Besides the town proper of Amherstburg, the town of Amherstburg comprises a number of villages and hamlets, including the following communities:
Former Anderdon Township: - Edgewater Beach, McGregor (partially), River Canard (partially); Golfview, Kingsbridge, Pointe West; Auld, Delisle's Corners (partially), Loiselleville, Paquette Corners (partially), Rivière-Aux-Canards, Southwick, Splitlog
Former Malden Township: - Amherstburg, Amherst Point, Bar Point, Busy Bee Corners, Erieview Beach, Glen Eden, Lake Erie Country Club, Lakewood Beach, Malden Centre, McGregor (partially), Sunset Beach, Willow Beach, Willowood; Gordon, North Malden, Quarries; Good Child Beach, Sinasac Corners, The Meadows, Boblo Island
History
French colonists had settled along what became the Canadian side of the Detroit River during the colonial era, establishing small farms. The Petite Côte settlement was founded along the river to the north.
In 1796, after losing the Thirteen Colonies following the American Revolutionary War, the British established Fort Malden as a military fort overlooking the river's mouth at Lake Erie. It was occupied as a garrison. This stimulated development in the area, as did the Crown granting land in Upper Canada to Loyalists (now known as United Empire Loyalists) in compensation for losses in the Thirteen Colonies, or as payment for service in the military during the war.
Park House Museum, Amherstburg Ontario, c. 1796Amherstburg, Gordon House, 1798Belle Vue, c. 1816The Commissary Building, built in 1832
The Crown also wanted to increase population and development in Upper Canada. The new settlers built many of their houses in the French style of a century before, giving the new town a historic character. French-speaking colonists also settled here, some of whom were descendants of soldiers and traders associated with Fort Detroit, or other early colonists. They were known as Fort Detroit French, in contrast to later migrants of the 19th century from Quebec, who became known as Canadian French.[4] St. Jean was their Catholic church.
During the days of the Underground Railroad before the American Civil War, refugee African-Americanslaves often crossed the Detroit river to escape to freedom in Canada, after the Crown abolished slavery. Although Michigan was a free state, slavecatchers went to Detroit trying to capture slaves and take them to owners for bounty. Detroit abolitionists William Lambert and especially George DeBaptiste were key to helping the slaves escape. DeBaptiste owned a lake steamboat that he used to offload refugees in town while docked ostensibly to load lumber.[5] They used Fort Malden as one of several entry points to Canada. The town is mentioned in Uncle Tom’s Cabin as the entry point of George and Eliza, after escaping from slavery in the United States.[6]
By 1869, the town of Amherstburg in the Township of Malden, County of Essex had a population of 2,500. When the fort was no longer needed for military purposes, the government adapted it for use as a provincial "lunatic asylum". Its main building was later used as a Port of Entry, Money Order office, Post Office & savings bank.[7]
In 1998, The Town of Amherstburg absorbed the neighbouring Township of Anderdon (to its northeast) and Township of Malden (to its southeast) to form a larger Town of Amherstburg.
Amherstburg Police Force showing Chief Addison and Chief Detective Renaud, [ca. 1912]
The Amherstburg Police Service was dissolved at the end of 2018, with its officers and responsibilities transferred to a detachment of the Windsor Police Service.[15]
Education
The local public high school in Amherstburg is North Star High School. Up until 2022 the high school was General Amherst High School, named after Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst. Although North Star High School is located in the town, some youth residents choose to attend St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic Secondary School, located near the neighbourhood of River Canard. French-speaking students in Amherstburg may also attend École Secondaire E.J. Lajeunesse, located in Windsor, Ontario.
Tourist attractions
Amherstburg is home to several tourist attractions, including Fort Malden and the Amherstburg Freedom Museum (formerly the North American Black Historical Museum). This explores the history of African-American refugees in western Ontario, who sought freedom from slavery and made their homes here.
An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected in Amherstburg by the province to commemorate Bellevue House. Built c. 1816-19, it was the home of Catherine Reynolds, a landscape painter, and her brother Robert Reynolds.[16] Additional tourist attractions include the Park House Museum and King's Navy Yard Park, both of which are located in the heart of old Amherstburg.
The Gibson Gallery is located in a former Michigan Central Railroad Station (c. 1896), which has been fully restored. The gallery operates year-round, featuring exhibits by local artists, the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of Windsor, travelling exhibits from Ontario museums and galleries, and student art/photography exhibits. A restored Essex Terminal railway caboose is operated as a railway museum.[17] Gordon House was built in 1798 as a residence overlooking the Detroit River. Since being restored, it houses a Marine exhibit.[18]
Postcard depicting the Old Eliott Home, Amherstburg, Ontario, [ca. 1910]
The Holiday Beach Conservation Area is one of the best fall birding sites in North America for viewing migratory birds. The 546-acre (2.21km2) nature reserve contains over 2,000 feet (610m) of beaches, picnic areas, a 2-kilometre (6,600ft) trail along the edge of Big Creek Marsh. Holiday Beach is considered a premiere spot to view the fall migration of raptors (birds of prey). A 'Festival of Hawks' event takes place in September.[19]
BobLo Island, which has been developed into a 240-acre private residential community, also has white sand beaches, full-service marina, nature trails, the BobLo Island Beach House Restaurant, Captain Bob‘s Island Ice Cream and Coffee Cabin and South Beach Water Sports. BobLo is accessible via a 10-minute private ferry ride, which runs every 20 minutes, 365 days per year.[20]
Economy
Amherstburg is a town of trade and services to support regional agriculture. It has also become known for several wineries in the area. Amherstburg Farmers' Market is open every Saturday, from 8:30am to 3:30pm. The Farmer's Market is located at the end of Howard Avenue near County Rd 20.
Amherstburg also has a high proportion of retirement residences and second homes.
Local industry includes Diageo, a whiskey bottling plant for the Crown Royal Canadian whiskey, Windsor Mold's Precision Plastics, one of Ontario's largest full-service suppliers of industrial plastics and thermoplastic, and Honeywell Performance Materials and Technology. Marathon Oil has a coke storage site near the river.
Chemical plant history
The production at the Honeywell plant of hydrofluoric acid (HF) was suspended in October 2013 in favour of a plant in Geismar, Louisiana.[21][22][23] The Honeywell plant is used in the production of fuels, refrigerants, and other materials.[24] HF is a precursor to numerous pharmaceuticals, as well as being used to produce Teflon, fluoropolymers and fluorocarbons. Because of its highly corrosive nature, HF is also used to dissolve glass, in glass etching and frosting, and is used in quartz purification, chemical milling, steel pickling and cleaning silicon wafers. It is produced by treating the mineral fluorite with sulfuric acid, which produces hydrogen fluoride and calcium sulfate. The plant, which is located at 395 Front Rd, North, had previously suspended its operations between 1992 and 1996. There is hope locally that production will resume at some future time.[22]
The plant's gypsum pond was identified in 2008 as the source of high levels of arsenic pollution in the area, which have been a provincial Ministry of the Environment concern since 2006.[25]
Honeywell now owns the adjacent Brunner Mond chemical plant and soda ash settling basins site, whose former owners, General Chemical Industrial Products, declared bankruptcy in 2005.[22][26][27] This site was used since 1920 to manufacture calcium chloride and other chemicals, which were shipped from a deep water port on the Detroit River.[26] The site has been since April 2012 the subject of remediation work, supervised by CH2M Hill.[26]
The plant was once part of Allied Chemical, which retained it when it sold the soda ash and calcium chloride operations and Amherst Quarries to General Chemical. The plant is composed of three separate parcels connected through rights of way and easements. In 1999, Allied Signal merged with the much smaller Honeywell Inc. but chose to carry on the newly expanded corporation under the Honeywell name.
Transportation
In September 2022, Transit Windsor began a providing service between Amherstburg and Windsor (the nearest local metropolis), on a two-year pilot project.
Commercial rail service is provided through Essex Terminal Railway, which operates a 35km line to Windsor.
Small boats are welcome to call at any one of three local marinas that serve Lake Erie and the Detroit River.
Amherstburg Ferry Company operates private ferry service to Bob-Lo Island community. The ferry service once operated MSWindmill Point, a car ferry acquired in 1960s after the Ogdensburg–Prescott Ferry service closed following the opening of the Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge.[28] In July 2020, the Amherstburg Ferry Company acquired the Daldean Ferry which had been operating on the St. Clair River between since 1951.[29]
Sports
An Amherstburg Admirals home game.
Amherstburg is home to the following competitive sports teams:
North Star High School Wolves (various Men's and Women's sports teams)
The Amherstburg North Stars Midget "B" hockey team were winners of the 1976 OMHA playdowns and winners of the town's first-ever OMHA All-Ontario title for any age group.
The Amherstburg North Stars Juvenile "BB" hockey team were the winners of the 1977 OMHA playdowns and winners of the town's first-ever OMHA All-Ontario title for that age group.
The Amherstburg Stars Midget "A" hockey team were winners of the 2010 and 2011 OMHA playdowns and winners of the town's first-ever OHF title.
Festivals
In the first week of every August, Amherstburg holds a heritage festival, consisting of activities at several locations around town. At Fort Malden, re-enactors depict eras ranging from the Roman Empire to the Second World War, establishing camps and performing battle demonstrations.
Since 2006, Amherstburg has held an annual Shores of Erie Wine Festival. As of 2017, the event has been cancelled indefinitely after a liquor breach fine and the death of a teenager in 2014.[30]
Amherstburg also celebrates Canada Day with a yearly fireworks display and a day of family activities.
Art by the River (established in 1967), is an annual two-day arts and craft festival that takes place the weekend before Labour Day weekend on the grounds of Fort Malden National Historic Site.
Other festivities include:
TRUE Fest - inclusive disco dance party in the streets (January)
Amherstburg Fort Malden Horticultural Society Garden Tour (June)
Open Air Weekends (Fridays at 3 pm - Sundays at 3 pm, June–September)
Canada Day Celebrations & Fireworks (July 1) is an annual two-day arts and craft festival that takes place on the grounds of ⠀⠀Fort Malden⠀⠀ National Historic Site the weekend before Labour Day
Ribfest (June)
Woofa Roo Pet Festival (June)
Gone Crazy Car Show, showcasing hundreds of vintage classics (July)
Art by the River on the beautiful Fort Malden grounds (last weekend in August)
The Uncommon Festival (September) - AWARD WINNING!
Santa Parade (Late November)
River Lights (November through December) - AWARD WINNING!
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Amherstburg had a population of 23,524 living in 9,193 of its 9,548 total private dwellings, a change of 7.2% from its 2016 population of 21,936. With a land area of 183.76km2 (70.95sqmi), it had a population density of 128.0/km2 (331.6/sqmi) in 2021.[33]
The Detroit River flows west and south for 24 nautical miles from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detroit–Windsor—and forms part of the border between Canada and the United States. The Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel, and the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel connect the cities.
Essex County is a primarily rural county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada comprising seven municipalities: Amherstburg, Kingsville, Lakeshore, LaSalle, Leamington, Tecumseh and the administrative seat, Essex.
Leamington is a municipality in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. With a population of 29,680 in the Canada 2021 Census, it forms the second largest urban centre in Windsor-Essex County after Windsor, Ontario. It includes Point Pelee National Park, the southernmost point of mainland Canada.
Chatham-Kent is a single-tier municipality in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is mostly rural, and its population centres are Chatham, Wallaceburg, Tilbury, Blenheim, Ridgetown, Wheatley and Dresden. The current Municipality of Chatham-Kent was created in 1998 by the amalgamation of Blenheim, Bothwell, Camden, the City of Chatham, the Township of Chatham, Dover, Dresden, Erie Beach, Erieau, Harwich, Highgate, Howard, Orford, Raleigh, Ridgetown, Romney, Thamesville, Tilbury East, Tilbury, Wallaceburg, Wheatley and Zone.
LaSalle is a town in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. It is a bedroom community of the City of Windsor and part of the Windsor Census Metropolitan Area, and is located south of that city. LaSalle, along with Windsor, is the oldest French settlement area in Southwestern Ontario, and the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Canada west of the Quebec border. The town was named for explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.
Tecumseh is a town in Essex County in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is on Lake St. Clair east of Windsor and had a population of roughly 23,300 as of the 2021 census according to Statistics Canada. It is part of the Windsor census metropolitan area, and is a part of the Windsor-Essex County region along with Amherstburg, Kingsville, Lakeshore, LaSalle and Leamington. Tecumseh was originally a Franco-Ontarian settlement.
Fort Erie is a town in the Niagara Region of Ontario, Canada. The town is located at the south eastern corner of the region, on the Niagara River, directly across the Canada–United States border from Buffalo, New York, and is the site of Old Fort Erie which played a prominent role in the War of 1812.
The Battle of Windsor was a short-lived campaign in the eastern Michigan area of the United States and the Windsor area of Upper Canada. A group of men on both sides of the border, calling themselves "Patriots", formed small militias in 1837 with the intention of seizing the Southern Ontario peninsula between the Detroit and Niagara Rivers and extending American-style government to Canada. They based groups in Michigan at Fort Gratiot, Mount Clemens, Detroit, and Gibraltar. The Patriots were defeated by British and American government forces, respectively.
Lake St. Clair is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. It was named in 1679 by French Catholic explorers after Saint Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day they first saw the lake.
Kingsville is a town in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost municipality with town status. The town had a population of 21,552 in the Canada 2016 Census, up from 21,362 in the Canada 2011 Census.
Essex is a town with a population of 21,216 in Essex County in southwestern Ontario, Canada, whose municipal borders extend to Lake Erie. Essex is also the name of the largest community within the municipality.
Fort Amherstburg was built by the Royal Canadian Volunteers at the mouth of the Detroit River to replace Fort Detroit, which Britain was required to cede to the United States of America in 1796 as a result of the Jay Treaty.
Southwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It occupies most of the Ontario Peninsula bounded by Lake Huron, including Georgian Bay, to the north and northwest; the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and Detroit River, to the west; and Lake Erie to the south. To the east, on land, Southwestern Ontario is bounded by Central Ontario and the Golden Horseshoe.
Essex is a federal electoral district in Ontario, Canada, represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1867 to 1882 and since 1968.
Essex South was a federal and provincial electoral district represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1882 to 1968. It was located in the province of Ontario. This riding was created in 1882 from parts of Essex riding.
Fort Malden, formally known as Fort Amherstburg, is a defence fortification located in Amherstburg, Ontario. It was built in 1795 by Great Britain in order to ensure the security of British North America against any potential threat of American invasion. Throughout its history, it is most known for its military application during the War of 1812 as Sir Isaac Brock and Tecumseh met here to plan the Siege of Detroit. It was the British stronghold during the war and is now a National Historic Site of Canada. The fort also had an important role in securing Upper Canada's border with Detroit during the Upper Canada Rebellion.
King's Highway18, commonly referred to as Highway18, was a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, located entirely within Essex County. Since 1998, the majority of the former route has been known as Essex County Road20. The route travelled at the southernmost point in Canada, along or near the shoreline of the Detroit River and Lake Erie between Windsor and Leamington, with Highway 3 as the terminus at both ends. The former route provides access to the communities of LaSalle, Amherstburg, Malden Centre, Harrow, Kingsville and Union.
Huron-Kinloss is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario, located within Bruce County. The township had a population of 7,069 in the Canada 2016 Census.
New Canaan was a small settlement between Essex to the Southeast and McGregor to the Northwest on Maiden Road in Essex County, Ontario, today officially part of the town of Essex.
↑ Jack D. Cécillon, Prayers, Petitions, and Protests: The Catholic Church and the Ontario Schools Crisis in the Windsor Border Region, 1910-1928, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013, Chap 1: "Early Struggles for Bilingual Schools and the French Language in the Windsor Border Region", in pp. 16-41
↑ Tobin, Jacqueline L. From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad. Anchor, 2008. p200-209
↑ "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Liberal Studies Guides. Institute for Liberal Studies. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
↑ The Province of Ontario Gazetteer and Directory. H. McEvoy, Editor and Compiler, Toronto: Robertson & Cook, Publishers, 1869
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![Amherstburg Police Force showing Chief Addison and Chief Detective Renaud, [ca. 1912] Amherstburg police force showing Chief Addison and Chief Detective Renaud (I0056631).tif](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f9/Amherstburg_police_force_showing_Chief_Addison_and_Chief_Detective_Renaud_%28I0056631%29.tif/lossy-page1-220px-Amherstburg_police_force_showing_Chief_Addison_and_Chief_Detective_Renaud_%28I0056631%29.tif.jpg)
![Postcard depicting the Old Eliott Home, Amherstburg, Ontario, [ca. 1910] Postcard depicting the Old Eliott Home (I0024845).tiff](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Postcard_depicting_the_Old_Eliott_Home_%28I0024845%29.tiff/lossy-page1-220px-Postcard_depicting_the_Old_Eliott_Home_%28I0024845%29.tiff.jpg)
