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.
Orangeville, Ontario
After the decimation and dispersal of the Huron, Petún, and Neutral people of southern Ontario, Algonkian peoples from northern Ontario moved into the area at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, while members of the Three Fires Confederacy (Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi) moved into southern Ontario from Ohio and Michigan in the late 1700s. During the pre-confederation Treaty era, Anishinaabe or Chippewa First Nations signed Treaty #18 on Oct 17th, 1818, which included the Dufferin County area. Today, the descendants of Petún call themselves Wyandotte, and despite the 350 years since their displacement from southern Ontario, and despite the heteroglot and diasporic nature of their contemporary communities (located in Oklahoma, Michigan, Kansas, and Quebec), they continue to recognize their shared history and are united through a modern-day Wyandotte Confederacy.
The first patent of land was issued to Ezekiel Robinson, a land surveyor, on August 7, 1820. That was followed by land issued to Alan Robinet in 1822. In 1863, Orangeville was named after Orange Lawrence, a businessman born in Connecticut in 1796 who owned several mills in the village. As a young man, he moved to Canada and settled in Halton County. During Mackenzie's rebellion in 1837, he was a captain in the militia. Lawrence purchased the land that became Orangeville from Robert Hughson. Orange Lawrence committed suicide December 15, 1861. In 1873, the Act of Incorporation was passed and Orangeville was given town status on January 1, 1874. The public library, located at Broadway and Mill Street, was completed in 1908. Andrew Carnegie, well-known businessman and philanthropist, provided financial assistance for its construction.