Written By Alan Good
TRAVEL - An easy drive along a known road can, if we search, prove a learning experience. Take Longwoods Road. Part of former Highway 2, it’s a historic transportation corridor in Southwestern Ontario that evolved from an Indigenous trail into a vital military and pioneer route between London and Chatham.
Longwoods Road started out as an indigenous footpath and communication route through the Carolinian forests. Later, Colonel Thomas Talbot laid out and developed Longwoods Road to help open the Talbot Settlement for British and Scottish pioneers serving as the only passable overland road connecting London and Chatham.
During the war of 1812, the Battle of Longwoods was fought in 1814. There American forces repelled a combined British, militia, and Indigenous attack along an icy slope. You can view the historic plaque and cairn of Battle Hill, west of Wardsville, and read some history there.
Longwoods Road Conservation Area offers a 63-hectare protected site for wetlands and local history. Inside the park, this site features a recreated 1,000-year-old Haudenosaunee longhouse village, heritage log cabins, and an interpretive museum managed by the Lower Thames Valley Conservation Authority.
The Tecumseh monument and info path, near Thamesville, is full of historical data that you can drive, or walk, along and read. While in the area, don’t miss the Thamesville railway bridge not far off Longwoords Road, on River Line. It’s some 190 feet long spanning the Thames River and is thought the bridge began use in 1889.
Along the way, observe the many barn quilts displayed on farms, called the Longwoods Barn Quilt Trail. About 30 quilts are said to stretch 65 kilometers highlighting the stories of settlers, Indigenous communities, and women and children enduring the aftermath of the War of 1812 and the Battle of the Thames. A map of their locations can be obtained at barnquilttrails.ca and clicking on the “maps” link.
A deeper dive into the history of the Longwoods trail will lend an enriching read of how life during a war was lived and how this pathway through history, not far from us, eventually brought about progress.
