Laxton Township, Victoria County, Ontario Canada

Laxton township is the namesake of a village in Northampton, England.

It is a small municipality, only five miles from north to south and about nine from east to west. It is bounded by Bexley on the south, Carden on the west, Digby on the north, and the Gull River and Big Mud Turtle Lake on the east. Most of its area lies within the battered outposts of the limestone country but there is a broad invasion of granite towards the northeast. Its chief waters are Deer Lake in the south, Duck Lake in the southwest, and Head Lake on the Digby boundary.

The earliest settler in Laxton was a Frenchman, Augustine Angiers, who located on the west shore of Big Mud Turtle Lake in the early sixties. Other pioneer families were the Courtemanches, Corbetts, Foleys, Potters, Russels, Ryans, and Staples.

Norland is Laxton's only village. It is situated at a fall in the Gull River about a mile above Big Mud Turtle Lake. The population does not exceed one hundred. The business roster includes a sawmill, owned by S. Bryant, three general stores, and a smithy. At Elliott's Falls, a mile and a half further up the river, electricity is generated by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission.
Head Lake and Oak Hill are rural post offices. The former is on the south shore of Head Lake and the latter is three miles directly to the south.

Laxton, Digby and Longford are united for municipal and censual purposes. The census of 1911 gave the following returns for the combined townships:

(1) According to race:
English, 300;
Irish, 271;
Scotch, 79;
all others, 10.
(2). According to church:
Methodists, 293;
Presbyterians, 126;
Anglicans, 114;
Roman Catholics, 95;
Salvation Army, 19;
Baptists, 13.
The majority of these people are in Laxton, for Digby's population is less than one hundred and Longford is uninhabited.

Official statistics show that 64,164 acres of non-agricultural land are available for reforestration in these three townships.

The Tamarack Plains of Carden

Carden and Digby townships .are named after two English captains whose heroic exertions were largely responsible for the successful embarkation of Sir John Moore's army at Corunna in the Peninsular War. Sir John Colborne, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada from 1830 to 1836, had been one of the other officers there and it is supposed that the two townships were named at his suggestion.

Garden is a rectangular municipality, ten concessions from west to east and twenty-five lots from north to south. It touches Eldon on the south, Bexley and Laxton on the east, Dalton on the north, and Mara in Ontario County, on the west. It lies near the edge of the granite country and therefore has thin soil and frequent outcroppings of limestone. A large area in the centre of the township consists of tamarack and balsam plains, unbroken. by any road or trail. The assessor in 1911 classified 38,256 acres as swamp, marsh, or waste land. Two shallow lakes, Upper Mud Lake and Lower Mud Lake, lie in the northwest corner of Carden.

The chief settlements have been in the northwest and southeast corners of the township. The Connors, Dexters, Gillespies, Murtaghs, Quigleys, and Richmonds were among the earliest pioneers. Irish Roman Catholics are perhaps the dominant element in the population.

The 1911 census gives the following racial classifications:
Irish, 378
English, 148
Scotch, 69
German and Dutch, 90
all others, 19

The church adherents were as follows:
Roman Catholic, 282
Methodist, 254
Presbyterian, 121
Anglican, 20
all others, 7

Rohallion in the south, Horncastle in the east, Carden in the north, and Dalrymple in the west have been rural post offices.

Northern Townships

Victoria County

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