Third-busiest lake port in Ontario, in 1851
Whitby
Long before it was a Toronto commuter suburb, Whitby was a serious 19th-century grain-shipping port — ranked third among all lake ports in Ontario for U.S. exports.
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Whitby, in Durham Region just east of Oshawa, has a much more substantial 19th-century economic history than its current identity as a Toronto commuter suburb suggests.
A harbour town before it was a commuter town
Whitby Township was surveyed in 1792, but its real economic engine was its natural Lake Ontario harbour, from which farmland grain began shipping out in 1833. By 1851, Whitby ranked third among all Ontario lake ports in exports to the United States, trailing only Kingston and Toronto itself — a genuinely serious trade hub for a small township.
Named for an English coastal town
Like several places in this guide, Whitby takes its name from England — a coastal town whose own name has Danish Viking-era origins, roughly translating to "village of white houses." The Ontario town was incorporated in 1855, three years after being chosen as the seat of the newly formed County of Ontario.
From port town to GTA suburb
As rail gradually replaced lake shipping as the dominant regional trade route through the late 19th and 20th centuries, Whitby's harbour-driven economy faded, and the town evolved into the residential commuter community it is today — connected to Toronto via the same GO Transit Lakeshore East line serving the rest of Durham Region.
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