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Historical Evolution of Cambridge: 
The City of Cambridge was incorporated in 1973, when the three municipalities of Galt, Preston and Hespeler along with parts of Waterloo and North Dumfries Townships were amalgamated into a single legal entity under a new name. (A new name that was not very new as Preston was once referred to as Cambridge Mills.) The the settlement of Blair had previously been amalgamated into Preston in 1969.
Each of the communities possessed a long and proud history and there was considerable resistance among the local population to this "shotgun marriage" arranged by the Provincial government. A healthy sense of rivalry had always governed relations among our three communities. Even today, while our residents will tell the outside world that they call Cambridge home, they will often identify themselves to each other as citizens of Galt or Preston or Hespeler.
While the original communities have come together well in the years since amalgamation, they began life apart and as a result Cambridge is blessed with not one but three historic core commercial areas to preserve for future generations. As Cambridge has developed the open spaces between the original municipalities have been filled in a fourth commercial core. Today, Cambridge is a thriving emerging and modern city with a diverse population of more than 125,000. It is located within the Regional Municipality of Waterloo and is apart of one of Ontario's fastest growing and economically prosperous regions. With its perfect position being located along Highway 401, only 45 minutes from the provincial capital of Toronto, Cambridge is well poised to continue to grow and flourish into a prosperous metropolis and one of the best places to live in the Province of Ontario.
| Galt |
History of the City of Galt:  In 1784 the British Crown granted to the Six Nations, in perpetuity, all the land along the Grand River six miles deep on each side of the river from its source to Lake Erie. The First Nations, led by Joseph Brant, had the land surveyed in 1791 and divided into Reserve lands as well as large tracts from which they intended to sell to land developers. One such developer was the Honourable William Dickson who, in 1816, came into sole possession of 90,000 acres of land along the Grand River that was later to make up North and South Dumfries Townships. It was Mr. Dickson's intention to divide the land into smaller lots that would be sold primarily to the Scottish settlers whom he hoped to attract to Canada. In the company of Absalom Shade, Mr. Dickson immediately toured his new lands with the intention of developing a town site that would serve as the focal point for his attempts to populate the countryside. They chose the site where Mill Creek flows into the Grand River and in 1816 the settlement of Shade's Mills was born. The new settlement grew slowly and by 1825 though still very small, Shade's Mills was the largest settlement in the area and was large enough to build its own post office. Mr. Dickson decided that a new name was needed for the Post Office and subsequently the settlement and he chose Galt in honour of the Scottish novelist and Commissioner of the Canada Company, John Galt. The settlers resisted preferring the more familiar Shade's Mills. However, after Mr. Galt visited Mr. Dickson in the settlement in 1827 the name Galt received more wide spread acceptance. In its early days Galt was an agricultural community serving the needs of the farmers in the surrounding countryside. By the late 1830's, however, the settlement began to develop an industrial capacity and reputation for quality products that in later years earned the town the nickname "The Manchester of Canada". Galt was the largest and most important town in the area until the beginning of the 20th century when it was finally overtaken by Berlin later known as Kitchener. In the late 1960's the provincial government began looking at ways in which municipal governments could become more effective. It was proposed that the Regional Municipality of Waterloo would replace the County of Waterloo. As part of that process, the City of Galt would amalgamate with the towns of Preston and Hespeler as well as the settlement of Blair to form a single city. So it was that on January 1, 1973 the City of Galt ceased to exist as a separate political entity and became part of the new City of Cambridge. |
| Preston |
History of the Town of Preston: The story of Preston, Ontario, Canada begins in the early 1800's with the arrival of a group of German speaking Mennonites from Pennsylvania. The land upon which they settled was acquired from the Six Nations through a land speculator named Richard Beasley. Among the first settlers to arrive in what was later to become Preston was John Erb, who acquired 7500 acres including land at the confluence of the Grand and Speed Rivers. Mr. Erb and his wife settled on his Speed River lands in 1805 and built a sawmill on the banks of the river in 1806. A gristmill followed in 1807. The sawmill has long since disappeared, but the gristmill was the beginning of a flour milling business that has operated continuously on that spot to the present day. The site is recognized as the oldest continuously operating industrial site in the region. It was around Mr. Erb's mills, known locally as Cambridge Mills that the settlement that became Preston began. It was not Mr. Erb's intent, however, to create a town. Mr. Erb consistently refused to sell land for commercial development and it was not until after his death in 1832 that his lands to the south of the Speed River were surveyed and divided into lots. The task of surveying the land fell to William Scollick, a surveyor, conveyancer and Justice of the Peace from Preston, Lancashire, England, who completed the survey of Mr. Erb's lands in 1834. The linear shape of the survey with virtually all the buildings in the settlement stretched out along the Great Road from Dundas is said to have reminded Mr. Scollick of his native town in England and he gave the name of Preston to the settlement. The sale of the newly surveyed lands immediately attracted a significant number of tradesmen, artisans and craftsmen primarily young German immigrants who had recently arrived in North America. These men saw a place where the German language was spoken, where much of the land had been cleared and where there was an acute shortage of skilled artisans and craftsmen. The population grew rapidly from about 250 inhabitants in 1836 to about 1600 in 1855. Of these approximately 70% were German in origin. Preston's location on the Great Road into the interior of the province made it a natural stop for travelers and with its eight hotels and taverns attracted more Europeans than any other village in the area. By the middle of the nineteenth century, these European travelers were joined in increasing numbers by people who were attracted to the town's mineral springs which were thought to possess remarkable curative powers in the treatment of a variety of ailments. The springs were discovered accidentally in 1837 by a member of the Erb family who was drilling for salt and found instead "stinky water". The water, with its high sulphur content, was well named and was initially thought to be worthless. It was not long, however, before some enterprising businessmen and medical practitioners let it be known that the mineral springs, while not heated like that of some European health spas, could offer relief if not an outright cure for a number of ailments including arthritis and rheumatism. Soon three major hotels, first the North American and later the Del Monte and finally the Sulphur Springs, sprang up to serve the well-heeled clientele which began to arrive in Preston from all over North America to "take the waters". While the town became an important destination for those seeking to re-new their sometimes fragile health, the well-being of the town itself was in question. Between 1861 and 1871 Preston's population declined from 1539 to 1409 and showed only a marginal increase to 1419 by 1881. It was not until 1891 that the population once again began to increase and it was not until 1900 that the population broke through the 2,000 barrier. Part of the reason for this turnaround can be traced to the coming of the electric railway systems that began to serve the community in 1894. The idea of an electric railway to connect Preston with Galt, its larger neighbour to the southeast, was first proposed in 1890. At first, Preston's town council was not eager to get the town involved in a potentially hazardous railway scheme and it was not until 1893 that Preston Council decided to enter negotiations. In many ways, the building of the electric railway marked Preston's emergence from its well earned identity as a "sleepy German town" where very little happened to a much more energetic presence in the region. A steady growth followed and the decades of the 1950's and the 1960's saw the continuing growth of Preston's industrial base and the gradual expansion of the town toward the borders of its nearest neighbours Galt and Hespeler. By the late 1960's a move was under way to institute a new level of local government that would see the creation of a new Regional Municipality of Waterloo. Included in that plan was the formation of a new city to be formed by the amalgamation of Preston with its immediate neighbours Galt and Hespeler. The plan, proposed by the Provincial government in the name of administrative and economic efficiency, was not met with universal approval. In the end, it was the common interests and the long-standing relationships that had developed between the communities over the years that finally prevailed. It was noted at the time that despite the municipalities' long-standing rivalries, there was very little difference between them in areas such as type of labour force, newspaper circulation, ethnic origin and religious affiliation. In addition, problems resulting from the continued growth of all three municipalities were better solved with the pooling of their resources. Thus, on January 1, 1973, the Town of Preston ceased to exist as a separate political entity as it became part of the new City of Cambridge. |
| Hespeler |
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History of the Town of Hespeler:
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| Blair |
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History of the Village of Blair:
The village of Blair was amalgamated into Preston in 1969. |
The area that eventually came to be the town of Hespeler was originally part of the land granted to the Six Nations by the British Crown in 1784. The Six Nations, led by Joseph Brant decided to sell a part of their grant and had the land surveyed. In 1798 a block of land, known as Block 2 and measuring over 90,000 acres was sold to Richard Beasley and his partners who looked to resell the land in small parcels. This land came to the attention of a group of Mennonites from Pennsylvania that were looking for land on which to settle. 
The settlement of the area around what was to become Blair began in 1800 with the arrival of Samuel D. Betzner, one of a group of German-speaking Mennonites who originated in Pennsylvania. The land they settled on had recently been acquired from the Six Nations through a land speculator named Richard Beasley. Upon their arrival, the Mennonites immediately set about clearing the land and it was only by chance that their leaders later learned that Mr. Beasley had overextended his finances. This was of significance to the Mennonites because Mr. Beasley's creditors had placed a lien against the land the Mennonites had recently purchased, thereby calling into question the Mennonite ownership of the lands. Now in a precarious legal position regarding the land, yet unwilling to walk away from their new homes, the Mennonites created a land development company known as the German Company and, in 1803, purchased an additional 60,000 acres of unsurveyed land from Mr. Beasley. The money they paid for this land would be used to pay off Mr. Beasley's creditors, thus ensuring the Mennonites obtained clear title to their lands.