Ayr

The community of Ayr, Ontario, Canada is located within the Township of North Dumfries in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo in Southwestern Ontario. Ayr is found south of Kitchener and west of Cambridge. The town later to be called Ayr, on the Nith River, was initially a gathering of settlements, Mudge's Mills in the inside, Jedburgh toward the east and Nithvale toward the west, that in the end consolidated into one as they extended. The name Ayr was first utilized in 1840 when it was doled out to the mail station.

The domain around there, inevitably to be the township of North Dumfries, comprising of 94,305 sections of land, had been sold to Philip Stedman in 1798 from Joseph Brant of the Six Nations. Proprietorship exchanged to Thomas Clarke and afterward, in 1816 to William Dickson a well off foreigner from Scotland. Absalom Shade was the main individual land proprietor in the zone of the intersection of Smith's Creek and Cedar Creek in 1822 and the principal real pilgrim was Abel Mudge, at first as a squatter. He constructed a dam, a sawmill and a grist process. The Nith River and Cedar Creek were valuable for controlling plants. Most consequent pioneers at Mudge's Mills were Scottish, ranchers, craftsmans or tradesmen.