Grey County was one of the last counties formed in Ontario. Once part of the Clergy Reserves, the unbroken forests that formed the Queen’s Bush were among the last available good farmland in the province. As the tide of immigration into Upper Canada swelled in the years following the War of 1812, the demand to open new lands for farming had to be met by the power that be.
By the 1830s, land surveyors had descended upon the 1,113,107 and a half acres of what would soon become Grey. Charles Rankin was the first in, surveying Collingwood Township in 1833. Sarawak, the last township to be divided into farm lots, was not surveyed until 1857.
By 1849, the provisional county of Grey had been made part of the older district of Waterloo. Three years later, the boundaries of a possible county had been adjusted several times with townships being traded or given away to Simcoe County. What was left were a handful of township including Sydenham, Artemesia, Derby, Egremont, Glenelg, Holland, Normanby, Osprey, Sullivan and Melancthon. Melancthon? You guessed right if this municipality seems foreign. It was transferred to the newly formed Dufferin County in 1881.
Named in honour of Henry George Grey, 3d Earl Grey and secretary for war and the colonies in the 1840s, the county adopted the crest of the House of Grey. But a name did not make it a county – not until a court house and jail could be built. Until then, Grey remained a part of Wellington County.
On April 15, 1852 the provisional council of Grey met in Jim Coleman’s tavern in the port village of Sydenham. The first order of the day was to elect a provisional warden and council. James Beachell of Normanby garnered enough votes to claim the top spot while John George Gale became the county clerk. The first excitement of the meeting came when Sydenham’s Thomas Lunn refused to take his seat, apparently over an issue related to the oath of office. By the end of the day, Grey County was on its way.
Originally aired October 28th 2016
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