During a recent project to document the history of the Upper Fonthill area where I live I prepared a bibliography of helpful local history resources. This list became the nucleus of a presentation to a local club on how to research the history of the Town of Pelham. It begins with a brief overview of the evolution of the local government structures.

Townships, Towns and Villages

• Mid-1790s – Lt. Governor Simcoe named the townships in Niagara, including Pelham and Thorold, based loosely on place names or prominent people in his home county of Lincolnshire, England. Previously, the townships were numbered only. Thorold was #9 and Pelham was #10.
• 1821-1850 – Crossroads at Canboro and Haist was named Riceville and had a post office (named Pelham), a general store, forge and Eber Rice’s Tavern and nearby mill.
• Pre-1852 – for a time the corner of Pelham Street and Canboro was known as Osborne’s Corners
• 1852 – Dexter D’Everardo registered a plan for the town of Font Hill (aka Temperanceville)
• 1915 – Fonthill became a Police Village
• 1922 – Village of Fonthill is incorporated with land in both Pelham and Thorold Townships
• 1970 – Township of Pelham, the Village of Fonthill and a small part of the Township of Thorold adjacent to Fonthill merged to form the Town of Pelham. Includes all of the unincorporated villages of Pelham
• The future Town of Pelham included the former police village of Fenwick (Diffin’s Corners) and the current or former communities of Ridgeville (Steele’s Corners), North Pelham (Cook’s Corners), South Pelham, Effingham (Beckett’s Mills), Pelham Union, Pelham Corners, Pelham Centre, Riceville, Chantler and Sanderson’s Corners
• Turner’s Corners is at Merrittville Highway and Hwy 20 in Thorold and Singer’s Corners was at Cataract Road and Hurricane Road
• St. Johns / St. Johns West was a busy mill community at the north-east corner of Pelham Township overlapping into Thorold Township

Pelham Land Records

• Hard copy land registry records date back to the 1790s.
• FamilySearch.org, the website of the Genealogical Society of Utah operated by the Church of Latter Day Saints, has a new Experimental “Search All Records” feature which allows full text search of digitized Niagara Land Registry Offices Indices and Instruments. This is a major step forward for researching land records.
• Physical Copy Books of both historical Indices (based on lot number) and Instruments (Sales, Mortgages, Probates, etc.) are currently at Brock Archives
• Microfiche of Indices are available at St. Catharines Public Library
• Digital copies of the microfiche indices are available for free access online through Onland but these are scans of fiche and much lower quality than the FamilySearch images
• Digital copies of the Instruments may be purchased through Onland, though many historical documents are not yet scanned (they can be requested)
• Pelham and Thorold were part of the Niagara South Land Registry Office 59 (Welland)
• Censuses (Families and Agricultural); Business and Farmers’ Directories; Municipal Assessment Rolls; County Atlases and Fire insurance maps are also helpful

Bibliography and Sources – Pelham Historical Society

• Pelham Historical Society Calendar Collection, 1977-2001 – approximately 300 stories, all online at https://vitacollections.ca/pelhamlocalhistory/search and PYNX Yearbook collection
• Giles, Henry, Mute Words, Living Voices – The Letters of Henry Giles, Pelham Historical Society, Fonthill, 1992
• Rungeling, Dorothy W., The Road to Home: Tales of Rural Life in the Early 1900s, Pelham Historical Society, 2001
• Lamb, Mary, Pelham: The Making of a Community, Pelham Historical Society, Pelham, 2012 (out of print)
• Historical Mapping of the Town of Pelham; Assessment rolls; Newspaper indices; Calendar Indices, etc. 

Bibliography and Sources – Other Pelham

• Abrahamse, Johanna, Dexter D’Everardo: A Chronology of his Life, Welland River Press, Toronto, 2014
• Comfort, Margaret, Intertwined through Time: Fenwick and North Pelham, 1994
• Goodwillie, Carol Diane, Life on Quaker Road: History, Stories and Goodwillie Genealogy, Trafford, 2006
• Grol, Lini R., Pelham As It Was and Is, Trillium Books, 1980
• Hansler, Asa Orton, The History of Pelham Township before Regional Government, 1786-1969
• History of Welland, 1887 and Jubilee History of Thorold, 1897 
• Snow, Albert E., Fonthill 1920 to 1930: A Glimpse of the Glory Years, 1944
• Tweedsmuir Women’s Institute Histories: Village of Fonthill, 1944 & 1962; Pelham, 1951; Singers Corners, 1984

Bibliography and Sources – Internet

• Onland (Teranet) – Ontario land records – historical and current
• Niagara Settlers – Robert Mutrie land petitions and genealogies 
• Niagara Navigator – maps of Niagara (a little out of date)
• WellandHistory.ca – huge amount of historical data on Welland County, which includes Pelham
• Quaker historical records – cfha.ca – Meeting minutes from early Pelham
• Brock U – Maps, Data & GIS online maps
• McGill U. – The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project
• Cemetery websites – findagrave.com; billiongraves.com; canadianheadstones.ca; and cemetery.canadagenweb.org
• Archive.com, Canadiana.ca , heritage.canadiana.ca, Biographi.ca and Newspapers.com
• Ancestry.ca, FamilySearch.org and MyHeritage.com

Historical Societies, Museums, Libraries and Archives

• Pelham Historical Society – PHS maintains a small archive (located at the Maple Acre Branch of the Lincoln and Pelham Public Library) and holds monthly lectures and meetings during the year at Kirk-on-the-Hill, Haist St., Fonthill
• Public Libraries in Pelham, Welland, Wainfleet, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines
• St. Catharines Museum at Lock 3 of the Welland Canal; Welland Museum; NOTL Museum; Niagara Falls Museums
• Archives of Ontario (“AO”) and Library and Archives Canada
• Brock University Archives & Special Collections and the Map, Data & GIS Library
• Marshville Heritage Society, Wainfleet
• Mayholme Foundation, 525 Ontario St., St. Catharines – a genealogical resource located in an historic farmhouse.
• Ontario Genealogical Society (aka Ontario Ancestors), Niagara Peninsula Branch  – Many resources including cemetery transcriptions

Graham Segger
crestofthefonthill {at} gmail {dot} com