A Statement of the Satisfactory Results Which Have Attended Emigration to Upper Canada From the Establishment of The Canada Company, Until the Present Period

HURON DISTRICT

[...] This fine territory is a most gratifying testimony to the effect of industry, possessing a prosperous, wealthy, contented body of settlers, who commenced the subjugation of the forest with scarcely any other capital but health, industry and perseverance. Perhaps no portion of Canada presents a finer appearance, is cultivated better, or is in a more thriving state. [...]

Dr. Dunlop’s Report as to the Huron Tract, and Upper Canada generally as compared with the United States, Australia, .

[...] The Huron Tract was explored in 1827. A sleigh track was cut into it in 1828, and three temporary houses, or shanties, were built for the accommodation of travellers along it. In 1829, a road of the stature width was begun to be cut, which has since received various improvements as the gradual settlement of the county permitted or required. [...]

Journal of a Visit to Huron by a Gentleman in 1841

[...] we left Goderich for London, a distance of sixty miles. Twelve miles from this town the London road turns off from the Huron road, and strikes into a deep forest in a southerly direction. The general features of the country are almost the same as those on the other great line. Long ranges of unclaimed tracts are pleasantly broken in on by the cheering look of some comfortable homestead, with its well filled barn and fat cattle clustered around.

[...] The next day we proceeded onward through a very beautiful agricultural country, between Stephen, Biddulph and McGillivray [...] In Biddulph we were shown what was called the “Wilberforce Settlement,” being a block of land on which six or eight coloured families reside. Some years since, an attempt was made to form a colony of runaway Negroes, fugitives from American slavery. The design was a good and humane one, but it did not succeed.

[...] The country seems exuberantly fertile. About Biddulph we were told of land, after yielding successive wheat crops for eleven years, producing last harvest forty bushels the acre. This is fecundity with a vengeance! [...]

Source: Canada Company, A Statement of the Satisfactory Results Which Have Attended Emigration to Upper Canada From the Establishment of The Canada Company, Until the Present Period (Cornhill: Smith, Elder and Co., 1842). Notes: Source: D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario (CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series no. 21828).

Return to parent page