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History of Whitby, ON

Whitby, the administrative center of the Durham region, is one of the most popular towns in the Greater Toronto Area and within the southern region of Ontario province. Sandwiched between Oshawa city and Ajax town, this beautiful lakefront town has a population of a little over 128,000 residents, a figure that if quickly rising due to the town’s status as a prominent commuter suburb on the GTA’s eastern end. Whitby is made up of two main sections; the town’s northern portion is somewhat laidback and mainly composed of residential neighborhoods including the likes of Brooklin, Ashburn, and Myrtle among others while the southern part of the town is home to Whitby’s downtown core which means urban residences and numerous economic enterprises.

Formerly near Whitby Township, Whitby town got its name from famous England based seaport under the same name. Apart from that, the town is also associated with several other metropolises including Quebec, Longueuil and Austria based Feldkirch. The person responsible for the survey of the land east of Toronto city was from the affluent northern region of England, a factor that led to the naming of all the cities and towns he surveyed in Ontario after Northern England based towns and cities. These metropolises are Scarborough, York, Darlington, and Pickering. The survey of the piece of land that became Whitby took place in the early 1790s and so did most of the above towns.

After its inception, Whitby thrived as an agricultural community driven by the rich farmlands and its then-famous natural harbor on the shores of Lake Ontario which eventually became a very popular shipping point for the farm products with the town’s first grain shipment going out in 1833. By the early 1840s, the town had a fast-growing infrastructural sector and was chosen as the administrative center of Ontario County following its formation in 1852. The town’s official incorporation came in 1855.

During the infamous Second World War, the town was home to the so-called Camp X, a prominent training facility for secret spies that as founded by the legendary spymaster by the name Sir William Stephenson. Currently, the site of Camp X is just a very popular tourist attraction even though the entire training facility was demolished and replaced with a monument in 1984.

Whitby, ON has come a long way since its inception and this can be seen from its growth in terms of infrastructure, economy, schools, hospitals, parks, technology, culture, and population among other things.