Glencoe

Glencoe developed at the intersection of the Great Western Railroad and the town line road between Ekfrid and Mosa townships. Ekfrid Township was surveyed in 1820 and Mosa in 1821, and the first deeds to land at Glencoe were registered in 1823. Its growth was shaped most significantly by construction of the Great Western Railroad through the area in 1854 and by the G.W.R.'s air line from Glencoe to Niagara in 1870. Early settlers encountered a somewhat swampy region amid dense forest and were remembered as determined people who hewed a town from the Longwoods and built a prosperous community. The first survey plan for the settlement was registered by Angus Peter McDonald and Randolph Ross in 1860. McDonald, who had built the right-of-way for the Great Western, served as a member of parliament before and after Confederation and also as mayor of Toronto. By 1873 the hamlet had grown to more than 750 inhabitants, and on December 5, 1873, Middlesex County Council passed by-law no. 235 incorporating the Village of Glencoe after residents petitioned for incorporation.

Ontario · Canada