Editing Essex County, Ontario (section)

===Colonial settlement===
[[File:Lighthousecove(lighthouse).jpg|thumb|Thames River Lighthouse, in Essex County, [[Ontario]], built in 1818.]]

The area that has come to be known as Essex was one of the first counties to be settled by non-indigenous people in [[Upper Canada]], later to become [[Ontario]]. The settlements were mostly established by French settlers in the mid-18th century.  Around 1749, the first permanent settlements began to appear on what is now the south or Canadian side of the [[Detroit River]], across from the French Fort Detroit. They cultivated long, narrow plots of land along the river. Despite the name, this is not a river as such but rather a strait connecting [[Lake Huron]] and the smaller [[Lake Saint Clair]] in the north to [[Lake Erie]] in the south, as part of the [[Great Lakes]].{{Citation needed|reason=All of this information needs a source.|date=April 2018}}

Lower down the river, lands were occupied by native people known as [[Wyandot people|Wyandot]] or Huron, around the Jesuit Catholic Mission of Bois Blanc (French for White Wood), opposite the island of the same name.  The Mission was eventually abandoned and re-established closer to what became [[Sandwich, Ontario|Sandwich Township]] after the British took over the French territory following the Seven Years' War. It was closer to the safety of the British-fortified [[Fort Detroit]].  When farmers arrived, they encountered difficulty in trying to clear the extremely thick forests that covered Essex County. The farmers grew to "hate" the trees, and chopped them down, starved them from nourishment by cutting deep gashes in the bark, and burned them to clear the way to get to the fertile soils underneath. The fires were so intense, that the reddish glow could be seen from [[Chicago, Illinois|Fort Chicago]], 300 miles (500&nbsp;km) away, as millions of cords of wood burned.
[[File:Atlas of the Dominion. Counties of Kent and Essex. Province of Ontario. CTASC.jpg|thumb|Historical map that includes Essex County (1875)]]
Settlement continued southward along the river and was known as Petite Côte (Small Coast), which was a reference to the shorter length of river frontage compared to the Detroit/American side. Landmarks were named for settler  [[La Salle (surname)|LaSalle]] and the local [[Ojibway]], which continue to be in use.  The first road in Ontario was laid out to connect the settlements, which is now over 200 years old and is known as [[Highway 18 (Ontario)|Former King's Highway 18]] (now County Road 20).

When river frontage along the Petite Côte was occupied, settlement began to extend toward [[Lake Saint Clair (North America)|Lake St. Clair]], which became known as the "[[Assumption Settlement]]", for the name of its Catholic church.  In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the French ventured east along the south shore of Lake Saint Clair and settled in the present-day areas of Belle River (Belle-Rivière), Rochester, Tecumseh, Saint-Joachim and Stoney Point (Pointe-aux-Roches). These communities still have a large [[French language|francophone]] population.

[[Amherstburg, Ontario|Amherstburg]] and [[Sandwich, Ontario|Sandwich]] were the first towns established in Essex County, both in 1796 after the British finally ceded and evacuated [[Fort Detroit]] along the [[Detroit River]] under the terms of the "[[Jay Treaty]]". This was negotiated by [[John Jay]], and signed in 1794 following the American Revolutionary War. It was intended to settle the US northern boundary with Canada. It upheld the original boundary lines along the [[Great Lakes]] between the US and [[Upper Canada]] by the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris of 1783]] and the wider set of treaties known as the [[Peace of Paris (1783)|Peace of Paris]], which ended the [[American Revolution]] (1775–1783) and overseas European and multi-continental wars. Britain [[Cession|ceded]] the territory of eastern [[North America]] to be the [[History of the United States|United States]].

The British built [[Fort Malden]] near Amherstburg, opposite [[Bois Blanc Island (Ontario)|Bois Blanc Island]], separating the British military presence from the more heavily populated area of [[Sandwich, Ontario|Sandwich]] upstream, and positioned strategically to control the entrance of the river from [[Lake Erie]] and [[Lake Huron]] to the north.  The populations of both towns were augmented by people immigrating from the southern [[United States]] after the [[American Revolutionary War]] (1775–1783), including from [[Detroit|the new City of Detroit]], who chose to remain [[British subjects]], known as "[[Loyalists]]" or "[[United Empire Loyalists]]".

After the [[American Revolution]], and the [[War of 1812]] (1812–1815), which also was a confrontation over the northern border, some people continued to migrate north to the area. Settlers also arrived from the east seeking land, traveling by [[Lake Ontario]] and the [[St. Lawrence River]] of [[Lower Canada]].  Settlers began to move eastward along the north shore of Lake Erie.

The colonial government purchased land for development from the Indigenous in the southern half of the current county, located in the four townships formerly known as Gosfield North and South, and Colchester North and South.  The British Court made land available for settlement, provided that the colonist complete certain improvements within a year and that it not be used for speculation.  This area became known as the "New Settlement" (as compared to the "Old Settlement" of the towns of Amherstburg and Sandwich.  Settlers in this area included [[Hessian (soldiers)|Hessians]] who fought for the British against the American rebels, (especially known in history at the [[Battle of Trenton]] in [[New Jersey]] on the morning of December 26, 1776) and [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] pacifists (ethnic German [[Mennonites]], many from [[Pennsylvania]]).