Development of The Village
Napier developed into an active village. Robert Johnston built a store and gristmill in 1838, importing two millstones from Scotland. Johnston also had a sawmill built to harvest the many black walnut trees in the area. He then proceeded to build a large woollen mill. The village was known at first as Johnston's Mills. Later it was known as Puffing Town because of the noise made by the steam engine at Johnston's mills. This mill stood on the river behind the general store standing in the village today. People would walk to the mill from as far as Sarnia with bags of wheat on their backs to do their milling.
After the township of Metcalfe was created in 1840, the village became known as Metcalfe. When a post office opened on November 6, 1851, the village was named Napier, probably after Sir Charles James Napier (1782–1853), a British General, or perhaps after his brother, Sir William Francis Patrick Napier (1785–1860), also a general and historian of the Peninsular War.
In 1857, J. G. Sutherland moved into the area, bought the mills from Johnston and built a new woollen mill. The village population at this time was about 150. Sutherland's businesses dominated the community for many years. It was he who built the store known as Napier House in 1872; the post office moved into this building later.
Napier was important enough to become the township "capital." In 1880, the township council started holding regular meetings in the new Napier Town Hall.
Read more about this topic: Napier, Ontario
Famous quotes containing the words development of, development and/or village:
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Information about child development enhances parents’ capacity to respond appropriately to their children. Informed parents are better equipped to problem-solve, more confident of their decisions, and more likely to respond sensitively to their children’s developmental needs.”
—L. P. Wandersman (20th century)
“The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)