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.
Ancaster, Ontario
The creation of the Upper and Lower Canadian provinces (colonies) from the division of the Province of Quebec (1763–1791) colony by the Parliament of Great Britain's Constitutional Act of 1791 had a deciding influence on the timing of the founding of Ancaster. At its inception, Upper Canada was only sparsely settled (unlike the more established Lower Canada) and its land had not been officially surveyed to any great extent. Thus, there was an urgency by the then Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada John Graves Simcoe to survey this new and relatively barren province for establishing military roads and for preventing settlers from clearing and settling land not legally belonging to them. Predating Upper Canada, however, the earliest European settlers to arrive and clear land in the mid-18th century in what would eventually become Ancaster were mostly a wilderness society made up of American farmers travelling north searching for arable land and to a lesser extent French-speaking fur traders and British immigrants travelling southward. Also arriving into this area again travelling north in substantial numbers around 1787 with the incentive of inexpensive land grants were the United Empire Loyalists still loyal to the British crown who were fleeing from the United States after the 1776 American War of Independence. Britain's promise of free land brought many people from the new republic to the south and east, who did not exhibit the same loyalty to the crown as the Loyalists. This would eventually lead to a series of defections, accusations and treasonous acts during the War of 1812 that precipitated the largest mass hangings in Canadian history, the so-called Bloody Assizes whose trial took place in Ancaster in 1814. When Upper Canada was invaded by the United States during the War of 1812 its occupants were primarily of American ancestry. However, after the war the province would have a noticeably more British-centered influence. Britain expected its colonies to purchase all essential finished goods needed for day-to-day living from the mother country in exchange for raw materials such as fur and lumber. However, this 'arrangement' naturally proved to be very inefficient and impractical in practice so waterwheels, mills and factories soon hurriedly evolved in favourable towns in Upper Canada that had abundant water power, fertile soil, and good transportation access such as Ancaster that could then provide the new settlers with a good measure of self-sufficiency.