The Founding of Port Dover

Photo by Alan L Brown - May 28, 2005

Plaque Location

The County of Norfolk
In Port Dover, on the south side of Harbour Street opposite St. Andrew Street

Plaque Text

By 1794 Peter Walker, the first settler in this area, had located at the mouth of Patterson's Creek, but a community did not begin to develop here until Dover, situated further upstream, was razed by invading American troops in 1814. Some of the subsequent reconstruction took place nearer to the creek's mouth where a harbour had been in use since the early 1800's and in 1835 Israel Wood Powell, a merchant, registered a village plan for Port Dover. Improvement to the harbour during the next fifteen years made Port Dover a principal Lake Erie port and shipyards, tanneries, and Andrew Thompson's woollen-mill contributed substantially to local economic growth. In 1879 Port Dover, with a population of 1,100 became an incorporated village.