Heritage

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If you know where the Port Bruce Cemetery is located, on the 6th Concession of the former Bruce Township, you will know that the area down by the Lake Huron shoreline is called Baie du Dore.

It's worth the time to take a visit to this site and stroll along the water for a moment or two.

The Bruce Township Historical Society erected a marker at the site in 1995, with the assistance of the Ontario Heritage Foundation.

The marker reads as follows:

Baie du Dore

In the early days of settlement, two villages developed around the natural harbour of this bay. Port Bruce, which occupied this area, and Malta, to the north, were both surveyed in 1856.

Port Bruce grew to 150 people and boasted a hotel, tavern, sawmill and store. 

Just across the town line in Malta, a large wharf was used for shipping local goods such as timber, hemlock bark (tanbark), lime from nearby lime kilns, cedar posts, grain, fish and cord wood for steamships. 

Malta (population 125) had a store, sawmill and the local post office. One of the merchants owned a warehouse that stored 10,000 bushels of grain.

In 1862 a disastrous swamp fire forced residents to take to their boats and flee the bay. Both villages were destroyed. Villagers who returned relocated inland.

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010