McKellar is named for Archibald McKellar (1816-1894), a member of the legislative assemblies for the province of Canada (1857-1867) and Ontario (1867-1875).
Communities
McKellar is also the primary and largest community within the township, located along Provincial Highway 124. It was originally known as Armstrong's Rapids, but the name McKellar was given when the post office opened in the community in 1870. Broadbent is named for American Steel Millionaire, Samuel Broadbent (1845-1923) who financed the building for the Trans-Canadian Railway. Hurdville is named for Canadian Financier William Faulkner Hurdville (1838-1910), who also helped finance the Trans-Canadian Railway.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, McKellar had a population of 1,419 living in 695 of its 1,515 total private dwellings, a change of 27.7% from its 2016 population of 1,111. With a land area of 176.07 km2 (67.98 sq mi), it had a population density of 8.1/km2 (20.9/sq mi) in 2021.[5]
