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While doing some research in old issues of the Gananoque Reporter for 1888, I ran across a series titled ‘Gananoque’s Early Days’. Included in the articles several stories about various islands . . .
“Gananoque has with justice been called the Birmingham of Eastern Ontario, the Gananoque River furnishing an almost unlimited waterpower . . . thus passing from one factory to another as motive power in setting in motion the wheels of industry.
How Gananoque got its name is a minefield and not for the faint of heart. Several authors have taken a crack at unravelling this quagmire and have only come up with maybes.
This largely forgotten story began in the 1830s, but not in Gananoque, as one would expect. It began with Richard Coleman Sr. in what is now a quiet rural community called Lyn,