In the early 1800s, Timothy Robers, a Quaker millwright from Vermont, drew a flourishing community of fellow Quakers to the area which became the new-market for settles and traders.
It soon became the commercial hub of a rich farming area. By the mid-1800s it was a central point on the Ontario, Simcoe, and Huron Railway. Over the following decades, gas deposits were confirmed there and a barge canal was built along with a street railway. In the early 20th century Newmarket languished through a long period of slow growth — wars and the Depression took a terrible toll on the small town. Yet in the 1940s it was another war that brought thousands of soldiers to Newmarket’s training camp on their way to battlefields in Europe.
It took the 1960s to bring real prosperity — builders began developing the inexpensive land, industries came, and the town flourished. The pace of construction continued through the 1980s as Newmarket prepared for its busy life of today.

Robert Terence Carter has been writing about Newmarket’s history since the late 1960s when he began a column after becoming editor of The Era, Newmarket’s weekly newspaper (founded in 1852). He founded the Newmarket Historical Society and continues as a director. For over fifteen years he has written the Society newsletter as well as a number of its papers on subjects ranging from the Rebellion of 1837 to Newmarket’s dead in the First World War. Carter is a long-time resident of Newmarket

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"This careful, thoughtful, and well-written chronicle of a nearly 200-year-old community north of Toronto is enhanced by qualities that distinguish it from many another local history: it refrains from presenting too much detail that distracts from the central narrative."

CBRA

"The many pictures and large page format make this a volume to be read and enjoyed by all who cherish and would preserve our past."

Pat and Chris Raible