The Canada Company bought one million acres (4,000 km2) of land west of the then London district and called it the Huron Tract.

[5] Private enterprise and the ruling elite never quite separated in the case of the Huron Tract, the Canada Company and the Family Compact being almost synonymous until after the Rebellions of 1837.

[5] For 5000 years groups of 25 to 250 Huron, Algonquin and the Ojibwa historically used this land as tribal summer homes for communal fishing and hunting.

In an attempt to discourage speculation and distribute land according to the prevailing paradigm, Upper Canada was divided into three separate categories: crown, clergy and township.

The tract, together with the Crown Reserves not leased in townships surveyed before March 1, 1824, formed the lands that they intended to sell.

Directors Edward Ellice, Simon McGillivray, Hart Logan and Henry Usborne, had lived in Canada at various times.

No person, except United Englishmen, Loyalists (on the separation of the United States from Great Britain, those who preserved their allegiance to the British Crown and fled to Canada, were entitled to 200 acres of land each, by Act of Parliament), or those entitled by existing regulations to the Government free grants, can obtain any of the waste Crown lands otherwise than by purchase.

[14] The opposition, the Colborne Clique, had a different opinion and were able to sway a victory in defiance of the Family Compact and Sir John Robinson's position.

[4] Pioneers of the Huron Tract 1828-1928 Commemorating the life work of the men who opened the roads, felled the forests, builded the farmsteads, tilled the fields, reaped the harvests—and of the women who made the homes, bore the children, nursed them, reared them, brightened and ennobled domestic life in the Huron Tract during a hundred years.Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

William "Tiger" Dunlop describes the land as loamy, or, sandy loam with a limestone gravel on the verge of the lakes.

Historically, the southwest area of the Huron Tract contained a small portion of Carolinian forest or deciduous trees.

Ellice and Gads Hill are primarily owned by the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority; the northern section of Ellice Swamp being owned by the Grand River Conservation Authority[24] A smaller area is known as Hullet Swamp or Hullett Provincial Wildlife Area.

Currently the Hullett Provincial Wildlife Area is 2,200 hectares (5,400 acres) along the South Maitland River in the heart of Huron County.