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• Hewitt Bernard 1825-1893
  Born in Jamaica, Bernard immigrated to Upper Canada in 1851 and settled in Barrie, where in 1856 he established a law practice. He was chief clerk, 1858-66, in the office of the attorney general for Canada West, John, A. Macdonald, and later became his brother-in-law. Bernard accompanied Macdonald to the Charlottetown Conference (1864), and was the secretary of the Quebec (1864) and London (1866-67) Conferences, at which the groundwork was laid for Confederation. A lieutenant-colonel...

• Nine Mile Portage, The
  Site of eastern terminus of an Indian portage from Kempenfeldt Bay to Willow Creek and thence by the Nottawasaga River to Georgian Bay. In the winter of 1813-14, a force under Lieut.-Colonel Robert McDougall followed it on the way to relieve the isolated British garrison at Michilimackinac. That summer it was developed as a rough wagon road and till about 1829 was in frequent use for transport of supplies to Penetanguishene and the western military and fur trading posts.

• Franklin Carmichael 1890-1945
  An outstanding Canadian artist, Carmichael was born at Orillia, and studied at the Ontario College of Art and L'Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts at Antwerp. He had worked with Lismer and Varley in commercial art, and upon returning to Toronto in 1914, shared a studio with Tom Thomson. One of the founders of the "Group of Seven" and its youngest member, Carmichael participated in all the Group's exhibitions. His graphic style and sense of design led...

• Huron Fish Weirs, The
  In the adjacent Narrows joining Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching are the remains of Indian fish weirs. They were noted by Samuel de Champlain when he passed here on September 1, 1615, with a Huron war party en route to attack the Iroquois south of Lake Ontario. The weirs consisted of large number of stakes driven into the bottom of the Narrows, with openings at which nets were placed to catch fish. These weirs (claies) caused...

• Founding of Orillia, The
  In 1820, the government surveyed Orillia Township and a decade later located Chief William Yellowhead's Ojibwa band on lands near the "Narrows". By 1849, when the government laid out the Orillia town plot, these Indians had been moved across Lake Couchiching to Rama. The first white settlers arrived about 1832 and by the 1850s, the community had become an agricultural and lumbering centre with two churches and a population of some 200. Advantageous transportation links...

• Honourable William Earl Rowe 1894-1984, The
  A veteran parliamentarian who subsequently served as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, Rowe was born in Hull, Iowa and raised in Simcoe County. He early exhibited an interest in politics and in 1923 was elected to the provincial legislature as the Conservative member for Simcoe South. Two years later Rowe contested and won the federal seat for Dufferin-Simcoe, embarking upon a career in the House of Commons which, with the exception of one interruption during the late...

• Northern Railway Company of Canada, The
  In May 1853, the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Union Railroad Company ran the first stem train in this province from Toronto to Aurora. By January 1855, the company had completed its 95-mile "portage line" from Toronto to Collingwood. The line was renamed "The Northern Railway Company of Canada" in 1858. Companies closely affiliated with the Northern built connecting lines to Meaford, Penetanguishene and Gravenhurst. Through the Northern sought traffic moving between the upper lakes and...

• Gateway to Huronia, The
  From this lookout may be seen the bay which, during the first half of the 17th century, formed the western terminus of the 800-mile route connecting New France with the Huron settlements. Heavily laden canoes ascended the Ottawa, surmounted the rapids of the Mattawa and French Rivers, crossed Lake Nipissing and traversed the island-studded channels of Georgian Bay. Over these waters passed Recollet and Jesuit missionaries, Etienne Brûlé, Samuel de Champlain and other heroic figures of the French regime.

• Founding of Midland, The
  In 1871, a group of the principal shareholders of the Midland Railway, headed by Adolph Hugel, selected this location as the northern terminus of their line which then ran from Port Hope to Beaverton. Known at the time as Mundy's Bay, the region was sparsely inhabited, but the interest aroused by their action resulted in the survey of a town site in 1872-73. Most of the lots were owned by the Midland Land Company which...

• Henry Wolsey Bayfield 1795-1885
  Born in England, Bayfield joined the Royal Navy at the age of eleven and served in many parts of the world. While stationed at Kingston, Upper Canada in 1817, he was put in charge of the Great Lakes survey. Over the next eight years, he charted the coastal waters of lakes Erie, Huron and Superior. For much of this period Penetanguishene was his base of operations. Later, Bayfield surveyed the shorelines of the lower St...

• Founding of Stayner, The
  Settlement on this site began with the arrival in 1854 of the Toronto, Simcoe and Lake Huron Union Railroad (later the Northern Railway). Edward Shortiss and Charles Lount acquired land here, divided it into village lots and the first settler, Andrew Coleman, opened a hotel. He was followed by Gideon Phillips who established a sawmill. First called Nottawasaga Station, and later Stayner after a prominent local landowner, the community flourished as an agricultural and lumbering...

• Honourable Ernest Charles Drury, The
  A descendant of one of this area's pioneer families, Drury was born on this farm in 1878. His father, the Hon. Charles Drury, had served (1888-1890) as Ontario's first minister of agriculture. A graduate of the Ontario Agricultural College, E.C. Drury was appointed secretary of the Canadian Council of Agriculture in 1909, and became first president of the United Farmers of Ontario in 1914. The U.F.O. formed a political party in 1918, and with support...

• Wasdell Falls Hydro-Electric Development 1914
  Completed in 1914 after several municipalities on the eastern shore of Lake Simcoe had requested a supply of electric power, this was the first generating station constructed by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The natural formation of solid granite provided an excellent foundation for the development. The Wasdell plant operated as a separate unit serving the northern portion of Ontario County and the western portion of Victoria until 1924, when it became part of...

• Willow Creek Depot
  During the War of 1812, the Nine Mile Portage from Kempenfel(d)t Bay to Willow Creek formed part of the vital route, via Yonge Street, Lake Simcoe, the Nottawasaga River and Georgian Bay, which linked Upper Canada with the British posts on the upper Great Lakes. Here, beside the Minesing Swamp and one mile from the landing on Willow Creek, were stored the hundreds of tons of military supplies and trade goods that maintained the western...

• Franz Johnston 1888-1949
  This was the home and studio, 1940-48, of the noted Canadian painter Francis Hans (Franz) Johnston. Born in Toronto, he studied there and in the United States, and at first worked as a commercial artist. An official war artist, 1917-18, he participated in the first exhibition of the Group of Seven in 1920. With others of the Group, he captured on canvas the lonely grandeur of the Canadian northland, thus ending Canadian dependence upon Europe...

• C. Beck Manufacturing Company
  The C. Beck Manufacturing Co. Ltd. operated from 1875 to 1969 with its centre of operations in Penetanguishene. The company sold wholesale lumber, shingles, lath, box shooks, pails, tubs and woodenware to firms in Ontario, Quebec, western Canada and the northern United States. It produced the special wooden tubs, boxes, barrels and pails that carried early 20th century Ontario food products to markets across Canada and throughout the British Empire. It was a family business...

• Theodore Pringle Loblaw 1872-1933
  T.P. Loblaw was born in Elmgrove, Ontario to William James Loblaw and Isabella Stevenson. Orphaned in his teens, he was raised by his Scottish-born grandparents, William and Elizabeth Stevenson, who lived in the farmhouse on this property. At age 17 he moved to Toronto with twenty dollars and a dream. In 1897, Loblaw married Isabella Adam and in 1900 purchased his first grocery store on College Street with partner J. Milton Cork. Loblaw pioneered the...

• Andrew Frederick Hunter 1863-1940
  This distinguished historian and archaeologist was born in Innisfil Township, graduated from the University of Toronto in 1889 and was editor of the Barrie Examiner 1889-95. His extensive exploration of archaeological sites throughout Huronia stimulated public interests in the history of that area. He supplied much valuable information for Thwaites' 73-volume edition of the "Jesuit Relations". Hunter was secretary of the Ontario Historical Society 1913-1931 and wrote many scholarly articles. His "History of Simcoe County...

• Associated Country Women of the World, The
  A non-political international women's organization, the Associated Country Women of the World was formed largely through the efforts of Collingwood-born Margaret Watt. Mrs. Watt was a member of the Women's Institute, a Canadian association devoted to the concerns of rural women, and she introduced that organization to Great Britain during World War I to help in work to counteract food shortages. With the expansion of the Women's Institute movement to Commonwealth and European countries after...

• Chief William Yellowhead
  Born about 1769, Yellowhead (Musquakie) served with the British during the War of 1812. Named chief of the Deer tribe of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians in 1816, he settled with his band at the site of Orillia in 1830 in accordance with lieutenant-Governor Colborne's plan for gathering nomadic tribes on reserves. Pressure from white settlers forced the Indians to relinquish their land and Yellowhead's band moved to Rama in 1838-1839. It is believed that the...

• Coldwater Mill 1833, The
  

  In 1830 aboriginals of the surrounding region were gathered on a reserve along a newly opened road connecting The narrows (Orillia) and Coldwater. The superintendent, Capt. Thomas Gummersal Anderson, and a band of Ojibwa under chief Aisance, settled in Coldwater. Land-hungry settlers influenced the government to move the aboriginals to Rama and Beausoleil Island in 1838-39. This grist-mill, financed with aboriginal funds, was constructed by Stephen Chapman, Jacob Gill and others in 1833. The mill was sold to George Copeland in 1849 and been in operation for over 125 years.

• David Allanson Jones 1836-1910
  World-renowned breeder of bees and pioneer of the North American beekeeping industry, he came in 1867 to Clarksville which, in 1874, was renamed Beetown (now Beeton). Jones searched the Old World for species of bees, and brought queens for isolated breeding to the islands of Georgian Bay. First president, in 1881, of the Ontario Beekeepers' Association, and in 1885 founding editor of the Canadian Bee Journal, Jones was Canada's first major commercial honey producer.

• Black Settlement in Oro Township
  The only government-sponsored Black settlement in Upper Canada, the Oro community was established in 1819 to help secure the defence of the province's northern frontier. Black veterans of the War of 1812 who could be enlisted to meet hostile forces advancing from Georgian Bay were offered land grants here. By 1831, nine had taken up residence along this road, called Wilberforce Street after the renowned British abolitionist. Bolstered by other Black settlers who had been...

• Champlain in Ontario, 1615
  In April 1615, Samuel de Champlain (c.1574-1635) embarked from Honfleur, upon his seventh voyage to New France. Upon arrival in Quebec, Champlain was informed of increasing tensions with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) the traditional rival of his Anishinabe (Algonquian) and Wendat (Huron) allies. He travelled west to Huronia on a diplomatic and military expedition where he visited several villages including Cahiagué, a large and important Wendat settlement. With a mixed force of 400-500 First Nations warriors...

• French Presence in Lafontaine, The
  French explorers first arrived in the Lafontaine area around 1610. An intermittent French presence of fur traders, soldiers and missionaries continued until 1650 when the sojourns ended after the Huron-Iroquois wars. Eventually a group of former French Canadian and Métis voyageurs from Drummond Island settled here in 1830 followed by successive waves of immigrants from Quebec, the three main groups originating from Batiscan, Joliette and the counties of Soulanges and Vaudreuil. The church and parish...

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