The Founding of Maitland
The plaque is in the parking lot to the west of Old Maitland Post Office.
Commemoration
In this vicinity, the site of a shipyard used during both the late French and early British periods, a village plot was laid out in 1824 for Jehiel and Ziba Phillips. Adjacent to it, George Longley, a recent English emigrant, acquired an estate on which St. James Anglican Church was built in 1826. Longley constructed the nearby stone windmill, opened a store and, in 1828, became Maitland's first postmaster. The community, named after Sir Peregrine Maitland, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada 1818-28, was a point of access to the Rideau area and flourished during the building of the Rideau Canal 1826-32. Other local industries were soon established and, by 1850, Maitland had 200 residents.
Background
The remains of the stone windmill, now called Maitland Tower, can be found just west of here on the south side of Highway 2.
Maitland was an example of a second generation community in Upper Canada. It was not settled by United Empire Loyalists but rather immigrants seeking economic opportunities from the land which those Loyalists had built.