Places Visited
Some of the places encountered on these trips
GaltGalt is now part of the City of Cambridge but once it was a thriving city in its own right. It was founded by William Dickson and Absalom Shade The land in Block 1 of the Six Nations Reserve (eventually the Townships of North and South Dumfries) had been sold in 1798 by Joseph Brant to Philip Stedman, who had been at one time the owner of the rights of the Niagara Portage when it was located on the east bank of the Niagara river. A few years later, Stedman died and his heir, his sister, sold the land to Thomas Clarke. In 1815, Clarke found himself unable to keep up the payments so he sold the land to William Dickson. Dickson, originally from Scotland and a cousin of Thomas Clarke and Robert Hamilton, decided to call the whole block of land Dumfries after his hometown in Scotland. His goal was to build a community in his new property so he asked Absalom Shade to help him. Shade was a 22-year-old builder and Dickson wanted him to build a sawmill and gristmill that would be the foundation for the new community. In 1816, they left for a tour of the property and, at the junction of Mill Creek and the Grand River, they found the perfect spot. On Dickson's behalf, Shade rebuilt an abandoned mill and so started Galt. Later, he built a new mill, the Dumfries Mill, at the intersection of Mill and Water Streets. He also built a store, known as the Red Store, on the southwest corner of Water and Main Streets. In the early days when money was scarce, the chief way of doing business was barter. Later, when money was more available, Shade built another store, the White Store, across Water Street on the southeast corner of the intersection. Its prices were lower than the Red Store's but it was strictly cash only. By 1819, the new gristmill, the Dumfries Mill, was working. Dickson called on John Telfer to go to Scotland and recruit settlers for his land and by 1832 every plot of land was taken. At first, the community was called Shade’s Mills by the settlers but eventually became known by its official name, Galt, after the Commissioner for the Canada Company, John Galt. GeorgetownGeorgetown is a town that grew in two distinct parts. The oldest section is around Main Street, Market Street, Church Street, and so on. When the railway arrived, another section grew around the railway station: King Street, Queen Street, and so on. The present-day Highway 7 goes between the two parts like a knife. There is now a third section, the Delrex subdivision, that has grown up around the "strip" that has itself grown along Highway 7. Main Street is still a strong and picturesque shopping area, unusual in these days of dying town centres. Georgetown has a centre with lots of restaurants, clothing shops, banks, and medical buildings. The railway station is also still in constant use, now as a GO commuter station. The founding family of Georgetown is the Kennedy family, who came from New Jersey to Niagara after the Revolutionary War. When Esquesing Township was surveyed, Charles Kennedy and his brothers did the actual work. As was the case in those days, the surveyors were paid in land and so the brothers came to own land in this area. George, the youngest brother, built a mill on Silver Creek in Hungry Hollow, between Guelph Street (Highway 7) and Main Street, and the town gradually grew around it. Early settlers in the region might not have expected this; Stewarttown just to the southwest was a much bigger and busier place until the Grand Trunk Railway decided to go through Georgetown. Georgetown began to grow and Stewarttown began to shrink. 1840 was a pivotal year in the life of Georgetown. That was the year the Barber brothers came to town and brought a measure of prosperity with them. The success of their mills attracted others. In 1840, John Sumpter opened the first store and Elijah Travis opened a planing mill. In 1844, James Young opened another general store, this one also selling furniture and located on the southwest corner of Mill and Main Streets. That year, John and Philo Dayfoot started a tannery and boot factory. Francis Barclay opened a dry goods store four years later across Main Street from James Young's store. The boom started when the Grand Trunk Railway came to Georgetown in 1856. In 1864, the population was 1250 and on the following New Year's Day, Georgetown became an incorporated village. Now Georgetown is part of the Town of Halton Hills. In the 1950s, Rex Heslop, the builder of Rexdale in Toronto, built the Delrex subdivision, promising a 60/40 division between residential and business use of the area. That never happened, but the strip it created along Highway 7 is still there, now busier than ever. Origins of Georgetown street names:
Places to see in Georgetown:
Guelph
MeafordMeaford is at the mouth of the Big Head River. Originally it was called Peggy's Landing after the wife of the first settler. David Miller and his family, including Peggy, arrived in the area in 1838 and built a cabin on the bank of the river. About 1840, William Stephenson, a Yorkshireman, opened the first tavern just north of the river in an area that quickly became known as Stephenson's Landing. The village, including both Landings, was eventually named after Meaford Hall, the home of Admiral Sir John Jervis, Earl St Vincent, after whom the township is named. The most famous creature from Meaford is a dog, Beautiful Joe, the subject of a best-selling novel written in 1893 by Margaret Marshall Saunders. There is a park named after him in Meaford. MoraviantownMoravians were German-speaking missionaries from what is now the Czech Republic. In the years after the Revolutionary War, they and their Delaware Indian converts were persecuted in the United States, so, in 1792, they immigrated to Upper Canada led by David Zeisberger. They settled in a spot north of the Thames River. In 1793, Lt-Governor Simcoe visited the site accompanied by his aides Major Littlehales and Lt. Talbot. By 1794 the village was called Schonfeld, or Fairfield in English, and the population was 165. The British called the village Moraviantown.
Because the village was located on the Longwoods Road, it was bound to be drawn into the War of 1812. In September 1813, General Procter withdrew from Detroit along the Longwoods Road toward Burlington. When he arrived in Fairfield, the Moravians and their converts fled, afraid of more persecution by the Americans now following on Procter's heels. Their fear was justified on October 7 when the Americans set the village on fire. When the Moravians returned in 1817, they settled south of the river and called the new village New Fairfield. This became the new Moraviantown. Today little remains of either village. A museum next to the site of the old village commemorates the original Fairfield, which has a cairn and markers that show where each settler lived. The cemetery for the old Fairfield is in a field across the road from the museum. The site of New Fairfield is across the river. All that remains is a church. The area surrounding New Fairfield is the Moravian Indian Reservation, home of the Delawares of the Thames.
Niagara-on-the-LakeBefore its present name, this town had many other names: Ouinagarah, Ongiara, Loyal Village, Butlersburg, West Niagara, Newark, Niagara, before finally becoming Niagara-on-the-Lake. In fact, in the early records, the name "Niagara" referred to the area around Fort Niagara, now in the United States. Originally, the area belonged to the Neutrals, a peace-loving people who remained neutral in the war between the Huron and the Iroquois nations. For their temerity, the Neutrals were next to be destroyed after the Iroquois won the war and massacred the Hurons. Their place was taken by the Mississaugas, a branch of the Chippewa or Ojibway nation, who as a result claimed ownership of the west bank of the Niagara River. The Seneca nation of the Iroquois confederacy claimed the eastern bank. In 1764, Sir William Johnson, the legendary Indian Agent, arranged for the Senecas to cede their claim to the land. Later that year a treaty with the Mississaugas confirmed that the Crown now owned the land. In 1779, as a result of the Revolutionary War, Sir Frederick Haldimand proposed that the land on the west side of the river be settled to provide food and support for Fort Niagara, which then still belonged to the British. By 1781, Colonel Butler was able to report that four or five families had settled, and Peter and James Secord were about to build saw and grist mills. The next year, sixteen families had settled, most headed by former Butler's Rangers. In addition to the Secords, there were Isaac Dolson, Philip Bender, Adam Young, and others, including the unforgettable Harmonious House. Dolson settled in Queenston, Bender in Niagara Falls, Young in his tract of the Six Nations Reserve. When the War of 1812 started, the town of Niagara, as it was known from 1800, had grown to be a well-developed town. Among its notable citizens were lawyer William Dickson, surveyor DW Smith, farmer and store owner James Crooks, merchant and general wheeler-dealer Robert Hamilton, coroner Henry Nelles, and store owner John Young. Most had their property destroyed during the American occupation of the town in 1813. After the war, Crooks relocated to West Flamborough but still kept his property in Niagara. His former home, Crookston, was located on One Mile Creek near the present Chatauqua Amphitheatre, and he owned the property that is now the Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club. When the military wanted to build Fort Mississauga after the war, he swapped this property for land to the east of King Street, which is why the street names east of King Street are different from those west of King Street. Most of the old buildings in the village date from just after the war. Particularly fine examples are: the Kirby and Old Bank Houses on Front Street; the Promenade, Kerr, and Hiscott Houses on Prideaux Street; and the Rogers-Harrison and MacDougal Houses on Queen Street. Places to see in Niagara-on-the-Lake:
Niagara FallsThe first European settlers in the area around Niagara Falls were Philip Bender and Thomas McMicking and their families. They were in the second wave of settlers to cross onto the west bank of the Niagara River and they arrived in 1783. Both men were former Butler's Rangers. German-born Bender settled on the land just north of the Falls and Scotsman McMicking settled at what became Stamford Village. Bender and McMicking both have streets named after them; Bender in Niagara Falls (where three streets nearby are named after his sons Philip, John, and Hiram), and McMicking in the old Stamford Village just north of the Green. The next year, Francis Ellsworth, another former Ranger, arrived and he settled closest to the Falls, south of Bender, with James Forsyth between them. The sutler for the Rangers, John Burch, settled to the south of them on the northern bank of the Chippawa Creek, and a pair of former Rangers, Isaac Dolson and Elijah Phelps, settled north of them at the foot of the escarpment (Queenston). Between Dolson and Bender, a trio of Rangers, the Thomson brothers, settled just north of the Whirlpool. When land title papers were drawn up for their grants, a clerk misspelled their names as Thompson. Archibald and James accepted their fate but not John; he crossed out the offensive "p" and signed his name the old way. Most of the Thom(p)son's land is now under the reservoir. Within a short time, Burch had built a sawmill and gristmill on the Niagara River at what is now the Toronto Power Building, Bender had started a quarry, and McMicking was growing apples. Ellsworth sold his property to Charles Wilson, who built a tavern on the native trail just north of the Falls, where the Oakes Inn is now located. After 1790, the trail was widened to become the Portage Road on the west bank of the river. Wilson's Tavern was to be the scene of an important event before the Battle of Lundy's Lane, when Mrs Wilson, either deliberately or otherwise, overestimated the size of the British forces and caused the American general, Winfield Scott, to hesitate just long enough for Sir Gordon Drummond to organize his forces. After Burch's death in 1798, Thomas Clark bought Burch's Mills and they eventually ended up as part of the Clark and Street industrial empire. Samuel Street Jr. moved into Burch's former house near the mills but Clark built a fine house at the top of the hill and called it Clark Hill. Harry Oakes later replaced the house with another called Oak Hall. James Forsyth's son William bought Wilson's Tavern in 1817, renamed it the Niagara Falls Hotel, and started his career as Niagara's first tourist entrepreneur. He operated a rowboat ferry and built a stairway down the cliff to the ferry. This was unwise because the government owned the Chain Reserve, a strip of land one chain wide (66 feet or 20m) running along the bank of the river. This later led Forsyth into a running feud with the government, a situation few people ever emerge from with grace and humour. Besides the government, Forsyth had to contend with competition, which arrived in 1820 when John Brown built the Ontario House on the Portage Road a little south of Forsyth's hotel. This forced Forsyth to rip down his hotel and replace it with a fancy new hotel named the Pavilion. Jutting out into space immediately north of the Horseshoe Falls was once a great slab of rock named Table Rock. The cliff under the rock being made from the same material as the rock under the Falls, it was subject to wear in the same way and pieces of Table Rock broke off over the years. In 1829, William Forsyth got permission to set off explosions to blow up the dangerous parts of the rock. Later that year the first Niagara stunt occurred when Sam Patch set up a ladder on the bank of the river below Goat Island and jumped into the river from a small platform at a height of 90 feet (27m) Transport around Niagara Falls in the early years was by Shank's Pony or by actual pony or horse. This mode of transport eventually made way for stagecoach lines running along the Portage Road. When the Welland Canal opened in 1829, much of the traffic switched to the new canal, and many of the merchants began to feel the pinch. A group of them banded together to build the Erie and Ontario Railway from Queenston to Chippawa. This railway ran up the hill from Queenston, along the route of Stanley Avenue to Portage Road south of Drummondville, and then followed Portage Road to Chippawa. It had literally a three horsepower engine, because the coach was pulled by three horses up the escarpment at Queenston and then usually one horse pulled it from there to Chippawa. At Drummondville, passengers going to the new Clifton House Hotel would change to a horse-drawn omnibus provided by the hotel. Samuel Zimmerman, regarded as the founder of Niagara Falls, made his money as a contractor for the Welland Canal. He bought land where the Queen Victoria Park is located and started to create a great estate next to the Clifton House Hotel. Before his mansion could be finished, Zimmerman was killed in a railway accident returning from a trip to Toronto in 1857. This was ironic because Zimmerman had been responsible for the extension of the Great Western Railway to Niagara. By that time, the village of Clifton, which had been created when Capt. Ogden Creighton had bought land from the Bender family in 1832, had begun to expand at last. In 1848, the first suspension bridge was built over the river and the village of Elgin had grown at the Canadian end of the bridge. In 1856, the two villages joined to form the Town of Clifton. The town changed its name to the Town of Niagara Falls in 1881 but Drummondville changed its name the next year to the Village of Niagara Falls to add confusion. This was finally sorted out in 1904 when the two joined together as the City of Niagara Falls. OrangevilleJohn Corbit settled in the area now the western part of Broadway about 1829 and was followed by Abiathar Wilcox and his family in 1840. Later came James Griggs, who built a mill on what is now Armstrong Street, and William Newton, who built a log cabin where the Town Hall stands now. Orange Lawrence, after whom the town is named, arrived about 1844. His house, built about 1850, still stands at 8 John Street. His son-in-law, Thomas Jull, built the house at 17 Little York Street in 1857. If you want to know more about Orangeville, visit the Headwaters Country Information Centre, which has a fascinating walking tour available. Places to see in Orangeville:
Paris
Port DalhousiePort Dalhousie became prominent when the first three Welland Canals used it as a terminus on Lake Ontario. When the terminus moved to Port Welland, Port Dalhousie's moment in the sun faded and now it is a tourist attraction and part of St Catharines. The original grant for the land was made to the former captain of Butler's Rangers, Peter Ten Broeck. In 1821, his relative, Nathan Pawling, received 300 acres of this grant and this became the terminus for the first Welland Canal. Prosperity followed. In addition to the business brought by the canals, Port Dalhousie soon grew to include shipbuilding and a dry dock owned by the Muir family. In 1840, shortly after he arrived here, Alexander Muir recorded fourteen families living in the hamlet. By 1862, the population had grown to 1364 people, mainly due to the Second Welland Canal, and Port Dalhousie had become a village. The six Muir brothers were part of an extensive family that emigrated from Ayrshire, Scotland, in 1834. The oldest brother James stayed in Howick, Quebec with his parents and four sisters. The other six brothers moved on to the Niagara Peninsula. Five of them, led by Alexander, relocated to Port Dalhousie in 1839 and became ships captains. In addition to sailing ships, in 1853 they started to build them. All of their ships had names starting with A. They carried cargo from Duluth, USA, to Liverpool, England. Later, the brothers built a dry dock and their company became the largest employer in the area. Their business was here from 1839 to 1948. When the entrance to the Welland Canal moved from here to Port Weller, Muir Brothers built a dry dock there and its successor is still operating. Places to see in Port Dalhousie:
Port Dover
QueenstonIn 1780, several former members of Butler’s Rangers were given permission to cross the Niagara river and settle on the west bank. These men were too old to continue as Rangers or had large families and so, with the need to feed the refugees arriving at Fort Niagara, Governor Haldimand had given permission for them to farm on the former Mississauga lands. Peter Secord settled at what became St David's and his mill and his houses still stand there. Isaac Dolson settled on land that was to become Queenston. Unlike Secord, Dolson did not remain on his land. By 1784, when the area was surveyed, Dolson had sold the land to a speculator, Samuel Street Sr. and had moved to the Thames River. In 1788, Robert Hamilton received permission to establish a portage on the west bank of the river. The main portage, however, remained on the east bank, where the Stedman family had the contract for carrying goods around Niagara Falls. The west bank of the Niagara River has steep sides except at a few location, one of which was at the site of Queenston, and here Hamilton built storehouses. Or rather, the government built the storehouses for him. At that time, the ownership of the land had not been settled and so the government did not want people to own land or property on the west bank. Peter Secord and the other settlers were only tenants of the government and the government had built the mills that Secord ran at St David's. So the government built the storehouses that Hamilton used at Queenston, Chippawa, and Fort Erie. Then, in 1790, the new governor, Lord Dorchester, decided that, with the looming probability that Britain would have to surrender the east bank of the river to the Americans, the official portage should be shifted to the west bank. So tenders were called. Only two were submitted, one from the Stedmans and one from Hamilton and his partners, John Burch, George Forsyth, and Archibald Cunningham. Hamilton’s syndicate won and soon more substantial storehouses and wharves appeared at Queenston. Hamilton built a stone house on the top of the cliff overlooking his landing area and the place became known as West Landing, to distinguish it from Stedman’s place called Landing on the east bank. Lt Gov Simcoe, when he arrived in 1792, re-established his old regiment, the Queen’s Rangers, and built quarters for a detachment of them at West Landing. Whether it was for this detachment or in honour of the Queen, West Landing started to be known as Queen’s Town and then Queenston. In 1797, Samuel Street Sr. had his land at Queenston surveyed and the residential lots were sold at a cost of $100 to $300 each. Commercial lots were leased at 6% of the purchase price per annum. Soon Queenston became the business centre for the growing Niagara region. This changed with the War of 1812. One of the early battles was the Battle of Queenston Heights, in which General Brock was killed. In that battle, Robert Hamilton's house was destroyed by shellfire and many houses were damaged. The next year, 1813, saw the invasion by the Americans and the capture of Fort George. During the period of occupation, American officers were billeted in those houses that were habitable, and this led to the feat of Laura Secord. She overheard some officers talking about a surprise expedition against Lt. FitzGibbon's Grey 'Uns, and she set out to warn him. After a harrowing journey through the night, she finally reached FitzGibbon at his base at DeCew's House. As the legend has it, her warning led to the victory at the Battle of Beaver Dams. FitzGibbon certainly acknowledged her role but it is likely that he knew something was up already. In 1814, the Americans invaded again. When they withdrew in July, they set fire to St David's and Queenston; St David's was destroyed (except for Peter Secord's mill which was used as a Hospital) and Queenston suffered major damage. Due to the effects of cannon fire and arson, Queenston was in ruins by the end of the war. It took ten years after the war to rebuild all of the property damaged and Queenston never really recovered its stature as the business centre of Niagara. Places to see in Queenston are:
ShelburneIn 1865, William Jelly built a log tavern that he named the British Canadian Hotel but which was known locally as Jelly's Tavern. Not long after, he ran a post office in the tavern and supposedly named the area after the Earl of Shelburne. About five years later, Jelly and his brother John anticipated the arrival of the railway and ordered a survey of the area. After the railway arrived, the population increased, so that by 1877 it was 750. Two years later, Shelburne became a town. St CatharinesLocated at the junction of two important creeks, Twelve Mile and Captain Dick's, at a point where the Iroquois Trail crosses, the site of St Catharines must have seemed a great place to settle for former Butler's Rangers Jacob Dittrick and John Hainer. They had moved from Niagara in the early 1780s. and settled here on unsurveyed land, Dittrick on the east side of Twelve Mile Creek and Hainer on the west side. Other early settlers were Thomas Adams and Richard (Captain Dick) Pierpoint, a former slave and Butler's Ranger. Adams built a tavern right at the intersection of the Iroquois Trail (now St Pauls Street) and another trail that ran down the creek to the lake (now Ontario Street). This tavern became the heart of a new community after it was taken over by Paul Shipman; the community was known as Shipman's Corners and the main street later named St Paul Street after Shipman. The creek that ran into Twelve Mile Creek was named Dick's Creek after Captain Dick Pierpoint, about whom there are few facts but a lot of speculation. The most important man in the early years was William Hamilton Merritt, the son of a Queen's Ranger and owner of mills on the Twelve mile Creek. It was Merritt who had the idea of the first Welland Canal, though it started out as a way to divert much-needed water to the Twelve Mile Creek from the Welland River. Eventually the first canal was built, following the line of the Twelve Mile Creek until it reached Dick's Creek, then up Dick's Creek, over the escarpment, and on to the Welland River. The second canal followed much the same route in the St Catharines area, but with larger, stone locks and fewer of them. One brainwave was to use some of the water from the canal to power mills and factories in St Catharines. This created an industrial boom for the town that lasted into the twentieth century, even though the third and fourth canals bypassed the city. An example of an industrial building that harnessed the water from the canal is the Canada Hair factory still operating downtown. Places to see in St Catharines are:
Top
Simon Cress and his family came to St Jacobs in 1806. His daughter married
Elisha Hewitt, who once sold his socks to buy an axe. Later in the 1820s,
John E Bauman (also known as Bowman) settled here and built a house overlooking
the wooden bridge over the Conestogo River. John had been one of the original
members of the German Company who had signed on for the purchase of part
of Block 3 of the Six Nations Reserve. He signed for Lot 8, which now contains
the western section of the village of St Jacobs. Jacob Snider from the village of Waterloo had thought that the site would
be a good place for a mill using the waterpower of the river. He discussed
it with Bauman and bought one acre of Lot 36 (just north of the bridge in
St Jacobs) and 122 acres of Lot 8 (just south of the bridge and on the west
side of the road). Then he bought four acres of Lot 7 from Simon Cress (south
of the bridge and on the east side of the road). He then built a sawmill
and a woollen mill that used the dam he built across the river. Soon he
had a flour mill and a blacksmith’s shop. The flour mill was on the
site now occupied by the old mill opposite Benjamin's Hotel. Later many
German and Pennsylvania Dutch people settled in the area and they gave the
village the name Jacobstettel (Jacob’s village) for Jacob Snider. The
village received the name St Jacobs in 1852. Places to see in St Jacobs are: Old Mill
Snider’s flour mill occupied the site of the mill at 10 King Street,
just across the road from Benjamin’s Hotel. The Snider mill changed
hands several times in the 1850s and burned down in 1863. The sawmill was
further up Front Street. Benjamin's Hotel
Benjamin’s Hotel at 17 King Street started out as the Farmer’s
Inn when Joseph Eby opened it in 1853. Eby was also the first postmaster
when the post office was opened in 1852. An advertisement of 1864 describes
the Farmer’s Inn as providing “Good Stabling, Choice Wines, Liquors,
and Cigars.” After Eby’s death in 1871, the new owner renamed
the inn the Dominion Hotel. There was a second hotel in St Jacobs.
The Albion Hotel did business at the corner of King and Church Streets. It
is still there. Home Hardware Headquarters
St Jacobs is birthplace of the Canadian hardware group Home Hardware,
which is still headquartered here. Dr. Manley's House
Doctor Thomas Manley Robinson, the village doctor, used to own the house
at the north end of the village, on the left as you go up the hill after
crossing the bridge. This house is also famous as the boyhood home of Darryl
Sittler, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1970s. Sittler is famous
for scoring ten points in a single game in February 1976. He started his
career playing for the Elmira Sugar Kings in 1966. The city of St Thomas is located on Kettle Creek, which
contributed to the city's first name, Kettle Creek Village. The present
name is supposed to be for the first name of Colonel
Thomas Talbot with the St added to make it sound better. Talbot ruled
the area like a king for about fifty years and was anything but a saint.
St Thomas was the so-called capital of the Talbot Settlement, which grew
up around the Talbot Road. However another theory is that the church was given the name St Thomas without any reference to Talbot and the city was named for the church. The line between Southwold and Yarmouth Townships is just to the west of St Thomas so that the east end of the railway bridge is in Yarmouth while the west end is in Southwold. St Thomas was entirely in Yarmouth Township. The first settler in the Yarmouth side of the township line was Captain Daniel Rapelje, a Loyalist immigrant from New York
State. He chose Lot 1, which on the face of it was not very smart because it had very little usable land. The usable section was the area bounded by the present Pleasant, Talbot, Stanley and Walnut Streets. The area south, which contained the rest of Lot 1 was the valley of Kettle Creek. But what attracted Rapelje was the creek. He felt that he could build a mill on the creek. He spent no little time building the mill, which was near the bottom of the hill at the junction of Stanley Street and Sunset Drive, so that by the time it was operating he needed money. So he surveyed his farm, divided it into lots and sold them. So the village of Kettle Creek came into being. Rapelje bought another lot and moved there. The first settler on the Southwold side of the township line was David Mandeville. He had the lot next to Rapelje but no parallel to it. When the Southwold and Yarmouth Townships were surveyed by Mahlon Burwell, he surveyed them using the Talbot Road as a baseline. In Yarmouth Township, the Talbot Road goes east-west, so the lots are aligned north-south. In Southwold Township, the Talbot Road is at an angle. Mandeville's land included the small parcel of land between under the railway bridge. This area was called Stirling and was where the Talbot Road crossed Kettle Creek. James Hamilton started a general store near the junction of Talbot Street and Sunset Drive. The area where Rapelje was building his mill was called Hog's Hollow. However,both of these were soon eclipsed by Kettle Creek Village built on Rapelje's former land on the top of the hill. Eventually, when the post office was opened in 1831, it was given the nam,e St Thomas and included Stirling, Kettle Creek Village and Hog's Hollow. Places to see in St Thomas are: Military Museum, 30 Talbot Street
The front of this cottage is now closed up. The entrance to the museum is from the parking lot at the back. The cottage was built in 1852 and is sometimes credited to Charles Duncombe. But this could not have been the famous, or infamous, Dr. Charles Duncombe, who with Dr. John Rolph, started the first medical school in Ontario. He found himself on the wrong side of the Rebellion in 1837 and had to leave Canada for good at that time. It is possible that Dr. Charles Duncombe's house was on this site but this is not it. Duncombe House, 32 Talbot Street
Dr. E.E. Duncombe was the brother of the more famous Dr. Charles Duncombe. Both were pioneer doctors in early St Thomas. This fine Georgian house is next door to the Military Museum and now houses the Elgin County Pioneer Museum. It was built in 1848. The house was originally clapboarded. Talbot Trail Cafe, 86 Talbot Street
This store-front building with a porch was once a residence and the home Murdoch McKenzie. It was built in 1842. The porch is original. St Thomas Church, Walnut Street
Daniel Rapelje gave the plot for St Thomas Anglican Church. The story is that two sons died and were buried on his farm. Not liking the idea of them being buried in unconsecrated ground, he gave the land for the building of the church. The church was completed
in 1824 . Colonel Talbot gave funds for the church's
tower, steeple, and chancel, added in 1825. Ermatinger House, 59 Walnut Street
Edward Ermatinger was a former clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company, who left to become a banker, real estate agent, and insurance broker. He was active in politics for a while, managing to be elected to the Legislative Assembly. He wrote a book about Col. Talbot which caused a furor for the manner in which he assaulted the reputation of men such as Col. Mahlon Burwell. This Georgian house was built in 1853. Hockridge House, 50 William Street
Under all of the additions, you can still see the original 1½-storey house with the front door set in the end of the building. The house was built in 1861 by Samuel Hockridge. Bannerwood, 6 St Anne's Place
Built in 1830 by Surranus Thompson, this is a plain, square box with the front door set to one side of the single front room. In the 1850s, this was the Common School or the Talbot Seminary. Munro House, 35 William Street
Sheriff Colin Munro had this white-brick Georgian house built in 1860. Munro was a well-known businessman and official of Elgin County who settled near Talbotville in 1840. He had Alma College named after his wife and daughter. Colin Street in Port Bruce is named for him. The fine front door has a transom and sidelights. Travers House, 39 Wiulliam Street
Dr. Richard Travers was a pioneer doctor. Born in 1822 in County Cork, he started his practise in Fingal in 1845. He built this house in 1855, but the rigours of being a pioneer doctor wore him down and he died in 1856. Unlike the house next door, this house has the front door to one side. It too has a front door with a transom and sidelights. The bricks for this house were originally rose-coloured but have now faded. Drake House, 77 Metcalfe Street
The man who settled on Lot 2 next to Daniel Rapelje was Captain William Drake, from Orange County, New York. His son Benjamin, born on the farm here in 1809, built this house in 1850. This Georgian house faces down Drake Street, which was once the lane leading to the Drake farm. Benjamin also donated part of the farm for the Court House. Coyne House, 95 Metcalfe Street
This Georgian house was built in 1858 by William Kains. It is known as the Coyne House for Dr. James Coyne, who bought the house in 1890. Dr. Coyne was the founder and first president of the Ontario Historical Society. One of his grandsons was Governor of the Bank of Canada, and another was Chairman of Ontario Hydro. One of his daughters was the first airline stewardess for Air Canada. What was to be the first Welland Canal started out as a
scheme to get more water into Twelve Mile Creek. It all began in 1818 when
William Hamilton Merritt, a farmer, mill owner, and much more, got fed up
when the water level dropped every summer and his mill wheel ground to a
halt. So one day he and some of his neighbours decided to take a look at
the feasibility of cutting a small canal from the Welland River at what
is now Port Robinson to divert water to the Twelve Mile Creek at DeCew Falls.
They estimated, incorrectly, that the cut would only need to be thirty feet
deep. At some point after that, the water canal scheme changed to a barge canal
scheme. Barges destined for Lake Erie would be carried from Lake Ontario
by the Twelve Mile Creek to the escarpment at DeCew Falls, where they would
be hoisted by an inclined railway to the top. Once at the top of the escarpment,
the barges would proceed along the canal to the Welland River, then down
that river to Chippawa, the Niagara River, and Lake Erie. Merritt and his partners formed a company to build the canal and Merritt
started to drum up investment. To state that this was difficult would be
an understatement, but eventually the company got enough funds to start.
By this time, however, the scheme had changed again. It had become apparent
that what was needed was a canal that could handle larger boats to overcome
the competition from the Erie Canal in New York State. So the inclined railway
was scrapped. Instead, boats from Lake Ontario would sail up Twelve Mile
Creek to Dick's Creek, then up that creek to the escarpment where they would
be raised by a series of locks. Once up at the top, they would be carried
by a canal to the Welland River as before but by a different route. During construction, the builders encountered a major problem. There
is a ridge between the escarpment and the Welland River and, instead of
a thirty foot cut through the ridge, what was needed was a deep cut of sixty
feet. When they got down near the bottom of the cut, they found that the
walls of the cut collapsed. They finally decided that the canal could not
be cut deep enough to use the Welland River as a source for water. Somehow
they would have to find a source that had a higher elevation than the Welland
River. The solution was to b |
Barber
Mills
Willowbank
Berwick
Hall
Old
Knox Church
Denney Townhouses
Old
Congregational Church
John Freeman House
William Joyce House
Francis Barclay House
Pine Grove
Walter McKay House
William Austen House
McGibbon
Hotel
John Kennedy House
Cleave House
Willsie-Kennedy House (front)
Willsie-Kennedy House (side and rear)
Dayfoot Factory
Exchange Hotel
Goodenow House
Moraviantown (Fairfield)
Church in New Fairfield
Butler's Barracks
Fort George
Navy Hall
St Mark's Church
Stewart House
Promenade House
Demeath
Hiscott House
Kirby House
Old Bank House
Angel Inn
Rogers-Harrison House
Wilson-Kent House
MacDougal House
Vanderlip House
Clench House
Butler House
McMonigle House
Castle Leslie
Waite House
Orange Lawrence House
Thomas Jull House
Lawrence Cottage
Lewis House
Orange Jull House
Town Hall
Graham's Tavern
Port Dalhousie Jail
Port Mansion
Non-Such Hotel
First Lock Second Canal
Dalhousie House
William Muir House
Captain Reid House
William Muir House 2
Alexander Muir House
Customs House
Laura Secord House
Mackenzie's Printery
Willowbank
McClosky House
Dee House
South Landing Inn
The Landing (Boat Ramp)
Old Mill in St Jacobs
Benjamin's
Hotel
Military Museum
Dr. E.E. Duncombe House
Talbot Trail Cafe (McKenzie House)
St Thomas Church
Edward Ermatinger House
Hockridge House
Bannerwood
Munro House
Travers House
