Settlement of Waterloo Township
Waterloo
Township was originally an area of land known as Block
Two of the Grand River land grant. This was given by the
British to the Six Nations First Peoples during the 1790s
for their loyalty to the Crown in the American Revolutionary
wars. When Block Two was incorporated in the District
of Gore in 1816, it became Waterloo Township.
Waterloo
Township (Block Two) was first acquired by Richard Beasley
from Joseph Brant on behalf of the Six Nations in 1796.
Although it was illegal for him to do so, Beasley sold
some of the land to Mennonties from Pennsylvania. Brant
then approved Beasley's selling of a portion of the original
land and he sold 60,000 acres to the German Company of
Pennsylvania represented by Daniel Erb and Samuel Bricker
in 1803. The German Company was a group of Mennonite shareholders
mainly from Lancaster County Pennsylvania who wanted to
settle on the land and sell to their friends.
Waterloo
Township was the first of Waterloo County’s five townships
to be settled. The first immigrants to settle in Waterloo
Township were almost exclusively German Mennonites from
Pennsylvania.
Before
1830, the majority of settlers in Waterloo Township were
Mennonites from Lancaster and Montgomery Counties in Pennsylvania.
Other immigrant groups settled in the area at this time
including Pennsylvanian River Brethren (also known as
Dunkers or Tunkers)
Although
much of the land along the Grand River was sold to settlers
from Pennsylvania, significant pockets of property were
also sold to settlers from the British Isles and from
Germany
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