The Good
The Good
The Bad
The Bad
The Ugly
The Ugly
Statistics
Boundaries
Hespeler is located along the northern border of Cambridge, centered around Mill Pond on the Speed River. Downtown Hespeler runs along Queen Street from Harvey Street to Cooper. In recent years Hespeler has begun receiving a major facelift which began with the major renovations to the Hespeler Public Library. New business, restaurants and shop have begun to line Queen Street and the much anticipated 1847 Riverbank Project will see the conversion of what was once an American Standard factory into upscale condos. Local merchants support the town and one another through the Hespeler Village B.I.A and the annual Santa Claus parade has been a Hespeler tradition for over 30 years.
Properties for Sale in Hespeler
Recreation in Hespeler
Home Styles
Hespeler is made up of several neighbourhoods, each with a unique home style. Around the downtown core you will many older stately homes with some modern homes being and major renovations squeezing their way in. The Woodland Park area and the Silver Heights neighbourhood were developed in the late 60’s through early 80’s and offer a variety of traditional subdivision homes including a variety of both attached and detached homes with bungalows, split-levels and two storey floorplans. The Eastern part of Hespeler was largely constructed through the 1990’s primarily by Reids Homes and offers townhouses, starter detached homes as well as larger single family homes. Similarly Millpond was a Mattamy development, being a more recent build these homes are more modern but the increased density is noticeable.
Places of Interest
Restaurants
Worth Mentioning
Forbes Park; playground, splash pad and host to tons of great local events.
History
Originally settled in 1809 when a group of German speaking Mennonites migrated north from Pennsylvania and acquired the land from a developer, Richard Beasley, who had purchased 90,000 acres, known as Block 2, from the Six Nations Indians in 1798. One of the first to purchase land in the area was Abraham Clemens, who purchased 515 acres. In 1830, Mr. Clemens sold a large parcel of his land to Joseph Oberholtzer, who deeded a parcel of land, which included the location of what was to become Hespeler to his sister, Susanna Bergey. Susanna and her husband Michael are considered to be the first residents of Hespeler, than named Bergeytown in their honour. A few short years later the town was renamed New Hope.
In 1845, Jacob Hespeler, purchased 145 acre fronting onto the Speed River where he began to work on the development and construction of a number of industrial sites. As New Hope developed in industry the settlements population also grew and by 1859 had grown large enough in size to be incorporated as the village of Hespeler.
Throughout the 20th century industry continued to thrive in Hespeler and became home to many famous factories including a hockey stick factory, a washing machine factory and Dominion Woollens which was the largest wollen mill in Canada.
