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The Founding of Colborne

Photo by Alan L Brown - May, 2004

Plaque Location

The County of Northumberland
The Township of Cramahe
In Colborne, in a park on the east side of Toronto Street
just north of King street

Coordinates: N 44 00.328 W 77 53.324

Plaque Text

A store established here about 1819 by Joseph Abbott Keeler, a prominent early settler, provided the nucleus around which a small community began to develop. Within ten years a distillery and a blacksmith's shop had been erected. The settlement, named Colborne reputedly after Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne, soon emerged as a service centre for the surrounding region and, with the establishment of a harbour nearby for the shipment of lumber and grain, it prospered. By 1846 it contained a foundry, a pottery, six stores, three churches, a number of tradesmen and artisans and some 400 residents. The arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway in 1856 spurred further growth and three years later Colborne, with a population of about 800, was incorporated as a village.

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