Did you know that Maryhill was originally called Rottenburg?
Founded by European settlers way back in 1826, four decades before Canada’s Confederation, the original tracts of land were purchased just south of the present-day community by immigrants from the Grand Duchy of Baden, a southwestern German state that existed from 1806 to 1918. They were from the Fehrenbach and Scharbach families.
“The way these histories are written, it always says the first settlers came from Alsace. But, in fact, the very first settlers came from Baden,” Maryhill Historical Society vice-president Frank Rider told The Observer.
They were followed by five Alsatian families in 1828.
