Caledonia
Unincorporated community
Argyle Street
Motto:  Gateway to Haldimand County
Caledonia Show map of Ontario Caledonia Show map of Canada
Coordinates: 43°53′53.1″N 79°57′18.3″W / 43.898083°N 79.955083°W / 43.898083; -79.955083
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Regional Municipality	Haldimand County, Ontario
Government
• Mayor of Haldimand	Shelley Ann Bentley[2]
• Governing body	The Council of the Corporation of Haldimand County
• Ward 3 (Caledonia) Councillor	Dan Lawrence
• MP	Leslyn Lewis (Conservative)
• MPP	Bobbi Ann Brady (Independent)
Area
• Total	5.57 km2 (2.15 sq mi)
Elevation	206 m (676 ft)
Population  (2021)
• Total	12,179[1]
Demonym	Caledonian
Time zone	UTC−05:00 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−04:00 (EDT)
Forward sortation area	N3W
Area code	905 / 289 / 365

Caledonia is a community located on the Grand River in Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada. It had a population of 12,179^[1] as of the 2021 Canadian Census. Caledonia is within Ward 3 of Haldimand County. The Councillor elected for Ward 3 is Dan Lawrence. As of 2021, there were 4,310^[1] private dwellings in Caledonia.

Caledonia is located at the intersection of Highway 6 and Haldimand Highway 54 (within the town, these streets are called Argyle Street and Caithness Street respectively) on the Grand River.

History

Caledonia was once a small strip of land between Seneca and Oneida villages. The Oneida village was started by the Grand River Navigation Company, which laid out the village of Oneida on the south side of the Grand River. The Oneida village plot originally contained 16 acres and was named after the township where it began. In 1835, the same company started the village of Seneca about a mile down the river from Oneida on the opposite side of the Grand River. It was named "Seneca Village" after the township in which it began. The Grand River passed through Caledonia, dividing it into two sides, North and South. In 1834, Ranald McKinnon was hired by the Grand River Navigation Company to build a dam in Seneca and a dam in Caledonia. Completed in 1835, the dams made water power available with the accompanying lock, and excavation finished early in the following year.^[3] Mills sprung up all over Seneca village, and five mills were built in Caledonia by 1850. One was renamed Caledonia Mill, which has been rebuilt and is now used for office space.

In 1835, William Bryant was the first to own a tavern in town. Official deeds to the lands early settlers occupied were not provided until 1850; however, they did have bills of sale. There was a high concentration of Scottish immigrants, and as such, many of Caledonia's streets are named in honour of this. Most notably, the main street is named "Argyle" after the example of Glasgow in Scotland.

The Hamilton to Port Dover plank road was brought through Caledonia in 1838. A bridge was built across the river in Caledonia and Seneca in 1842. When first constructed, a stagecoach travelled to both Hamilton and Port Dover daily. These wooden bridges lasted around 19 years before the ice on the river swept them away. The Seneca Bridge was never rebuilt. As of 2011, the Grand River Bridge built in 1927 serves Caledonia's traffic.

In 1846, David Thompson of Ruthven became the first Member of Parliament for Haldimand County and died in office five years later in 1851. In the succeeding by-election, Ranald McKinnon ran for office but was ultimately defeated by William Lyon MacKenzie.^[3] In 1853, Caledonia was incorporated as a village, when the villages of Oneida and Seneca were amalgamated, and later as a town. Ranald McKinnon was the village's first Reeve.

By 1860, the Grand River Navigation Company was bankrupt, and their land was sold to different organizations. Seneca village was failing; many people from Seneca moved to Caledonia, and navigation on the river ended by 1880. A new way of transportation arrived around 1883; the Grand Trunk Railway passed through Caledonia. Oneida had become part of Caledonia, and the town limits were expanding.

In 1875 the Caledonia Dam was sold to milling companies in the area from the Haldimand Navigation company however several of those companies fell into hard times after a series of fires leveled many buildings in the area. McQuarry, Thorburn and Monroe went bankrupt by 1880, and the Caledonia Mill was taken over by Robert Shirra, which remained active until 1960.^[3]

A high school was built in 1924, remaining in use until 1991, when McKinnon Park Secondary School was constructed. It currently houses River Heights Public School. In 1927, the Grand River Bridge was built, unique as the only nine-span bridge of its kind in Canada and the first reinforced concrete bridge of its type ever constructed. During these years, the town also saw the opening of an Opera House and the construction of St. Paul's Anglican Church.^[3]

James Little, the founder of Haldimand House, ensured that the ongoing railroad project was routed through Caledonia instead of Cayuga and heavily influenced the town into bankrupting itself to ensure it happened. He became director of the line in 1873. The wooden railway bridge, a local landmark, spanned the Grand River and opened on September 22, 1873, allowing railway travel from Hamilton to Jarvis and later to Port Dover. A 'Railway Hotel' was built where the current train station sits, and after a series of detrimental fires, the current train station was opened on September 30, 1908. As new technology made the train station rather obsolete, it fell into a sad state of disrepair. It was only restored in November 1997 after a businessman, Ron Clark, saved the property.^[3]

In 2006, the Grand River land dispute involving First Nation land claims brought Caledonia to national attention. The land at the centre of the dispute in Caledonia covers 40 hectares, which Henco Industries Ltd. planned to develop as a residential subdivision to be known as the Douglas Creek Estates. It is part of the 385,000-hectare plot of land originally known as the "Haldimand Tract",^[4] which was granted, in 1784, by the Crown to the Six Nations of the Grand River, for their use in settlement. Henco argues that the Six Nations surrendered their rights to the land in 1841, and Henco later purchased it from the Crown. The Six Nations, however, maintain that their title to the land was never relinquished. The Grand River land dispute continued with 1492 Land Back Lane, protests occurring during 2020 and 2021.

Ranald McKinnon

McKinnon was born in Ardelum, Scotland, on September 11, 1801. He came to Masonville, New York in the United States of America with his paternal grandparents, Malcolm McKinnon, his wife and a number of siblings. He worked in Virginia and Kentucky until 1820, when the family moved to Trafalgar, Esquesing and Vaughan. At 24, he began working on the Rideau Canal System. On March 3, 1835, he married his first cousin, Euphemia McKinnon, who was 22 years old at the time. The pair would go on to have nine children.

McKinnon was very involved in the community. He was the Treasurer of the Presbyterian Church for a time. In 1850 he petitioned that Caledonia be made its own township that would be absorbed into the county of Wentworth but nothing came of this. He ran for Haldimand County's member of parliament as a conservative when the predecessor died in office in 1851 but lost the election. He became Caledonia's first Reeve shortly after in 1853.

After several financial setbacks due to numerous of his business ventures burning down, McKinnon found himself in hard times. One of the last acts of his life was about 1875, when he attempted to have a steel bridge replace the pre-existing wooden one. Ranald McKinnon ("Town Father" of Caledonia) died October 18th, 1879, at age 79.^[3]

Demographics

Ethnicity

Only those populations which compose more than 1% of the population have been included.

Language

As of the 2021 census, 11,510 citizens spoke English only, 10 spoke only French, 595 spoke both official languages, and 60 spoke neither.^[1]

Religion

As of the 2021 census, 6,725 citizens were identified as Christian, 405 people identified as Muslim and 4,695 as non-religious and secular perspectives.^[1]

Religious buildings in Caledonia include:

• Gateway Church
• St. Paul's Anglican Church
• Caledonia Presbyterian Church
• Caledonia Congregational Church
• Grace United Church
• St. Patrick's Catholic Church
• Caledonia Baptist Church

Government

The first Reeve of the village of Caledonia was Ranald McKinnon in 1853, and the town hall finished construction in 1858.

On April 1, 1974, the town was amalgamated into the new town of Haldimand within the Regional Municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk.^[10] Although the largest community in Haldimand, the town hall was located in nearby Cayuga. In 2001, Haldimand and all other municipalities within the region were dissolved, and the region was instead divided into two single-tier municipalities with city status but called counties. Caledonia is now an unincorporated community in Ward 3 of Haldimand County.

The current mayor of Haldimand County is Shelly Ann Bentley, and the elected councillor for Ward 3 (Caledonia) is Dan Lawrence.

Education

Public education in Caledonia is administered by the Grand Erie District School Board and the Catholic schools by the Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board. Schools located in Caledonia include:

• Caledonia Centennial Public School
• Oneida Central Public School^[11]
Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Caledonia,_Ontario
Text je dostupný za podmienok Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0 Unported; prípadne za ďalších podmienok. Podrobnejšie informácie nájdete na stránke Podmienky použitia.

---