The community was originally settled in 1869 after two previous "wintering-over" by Wm. James Adams and his four sons and three of his four daughters. They came to the area from Old Perlican on the east side of Trinity Bay. It has always been a logging town and at its height in the 1930s possessed four water-powered and 8 gas-powered saw mills. The only remnants of its logging history is found in the name of the small brook that runs through the town called "the Saw Pit Brook". At another point in its history it was also a siding for the branch railway line to Bonivista. This element was run by Mr. Herbert Adams.
The family was originally settled by this Adams clan (who descended from the Scottish Highlands) and descendants of these four brothers are still scattered throughout the community to this day. The community has seen 6 generations of the family make its home here.
Other industries that have existed here were a Brick Manufacturing plant (the only one in NL until its closure in the 1970s). It was also the starting point of the cross country explored Wm Epps Cormack and his traveling companion Joseph Sylvester where they began their trek across the provinces interior in 1832.
Most importantly, a series of "transatlantic cables have in the past landed in the general area (the first telegraph cable was landed at Heart's Content in 1866 and the first international telephone cable in Clarenville in 1955).[2] The current
Greenland Connect cable landed in Milton itself in 2009, connecting
Eastlink network to
Greenland and thence to far Northern European network exchange points via
Iceland. It provides an alternative to the more southerly
Hibernia Atlantic cable from
Halifax or
Emerald Express and is on a route that could in theory connect to Russian or Far Eastern destinations via Arctic great circles, to complete a global transocean fibre loop.
The community has since evolved into a bedroom community to the
Clarenville area.[3] In 2017, residents of Milton and the neighbouring community of
George's Brook voted in favour of joining to incorporate as a town.[4] The Town of George's Brook-Milton was officially incorporated by the provincial government on May 8, 2018.[5]
As a designated place in the
2016 Census of Population conducted by
Statistics Canada, Milton recorded a population of 410 living in 171 of its 187 total private dwellings, a change of -4.7% from its 2011 population of 430. With a land area of 3.05 km2 (1.18 sq mi), it had a population density of 134.4/km2 (348.2/sq mi) in 2016.[1]
^"History of Milton". Unofficial Clarenville and Area Website. Kevin Elliott. Archived from the original on April 21, 2013. Retrieved April 20, 2020.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link)