The Township of North Huron is a municipality in Huron County, Ontario, Canada. It was formed on January 1, 2001, when the former township of East Wawanosh was merged with the village of Blyth and the town of Wingham, as part of a province-wide municipal amalgamation imposed by the Government of Ontario.
Communities Besides the town of Wingham and the village of Blyth, the township of North Huron comprises a number of villages and hamlets, including:
Former Wawanosh East Township: - Belgrave, Blyth, Whitechurch, Wingham; Auburn; Donnybrook, Fordyce, Hutton Heights, Marnock, Westfield
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History Indigenous people's presence in North Huron has been recorded long before European settlers arrived in the 1830s. The largest part of the township - East Wawanosh - is named after Chippewa Chief Wawanosh who signed an 1825 land use treaty. Arrowheads and other indigenous artifacts have been found by East Wawanosh farmers since European settlement.
Wawanosh was originally the largest township in Huron County, with 85,640 acres. According to an early land assessment, there were 133 residents in 1844 and 87 acres of land cultivated. In 1850, an acre of land cost 8 shillings. Within 20 years, the population grew to 3,151 residents, with 12,000 acres cleared.
In 1866, Wawanosh was divided into two separate townships - East Wawanosh and West Wawanosh, which is now part of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh township.
By 1869, Belgrave was a village with a population of 50 in the Township of Morris County, Huron. It was established on the Maitland River. It was a stop on the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway. There were stages to Wingham, Teeswater, Riversdale and Kincardine. The average price of land was $20.The province of Ontario gazetteer and directory. H. McEvoy Editor and Compiler, Toronto : Robertson & Cook, Publishers, 1869
More than 20 schools have existed in North Huron. From the 1850s to 1960s, more than a dozen rural school houses educated the children of East Wawanosh. In 1967, East Wawanosh Public School was opened and taught hundreds of children from Kindergarten to Grade 8. The school closed in 2012, with remaining students sent to Wingham.
Demographics In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, North Huron had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
+ Age distribution (2016) 0-14 15-64 65+ Total Total 885 3,055 995 4,930 Male 460 1,505 470 2,435 Female 430 1,545 525 2,495 Source: Stats Canada
Notable people Former residents include: Alice Munro - writer Jo Manning - artist George Agnew Reid - painter
See also List of townships in Ontario
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