Flesherton, Ontario

Flesherton, Ontario
Former Village
Munshaw House, built in 1864 as a stage coach stop at the junction of Toronto-Sydenham Road and Durham Road.
Nickname(s): Gateway to the Beaver Valley
Coordinates: 44°15′42.56″N 80°33′1.72″W / 44.2618222°N 80.5504778°W / 44.2618222; -80.5504778
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Settled	1850
Population (2001)
• Total	700
Time zone	Eastern (UTC-5)
Postal code	N0C 1E0

Flesherton (population 700) is a community in the Municipality of Grey Highlands, in Grey County, Ontario, Canada, 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. The self-proclaimed "Gateway to the Beaver Valley" recently lost its autonomy as a village when it was amalgamated with the surrounding Artemesia Township.

A paleolithic quartzite arrowhead that had been quarried north of the Great Lakes was discovered near Flesherton in 1974. Whether it was carried south to the Flesherton area around the east side of Georgian Bay, or dates back to a time when a land bridge existed between the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island, the arrowhead does point to prehistoric interaction between people of the Flesherton region and those of northern Ontario.

Local archaeological digs indicate that by 1500 BCE, the area around Flesherton was settled by the Turtle First Nation, a member of the agrarian Petuns nation allied with the Hurons.Samuel de Champlain called them "Cheveux Rieleves"; later French traders referred to them as the Petuns (French for "tobacco growers").

The Turtles continued to live in the Fleserton area until they surrendered their lands to the British Crown in 1818.

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. To encourage settlement of the wilderness, the lots were granted to settlers, who then had to clear at least twelve of the acres within five years in order to receive free title to the lot. 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.