 Kars was originally named Wellington Village.In 1857, to distinguish it from another settlement called Wellington in Prince Edward County because mail intended for one often went to the other, the village was renamed Kars - a name chosen to commemorate the Canadian-born General William Fenwick Williams who had undertaken in the siege of the town of Kars for the Ottoman Empire against the Russian Empire.By 1866, Kars was a post village with a population of 200 of the township of North Gower, on the Rideau River, one mile from the line of the Ottawa and Prescott Railway.