Where the story takes me… Tales of family and local history research and folk I meet along the way

Identifying Ontario’s lots and concessions

Much of Ontario’s land was divided up and distributed to settlers in 200-acre lots. In rural Ontario, the 200-acre farm lot is still the norm, with some lots divided in half, or merged with other lots. But the lot number remains the way the land is described.

The lots are grouped together, side-by-side, into a long strip called a “concession”. Think piano keys. The long, narrow concessions are grouped together into a township. (You could argue that it is the other way around and townships are divided into concessions that are then divided into lots. And you’d be right.)

The names of these concessions with their township and the lot numbers are all part of the legal description of the property your ancestor owned.

Most concessions are named with a simple number like 1, 2, 3 (often shown as Roman numerals) or letter like A, B, C. But many townships—perhaps most townships—have several concessions with unique designations. I was reminded of this when a fellow researcher showed me the mystifying abbreviations EBR, WBR, and EOBR for concessions in a township in Haliburton County.

The BR in all these abbreviations stands for Bobcaygeon Road—East of, West of, and to keep us on our toes, East Of.

The Bobcaygeon Road was a colonization road drawn straight north (or as straight as possible in a land of rocks and lakes) from the town of Bobcaygeon through the wilds of unsettled Haliburton in 1856. The surveyors knew that this road was vital to opening up the area, and that settlers along the road were vital to its construction and maintenance. So a special series of lots were surveyed, lining both sides of the new road. You can see them clearly, just left of centre, on this map of Haliburton from 1961.

Wherever your ancestors lived in Ontario, figuring out the idiosyncrasies of how concessions where arranged can provide additional information. The surveyors put the most desirable lots close to what they felt were important physical features, methods of transportation, or population centres. Often the best lots were in the lowest numbered (or lettered) concessions. Did your ancestor rate one of those?

Was your ancestor settled on an important road or waterway that the authorities wanted to see thrive? Extensive records about the development of the Bobcaygeon Road can be found at the Archives of Ontario in fonds RG 1-574 Crown land agents’ records for Victoria County and Haliburton.

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