Nature Trails and Picturesque Scenes
Scenes near the Samuel Wilmot Nature Area and the former site of the Baldwin Homestead.
Wilmot Creek and Nature Area are named after Samuel Wilmot who in 1860 began experimenting with raising trout, salmon & whitefish. According to one old account, " In those days, a thousand salmon where caught a night during salmon season in Lake Ontario by Newcastle."
Samuel Wilmot Nature Area is a provincially significant wetland. A home for many diverse species of wild life including stream edge habitat. The area is characteristic of Southern Ontario’s natural landscapes and early settlement history of Aboriginal through European inhabitants. Trails go through picturesque story book forests, old fields, remnant orchards and hedgerows. As trails sometimes go through private property and wild habitat, please enjoy your visit and stay to the paths.
The Baldwin Homestead
Only a plaque now rests atop some stones where once stood the Baldwin Homestead by the shores of Lake Ontario, near the Samuel Wilmot Nature Area.
Transcribed from a Clarington plaque marking the homestead site:
In the summer of 1798, Robert Baldwin Sr. (1741-1816) arrived in Upper Canada from Ireland.
After a brief stay in York (Toronto) Robert brought his family by open boat to this property some seven children came with him to this homestead. Robert Baldwin was highly regarded by the provincial administration and held such important offices as Lieutenant of the county of Durham, Justice of the Peace, Commander of the Militia, and Commissioner of Roads.
In 1810 he moved to York to live with his son, W.W. Baldwin, a successful lawyer and physician who became a leading political reformer. The latter’s son, Robert Baldwin Jr. was joint premier with Louis Lafontaine of the Province of Canada 1842-1843 and 1848-1851.
These relaxing scenes are some you will see when you take a walk near the lake in the Wilmot Nature Area
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