Flesherton (CA-ON)
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Flesherton (population 584) is a community in the Municipality of Grey Highlands, in Grey County, Ontario, located at the junction of Highway 10 and Grey County Road 4 (formerly Highway 4). Although the area initially showed a high rate of growth in the 1850s and its founder believed that it would become an important centre of economic activity, growth stagnated when an all-important rail link bypassed it, and the community never grew larger than a small village.
In 1848, the land along the north-south Toronto-Sydenham road and the east-west Durham Road was surveyed and divided into 50-acre lots. The intersection of the two roads, which lay in a small valley, was named Artemesia Corners. The first settler at Artemesia Corners was Aaron Munshaw Jr., a former member of Button's Troop during the War of 1812, and an active member of the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1838. Following the failed rebellion, he had fled into exile in the United States with William Lyon Mackenzie. In 1850, having been granted amnesty, Munshaw moved to Artemesia Corners and settled a 50-acre lot on the east side of the Toronto-Sydenham Road that straddled Durham Road. He built a small tavern and stagecoach stop at the intersection of the two roads. Munshaw's father, Aaron Sr., also moved to the area, becoming one of the first farmers in the district.
William Kingston Flesher, a recent British immigrant, settled on the 50-acre lot on the opposite side of the Toronto-Sydenham Road from Munshaw in 1853 and built a saw mill, and then a grist mill on the Boyne River that flowed through the valley. Both Munshaw and Flesher also laid out the portions of their acreages as village lots, hoping to encourage people to move to the area. Throughout the 1850s, more settlers, mainly Scottish immigrants, claimed lots and began to clear the land; tradespeople quickly arrived and bought the village lots at Artemesia Corners.
W.K. Flesher became a prominent local figure, acting at various times as postmaster, magistrate, druggist, and even doctor, as well as warden of Grey County (1855–1857, 1861–1862, 1865 and 1867), and reeve of the village (1854–1865 and 1866–1878). He organized a Masonic Lodge, and was a vocal booster of the village, convincing other businesses to settle in the area, including a woolen (fulling) mill owned by his son William Henry in 1863. Flesher also became captain of the local militia, No. 6 Company of the 31st Grey Regiment, and travelled with the regiment to train at Niagara-on-the-Lake during the Fenian Raids of 1866. In recognition of his contributions, the name of the settlement was changed first to Flesher's Corners, and then, when a more "village-like" name was seen as desirable, to Flesherton.
In 1912, five years after the death of William Flesher in 1907, Flesherton was incorporated as a village. The self-proclaimed "Gateway to the Beaver Valley" recently lost its autonomy as a village when it was amalgamated with the surrounding Artemesia Township.
