 The community was formerly known as Salmon River and was renamed in 1899 by an Act of Parliament for Frederick Blackwood, the 1st Marquis of Dufferin and Governor General of Canada from 1872 to 1878.Settlement likely began in the early nineteenth century, and nine families lived in the area by 1827.An Anglican church began construction in the early 1840s, and was consecrated on August 11, 1852.