The most indifferent blotting up of the history of the locale surrounding the nation’s capital discloses a number of pungent similarities, among them waterways, railways, grist mills and woollen mills. It illustrates too that the identity of the United Empire Loyalists was a chart not entirely determined by the unsettling events of 1764 in the United States of America. “Sundry Negroes on Nichola Town Estate late the property of George [?] Esq. now belonging to Charles Spooner Esquire … Port of Grenville in Grenada.”

This is because the United States did not yet exist, and the term itself was not coined until the 1780s. In 1764, the region was still under British colonial rule, and the American Revolution (1775–1783) had not yet occurred. The honorific title “United Empire Loyalist” (UEL) was officially created in 1789 by Lord Dorchester, the Governor-in-Chief of British North America, to honor those who supported the British Crown during the revolution.

In 1793, Stephen and Daniel Burritt, from Arlington, Vermont, settled in the vicinity of the area now known as Burritt’s Rapids. A plaque was erected by the Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board commemorating the founding of Burritt’s Rapids.

By 1812, Burritts Rapids had become a bustling hamlet. At the peak of its prosperity, it had telegraphic and daily mail, 2 general stores, a bakery, a millinery shop, 2 shoe shops, a tin and stove store, a grist mill, a woolen mill, a tannery, 3 blacksmith shops, 3 wagon shops, a cabinet shop, 2 churches, 2 schools, 2 hotels, a bank and an Orange Lodge.

The hamlet’s natural advantages as a transportation centre were enhanced by the opening of the Rideau Canal in 1831. Burritts Rapids was the site of the first bridge across the Rideau River. A post office was opened in 1839.

By 1866, Burritts Rapids was a village with a population of about 400 on the Rideau canal, in the townships of Oxford and Marlborough, and counties of Carleton and Grenville. It had two schools, and citizens were in the lumber business.

Unfortunately, the hamlet was by-passed by the railway, and its importance gradually diminished with the decline of the canal as a means of transportation.