Mount Carmel is a primarily residential hamlet

Hamlet (place)

A hamlet is usually a rural settlement which is too small to be considered a village, though sometimes the word is used for a different sort of community. Historically, when a hamlet became large enough to justify building a church, it was then classified as a village...

located in southwestern Ontario

Southwestern Ontario

Southwestern Ontario is a subregion of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario, centred on the city of London. It extends north to south from the Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron to the Lake Erie shoreline, and east to south-west roughly from Guelph to Windsor. The region had a population...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 at the intersection of Mount Carmel Drive, Bronson Line and Lieury Road, on the boundary between the municipality of North Middlesex

North Middlesex, Ontario

North Middlesex is a municipality in Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada.The restructured municipality of North Middlesex was incorporated on January 1, 2001. This amalgamation joined five municipalities — the townships of East Williams, West Williams and McGillivray, the town of Parkhill and the...

 and the municipality of South Huron

South Huron, Ontario

South Huron is a municipality in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in the southern part of Huron County. It was formed by amalgamation of the townships of Stephen and Usborne with the Town of Exeter in 2001, in an Ontario-wide municipal restructuring imposed by the provincial...

. Mount Carmel Drive constitutes the north-south boundary between Middlesex

Middlesex County, Ontario

Middlesex County is a primarily rural county in Southwestern Ontario. Landlocked, the county is bordered by Huron and Perth counties on the north, Oxford County on the east, Elgin County on the south, and Chatham-Kent and Lambton County on the west.The seat is the city of London, although the city...

 and Huron

Huron County, Ontario

Huron County is a census division and county of the province of Ontario, Canada. It is located on the southeast shore of its namesake, Lake Huron, in the southwest part of the province...

 counties. The community of Mount Carmel was founded in the 1830s and 1840s on the arrival in the area of Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 settlers who had initially resided in the vicinity of Pickering, Ontario

Pickering Village, Ontario

Pickering Village is a community and former municipality in the Town of Ajax, Durham Region, Ontario, Canada.Originally located in Pickering Township, a community began to grow in 1807, when Quaker Timothy Rogers purchased of land and brought a number of Quaker families to settle in the area. A...

, when they first arrived in Canada, but were drawn by advertisements for low cost Canada Company

Canada Company

The Canada Company was a large private chartered British land development company, incorporated by an act of British parliament on July 27, 1825, to aid the colonization of Upper Canada. Canada Company assisted emigrants by providing good ships, low fares, implements and tools,and inexpensive land....

 land available in the southern part of the Huron Tract

Huron Tract

The Huron Tract Purchase also known as the Huron Block, registered as Crown Treaty Number 29, is a large area of land in southwestern Ontario bordering on Lake Huron to the west and Lake Erie to the east...

 for agricultural purposes. To meet the needs of the predominately Roman Catholic population of the emerging community, in the late 1840s, a small frame church was constructed near the banks of Parkhill Creek,two kilometers ( 1.25 miles) east of the present site of the hamlet on Mount Carmel Drive. The
church was located on donated land on the farm of Daniel Coughlin. By 1850, a small commercial core had begun to form at the site of the present intersection and the church building was relocated to a small hill at the northwest corner of the community. During this period, the name of the hamlet was in all likelihood Limerick. The community's growth continued in the 1850s with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway

Grand Trunk Railway

The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...

 line in the region. Mount Carmel became a local stage coach stop, providing a means to transport farm products and passengers to both nearby Dashwood

Dashwood, Ontario

Dashwood is a small, primarily residential, community in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The former police village is located at the intersection of Bronson Line and Dashwood Road, on the boundary between the Municipality of Bluewater and the Municipality of South Huron...

 and the recently constructed railway station at nearby Parkhill. The first school used by the community was constructed in the early 1860s, approximately 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) north of the hamlet near the present day intersection of Bronson Line and South Road. In the mid 1870s, a frame school was built near the corner of Bronson Line and Mount Carmel Drive in the centre of the community.

Rural economic growth

Economic growth

In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...

 in the 1860s and 1870s, in the new province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, was reflected in Mount Carmel in an expansion of the number of businesses serving the hamlet and the surrounding rural community. At various times Mount Carmel supported, three hotels, a general store

General store

A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

 and post office, a shoemaker, two medical doctors

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

, two blacksmith

Blacksmith

A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...

s,both a cider

Fruit press

A fruit press is a device used to separate fruit solids - stems, skins, seeds, pulp, leaves, and detritus - from fruit juice.-Cider press:A cider press is used to crush apples or pears...

 and chopping

Disc mill

A disc mill, is a type of crusher that can be used to grind, cut, shear, shred, fiberize, pulverize, granulate, crack, rub, curl, fluff, twist, hull, blend, or refine. It works in a similar manner to the ancient Buhrstone mill in that the feedstock is fed between opposing discs or plates...

 mill, as well as a dressmaker, hat shop and telephone exchange

Telephone exchange

In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...

. The name of the community became Cranford, on July 1, 1867

Canada Day

Canada Day , formerly Dominion Day , is the national day of Canada, a federal statutory holiday celebrating the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the British North America Act , which united three British colonies into a single country, called Canada, within the British Empire...

, with the opening of the first post office. The date coincides with the founding of the country of Canada

Canadian Confederation

Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867. On that day, three British colonies were formed into four Canadian provinces...

 as a modern state. One year later, the name of the hamlet was again changed, this time to Offa. The cornerstone

Cornerstone

The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure.Over time a cornerstone became a ceremonial masonry stone, or...

 of the moderately large Roman Catholic church, named in honour of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order. The first Carmelites were Christian hermits living on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land during the late 12th and early to mid 13th centuries...

 that presently exists in the community, was laid on July 24, 1887. Its construction was completed in 1888 using bricks from Crediton. The large residence for parish priests,located immediately south of the church, was built in 1909. The community adopted its current name, Mount Carmel, in 1889.

Sources

• Mack, Susan Muriel (1992). The History of Stephen Township. Corporation of The Township of Stephen, pgs. 183,366,377
• McGillivray Township History Group (1992) McGillivray Remembers 1842-1992., pgs.29,53,68,69,131,138