Beaverton, Cannington and Sunderland, merged in 1973

Brock Township

A former British prime minister's name ended up on a small Ontario village almost by accident — one of three historic communities merged into Brock Township when Durham Region was created.

Mary Street at the bridge in Beaverton, Ontario, 1910
Beaverton, Ontario, 1910 — Wikimedia Commons, public domain

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The land that is now Brock Township was traditionally a hunting and fishing ground for First Nations people, part of the Williams Treaty Territories of the Mississaugas and Chippewas. Cannington, one of the township's communities, was first settled in 1833 and originally known as McCaskill's Mills after a local mill-owning family; when a post office opened in 1849, the settlement was renamed Cannington after former British prime minister George Canning.

Amalgamation into Durham Region

Beaverton, at the mouth of the Beaver River, grew into the township's largest urban centre. Cannington separated from Brock Township in 1878 when it was incorporated as its own village. The modern Brock Township was created through the Regional Municipality of Durham Act in 1973, which amalgamated the former townships of Brock and Thorah with the villages of Beaverton and Cannington and the police village of Sunderland.

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