Swansea Vale Railway nineteenth century, when land transport was limited to what pack animals could carry on their backs. At that time the extraction of copper in Cornwall became an important industry, and as a great deal of coal is required to smelt copper, it became the practice to bring the copper to Swansea by ship and smelt it there. This specific sector of the metal industry became so dominant that Swansea was given the nickname "Copperopolis". The works engaged in this industry were located on the banks of the River Tawe at first, but the construction of the Swansea Canal, opened in
Swansea, Toronto in that it recognizes that First Nations members were the first people to inhabit Swansea, thousands of years ago. The hills in the Swansea Village seal represent Swansea's rolling countryside. The water in the Swansea seal refers to Swansea's natural boundaries, which include Lake Ontario, the Humber River and Grenadier Pond. Through the 19th century the area later known as Swansea was divided between two farm lots; The western half of what is now Swansea was originally the home of Toronto's first European inhabitant, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, a French fur trader, who was permitted to occupy the site of a