Box Grove Community | View Listings in this Neighbourhood
First settled in 1815 by William Beebe, Sparta or Sparty-Wharf (later Box Grove) was registered as a hamlet in 1850. The name suggests that at an early date there was boat traffic on the Rouge River. The hamlet changed to its present name during Canada's Confederation in 1867 when it was granted a post office. The origin of the name is unclear; it may be due to the activity at the box-making woodworking factory, a reference to the many boxwood trees around the hamlet, or linked to the hamlet of Box Grove in West Sussex, England.ΐ] In 1867 the hamlet had "a Church, a schoolhouse, two taverns, woolen mill, sawmill, a store, a blacksmith and two axe-makers shops capable of supplying the whole country with axes and augurs on short notice."Α]
The hamlet was the centre of local and small-scale industrial activity. A saw mill, cotton mill wool factory, and "shoddy mill" (for shredding old woolen fabrics for cheaper cloth and stuffing) along the banks of the Rouge River appeared after 1815.Β] The working hamlet had a cheese factory,Γ] hotel, and three taverns for a population of 150 (1880); some neighbouring Mennonites had a "pessimistic" view of worldly Sparta, and sought to avoid travel in the hamlet.Δ] A Temperance House was opened in the 1860s by Joseph Lathrop on 14th Avenue. By the end of the nineteenth century the mills had closed (victims of floods and fire), and the White Rose Hotel and Tavern also closed its doors by 1910.Ε] While industry disappeared in Box Grove, the hamlet remained. The Box Grove Church and Box Grove Schoolhouse, S.S. #18 (1870), are the only reminders of the once-vibrant hamlet (the Tomlinson family is buried in the church's graveyard). The area of the mills later became part of the IBM golf course (now Parkview Golf Course) and more recently a residential development.
A few prominent families were part of the Box Grove:
Burkholder - one of the last remaining Mennonite families in the area
Tomlinson - early settler and operator of the saw and woolen mills in the hamletΖ]
Raymer - John Raymer (d. 1874), and later his son Frank, operated a cheese factory. Abraham Raymer operated a sawmill farther down the Rouge.
Rolph - soldier Captain William Rolph settled in the area
Today, Box Grove has undergone a transformation from protected agricultural to residential use. Box Grove is located in the area aroundNinth Line (also known as Box Grove By-Pass) and 14th Avenue. Residential development began in the late 1990s and continues today.
The Box Grove Post Office was lost in the early 20th century and revived as a postal outlet inside the Rexall store at 9th Line and Copper Creek Drive.
Schools in the Area
Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy
Sir Richard W. Scott Catholic Elementary School
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