Located in the northwest corner of Dufferin County about 15 minutes from Shelburne,
rural living is what you will find in the township of Melancthon! It consists of three hamlets – Horning’s Mills, Corbetton and Riverview. It offers vistas as far as the eye can see, prime farmland to admire and more to both visitors and residents.

HISTORY

Melancthon is said to have been ‘swampy and slow to settle’ back in the day. One of the most well-known characteristics of the history of Melancthon is how it was surveyed. It is said that the surveyor, believed to be a man named Charles Rankin, first ran lines around the townships of Melancthon and Luther and filled in the interior in the legend with “all swamp.”

Yet, he was ordered to survey the towns into farm lots, and afterward said it was the ‘meanest tract of land’ he had ever surveyed, and thus named them after ‘the meanest men he had ever heard of.’ The first known settler was Lewis Horning, a merchant and miller who established the village of Horning’s Mills. The area was slow to develop and continued to uphold its rural community status for the centuries to come, and still does to this day.

CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Farming remains the main economic driver in the rural community of Melancthon. Lately, growing and marketing potatoes, actually. As mentioned earlier, the township contains three different villages – Horning’s Mill, Corbetton and Riverview.

Horning’s Mill is the largest of the three, and it has remained relatively untouched. The buildings, located in the Pine River Valley and the heart of the Niagara Escarpment, still hark back to the days of Lewis Horning himself in the late 1800s. Market in the Mills is a proudly owned and operated business which aims to carry on the tradition of a longstanding General Store in the small village. It contains an artisan market and sells fresh baked, homemade and locally supplied goods.

Thanks to the local farming community, you can also find delicious locally grown and sourced produce at businesses such as the Austerfield Apiary Honey & Botanicals, Kidd Farms and Lennox Farm.