TAKE NOTE - 103 years ago! 

Hydro Electric Power came to Wellesley Village on October 23, 1916. The minutes of the Police Village of Wellesley record that the power was "turned on at 3:20 o’clock ... at Baden power station by Engineer Castor  & N. S. Fleischauer. 

Street lights turned on officially at 8 PM same date by J. G. Reiner. Otttmans band dispersed music to large crowd of citizens followed by addresses by J. G. Reiner."

New!
Wellesley Tax Assessment Rolls
​1854-1889

Wellesley Township Tax Assessment Rolls in the Waterloo Region Archives have been scanned with their assistance and permission. Only available here in digital form. 

Waterloo County was incorporated in 1853, so 1854 was the first tax year. The rolls represent very early information about life in the township. 

The forms change over time, but they list - name, age, occupation, Freehold (land owner) Householder (tenant), number of acres, value of real property and personal property, income, statute labour, number of people in the family, religion, livestock and more​. They are a gold mine of information!

Click here to access the rolls. 

Charles F. Ottman jr Inducted
​into the Waterloo Region
​Hall of Fame

Wellesley photographer, Charles F. Ottman jr (1879-1906) was inducted into the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame on April 28, 2019. 

Charles developed tuberculosis in 1901 and had to find a less strenuous occupation than working in his father's harness business. In his short career, he documented many aspects of village life. His legacy to us is a fine collection of images which he produced and sold as postcards. Click here to see some of his images. 
Picture
Skating on the Pond, Accession #2015-07-17
Past Hall of Fame inductees from Wellesley include:
Stan Deckert, Paul Frey, Deborah Glaister Hannay, Elmer Hohl, John George Reiner, James Sims, and J. E. Wallace Sterling. 
Click here to read about these inductees. 
Click here to read the article about the Hall of Fame ceremony in the "Woolwich Observer." 

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 WTHHS Meetings and Minutes

Our next meeting will be held at 2:00 p.m. on  November 25, 2019 in the Historical Room, upstairs at the library - 1137 Henry Street, Wellesley, N0B 2T0. There will be no meeting in December 2019. 

Click here to read minutes of our past meetings. 

Join us - it's free!! membership  form is here.

Online Donations - We do not charge for our research time, but if the information we provide is useful to you, please consider making a donation to our historical society through the Township of Wellesley's website. 

New! Township Council History 

We are working on a full list of the members of the Wellesley Township  Council.  We have also created a list of all the Wellesley councillors who served on the Waterloo County Council.

Waterloo County council has been well documented by Elizabeth Bloomfield and Linda Foster in their book "Waterloo County Councillors: A Collective Biography," (c) 1995 Caribou Imprints. The list of councillors and biographies posted here have been published with the kind permission of Dr. Bloomfield. ​

To access the list of Wellesley councillors who served on the Waterloo County Council, please click here. 

Wellesley Women's Institute

The Wellesley Women's Institute was active from 1903-2008. We have created a new page for information about it. The earliest minutes are lost to us, but we do have the minute books from 1919-2008. 

These records give a detailed account of issues facing the village in the post-World War I era, the Depression, World War II and beyond. They have been scanned and are available here.
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We now have a Facebook page. Please have a look and like us! ​ www.facebook.com/wellesleytownshiphistory
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