North Dumfries - History

History

The history of North Dumfries is closely tied to that of the old City of Galt, now part of the City of Cambridge but in the early 19th century was part of Gore District. Galt was founded on the east bank of the Grand River by Absalom Shade on behalf of William Dickson of Niagara. Dickson had bought 94,305 acres (381.64 km2) of land in 1816 for 24,000 pounds, and named it after his hometown of Dumfries in Scotland. That same year, he had the land surveyed and opened it for settled. In 1817, the first sawmills were operating and there were 38 families with a total population of 163 people. In 1819, the first municipal meeting for the Township of Dumfries North was held.

In 1820, Dickson encouraged further settlement on his land by inviting other Scotsmen to buy land, resulting in a wave of immigration from 1825 until 1832 when every plot of land was filled.

What is now North Dumfries originally formed the north half of Dumfries Township, hence the current name. With the introduction of the county system in the mid-nineteenth century, Dumfries was split between the new Waterloo and Brant Counties. The remaining southern half of the old Dumfries Township is now South Dumfries in Brant County. At about the same time Dumfries Township was divided, the City of Galt was extracted from it as an autonomous municipality within the new Waterloo County. Though the two municipalities (Galt and North Dumfries) were now technically separated from one another, their histories are tightly interwoven as the township nearly envelopes what was then Galt.

The township's easternmost section (around the village of Clyde) was originally part of Wentworth County (now the city of Hamilton); it was transferred to Waterloo Region in the 1970s.