The Heritage Guide - Heritage Mississauga

Lost Villages
The Lost Villages of Mississauga
In the bustling City of Mississauga people
can be excused if they do not notice
small collections of old buildings or the
little cemeteries that seem to dot our city.
Outside of the larger former villages that
make up our city, there is little visible
evidence that Mississauga was once
made up of a series of smaller villages,
hamlets and crossroads communities. In
essence, the story of the “Lost Villages”
of Mississauga is a story about coming
to terms with constant and relentless
transformation, as much as it is a study of
social and physical change.
Early hamlets and villages directly
serviced the needs of their direct areas.
They often provided cradle-to-grave
amenities, were rooted to settlement
lifestyles and activities, and their growth
or decline was in direct response to the
needs of their immediate locality. The
Old Wagon at Riverwood
Heritage Mississauga
hamlets and villages traditionally grew
around major crossroads. These smaller
hamlets and villages were dependent,
in one form or another, on local road
traffic and the services provided by larger
villages. The coming of the railways in the
mid-1800s isolated many of the smaller
communities and exposed these small
hamlets and villages to competition from
larger centres of industry and population.
This coincided with the arrival of the
automobile and the improvement of
roads and communication.
These influences meant that many
of the smaller crossroads communities
lost their importance and most began
to decline. The “Lost Villages” reached
their peak between 1850 and 1900. By
1915, they had declined and gradually
faded into obscurity. These hamlets and
villages included Barberton, Britannia,
34 Heritage Guide of Mississauga