Port Colborne

Port Colborne (2006 population 18,599) is a city on Lake Erie, at the southern end of the Welland Canal, in the Niagara Region of southern Ontario, Canada. The original settlement, known as Gravelly Bay, dates from 1832 and was re-named after Sir John Colborne, a British war hero and the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada at the time of the opening of the southern terminus of the First Welland Canal in 1833. In pre-colonial times, the Neutral Indians lived in the area, due in part to the ready availability of flint and chert from outcroppings on the Onondaga Escarpment. This advantage was diminished by the introduction of firearms by European traders, and they were driven out by the Iroquois around 1650 as part of the Beaver...