[3] Until its incorporation in 1872, the village of Lucan had been known as Marystown, named in tribute to the wife of John McDonald, who was the original land surveyor of the area.

[4] Despite being more than 500 km (310 mi) to the north [citation needed], in 1829 the area became a refuge for a group of free African Americans from Cincinnati, Ohio, who had been threatened by riots and job discrimination by white people in their city.

A group of roughly 200 Black Americans were granted refuge and land by the Canada Company and duly set up a colony named Wilberforce.

The flight of Black refugees, escaped slaves from the South, northward into Canada beginning around this time was as part of the Underground Railroad.

They cleared large lots of land by logging and worked hard to sustain the colony, but much of the population declined through the 1840s as many of the original colonists moved on to larger, growing urban centres such as Detroit, Cleveland or Toronto to obtain wage-based employment.

The area was further logged and settled by white people in the 1840s and later, many from Ireland, some of whom purchased farmsteads from the departing Black settlers or new lots sold to them cheaply by the Canada Company.

The village and surrounding township prospered as a result of quicker access to larger marketplaces, such as Toronto farther to the east, and new immigrants settling the area.

[6] Biddulph Township is known as the site of the brutal massacre on February 4, 1880, of five of the Black Donnellys, an immigrant Irish family caught up in a long-standing local feud.

[17] Alexander Noble Garrett, born on the homestead, lot 11, South Boundary, Biddulph, August 13, 1862, was an outstanding athlete who excelled at a number of different sports.