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Postville is among the lost villages of the Trafalgar Township, with only a few things left around that remind people that a small but thriving village once stood at the modern intersection of Trafalgar Road and Dundas Street. And Postville is the village I did not intend to write about, thinking this small farmhouse was part of Munn’s Corner; thank goodness for plaques. The Post family began purchasing properties around the intersection of 7th Side Road (Trafalgar) and Dundas Road between 1812 and 1816. Jordan, Ephriam, and Abigal. Abigal’s properties were inherited by her son Jordan Jr upon her death. The small community took theRead More →

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Long before William Chisholm established his lakeside community, the earliest settlers of the Trafalgar Township established small communities along Dundas Road; some villages were often completely forgotten or so small that they never saw much mention. But others seemed to thrive until the 1960s. Palermo is one such village with a rich past, and traces can still be seen today. Lawerence Hagger arrived in Upper Canada in 1799; a loyalist initially from Pennsylvania, Hagger settled near the modern community of Grimsby before moving to the Trafalgar Township in 1806. Hagger purchased a lot where the contemporary intersection of Dundas Street and Old Bronte Road. ARead More →

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The term township in southern Ontario is a bit of a throwback. It’s often referenced within a historical context and is often seen in the province of Quebec (The Eastern Townships) or further north in Ontario. But the township formed a core of the colonial survey of Upper Canada as one of the subdivisions of the province for settlement purposes. The province was subdivided for several purposes during the colonisation of Upper Canada. The coordination of the provincial militia, representation in the colonial parliament, and the division and sale of land. After the province was the district, districts were large geographical areas and were oftenRead More →

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While the water provided a fast and efficient means of travel, southern Ontario only had a small fraction of territory easily accessed by navigable waterways before creating a system of canals. Colonisation roads were among the earliest infrastructure projects by British authorities to help move troops around the newly created province of Upper Canada and later settlers to head deeper into the province’s backwater. And while Sixteen Mile Creek provided a source of power and drinking water, the movement of people was more easily done through a system of roads. And the earliest road was Dundas Road. The British were a people of order; theyRead More →

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Every story needs a beginning, and Oakville’s story starts here, with a creek. Without the creek, there would have been no Oakville. Survival of life depends on water; without it, nothing could live. And water provided not only for the natural world but also humanity. To drink, wash, and travel through the dense backwater than was Ontario. And it also provided the earliest power of the early industries. Formed during the last great ice age and the retreat of the same glacier that began the great lakes and the Niagara Escarpment, the nameless creek meandered from the escarpment into one of the many lakes formed.Read More →

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I first visited the community of Oakville as part of a tour of Sheridan College. Sheridan was among the colleges I had applied to in my final year in High School. I only chose two colleges, Mohawk and Sheridan, but chose programs at both Davis Campus in Brampton and the Trafalgar Campus in Oakville. Ultimately, I attended the Trafalgar Road Campus and started there in 2002. That same year I attended a PYPS (Presbyterian Young People’s Society) event at Knox Presbyterian Church in downtown Oakville, getting my first taste of the town’s historic core. But it wasn’t until I started working full-time at Sheridan afterRead More →

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Located in the historic village of Campbellville, St. David’s Presbyterian Church is unique in that its design takes from several different architectural styles and is named (after a fashion) for the person who donated the land it sits upon. Presbyterian worship in the village of Campbellville started in 1864 when members of the Nassagaweya Congregation could not make the trek to the Nassagaweya Church in Haltonville. At this time, such a journey was a bit of an undertaking, and the area had an unsavoury reputation. The Campbellville congregation was formally recognised as a mission station of the Nassagaweya congregation in 1869 and made a two-pointRead More →

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The Parish of the Sacred Heart, or properly Sacré-Coeur, is a unique one in the project. Like all Roman Catholic Parishes, this parish can trace itself back to St. Peter’s Mission Church. But this parish is relatively new, one of several French language parishes established in the 1960s. But the building itself traces itself to the first Roman Catholic Parish in Georgetown. The early Roman Catholics in Georgetown would be forced to travel to St. Peter’s Church to attend mass; At the same time, these services were a bit irregular; the faithful would make the long journey to receive communion, give confession, and celebrate mass.Read More →

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Suppose this particular entry seems a little longer and more detailed. In that case, it is because, as a member of Knox Milton, I have far more accessible access to my congregation, plus the history has been well documented and easily accessed. This is the congregation that I grew up in and continue to serve with today! The construction of churches within the village of Milton did not start until the 1840s, when several large plots of land were subdivided and sold off into parcels. The first church to be planted within Milton’s downtown was St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in 1848, which was connected toRead More →

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Despite being Ontario’s fastest-growing town, Milton was once a rural backwater, a milling town with a notable agricultural background. This made it the ideal spot for many of the Methodist tradition to find themselves. St. Paul’s reminds me of that connection to the past and a church I have my connection to, attending the Milton Community Nursery School before elementary school. The first Methodist circuit riders came into Milton in 1827, Rev Anson Greene holding services at the farm of Elizabeth Harrison. The Harrisons were among the earliest settlers of Milton, arriving even before Jasper Martin. The Milton congregation remained at the Harrison farm andRead More →