The township of Esquesing was surveyed in 1818 and opened to settlement the following year. Its name was said to come from a First Nations word meaning "the land of the tall pine", but is more likely to come from the Mississauga word ishkwessin, meaning "that which lies at the end", which was the original name for Bronte Creek. The grid pattern of lines and sideroads that define the landscape of the township to this day, is often interrupted by the rugged cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment, the deep Credit River valley or the headwaters of Sixteen Mile Creek. It was this natural beauty that drew the Hurons first and then the Mississaugas to hunt, fish and live in this area. The Township was organized into a municipality, and its council held its meetings at Stewarttown. The principal road toLake Ontario was Trafalgar Road so development of several settlements began along this route first. A more direct route to York was established by the York to Guelph Road, now Highway 7. In that era, these hamlets provided the essential services for pioneers and travelers. It was the arrival of the Railway in 1856 that changed the landscape and provided the stimulus for the urban development of Georgetown and Acton. Esquesing Township Council governed the remaining communities:
Municipal evolution
The first township meeting was held in 1821 when the population was 424. Over the years, two parts of the Township were constituted as separate municipalities: On January 1, 1974, Halton County was reorganized to become the Regional Municipality of Halton. As a consequence, Esquesing, Acton and Georgetown were amalgamated to form the new Town of Halton Hills.
Organization of schools
The Parliament of Upper Canada originally passed legislation in 1816 providing for each district of the Province to have a board of education, and for each common school to be governed by its own school trustees. Upon its settlement, Esquesing was eventually divided into school sections for each of its common schools :
Ligny
Quatre Bras
Ashgrove
Pinegrove
Waterloo
Stewarttown
Norval
Dublin
Gibraltar
Dufferin
Glen Williams
Lorne
Bannockburn
Blue Mountain
Clay Hill
Mount Pleasant
Milton Heights
This system of governance would continue unchanged until the 1940s. Talks began in 1944 to amalgamate some of the school sections into a single school area board, and action was taken in 1945 to merge seven sections, and an eighth section came on board before the end of the year. Two more sections were included in 1947, and the remainder joined at dates as late as 1956, 1961 and 1962. The single board for the Township only lasted until an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1968 constituted the Halton County Board of Education, which came into being on January 1, 1969.
