In 1829, McKay acquired land where the Rideau River met the Ottawa. Here he laid out the village of New Edinburgh, and established an industrial complex that, by 1848, included two sawmills, a... -
Founding of Osgoode Township, The
Named for William Osgoode, the first Chief Justice of Upper Canada, Osgoode Township was established on lands the British acquired from the Mississaugas in the 1780s. Land for farming and a plentiful supply of white pine and white oak attracted the first non-native settlers, the families of Archibald and Catherine McDonell and William and Ann York, who arrived in 1827. They founded the new community's first industries and institutions, and they built the first two... -
Samuel de Champlain
Born at Brouage about 1570, this world-renowned cartographer and colonizer sailed from Honfleur in March 1603 on the first of more than twenty Atlantic crossings between France and Canada. Five years later, he established Quebec and thereby laid the foundation of the French empire in North America. An intrepid explorer, he journeyed into the interior of the continent (1613-1615), penetrating much of what is now Ontario. His account of these travels provided the first recorded... -
William Berczy 1744-1813
Johann Albrecht Ulrich de Moll was born in Wallerstein and educated at the Leipzig Academy and the University of Jena. He was trained as an artist and adopted the name William Berczy. In 1790, while in London, he became involved with Sir William Pulteney's scheme to establish a settlement in the United States. As Pulteney's agent, Berczy brought some 200 settlers from northern Germany to New York State in 1792. Two years later, he came... -
New Credit Indian Reserve and Mission, The
Faced with the pressure of white settlement, the Mississauga Indians began considering in 1840 the relocation of their Credit River Village near Toronto. In 1847, the Six Nations Council made them an unsolicited offer of land on its Grand River reserve. Native spokesmen for resettlement, including the Reverend Peter Jones, a Mississauga chief, selected land in Tuscarora and later in Oneida township. Although several had located elsewhere, some 266 Mississauga settled on lots on the... -
Founding of Brantford, The
In the 1820s, significant improvements to the Hamilton and London road attracted settlers to the Indian lands at Brant's Ford where this thoroughfare crossed the Grand River. A thriving village soon developed and in 1830 the Six Nations surrendered its site. The opening of navigation to Brantford in 1848, the completion of the Buffalo, Brantford and Goderich Railway to the town in 1854 and the development of a rich agricultural hinterland fostered significant commercial and manufacturing growth in Brantford. -
Mohawk Village
Allies of the British during the American War of Independence, the Six Nations Iroquois received extensive lands along the Grand River in 1784. Mohawks, led by Joseph Brant, established a village of some 400 inhabitants here by 1788. The community was situated at an important crossing point on the river ("Brant's Ford") and prospered as a resting place for travellers on the "Detroit path", a trail linking the Niagara and Detroit rivers. Increasingly, European settlers... -
Nodwell Indian Village Site, The
This important Iroquoian village site was discovered about 1900, and named after the family which then owned the property. Subsequent archaeological examinations have uncovered a mid-14th century village, consisting of twelve loghouses, from 42 to 139 feet in length, protected by a double palisade. It was probably occupied for about 10 to 20 years by a group of some 500 people who were predecessors of the Huron and Petun Indians. Although primarily farmers who grew... -
Founding of Wiarton, The
In 1855, a town-plot was laid out here on recently acquired Indian Land and named Wiarton, reputedly after the English birthplace of Edmund Head Governor General of Canada (1854-61). Settlement commenced in 1866 and two years later a post office was established. Agricultural prosperity, excellent harbour facilities and extensive sawmilling operations stimulated the community's growth. In 1880, with a population of about 750, it was incorporated as a village. The operation of the Stratford and... -
Founding of Blenheim, The
In 1837 James W. Little, a militia officer and land speculator of neighbouring Raleigh Township, purchased land here at the intersection of Ridge Road and Communication Road, the latter planned by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe to connect the town of Chatham with Lake Erie. Little surveyed a village plot, named Blenheim, but sold few lots before 1847. The completion in that year of Rondeau Harbour and of Communication Road fostered the development of lumbering, and... -
Founding of Bothwell, The
In 1851 George Brown, founder of the Toronto Globe and one of Canada's Fathers of Confederation, purchased about 4,000 acres in this vicinity. The Great Western Railway ran through his property in 1855 and that year a station and a post office were opened. He had the town plot of Bothwell surveyed and by 1857 Brown and others had established several industries. The new community prospered until affected by the general depression of 1857-58 but... -
Founding of Dresden, The
In 1846, Daniel van Allan, a Chatham merchant, laid out a town plot on land purchased from Jared Lindsley, the first settler (1825) on the site of Dresden. By 1849 the erection of a steam sawmill, and the operation of a grist-mill in the neighbouring Dawn Institute Settlement founded by Josiah Henson, provided the basis for a thriving community in this area. A post office named "dresden" was opened in 1854. The region's timber resources... -
Dawn Settlement, The
In the 1830s, the Reverend Josiah Henson and other abolitionists sought ways to provide refugees from slavery with the education and skills they needed to become self-sufficient in Upper Canada. They purchased 200 acres of land here in 1841 and established the British American Institute, one of the first schools in Canada to emphasize vocational training. The community of Dawn developed around the Institute. Its residents farmed, attended the Institute, and worked at sawmills, grist-mills...