Madoc, Ontario (town)

Madoc (pronEng|ˈmeɪdɒk) is a community in the municipality of Centre Hastings, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the junction of Highway 7 and Highway 62, southeast of Bancroft, halfway between Toronto and Ottawa. When people would travel by horse and carriage during the 1800, from Toronto to Ottawa, Madoc was the halfway stop over, allowing the passengers and horses to rest.

Madoc was originally named MacKenzie's Mills after Donald MacKenzie, who built a sawmill and grist mill here. It was briefly named Hastings but renamed Madoc Township which was named after legendary Welsh prince Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd, credited by some with discovering America in 1170. The community is now separated from this township. The area has had a rich mining history. Gold was discovered at nearby Eldorado in 1866. Fluorite was extracted from the area during the 1930s and 1940s. Now, talc is mined nearby.

On January 25 1998, the Village of Madoc amalgamated with Huntingdon Township to form Centre Hastings. Madoc is the largest community in the municipality. Its post office services locals with lock boxes and rural routes.

People born here include:
*Allan Roy Dafoe, who delivered and cared for the Dionne Quintuplets
*Colin Scott Dafoe, who was best known for his work as a surgeon with Marshall Josip Broz Tito's Partisans in Yugoslavia during the Second World War
*John Weir Foote, who was awarded the Victoria Cross ((the Walters Family)) (( the Brown Family))

In 2008, Madoc celebrated its 130th anniversary. [http://www.shieldmedia.ca/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=11315&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1944&hn=shieldmedia&he=.ca]