William Burke, the first white settler in North Queens, arrived here with his wife and children in 1799. He built their log cabin south of the Medway River.
At one time, South Brookfield was considered the industrial centre of North Queens, but in June 1864, a rapidly spreading fire took out all industries and many homes. Brookfield never recovered from this disaster and the centre of commerce for the northern district moved to Caledonia. In 1929, a firm from Quebec came to South Brookfield and built one of the largest bucket and box factories in Canada. In June of 1944, the factory was destroyed by fire and the owner decided not to rebuild and returned to Quebec.
South Brookfield is on Highway 8 about 10 minutes south of Caledonia.
GPS (approx): 44.372597, -64.973273