By Nathan Cox for the Tillsonburg News, originally
published July 27, 2011.
Special thanks to the Port Burwell Marine Museum for their assistance.
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Port Burwell has a long history that
is inter-woven with the lake that it resides on.
Much of this history can be seen at the Port
Burwell Marine Museum, near the lighthouse. Port Burwell was founded in 1830 by Mahlon Burwell, an Empire Loyalist who first came to the nearby Talbot Settlement in 1809. He served as deputy surveyor to Col. Talbot, and for his service was given two lots of land. On this land he built a community, which became Port Burwell. Port Burwell’s lighthouse was built in 1840. For 100 years it was run by the Sutherland family, until it was decommissioned in 1963. It was restored in 1986, and is the oldest standing lighthouse on the north shore of Lake Erie. It was once used during an episode of Friday the 13th, the Series, a television show that ran between 1987 and 1990. Port Burwell was home to several shipbuilders, and Ralph Hurley was considered one of the best. He opened a shipyard in Port Burwell in 1947 and built commercial fishing boats and pleasure craft. He retired in the 1970’s, but was called out of retirement in 1979 to build three more ships, the last of which was the appropriately named vessel The Last Time. For years, one of the biggest attractions in Port Burwell was the Ashtabula. It was a coal ship based in Ashtabula, OH, and it carried coal across the lake to Port Burwell. The coal would then be taken on the railroad to larger towns. After delivering its cargo, the ship would turn around in the Port Burwell harbour, and locals would come to see it. The Ashtabula later collided with another ship in Ohio, and sunk. More about these stories can be learned at the Port Burwell Marine Museum, which has numerous artefacts, including an anchor from the Nimrod, which sank in Port Bruce. Later this year, the museum will add a much-anticipated piece to its collection. The HMCS Ojibwa, a Canadian submarine that served from 1965 to 1998, will arrive at the museum, and there are plans to hold tours of it in 2012. |
 The Port Burwell lighthouse, built in 1840 and restored in 1986.  The Port Burwell Marine Museum. |