Kettleby is an unincorporated community located in northeastern King Township, in Ontario, Canada. It is located about 1.5km east of the Highway 400, 25km north of Toronto, about 40km south of Barrie, 6km west of Newmarket, and about 50km east of Orangeville.GeographyKettleby is surrounded by the rolling hills of King Township. The hamlet spans 1km2 while the Kettleby postal area spans 32.5km2 of land area.The hamlet sits predominantly on a rise of land between two valleys of the looping Kettleby Creek. Hills surround the western, southern and the central parts of Kettleby while taller hills ranging as high as about 350m are to the north and reach close to the highway linking Orangeville and Newmarket (Highway 9). Farmlands lie to the southeast while the Holland Marsh lies to the north, one of the lowest points in King Township.HistoryKettleby was established no later than 1825, when Jacob Tool of Pennsylvania purchased 100acre in a wide ravine, including a stream. He built a sawmill powered by the stream's flow, but little other development occurred in the area. It was the industrious Septimus Tyrwhitt, who purchased 46acre of Tool's property in 1842, that spurred development of more mills and the eventual settlement of Kettleby. Early settlers often referred to it as Tyrwhitt's Mills, in honour of Tyrwhitt. However, he disapproved of the name, and his wife subsequently named the hamlet Kettleby, after the Tyrwhitt family ancestral home in Lincolnshire, England. That the name Kettle Bee derived from the construction bee of raising Tyrwhitt's mill, which drew many men from surrounding villages, is a local urban legend. Tyrwhitt was named reeve of King Township in 1852.
