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• Founding of Sarnia, The
  The French-speaking families of Ignace Cazelet, Jean-Baptiste Paré and Joseph LaForge arrived here 1807-1810. Other settlers, many of Scottish descent, came in 1832-1834 following the 1829 survey of Sarnia Township. A community called "The Rapids", renamed Port Sarnia in 1836, soon developed and among its prominent early residents were Richard Vidal, George Durand and the Hon. Malcolm Cameron. Called Sarnia after 1856, the village flourished, stimulated by regional lumbering activity, nearby oil discoveries and the...

• Froome and Field Talfourd
  Froome (1807-1902) and Field (1815-74) Talfourd emigrated from England in 1832, and in the following year took up adjoining lots here in Moore Township. Froome had previously served in H.M.S. Ariadne under Captain Frederick Marryat, the author. Field soon moved to the United States, then back to England, where he became an accomplished portraitist. Froome purchased his brother's lot and laid out the townplot of "Froomefield" on the combined property in 1836. He later became...

• Canada's First Commune
  In 1829, Henry Jones of Devon, England, a retired purser in the Royal Navy, brought a group of more than 50 emigrants from the United Kingdom to this area where he established a settlement on a 1,000-acre tract of land on Lake Huron. An early supporter and dedicated follower of Robert Owen, the well-known British social reformer, Jones named the settlement "maxwell" and organized the community on the basis of common ownership and collective living...

• Pauline McGibbon 1910-2001
  The first woman to hold a vice-regal office in Canada, Pauline Emily Mills, was born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1910. After local schooling and a degree at Victoria College, University of Toronto, she married Donald Walker McGibbon in 1935. A life-long volunteer and supporter of the arts, Mrs. McGibbon became president of the Dominion Drama Festival in 1948 and national president of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire in 1963. She was...

• International Boundary, The
  The nearby concrete marker, erected in 1911, is one of a series used by surveyors to determine the exact boundary between Canada and the United States. Les Orioles de St. Clair River was originally designated as a boundary line by treaty in 1783. The first detailed survey from St. Regis on the St. Lawrence to Lake of the Woods was carried out under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, 1814. It was directed by...

• Mackenzie House and Family
  Constructed about 1861, this house is a fine example of a blend of several Revival styles termed Ontario Classic Architecture, popular throughout the province during the second half of the nineteenth century. It was built for John Mackenzie, a prominent local merchant and member of a Scottish immigrant family that had settled in Port Sarnia in 1847. By the 1860's he and his six brothers had become firmly established with extensive business interests throughout the...

• Ontario's Oil Refining Industry
  Stimulated by the discovery of significant oil deposits in Enniskillen Township, Ontario's first commercial refineries were erected in 1857-62 at Sarnia, Oil Springs, "petrolea" and Hamilton. The industry, developed to produce coal-oil and lubricants, was plagued by explosive fires, market fluctuations and problems of refining. In 1880, to counter growing American competition, several companies joined to form Imperial Oil. In 1898, however, seeking expansion capital, it sold a majority interest to Standard Oil, an American...

• St. Clair Tunnel, The
  The first international submarine railway tunnel in North America was built here, 1889-91, by the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada. It connects Sarnia with Port Huron, Michigan. To compete with U.S. railways for the lucrative Chicago and mid-western freight and passenger traffic, the Grand Trunk required uninterrupted access to these areas. A ferry service across the St Clair was considered unsatisfactory and a bridge impracticable. The tunnel and its approaches, over two miles long...