Gilberts: Many Baldoon settlers played role in founding Wallaceburg |
We continue our series on the book Kentiana with Chapter 7, Beginning of Settlement on the Sydenham, by Victor Lauriston.
Almost a year ago, we started working through the book Kentiana, in what I call a sometimes series. This week, we look at Chapter 7, Beginning of Settlement on the Sydenham, by Victor Lauriston. It focuses on two settlements, Wallaceburg and Dawn Mills, and we will discuss the first of these this week.
Wallaceburg, of course, wasn’t the pioneer settlement in that part of Kent. We discussed the Baldoon Settlement extensively earlier in this series. Land chosen for Baldoon was much too swampy and unsuitable for farming. So eventually, some settlers found their way to higher ground, and to the junction of the Sydenham River’s east and north branches, known as the Forks.
Lauriston tells us about Hugh McCallum, a Baldoon settler he says moved to the Forks in 1832. He’d been a militia officer during the War of 1812, and was a dominant figure in early Wallaceburg. He had the first post office and changed the name........