Brights Grove | |
|---|---|
Neighbourhood of Sarnia | |
 Lake Huron at Brights Grove | |
  Brights Grove  Brights Grove | |
| Coordinates: 43°01′51″N82°15′07″W / 43.03083°N 82.25194°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Ontario |
| County | Lambton |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
| Postal code | N0N 1C0 |
| Area code | 519 |
| GNBC Code | FALRP [1] |
Brights Grove is a neighbourhood of Sarnia, Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. [1] Brights Grove is located on the shore of Lake Huron.
Brights Grove was the site of Canada's first commune. [2] In 1829, Brights Grove was established along the model of Robert Owen's New Lanark, Scotland project by Henry Jones (1776–1852). The colony was named 'Maxwell' and was a short-lived project. However, it has been argued by Canadian socialist historian Ian McKay that "[t]he builders of the short-lived colony named Maxwell that Jones planted near Sarnia may well have been the first people in North America to call themselves 'socialists'."
In the 1970s, the Ontario Heritage Foundation erected an historical plaque recognizing the site with the following text:
In 1829, Henry Jones of Devon, England, a retired purser in the Royal Navy, brought a group of more than 50 emigrants from the United Kingdom to this area where he established a settlement on a 1,000 acres (4.0 km2) tract of land on Lake Huron. An early supporter and dedicated follower of Robert Owen, the well-known British social reformer. [sic] Jones named the settlement "Maxwell" and organized the community on the basis of common ownership and collective living. The settlers built a large log house with community kitchen and dining-room but separate rooms for each family. A school and storehouse were added. Within a few years, however, disappointing harvests and the burning of the log house led the colonists gradually to abandon the enterprise. [3]
In 1875, Col. Robert F. Faethorne built what is now known as the Faethorne House. Faethorne built the house on the most easterly of the five farms (the "East Range") into which the land grant of Henry Jones, Faethorne's father-in-law, had been divided. Robert Faethorne had married Jones' daughter, Elizabeth, and farmed the East Range. Faethorne was interested in race horses, imported trees to beautify his property and took an active part in the militia. In 1862, he was promoted to full colonel to command the local military district until after the Fenian alarms of 1866 and 1868.
On Faethorne's death in 1897, the house was sold to Angus Jamieson. In 1921, it was purchased by H.F. Holland who restored it and the grounds. In 1934, it achieved notoriety when John Labatt, of the brewing family, who had rented it for the summer, was kidnapped on his way to London. In 1938, the house was sold once more. Under the name of Wildwood, it began a long career as a summer resort and golf club. By 1978, it was badly in need of repairs when it passed into the hands of Sarnia Township. It was restored to its present condition and started a new life as the Brights Grove library and Gallery in the Grove. [4]
Brights Grove hosted many top performers at the Kenwick dance hall.
In the late 1940s, Kenwick-on-the-Lake was open air in the round. The venue served as a Saturday night destination for passengers of the SS Noronic that stopped at Sarnia on its trip around the Great Lakes from Toronto until it burnt out alongside the quay in Toronto. Bands that performed at the dance hall include Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Lionel Hampton. There was also boxing.
Later years saw rock acts, such as Alice Cooper.
The structure was destroyed by fire and is now a basketball court on the lakefront.
Brights Grove has two creeks that attract salmon during the spring fishery. Cow Creek and Perch Creek. The Bluewater Anglers in Sarnia stock salmon, rainbow trout, and brown trout into Lake Huron.
There are 8 kilometres of lakefront walking trails, half is on rural road and other on dedicated bike/walk path.
Brights Grove is located halfway on a 25 km nature trail from Sarnia to Camlachie. It is a good rail path, crosses numerous creeks (including Cow & Perch Creek), and is well maintained. Visitors can do a loop of rail path and lakefront around Brights Grove of 20 km or more.
Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, by area, the largest in the world, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the 5-mile-wide (8.0 km), 20-fathom-deep Straits of Mackinac. It is shared on the north and east by the Canadian province of Ontario and on the south and west by the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the lake is derived from early French explorers who named it for the indigenous people they knew as Huron (Wyandot) inhabiting the region.
Sarnia is a city in Lambton County, Ontario, Canada. It had a 2021 population of 72,047, and is the largest city on Lake Huron. Sarnia is located on the eastern bank of the junction between the Upper and Lower Great Lakes, where Lake Huron flows into the St. Clair River in the Southwestern Ontario region, which forms the Canada–United States border, directly across from Port Huron, Michigan.
Manitoulin Island is an island in Lake Huron, located within the borders of the Canadian province of Ontario, in the bioregion known as Laurentia. With an area of 2,766 km2 (1,068 sq mi), it is the largest lake island in the world, large enough that it has over 100 lakes itself. In addition to the historic Anishinaabe and European settlement of the island, archaeological discoveries at Sheguiandah have demonstrated Paleo-Indian and Archaic cultures dating from 10,000 BC to 2,000 BC.
Leith is an unincorporated community in Ontario, Canada, named after Leith, Scotland. It is located on the eastern shore of the Owen Sound Bay, an inlet (sound) on the south shore of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. Owen Sound Bay is a broad valley that cuts through the Niagara Escarpment. The valley preceded the last great Ice Age, but was broadened by the action of the glacial ice, then by the erosive forces of the Sydenham and Pottowatomi rivers. During his preliminary survey of Lake Huron in 1815, Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen named it "Owen's Sound" for his brother, Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen.
The Canada Company was a private British land development company that was established to aid in the colonization of a large part of Upper Canada. It was incorporated by royal charter on August 19, 1826, under an act of the British parliament, which was given royal assent on June 27, 1825. It was originally formed to acquire and develop Upper Canada's undeveloped clergy reserves and Crown reserves, which the company bought in 1827 for £341,000 ($693,000) from the Province of Upper Canada.
The Rouge River is a river in Markham, Pickering, Richmond Hill and Toronto in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. The river flows from the Oak Ridges Moraine to Lake Ontario at the eastern border of Toronto, and is the location of Rouge Park, the only national park in Canada within a municipality. At its southern end, the Rouge River is the boundary between Toronto and southwestern Pickering in the Regional Municipality of Durham.
St. Marys is a town in southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is located at the confluence of the north branch of the Thames River and Trout Creek southwest of Stratford, and is surrounded by the Township of Perth South in Perth County, Ontario. St. Marys operates under its own municipal government that is independent from the county's government. Nonetheless, the three entities "enjoy a large degree of collaboration and work together to grow the region as a leading location for industry and people". Census data published for Perth County by Statistics Canada includes St. Marys and most Perth County publications also do, at least in some sections of the document.
Lambton County is a county in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. It is bordered on the north by Lake Huron, which is drained by the St. Clair River, the county's western border and part of the Canada-United States border. To the south is Lake Saint Clair and Chatham-Kent. Lambton County's northeastern border follows the Ausable River and Parkhill Creek north until it reaches Lake Huron at the beach community of Grand Bend. The county seat is in the Town of Plympton-Wyoming.
The Spanish River is a river in Algoma District, Sudbury District and Greater Sudbury in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It flows 338 kilometres (210 mi) in a southerly direction from its headwaters at Spanish Lake and Duke Lake to its mouth at the North Channel of Lake Huron just outside the community of Spanish.
The Rankin River is a river in the town of South Bruce Peninsula, Bruce County in southwestern Ontario, Canada which flows from the east side of the Bruce Peninsula to join the Sauble River near Sauble Falls Provincial Park on the west side. The river is in the Lake Huron drainage basin and was named after Charles Rankin, who first surveyed the Bruce Peninsula.
The Maitland River is a river in Huron County, Perth County and Wellington County in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The river is in the Great Lakes Basin and empties into Lake Huron at the town of Goderich. It is 150 kilometres (93 mi) long, and is named after Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from 1818 to 1828. It was formerly known as the Menesetung River.
Southampton is a community on the shores of Lake Huron in Bruce County, Ontario, Canada. It is close to Port Elgin and is located at the mouth of the Saugeen River in the Saugeen Ojibway Nation Territory. The size of the town is 6.44 square kilometres. The permanent population in 2016 was 3,678, but the summer population is higher since cottagers and campers spend vacation time in the area.
Goderich is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario and is the county seat of Huron County. The town was founded by John Galt and William "Tiger" Dunlop of the Canada Company in 1827. First laid out in 1828, the town is named after Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom at the time. It was incorporated as a town in 1850.
Saugeen Shores is a town in Bruce County, Ontario, Canada, formed in 1998. In addition to the two main population centres of Southampton and Port Elgin, the town includes a portion of the village of Burgoyne and the North Bruce area, straddling the municipal eastern and southern boundary respectively. In 2016, the permanent population of Saugeen Shores was 13,715, in a land area of 171.05 square kilometres (66.04 sq mi).
Sixteen Mile Creek is a river in Halton Region in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. It is in the Great Lakes Basin, and flows from the Niagara Escarpment through the towns of Milton and Oakville to Lake Ontario.
Point Clark is a lakefront cottage community on Lake Huron, in the municipality of Huron-Kinloss, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately 15 kilometres south of Kincardine and 40 kilometres north of Goderich. Main streets include Huron Road and Lake Range Road. Point Clark is served by Highway 21 (Ontario). It is a cottage town, and has a rare Imperial Tower style lighthouse. There is a sandy beach and a small harbour with a boat ramp. There are two streams or rivers that run into Lake Huron around Point Clark: Clark Creek and Pine River. There is a separate harbour in the mouth of the Pine River. Amberley is just outside and to the south of Point Clark and Lucknow is to the south-east of Point Clark.
King's Highway 21, commonly referred to as Highway 21, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario that begins at Highway 402 midway between Sarnia and London and ends at Highway 6, Highway 10 and Highway 26 in Owen Sound. The roadway is referred to as the Bluewater Highway because it remains very close to the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron.
The Huron Tract Purchase also known as the Huron Block, registered as Crown Treaty Number 29, is a large area of land in southwestern Ontario bordering on Lake Huron to the west and Lake Erie to the east. The area spans the counties of Huron, Perth, Middlesex and present day Lambton County, Ontario in the province of Ontario.
Cow Creek is a watercourse in Sarnia Township, Ontario, that empties into Lake Huron. The boundaries of the present day watercourse is confused, due to 19th century efforts to drain a wetland, known as Lake Wawanosh. Lake Wawanosh was drained by Riviere Aux Perches, Perch Creek, a tributary of Cow Creek. In 1859 a short drainage canal was excavated, that has gone by different names, but which has now widely usurped the name Perch Creek.