Waterloo County
Waterloo County was a county in Canada West in the United Province of Canada from 1853 until 1867, then in the Canadian province of Ontario from 1867 until 1973. It was the direct predecessor of the Regional Municipality of Waterloo.
Situated on a subset of land within the Haldimand Tract, Waterloo County consisted of five townships: Woolwich, Wellesley, Wilmot, Waterloo, and North Dumfries. The major population centres were Waterloo, Kitchener, Preston, Hespeler, Blair, and Doon in Waterloo township; Galt in North Dumfries; Elmira in Woolwich; and New Hamburg in Wilmot. All are now part of the Regional Municipality.
History
Background
Waterloo County was once one of the most densely wooded sections in North America. Oak trees three to four feet in diameter, maple, beech, elm, ash oak and great pines were common. The county, located in the northerly edge of Attawandaron land, was excellent for hunting and fishing.Haldimand Proclamation (1784–1800)
In 1784, by way of the Haldimand Proclamation, the British Government granted the Grand River valley to Six Nations refugees from central and western New York State, indigenous peoples who served as allies during the American Revolution. The area was from Lake Erie to the Elora falls, and the width being six miles on each side of the river. The First Nations soon offered almost half of the upper area for sale. It was divided into four blocks. Blocks 1, 2 and 3 were sold by 1816; this large area became the townships of Waterloo, Woolwich and Dumfries.The western part of this area was initially settled by Mennonites of German extraction from Pennsylvania; most settled the area that would become Kitchener, St. Jacobs, Elmira and surroundings. The southern part – as well as areas that would become Fergus and Elora, just outside Waterloo County – were settled by Scots. Except for grist, woolen and saw mills, there was little industry in any of these area until about 1870.
Early arrivals from Pennsylvania (1800–1819)
Settlement of the what later became the Township of Waterloo started in 1800 by Joseph Schoerg and Samuel Betzner, Jr., Mennonites, from Franklin County, Pennsylvania. At the time, the upper part of the Grand River Valley was considered deep in the wilderness, and was difficult to penetrate into with wagons due a lack of roads. One Waterloo County historian, W. H. Breithaupt, believed that Schoerg and Betzner, after arriving in Upper Canada, travelled from Ancaster westward through Beverley Township to a point on the Grand River near where Paris would later be founded, using a road cut through the wilderness the previous year by two Englishmen named Ward and Smith. They then followed the Grand River northward. Joseph Schoerg and his wife settled on Lot 11, B.F. Beasley Block, S.R., on the bank of the Grand River opposite Doon, and Betzner and his wife settled on the west bank of the Grand, on a farm near what would become the village of Blair.The homes built by the next generation of these families still stand as of March 2021, on what is now Pioneer Tower Road in Kitchener, and have been listed as historically important; the John Betzner homestead and the David Schoerg farmstead were erected circa 1830.
Image:Conestoga Wagon 1883.jpg|right|thumb|Many of the Mennonite Germans from Pennsylvania arrived in Conestoga wagons
The German Company, represented by Daniel Erb and Samuel Bricker, had gotten into financial difficulties after buying the land in 1796 from Joseph Brant who represented the Six Nations. The payment to Beasly, in cash, arrived from Pennsylvania in kegs, carried in a wagon surrounded by armed guards.
Other settlers followed mostly from Pennsylvania typically by Conestoga wagons.
Many of the pioneers arriving from Pennsylvania after November 1803 bought land in a section of Block Two from the German Company from Richard Beasley who had acquired a massive territory. The tract had originally been purchased from the Six Nations Indians by the British Crown in 1784; it was acquired in 1798 by Richard Beasley and two partners who decided to resell land, in smaller parcels. The Tract included most of Block 2 of the previous Grand River Indian Lands. Many of the first farms were least four hundred acres in size.
At this time, many Mississauga people still frequented the area. Recorded history documents that the relationship between the Mississaugas and early settlers could sometimes be strained. In one case, a John Erb was shot and wounded by a Mississauga man in Haldimand County in 1804. Ezra E. Eby, whose history of Waterloo Township was based on oral family histories of early settlers as well as written history, highlights positive social relationships between early settlers and indigenous people, describing frequent trade between them, that settlers' children and indigenous children would play together, and that indigenous people would sometimes stay overnight in settlers' houses. However, in one surviving document from the period, a group of settlers in "Beasley's Township" petitioned the Upper Canada legislature in 1808 to ban the sale of spirits to indigenous people, citing social disorder and "bad behaviour" including the shooting of another settler. Another, later historian, Angus S. Bauman, points out in his own history that Ezra Eby may have been aware of these incidents, highlighting Eby's comment that "n those early times the Indians were very numerous and if kindly treated would never injure anyone," noting that "perhaps these men did inadvertently displease the Indians."
The majority of the settlers of the Lower Block along the Grand River were also Mennonites from Pennsylvania often called Pennsylvania Dutch although they were actually Deutsch or Deitsch, German. Others immigrated from the British Isles and directly from Germany, producing a mix of cultures.
The first school opened in 1802 near the village of Blair, then known as Shinglebridge and now part of Cambridge, Ontario. The first teacher's name was Mr. Rittenhaus.
By the early 1800s, a corduroy road had been built along what is now King Street in Waterloo; its remains were unearthed in 2016. The road was probably built by Mennonites using technology acquired in Lancaster County Pennsylvania, between the late 1790s and 1816. The log road was buried in about 1840 and a new road built on top of it. A historian explained that the road had been built for access to the mill but was also "one of the first roads cut through so people could start settling the area".
Later declared the founder of the city of Waterloo, Abraham Erb, a German Mennonite from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, bought 900 acres of bush land in 1806 from the German Company;. He built a sawmill in 1808 and a gristmill in 1816; the latter operated continuously for 111 years. Other early settlers of what would become Waterloo included Samuel and Elia Schneider who arrived in 1816. Until about 1820, settlements such as this were quite small.
By 1804, the cemetery in the village of Blair was already in use. The next cemetery to be started is the one next to Pioneer Tower in Doon; the first recorded burial at that location was in 1806. The cemetery at First Mennonite church at 800 King St. East in Kitchener is not as old, but contains the graves of some notable citizens, including Bishop Benjamin Eby who died in 1853, Joseph Schneider, and Rev. Joseph Cramer, founder of the House of Friendship social service agency.
In 1807, of Block 3 was purchased by Pennsylvanians John Erb, Jacob Erb and others.
Later named the founder of Kitchener, Benjamin Eby arrived from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1806 and purchased a very large tract of land consisting of much of what would become the village of Berlin. The settlement was initially called Ebytown and was at the south-east side of what would later become Queen Street. Abram Weber settled on the corner of what would become King and Wilmot Streets and David Weber in the area of the much later Grand Trunk Railway station. Benjamin Eby encouraged manufacturers to move to the village. Jacob Hoffman came in 1829 or 1830 and started the first furniture factory.
Image:Joseph Schneider Haus NHS.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The Joseph Schneider Haus was built by one of the early settlers in Berlin, Ontario and still stands.
Almost as important as Benjamin Eby in the history of Kitchener, Joseph Schneider of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania bought lot 17 of the German Company Tract of block 2 in 1806. While farming, he helped to build what became "Schneider's Road" and by 1816 built a sawmill. Years later, Schneider and Phineas Varnum would help form the commercial centre of Ebytown.
The War of 1812 interrupted settlement. The Mennonite settlers refused to carry arms so were employed in non-combatant roles in camps and hospital and as teamsters in transport service during the war.
William Dickson of Niagara purchased land in the township of North Dumfries and South Dumfries. With his land agent, Absolom Shade, he located a town site on the Grand River. Settlers were attracted, largely from Scotland with the price of land being about four dollars an acre. Years later, this village would be named Galt for John Galt, the British author and then Superintendent of the Canada Company headquartered in Guelph. Galt was a friend of William Dickson.
Rural development (1819–1852)
During and shortly after the War of 1812, government expenditures on roads increased dramatically, leading to the improvement and extension of a number of roads in Upper Canada. By 1819, a new road had been constructed, which ran diagonally across Beverley Township from Dundas to Galt. The new road gave pioneers in Dumfries Township a direct route to urban centres near Lake Ontario, although it was over a difficult track which passed through many swamps. This "Beverley Road" was the predecessor to the later. Before commercial mills were constructed in the Waterloo area, settlers had to bring their grain in wagons along the road to Dundas to be milled. By the 1830s, the government had adopted a new strategy: the creation of toll roads maintained by private companies. The first such company, incorporated in 1829, was the Dundas and Waterloo Turnpike Company. It had a capitalization of CA£25,000, almost double the government's expenditure on roads the following year, and was committed to improve and maintain the Galt–Dundas road to a width of. Despite these funds, the company struggled financially, and a debenture of another £25,000 was requested and authorized in 1837. A further £8,000 was authorized two years later, in 1839, for macadamization.The earliest recorded proposal for a railway in Waterloo County was in January 1836; at the time, no public railways existed in Canada, as the first, the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, was still under construction and would only open later that year. This first proposal was for a long-distance route from Dundas to Goderich, going through Preston. A similar proposal for a "Toronto and Lake Huron Railway" was made in August, which was intended to pass through the townships of Dumfries and Waterloo. However, an economic crisis in 1837 delayed railway development, and it wouldn't be until the railway fever of the 1840s that new proposals would emerge.
John Eby, druggist and chemist, arrived from Pennsylvania in about 1820 and opened a shop to the west of what would later be Eby Street. At the time, it was common for settlers to form a building "bee" to help newcomers erect a long home. Immigration from Lancaster county continued heavily in the 1820s because of a severe agricultural depression in Lancaster County. Joseph Schneider also settled in that area and built a frame house in 1820 on the south side of the future Queen Street after clearing a farm and creating a rough road. A small settlement formed around "Schneider's Road" which later became the nucleus of Berlin. The home was renovated over a century later and still stands.
The village centre of what would become Berlin was established in 1830 by Phineas Varnum who leased land from Joseph Schneider and opened a blacksmith shop on the site where a hotel would be built many years later, the Walper House. A tavern was also established here at the same time and a store was opened. At the time, the settlement of Berlin was still considered to be a hamlet.
By 1830 the village of Preston was a thriving business centre with Jacob Hespeler, a native of Württemberg and a prominent citizen. He would later move to the village of New Hope that was renamed Hespeler in 1857 in recognition of his public service and the industries he started there. Jacob Beck from the Grand Duchy of Baden founded the village of Baden in Wilmot Township and started a foundry and machine shop. Jacob Beck was the father of Sir Adam Beck.
The first newspaper of the county was the Canada Museum und Allgemeine Zeitung, printed mostly in German and partly in English. It was published for only five years.
The land which now makes up the township of Woolwich, including communities such as St. Jacobs and Elmira, were first settled in the early 1800s. The early settlers were primarily from England or Ireland but after 1830, Mennonites from Pennsylvania formed a significant proportion of the population. The area still retains much of its traditional character. Old Order Mennonites can still be seen on the local roads using their traditional horse and buggy transportation.
By 1835, many immigrants to Waterloo County were not from Pennsylvania. Many settler came from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany to areas such as New Germany in the Lower Block of Block Two. In 1835, approximately 70% of the population was Mennonite but by 1851, only 26% of the much larger population were of this religion. This was due to the large wave of new German migrants from Europe, particularly between 1830 and 1850.
The Wellington District and Waterloo County were formed in June 1840 from territory transferred from certain other districts:
The district town was Guelph.
Records indicate a population of 13,782 in 1841. The Smith's Canadian Gazetteer of 1846 states that the Township of Waterloo consisted primarily of Pennsylvanian Mennonites and immigrants directly from Germany who had brought money with them. At the time, many did not speak English. There were eight grist and twenty saw mills in the township. In 1841, the population count was 4424. In 1846 the village of Waterloo had a population of 200, "mostly Germans". There was a grist mill and a sawmill and some tradesmen. Berlin had a population of about 400, also "mostly German", and more tradesmen than the village of Waterloo.