Orangeville (Ontario)

The archeological record in Dufferin County dates indigenous occupation of the area to the "early Paleo-Indian" time period from 9000 to 8400 BCE. What eventually became Orangeville and Dufferin County, was historically the traditional territory of the Tionontati or Petún (Tobaco) People. They lived in the mountains south of Nottawasaga Bay, in what are now Grey and Simcoe counties, and farther south at the source of the Grand River in Dufferin County.

The Petún were decimated by European diseases in the 1630s, going from a population of approximately 8000 to 3000, and were attacked by the Iroquois in December 1649 further reducing their numbers to fewer than 1000. They then fled along with other Huron peoples into the United States, while other Petún sought refuge with their French allies and settled in Quebec.

After the decimation and dispersal of the Huron, Petún, and Neutral people of southern Ontario, Algonkian peoples from northern Ontario moved into the area at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, while members of the Three Fires Confederacy (Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi) moved into southern Ontario from Ohio and Michigan in the late 1700s. During the pre-confederation Treaty era, Anishinaabe or Chippewa First Nations signed Treaty #18 in, 1818, which included the Dufferin County area. Today, the descendants of Petún call themselves Wyandotte, and despite the 350 years since their displacement from southern Ontario, and despite the heteroglot and diasporic nature of their contemporary communities (in Oklahoma, Michigan, Kansas, and Quebec), they continue to recognize their shared history and are united through a modern-day Wyandotte Confederacy.

Orangeville was named after Orange Lawrence, a businessman born in Connecticut in 1796 who owned several mills in the village. As a young man, he moved to Canada and settled in Halton County. During Mackenzie's rebellion in 1837, he was a captain in the militia. Lawrence purchased the land that became Orangeville from Robert Hughson. The public library, located at Broadway and Mill Street, was completed in 1908. Andrew Carnegie, well-known businessman and philanthropist, provided financial assistance for its construction.

• Go Transit provides bus service to Orangeville Monday-Friday, holidays excluded. A trip from Union Station in Toronto would take 2 hours and require a change of bus at the Brampton Bus Terminal.
• TOK Coachlines. Service from Vaughan, Kincardine, and Port Elgin. (updated Mar 2021)
• Grey Transit Route. Bus service from Owen Sound. (updated Feb 2021)