Many of the first settlers around North Hatley were United Empire Loyalists, mostly farmers, who left New England in the years following the American Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The village owes most of its great houses and particular architecture to its first aristocrats, and mostly Americans from south of the Mason–Dixon line.

[5] List of former mayors: North Hatley was the location for the shooting of a few films, including Secret Window with Johnny Depp.

[9][10] North Hatley was mentioned in the television show The X-Files as the location of the Cigarette Smoking Man's hideout (in the episode "The Red and the Black").

Several Canadian Modernist poets, including F. R. Scott, Louis Dudek, Ralph Gustafson and D. G. Jones, have lived in North Hatley.