Pin Quest Ontario

Before 1853, Waterloo was part of the United County of Waterloo, Wellington and Grey. When it separated, the location of county seat was up for grabs with Galt (now Cambridge) and Berlin (now Kitchener) being contenders. Berlin was able to build a courthouse and jail faster and was selected as the county seat.

Cambridge was formed through the incorporation of Galt, Preston and Hespeler in 1973. The three communities weren’t strangers to coming together. As far back as 1890, the Galt, Preston and Hespeler Street Railway ran an electric streetcar service between the three communities. The line reached the nearby cities of Berlin and Waterloo in 1911. 

You may know that Kitchener was originally named “Berlin” but changed by referendum during World War One due to anti-German sentiment. The community took it’s original German name from early Pennsylvania Dutch settlers with German heritage who were the early settlers in the region. In 1926, the Waterloo Pioneer Memorial Tower was constructed to commemorate the arrival of the Pennsylvania Dutch in the area in an attempt to heal some of the nationalist tensions that had been caused during the war. The tower is now classified as a Federal Heritage Building.

The village of Ayr in North Dumfries was originally called “Mudge’s Mills” because it was first settled in 1822 by Abel Mudge who built a dam, sawmill, and gristmill. By 1846 the population had grown from just the Mudge family to 230 people. Mudge’s determination to build this settlement is particularly interesting because he had no legal claim to the land and was originally a squatter.

In 2016 the City of Waterloo was excavating in the King Street area to prepare to lay tracks for their new Ion light rail system. Under the road they found a 220 metre long row of old logs buried in the ground. These were part of a ‘corduroy road’ dating back to between the 1790s and 1816. The road was created by Mennonite settlers to help new arrivals travel through the woods to settle the area and access amenities like the local mill.

Wellesley’s local economy has a long history of apple orchards with cider and apple butter making. In 1908, two workers at Huber’s Cider Mill in Wellesley village were building an apple butter plan when a boiler burst. According to local reports, bricks, lumber and the bodies of the two men who were killed in the blast were thrown between 40 and 640 feet. 

Sir Robert John Wilmot–Horton was a British politician who while working at the British Colonial Office advocated for poor families to be granted land in the colonies. His work resulted in grants to fund Irish families settling in Canada. Wilmot-Horton was involved with the Canada Land Company when it purchased the land that would become Wilmot Township and it’s likely that the community is named after him.

Woolwich is home to the West Montrose Covered Bridge also known locally as “the kissing bridge”. Built in 1881 this 198 foot long bridge crosses the Grand River and is the last remaining covered bridge in Ontario that you can still drive across.