York Region trivia
24 facts and quiz questions about Stouffville, Ontario. Each one links to its source. A new fact of the day goes live every morning.
Fact of the day
Stouffville Quiz
In 2012 archaeologists said a forged iron axehead from the Mantle Site, believed to be Basque, is the earliest piece of European iron found in the North American interior.
Stouffville Nature
Bruce's Mill Conservation Area in Whitchurch-Stouffville is the northern gateway to Rouge Park, with its own trails and plans to link to regional trails.
Stouffville Quiz
The dove of peace, the old seal of Whitchurch Township, honours the pacifist Quaker and Mennonite settlers. The white church on the shield stands for Whitchurch.
Stouffville Sports
Curling, played on the Mill Pond from 1890. Around 1900 the town's rink below Burkholder Street was called the largest and best arranged rink in Canada.
Stouffville Numbers
The community of Stouffville doubled from 12,411 to 24,886 people between 2006 and 2011, after a large new sewer and a water pipe from Lake Ontario arrived.
Source: Wikipedia, Stouffville
Stouffville Sports
Stouffville won the Ontario lacrosse championship in 1897. Lacrosse was played in town alongside curling from the 1890s.
Stouffville History
In 1877 the village of Stouffville set up a Mechanics' Institute. It later became the Whitchurch-Stouffville Public Library.
Stouffville History
Stouffville was a centre of Radical opinion in the 1830s. William Lyon Mackenzie set out his plan for the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 here.
Stouffville History
A 16th-century Wendat village, now called the Mantle Site, home to about 2,000 people from about 1578 to 1623. A palisade surrounded more than 70 longhouses.
Stouffville Culture
Since 1993 the motto has been Country, Close to the City. The town is about 50 km north of downtown Toronto, on the Oak Ridges Moraine.
Stouffville History
The museum includes Bogarttown Public School, built in 1857, and the James Brown Homestead from the 1850s, which joined the museum in 1984.
Source: Wikipedia, Stouffville
Stouffville Nature
Musselman Lake is a 118-acre kettle lake, left behind when a buried block of glacier ice melted. Preston Lake and Van Nostrand Lake formed the same way.
Sources: Wikipedia, Musselman Lake, Wikipedia, Whitchurch-Stouffville
Stouffville Quiz
Abraham Stouffer, a Mennonite from Pennsylvania, settled here in 1804 and built saw and grist mills. The place was called Stoufferville until its post office opened in 1832.
Source: Wikipedia, Stouffville
Stouffville Culture
It opened in 1896 as a market and concert hall, became a cinema in 1923 and later the town hall. It reopened as the Lebovic Centre for Arts and Entertainment in May 2009.
Stouffville Quiz
In late 2019 the town dropped Whitchurch from its signs for branding. The signs say Town of Stouffville, but the official name is still Whitchurch-Stouffville.
Stouffville Quiz
The town counted 49,864 people in the 2021 Census. Of those, 36,753 lived in the community of Stouffville itself.
Sources: Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile, Whitchurch-Stouffville, Wikipedia, Stouffville
Stouffville People
Abraham Stouffer's wife, Elizabeth Reesor Stouffer, was the sister of Peter Reesor, who founded Reesorville, the village that became Markham.
Stouffville History
The oldest human artifacts in the township date to about 1500 BC. They were found in Ringwood, which is now part of urban Stouffville.
Stouffville Quiz
Captain Arthur Roy Brown, a First World War flying ace, spent his later years running a farm in Stouffville. He died in 1944.
Source: Wikipedia, Stouffville
Stouffville Nature
Heavy logging cut forest cover from 35 percent in 1850 to just 7 percent by 1910, and the thin soil eroded into sand. Vivian Forest was set up in 1924 to replant the land.
Stouffville Quiz
The Toronto and Nipissing Railway arrived in 1871, and a line north to Jackson's Point on Lake Simcoe followed in 1877. At its peak the junction handled thirty trains a day.
Stouffville Nature
Both ways. Streams on top of the moraine flow north to Lake Simcoe, while the Rouge River and Duffins Creek begin here and flow south to Lake Ontario.
Stouffville Quiz
Whitchurch Township, created in 1792, was named after Whitchurch in Herefordshire, England, where the family of Elizabeth Simcoe lived. She was the wife of John Graves Simcoe.
Stouffville Quiz
Ballantrae is named after the village of Ballantrae in South Ayrshire, Scotland. The hamlet had about 300 people by 1895.
Source: Wikipedia, Ballantrae, Ontario