page_title: Wilno, Ontario
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Wilno, Ontario / History
caption_attribution_description: Rolling Madawaska hills along route # 60 Ontario, Wilno
context_page_description: The community of Wilno, Ontario is situated on the border of Killaloe, Hagarty and Richards and Madawaska Valley townships in Renfrew County, Ontario.
context_section_description: Wilno is the first and oldest Polish settlement in Canada. The original settlers in this area, circa 1858, were from the Kaszuby region Kashubian from the then Prussian area of Poland. They constitute an integral part of what has been called the Kashubian diaspora. One of the reasons they chose this area to settle was because of the landscape which reminded them of their original homes.
  Wilno's namesake was the city of Vilnius (Wilno in Polish), then in a Russian-occupied area of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, now capital of Lithuania, the birthplace of Reverend Ludwik Dembski, who was a prominent community spiritual leader and town founder, who would not have wanted the town named after himself. Therefore, the townsfolk, grateful for his contributions to their town, may have suggested the name of Wilno.
  The first church, known as St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, was built in 1875, destroyed by fire in 1936 and rebuilt as Saint Mary - Our Lady of Czestochowa. It is now known as St. Mary's Catholic Church. The first general store and post office was initially operated by Adam Prince (1855-1933) who became the community's first postmaster in 1885. The settlement was initially named Princetown before being renamed Wilno. Flora’s Store was started by Flora Bank in 1937; it was destroyed by fire in 1940 but rebuilt. The business went through several owners and changes but was closed down in 2015.
  In 1894 the Canadian Atlantic railroad arrived in the Madawaska Valley. Previously, John Rudolphus Booth's Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway ran through the town mainly serving the lumber industry. The first hotel near the Wilno rail station was the "Stopping Place"; a new owner added more rooms and a dining room, and re-named it the "Exchange Hotel". Subsequent owners modified the property and it became the "Wilno Tavern" in 1979 and the "Wilno Tavern Restaurant" more recently. The restaurant remained in operation as of 2020; Corinne Higgins has owned it since 1981.
  The former train route has now been redeveloped into a recreational path. Where the former train station was located, an early settler building and museum that present the early history of the town was built. The museum and open air wooden skansen (Swedish for "ethnographic museum") contain the history of the first Kashubian people as well as their immigration to Canada, freedom and eventually, after many hardships,  their settlement journey to the Wilno area. The Polish Kashub Heritage Museum & Skansen opened in 2002. It is open to visitors during July and August; in May, the annual Kashub Day event is held here.
   
  Other noted Kashubes include the Kashubian-Canadian priest and historian, Rev  Aloysius Rekowski (1921–2006) who was born and raised in Wilno  and, Martin Shulist, who talks of the traditions behind The Holy Crosses of Wilno and their significance to the settlers of this area. Every August in Wilno, Canada's Kashubian community celebrates their heritage.
  A professor of Slavic Languages, Jan L. Perkowski, reported on rumours of vampires in the Kashubian culture in a study completed in 1969, and published in a paper titled "Vampires, Dwarves, and Witches among the Ontario Kashubs". According to the professor, Kashubs call the vampire "vjeszczi or wupji" and he stated that the Ontario Kashubs believed that one "must open the tomb of the vampire at midnight, and drive a long nail into his forehead, or, better still, cut off his head with a sharp spade and put it between his feet...." In 1973, a Catholic priest in Wilno told a CBC journalist that "We get a big laugh out of it, we know the people who have manufactured the story just by reading it ... That nonsense of driving nails. My impression is that he probably stuck a microphone under their noses and to get rid of him they'd made up these tales". Kashubians in Wilno interviewed by another journalist in 2019 "vehemently [denied] that they still adhere to this medieval remnant of the Fatherland. What’s less ambiguous is that fact that there are some Ontarians do believe in vampires… some say, with good reas
caption: Rolling Madawaska Hills Hwy 60
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