Wingham & Area - Disney Family Connection

The Disneys of Huron County Project Group is a project group of the Huron County Historical Society with a mandate to collect and record information about the history of the Disney Family in Huron County. Nancy Mitchie is the Chair of the group that is working to collect and record any information they can find about the history of the Disney Family in Huron County.

Mitchie says there are fourteen people in their group and they have been collecting information about the history of the Disney family in Huron County for the last seven years. She says they believe it's very important to document and preserve that information so that it's available to people in the future. Mitchie says their mission is to identify and research all available records for information on the Disney family as pioneers in Huron County.

The Disney name is recognized worldwide for theme parks, movie productions and television shows and, more recently, destination cruise lines but researcher Graham Booth says what might surprise a lot of people is that Walt Disney's ancestral family originally came from Huron County after emigrating from Ireland. Research shows the Disneys were one of the earliest families to settle in the area between the 1830s and the 1880s. Walt Disney's grandfather, Kepple, became part of the first oil drilling crew that accidentally discovered salt in Goderich. 

As the popularity of the Disney movies grew, so did the interest in the history of the Disney family in Huron County. In 2019 the Disneys of Huron County Project Group was formed to find out as much as they could about the Disney family and their time in Huron County. In their research they found people who owned the farm in Bluevale that was originally built by Walt Disney's grandfather, Kepple and where Walt's father Elias grew up, as well as numerous other treasures of the Disney family's time in Huron County that were unknown to most Huron County residents.

The Disneys of Huron County Project Group has also initiated a project to restore the cemetery in Holmesville where Disney pioneers are buried and Walt Disney has contributed to financing that project. Walt Disney did make a trip back to Huron County in 1947 and people who saw him say what really stood out was an understanding of who the Disneys were as people. The Disneys of Huron County Project Group also discovered some landmarks that are connected to the Disneys, like the Museum which was the former school that Walt Disney's father attended, the Bedford Hotel where Walt and his wife Lillian stayed, the Goderich Square and Courthouse, the Richardson farm near Holmesville, the Holmesville Cemetery and the Maitland Cemetery where his relatives lie.

The group would be delighted to receive any further information, stories, family ties, or photographs that anyone might have about the Disneys of Huron County and any donations to the project will be passed on to the Historical Society for a taxable receipt. For more information, visit the website at www.huroncountymuseum.ca/disney-connections