Mariposa Township, Ontario

The Township of Mariposa was a municipality located in the southwest corner of the former Victoria County, now the city of Kawartha Lakes, in the Canadian province of Ontario. The other municipal neighbours of Mariposa are Ops and Fenelon on the east, Eldon on the north, Brock on the west, and Scugog on the south, with the latter two located in the Durham Regional Municipality. The former township includes the communities of Little Britain, Manilla, Mariposa, Valentia, and Oakwood. Today, most of the former township is represented in the City of Kawartha Lakes by the Ward 8 Councillor, John Pollard, and Ward 4 Councillor Andrew Veale.

Mariposa is the Spanish word for "butterfly" (see ). No record or even legend persists to explain through what whim of early officialdom a backwoods township was so named. Mariposa township was surveyed in 1820 and formally attached to Durham County, Newcastle District in 1821. In shape it was originally a rectangle, nine miles from east to west and fifteen from north to south. There was added to it later, however, a broken southern front on Lake Scugog, now known as concessions A, B, C, and D, Mariposa, but formerly attached to the township of Cartwright, which now lies entirely on the south side of the lake. Its superficial area is 75,102 acres. The land surface is moderately undulating, with a very immature drainage system. The chief stream, the Mariposa Brook, (also known variously as Big Creek, Black Creek, Davidson's Creek, and West Cross Creek) rises in swamps near Manilla on the western boundary, flows eight miles northeast to about Lot 18, Concession 13, then turns directly south until it passes Little Britain on Concession 4, and finally turns, east to pass out of the township on the 3rd Concession and empty into the Scugog River in Ops. The meagre flow and gentle current of even this main stream and the consequent lack of any considerable water power is beyond doubt the explanation for the absence of any outstanding village in Mariposa. The soil, however has always surpassed in richness that of any other township in Victoria. Once the heavy timber had been removed, it held, as it still holds, an easy leadership in agricultural prosperity in the former Victoria County.

This well-known fertility of the township resulted in the blocking of general settlement until nearly a decade after the major immigration into Emily. For the Canada Company secured large concessions here; George Strange Boulton of Port Hope, the Family Compact member for Durham, arranged for a rich grant to himself.

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