Newmarket

Newmarket, Ont, incorporated as a town in 1880, population 79 978 (2011c), 74 295 (2006c). The Town of Newmarket is located on the Holland River with easy access to the Don and Humber rivers, 25 km north of Toronto. It was a natural site for a "new market" to serve surrounding settlements as well as fur traders and Indians bound for Toronto. The informal name stuck, and the town is still a market for the produce of Holland Marsh. Lt-Gov John Graves Simcoe invited the Society of Friends (Quakers) to settle the area.

Led by Timothy Rogers, they arrived in 1801. Their meeting house (c 1810) on Yonge St, now a historic site, was the first religious building erected by settlers N of York. The families of Elisha Beman and Christopher Robinson (father of John Beverley Robinson) dominated early settlement. (The spot was called Beman's Corners originally.) W.L. Mackenzie had strong support in the region, and Samuel Lount was one of its Reform martyrs.

Tanning and office furniture were once important manufacturing concerns. Newmarket is a regional centre and residential community, the seat of the York regional government and home of Pickering College, a Quaker foundation for boys. Robert Simpson and a partner opened his first store in the village.