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• Wilkins Expedition 1763, The
  On November 7, 1763, a fleet of small boats carrying nearly 700 officers and men of the 60th and 80th Regiments under Major John Wilkins was forced ashore by a violent storm about three miles east of this point. The expedition had set out from Niagara on October 19 to relieve the British post at Detroit, commanded by Major Henry Gladwin, which was then under siege by a powerful force of Indians led by Pontiac...

• First Regular Baptist Church, Dresden
  The First Baptist Church of Dawn - established by former slaves and free African Americans in the 1840s - held its meetings in private homes, then in a log chapel at the British American Institute. In the 1850s, a Baptist congregation met on Main Street in Dresden, until a lot was purchased from parishioner George Johnson on the present site. A church was built by the congregation and the inaugural service of the First Regular...

• Founding of Blenheim, The
  In 1837 James W. Little, a militia officer and land speculator of neighbouring Raleigh Township, purchased land here at the intersection of Ridge Road and Communication Road, the latter planned by Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe to connect the town of Chatham with Lake Erie. Little surveyed a village plot, named Blenheim, but sold few lots before 1847. The completion in that year of Rondeau Harbour and of Communication Road fostered the development of lumbering, and...

• Founding of Bothwell, The
  In 1851 George Brown, founder of the Toronto Globe and one of Canada's Fathers of Confederation, purchased about 4,000 acres in this vicinity. The Great Western Railway ran through his property in 1855 and that year a station and a post office were opened. He had the town plot of Bothwell surveyed and by 1857 Brown and others had established several industries. The new community prospered until affected by the general depression of 1857-58 but...

• Mary Ann Shadd Cary 1823-1893
  African Americans came to Canada in increasing numbers after the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Some settled in segregated communities: others, like Mary Ann Shadd, promoted full integration into society. A teacher and anti-slavery crusader, Shadd immigrated to Windsor in 1851. She started the "Provincial Freeman" in 1853 to encourage Blacks to seek equality through education and self-reliance. Two years later she moved to the newspaper to Chatham, where it operated...

• Chatham Blockhouse 1794, The
  On this site a blockhouse was constructed in 1794 by order of Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe. He planned to establish here a small naval arsenal which would form a link in the defences of Upper Canada's western frontier and also draw the Indian trade from Detroit. The post was garrisoned by a detachment of the Queen's Rangers, and two gunboats were built; but by 1797 it was abandoned. In 1798 the province's Administrator, Peter Russell, had the blockhouse moved to Sandwich to serve as the Western District's court house and gaol.

• Founding of Dresden, The
  In 1846, Daniel van Allan, a Chatham merchant, laid out a town plot on land purchased from Jared Lindsley, the first settler (1825) on the site of Dresden. By 1849 the erection of a steam sawmill, and the operation of a grist-mill in the neighbouring Dawn Institute Settlement founded by Josiah Henson, provided the basis for a thriving community in this area. A post office named "dresden" was opened in 1854. The region's timber resources...

• John Brown's Convention 1858
  On May 10, 1858, American abolitionist John Brown held the last in a series of clandestine meetings here at First Baptist Church. Brown planned to establish an independent republic within the United States and wage guerrilla war to liberate the South from slavery. He came to Upper Canada to recruit blacks who had fled here in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Law (1850). On October 16, 1859 Brown and 21 supporters seized the government...

• Dawn Settlement, The
  In the 1830s, the Reverend Josiah Henson and other abolitionists sought ways to provide refugees from slavery with the education and skills they needed to become self-sufficient in Upper Canada. They purchased 200 acres of land here in 1841 and established the British American Institute, one of the first schools in Canada to emphasize vocational training. The community of Dawn developed around the Institute. Its residents farmed, attended the Institute, and worked at sawmills, grist-mills...

• Kent County Court House
  In 1847, the Kent District was established and authority was given for the erection of a court house and jail at Chatham. One year later construction began according to plans submitted by the prominent Canadian architect William Thomas. Designed in the Neo-classical style common to many contemporary public buildings, this well-proportioned white limestone structure features a balustraded balcony above the entrance, a prominent pediment and a crowning cupola. The building was completed in 1850 and...

• James Paris Lee 1831-1904
  One of the foremost 19th century arms inventors, Lee was born in Scotland. In 1836 his family came to Canada and settled at Galt. Lee was trained in his father's profession of watchmaker and jeweler, before moving to Wisconsin about 1858, where he began his career as an inventor. His greatest contribution to firearms design was made in 1878 when he completed the development of the "box magazine." Tradition holds that this occurred at Wallaceburg...

• Harry G.B. Miner, V.C. 1891-1918
  Born in Raleigh Township, Miner enlisted in the 142nd Battalion, C.E.F. in December, 1915, and the following year transferred to the 58th Battalion, then serving in France. During a Canadian attack near Amiens on August 8, 1918, Corporal Miner rushed a German machine gun post single-handed and turned the gun on the enemy. Later, with two companions, he assaulted another post and put its gun out of action, following which he again attacked alone and...

• New Fairfield 1815
  In 1792 Fairfield, a Moravian missionary settlement of Delaware Indians was established by David Zeisberger just north of here across the Thames. It was destroyed by invading American forces following their victory at the Battle of the Thames, October 5, 1813. Christian Frederick Denke, who guided the homeless Fairfield Indians during the war years, re-established the mission here at New Fairfield in 1815. A small log church was then built which was replaced by a...

• Founding of Ridgetown, The
  By 1826, the earliest settlers on the site of Ridgetown, notably William Marsh, James Watson, Edmund Mitton and Ebenezer Colby, had located in this vicinity. Marsh, the first to arrive, was granted a lease on 200 acres of Clergy Reserve land in 1831. Although the settlement's growth was slow, in 1853 a post office was opened. By 1858, with a population of 300, Ridgetown contained stores, hotels and a mill owned by John Moody, one...

• Hugh Burnett and the National Unity Association
  Between 1948 and 1956, the National Unity Association (NUA) of Chatham, Dresden and North Buxton, under the leadership of Hugh R. Burnett, waged a campaign for racial equality and social justice. Their efforts led to the passage of Ontario's Fair Employment Practices Act (1951) and Fair Accommodation Practices Act (1954), and laid the groundwork for subsequent human rights legislation in Ontario and across Canada. Traditional Anglo-Canadian rights, such as freedom of association and freedom of...

• Old St. Paul's Church & Christ Church
  With the assistance of local parishioners and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Reverend Richard Pollard began construction of St. Paul's Church in 1819. Located one kilometre from here on Stanley Street, St. Paul's was the first church in Chatham and the first Anglican church in Kent County, serving the local population which included members of the Black community and the British garrison. By the 1840s, the congregation had outgrown St. Paul's...

• Baldoon Settlement 1804-1818, The
  On September 5, 1804 fifteen families of Scottish emigrants numbering some ninety persons landed near this site. Named after an estate in Scotland, the settlement was sponsored by Lord Selkirk who later founded the Red River Colony. The low-lying and frequently flooded lands were difficult to work, malaria killed many settlers and the superintendent, Alexander McDonell, proved incapable. In July 1812 the colony was invaded by American militia who carried off its livestock. The remaining settlers ultimately moved back to higher land and in 1818 Selkirk sold his property.

• Buxton Settlement, The
  The Elgin Settlement, also known as Buxton, was one of several organized Black settlements in Ontario in the 1800s. Named after British abolitionist Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, it was founded in 1849 by Reverend William King (1812-95), a Presbyterian minister who arrived with 15 formerly enslaved people to create a settlement on 2,832 hectares (7,000 acres) in Raleigh Township. In addition to farming, freedom seekers and free Blacks established roads, a sawmill, grist mill, brickyard...

• Emily Ferguson Murphy 1868-1933
  A leading Canadian feminist, journalist and reformer, Emily Murphy lived in Chatham from 1890 to 1894 when her husband was rector of this church. In 1916 she was appointed police magistrate for Edmonton. Her authority was challenged by a lawyer who claimed that under the British North America Act women were not legal "persons" and could not hold crown appointments. Women's organizations tested the law repeatedly by submitting female candidates for the Senate. All were...

• Battle of Moraviantown, 1813 (Battle of the Thames)
  In September 1813, during the second year of the War of 1812, the United States won control of Lake Erie, cutting British supply lines with the east and forcing the British to withdraw from the Detroit River region. Then, on October 5, 1813, 3,000 Americans, including their Aboriginal allies, defeated 950 British, Canadians, and Natives at this site. Among those killed was the famous Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, who had worked to unite the First Nations...

• Dr. Anderson Ruffin Abbott 1837-1913
  Anderson Ruffin Abbott was born in Toronto in 1837. His parents, Wilson and Ellen Toyer Abbott, were free people of colour who came to Canada in 1835 in pursuit of economic advancement and social justice. Abbott was educated at the Elgin Settlement near Chatham, and then studied at the Toronto School of Medicine. He received his medical licence in 1861, becoming the first Canadian-born doctor of African descent. Upon completing his studies, Dr. Abbott became...

• Founding of Wallaceburg, The
  The Chippewa surrendered their lands in this area by treaty in 1796. The first European presence in this area was Lord Selkirk's nearby Baldoon Settlement, founded in 1804. It failed because of its poor location, but some of the settlers relocated here at the forks of the Sydenham River. Laughlan McDougall, the first arrival, built a trading post and tavern at "The Forks" in the early 1820s. When a post office opened in 1837, the...

• Pain Court
  Settlement of this region began in the 1780s when English and French-speaking squatters from the Detroit area moved on to the Indian lands along the lower Thames River. By the 1820s, in the nearby "Pain Court Block," one of the earliest French-speaking communities in southern Ontario had developed. Named "Pain Court" by Catholic missionaries in reference to the small loaves of bread which was all the impoverished parishioners could offer, the settlement was surveyed in...

• St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church
  The religious centre for a thriving Franco-Ontarian community, this substantial brick structure was built to serve La Paroisse de St-Pierre sur la Tranche, the second oldest Roman Catholic parish in southwestern Ontario, established in 1802. It was erected in 1896, with volunteer labour provided by parishioners, and replaced an earlier building destroyed by fire the year before. Prominently situated in a rural setting overlooking the Thames River, St. Peter's is distinguished by its tall square...

• Provincial Freeman, The
  First published in 1853 in Windsor and later in Toronto and Chatham, the Provincial Freeman newspaper catered to abolitionists in British North America and the Northern United States. Its chief editor was Mary Ann Shadd, an African-American emigrant who arrived in Canada West in 1851. Guided by Shadd's commitment to anti-slavery issues, the paper advocated that "Self-reliance is the true road to independence." The Provincial Freeman championed temperance, social reform and African-American emigration to British...