page_title: Port Burwell, Ontario
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Port Burwell, Ontario / History
caption_attribution_description: [McConnell Nursery Co. Ltd. materials]
context_page_description: Port Burwell is a community on the north shore of Lake Erie, in the Municipality of Bayham in Elgin County, Ontario, Canada.
  It is situated at the mouth of Big Otter Creek, which stretches more than forty miles north through Bayham to Tillsonburg and Otterville, and with the harbour at Port Burwell was of historic importance in the development of landlocked Oxford County.
context_section_description: In 1810, besides finishing a government contract for the survey of a large part of what became known as the Talbot Road in response to petitions from land grant recipient Colonel Thomas Talbot, Mahlon Burwell (1783–1846) received instructions to survey the vacant land between Houghton and Yarmouth townships, and to divide it into two townships, under the names of Malahide and Bayham. The work was done and in 1811, Malahide and Bayham were made part of the county of Middlesex. In making this survey, Burwell selected for himself a block of land in Bayham at the mouth of Big Otter Creek, the site of what became Port Burwell.
  Writing of that region to the Surveyor General in June 1815, he said "Otter creek discharges more Water than all the small Rivers which disembogue themselves into the North side of lake Erie excepting the Grand River. When a few drifts are cleared out of it, Boats may descend from the Mills in Norwich [at what is now Otterville, in Oxford County] to its mouth, at almost any Season of the year. There are beautiful Groves of White Pine Timber, on each side of the Creek, interspersed with Groves of other Timber, alternately; there is therefore no doubt, but what ere long considerable quantities of Lumber will be conveyed down that stream, from Norwich and other places to the Lake. It would appear as if Nature had intended the mouth of Big-Otter Creek for a place of greater importance than any other in the District of London. In my mind it is highly probable that such will be the case before many years. I am about to lay out what Land I own on the East side of the mouth in a Town Plot." He urged the government to use an adjacent lot held as a reserve for the same purpose, and "if it should meet with the approbation of His Excellency the Provisional Lieutenant Governor, it would much facilitate the future growth of that part of the Province, to have it laid out by the Government, for a Town at the mouth of Big Otter Creek."
  Nothing was done by the government, but Burwell and his family kept up interest in the development opportunity at the mouth of Otter Creek and the potential water route north into Oxford County, particularly as Mahlon Burwell served as the elected representative for Oxford and Middlesex from 1812 to 1820.  Although he had ownership of the township lots on both sides of the creek mouth – lots 10 and 11 in concession 1 of Bayham township – he needed lot 12 as well to form the village site, and it was a lot reserved by the government under the Clergy Reserve system.  Burwell was able to lease the lot in 1818, but it was another twelve years before he could purchase it.  He finally opened up a town plot on his land in 1830 that became known as Port Burwell.  His brother John petitioned the government in 1848 to improve the harbour, and to add Bayham to Oxford County so it would have a waterfront port, and to build a road north into Oxford from Port Burwell.  The government again did not agree, but the Legislative Assembly passed legislation giving special powers to a new harbour company in 1849, and a private company was formed to build the road.  Known as the Ingersoll and Port Burwell Plank and Gravel Road, it was completed in 1852 and was the basis for what eventually became Ontario Highway 19, stretching from Port Burwell north through the length of Oxford County to St Marys at the south end of Perth County.
   
  In time Port Burwell became a shipbuilding and fishery harbour and the export point for lumber and farm produce from the surrounding townships and a large portion of Oxford County, boosted by construction of roads and railway lines.  One of these, the Tillsonburg, Lake Erie & Pacific Railway, formed by a group of Tillsonburg businessmen, recognized the harbour's potential to receive coal from Pennsylvania for use in Oxford County and elsewhere, and pushed for a railway car ferry service across Lake Erie.  Port Burwell's harbour was improved for this purpose in 1903, the Ashtabula railcar ferry began operating between Ashtabula, Ohio and Port Burwell to haul coal, and the rail line w
caption: McConnell Nursery Catalogue 1919.  By 1968, the company was mailing out a million copies of its annual catalogue nation-wide to support its mail-order business.
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