Athens, Ontario

Communities

Aside from Athens, the township consists of the communities of: Anoma Lea, Beales Mills, Charleston, Glen Elbe, Glen Morris, Hayes Corners, Wiltsetown. The township administrative offices are located in Athens.

Athens (designated place)

Athens is recognized as a designated place by Statistics Canada.

Formerly known as Farmersville, Benoni Wiltse, a United Empire Loyalist, and his brothers settled in the town of Athens in 1792. Farmersville was renamed to Athens in 1888 by Arza Parish in honour of Athens, Greece, because it was an educational centre with grammar school, a model school for teacher training, and a high school. Athens' post office was named in 1890. Currently, the town of Athens is known for a series of large outdoor murals depicting historical local life, painted on the sides of various buildings.

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Athens had a population of 974 living in 420 of its 438 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 982. With a land area of 2.12 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

Beales Mills

Beales Mills, Ontario is a small settlement located southwest of the town of Athens, close to Charleston. The community was settled around the mid-19th century by a Benjamin Beale for whom the settlement was named. Beale established a sawmill, gristmill, and a flour mill along the creek located through the settlement, now known as Beales Creek, as well as a shingle manufacturing business.

The community relied on the nearby hamlet of Charleston for most of its needs, such as a post office, however Charleston relied on Beales Mills to supply water power to most of its businesses. Eventually, around the 1900s, the settlement began to decline as the mills closed. Presently, the site of Beales Mills consists of a few residential buildings most of which are modern. The ruins of a stone mill and dam can still be seen today. The settlement is largely considered a ghost town.

Demographics

In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Athens had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of 129.54 km2, it had a population density of in 2021.

| 1871 |1791 | 1881 |2103 | 1891 | | 1901 | | 1911 | | 1921 | | 1931 | | 1941 | | 1951 | | 1956 | | 1961 | | 1966 | | 1971 | | 1976 | | 1981 | | 1986 | | 1991 | | 1996 | | 2001 |3053 | 2006 |3086 | 2011 |3118 | 2016 |3018 | 2021 |3042

Mother tongue (2021):

• English as first language: 95.6%
• French as first language: 1.3%
• English and French as first language: 0.5%
• Other as first language: 2.0%

Cemeteries

The township of Athens is home to several old burying grounds or cemeteries. Some of these cemeteries include: Barber Cemetery, an unregistered cemetery in Charleston called Charleston Village Cemetery, Temperance Lake Cemetery, Kincaid's Corners Cemetery, Holmes Cemetery, Lake Eloida Cemetery and an abandoned and unnamed pioneer cemetery. In the settlement of Wiltsetown, there is a cemetery called Wiltse Pioneer Cemetery that was established around 1795. Wiltse Pioneer Cemetery holds close to 300 interments, most of which are unmarked or marked by field stones instead of engraved tombstones.

In the town of Athens, there is a Roman Catholic cemetery called St. Denis Roman Catholic Cemetery, as well as a non-denominational community cemetery. The community of Glen Elbe has its own cemetery which is no longer is use, but maintained by its own board. This cemetery dates to around 1840.

East of Athens there is a Quaker cemetery simply called Quaker Cemetery which was established in the 1830s; this cemetery is no longer in use but is maintained by the township. Most of the stones here are badly deteriorated with only two being legible.

East of Athens along Highway 42 is a mass gravesite associated with the House of Industry as it operated from 1895 until 1946 housing the sick, elderly or poor. The gravesite is currently marked by a large stone simply reading "Pioneers of Leeds & Grenville 1895 – 1946". Over one hundred graves are located here, of those who lived at the House of Industry between the aforementioned years and whose bodies remained unclaimed after death. For many years it was unclear where the graves were precisely located, as absolutely no records were kept and no grave markers were placed at the time. The mass grave became abandoned in 1946 when the House of Industry came under new management, who deemed the burial practices being used as undignified. A plot was then reserved in Glen Elbe cemetery for the unclaimed dead. In recent years, the long-neglected cemetery has been cleaned up and a fence was built around the stone memorial. A cooperative effort between local genealogical societies has recently discovered the approximate boundaries of the burial plot by dowsing for grave sites.

Notable person

• Leonora King, the first Canadian doctor to work in China

References

References

1. "Municipal restructuring activity summary table - Dataset - Ontario Data Catalogue". Government of Ontario.
2. Hamilton, William. (1978). "The Macmillan Book of Canadian Names". Macmillan.
3. (February 9, 2022). "Population and dwelling counts: Canada and designated places". [[Statistics Canada]].
4. "Beales Mills, Ontario - location".
5. "Beales Mills History".
6. "Canada 2011 Census -Athens community profile". [[Statistics Canada]].
7. (1944). "Eighth Census of Canada 1941 - Volume II - Population by Local Subdivisions". Dominion Bureau of Statistics.
8. (July 1973). "1971 Census of Canada - Population Census Subdivisions (Historical)". Statistics Canada.
9. "Search results: Cemeteries in Leeds County".
10. "Ontario Genealogical Society Cemetery Transcriptions: Leeds County". Ontario Ministry of Government Services.
11. "Wiltse Pioneer Cemetery - Wiltsetown, Ontario Canada".
12. "Abandoned (Quaker) Cemetery, Leeds County, ON".
13. Cheek, Darcy. (January 15, 2013). "Project marks lost cemetery". Brockville Recorder & Times.
14. {{SCref. (2021)