Shanly is an unincorporated place and Compact Rural Community in the township of Edwardsburgh/Cardinal in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville in eastern Ontario, Canada. The village is about one hour south of Ottawa and around 7 miles north-west of Cardinal. Shanly is centred around the intersection of County Road 22, also known as Shanly Road, and County Road 21. Formerly these roads were the Nine Mile Road and the Seventh Concession, respectively. The community was settled during the 1800s, primarily as an agricultural community, and was at its height during the latter half of the 19th century, when many farms and a few businesses and factories were in operation. As of the 2000s, the rural area surrounding the main intersection consists of mostly residential properties and a few family farms. The village is also home to a few businesses and two churches.
In the 1840s, the village that would later become Shanly was called Moore's Settlement, however the meaning of this name is allegedly lost to time. From the 1800s until the 1970s, County Road 22 ran north from Cardinal and ended at the intersection of County Road 21, continuing north again to the west of this junction; early into settlement, the junction was commonly referred to as simply "the Corner" by locals. By the 1860s the community was renamed to Wallace's Corner, Wallace being the surname of a large local family who were one of the first to settle here in 1827. The village was renamed Shanly in 1885 after Walter Shanly, a prominent local political figure who was responsible for establishing the community's post office.
History
The land which currently makes up the village changed hands many times during the beginning of the 19th century before being settled. Some families, including the Wallace family, first established permanent homesteads here during the 1820s. For the first half of the 1800s the community consisted primarily of family farms and homes, and residents sustained themselves almost entirely through agricultural means. By the 1830s, the settlement had grown large enough in population to require its own schoolhouse. Shanly continued to grow in population, and by mid-century had established a post office and a Wesleyan-Methodist church. The post office was established on February 1, 1865, with a man named William Clark as the first postmaster.
In the mid-1800s the Loyal Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organization, had a group based in Shanly known collectively as the Loyal Orange Lodge No. 1227. The Orange Lodge constructed a hall in 1869, calling the building Dufferin Lodge. The two-storey frame structure consisted of an upper-level meeting hall and a lower-level drive shed. This hall was replaced in 1889, when new hall was constructed for their meetings in a new location. In 1949, the Orange Lodge tore down the hall after purchasing the Workman's Hall from the Shanly United Church (formerly the Wesleyan-Methodist), which was used for meeting into the 1990s.
By the mid-to-late 1800s, the population of Shanly had reached around 160 individuals. By the 1880s, the village was home to numerous pioneer industries and businesses including a blacksmith, a harness shop, a cooperage, a carpentry and woodworking shop, a tin shop, a hay and grain dealer, and a grocery store which adjoined the post office. Additionally, the village was home to a second church by the late-1800s, which was of Anglican denomination. Most of the residents during the end of the century still sought an income through agriculture, with some residents being listed in business directories as employed as builders.