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A crude log cabin on the banks of the Moira River near the Bay of Quinte was built by a fur trader named Asa Wallbridge. He is recorded as the first white settler in the area. Natives were known to have camped and hunted in the vicinity prior to his arrival; not far from the river’s mouth was a Native burial ground.

Most communities were founded and developed by men, sometimes accompanied by women, but Belleville’s beginnings relied on the strength and determination of two pioneer women. Captain George Singleton and Lieutenant Isaac Ferguson were United Empire Loyalists and, incidentally, brothers-in-law, who set up a fur trading post together with their wives in 1794. By 1789 the Singletons had a child. That same year, Singleton died while on route to Kingston for winter staple supplies, and Ferguson died shortly thereafter. The two women, with the child John to care for, carried on at the trading post alone. Fortunately, other settlers were not long in joining them. Captain John Walden Meyers was next and he brought enterprise with him — a gristmill on the Moira River. He added a sawmill, a trading post, and a distillery. Meyers also operated a brick kiln and in 1794 erected, on a hill overlooking the Moira, what is recorded to be the first brick house in Upper Canada.

It was this industrial base that quickly attracted other settlers, and a village soon appeared below the mill at the river’s mouth. The settlement became known as Meyers’ Creek. In 1816, the village was 48 houses strong, officially surveyed by Samuel G. Wilmot, and a post office was opened. The village was then given the name Belleville. The name came from Lady Arabella (Bella) Gore, wife of the provincial lieutenant-governor Francis Gore, who visited there that same year.

In 1836 Belleville was incorporated as a police village, and Billa Flint, a local businessman, was elected as the first president of the Board of Police. Belleville was a rapidly developing lumber centre and became a town in 1850. Flint had been successful in organizing a temperance society, and as a merchant he was responsible for erecting extensive wharves and storehouses, not to mention Flint’s sawmill. Billa Flint, in a letter to the editor of the Weekly Intelligencer in 1879, described Belleville as it was in 1829:

“Fifty years ago, I arrived in Belleville on the steamer, Sir James Kent. Fifty years ago, there was not one foot of sidewalk in town, not a drain to carry off the surplus water, and but one bridge, and that a poor one, over the river on Bridge Street. Fifty years ago, there were but two two-storey brick houses and both burned long ago. Fifty years ago, there was one dilapidated schoolhouse with a large mudhole in front all through the rainy season. There were no brick buildings on Front Street, and of the wooden ones only three showed of white and one of yellow paint.”

In 1857 the Belleville Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopalian Church as a centre for higher Christian education, was opened. In 1866 it was named Albert College and became a university, with the full authority to grant degrees, in 1867. The women’s school was called Alexander College. In 1884 the College reverted to a secondary school and was finally destroyed by fire in 1917. A new Gothic stone structure replaced it.

Another educational establishment to open in Belleville was the Ontario Business College, established in 1865, attended by students from far and wide. Lieutenant Governor Howland opened a provincial school for deaf children in 1870. Known today as Sir James Whitney School, it has become one of the largest and best institutes of its kind in North America.

On January 1, 1878, the village was incorporated as a city. The population was greater than 11,000, and Alexander Robertson served as the city’s first mayor.

Belleville has experienced several floods in the past century during spring breakup.

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Belleville experienced the great flood of 1866, the worst one in the city’s history. Hundreds of families living on both sides of the river were forced to abandon their homes. The lower section of the city, known as Sawdust Flats, suffered the greatest damage. The water took several days to subside, and the streets of Belleville were covered with debris, ice, and driftwood.

A similar disaster occurred on March 12, 1936, when, once again, the Moira River overflowed. More than 60 acres were submerged and several days of rescue and salvage operations were necessary. Huge chunks of ice littered the streets and inventories were destroyed in the lower levels of businesses on Front Street.

Like many communities who ultimately exhausted their timber resources, Belleville’s industry declined in the 1870s. Sawmills and lumber manufacturing plants closed down and it wasn’t until the 1920s that new industries moved in. Finally, in the late 1940s, Belleville experienced a post-war economic boom.

Belleville is a quiet, modest town. Humble beginnings have given this place a gift. Two women alone in the wilderness with a child established a tradition of quiet strength. These are things that you can feel when you walk down Belleville’s streets — peace and quiet, friendliness, a sense of history, and the permanence that comes from strength and determination.