Port Burwell is a community on the north shore of Lake Erie, in the Municipality of Bayham in Elgin County, Ontario, Canada. [1] [2] It is situated at the mouth of Big Otter Creek, which stretches more than forty miles north through Bayham to Tillsonburg and Otterville, and with the harbour at Port Burwell was of historic importance in the development of landlocked Oxford County.
In 1810, besides finishing a government contract for the survey of a large part of what became known as the Talbot Road in response to petitions from land grant recipient Colonel Thomas Talbot, Mahlon Burwell (1783–1846) received instructions to survey the vacant land between Houghton and Yarmouth townships, and to divide it into two townships, under the names of Malahide and Bayham. The work was done and in 1811, Malahide and Bayham were made part of the county of Middlesex. In making this survey, Burwell selected for himself a block of land in Bayham at the mouth of Big Otter Creek, the site of what became Port Burwell. [3]
Writing of that region to the Surveyor General in June 1815, he said "Otter creek discharges more Water than all the small Rivers which disembogue themselves into the North side of lake Erie excepting the Grand River. When a few drifts are cleared out of it, Boats may descend from the Mills in Norwich [at what is now Otterville, in Oxford County] to its mouth, at almost any Season of the year. There are beautiful Groves of White Pine Timber, on each side of the Creek, interspersed with Groves of other Timber, alternately; there is therefore no doubt, but what ere long considerable quantities of Lumber will be conveyed down that stream, from Norwich and other places to the Lake. It would appear as if Nature had intended the mouth of Big-Otter Creek for a place of greater importance than any other in the District of London. In my mind it is highly probable that such will be the case before many years. I am about to lay out what Land I own on the East side of the mouth in a Town Plot." He urged the government to use an adjacent lot held as a reserve for the same purpose, and "if it should meet with the approbation of His Excellency the Provisional Lieutenant Governor, it would much facilitate the future growth of that part of the Province, to have it laid out by the Government, for a Town at the mouth of Big Otter Creek." [4]
Nothing was done by the government, but Burwell and his family kept up interest in the development opportunity at the mouth of Otter Creek and the potential water route north into Oxford County, particularly as Mahlon Burwell served as the elected representative for Oxford and Middlesex from 1812 to 1820. Although he had ownership of the township lots on both sides of the creek mouth – lots 10 and 11 in concession 1 of Bayham township – he needed lot 12 as well to form the village site, and it was a lot reserved by the government under the Clergy Reserve system. Burwell was able to lease the lot in 1818, but it was another twelve years before he could purchase it. [5] He finally opened up a town plot on his land in 1830 that became known as Port Burwell. His brother John petitioned the government in 1848 to improve the harbour, and to add Bayham to Oxford County so it would have a waterfront port, and to build a road north into Oxford from Port Burwell. [6] The government again did not agree, but the Legislative Assembly passed legislation giving special powers to a new harbour company in 1849, and a private company was formed to build the road. Known as the Ingersoll and Port Burwell Plank and Gravel Road, it was completed in 1852 and was the basis for what eventually became Ontario Highway 19, stretching from Port Burwell north through the length of Oxford County to St Marys at the south end of Perth County. [7]
In time Port Burwell became a shipbuilding and fishery harbour and the export point for lumber and farm produce from the surrounding townships and a large portion of Oxford County, boosted by construction of roads and railway lines. [8] One of these, the Tillsonburg, Lake Erie & Pacific Railway, formed by a group of Tillsonburg businessmen, recognized the harbour's potential to receive coal from Pennsylvania for use in Oxford County and elsewhere, and pushed for a railway car ferry service across Lake Erie. Port Burwell's harbour was improved for this purpose in 1903, the Ashtabula railcar ferry began operating between Ashtabula, Ohio and Port Burwell to haul coal, and the rail line was built north through Vienna and Tillsonburg to Ingersoll by 1903, and to Embro by 1908 (plans to continue on to Stratford and Collingwood were scrapped). [9] The line was eventually leased to the Canadian Pacific Railway to anchor the coal business, and the Ashtabula served Port Burwell bringing coal across the lake for half a century.
By the 1920s Port Burwell was becoming a summertime tourist destination famous for its sandy beaches, which had formed over the years as a natural result of wind and water currents interacting with the breakwaters extending out from the harbour mouth. [10] This shoreline accumulation was a well-known phenomenon which also necessitated periodic dredging to keep the harbour clear. [11] Port Burwell was also becoming a focus for natural gas drilling onshore as well as the collection point for pipelines from gas wells drilled offshore. [12] It also gained fame as the home of McConnell Nurseries, which relied upon the sandy loam in nearby farmland and the reduced frost risk near the lakefront. It developed a nation-wide mail order business for seeds and plants and for many years was the largest employer in the area. [13] The harbour's coal business changed when the Ashtabula was wrecked in a collision with a freighter in 1958, ending the railcar ferry's daily coal shipments. instead, the harbour became known for mountains of loose coal delivered by freighters for later pier-side loading into waiting railcars and transport trucks. All this was wound up after the federal government announced in 1970 it would no longer fund dredging of the harbour to support coal freighter traffic.
Most recently, Port Burwell has become the home of a windmill development feeding electricity into Ontario's power grid. [14] In November 2012, HMCS Ojibwa—a retired Canadian Navy 'Cold War' submarine—was placed in a permanent site in Port Burwell as part of plans for a Museum of Naval History to complement the Port Burwell Marine Museum and Historic Lighthouse. A local theatre group was formed to cater to tourist business, inspired by the submarine project and by Theatre London, and now has its own Periscope Playhouse Cultural Centre in the village for theatrical and music performances. [15]
Port Burwell was given separate status as a police village in 1900 and was incorporated as a village in 1949. It was reamalgamated with Bayham and the Village of Vienna to form an expanded Municipality of Bayham in 1998. Strong support is being given by the Municipality of Bayham to Port Burwell projects, including the financial burden that came with ensuring the Ojibwa project could continue while also making the Lighthouse museum a success and regularly improving the village's public beach and park facilities.
Locations and histories of churches and cemeteries have been studied and documented extensively by the Elgin County branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society: [34]
Ashtabula is a city in Ashtabula County, Ohio, United States, and the center of the Ashtabula micropolitan area. It is located at the mouth of the Ashtabula River on Lake Erie, 53 miles (85 km) northeast of Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 17,975. Like many other cities in the Rust Belt, it has lost population due to a decline in industrial jobs since the 1960s.
Tillsonburg is a town in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada with a population of 18,615 located about 50 kilometres southeast of London, on Highway 3 at the junction of Highway 19.
Oxford County is a regional municipality in the Canadian province of Ontario. Highway 401 runs east–west through the centre of the county, creating an urban industrial corridor with more than half the county's population, spanning 25 km between the Toyota auto assembly plant in Woodstock and the CAMI General Motors auto assembly plant in Ingersoll. The local economy is otherwise dominated by agriculture, especially the dairy industry.
HMCS Ojibwa is an Oberon-class submarine that served in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and later the Canadian Forces Maritime Command (MARCOM). Originally intended for service with the British Royal Navy as HMS Onyx, the submarine was transferred to Canadian ownership before completion, and entered RCN service in 1965. Ojibwa operated primarily with Maritime Forces Atlantic until her decommissioning in 1998. In 2010, Ojibwa was laid up at CFB Halifax awaiting disposal, with the Elgin Military Museum planning to preserve her as a museum vessel. The submarine was towed to Port Burwell, Ontario in 2012, and was opened to the public in 2013. She is now the new focal point of a planned Museum of Naval History to be built alongside.
Port Stanley is a community in the Municipality of Central Elgin, Elgin County in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north shore of Lake Erie at the mouth of Kettle Creek. In 2016, it had a population of 2,148.
Kettle Creek is a creek in Elgin County in southwestern Ontario, Canada that empties into Lake Erie at Port Stanley. It drains an area of 520 square kilometres (200 sq mi). Dodd Creek is the major tributary.
Central Elgin is a township located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada in Elgin County on Lake Erie. It is part of the London census metropolitan area.
Mahlon Burwell was a surveyor and political figure in Upper Canada.
The Township of Norwich is a municipality located in Oxford County in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. At the centre of the Township of Norwich is the Town of Norwich. The preferred pronunciation of the town name is NOR-witch, which differs from the pronunciation NORR-ij used for the city of Norwich, England. The origin of Norwich, Ontario, is more likely Norwich in upper New York State, the area from which the pioneering families emigrated in the early 19th century, where the community was known as Norwichville.
Bayham is a municipality in the southeast corner of Elgin County, Ontario, Canada. It is south of the town of Tillsonburg and Oxford County.
The Elgin Military Museum is a privately-owned, not-for-profit local museum in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1982 to preserve and commemorate the contributions of Elgin County to broader Canadian military history, the Museum includes exhibits on the War of 1812, the First World War, the Cold War and the War in Afghanistan.
King's Highway 19, commonly referred to as Highway 19, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, connecting Highway 3 in Tillsonburg with Highway 401 southeast of Ingersoll. The highway began as the Plank and Gravel Road, a toll road formed by the Ingersoll and Port Burwell Road Company. It was first assigned in 1930. Several extensions in the early 1930s took the route north to Highway 86 at Tralee. However, a significant amount of Highway 19 was decommissioned and turned over to local and county governments in 1997 and 1998.
Lake Erie Basin consists of Lake Erie and surrounding watersheds, which are typically named after the river, creek, or stream that provides drainage into the lake. The watersheds are located in the states of Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the United States, and in the province of Ontario in Canada. The basin is part of the Great Lakes Basin and Saint Lawrence River Watershed, which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean. 80% of the lake's water flows in from the Detroit River, with only 9% coming from all of the remaining watersheds combined. A littoral zone serves as the interface between land and lake, being that portion of the basin where the lake is less than 15 feet (4.6 m) in depth.
South-West Oxford is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario, located within Oxford County. The township had a population of 7,664 in the 2016 Canadian census. A predominantly rural municipality, South-West Oxford was formed in 1975 through the amalgamation of Dereham and West Oxford townships and the village of Beachville.
Port Burwell Marine Museum and Historic Lighthouse is a historical museum in Port Burwell, Ontario, Canada. Located at the mouth of the Big Otter Creek on Lake Erie, the museum and lighthouse reflect upon when Port Burwell was at the height of its fame as a shipbuilding community.
Port Talbot was the name of a community located west of Port Stanley, about one hour's drive south from London, Ontario, Canada, where Talbot Creek flows into Lake Erie. The village was the original commercial nucleus for the settlement which developed on 5,000 acres (20 km²) of land granted to Thomas Talbot in 1800 by the Crown along the northwestern shore of Lake Erie. The settlement was one of the most prosperous of its time in Upper Canada, noted for its good roads, with Talbot keeping out land speculators and securing hard-working settlers. Talbot's authoritarian control of the settlers led to conflicts with the Executive Council of Upper Canada and a reduction in his powers.
Norfolk County in the Canadian province of Ontario consists of a long list of communities. Its four designated population centres are Simcoe, Port Dover, Delhi, and Waterford.
Ashtabula was a train ferry that traveled between Ashtabula, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie, to Port Burwell, Ontario, on the north shore. Ashtabula was built in 1906, at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in St. Clair, Michigan, to transport ore and coal cars. She sank on 18 September 1958 after colliding with the steamer Ben Moreell.
Big Otter Creek is a waterway that empties into Lake Erie at Port Burwell, Ontario. It is 42 kilometres (26 mi) long, and the area of its drainage basin is 712 square kilometres (275 sq mi). The creek's headwaters are north of the Horseshoe Moraine, and its mouth is just west of the Long Point Conservation Area. Scenic bluffs line the valley as it passes through the moraine.
The St. Thomas Moraine is an east-west glacial moraine considered one of the Horseshoe Moraines. It formed at the time of Lake Maumee II filled part of the basin of what is now Lake Erie. Other portions of the basin were filled by a lobe of the Laurentian icesheet, known as the Erie Lobe. The moraine is approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) long, and 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) wide, running parallel to the shore of Lake Erie, about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) inshore.
Sunk in collision with steamer BEN MOREELL in harbor at Ashtabula, Ohio, September 18, 1958.
Coordinates: 42°38′48″N80°48′10″W / 42.64667°N 80.80278°W
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