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• Founding of Clinton, The
  The earliest settlers on this site had arrived by 1834. Peter Vanderburgh opened a tavern north of here at the junction of the London and Huron Roads, and Jonas Gibbings began farming to the east. "The Corners" grew slowly until William Rattenbury purchased three corners of the intersection and laid out a town plot. In 1852 a post office was opened and named Clinton, reportedly after Lord Clinton on whose English estate Rattenbury's father lived...

• Ball's Bridge
  Ball's Bridge was erected in 1885 to connect Goderich, the county seat, with outlying areas to the east. The structure is an excellent - and now rare - example of a two-span Pratt design through truss, pin-connected wrought iron bridge. Its construction shows attention to detail through the 'v-lacing' located at various points on the bridge. Built during the horse-and-carriage age, it continued to serve as a major crossing point on the Maitland River until...

• British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, The
  With the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, one of Canada's major responsibilities was to provide air training facilities removed from the theatre of war. On December 17, 1939, the Plan was inaugurated. The first schools were opened the following year, among them No. 12 Elementary Flying Training School here at Sky Harbour. At the height of operations, there were 39 training units in Ontario alone, including 32 air training schools. Before termination of the Plan...

• Colonel Anthony Van Egmond 1778-1838
  A native of Holland and veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, Van Egmond settled in this region in 1828. Under the general supervision of Dr. William "Tiger" Dunlop, he constructed the newly surveyed Huron Road for the Canada Company. A large landowner in the Huron Tract, Van Egmond became strongly dissatisfied with the Company's policies and in 1835 stood, unsuccessfully, as a Reform candidate for election to the provincial legislature. A supporter of William Lyon Mckenzie...

• Dr. Robert Hamilton Coats 1874-1960
  Born near here, Coats was educated locally and graduated in 1896 from the University of Toronto. In 1902, Mackenzie King, then Deputy Minister of Labour, persuaded Coats to become editor of the Labour Gazette. In this position, he became convinced of the need for reliable government statistics. In 1915, he was appointed Canada's first Dominion Statistician and Controller of the Census. Coats drafted the legislation that established the Dominion Bureau of Statistics three years later...

• Founding of Blyth, The
  By 1851, Lucius McConnell and Kenneth McBain, two of the earliest settlers in the area, had located here in Morris Township. Four years later, Donald McDonald laid out a village plot on the border between Wawanosh and Morris townships and, in July 1856, a post office was established. The village developed slowly but within two years contained a sawmill owned by McBain, a Presbyterian church, a tavern, and store. Originally known as Drummond after an...

• Founding of Brussels, The
  In 1854, William Ainley purchased two hundred acres of land here on the Middle Branch of the Maitland River. The following year, he laid out a village plot that he named Ainleyville. A post office named Dingle was opened in 1856. The community flourished and, by 1863, contained a sawmill, a grist-mill, blacksmith shops, a woollen mill and several other small industries. In anticipation of the rapid growth that the expected construction of a branch...

• Founding of Exeter, The
  In 1833, the families of James Willis and William McConnell became the earliest settlers in this area. Within a year, McConnell had erected mills here on the banks of the Aux Sables River near which a community known as Francistown developed. South of the mills, near Willis's location on the "London Road," Isaac Carling opened a store and tannery in 1847, and James Pickard a general store in 1851. Four years later, a village plot...

• Founding of Goderich, The
  In 1826, the Canada Company, a newly chartered colonization firm, acquired a large block of land known as the Huron Tract. The following year, William "Tiger" Dunlop, appointed Warden of the Forests by the Company's first superintendent John Galt, established his base here in the western part of the Tract. Named Goderich after the Colonial Secretary, Viscount Goderich, the site was initially marked only by "The Castle," Dunlop's residence, but a settlement gradually developed. By...

• Founding of Seaforth, The
  Anticipating the construction of the Buffalo, Brantford and Goderich Railroad through this region, Christopher and George Sparling acquired, during 1850-53, most of the present site of Seaforth. George laid out a subdivision in 1856 and Christopher sold most of his land in Tuckersmith Township to a syndicate headed by James Patton of Barrie. Patton is said to have procured a railway station and named it Seaforth. Situated on the Huron Road and the railway, and a shipping point for wheat, Seaforth had a post office by December 1859, was incorporated as a village in 1868, and as a town in 1875.

• Founding of Wingham, The
  In the early 1850s, settlers began moving into the townships in the Queen's Bush north of the Huron Tract. One of these townships, Turnberry, was surveyed by 1853 and a plot for a market town designated where two branches of the Maitland River met. Among the earliest settlers on the plot was John Cornyn who was operating a hotel here in 1861. A year later, a post-office named Wingham was established and, by 1866, Wingham...

• Great Storm of 1913, The
  In a storm that struck Lake Huron on November 9, 1913, 10 lake freighters were lost. Seven of them vanished, ranging from the 30-year-old, 270-foot "Wexford" to the 550-foot "James Carruthers," launched six months earlier at Collingwood. The bulk of the wreckage was cast up on the shore of Huron County, where recovery and identification of the crews' bodies were directed by a Lake Carriers' Association committee based at Goderich. The storm, which ravaged the Great Lakes region for three days, destroyed a total of 19 vessels and resulted in the stranding of 19 others, with a loss of 244 lives.

• "Tiger" Dunlop 1792-1848
  In the nearby tomb is buried Dr. William Dunlop, physician, author, woodsman, soldier, politician and raconteur. Born in Scotland, he served in Canada as an army surgeon during the War of 1812. His writings, including articles based on his residence in India 1817-19, won him a place among the witty contributors to Blackwood's Magazine with the title of "Tiger." In 1826, he emigrated to Upper Canada. As "Warden of the Forests" for the Canada Company...

• Honourable William Aberhart 1878-1943, The
  Founder of the Social Credit Party and premier of Alberta, 1935-43, Aberhart attended Seaforth Collegiate Institute, 1893-98, and later graduated from Queen's University. In 1910 he moved to Calgary where from 1915-35 he was a high school principal. An ardent fundamentalist lay preacher he founded the Calgary Prophetic Bible Conference in 1918 to promote Bible study. His weekly religious radio broadcasts beginning in 1925 won him a large audience. In 1932 he became interested in...

• Horatio Emmons Hale 1817-1896
  One of North America's pioneer ethnologists and linguists, Hale practised law in Clinton 1856-1896. Born in New Hampshire, he graduated from Harvard in 1837, and accompanied the Wilkes Expedition to the Pacific, 1838-1842. His contribution to the 'Narrative' of that voyage is one of the basic sources for Polynesian ethnology. Hale discovered that the Tutelos near Brantford, fugitives from North Carolina, belonged to the Siouan family and identified the Cherokees of the Carolinas as linguistically...

• Narcisse M. Cantin 1870-1940
  Descended from a long line of French-Canadian shipbuilders, Cantin was born on a nearby farm which his grandfather acquired about 1850. An energetic entrepreneur, inventor and cattle trader, Cantin began work here, in 1897, on a city named St. Joseph from which he hoped to construct a canal linking Lake Huron and Erie. Undaunted by his inability to raise sufficient funds for this project, he initiated and, between 1900 and 1930, tirelessly promoted the concept...

• Right Honourable James G. Gardiner 1883-1962, The
  James Gardiner was born on a farm in nearby Hibbert Township. He moved to western Canada in 1901 where he farmed and became a school teacher and principal. A strong debater, Gardiner was elected to the Saskatchewan legislature in 1914 as Liberal member for North Qu'Appelle. He was appointed minister of highways in 1922 and in 1926 was elected premier of Saskatchewan. Gardiner resigned in 1935 to enter federal politics. As minister of agriculture under...

• Sir John Stephen Willison 1856-1927
  One of Canada's most influential political journalist and a strong advocate of the Imperial Federation movement, Willison was born on a farm about 6.5 kilometers northeast of here. He began his career in 1881 with the London Advertiser. Two years later, he joined the Toronto Globe and in 1890 was appointed chief editor of that newspaper. In 1902, he resigned to become editor of the Independent Toronto Daily News (1902-1917) and in 1910 was named...

• Slomans and the CNR School on Wheels, The
  In 1922, veteran educator J.B. MacDougall urged the provincial government to establish railway car schools to serve residents of Northern Ontario's outlying regions. Four years later two cars, the first of seven, commenced operation. One, the forerunner of this car, was staffed by a Clinton native, Fred Sloman. A dedicated teacher and ardent supporter of the innovative program, Sloman travelled the CNR line from Capreol, near Sudbury, north-west to Foleyet for 39 years. Aided by...

• Thomas Mercer Jones 1795-1868
  A powerful Canada Company land magnate, Jones was born in England and acquired business training there. By virtue of his London connections he obtained an appointment as a Company Commissioner and moved to York (Toronto) in 1829. He administered a large portion of this Company's lands, the one million acre Huron Tract, and by 1839 wielded unrivalled authority in the area. At the height of his influence he moved his headquarters to a newly constructed...

• Van Egmond House, The
  This house was built about 1846 by Constant Van Egmond, eldest son of Col. Anthony Van Egmond, a leader of rebel military forces in the Rebellion of 1837. It has the sturdy proportions typical of the Canadian vernacular interpretation of the Georgian style seen in many of Ontario's early nineteenth century buildings. The handsome door with its rectangular transom and sidelights belongs to the style of the Classical Revival which dominated the province's architecture in...