Elizabeth Hall
A Walk Through History
The United Empire Loyalists came down to Canada and settled around 1780, right after the American War of Independence.
From there the history we know today took off, and Napanee was officially, and quickly, becoming a home for many people. But before the Loyalists came down, Napanee had already been inhabited by people; the first recorded settlement in the Napanee area was Ganneious, populated by the Oneida nation from 1660 to 1690. Today, Napanee is located on the traditional territory of the Wendat, Anishinaabeg, and Haudenosaunee Peoples. In the very early days of Napanee, in a time named the Paleo-Indian Period, about 7,000 to 10,000 years ago, the glaciers started to melt after the last Ice Age. Indigenous People began migrating to the area in small groups in search of food, as animals and plants began repopulating the area. In the Archaic Period, about 3,000 to 7,000 years ago, the Indigenous People in the area were still nomadic people, travelling around in search of food and resources to sustain themselves. They used dugout canoes to move along the Napanee River and the Bay of Quinte to catch fish. The Woodland Period, about 500 to 3,000 years ago, is when the nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering began leaving them and was replaced by seasonal settlements. The Bay of Quinte area also provided shelter from the environment for Indigenous People travelling along Lake Ontario.
Samuel de Champlain, a French Explorer and founder of Quebec (then called New France), was said to have travelled through the Bay of Quinte area in 1615, roughly seven years after he founded New France in 1608. Champlain kept a relationship with the Indigenous People in the area up until the day he died in 1635. He thought that having a strong alliance with them would give him advantages, such as securing the safety and longevity of the French settlements in the region. The Indigenous People in the area already had a wide range of established trade routes among their people, but when Europeans discovered Canada (then called the New World) in 1492, trading became international, beaver pelts being the main item Europeans wanted to trade for.
Local History Fact: According to local author Judii Merle, the town of Napanee was named after the Anishinaabe word for flour, “Napanenag,” due to the many flour mills along the river.