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How Middlesex County Was Settled With Farmers, Artisans, And Capitalists: An Account Of The Canada Land Company In Promoting Emigration From The British Isles In The 1830s Through The 1850s, Marvin L. Simner

History eBook Collection

The need to attract settlers to Southwestern Ontario in the 1830s resulted, at least in part, from a growing fear that if the land bordering Lake Erie remained largely unoccupied it could be absorbed into regions to the south of the Great Lakes and ultimately become part of the United States. Indeed, this fear was not unfounded. As late as 1827 the overall population of Middlesex County, which at the time reached Lake Erie and was somewhat larger in area than today, was only 9,838 (History of the County of Middlesex, 1889). In addition, there was considerable sympathy among certain …