The area that would one day become the City of Galt was originally sold to the Honourable William Dickson from the Six Nations in 1816. Mr. Dickson’s hope was to attract fellow Scottish settlers to the area, and with Absalom Shade, began the settlement of Shade’s Mills.
In 1825, when the settlement built its own post office, Dickson decided to rename the settlement Galt in honour of John Galt, a Scottish novelist and the Commissioner of the Canada Company.