History
Simcoe County, in particular the former Wendake area near Nottawasaga Bay, was the site of the earliest non-First Nations exploration and settlement of Ontario. Several historic sites, including Carhagouha and Sainte-Marie among the Hurons, mark the earliest known contacts between the area's traditional Huron population and European missionaries. The Huron capital, Ossossane, was at one time the largest aboriginal settlement in all of North America outside of Mexico.
The area was originally established as "Simcoe District" in 1843 by the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada. Its original 19 townships at that time were: Adjala, Essa, Flos, West Gwillimbury, Innisfil, Mara, Matchedash, Medonte, Nottawasaga, Orillia (North Division), Orillia (South Division), Oro, Rama, Sunnidale, Tay, Tecumseth, Tiny, Tosorontio and Vespra.
The District was restructured in 1845, changing its composition to the following 24 townships (Source: Statutory Chronology of Canada): Adjala, Artemesia, Collingwood, Essa, Flos, West Gwillimbury, Innisfil, Medonte, Matchedash, Mulmur, Mono, Nottawasaga, Osprey, Oro, North Orillia, South Orillia, Saint Vincent, Sunnidale, Tay, Tecumseth, Tosorontio, Tiny, Uphrasia (sic) and Vespra.
Effective January 1, 1850, An Act for abolishing the Territorial Divisions of Upper Canada into Districts abolished Simcoe "District" in favour of the Simcoe "County", still composed of the Townships noted in the Act of 1845.
The most recent restructuring took place in 1994 which resulted in the current 16 local municipalities.
Read more about this topic: Simcoe County
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“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)