The Victoria Road

1854

Text from the plaque

In 1854 the government, faced with a decreasing supply of Crown land in the southern part of what is now Ontario began a network of "Colonization Roads" to encourage the settlement of the southern fringe of the Precambrian Shield. The Victoria Road, constructed 1859-64, extended from the present village of Glenarm for 62 km to the Peterson Road in Oakley Township. Most of the "free-grant" lots along its southern portion were quickly taken up by settlers attracted by the region's lumbering industry, which provided employment and a market for agricultural produce. The land, however, proved to be marginal and, as lumbering declined later in the century, the region's population decreased. The northern section of the Victoria Road was eventually abandoned, but part of the remainder became Highway 505.

Transcribed from the marker, not summarised.