Formosa, Ontario

Gaspar Matoga, a Jesuit missionary, visited the area in January 1853, on one of many trips to minister to the new settlements of the region.

Upon seeing the valley in which the present day hamlet is situated, he described it as formosa, the Latin word for beautiful.

It doubled as a temporary church in the early days of the community for the visiting Jesuit missionaries.

With the growth of the community, a large stone school was completed in 1868, on land donated by local businessman F.X.

He also donated land and a 2+1⁄2-story convent building in 1872, hoping to establish Formosa as a headquarters for the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

For a number of years in the late nineteenth century Formosa had three school buildings in use simultaneously.

At the time, a wooden church that had been completed in 1857 had required two expansions to handle the increasing number of German immigrants flowing into the area.

In April 1864, Father Gstir again wrote to Ludwig for funds to build a larger stone church, and subsequently received an additional 1000 Thalers.

The new pastor of the day (Father Louis Elena) and the parishioners did not want to go into debt, so work progressed as fast as contributions allowed.

The story of the church construction is used as a fictional backdrop in the Jane Urquhart novel The Stone Carvers.

Beer began to be produced again in 1927, and the brewery operated continually in Formosa from then on to the closure of the plant at the end of 1971.

Crowds of thirsty Ontario beer drinkers flocked to Formosa, where rationing of one case per customer had to be instituted at times.

In the late 1960s, the plant had reached bottling capacity, and the Formosa site was deemed infeasible for expansion.

The owners built a new plant in Barrie, Ontario, and moved operations there, still under the 'Formosa Spring Brewery' name.

The Formosa plant was sold and used for a number of years for other industries such as water bottling and fish farming.