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Ontario Tourism Region : Southwestern
Description From Owner:
- Pop. 344. In Dunwich T., Elgin C., on C. Rds. 3 & 8, 28 km SW of St. Thomas. The first settler, in 1819, was John Currie.
- For a time the place was known as Frogtown because of noisy denizens of the surrounding swamps, but in 1852 the post office was established as Wallacetown.
- Residents wanted the name Oakville, but it was already in use, so Wallacetown was suggested, honouring Sir William Wallace, the champion of Scottish independence.
- One of the sights in the Wallacetown area is St. Peter's Church, at nearby Tyrconnell. The Gothic Revival-style church was built in the middle of the original Talbot Settlement in 1827.
- The adjacent cemetery contains the graves of many early settlers, including Col. Thomas Talbot (1771-1853).
- Talbot first came to Canada in 1790 as a subaltern in the 24th Regiment of the British Army and two years later was appointed private secretary to Lt.-Col. John Graves Simcoe with whom he visited the western part of what is now Ontario.
- He returned to England in 1794, sold his army commission in 1802 and returned to Upper Canada.
- From the British government he obtained a grant of many thousands of acres, established himself at Port Talbot on L. Erie and founded the Talbot Settlement, of which the capital, St. Thomas, still bears his name.
- Many communities in the Cs. of Essex, Kent, Lambton, Norfolk, Oxford, Elgin and Middlesex owe their origin to his colonizing efforts. He ruled his vast territory in almost patriarchal state for nearly 50 years.
Address of this page: http://www.ruralroutes.com/wallacetown