Doon, Ontario

Doon was established in a forested area around Schneider Creek where it enters the Grand River from the south. Richard Beasley sold 3,600 acres (1,500 ha) of this land to John Biehn Sr. of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in 1800. Biehn's relatives bought portions of this land, and started to clear it for farming, His son John Biehn Jr. built a sawmill in what became Doon, and Frederic Beck also ran a sawmill in the area. Most of the early settlers were German Mennonite farmers from Pennsylvania.[2]

In the 1830s the Ferrie family moved to the area, where they established several businesses in what is now Lower Doon including a distillery, tavern, general store, saw mill, cooperage, blacksmith shop and kiln. They also built workers' houses. Adam Ferrie Jr. gave Doon its name after Loch Doon and the River Doon in Ayrshire, Scotland. From this time most of the settlers were artisans, millers and brick makers of Scottish and English background. Doon Mills, driven by water, was fully operational in 1839, grinding oatmeal, flour, and barley for the local population. The population of Doon in 1855 was 200.[2] A population of 200 was also listed in 1869.[3]

The hamlets to the west, about a mile further up Schneider Creek, were originally called Oregon and Tow Town. They later merged and were called Upper Doon. James Watson, grandfather of the painter Homer Watson, set up a sawmill, carding and fulling mill and a pail factory in Oregon. John Tilt had a small sawmill and an enterprise for clay brick and tile manufacture, also in Oregon.

In Tow Town, Moses and Joseph Perine established a sawmill and a flax mill that made rope and twine, the first in Canada of this nature.[2] The Doon Twine and Cordage factory opened in 1856 making products from locally-grown flax and hemp. Products included tying twines, plow lines, halter ropes, clothes lines and broom twine. Farmers were later banned from growing hemp because of its cannabis content. There was also a decline in local production of flax, so the factory had to import both of these raw materials.[4]

New businesses served the growing population. By the early 1890s there was a post office, grocer and baker, two tailors, a cooper, blacksmith, shoemaker, wagon maker, bridge builder and scissors manufacturer.[2] By the end of the 19th century visitors could stay in the Red Lion Inn, Doon Hotel or the Bush Inn, all respectable establishments.[2]

A non-denominational Sunday School was founded in 1848. In 1854 the Doon Presbyterian Church was opened on land donated by Robert Ferrie and built with his financial assistance. A Methodist church was built in 1868 on a site donated by William Allen.[2] The Bonnie Doon School was the first public school, opened in 1878 with one room, and extended to two rooms within ten years as the student population grew. The school burned down and was replaced in 1956.[2] The Christadelphians built a church on Old Mill Road, formerly Richmond Street, in 1880. In 1889 it was clad in red brick. The church was used until 1916. The building was closed until 1936, then used as a residence until 1971. It was torn down in 1981.[5]

The Grand Trunk Railway station and freight shed c. 1900.

Railways began being constructed in Waterloo County during the early 1850s. The Grand Trunk Railway's east–west mainline was constructed to the north of Doon through Berlin,[6] which by then had become the county seat. The Great Western Railway, a major competitor of the Grand Trunk, built a set of branch lines managed by a complex set of subsidiary companies northward from a point on its own mainline at Harrisburg, in what has been described as both Canada's first railway junction and its first branch line. The Great Western opened to Galt in 1854, with extensions already planned to Guelph via Preston and Hespeler (the Galt and Guelph Railway) and Berlin via Preston.[7]

The Preston and Berlin Railway (a de facto subsidiary of the Great Western), which opened in 1857, provided Doon's first railway service,[8] but it was short-lived due to the collapse of its bridge over the Grand River.[9] Cut off from the rest of the Great Western system, the section on the west bank of the river (which passed through Doon and German Mills on the way to its junction with the Grand Trunk mainline at Berlin) was more useful to the Grand Trunk than the Great Western, and came under Grand Trunk ownership in 1865,[8] becoming the Grand Trunk's Doon Branch.[9] After campaigning from Galt town boosters, the Doon Branch was extended to Galt once again in 1873, along a new route through Blair, which bypassed Preston.

The line through Doon saw a mix of freight and passenger traffic, and a particular train was known locally as the "Dutch Mail" for its mail car.[2] In 1914, scheduled daily trains were two southbound trains to Galt and two northbound trains through Berlin to Elmira, which carried passengers, baggage, mail, and express parcels.[10] Information on freight movement is less available, but the station at Doon had a stockyard and freight shed. Before its destruction by fire in 1915, the Doon twine and cordage mill was a major freight customer. Decades later, it was claimed that up to eight trains passed through the village per day.[11] The Doon line and station became a part of the Canadian National Railways system in 1923 along with the rest of the former Grand Trunk system.[12] In the 1930s, amidst the Great Depression, passenger service ended on the line and the Doon and Blair stations were closed.[12] Freight service continued and was dieselized in the 1950s along with the rest of the Canadian National system.[12]

One of the last uses for the line through Doon was the movement of construction materials for Highway 401. For a short time during this period, there was a level crossing with the highway, which at the time had four lanes.[13] Canadian National applied for abandonment of the line around 1956,[14] and the rails were removed in stages: between Galt and the Doon Pioneer Village museum in 1961, then between the museum and Parkway (the former German Mills station) in 1964, the same year the museum received its former Canadian Pacific heritage steam locomotive. On the former Grand Trunk mainline, the Petersburg station was closed in 1967, and in 1968 it was transported to the Pioneer Village.[15]

Rail service arrived in Doon in 1857 in the form of the Preston and Berlin Railway, a branch line of the Great Western Railway. It later became a part of the Grand Trunk Railway and, finally, the Canadian National Railway (CN).[16] With the decline of large, rail-served industries in the area, CN applied to abandon the railway around 1956.[14]

Doon is immediately adjacent to Highway 401, which is to its east. Regional Road 28 passes through Doon, where it is known as Homer Watson Boulevard until becoming Fountain Street South within Cambridge.

Conestoga College's Doon Campus is a minor hub for Grand River Transit bus service. Buses use the internal campus roadway to reach stops on the campus, including a row of bus bays. With internal traffic congestion on the campus increasing, a dedicated on-campus bus station has been proposed, which would be directly accessible from Doon Valley Drive, a public roadway.[17] In 2020, it was announced that the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure, Infrastructure Canada, and the Region of Waterloo would be committing funds to the project, alongside nine other public transit and active transportation infrastructure projects in the region.[18] The planned bus station would include heated shelters, bicycle parking, and space for additional bus stops.[19]