Iroquois Trail
From Grimsby to Queenston along the Iroquois Trail
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In the early days of the province, before 1800, settlers had to walk to find the lot or lots that had been assigned to them. Walking in those days meant finding an Indian trail that would take them in the direction they wanted to go and then following it as far as possible. Unless travellers knew what they were doing, leaving the trail could be disastrous. Indian trails were narrow paths through a forest of trees so high and dense that very little sunlight got through the branches to enable travellers to see where they were going. One of the most travelled trails was that known as the Iroquois Trail. Later known as the Queenston-to-Grimsby Road and Highway 8, it ran from the end of the Portage Road in Queenston along the base of the escarpment to the settlement on the Forty Mile Creek, then known as the Forty, now known as Grimsby. This trip will follow the trail but from west to east, from Grimsby to Queenston. If the trip went from east to west, one-way streets in St Catharines would force a diversion from the trail. The trip is about 50 kilometers and should be easy to do in a day. There is one diversion in St Catharines to find old Captain Dick. The trip starts at the museum on Murray Street in Grimsby. Before starting on the trip, Take a walk around the area. At 126 Main Street West, just around the corner from the museum, is the Nelles Manor. Completed in 1790, it took ten years to build but what a beauty!
Hendrick Nelles had been a substantial landowner in the Mohawk Valley before the Revolutionary War and many of his relatives still were. But Hendrick was loyal to his King and his friends the natives of the Six Nations and so was dispossessed of his property after the war was lost. In return for his loyalty to them, his friends in the Six Nations gave him and his sons a 999-year lease of a vast piece of land on the Grand River, part of their grant from Governor Haldimand. In return for his loyalty to the king, the government in Canada gave him and his sons land near the Forty Mile Creek. After Hendrick, known also as Captain Henry, died in 1791, his sons split up the land between them. Warner and John preferred to stay on the Grand River but Abraham, William, and Robert decided to move to the Forty. Robert traded some of his land for some land belonging to Lawrence Lawrason and this house was built on that piece of land. This house was not Robert's only house. After swapping with Lawrason, he had built a log cabin on the land and lived there while his mansion was being built. This cabin still stands, although you would not recognize it today. It is part of he yellow Nelles-Fitch House across Main Street at number 125 Main Street West. The old log cabin has been covered with siding. When you are standing facing the yellow house with your back to the Nelles Manor, you are facing south. The "log cabin" is the extension, or ell, running south, away from the main house, on the right side of the yellow house. There was a later addition to the Nelles-Fitch House but this was attached to the east (left) side of the house. Actually the house is an extension of the old log cabin. After moving into the mansion, Robert built the house and attached it to the old log cabin. He gave the extended house to his son Henry who ran Robert's mills just a few metres away up Gibson Street.
Start the trip at the museum. Drive south to Main Street and turn left. Drive past the Nelles-Fitch House and turn right onto Gibson Street. Drive to the end of the street and park. Walk to the bridge crossing the Forty Mile Creek. Just past the bridge is a millstone. This was from the Robert Nelles grist mill, which stood very near this spot. One of the reasons why Robert Nelles swapped land with Lawrason is that he wanted the land here so that he could build a mill. There had already been a mill near here. John Green, who later founded the village of Greensville on the escarpment above Dundas, built a mill on the Forty Mile Creek just a short distance down the creek. But Nelles's mill would be the first mill travellers would encounter as they made their way down the escarpment with their grain. However, the first mill that Nelles built was a saw mill across the river and a little further up the creek. It was a year later that he built the grist mill. Where the present bridge is located now, there would have been an A-frame bridge. Nelles would have built two identical frames shaped like a letter A, one on each side of the creek. He would have fixed the two legs of each A into the creek near the bank and lowered the point of each A until the two points came together in the middle of the creek. Then he would have built a plank road, using planks from his saw mill, across the creek using the crosspiece of each A. Before you get back in the car, take a look at the grand red-stone house near the bridge. Built in 1855 for Robert Gibson, the house was built of stones from the quarry that Gibson owned at the top of the hill. Robert Gibson came to Canada from Peterhead near Aberdeen in Scotland in 1860. Over the years he made contacts in the railways and he used these contacts in 1875 to get a contract to build a railway bridge over the Twenty Mile Creek. He then started to look around the area for a quarry for suitable stone. The quarry he found was on the escarpment above the site of the house. He later worked quarries at Jordan and Beamsville. In 1884, Robert was getting off a slow-moving train when he fell, later dying from his injuries.
Drive back along Gibson Street to the stop sign. Drive straight across the intersection onto Main Street.. About halfway down the right side is a charming stone cottage at 99 Main Street West. This is known as the Dressmaker's Cottage and dates from about 1812. The story is that it was built of stone left over from the Nelles Manor. Across the street is a church. Next to that is a school, and next to that a Victorian house. The house was once the rectory for the church. Before this house was built, John Green's house stood here. It was in John Green's house that Upper Canada's first municipal meeting took place on April 5, 1890.
Continue along Main Street as it turns the corner and continues west past lots of old Victorian houses. Just after the Peninsula Ridge Winery, the Thirty Road crosses and Main Street becomes King Street. The Thirty Road was once an Indian trail that followed the Thirty Mile Creek down the escarpment to the lake. Where the Thirty Road crosses the Iroquois Trail was once the small community called simply Thirty. The community was in two parts: the part at the top of the escarpment being referred to as the Upper Thirty. Here, on the top of the escarpment, John Beam and William Kitchen, the son and son-in-law of the founder of Beamsville, built a couple of mills on the creek. Upper Thirty had a couple of hotels and a church at one time but there's nothing left of the old community now. Continue along King Street into Beamsville. After you pass West Avenue on your left, look for a blue frame house at 5053 King Street. This house was built, supposedly, for Jacob Beam Jr., who was about eighty when it was built about 1852. This house is not on Jacob Jr.'s original grant. That property starts on the other side of the traffic lights at Ontario Street. This land was in the grant of Samuel Corwin, who was married to Jacob Jr.'s sister Anna.
Continue across the traffic lights and drive through Grimsby's downtown. After passing East Avenue, look on the right for a single-story building at 4918 King Street. This is Woodburn Cottage, a Regency cottage built in 1834 for a local businessman, John B. Osborne for whom the local cemetery, Mount Osborne, is named. It is supposed to be the first brick house built in the community. The wonderful entrance has a fan transom and sidelights. The roof is hipped and has a belvedere on top. There is a 2-storey addition on the back of the house that dates from the 1840s.
Next door to Woodburn Cottage and accessible, not from Petty's Lane adjacent to the cottage but from a private lane parallel to Petty's Lane, is the home of the settler for whom the community is named, Jacob Beam. Jacob, born in 1729, was an old man when he arrived in this area in 1788. He came with his family, including at least two sons, Jacob Jr. and John, and two sons-in-law, William Kitchen and Samuel Corwin. They had been granted land along the Indian trail and began to build a community later named Beamsville. This house, though, is not well known, possibly because it is almost invisible from King Street, located as it is behind other houses that front onto King Street. Originally, Jacob Beam must have approached his home, not from the Indian trail that became King Street but from the opposite direction, possibly from a concession road no longer here but shown in maps dating from about 1870. The present front of the house was formerly the back. The present back of the house indicates that the house was a simple 1½.-storey building. Conversion to a 2-story house and the addition of an ell next to the present front door are probably later changes.
Across King Street is an old stone house on the grounds of the Great Lakes Christian College. This was the house of Senator William Gibson. He was the nephew of Robert Gibson the quarry-owner. Robert Gibson, needing help with his various business enterprises, brought William, the son of his older brother, from Peterhead in Scotland to be bookkeeper. When Robert died after a railway accident in 1884, his son, Robert Jr., was only 13 so it was left to William to keep the business going. He did so well that, like many successful businessmen, he went into politics, representing Lincoln for ten years. Eventually he was appointed to the Senate by Governor-General Lord Byng.
As you drive from Beamsville to Vineland, you will notice the fields of grapes on the left side of the road and the steep escarpment on the right. This is the Wine Route through Southwest Ontario. Blessed with good soil, mild climate, and shelter from the escarpment, this is Canada's prime grape-growing region. You will drive past winery after winery, with new wineries popping up every year. Even Wayne Gretzky has gotten into the winery business. Near Cherry Avenue as you approach Vineland, look for the big 99 sign for Wayne Gretzky Estates. Cherry Avenue is well-known for other reasons. Down Cherry Avenue on the right-hand side is a pick-your-own- fruit farm belonging to the Moyer family. In 1799, Dilman Moyer, a Mennonite from Bucks County Pennsylvania, came to Upper Canada with his brother Jacob and others to form the first Mennonite community in Canada. Finding themselves without a spiritual leader and unable to get one from Bucks County, they elected their first minister and deacon in 1801. The election was held in Dilman Moyer's house. The house itself looks unchanged from times past although it has been well maintained.
Continue along King Street. On the left, at the corner of Martin Road, is the cemetery of the First Mennonite Church. The cemetery is in two parts. Behind the stone wall is the old Mennonite cemetery where you can find the gravestones of the old original settlers including Dilman Moyer. Surrounding this is the cemetery for non-Mennonites and for later Mennonite graves. Right after the cemetery is the First Mennonite Church founded at the meeting in Dilman Moyer's house in 1801. This is the third building that has housed the church. On the left, opposite the Kacaba Vineyards, is a white house that was built by the first Mennonite bishop in Canada. Jacob Moyer, brother of Dilman, was a member of a group of Mennonites that came to Upper Canada in search of good land. The land in Bucks County Pennsylvania was becoming expensive and hard to get for parents who believed in settling their sons on land of their own. Jacob and this group (but not Dilman) came in 1799. They were so impressed with the land that they put down a deposit and went back for their families. What impressed them was the abundance of black walnut trees, a sure sign of good quality land. Jacob Moyer and his brother Dilman settled here and raised families whose descendants still work the land around here. Jacob himself became a minister and was ordained the first bishop of the Mennonites in Canada in 1805. He finished this house in 1833 but was not around to enjoy it because that year he made a visit back to Pennsylvania, became ill there and died. The house is a little different now. It has lost the original wraparound porch and now has a different entrance.
Drive through Vineland. After Vineland, the road bends to the right and drops down to the Twenty Mile Creek, winding and twisting as it goes. At the bottom of the valley is Jordan Hollow, with a small roadside restaurant and a small park. Then the road winds and twists up again to Jordan. At the top of the hill is a nasty five-point intersection at the small historical community of Jordan. Turn left before the Jordan Inn and drive down Main Street. On the left halfway down is the museum. The museum is interesting but the buildings in back are priceless. Turn left and park in the museum's parking lot in the rear. There are two old buildings behind the museum. The wooden building is the Old Fry House and the stone building is the former schoolhouse. But there's more. Jacob Fry (or Frey) was a Mennonite from Bucks County, Pennsylvania and came to Canada in 1800 with his family in the second wave of Mennonite immigration. He bought land at the corner of what is now Fly Road and Victoria Avenue. His first house was probably a log cabin but he upgraded to this frame house about 1815. He and his family lived in the house until it was replaced by the brick house that stands on the property now. This frame house began to decay until in 1960 it was given to the museum to preserve it. It contains furniture belonging to Jacob's son Sam the Weaver and is a wonderful example of an early Mennonite home.
The stone building behind the museum is a schoolhouse dating from 1858. It replaced a building that had burned down. The stone building served the community until 1948 and has been restored to as it was in 1908. School parties make one-day visits to experience what it was like to be in school at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Fry house stands where an old Mennonite church used to be. The home church was the Moyer Church (later called the First Mennonite Church) in Vineland. About 1845, someone had the idea that it might be easier for the widespread Mennonite community if church meetings were to be held in different parts of the community. So satellite churches were built here in Jordan and in Campden on the Fly Road. That way, meetings could be rotated between the three churches. Unfortunately, the scheme was not a success and the satellite churches fell into neglect after a while. The church here was demolished about 1900. Around the Fry house, however, you can still see some of the gravestones from the old church including the gravestone of Abraham High, one of the founders of Jordan. Return to King Street. At the corner is the Jordan House, still fulfilling the role of hotel that it has been performing since it was opened in 1842.
Turn left onto King Street. New houses have been built where Abraham High's house used to be. Too bad! Follow the road as it wriggles its way into St Catharines. When it enters the city, the name of the road changes to St Paul Street in memory of one of the early settlers of St Catharines. Paul Shipman ran a tavern here and was a leading light in the early 1800s. After you go over the railway bridge, take the right fork down St Paul Crescent. This was the original road into St Catharines before the high bridge was built. Partway down the hill is Rodman Hall, once the home of Thomas Rodman Merritt, son of William Hamilton Merritt. Rodman Merritt was a successful businessman in his own right, as a merchant, mill owner, and shipping magnate. Moreover, he was shrewd enough to dispose of much of his business before the recession that followed the ending of the Crimean War.
Continue down St Paul Crescent to the bridge. Park and walk over the bridge. This bridge now goes nowhere but at one time it was the entry to St Catharines. In the 1800s, you would have driven across this bridge or its predecessor and then climbed the hill into the city. The bridge spans the Twelve Mile Creek and the first and second Welland Canals, for at this point the canal was the creek. To the right of the bridge, the canal splits from the Twelve Mile Creek to follow Captain Dick's Creek on its way over the escarpment. The canal took this route because it was easier to get up the escarpment using locks. The original plan had been to use a lift mechanism to hoist barges up the escarpment at DeCew Falls.
As you return across the bridge, look down the street to your right. Again this street goes to nowhere in particular but at one time it went to Shickluna's shipyard. Louis Shickluna, originally from the Mediterranean island of Malta, bought the shipyard in the early 1840s. Here he established himself as the largest boat builder in Canada, as he was described in 1856. Here he built more than 200 ships, from sailing ships to steam-driven, from wooden hulls to iron. The yard closed about 1880. Drive back along St Paul Crescent but almost immediately take the right fork up Hainer Street, named for former Butler's Ranger and founder of St Catharines John Hainer. Go to the top of the hill, turn right and then right again to get back onto St Paul Street. This takes you across the Burgoyne Bridge, the high bridge across the creek. As you cross the bridge, look over to the left at the white building just off St Paul Street. This is Oak Hill, the former home of William Hamilton Merritt. This is the second Oak Hill; the first was destroyed by fire in 1860. The grounds originally went down to the creek at the bottom of the hill. Now it is the home of CKTB radio station, which restored the building.
On the right, across the street from Oak Hill, is the statue of the great man himself: William Hamilton Merritt. Son of a Queen's Ranger, himself a hero of the War of 1812, farmer, mill owner, and far-seeing entrepreneur, Merritt was the force behind the first Welland Canal. At first, he was just looking at a way to divert water from the Welland River into the Twelve Mile Creek to provide more water for his mill. Then ambition took over and soon he was planning ways to get small ships over the escarpment. He must have been a silver-tongued devil because he talked money for his scheme out of people on both sides of the Atlantic and both side of the 49th parallel. Today the Welland Canal seems such an obvious development but without Merritt's salesmanship the canal would never have been completed.
Continue down St Paul Street. Where the third lane begins, get into the middle lane ready for the junction at Geneva Street. Here the right lane turns right down Geneva Street, the left lane turns up Geneva Street. You must go across the intersection and take the right fork onto Queenston Street. You are still on the Iroquois Trail. At Tasker Street, turn right then left onto Oakdale Avenue. You have left the Iroquois Trail for a brief diversion to visit the marker for an unusual man. On the right, the land slopes down to what was once the first Welland Canal but is now a park. At this point, the land belonged a former slave and former Butler's Ranger named Richard Pierpoint. Not much is known about Captain Dick as he was known. He was brought to North America as a slave from Africa. Where he worked as a slave and where he got his name is not known. But he must have been an unusual man because first, he was black, and second, ordinary men did not last in Butler's Rangers. After the Rangers were disbanded, he received two lots that fronted onto what is now Eastchester Avenue and touched the creek named after him: Captain Dick's Creek. A plaque dedicated to him is located in the park on the right just before the edge of his property at Eastchester Avenue.
Continue down Oakdale Avenue to Westchester Avenue then turn left. At the traffic lights, turn right to get back onto Queenston Street. Follow the road across the Welland Canal. After crossing the canal, turn left onto the Niagara Stone Road, go under the Skyway, then immediately turn right onto Queenston Road. If this sounds confusing, just follow the signs for the Maleta Winery.Queenston Road is slightly elevated from the land running down to Niagara-on-the-Lake. After a few miles, Queenston Road curves to the right to meet York Road. Turn left toward St David's. Originally settled by former Butler's Ranger Peter Secord at the junction of Four Mile Creek and the Iroquois Trail, St David's is named for Peter's nephew David. Here in this tiny village were built the first mills in this part of Ontario. Former millwright Lieutenant David Brass of Butler's Rangers built them about 1782 and Peter Secord ran them. They did not belong to Secord and neither did the land because the Crown was not sure it owned the land. Secord was only allowed to be a tenant, a source of much disgruntlement. The grist mill still exists at 137 Four Mile Creek Road.
Two of Peter Secord's houses still exist in the village. The original house, built about 1782 is the basement of the southern half of 215 Four Mile Creek Road. The rest of the house was added about 1786 by Peter Secord. The other house is across the creek.
Cross the Four Mile Creek Road and stop at the next road on the right., Paxton Lane.The Indian trail that ran along the creek to the Portage Road was on this side of the creek and so this was the main street in old St David's. The old house on the corner is Locust Hall built about 1823 by Richard "King Dick" Woodruff, mill-owner and merchant.
At the far end of the lane is Peter Secord's second house. At the time of writing it was boarded up and for sale. This house was built about 1785. About 1790, Peter gave up trying to get the land here and departed for the Long Point settlement. The house was eventually taken over by his nephew David, known as Major David to distinguish him from Peter's son. Major David was a sergeant in Butler's Rangers at the age of 17. In the War of 1812, he was a Major in the Lincoln Militia, hence the title.
Across the street from Paxton Lane is a marker set in the grass in front of the church. It marks the spot where General Rottenberg, commander of the forces in Upper Canada, had his headquarters in 1813.
Continue down York Road. Just past Concession 2 Road, look for a marker on the right side.This marks the point where General Sheaffe and his troops climbed the escarpment on the way to defeating the invading American forces at the Battle of Queenston Heights. The Americans had caught the British forces napping and had invaded Upper Canada by crossing the Niagara River at Queenston. General Brock had been killed and the Americans were at the point of winning a glorious victory. But Brock's second-in-command, Sheaffe, marshalled his troops and, instead of trying a frontal charge like that which got Brock killed, he marched his troops away from the battle to a point where they could climb the escarpment safely. Then, once on top, he drove the troops at the Americans, who were now trapped at the edge of the escarpment. The Americans surrendered and Sheaffe was a hero. For a while at least.
Continue down York Road. At the stop at the Niagara parkway, continue straight across.You are now in Queenston. On the left after you cross the intersection is the Mackenzie Heritage Printery. This is not the original but a faithful reconstruction. Only the tree in front of the front door is original. In 1823, William Lyon Mackenzie moved to Queenston from Dundas and built a house here, which he also used as a bookstore, drugstore, and printing shop. Here he began to publish a newspaper called the Colonial Advocate, in which he enthusiastically pointed out the failings of the political system. In a sudden move characteristic of Mackenzie, he moved again in November 1824 to York (Toronto), where his newspaper had its biggest audience. Over the years, this house was neglected and fell into ruins, but it has been reconstructed as close to the original design as possible.
The road continues toward the river and at one time would have curved around to climb up the hill as the Portage Road. At a later time, instead of going up the hill, it would have become a road to a bridge across the Niagara River. Today both the bridge and the road up the escarpment are gone and the road just peters out. You have now completed the trip.
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Nelles Manor
Nelles-Fitch House showing the "log cabin" extension on the right
Gibson House
Dressmaker's Cottage
Jacob Beam Jr. House
Woodburn Cottage
Jacob Beam House Front (formerly the rear)
Jacob Beam House Rear (formerly the front)
Senator Gibson House
Dilman Moyer House
Jacob Fry House
Jordan Schoolhouse
Jordan House
Rodman Hall
Bridge over the Twelve Mile Creek
Oak Hill
Statue of William Hamilton Merritt
Richard Pierpoint Plaque
Old Secord Mill
Original Peter Secord House
Locust Hall
Major Secord House
Rottenberg HQ Marker
Sheaffe's Climb Marker
Mackenzie Printery