The Founding of New Hamburg

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted March, 2004

Photo by contributor Wayne Adam - Posted June, 2011

Plaque Location

The Region of Waterloo
The Township of Wilmot
In New Hamburg, on the south side of Huron Street
at Union Street just east of the Nith River Bridge

Coordinates: N 43 22.689 W 80 42.717

Plaque Text

A grist-mill built by Josiah Cushman about 1834 formed the nucleus around which a small community of Amish Mennonites and recent German immigrants developed. A village plot was surveyed in 1845 and six years later a post-office, New Hamburg, was established with William Scott, an early mill-owner, as postmaster. By then the village, with a population of 500, contained several prosperous industries, including a pottery, and the carriage-works and foundry of Samuel Merner, a prominent Swiss-born entrepreneur. The construction of the Grand Trunk Railway, completed in 1856, and agricultural prosperity stimulated the community's development as an important centre for milling and farm machinery production. New Hamburg was incorporated as a Village, with about 1100 inhabitants, in 1857 and as a Town in 1966.

Related Ontario plaque
First Mennonite Settlement

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Settlements

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