In the late pre-contact period, the
Huron-
Wendat people populated what is today Vaughan. The Skandatut ancestral Wendat village overlooked the east branch of the
Humber River (Pine Valley Drive) and was once home to approximately 2,000 Huron in the sixteenth century. The site is close to a Huron
ossuary (mass grave) uncovered in
Kleinburg in 1970, and one kilometre north of the Seed-Barker Huron site. The first European to pass through Vaughan was the
French explorer
Étienne Brûlé, who traversed the Humber Trail in 1615. However, it was not until
townships were created in 1792 that Vaughan began to see European settlements, as it was considered to be extremely remote and the lack of roads through the region made travel difficult. Despite the hardships of
pioneer life, settlers came to Vaughan in considerable numbers. The population grew from 19 men, 5 women, and 30 children in 1800 to 4,300 in 1840. The first people to arrive were mainly
Pennsylvania Germans, with a smaller number of families of
English descent and a group of
French Royalists. This migration from the
United States was by 1814 superseded by immigrants from
Britain. While many of their predecessors had been agriculturalists, the newer immigrants were highly skilled tradespeople, useful for a growing
community. Among the facilities established by this group were a number of hamlets, the oldest of which was
Thornhill, where a sawmill was erected in 1801, a grist mill in 1815, and had a population of 300 by 1836. Other such enclaves included
Kleinburg, Coleraine, Rupertville''
(Maple),
Richmond Hill,
Teston,
Claireville,
Pine Grove, Carrville, Patterson, Burlington,
Concord, Edgeley, Fisherville, Elder's Mills, Elgin Mills, Jefferson, Nashville, Purpleville, Richvale, Sherwood, Langstaff, Vellore
, and Burwick (
Woodbridge)''. In 1846, the Township was primarily agricultural but had a population of 4,300. There were six grist mills and 25 saw mills. By 1935, there were 4,873 residents. However,
World War II sparked an influx of immigration, and by 1960, the population stood at 15,957. The ethnocultural composition of the area began to change with the arrival of different groups such as
Italians,
Jews and
Eastern Europeans. Incorporated in 1850 as
Vaughan Township, a municipal government was established, and meetings were held at the "Township Hall" (Vaughan Memorial Hall) in Vellore.
Vaughan Road was a historic road constructed in 1850 that linked Vaughan Township with
Toronto. It incorporated parts of present-day
Dufferin Street north of
Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, though all that remains of it today is the separate alignment farther south, running through the eastern half of the former
City of York.
Highway 7 was built from Vaughan to Thornhill between 1928 and 1932, and
Highway 400 to
Barrie completed in 1951. Starting in the late 1950s, major municipal roads including Bathurst, Dufferin, Jane and Keele Streets that had been gravel were starting to be paved in the municipality. In 1971, the new regional government of
York Region was established, acquiring policing and welfare services from the communities it served; simultaneously, the township merged with the Village of
Woodbridge to form the Town of Vaughan. In 1991, it changed its legal status to City of Vaughan. No deaths were reported from the tornadoes, but one man who was injured in the storms suffered a heart attack the following morning. North American telephone customers placing calls to Vaughan may not recognize the charge details on their billings. Although Vaughan has been a single municipality since 1971, the local
incumbent local exchange carrier,
Bell Canada, splits the city into three historical rate centres–
Kleinburg,
Maple and Woodbridge. Part of the
Thornhill rate centre extends into Vaughan. Indeed, Vaughan does not even appear in the telephone book. ==Mayor and councillors==