Township History

In the early 19th century, an Irish family settled beside a small creek that flowed into a shallow lake. Mr. and Mrs. Butterworth, along with their son John Spencer and his wife, were the first known settlers of what would later become the village of Stoney Creek.

Nahneebahweequay, also known as Catharine Sutton, was an Ojibwe (Anishnaabe) woman and early Indigenous rights advocate in the mid-1800s. Her name translates to “Upright Woman”. When government policies threatened to take away her family’s land in former Sarawak Township...

Pictured above is a Postcard from the Grey Roots Museum Archives of the King’s Royal Hotel in Balmy Beach, which opened on July 1^st, 1902. Despite having no bar and a sobriety policy, it was considered ahead of its time for being the first hotel in Ontario to use electricity.