Greenock Township

Greenock Township was named after the town of Greenock, Scotland. The large Greenock Swamp covered much of the township.

Greenock Township Places

Cargill, Greenock Township: main street and plaque

Bradley – a post office on the 16th Concession
Cargill – a post office and village on the 11th Concession.
Chepstow – a post office and village on the 6th Concession. The early residents asked that their post office be named ‘Emmet’, after the Irish patriot Robert Emmet, but the Post Office Department instead named it after the residence of Earl Strongbow, the first English invader of Ireland.
Glammis – a post office and hamlet located where Greenock, Bruce and Kincardine townships meet. Although the post office spelling was ‘Glammis’, locally the spelling was ‘Glamis’.
Greenock – the Township’s first post office opened in 1852. It is on the 1st Concession, on the Durham Road (Highway 9).
Lovat – a post office and hamlet on the 20th Concession.
Mickle Station – an early name for the village of Cargill
Narva – a post office on the 13th Concession
Pinkerton – a post office and village established about 1854, on the 12th Concession (County Road 15).
Portal – a post office on the 15th Concession
Riversdale – the post office was established about 1853, and the village lots were surveyed in 1855. Riversdale is on the 1st Concession, on the Durham Road (Highway 9).
Yokassippi – the original name for the village of Cargill, named for the Yokassippi River (later the Teeswater River).

Greenock Township plaques: Glammis, Lovat and Pinkerton

Greenock Township Notable People

Henry Cargill was a ‘captain of industry’ and politician. The village of Cargill was named after him. His biography appears in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

James J. Donnelly, born in Pinkerton, was a businessman and politician, and was appointed to the Senate.

William Bowes, “the Philosopher of Greenock Swamp”, was well-known for his letters to the editor of the Globe, and his articles for local newspapers.

Agnes Bowes Hall, born on a farm on the edge of Pinkerton, wrote the novel “Craigie” (Roxburgh Publishing, c1914), using her birth farm for the setting. She married an American and moved to the USA, where she gave recitals and taught elocution.

Bibliography

Glammis.ca A website with lots of information about the history of Glammis.

Greenock Township History, 1856 – 1981 by Greenock Township Historians, 1981.

Greenock Township 150 Years by the Greenock Township History Book Committee, 2002.

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