Almonte, Mississippi Mills, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada

Notes:
Almonte (/'?lm?nt/ AL-mont; Spanish: [al'monte]) is a former mill town in Lanark County, in the eastern portion of Ontario, Canada. Formerly a separate municipality, Almonte is a ward of the town of Mississippi Mills, which was created on January 1, 1998, by the merging of Almonte with Ramsay and Pakenham townships.[2] Almonte is 46 kilometres (29 mi) south-west of downtown Ottawa. Its population as recorded in the 2016 Canadian Census was 5,039.[1]



History



Mississippi Mills Waterfalls

European settlement

Almonte's first European-bred settler was David Shepherd, who in 1818 was given 200 acres (0.81 km2) by the Crown to build and operate a mill. The site became known as Shepherd's Falls. That name was never official, however, and Shepherd sold his patent after his mill burned down. The patent's buyer, Daniel Shipman, rebuilt the mill and the settlement became known as Shipman's Mills by about 1821.[3]



Most of Shipman's Mills' early settlers were Scottish and later Irish. A textile town almost from the start, by 1850 it was the home of seven busy woollen mills. It was one of the leading centres in Canada West for the manufacture of woollen cloth. The construction of a railway line to Brockville stimulated the economic growth of Almonte. During this time of rapid expansion, the town changed its name from Shipman's Mills to Ramsayville, and then to Waterford.



In 1869, Almonte was a village with a population of 2,000 on the Mississippi River in the Township of Ramsay, County of Lanark. It was a station of the Brockville and Ottawa Railway.[4] By the 1870 the town had thirty stores and forty other businesses.[5] Almonte was incorporated as a village in 1871, and was incorporated as a town in 1880.[6]



On 10 September 1909 the town suffered a major fire, which destroyed several buildings on the main street and caused $75,000 dollars worth of damage.[

Latitude: 45.22629, Longitude: -76.19452

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