Following the ceding of the Bruce Peninsula to the Province of Canada in 1854 by the Ojibway, the entire Peninsula, including the rocky forest land back of Cabot Head, was divided into one hundred acre farm lots.

Not until 1870 was the upper Peninsula (Lindsay and St. Edmunds townships) thrown open to settlement and timbering.

On May 4, 1870, a cutting license was granted to Cook & Brothers, of Toronto, to a large tract of forest which included the highlands of Cabot Head. On July 15, 1871, George J. Cook purchased a lot which took in most of the western shore of Wingfield Basin.

For more than a decade Cook & Brothers, later known as the British Canadian Lumbering & Timber Company, held exclusive rights to the forests of Lindsay and St. Edmunds townships. Finally, in 1882, with most of the large pine gone and the Company’s political influence waning, the last of their licenses was revoked and their former holdings thrown open to other, smaller entrepreneurs.