St. Thomas and Port Stanley Ontario in Colour Photos: Saving Our History One Photo at a Time
Barbara Raue
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
2014
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St. ThomasColonel The Honourable Thomas Talbot (1771-1853), the founder of the "Talbot Settlement", was born at Castle Malahide, Ireland. In 1803, after serving in the British Army, he was granted 5,000 acres and settled in Dunwich Township. He promoted colonization by building mills, supervising the construction of a three hundred mile long road paralleling Lake Erie, and helping establish thousands of settlers in the area. In 1817 St. Thomas, located south of London and north of Port Stanley, was named for him. St. Thomas, located in Southwestern Ontario at the intersection of two historical roads, was first settled in 1810. It was named the seat of the new Elgin County in 1844 and became a city in 1881.The founder of the settlement that became St. Thomas was Captain Daniel Rapelje. In 1820, Rapelje divided his land into town lots for a village. He donated two acres of land for the building of Old St. Thomas Church.In 1871, the developing village of Millersburg, which included lands east of the London and Port Stanley Railway, amalgamated with St. Thomas.In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century several railways were constructed through the city and St. Thomas became an important railway junction. A total of twenty-six railways have passed through the city since the first railway was completed in 1856. In the 1950s and 1960s, with the decline of the railway as a mode of transportation, other industry began to locate in the city, mainly primary and secondary automotive manufacturing.In 1824, Charles Duncombe and John Rolph established the first medical school in Upper Canada, in St. Thomas, under the patronage of Colonel Thomas Talbot. Duncombe's house now forms part of The Elgin Military Museum complex. Between 1881 and 1988 the city had a private woman's school operating called Alma College which was destroyed by fire in 2008.Port StanleyLieutenant-Colonel John Bostwick - 1780-1849 - Born in Massachusetts, Bostwick came as a child to Norfolk County. He was appointed high constable of the London District in 1800 and sheriff in 1805. A deputy-surveyor, he laid out some of the earliest roads in the Talbot Settlement and in 1804 was granted 600 acres at the mouth of Kettle Creek. After serving as a militia officer throughout the War of 1812, he settled on the site of Port Stanley and founded this community. Bostwick represented Middlesex in the legislative assembly 1821-24. He donated the land for this church, which was completed in 1845, and he is buried in its churchyard.Port Stanley is located on the north shore of Lake Erie at the mouth of Kettle Creek. It was part of an important early route from Lake Erie to other inland waterways for a succession of explorers and travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, serving as an important landing point and camping spot. Adrien Jolliet, brother of Louis Jolliet, landed here in 1669 during the first descent of the Great Lakes by Europeans. A settlement named Kettle Creek was founded here in 1812 by Lieutenant-Colonel John Bostwick. Around 1824, it was renamed Port Stanley after Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, who had visited nearby Port Talbot. Lord Stanley later became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the father of Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, Governor General of Canada, and an ice hockey enthusiast and donor of the first Stanley Cup in 1893.
