Lakeshore is a municipality on

Lake St. Clair Lake St. Clair (french: Lac Sainte-Claire) is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. It was named in 1679 by French Catholic explorers after Saint Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day ...

, in Essex County, Ontario, Canada. It was incorporated in 1999 by amalgamating the Town of Belle River with the townships of Maidstone, Rochester, Tilbury North, and Tilbury West. It is the largest and the most populous municipality within Essex County. However, it is part of the Windsor census metropolitan area. Lakeshore has a significant concentration of

French Canadians French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...

and is one of only four communities in Southern Ontario (excluding Eastern Ontario) in which more than 5% (the provincial average) of the population is francophone. The others are Welland,

Pain Court Pain Court (often incorrectly spelled Paincourt) is a primarily French-speaking agricultural village in southwestern Ontario, Canada, in the municipality of Chatham-Kent. It was established in 1854, as one of the earliest French-speaking settleme ...

, and Penetanguishene. In the 2011 census, 7.7% of the population reported French as their mother tongue, and 17.2% reported knowledge of both official languages. Lakeshore also has a historic black community, along the Puce River, made up of descendants of refugee slaves from the South in the United States who immigrated to Canada for freedom, using the Underground Railroad network.

Communities

The Municipality of Lakeshore comprises the communities of Belle River, Comber, Deerbrook, Elmstead, Emeryville, Haycroft, Lighthouse Cove, North Woodslee, Pike Creek, Pleasant Park, Puce, Ruscom Station, South Woodslee, St. Joachim, Stoney Point, and Strangfield, as well as the far eastern section of

Tecumseh Tecumseh ( ; October 5, 1813) was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and ...

. A small portion of the township's easternmost area is considered by some to be part of Tilbury, although Tilbury proper is located in the neighbouring municipality of

Chatham-Kent Chatham-Kent ( 2021 population: 104,316)soybeans The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu and ...

and winter wheat. The

Comber Wind Farm The Comber Wind Farm is a 165.6 megawatt (MW) wind farm in Lakeshore, Ontario, consisting of 72 2.3 MW Siemens SWT 2.3 wind turbines with 101 meter diameter rotors. Construction was completed in January 2012. It is adjacent to the Gosfield Wind P ...

is also located here. As in the rest of Essex County and

Chatham-Kent Chatham-Kent ( 2021 population: 104,316)Thames River. The major transportation arteries through Lakeshore, including Highway 401, the Tecumseh Road, and County Roads 22, 42 and 46, all follow an east–west parallel toward Windsor and Detroit in the west and toward Chatham-Kent in the east. The only significant exception is Highway 77, which connects Leamington to Highway 401 via Staples.

History

Areas along

and the Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers were originally occupied by the Huron and Wyandot First Nations. Some French colonists associated with Fort Detroit and the fur trade settled in this area in the 18th century. Their descendants are known as Fort Detroit French. They also came from Sandwich, where colonists had developed farms at what was known as Petite Côte, a bend in the Detroit River. The coast of Lake St. Clair and lots fronting the Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers were first surveyed in 1793 by Patrick McKniff. The area was not fully divided into concessions and lots, however, until the rear lines of the townships and the Middle Road (today County Road 46) were surveyed by Mahlon Burwell in 1823. Land speculation was endemic in Essex County at that time, as in many other parts of Upper Canada. Much of the present town of Lakeshore was once owned by a single speculator, the fur trader John Askin: by 1797, he held 80 lots, concentrated primarily along the Pêche (Pike) Puce, Belle, and Ruscom rivers. From the 1840s, the town received numerous Irish immigrants, fleeing the Great Famine. Later additional waves of French Canadians migrated from Quebec. Development was slow until the construction of a series of railroads through the area. These include the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

, opened in 1854 and passing through Belle River, and the Canada Southern Railway (later owned by

New York Central The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

and Michigan Central), opened in 1872 and passing through Comber. These stimulated the settlement by new migrants from the East. Following the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act that abolished slavery in most of the British Empire, the Lakeshore region became one of several end points of the Underground Railroad, an informal network running from the South of the United States to help refugee slaves gain freedom. In 1851, the Refugee Home Society was founded in Detroit by Michigan and Ontario abolitionists. Under the direction of

Henry Walton Bibb Henry Walton Bibb (May 10, 1815 in Shelby County, Kentucky – August 1,1854 in Windsor) was an American author and abolitionist who was born a slave. Bibb told his life story in his narrative ''The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An America ...

, the society purchased scattered lots in and around Maidstone, Puce, and Belle River to resettle refugee blacks. Although Michigan was a free state, slavecatchers operated in Detroit to capture refugees for the high bounties offered under the

Fugitive Slave Act A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also know ...

of 1850. The two oldest communities in Lakeshore are Comber and Belle River. Samuel Taylor II, who developed and owned half the land west of main street, had part of his land laid out into village lots. This includes property that was donated to build two schools and two churches. It is due to his many contributions in the area that Taylor Avenue in Comber still exists today. Other landowners, including John Gracey and William MacDowell, two Scotch-Irish

Presbyterians Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

from Comber, Ireland followed suit. It was named after their home town in 1848 or 1850 when it was erected as a Police village.Map of "Tilbury West Township, Essex County 1880"
/ref> Belle River, named for the river where it developed, was incorporated as a village on November 26, 1874, but its origins can be traced to the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

Mission of St. Jude. The mission was founded in 1834 to serve the religious needs of the local population of French Catholics. The mission did not receive a resident pastor until 1857, after the Great Western Railway opened the area to large-scale immigration. Over the course of the 1870s, the town's population was tripled by an influx of settlers from the province of Quebec, sometimes referred to as Canadian French, in contrast to the Fort Detroit French. The earliest industries in the town were operated by Luc and Denis Ouellette, who established a sawmill and gristmill on opposite sides of the river. In 1881, the population of Comber was 250 and that of Belle River was 650. Stoney Point (french: Pointe-aux-Roches) was settled by 1851 and incorporated as a village in 1881, at which time it had a population of 375. The church of St. Joachim, which became the centre of the village of the same name, was completed in 1882 and enlarged in 1891. It was established to serve the needs of French Catholics in the area along the Ruscom River, who were distant from the existing parishes in Belle River and Stoney Point. Belle River was well known for bootlegging during

Prohibition in the United States In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a Constitution of the United States, nationwide constitutional law prohibition, prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtai ...

. The Wellington hotel, once located on Notre Dame, the town's main street, exported alcohol to the United States. Owners and residents of many American-owned cottages on Charron Beach Road also participated in bootlegging liquor. In the 1920s, James Scott Cooper, a well-known local entrepreneur and bootlegger, built mansions from his profits in Walkerville and Belle River. The Cooper Court Motel and Bar in Belle River, built in 1920, still operates today. Cooper was a philanthropist and contributed greatly to the construction of Belle River's first high school in 1922, St. James High School; it was named informally to honour Cooper's generosity. The building still stands today, housing the local Canadian Legion on Notre Dame Street.

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; french: Statistique Canada), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and cultur ...

, Lakeshore had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

Economy

Lakeshore's economy is based primarily on agriculture and manufacturing. Over 27% of the workforce is employed in the manufacturing sector. The prominence of manufacturing is an outgrowth of the town's proximity to Windsor and Detroit, the historic centre of North American automobile production. The economy of Lakeshore remains closely tied to that of Windsor: more than 50% of the town's total workforce is employed in Windsor. In recent years, important developments in renewable energy, particularly in wind power, have taken place in the town. It is the site of the 72- turbine

Sports

The community's hockey team is the two-time defending Stobbs Division Champions Lakeshore Canadiens, who play in the Provincial Junior Hockey League. The youth sports teams are Belle River Jr. Canadiens (Hockey), Lakeshore Lightning (Girls Hockey), Belle River Braves (Baseball) and Belle River F.C. (Soccer). Belle River is the birthplace of retired NHL player Tie Domi, and NHL player Aaron Ekblad was raised in Belle River. Since 1989, Belle River has been known as the "Jet Ski Capital of Canada" due to the numerous personal watercraft riders and racers in the town, many of whom are American visitors. In the past, the community's racing team was named after the URL
www.belleriverbia.com
To this day there continues to be an annual event hosted by The CAN AM Watercross Tour in honour of the sport in conjunction with the town's annual Sunsplash Festival.

Gallery

File:Lighthousecove(lighthouse).jpg, Thames River Lighthouse in Lighthouse Cove File:St Joachim ON.JPG, St. Joachim File:Woodslee United Church.jpg, Church in South Woodslee Image:WoodsleeCemetery.jpg, South Woodslee Cemetery

References

External links

* {{Essex County, Ontario Towns in Ontario Lower-tier municipalities in Ontario Municipalities in Essex County, Ontario Ontario populated places on Lake St. Clair Populated places on the Underground Railroad