Sombra

Sombra has a colourful history.Besides its involvement in rum running, it had the distinction of being the first block of land the Crown acquired in Lambton County.

 

The entire township was purchased from local natives in 1796 for 800 blankets, 2,300 tobacco pipes, and some silk handkerchiefs and a few other items.

 

In 1820, Upper Canada's Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, a veteran of the Peninsular War in Spain, named Sombra after the Spanish word for shade.  At the time it was a fitting name, since the township was then very heavily wooded.

The swashbuckling Samuel Smith, the man who saved Canada during the war of 1812, surveyed the township in 1820 and was municipally organized two years later.

Smith was on sentry duty at Queenston Heights on the night of Oct 13, 1813 when he spotted an American invasion fleet and sounded the alarm.Smith later settled in Euphemia Township, where he’s buried.

 

At first, the township was united with Dover to the south, but for three years beginning in 1826, it was united with Moore and Walpole Island to form St Clair Township.  Under the terms of the Municipal Act of 1849 (effective January 1st, 1850),  Sombra lost its four southern concessions to the newly created Gore of Chatham.  But, at nearly 72,000 acres the township remained a substantial one.

 

Sombra seems to have been a very religious place in the 19^th century. Indeed, while there were only 280 people in Sombra village in 1877, the community was served by no less than four churches.