In an effort to populate the province, the government of Ontario passed The Free Grants and Homestead Act” in 1868. Along with the settlers the lumbermen, with their eyes on the profit potential of all those trees, soon converged on Parry Sound District. Christie Township was surveyed by John Grant in 1869 and named for Robert Christie, M.P.P.. a member of Ontario’s first Legislative Assembly.
Christie was settled from it’s borders inward beginning in 1870. We find that most of the new arrivals poured in from Humphrey Township, suggesting they used the Parry Sound Road, linking Bracebridge, Rosseau and Parry Sound. It had been built between 1863 and 1867.
At the same time, settlers entered Christie from McKellar to the north and from Foley to the west. Foley had opened for settlement some years earlier and a rough road already headed toward Christie. There was little settlement to the east although interest was shown in the lots for timber.
The earliest town site started to develop at Edgington, by the narrows at Duck and Maple Lake. John Edgington arrived in 1878 and settled at the narrows. He immediately built his home and a store with a post office. A shoemaker by trade he had a great deal of business making boots for the loggers. His supplies for the store came from Rosseau. John died in 1900 and the house burned soon after. By this time the settlement of what would become the village of Orrville had started and the need for a store at the narrows no longer existed.
