Caledonia was once a small strip of land between Seneca and Oneida villages. The Oneida village was started by the Grand River Navigation Company, which laid out the village of Oneida on the south side of the Grand River. The Oneida village plot originally contained 16 acres and was named after the township where it began. In 1835, the same company started the village of Seneca about a mile down the river from Oneida on the opposite side of the Grand River. It was named "Seneca Village" after the township in which it began. The Grand River passed through Caledonia, dividing it into two sides, North and South. In 1834, Ranald McKinnon was hired by the Grand River Navigation Company to build a dam in Seneca and a dam in Caledonia. Completed in 1835, the dams made water power available with the accompanying lock, and excavation finished early in the following year. Mills sprung up all over Seneca village, and five mills were built in Caledonia by 1850. One was renamed
Caledonia Mill, which has been rebuilt and is now used for office space. In 1835, William Bryant was the first to own a tavern in town. Official deeds to the lands early settlers occupied were not provided until 1850; however, they did have bills of sale. There was a high concentration of Scottish immigrants, and as such, many of Caledonia's streets are named in honour of this. Most notably, the main street is named "Argyle" after the example of Glasgow in Scotland. The Hamilton to Port Dover
plank road was brought through Caledonia in 1838. A bridge was built across the river in Caledonia and Seneca in 1842. When first constructed, a stagecoach travelled to both Hamilton and Port Dover daily. These wooden bridges lasted around 19 years before the ice on the river swept them away. The Seneca Bridge was never rebuilt. As of 2011, the
Grand River Bridge built in 1927 serves Caledonia's traffic. In 1846, David Thompson of Ruthven became the first Member of Parliament for Haldimand County and died in office five years later in 1851. In the succeeding by-election, Ranald McKinnon ran for office but was ultimately defeated by
William Lyon MacKenzie. which was granted, in 1784, by
the Crown to the
Six Nations of the Grand River, for their use in settlement. Henco argues that the Six Nations surrendered their rights to the land in 1841, and Henco later purchased it from the Crown. The Six Nations, however, maintain that their title to the land was never relinquished. The
Grand River land dispute continued with
1492 Land Back Lane, protests occurring during 2020 and 2021.
Ranald McKinnon McKinnon was born in Ardelum, Scotland, on September 11, 1801. He came to
Masonville, New York with his paternal grandparents, Malcolm McKinnon, his wife and a number of siblings. He worked in Virginia and Kentucky until 1820, when the family moved to
Trafalgar,
Esquesing and
Vaughan. At 24, he began working on the
Rideau Canal System. On March 3, 1835, he married his first cousin, Euphemia McKinnon, who was 22 years old at the time. The pair would go on to have nine children. McKinnon was very involved in the community. He was the Treasurer of the Presbyterian Church for a time. In 1850 he petitioned that Caledonia be made its own township that would be absorbed into the
county of Wentworth but nothing came of this. He ran for
Haldimand County's member of parliament as a conservative when the predecessor died in office in 1851 but lost the election. He became Caledonia's first
Reeve shortly after in 1853. After several financial setbacks due to numerous of his business ventures burning down, McKinnon found himself in hard times. One of the last acts of his life was about 1875, when he attempted to have a steel bridge replace the pre-existing wooden one. Ranald McKinnon ("Town Father" of Caledonia) died October 18, 1879, at age 79. ==Demographics==