Bell Ewart may be a small community, but it is named for a giant of early 19th century industry in Ontario.
James Bell Ewart was born in Surrey, England, in 1801. He came to Canada in 1817 with a fine education and a burning desire to succeed. To say Bell Ewart was driven is something of an understatement.
Bell Ewart began by taking a clerkship with a mercantile company in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but that was only the beginning. His ambitions aimed much higher. Bell Ewart was not yet twenty when he decided to open his own store in the village of Dundas (now part of Hamilton). He was an absentee owner for five years while continuing his employment as a clerk, but in 1825 he bought a gristmill in Dundas and moved to that community to oversee his holdings.
Still, his sights were set higher. He added a distillery to holdings, and then, since flour and whiskey were shipped in barrels, a cooperage. A foundry followed, and then a bank. Soon, Ewart began to build additional mills throughout south-eastern Ontario.
Ewart’s business empire helped transform the village of Dundas into an industrial powerhouse. He translated his economic clout into political and social success, becoming a justice of the peace, long-time town council member, and postmaster.
So how all this bring us to Innisfil? Having conquered Dundas, so to speak, Ewart extended outward. He began to snap up land across the province that he could develop and then flip. One of the places where he bought land was on the western shore of Lake Simcoe.
At the time, there was not much there besides farms and a minor steamboat landing (the sawmill and ice industry would come later), but Ewart knew that a railway was due to pass by in the next few years. He dreamt of transforming the rustic farming hamlet into a major port that would link the steamers cruising Lake Simcoe to the rail line. It never came to pass; Ewart died in 1853 with his dream unfulfilled.
But he didn’t die without leaving a legacy. Bell Ewart – the little community he had hoped to transform into a port - carries on his name, even if few today know the enterprising man behind it.
