Shortly after returning from this tour, Simcoe received in March 1793 a petition from Thomas Ingersoll and associates asking for grant of a township to which they promised to bring settlers from New England. Simcoe was impressed that the list of associates in the group was headed by the name of Gideon Bostwick, a well-known Church of England (Anglican) missionary in Massachusetts, and the group was granted the township of Oxford-on-the-Thames. The only way to bring settlers into such a wilderness area township was to first build a road from Brantford up to the Thames River, a distance of , and Thomas Ingersoll arranged that work over the course of the next two years, involving numerous journeys back and forth by those involved. In all of this, the first ones to become permanently settled in the township were likely Samuel Canfield Sr. and his wife and sons, who agreed to make their new home into a half-way stopping point for travellers along the road, at what became known as Oxford Centre. This is commemorated with plaques at the cemetery there and in front of the elementary school a short distance to the east along what is now known as "The Old Stage Road".