When the township of Bertie amalgamated with its incorporated towns and villages in 1970, to become the Town of Fort Erie, it was almost a 200 year return to an earlier time. When surveying began in the late 1700s, the area was known as Fort Erie Township, named after the military garrison at the meeting of the Niagara River and Lake Erie, but in 1793 an Act of Parliament renamed it Bertie in honour of the fourth Earl of Abingdon. Surveyor, Amos Chapman's 1789 map of the area was entitled Quaker Township though, because so many of the earliest settlers were Quakers. Many subsequently moved on, but there is still a remnant in the small cemetery next to the former People's Memorial United Church at the corner of Ridge and Dominion Roads in Ridgeway.