Amabel Township

Amabel Township was named after a relative of Sir Edmund Walker Head, who was Governor General of British North America from 1854 to 1861.

Amabel Township Places

Allenford pow-wow plaque. This commemorates a pow-wow held here in 1855, regarding a dispute about the interpretation of Treaty 72, signed in 1854.

Allenford – a village on the boundary of Amabel and Arran townships. Named for its first settler, James Allen, it was surveyed in 1867.
Chippewa Hill – a post office at the southwest corner of the township, near Southampton.
Clavering – a hamlet north of Hepworth on the boundary of Amabel township and Keppel Township, Grey County. It was named after the Essex, England home of an early postmaster, Henry Cammidge.
Elsinore – a village in the south of the township.
Hepworth – a village on the eastern boundary of the township, established in the 1860s.
Oliphant – a village on Lake Huron, located at an old portage route.
Park Head – a village named after the Scottish birthplace of the wife of the first postmaster, William Simpson.
Salem – a hamlet in the southeast of the township.
Sauble Beach – the first cottage in this Lake Huron village was built in 1905.
Sauble Falls – a village where the Sauble River enters Lake Huron. At one time it had lumber mills and a hydroelectricity plant.
Skipness – a hamlet on the 4th concession. It had a post office from 1868 until 1914.
Wiarton – a town in the northeast corner of the township. It was settled in the 1860s and became an incorporated village in 1880, and became a town in 1894.Wiarton main street

Amabel Township Notable People

William Wilfred Campbell was a poet who spent part of his childhood and some of his working life in Wiarton. He was also a teacher, Anglican minister and civil servant. His best known poem is Indian Summer.

Alexander McNeill was the member of Parliament for North Bruce from 1881 to 1901. He lived at the Corran, near Wiarton.

Bibliography

An Intimate Picture of Wilfred Campbell by his daughter, Faith L. Malloch.

Selected Poetry of William Wilfred Campbell, Department of English, University of Toronto.

Alexander McNeill: A Political Life by Allan Bartley, 1990.

At the Crossroads: A History of Hepworth: With Anecdotes and Reminiscences by William D. Stewart, 2003.

Generations of Love: The Story of Zion-Amabel United Church, 1889-1989 by the Zion-Amabel Historical Society, 1989.

Green Meadows and Golden Sands: The History of Amabel Township 1851 – 1982 by the Amabel Township Historical Society, 1984.

History of the County of Bruce by Norman Robertson, 1906.

The History of St. John’s United Church, Wiarton, Ontario, 1889-1989 by the Centennial Book Committee, 1990.

History of Wiarton and District by James Percy Sims and Mrs. Charles Preston, 1961.

Oliphant and Its Islands, Lake Huron: Historical and Descriptive Sketches by Irene Monkman and Roy Fleming, 1912.

Postcards from the Bay is an online glimpse into the history of Colpoy’s Bay and Wiarton.