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• Honourable James Young 1835-1913, The
  Born in Galt, Young was educated locally, and from 1853-63 was editor and publisher of the Dumfries Reformer. From 1867-78 he represented South Waterloo in the Canadian parliament, and from 1879-86 was member for North Brant in the Ontario legislature. Appointed provincial treasurer in 1883, he was compelled by illness to resign the post four months later, though he remained a member until 1886. A frequent speaker and writer on commercial affairs, Young was also...

• Goldie Family and the Village of Greenfield, The
  From 1817 to 1819, Scottish botanist John Goldie (1793-1886) visited Canada and the northern U.S. to collect plant specimens. He returned with his family in 1844 to settle here on a farm they named "Greenfield". By 1850 the Goldies were operating a grist and oatmeal mill. In 1865 they opened a larger mill to refine local wheat for international markets. Many features of the village that grew up around it are evident today. In addition...

• University of St. Jerome's College
  One of several classical colleges established in Ontario during the mid-19th century, St. Jerome's was founded by resurrectionist priests in 1865 to serve German Roman Catholics in Waterloo County. Under the charge of Reverend Louis Funcken, C.R., it offered two courses of study – a four-year academic program designed to prepare students for professional studies or for the priesthood, and a two-year commercial program designed to produce strong Catholic business leaders. In the decades following...

• 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...

• Mutual Life Head Office
  The head office of The Mutual Life Assurance Company of Canada (now the head office of Sun Life Financial's Canadian operations) was completed in 1912. Designed by Canadian architect Frank Darling, of the Toronto firm Darling and Pearson, the impressive Renaissance Revival style building is ornamented with features such as the two-storey fluted, paired Ionic columns supporting a large segmental arch above the main doors, elaborate window surrounds, and a parapet with a balustrade. It...

• Wilfrid Laurier University
  Founded in 1911 as the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary of Canada, and situated on land donated by the Board of Trade of Waterloo, this institution was originally established to train homegrown Lutheran pastors. It was expanded in 1914 with the creation of Waterloo College School, which included faculties for pre-theological education. In 1924, Waterloo College of Arts was established and the following year it became affiliated with the University of Western Ontario, thus offering its students...

• Abraham Erb 1772-1830
  Like many pioneers of this district, the founder of Waterloo was a German Mennonite from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. In 1805, he purchased 900 acres of bush land on the site of this town. He settled here in 1806 and erected the first sawmill two years later. His gristmill, built in 1816, remained in continuous operation for 111 years and formed the nucleus and social centre of a thriving municipality.

• Bishop Benjamin Eby 1785-1853
  Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Eby came to Upper Canada in 1806 and purchased extensive lands in this vicinity on which he settled the following year. He was ordained a minister of the Mennonite Church in 1809 and, in 1812, was made a bishop. Through his efforts, the first Mennonite church in western Upper Canada was built in this settlement in 1813. Eby was for many years the religious and secular leader of this community, which was known first as Ebytown, named Berlin about 1830, and in 1916 renamed Kitchener.

• First Amish Settlement, The
  In 1822, Christian Nafziger, an Amish Mennonite from Munich, Germany, came to Upper Canada to find land on which to settle some 70 German families. With the assistance of a group of Mennonites headed by Jacob Erb, who had settled nearby, a petition was made to the government for land here in present-day Wilmot Township. Surveyed two years later by John Goessman, this "German Block" was peopled primarily by Amish from Europe. In 1824-25, Bishop...

• Founder of Preston, The
  Born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, John Erb (1764-1832) was a Mennonite of Swiss ancestry. He came to Upper Canada in 1805, acquired 7,500 acres of land from the German Land Company, and settled on the site of Preston. The following year, he built a sawmill and, in 1807, a grist-mill around which the community grew. The numerous descendants of John Erb and his relatives have played an important role in the development of Waterloo County. This town, known as "Cambridge Mills," was renamed after Preston, England.

• Founding of New Hamburg, The
  A grist-mill built by Josiah Cushman about 1834 formed the nucleus around which a small community of Amish Mennonites and recent German immigrants developed. A village plot was surveyed in 1845 and, six years later, a post office, New Hamburg, was established with William Scott, an early mill-owner, as postmaster. By then, the village, with a population of 500, contained several prosperous industries, including a pottery, and the carriage-works and foundry of Samuel Merner, a...

• Galt City Hall
  This attractive public building was designed and built in 1857-58 by H.B. Sinclair, a local resident, as a "Town Hall and Market House." Galt had become an incorporated town on January 1, 1857, and the first mayor, Morris C. Lutz, was elected by the new council that month. On May 13, he laid the cornerstone of this structure. It is classical in general style, and the "Italianate," particularly Tuscan, influence is quite predominant. Various additions were made in later years and, in 1963-64, a thorough rehabilitation of the building was carried out.

• Sergeant Frederick Hobson, VC 1873-1917
  An Englishman, Frederick Hobson emigrated to Canada in 1904 after serving in the South African War. Eight years later, he moved to Galt (now Cambridge) with his family. When war broke out in 1914, he joined the Norfolk Rifles, then enlisted with the 20th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross for his heroic action at Hill 70, near Lens, France on August 18, 1917. During an intense German...

• Huron Road, The
  In 1827 Dr. William 'Tiger' Dunlop of the Canada Company opened the line of the Huron Road some 95 miles from Goderich to Guelph whose townsites were established that year. Improved in 1828 to promote the sale of Company lands in the million-acre Huron Tract, comprising parts of modern Huron, Perth, Middlesex and Lambton Counties, the route is now followed by provincial Highway 8 from Goderich to Waterloo County. Passing through Wilmot and Waterloo Townships...

• Joseph Schneider House 1820, The
  This house, constructed in 1820 by Joseph Schneider (1772-1843), is the oldest surviving dwelling in Kitchener. Built of frame and originally covered with roughcast, it has been little changed externally since 1850. Schneider, a native of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, purchased this lot in April, 1807 in the German Company tract in Waterloo Township. He arrived here in June of that year, and after clearing his farm and cutting a road along the line of Queen...

• Sir Adam Beck's Birthplace
  Founder of Ontario's public hydro-electric system, Adam Beck (1857-1925) was born in Baden. He lived in this community until 1885 when he moved to London, Ontario. Beck was elected mayor of that city in 1902, and the following year was appointed to a provincial commission to investigate the development and distribution of power from Niagara Falls. He served as a member of the Ontario legislature where, in 1906, he introduced the bill which set up...

• Tassie's School
  The Galt Grammar School was established in 1852 in a former township hall and William Tassie (1815-1866) became headmaster the following year. Previously assistant headmaster at the Gore District Schoolboard in Hamilton, Tassie had come to Canada from Dublin in 1834. Under his direction the Galt School, familiarly known as "Tassie's" attained widespread recognition and attracted students from all over the continent. In 1853 the school was moved to a stone building which forms part...

• University of Waterloo, The
  In 1956, community leaders, headed by Dr. J. Gerald Hagey, formed the Waterloo College Associated Faculties, a non-denominational corporation, to provide Waterloo with improved educational facilities, particularly in the technical, scientific and engineering fields. A year later about seventy students, attracted by a pioneer programme in co-operative education, attended the institutions first classes. Full university powers were conferred by a 1959 Act and the next year the University awarded its first degrees. St. Jeromes College...

• West Montrose Covered Bridge, The
  This structure, the only remaining covered bridge in Ontario, was designed by John Bear in 1880, on the authority of Woolwich Township Council, to replace an earlier bridge over the Grand River. Built a year later by John and his brother Benjamin, the 198-foot bridge was covered to protect the wooden flooring and frame against the elements. Known locally as the Kissing Bridge, it later came under the jurisdiction of Waterloo County. In 1937 the...

• William J. Wintemberg 1876-1941
  An outstanding Canadian archaeologist, Wintemberg was born in New Dundee and, as a youth, developed an avid interest in this region's folklore and prehistory. After 1901, he pursued various trades in Toronto but, encouraged by David Boyle of the Provincial Archaeological Museum there, he devoted himself increasingly to archaeological field-work and study. Following his appointment in 1912 to the Victoria Memorial Museum in Ottawa, Wintemberg undertook excavations in eastern Canada, notably in Ontario, Newfoundland, and...

• William Lyon Mackenzie King 1874-1950
  Canada's tenth prime minister was born in Berlin (Kitchener) on December 17, 1874. A grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie, he joined the Canadian civil service in 1900 as a specialist in labour relations. Elected to the federal parliament as Liberal member for Waterloo North in 1908, he served as minister of Labour, 1909-11, under Sir Wilfred Laurier. In 1919 he became leader of the Liberal party and prime minister in 1921. Thereafter King continued to...