Heritage Points of Interest

Township of Woolwich

Introduction

In 2005 the Province amended the Heritage Act and, among other changes, created the ability for municipalities to make a register of properties that have the potential to be designated under the Heritage Act.

A property can be listed or designated. A listed property is identified as a property that has been identified as having potential to be a designated property but needs to be reviewed in greater detail to determine if designation should take place. A designated property is one that is protected and modifications will need municipal approval to ensure protection of the heritage elements.

Woolwich established a Heritage Committee in 2015.

Designated Properties

Listed Properties

Bridges

West Montrose Cultural Heritage Landscape

The Township recognizes that Ontario’s long-term prosperity, environmental health, and social well-being depend on protecting natural heritage, water, agricultural, mineral and cultural heritage and archaeological resources for their economic, environmental and social benefits.

Boundary for the West Montrose Cultural Heritage Landscape

The West Montrose Cultural Heritage Landscape is significant because it is valued for the important contribution it makes to our understanding of the history of a place, a series of events, and a people.

It is made up of a grouping of individual heritage features including:

Pioneer Settlement – Scottish and Mennonite settlement of Woolwich Township
Transportation – Bridges; and,
Lifeways – Old Order Mennonite Culture.

Ghost Communities

Once thriving communities in Woolwich dwindled into non-existence over decades. Some vanished entirely; others were absorbed into nearby settlements. Learning about our communities' past, offers a glimpse of what these abandoned places once were, even if there's not much to look at now.

Bristow's Corners

Buehler's Corners (Wagner's Corners, Wakeford Corners)

Buehler’s Corners was located in Woolwich Township at the junction of roads leading to St. Jacobs, Heidelberg and Waterloo. This ghost town, names after the family whose property was located at the corner of the junction, was settled by Pennsylvania-German Mennonites in the 1830s. Although there was a blacksmith shop and a sawmill to the west along Heidelberg Road, there was no real substantial settlement at the corners.

Colbornesburg

Colbornesburg, established around 1830 near what is today, Winterbourne, was the first black settlement in what would become Woolwich Township. These black settlers, mostly from Ohio, had fled from the threat, or actuality, of being enslaved in the United States. This Ohio group, led by Paola Brown and Charles Jackson, arrived at Crook’s Tract near Winterbourne. After some difficulty, they managed to buy some undeveloped land. By 1832 Colbornesburg was a 34-person community composed of nine households. Within two years, most of the settlers from Colornesburg, including Paola Brown, left for other areas in the province. Most notably, several families moved to the Queen’s Bush, the southern periphery of unclaimed government land that lay 29 km north of the village of Waterloo. Over time, settlers spread along an area on the boundary of modern-day Wellesley and Peel Townships, establishing centres in Hawkesville and Wallenstein.

Crowsfoot Corners

Located on the township line between Woolwich and Waterloo Townships, Crowsfoot Corners was located on the main north-south road that travelled through Breslau and Bloomingdale, to Elora in Wellington County. At the township line, another road forked off north-west towards the village of Conestogo. This intersection was Crowsfoot Corners, known as the site of Ebenezer Chapel, one of the earliest United Brethren churches in the county. However, the church was later relocated to Bloomingdale. The Crowsfoot Corners settlement boundary is still recognized on most township and regional maps to this day.

Freiburg

A crossroads hamlet just west of New Germany (Maryhill) in the former Waterloo Township, Freiburg (“free hill” in German) was at the junction of present-day St. Charles Street West and Shantz Station Road. Established around 1840, Freiburg was originally called Rumbach Corners after the first entrepreneur in the area, Ferdinand Rumbach. For a couple of years, he carried stock of mercantile effects (needles, pins, and other odds and ends) in a large box strapped over his shoulders. He later owned a two-storey brown log hotel called the Temperance House, a store, and an assembly hall on the north side of St. Charles St W. A post office operated here from about 1847-1852 before it moved to New Germany. Freiburg gradually declines as New Germany grew larger.

Jacobstettel

*Known today as St Jacobs.

Kossuth

Located north of Hespeler, along the road from Preston to Guelph, Kossuth sat at present day junction of Kossuth Road and Shantz Station Road. Its crossroad function was most important during the construction of the Grand Trunk Railway in the mid-1850s. Its hotel served teamsters hauling loads of limestone and other construction supplies from the Speed River. When railway building concluded, Kossuth lost significance but remained to serve the needs of a large rural population. A distinctive industry was the manufacturing of sulphur matched by the Zyrd family. The town also boasted a tavern, two grocers, a pottery, a post office, a hotel, a shoemaker, a saddle maker, and a blacksmith.

North Waterloo (Sandytown)

Located at the junction of present-day Arthur Street North and Sandy Hills Road in Woolwich Township, North Woolwich was the location of a short-lived post office. This post office was secured for that area by William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Member of Parliament for Waterloo North in 1908. The post office closed shortly after, in 1913. A Mennonite meeting house, a Baptist church, and an Evangelical Association church (later known as United Church of Canada) were built in the area during the 1850s. Nearby Sandytown, also a short-lived hamlet, supplied some amenities to residents of the North Woolwich area.

Riverbank

One of the earliest schools in Waterloo County, Riverbank School, was established in 1832 at the present-day junction of Riverbank Road and Fountain Street. In its early years, it was called the High Banks School, and later, Waterloo Township S.S. No. 15 schoolhouse, around 1870. The school closed amid some controversy in 1960, and for a brief time was used as the headquarters of the Waterloo County Library.

Shantz (Shantz Station)

Located in present day Woolwich Township on Shantz Station Road near the intersection with Victoria Street North, Shantz was founded on the farm of Samuel Y. Shantz in 1855. Samuel, his wife Esther, and their twelve children, lived on the farm between 1846 and 18676. The Grand Trunk Railway was built through Shantz farm in 1856 but hoped for a railway station (and subsequent plans for a village) did not materialize. However, an early post office operated there from 1859 to 1863. There was also a hotel for a few years, a Lutheran church, and two stores including Schilling’s, which lasted many years. Three schoolhouses were successively in use, starting with log buildings in 1843 and 1853. A stone building followed in 1894, with a second room added I n1955. The schoolhouse closed in 1965 for general education classrooms, but it held special education classes until 1968, when the building was closed.

Weissenburg

Established approximately 1875, Weissenburg (“white hill” in German was located at the present-day crossroads of Line 86 and Sideroad 16. The population of Weissenburg was about 100 people in 1910, and it had daily stagecoach service. Pioneer farmers and wagon drivers travelling between Woolwich Township and Guelph would stop at Weissenburg to water their horses and refresh themselves at one of the two hotels, or to visit the blacksmith shop. Weissenburg’s main industries included the tavern, blacksmith shop, grocery store, two hotels and a school. A post office operated in the town from 1875 to 1913.

West Montrose Station

Zuber Corners

Established approximately 1870, Zuber Corners was located to the east of West Montrose at the intersection of present-day Line 86 and Zuber Road (Road 23) in Woolwich Township. The Zuber family was one of the founders of New Germany in the 1830s. Zuber Corners, and areas to its east, were settled by Roman Catholics. It was the location of an inn/general store and a stone school, built in 1874, to replace the one at West Montrose which was subject to yearly flooding. The school remained open until 1967.