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The land now occupied by Oshawa was once covered by dense forest. A broad stream, the Oshawa Creek, found its way to Lake Ontario. Those who originally traversed these waters were the Natives called the Mississaugas. They lived in a large settlement where Port Perry now stands.

In the spring the Natives bundled their pelts and paddled to a spot called Oshawa harbour. Once there, they headed west to a French trading post at the mouth of the Credit River.

The French established a trading post in the Oshawa harbour in 1750 called Cabane de Plombe, meaning “lead or shot house,” near the mouth of the Oshawa Creek. Nine years later they abandoned their log structure. It remained empty until 1794, when a party of six white settlers arrived in the area and sought refuge there. They were Benjamin Wilson, his wife, and his two sons, James and David, as well as two young men, L. Lockwood and E. Ransome. The Wilson family built a frame house on high ground about 136 metres (150 yards) back from the lakeshore. Here, Nancy Wilson came into the world, the first white child born in the Oshawa district.

On October 15, 1792, Roger Conant landed on Canadian soil at Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) after crossing the Niagara River on a flat-bottomed scow ferry. He journeyed eastward along the north shore of Lake Ontario until he arrived in Darlington, where he hastily erected a log dwelling on his 1,200 acres before the winter set in. Four years later he brought his family from the United States to settle on this property. To invest the $5,000 in gold he had brought with him, he engaged in the fur trade. He had three flat-bottomed, broad-beamed Durham boats built in Montreal, which he promptly filled with blankets, traps, knives, guns, flints, ammunition, and beads to trade with the Natives for furs. He quickly accumulated a considerable fortune, which he invested in holdings of land along the north shore of Lake Ontario.

Conant, obviously a colourful character, once remarked that the salmon were so plentiful in those days that while he was paddling his canoe, the salmon raised his canoe up in the water. Conant went into the packing business and shipped some of those plentiful salmon by the barrel to the United States, at an excellent price. From the proceeds of one of these ventures, he bought yet another 150-acre farm on the shore of Lake Ontario. In 1811 he left his log cabin to build a frame house near the Oshawa harbour. Little did he know that his home would play a part in the War of 1812, just one year later.

When General Hull surrendered his whole command of 2,500 men at Detroit, on August 15, 1812, a serious question arose: what would the British do with so many prisoners? The redcoats decided to send the American prisoners to Quebec. Unable to furnish enough boats, many prisoners were forced to walk along the shore of Lake Ontario. The prisoners and guards alike were fed at various places along the route. When they arrived at Roger Conant’s home without warning, the family quickly set a large pot of potatoes on the fire to boil. A churning of butter had been done that day and a ham had been boiled the preceding day. The guards were outnumbered two to one, but no one escaped while feasting at this house.

A few days before Roger Conant died in 1821, he did a very odd thing. Conant decided to bury his gold in a large iron bake kettle on the bank of the Oshawa Creek. When it was noticed that the kettle was missing, a search began but failed to reveal its whereabouts. Many have attempted to find this buried treasure, but, alas, without success.

Around 1800, William and Moody Farewell and Jabez Lynde arrived in the area. Moody Farewell built a saw and gristmill on Harmony Creek and a tavern on Dundas Street. When regular stage traffic travelled this route, the Farewell tavern became a popular resting place. Jabez Lynde was the first pioneer to own property in what later became the village of Oshawa.

During this time several small communities were scattered about the area, clustered around the mills at the edges of the many creeks. On Dundas Street Edward Skae operated a store, and the settlement that grew around it became known as Skae’s Corners. Other early settlers of Oshawa included the Annis, Henry, Ritson, Ross, and McGill families.

In 1840 the settlers of Skae’s Corners petitioned the government to establish a post office. At a meeting Sydenham was the name chosen by the citizens, until Moody Farewell arrived with two Native companions. The two Natives were asked to suggest a name and they offered Oshawa, the translation of which is said to be “crossing between the waters” or “where the canoe is exchanged for the trail.”

Oshawa received official village status in 1850, with a population of about 1,000. Three years later Oshawa became a customs port. In 1856 the Grand Trunk Railway was completed from Toronto to Montreal, passing to the south of Oshawa.

The new rail and harbour facilities helped to promote industrial growth in the area. A.S. Whiting had the distinction of being the first industrialist in Oshawa, establishing the Oshawa Manufacturing Company, producing agricultural implements in 1852. Whiting originally started out as a clock salesman in 1842. His methods of operation, as he related them himself, are on record. He would bring 100 clocks, from the factory in New England, by boat to Port Hope. There he would buy a team of horses and a spring wagon, and with the clocks on board, start out on a selling tour in the surrounding district. At a farm house, he would set up a clock in the kitchen. He would then depart, leaving the clock, which he said he would collect later on his return trip. It was quite a successful technique: he very seldom had to take a clock back!

George H. Pedlar established the next plant, a tin and sheet metal business, in 1861. The new rail and harbour facilities attracted many businessmen to Oshawa, including Robert McLaughlin. The McLaughlin family was to have a profound influence on the development of the community.

Robert McLaughlin manufactured carriages in the hamlet of Enniskillen, northeast of Oshawa. In 1876 he bought a lot in Oshawa and there he erected a modest three-storey building with a separate blacksmith shop constructed of brick. He sold the balance of the lot to the town, where a jail was built and later the city hall.

In 1879 Oshawa was incorporated as a town. By 1894 the town had an electric street railway with nine miles of main track and three miles of second track. On December 7, 1899, the McLaughlin Carriage Company buildings burned to the ground. Robert’s son, Robert S. McLaughlin, who was by then a partner in the company, was reported to have said, “We could only stand and watch our life’s work go up in flames, not only we McLaughlins, but the 600 men who depended for a living on the carriage works.”

The town of Oshawa felt a loyalty to the McLaughlin family and offered a loan of $50,000 to be repaid as was convenient. It was a good thing, too, because the city of Belleville had contacted the McLaughlins, while the ruins were still smouldering, to offer them a bond issue and a big cash bonus if they would rebuild their factories in Belleville. The McLaughlins chose to remain in Oshawa.

By 1900 the McLaughlin Carriage Company was back in business. In the United States, in 1905, the automobile emerged from the horseless-carriage stage and became an industry. The Buick Motor Company, now two years old, had just been taken over by a carriage builder named William C. Durant.

R.S. McLaughlin was determined to persuade his brother George that automobiles had a place in the world. He travelled to the United States to learn more about what was being done in the automobile field. There he met with Durant, then returned to Toronto, purchased a Model F two-cyclinder Buick, and drove it home to Oshawa. Before he was halfway there, he knew that this was the car he wanted to make in Canada. R.S. sat down and talked to his family. He waited for his father to contemplate this new idea, wondering if the response would be to continue to build carriages. Instead, his father told him to go ahead, if he thought he could make it work. That was all he needed to hear, and before the dust could settle, the McLaughlins were busy designing their first car, right down to the beautiful brass McLaughlin radiator. Those were the beginnings of the car company that was to become General Motors of Canada.

Oshawa, 1941. When gasoline was rationed, Sam McLaughlin set a gas-saving example by returning to the hay-fuelled McLaughlin carriage.

Author’s collection

The McLaughlins had obtained the rights to manufacture Chevrolet cars and formed the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada in 1915. In 1918 the McLaughlin Motor Car Company of Canada was purchased by General Motors and incorporated as General Motors of Canada Limited, with R.S. McLaughlin as president.

Oshawa annexed part of East Whitby Township in 1922 and became an incorporated city two years later. A further annexation of part of the township took place in 1951. Two World Wars stimulated the expansion of Oshawa’s industries, and although the depression of the 1930s cancelled some of the growth, recovery was rapid.

It was during the Second World War that Oshawa became the site of a secret intelligence organization. In 1940 Sir William Stephenson, the founder of British Security Co-ordination, was sent to the United States by the British prime minister, Winston Churchill, to establish an intelligence network that would eventually encompass all of the western hemisphere. One of the initial Canadian projects was to purchase land in Oshawa and supervise the construction of buildings for a training centre. The place was known locally as Camp X, by the Canadian government as file 25-1-1, and by the British government as STS 103.

Camp X was the first secret agent training school in North America. It was designed to help the Americans and Canadians learn the art of espionage. For that reason it was built where easy access to the United States was possible: on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Camp X opened its doors to recruits just two days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. During the war years, Canada, the United States, and Britain trained secret agents in the art of clandestine warfare. Due to the extreme secrecy surrounding the 275-acre site, local residents of Whitby and Oshawa were unaware of these activities. Some local residents worked at the Camp, but they were sworn to secrecy.

One of the intelligence officers who attended the camp was Ian Fleming, and he is believed to have conceived the idea for his series of James Bond novels while stationed at the camp. Major Paul Dehn, a poet, musician, and lyricist, who was chief instructor at Camp X, used his talents to write propaganda. From his wartime experience he went on the write the screenplays of such famous films as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. The “Shanghai Buster,” William Ewart Fairbairn, invented the famous double-edged commando knife and taught Camp X recruits the art of silent killing. The 1976 international bestseller about Stephenson, A Man Called Intrepid, claimed that Camp X represented “the clenched fist” of all Allied secret operations in the Second World War.

The camp closed in 1946 and remained vacant for several years. All that remains is a small park by Lake Ontario, off Thickson Road, beside the Liquor Control Board of Ontario warehouse. The park is simply named Intrepid Park. In front of it is a short curving wall moulded in grey concrete and mounted with four flagpoles. Embedded in the wall is a bronze plaque.

Today, in 2011, Oshawa remains the home of General Motors of Canada. This company greatly assists in growing many smaller, related industries, who find a ready market in the GM corporation. The question arises, however, “How much longer will they last with gas and other energy crises?”

The cultural centre of the city is represented by three museums: the Henry House and the Robinson House museum are located at the bottom of Simcoe Street by Lake Ontario. The Canadian Automotive Museum is found on Simcoe Street near the downtown district. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, situated next to city hall, represents the work of many well-known Canadian artists. Visitors to the city may also enjoy the recreational activities included in the more than 50 parks. Windfield Farms, Canada’s National Stud Farm, lies north of the city, as does Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology.

Oshawa’s main historic site, Parkwood, the estate of the late Colonel R.S. McLaughlin, stands on Simcoe Street next to the Oshawa General Hospital. Sightseers can tour this formidable mansion and view the magnificent landscape and expansive grounds.

R.S. McLaughlin had this to say about life: “The things I cherish are harder-wearing than gold, the worth of a lifetime spent working at a job that drew the best from me and the men I worked beside. Above all these, I treasure the love of my wife and the affection of my family. Those are the things of real worth in my life.”