The Grand River is a magnificent river that meanders from its source near Dundalk through Southern Ontario to its mouth at Port Maitland on Lake Erie. In the days when the canoe was the most important mode of transport, the Grand River was a major highway for travellers and goods. As time went by, its two problems became exposed: it was wide but not deep, and its mouth was not suitable for a port. Early businessmen in the Dumfries and Waterloo townships would have liked to use the river for transporting goods to avoid a major obstacle, the Beverly Swamp, a wide morass between Dundas and the early settlements. This swamp was an almost impenetrable obstacle for settlers to reach their allotted land and for farm goods to reach markets in Dundas and York (Toronto).

When the first Welland Canal opened in 1829, businessmen such as Absalom Shade thought that they now had a possible way around the swamp. In the spring of 1831, when the water level on the Grand River was high, Shade had some flat-bottomed boats built and in these "arks" he shipped some goods down the river to Dunnville. There, the goods would be transferred to smaller vessels and sent along the canal feeder to the Welland Canal, and from there sent to the main markets in Dundas and York. This work involved, however, was considerable and costly and, when an ark sank in the third year because the spring runoff was less than usual, Shade gave up.

A better solution was on the way. William Hamilton Merritt, the founder and prime mover of the Welland Canal had plans for the Grand River Navigation Company, a company formed to make the Grand River navigable for larger vessels. For the canal feeder from Dunnville to the Welland Canal, a dam at Dunnville had raised the water level of the Grand River some eight feet. As Shade had found, this created an opportunity for shallow boats to pass down the river. But, as Shade had also found, the water level, even in the spring runoff could not be depended upon to be high enough in some specific places, notably the Blair Rapids north of Cayuga and Barefoot's Rapids at present-day Caledonia. The new company intended to dig out canals to bypass these places.

On the face of it, the plan was simple. The new canals would require no more than five dams and five locks. Compared with the requirements for the Welland Canal, this might have seemed child's play. Getting the money to do it was another matter. The problem was, most of the land along the river was owned by the Six Nations and they were very wary about Mr. Merritt and his ideas. They remembered that when the dam at Dunnville had been completed, the river had risen so fast that it had flooded all of their cultivated land along the river. So much so that the Six Nations had brought a law suit for £4000. In the end, because the Welland Canal Company was on shaky financial ground, they received compensation only for the crops lost, not the land.

This was the prelude to some very shady dealing involving the company and the government to involve the Six Nations against their will. In the company charter, the government gave the company the right to appropriate any land that it might need. The company tried to get the land for a song but the commissioners for the Six Nations refused to sell. In arbitration, the amount to be paid for the land was raised considerably, adding to the financial woes of the company. Because of investment problems, Merritt and David Thompson, the man who built the magnificent Ruthven Park, had each taken a quarter of the shares, based on speculation on a forthcoming investment by the Canada Company. The Six Nations had unknowingly taken another quarter by some means never fully explained. The remaining quarter was taken by private investors. Unfortunately, the Canada Company decided not to invest and so Merritt and Thompson were out on a limb. Somehow, by some shenanigans involving Sir John Colborne, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Six Nations ended up acquiring the Merritt and Thompson shares. So the Six Nations, who wanted nothing to do with the company, ended up with three-quarters of the shares and one nominee on the board.

By March 1834, the company got enough money together to start the project and, finally, by mid 1836 had completed the five locks. Technical problems and shoddy workmanship caused by inexperienced contractors contributed to the tardy progress. The towpath was another story. This was to be created between Lock 1 at Indiana (near Ruthven) and Lock 5 at Oneida (now part of Caledonia) and was not finished until 1840. It would take a further three years to build a towpath from Indiana to Dunnville.

Remains of the canal at Sims Lock (Lock 3)

By 1839, the canals were completed as far as Peter Green's or Bunnell's Landing on the oxbow near Brantford. Two years earlier, the company's engineer, John Jackson, had proposed a cut from Peter Green's to Brantford but the financial state of the company would not permit this to be started until 1841. Lack of money caused delays in construction so that the cut was not finished until 1848. Brantford businesses could at last send goods from the quays on Water Street down the Grand River to Dunnville to be trans-shipped to vessels that would take the goods to Buffalo or Toronto. Things looked prosperous for the company at last. This was not to last, because in 1854 the first locomotive from Buffalo arrived in Brantford and sounded the death knell of water transportation.

The canal from ther bridge at Eagle Street, Brantford

Remains of a lock at Lock Street, Brantford

The company had never once made a profit in any year of its operation, but now it had a competitor that could take its goods to Buffalo faster and cheaper. This at a time when its wooden locks were needing repair and its costs were rising. By 1859, the company was in default to the town of Brantford, which stepped in reluctantly to take over. In 1871, Brantford sold the derelict company to another company which promptly sold off the remaining assets. The Grand River Navigation Company was dead.

Without the Grand River Canal, the development of the Grand River might have been entirely different. The communities of Onondaga, Middleport, Caledonia, York, Mount Healy, and Cayuga all owed their development to the canal. Many of these communities shrank when the company went under but all are still in existence. That cannot be said of another community. The village of Indiana seemed destined for prosperity when David Thompson built his mill near Lock 1 of the canal. But all that is left of the village is Ruthven Hall and one other building, the former schoolhouse.

Ruthven Hall