"Port Flamboro") to export the many things being created by the mills that quickly sprung up in the Waterdown-area. It was Alexander Brown that built the first school of the village (on the site of the present-day American House) in 1815, employing Mary Hopkins as its first teacher. Ebenezer Griffin – the founder of Waterdown It was the arrival of entrepreneur Ebenezer Culver Griffin in 1823, purchasing over half of Alexander Brown's property, that marked the true beginning of the Village of Waterdown. It was Griffin that had his property surveyed into village lots in 1830. The post office dates from 1840. The name "Waterdown" A local story credits Ebenezer Griffin with giving Waterdown its name. A prohibitionist, Griffin did not approve of the vast quantities of alcohol being consumed during the Victorian Age, including the whiskey used to christen new mills. During the christening of one of Griffin's mills the carpenter called out for its name and someone in the crowd called out "Hey Ebenezer, throw that water down." The carpenter heard the name "Waterdown" and it was given to the mill and soon adopted by the emerging village. A secondary story with a more plausible reality exists from the early pioneers of this area naming Waterdown after Waterdown Forest in the UK. This area was a military encampment area that existed in 1782 that extends from Tunbridge Wells in Kent in the north-west and Frant in Sussex. Many of the small towns and hamlets around Waterdown have been named after the same named throughout the UK. Industrial Revolution Waterdown was born out of the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to the plan drawn up by Ebenezer Griffin, settlers and industrialists rooted themselves in village life. Mills grew along the banks of Grindstone Creek (especially in the area known as Smokey Hollowgiven this name because of all the smog caused by the many complexes) as individuals like William P. Howland arrived to make their fortune. In 1869, the population was 1,000. By 1879 the settlement was severed from the Township of East Flamborough and incorporated as a village in its own right with quarrier Charles Sealey as its first reeve. Waterdown remained its own municipality until it was absorbed into the Township of Flamborough in 1974. Convent and academy In 1927, the School Sisters of Notre Dame opened a Motherhouse in rural Waterdown and subsequently opened a private Catholic girls' school