Whitby History

Whitby, a town in the Durham Region, is situated in Southern Ontario, west of Oshawa, east of Ajax, on Lake Ontario’s north shore. It’s also the home to Durham Region’s headquarters. As of 2016, it had a popular of approximately 128, 377 and it’s about 20 kilometers ease of Toronto borough of Scarborough. This is also renowned as a commuter suburb in GTA’s eastern part. While Whitby’s southern portion is an economic hub and predominantly urban, the municipality’s northern part is more rural as well as includes the communities of Brooklin, Ashburn, Myrtle Station, and Myrtle.

Township of Whitby

Town of Whitby or Whitby Township was named after Whitby, Yorkshire, England, which is a seaport town. Aside from Whitby, Yorkshire, Whitby was officially twinned with Feldkirch, Austria, and Longueuil, Quebec.

Originally, when the township was surveyed in the year 1972, the surveyor who is from England’s northern part, named the township east of Toronto after the towns in northeastern England, which include Darlington, Whitby, Pickering, Scarborough, and York. Basically, Whitby’s original name is Danish, which dated from 867 AD when Danes invaded Britain. It’s a contraction of Whitteby that means White Village. The allusion might refer to the white lighthouse found on the pier at the town of Whitby, Yorkshire and in Whitby, Ontario. Even if the settlement dates back to the year 1800, it wasn’t until the year 1836 that the downtown business center was established by Peter Perry, the founder of Whitby.

The chief asset of Whitby was the fine natural harbor on the Lake Ontario from which farmland from the grain to the north was shipped first in the year 1833. In the 1840s, the road was constructed from the Whitby Harbour to Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe to bring settlement and trade through the harbor and from the wealthy hinterland to the north.

Whitby’s town was selected as the seat of the government for County of Ontario, which was newly formed in the year 1852, as well as incorporated in the year 1855. The Whitby Township’s remainder remained a municipality, even if the eastern half that surrounds Oshawa was incorporated as new Township of the East Whitby back in the year 1857. In 1870s railway, Port Perry Railway and Port Whitby were built from Whitby harbor to the Port Perry and extended to Lindsay later and the name was Whitby, Port Perry, and Lindsay Railway.

In addition to that, Whitby is also the place of Trafalgar Castle School, which is a private school for girls that was founded in the year 1874. The institution was built as an Elizabethan-style castle as a private residence for Ontario County’s Sheriff. It is also a significant architectural landmark and the only provincial historic place in Whitby that marked with a plaque.

During World War II, Whitby was the place of Camp X, which is a secret training facility for spies. This was established by the Man Called Intrepid, which is Sir William Stephenson. Even if the buildings were already demolished, there’s a monument that was unveiled on Camp X’s site in the year 1984.