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' e »â€"Z2"% _ _._. *A 2 | our TOWNSHLP : The first roads that had been opened up in East Zorra section of the Township were 12th line and the 1l6th line, so first lots were taken up along these . f With the coming of the Canada Company and the opening of the Queen‘s Bush country, steps were taken to open a road comnecting Woodstock with Stratford and Goderich. + In 1849 the Woodstock and Huron Road Company was formed which méde the -C 12th line a good plank and gravel road. They eréested toll gates at the corner | now oceupled by Toll Gate Senool, near Woodstock where tolls were collected on . buggies, democrats, wagons to help pay for the road. Elderly people can remember paying 7¢ for a buggy passing through the gates. At this time there were in EBast Zorra three saw mills, a grist mill, s an oatmeal mill and a mill for earding wool . s In East Zorra agrieculture centered around cattle, horses, sheep, hogg;, fall and spring wheat. barley, ocats, peas, turnips, potatoes, carrots, mangelwurzel, butter, cheese, rye, Indian corn, bueckwheat. Horses and cows and sheep were brought to Lower Canada from France as early asg 1665. Settlers in Upper Canada got their stock from Lower Canada or the United States. | In 1850 in ERast Zorra there were 587 horses, 1930 hogs, around 4,000 ) cattle, 4898 sheep. Nearly 2000 yards of fulled cloth and 572‘ yards of flannel were made in the township that year. Fiftyâ€"nine thousand and ninetyâ€"eight pounds of maple sugar was produced. The name of Zorra can claim no tles with English, Seotch, Irish, Amerilean or German settlers, some say that this name comes from the Bible in Judges XIII, 2~â€" zorah, the birthplace of Samson. Others claim that the name Zorra is Spanish.. An early LMeutenantâ€"Governor of Upper Canada, Sir Peregrine Mitland, 1818â€"1828, saw ‘ seryviee in Spain under Wellington. 1t is presumed that he would have some Ssay in _‘ naming new townships and he may have compared the country to a femak fox which is what ty the name means in Spanish. How could the broad acres be as deceiving as a female fox? Or could he be referring to a Zoril whlich is an animal in Africa which belongs to the family of mammals which also included weasels, badgers, otters, mink and skunkâ€"â€"all of which were undoubftedly seen by the early surveyors. f As we drive along the well gravelled roads of Rast Zorra, today, and view the modern homes, electrically equipped, the well kept lawns, the comfortable attractive schools and churches, the cultivated fields all fenced in, we can searcely realize that in 1840 this beautiful township was nothing but dense forest through which animals roamed. ‘The path of men being a blazed path through the forest.