Smiths Falls

Sister cities

• Xiangyang

History

Smiths Falls was incorporated first as a village in 1854, and then as a town in 1882. It is named after Thomas Smyth, an Irish born United Empire Loyalist (abt. 1758-1832) who in 1786 was granted in what is present-day Smiths Falls. He served as Lieutenant in Sir John Johnson’s King's Royal Regiment of New York and later as Major in the Leeds Militia. The Heritage House Museum (c. 1862), also known as the Ward House, was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1977. In about 1920, the town council voted to change the name from Smith's Falls to Smiths Falls, and this spelling entered general use, but in 1967 the Ontario Municipal Board stated that it was not official and the town's legal documents must use the spelling Smith's Falls found in the 1882 order-in-council of incorporation. The town then applied to the provincial government for an official change to Smiths Falls, and in 1968 the legislature granted the change by private bill. At the time of construction of the Rideau Canal a small settlement had been established around a mill operated by Abel Russell Ward, who had bought Smyth's land. Colonel By ordered the removal of Ward's mill to make way for the canal. He settled with Ward for £1,500, one of the largest claims made by mill owners on the canal. The disruption of industry caused by the building of the canal was only temporary, and Smiths Falls grew rapidly following construction. An article in Smith's Gazetteer in 1846 described the town as a "flourishing little village pleasantly situated on the Rideau River and on the Canal, from Perth. It contains about 700 inhabitants. There are fifty dwellings, two grist mills (one with four run of stones), two sawmills, one carding and fulling mill, seven stores, six groceries, one axe factory, six…