The western end of Whitchurch and Markham townships was purchased by the British crown from the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation in 1787 as part of the Toronto Purchase. Whitchurch Township was created in 1792 as one of ten townships in York County. It was named in honour of the village of Whitchurch, Herefordshire in England, where Elizabeth Simcoe was born (she was the wife of Upper Canada Lieutenant Governor Sir John Graves Simcoe). The first European settlements in Whitchurch Township were established in the 1790s. The south-Central Ontario Mississaugas did not formally cede these areas of Whitchurch and southern Ontario until 1923.