Maryhill, Ontario

Maryhill from the air. The church is visible with a blue roof in the centre of the image.
Coordinates: 43°N 80°W / 43°N 80°W / 43; -80
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Regional municipality	Waterloo
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Forward sortation area	List of N postal codes of Canada
Area code(s)	519 and 226
NTS Map
GNBC Code

Maryhill is a small Canadian hamlet in Ontario near Guelph. Its main feature is the gothic St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church built in the late 1870s, which is visible from miles around. At its side is a cemetery with dozens of old stones, an iron gate, and a stone wall. Across the street is St. Boniface Catholic School and an original homestead, both from the same era. A newspaper writer from Kitchener once wrote that if residents in Ontario can't afford to go to Europe, they should go to Maryhill.^{[citation needed]}

The name "Maryhill" is derived from a statue of "Mary" Magdalene at the base of St. Boniface Church, which is on a small "hill"—Maryhill. Maryhill was renamed after World War II because its former name, "New Germany," was no longer politically acceptable. At the base of the same hill are two former hotels built in the mid-19th century. One is white, was a former stage coach stop, and is now a bed and breakfast.It is called the Maryhill Inn. It was built in 1853. The other is red and is named the Commercial Tavern. The Commercial was once the site of many up and coming rock acts but was in the late 1990s converted into a country music bar. It has an ornate copper ceiling and a storied past.

External links

• Maryhill at Geographical Names of Canada

Coordinates: 43°32′2″N 80°23′24″W / 43.53389°N 80.39°W / 43.53389; -80.39

The name Maryhill was conceived by Dolores Bauman, during a school contest to rename the village in 1941. Dolores was a direct descendent of one of the founding settlers, Matthias Fehrenbach.

The land in this area was originally settled by Matthias Fehrenbach, who immigrated to Canada from Germany in the early 19th century and who purchased the land from the Mennonite Land Tract Company, not with money but through labor. Matthias owned land stretching from Maryhill to the little hamlet of what is now called Bloomingdale. Many other families soon followed and started to clear the land and settle the area. Census records from the 1820s indicate how much land had been cleared and how much livestock had been accumulated from one year to the next.

This little village is still home to many of the direct descendents of the original settlers.