Ontario, Oregon
Ontario was founded on June 11, 1883, by developers William Morfitt, Mary Richardson, Daniel Smith, and James Virtue. In March 1884, Richard Welch started a post office for the quarter of Ontario, so named by James Virtue after Ontario, Canada. Two months later Joseph Morton applied for a Morton post office at an island about one mile south of town, with Oscar Scott as postmaster. Unfortunately for Morton and Scott, merchants Morfitt and Richardson of Malheur City, gold miner Virtue, and lumberman Smith of Baker City acquired more land and were better financed. More importantly, Morfitt had negotiated a train depot for Ontario. All the settlers and speculators knew the railroad was coming and how important that would be to Ontario's future so Scott closed his Morton post office and built a hotel at present-day Ontario. By December, Scott was Ontario's postmaster.
Cornwall, Ontario
"Canada" had been stripped from France after the Seven Years' War, and this included roughly the areas now covered by the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, the British authorities split the Province of Canada in 1791 into two, Upper Canada for English settlers fleeing persecution in the United States and Lower Canada for the French (later, Ontario and Quebec). This was designed to accommodate Loyalists who had fled post-war reprisals and persecution in the new United States, though the 5,000 English-speaking settlers in the Eastern Township of Quebec were allowed to stay in the French-speaking area and many French settlers moved into Ontario. Along with the area's original inhabitants, this made the area a patchwork of intersecting ethnicities that would end up blending to a great degree. Cornwall and the surrounding area, originally called "Royal Settlement #2" and then "New Jamestown", was initially a rough place and was largely left to its own devices. According to contemporary reports, this bred a local culture of intense self-reliance. Adding to this initial history of pragmatic entrepreneurialism, beginning very early with the founding of the city, provincial and federal governments have typically neglected the area, treating it as little more than a transit corridor. Those who remained in the region tended to be those who had the fortitude and energy to survive on their own, with little outside assistance.