Map of Beamsville

Beamsville, unlike Jordan, did not develop at the junction of a powerful creek and a major Indian trail. In fact, the earliest community did not occur at the future site of Beamsville at all but instead at the mouth of the Thirty Mile Creek. Without Jordan's natural harbour, settlers at the mouth of the Thirty had to make their own harbour by building a jetty out into the lake. This little settlement came to be known as The Harbour and provided an early outlet for the grist and saw mills of western Clinton Township. It was never much of a harbour and in bad weather, boats had to moor out on the lake until better weather came along. When the Iroquois Trail began to be improved as the Queenston-to-Grimsby Road, another community began to develop around Jacob Beam's land on the trail. This eventually became Beamsville.

Two groups can lay claim to be the first settlers of the area. In 1786, a party of Mennonites and former Mennonites from Bucks County in Pennsylvania decided to emigrate to Canada. Loyalists in the Revolutionary War, they had decided that they would be better off in Canada. The group consisted of the families of Jacob Culp, his brother Dielman (Tillman) Culp, Staats Overholt, Frederick (or John) Haun, and, possibly, Conrad Tufford. Franklin Albright might have been part of that group or his family might have come the following year. Records from 1791 show that Overholt owned the land on both sides of Ontario Street from Green Lane to the lake. Albright owned the land on which The Harbour developed at the mouth of the Thirty. Haun owned the land to the east of Overholt. Jacob and Tillman Culp and Tufford were still further east.

Jacob Beam, a Baptist from New Jersey who had forfeited land during the war, had made an investigative trip to Canada in 1779. In 1788, he moved with his family to land he and his son, Jacob Junior, had been granted across the Iroquois Trail south of the Overholt and Haun land. Beam was a true entrepreneur and is credited with growing the first peaches on the Niagara Peninsula. It is also said that the first cheese made in Upper Canada was made with his milk. With Staats Overholt, he founded the Baptist church in Beamsville. He was also one of the founders of the first school on Academy Street.

Places to see in Beamsville are:

• Jacob Beam Jr. House, 5053 King Street

  Jacob Beam Jr. House

  When this house was built, between 1852 and 1855, Jacob Jr. was about eighty years old so it is not likely that he participated in the building. It is not on his original grant, which was on the east side of Ontario Street. This property was part of the grant to Samuel Corwin, Jacob Jr.'s brother-in-law. The house is a frame house and according to the reasons for its heritage designation, it was "inspired by plans found in Brown's The Carpenter's Assistant, a book published in 1851".

• Howard House, 4271 Queen Street

  Howard House

  This house, at the corner of Beam and Queen Streets is now an employment centre but was originally a one-room school. Two familiar names are associated with this property. Originally part of the Samuel Corwin grant, it passed through the hands of his brother-in-law Jacob Beam Jr., who sold it to the Niagara District Council for use as a school. The schoolhouse was built in 1847 and remained as Clinton's SS3 schoolhouse until the school population became too big for the single-room building. It was converted into a dwelling by the Ryckman family until it was bought in 1935 by Walter Howard for whom it is named.

• First Baptist Church

  First Baptist Church, Beam Street

  The church is reputed to have been founded in 1788. It is known that church meetings were held in the home of Staats Overholt and that Jacob Beam is also supposed to have founded the church. The original church building was a log cabin built about 1796 on a different place on the present church site. The present building was built in 1858.

• Clinton Township Hall, 4996 Beam Street

  Clinton Township Hall

  Across the street from the First Baptist Church is this building, constructed in 1851 as a hall for Clinton Township. Now the Beamsville branch of the Lincoln Public Library, this building has been used for many different purposes over the years. Intended as a meeting place for the township supervisors, it has also been used for other meetings and community events. The upper floor was leased "forever" by a local businessman, John B. Osborne for use by the local temperance society. By 1871 that had faded away, so he passed the lease to the Masonic Lodge.

• Woodburn Cottage, 4918 King Street

  Woodburn Cottage

  The land on which this cottage stands was originally part of the Jacob Beam Jr. grant. The cottage, however, was built by a Scottish immigrant James B. Osborne. JB was the man who leased the top floor of the Township hall. He was also the man after whom the Mount Osborne Cemetery was named. He built this Regency cottage in 1834 and it remained in the Osborne family until 1979. It is believed to be the first brick house in the community. The entrance has double front doors with a fan transom and sidelights. On each side of the entrance are two 6-over-6 windows with shutters.

• Jacb Beam House, Off King Street

  Jacb Beam House (present front)

  Jacb Beam House (present rear)

  Jacob Beam's origins are contested. On the one hand, he was a former Mennonite, who through persecution, moved from Pennsylvania to New Jersey and became a Baptist. On the other hand, he emigrated from Germany to New Jersey and always was a Baptist. What is not in doubt is that he was a Loyalist and was a Baptist by the time he got to Upper Canada. When he reached his land here he was almost sixty years old, very old for those times. But he was a vigorous man and quickly began to develop his land. His house is right on the edge of his land where it joined that of his son Jacob Jr. Next door to Woodburn Cottage, it is nearly invisible from the road, being set back and a little higher than the road with other houses between it and the road. It is accessible up a narrow lane that lies alongside Petty's Lane, which itself is next to Woodburn Cottage. The front of the house was originally the rear, possibly because the house was reached from a concession road that ran between the two parts of his property and is shown in a map of about 1870. From the present rear, the house was a 1½.-storey building although it is now 2 storeys from the present front of the house. When it was built it would have been taxed more if it had been a 2-storey house so it was probably 1½.-storeys when built. The wing to the left of the present front door is a later addition.

• Tufford House, 4763 King Street

  Tufford House

  Initially granted to former Butler's Ranger Garrett Slingerland the property changed hands several times before it was bought in 1838 by John Tufford, a Loyalist from New Jersey, probably related to Conrad Tufford of the 1786 settlers. The oldest part of the house, with the front door, dates from about 1840. The front dormers are relatively recent additions.