Ridge Road
Drive from Stoney Creek to Port Dalhousie along the Ridge Road
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In 1813, Battlefield House was the home of Mary Jones Gage, a Loyalist, widow, and sister of the famous surveyor, Augustus Jones. As a Loyalist, she had been granted the land here and, in this house, she lived with her son James. The house was different then. It was a 1½-storey building and, although it was on the same site, it was north of the native trail that was to become King Street. Now King Street between Nash Street and Elm Avenue follows the concession line but in those days the trail tended to follow the line of the escarpment more. Near the house was the store belonging to James Gage. Its exact location has never been verified but it is supposed to be near where the native trail crossed the creek.
In the summer of 1813, the British forces under Brigadier-General Vincent were forced to give up Fort George in Niagara and began to retreat toward the base at Burlington Heights, where Dundurn Castle is located. The Americans were in close pursuit. On June 5th, the Americans were camped on Mary Gage's land and had taken over the house, forcing the women and children into the basement and the men into a shed. Lt. James FitzGibbon undertook a spying mission, posing as a farmer selling butter to the Americans. At very great risk, he managed to learn which troops were in the American force, how many there were, and where they were situated. He returned to his commander, Lt.Col. John Harvey, who persuaded General Vincent to approve a night attack. So here was fought the Battle of Stoney Creek, a timely victory in which 1000 British troops defeated 3000 Americans and reversed the trend of the war. Mary Gage continued to live in the house until 1835, when she sold the farm and went to live in Hamilton. Meanwhile the second storey was added in 1830 so that the house looked much as it looks today. By 1899, the house was in bad shape, so Mary's great-granddaughter, Sara Calder, decided to buy it. She trransferred the house to the Women's Wentworth Historical Society, who restored the house and opened it as one of the first museums in Canada. The story of the battlefield monument gives some insight into the character of Sara Calder. In 1913 there was a proposal to build a monument to commemorate the Battle of Stoney Creek on its centennial. The Wentworth Historical Society wanted to build it on the north side of King Street at a place called Smith's Knoll. Sara disagreed; she thought it should be on her property near the house/museum. The men on the board of the society went ahead with the plan and the monument still stands where it was placed. But Sara decided to form a Women's Wentworth Historical Society and that organization duly raised another monument on the present Battlefield Park. Who won? See for yourself. Compare the monument on the north side of the road on Smith's Knoll with the huge monument standing on the top of the ridge in Battlefield Park. The men didn't have a prayer!
Also in Battlefield Park is the Nash-Jackson House. This house was moved to this site from its original site at the corner of Nash Road and King Street. It was built by Samuel Nash about 1810 and is a two-storey frame house in the Georgian style. Samuel Nash arrived here from Connecticut about 1800 and married Susannah, the daughter of William Gage, brother-in-law of Mary Gage, the owner of Battlefield House. William gave Samuel and Susannah the land on which the Nash House was built. Unlike Battlefield House, the Nash House was in the hands of the Nash-Jackson family for five generations until 1996, when it was given to the City of Stoney Creek.
Starting the trip-Battlefield House in Stoney Creek Start the trip at Battlefield Park at the intersection of Centennial Parkway and King Street West in the City of Hamilton. On leaving the park, turn left onto King Street and turn left again at the traffic lights onto Centennial Parkway. At the top of the hill, turn left onto Ridge Road. At the time of the War of 1812, all of the land on both sides of this section of Ridge Road was owned by a Loyalist named Adam Green, who had fought for the British during the Revolutionary War. His youngest child, Billy, was the only one of Adam's children who was born in Canada. When he was born in February 1794, Billy was the first child born in Saltfleet Township. Adam Green's daughter Keziah married Isaac Corman, who lived at the foot of the escarpment near the native trail that was to become King Street. Billy and his brother-in-law became famous during the War of 1812 for an incident that led up to the Battle of Stoney Creek. When the Americans arrived on the east bank of the creek in June 1813, they captured Isaac Corman and started to interrogate him. His interrogator found out that Isaac was a cousin of one of the American generals, William Henry Harrison, and was from Kentucky. So the interrogator, himself a second cousin of Harrison, decided to let Isaac go. Isaac then asked him how he could get out of the camp since he didn't know the password. So, to Isaac's amazement, the American told him that the password was WilHenHar, the first three letters of each word in the name of William Henry Harrison. As Isaac was walking home, he met brother-in-law Billy Green. After telling Billy the story, he told Billy to get on his horse and tell it to the British. So Billy rode to Lt. Col. Harvey and told him the story, which, with the information from Lt. FitzGibbon, convinced Harvey that a night attack was needed. Just down the road, at 30 Ridge Road, is Billy Green's house, built about 1820. It is a typical 1½-storey brick house with a window on each side of the front door and a gable with a window above the front door. The house and farm surrounding it are still owned by Billy's descendents.
Ridge Road swings right at the edge of the escarpment. Just after it does so, you will see a house on the left and a barn-like store on the right. The house on the left is Jubilee Hall, built by local landowner John Book Walker in 1887 in the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her Diamond Jubilee (fifty years on the throne), hence the name of the house. It was bought by Emerson Freel in the 1920s. His son, Clifford, married Erland Lee's youngest daughter, Alice, and they lived in this house. Alice Freel was the first woman on the council for Saltfleet Township. The house was large enough to hold two families so, by Emerson Freel's will, Cliff shared the house with his brother Charlie and his family. Charlie's ghost is reported to be still in the house.
The barn-like store may be near where the mysterious Jim Stony had his store. Jim Stony is supposed to be the man after whom Stoney Creek was named. The creek and the town were first spelled Stony Creek, which is grammatically correct. There is no other information about Jim Stony so it sounds like a tall tale. After the store, the road swings right as it goes around the Devil's Punchbowl. There is a small parking area on the left and, if you have time, you should stop here and take a walk around the small park. You can see Jubilee Hall perched on the edge of the cliff. The Devil's Punchbowl is where Stoney Creek falls over the escarpment. At the end of the last ice age, the creek must have been much bigger than now and the force as it careered over the edge carved out the great hole that is the Punchbowl. There is a story that it got its name from the gallons of home brew which used to be made in the woods around here. The cross is fairly recent. William Sinclair raised it in 1966 to bring a little light into the world. It has 106 lights and was originally intended to be illuminated at Christmas and Easter. Since 1991, however, it is illuminated every night of the year.
Continue along Ridge Road. On the right at 228 Ridge Road is a small white 1½-storey house with a porch. This is the Spera House and was built by William and John Spera about 1860. The porch is a later addition. The original house on this site was built about 1830 by Henry Spera, a Loyalist. The present house remained in family hands until fairly recently. Like Jubilee Hall, this house is reputed to be haunted.
At the stop sign, turn right to continue along Ridge Road. On the left after the stop sign is a lookout. On a clear day, the view from here is spectacular and well worth stopping for. For the next kilometer or so, the road runs right along the edge of the escarpment so you can look left to see the lake below. This road is one of the prettiest in Southwest Ontario. In the spring, there is blossom in the orchards. In the summer, wild chicory creates a blue border on the side of the road. In the late fall, winter, and early spring, the absence of leaves gives you the opportunity to get a better view down the escarpment. Continue along Ridge Road to the Erland Lee Museum at 552 Ridge Road. Erland Lee and his wife Janet, along with Adelaide Hunter Hoodless, are the founders of the Women's Institute, and the museum highlights this achievement. Janet Lee was a very progressive woman. She was Hamilton's first kindergarten teacher, a job she had to give up when she married. Erland was an extremely broad-minded man. He was attending a conference in Guelph and heard Mrs. Hoodless speak about the need for educating young girls. He and Janet invited Mrs. Hoodless to speak in Stoney Creek in February 1897 about creating programs for educating rural women. Adelaide Hoodless was a great believer in training young girls to be good homemakers and the speech she gave transformed the Lees' lives. In the front room of this house on February 19 1897, Janet Lee wrote down the constitution and bylaws for the Women's Institute. Erland Lee lobbied the government for funds and the first meeting occurred in the home of Mrs. E.D. Smith in Winona, a short distance away down the escarpment. James Lee, a Loyalist, arrived here about 1790 and was given a grant of Lots 20 and 21, Concession 4 in Saltfleet Township, which is the land on both sides of the 2nd Road along Ridge Road. His eldest son John obtained the land at this location, Lot 17 Concession 4, when he married Mary Moore in 1808. He built a frame log house, which he named Edgemount, and which remains the heart of this house. It has been augmented over the years.
Continue along Ridge Road to 5th Road. Behind the houses on your right, the famous Vineland Swamp lies between the 5th and 8th Roads. This wetlands area is 1000 acres in size and contains areas of dogwood, willow and meadowsweet. It is the home for many species of animals and birds including a colony of great blue herons. Just past 8th Road, Ridge Road goes over a railway bridge. The community is called Vinemount and once had a station near this bridge. The building is no longer here. It was moved and is now part of a residence near Ancaster. The railway was the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo (TH&B) Railway, now part of Canadian Pacific. At the corner of McNeilly Road in Vinemount is a residence that used to be the Vinemount General Store. It was actually the second general store, the first was across the street on the opposite corner but is long gone. The building was erected by John Tallman about 1900 and once had a gas pump in front.
Continue along Ridge Road to the 10th Road. The house on the left side of the road facing down 10th Road was once the Vinemount School, or the SS10 School, Saltfleet Township. The one-room schoolhouse was built by Thomas Lawrence about 1879 and operated to 1963. It is now a private residence and has had many changes made to it.
Continue along Ridge Road past the intersection with Brand Road, just after which you enter Grimsby. Description of Grimsby Continue along Ridge Road to the T-junction at Mountain Road. Be careful at this intersection because, although it is a two-way stop, traffic coming up the hill to your left does not have to stop. Turn left to go down the hill then turn right to continue along Ridge Road. Continue along Ridge Road to 30 Road, then turn left to go down the escarpment. At the bottom, turn right onto King Street. You are now driving along the Wine Route as you will very soon be aware as you pass winery after winery. Still, this is a pleasant road into Beamsville. This road is part of the native trail that ran along the base of the escarpment from Queenston to Hamilton. It later became Highway 8. Beamsville was named for its pioneer settler, Jacob Beam or Behm, a Loyalist who had been imprisoned in the United States and forfeited his land. He moved here about 1780 to settle on his grant of 400 acres. As the community grew, he donated land for schools, a church, and a cemetery, and was rewarded when the village was named for him. Continue along King Street to Vineland, then turn right at Victoria Avenue to go up the escarpment. Just past Fly Road, turn left toward Ball's Falls.The road makes several turns, then crosses a narrow bridge into the Ball's Falls Conservation Area. If you have time, stop here and visit the various buildings. Here is the Ball's gristmill and home. Also here are two log cabins, showing how the first pioneer log cabin might look and how an upgraded cabin might look. These cabins and other buildings came from nearby and were moved here to create a village representing Glen Elgin, the village that was here once.
George and John Ball were United Empire Loyalists and sons of Lieutenant Jacob Ball of Butler's Rangers. They were awarded 1200 acres of land here on the Twenty Mile Creek. The land had two waterfalls and plenty of water for mills. They built a gristmill at the lower falls and a sawmill at the upper falls. Further up the hill, they built a woollen mill. The Balls named their little community Glen Elgin and it prospered until the 1850s when the railway passed it by. The Ball family continued to live here until 1962, when Manley Ball sold the property to the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.
After leaving Ball's Falls, turn left at two T-junctions onto 19th Street. Cross over King Street and drive into the village of Jordan. This is now a very touristy village but you can park here and walk to Main Street. The area's first settlers were former Butler's Rangers and Empire Loyalists such as the Ball family. They named the small village St Mary's and the name was not changed to Jordan until about 1840 by the postmaster William Brandt, possibly to avoid confusion with another village with that name. The early settlers were joined about 1799 by Mennonites from Pennsylvania. These were the first Mennonites in Ontario and must have sent back good reports for soon many others were making the journey from Pennsylvania. Mennonites going to settle in what is now Kitchener-Waterloo would often come here to visit relatives and recuperate before moving to their own land. The Heritage House at 3800 Main Street is the village museum. At the rear are two old buildings that are worth visiting. The old wooden house is the Fry House. It was originally located near the corner of Fly Road and Victoria Avenue. It was built by Jacob Fry (or Frey) in about 1815. Fry came here from Pennsylvania with other Mennonite families and became a successful farmer. It is built in a traditional German style using hand-shaped logs. It has a massive fireplace in the kitchen and nearby is a wood-burning stove for heating the house. Father and mother had a bedroom on the ground floor but the children slept upstairs. The house has many original pieces of furniture made by Jacob Fry.
Also behind the Heritage House is a schoolhouse. This limestone building was built in 1859 to replace a red-brick building that had burned down. This schoolhouse served the community until 1948 and has been restored to how it was in 1908. The schoolhouse takes parties of children and gives them a day's experience of what it was like to be in school in 1908.
Other old houses in Jordan include:
Return to the car and continue along 19th Street. Turn right onto 4th Avenue. At Jordan Road, turn left. Follow Jordan Road as it crosses over the QEW and turn right onto the North Service Road. This scenic road takes you along the lake. At 7th Street, which is an exit from the QEW, turn left, then follow the road as it turns into Lakeshore Road West. Follow this road through the farms and orchards until it becomes Main Street in Port Dalhousie. Follow Main Street to Lakeside Park. You have now completed the trip.
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Battlefield House
Battle of Stoney Creek Monument at Smith's Knoll
Battle of Stoney Creek Monument behind a Battlefield House guide in period costume
Nash-Jackson House
Billy Green House
Jubilee Hall
Devil's Punchbowl (almost dry)
Spera House
Erland Lee Museum
Vinemount Store
SS10 Saltfleet Schoolhouse
Ball's Lower Falls
Ball House
Ball Gristmill
Fry House
Schoolhouse
Jordan House
Haynes-Griffin House
Doctor's House
Jordan B&B
Vintage House