Tamworth is a small community in Stone Mills township in Lennox and Addington County,

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Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Tamworth is located due north of Napanee, and northeast of Belleville, near Beaver Lake. Beaver Lake flows into the Salmon River which runs through Tamworth and this flowing water was the source of much of the commerce of Tamworth's former mills.

History

Originally settled in 1826, Calvin Wheeler built several mills here in the 1840s and it was originally known as Wheeler's Mills. In 1848, a post office opened under the current name, named after

Tamworth, Staffordshire Tamworth (, ) is a market town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Staffordshire, England, north-east of Birmingham. The town borders North Warwickshire to the east and south, Lichfield District, Lichfield to the north, south- ...

. Wheeler was an admirer of Sir

Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850), was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835, 1841–1846), and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–183 ...

, member of Parliament for Tamworth. The area was settled by many

Irish immigrants The Irish diaspora () refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland. The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner, Roy; Meeder, Sven (2017). The Irish ...

and by 1865 the population of the area was 500. In 1884 the Tamworth and Quebec Railway had three trains departing to Napanee each day. Once the forest cover had been removed the soil that remained was not of the best quality, but farmers persevered and the area included many cheese factories. Farmers could supplement their incomes cutting trees in winter to be floated down the Napanee River to mills in the south. Tamworth today is a mix of farms, homes and cottages on Beaver Lake and includes the services such as churches, hockey arena, car wash, restaurants, a hardware store, grocery store, pharmacy, liquor store, library and many others.

Gaeltacht

Tamworth is also home to the first

Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Irish Gaelic or simply Gaelic ( ), is a Celtic language of the Indo-European language family. It is a member of the Goidelic languages of the Insular Celtic sub branch of the family and is indigenous ...

-speaking area, or

Gaeltacht A ( , , ) is a district of Ireland, either individually or collectively, where the Irish government recognises that the Irish language is the predominant vernacular, or language of the home. The districts were first officially recognised ...

, outside

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. Plans for the site include cabins to house upwards of 100 people, classrooms, and a museum.

Sports

Tamworth had a Senior A amateur team from 2003 to 2005. The Braves played in the Eastern Ontario Senior Hockey League. A Tier II Junior "A" team, known as the Tamworth Cyclones, operated from 2007 to 2009 in the

Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League The Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League (GMHL) is a Canadian developmental junior ice hockey league. The league has primarily had teams in the Greater Toronto Area, Central Ontario, Northeastern Ontario, and Quebec. As of December 2019, the le ...

Noted people

* Franklin La Du Ferguson, second president of

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists ...

References

External links

Tamworth's official webpage
{{authority control Communities in Lennox and Addington County