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The Early Years

Archaeological digs at the present King’s Point site[1] and on the Commons[2] have uncovered artifacts made as early as 7000–6000 BCE. These small points fashioned from chert[3] as well as fragments of ceramic pots probably belonged to small groups of hunters-gatherers living along the Niagara River delta.

Projectile Point, early archaic bifurcate (7000–6000 BCE), chert, photo, Sergio Martin. Found at the King’s Point Archaeological Site at the bottom of a runoff ravine, this early point probably originated from the uplands (commons) above. King’s Point Site, catalogue # 01230.

Courtesy of the Niagara Historical Society and Museum.

The first recorded Aboriginals at the mouth of the Niagara River were the Atiwandaronks — known by the Europeans as the Nation de Petun or the Neutrals who spoke an Iroquoian dialect. Occupying the Niagara peninsula, they were strategically located between arch-enemies: the Hurons to the north-west and the powerful Six Nations Iroquois to the south-east. The Neutrals had several villages on the Niagara peninsula where they grew maize (corn), pumpkins, and beans, as well as tobacco that was traded with the other Natives. The Neutrals referred to the river as Ongiara or Onghiara, from which is derived the modern name, Niagara.[4]

Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle (1643–1687), purported to be a drawing of the French explorer as a young man. La Salle was the first European to record stepping ashore on the west bank of the mouth of the Niagara River.

Frank Severance, An Old Frontier of France (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1917), 70.

In 1650 the neighbouring Iroquois (Seneca Nation) suddenly turned on the Neutrals, destroying their villages, killing many, but also absorbing some Neutral captives into their own communities. For the next one hundred years the Niagara Peninsula was “empty,” with only occasional Mississauga Natives (Chippewa Nation) passing through.

The French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier de La Salle was the first European to actually document stepping ashore on the west bank of the mouth of the Niagara River. Upon reaching the east bank of the river in January 1679 after an exhausting overland trek, La Salle and his Lieutenant Henri de Tonty “were taken across the mouth of the river by friendly Indians, and given a supper of white-fish and corn soup.”[5] As such, this simple meal represents the earliest recorded meal consumed in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It is also yet another instance where the indigenous peoples helped “white” strangers to survive.

Successive forts were erected by the French on the site of the present Fort Niagara on the east bank of the Niagara River in present New York State. The French apparently cultivated gardens on the fertile mud flats of the west side of the river to supply produce for the garrison.

Fort Niagara 25 July 1759, plan on paper. This previously unpublished map shows the battery on the west (Canadian) bank in fine detail, with a “Battery of two Royal and two six pound(ers)” in the upper right-hand corner. The Royal Collection © 2011, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, RCIN 732108.

During the successful European-style siege of Fort Niagara by British forces in July 1759, the British surreptitiously established a battery on high ground at “Montreal Point”[6] near present Queen’s Royal Park. The British invasion flotilla approached Fort Niagara from the east. As the French warship Iroquoise controlled the mouth of the river, all the heavy artillery, ammunition, and bateaux had to be transported from their landing site at Four Mile Creek (east of the river) overland to the gully of present Bloody Run Creek, two miles upstream from the fort. Transported across the river in the bateaux, the heavy artillery pieces were then dragged laboriously, but apparently without detection, along the crest of the west bank to Montreal Point. Once in place in a new earthen battery, the guns inflicted serious damage on the largely unprotected river side of the fort. Incredibly, the very first cannon ball shot in anger from the Canadian side of the river penetrated the stone chimney of the French commandant’s quarters in the “French Castle,” crashed down the flue onto the andirons and spun into French Commander François Pouchot’s bedroom where he was sleeping.[7] Quite the wake-up call! With the termination of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, French Canada, including Niagara, became part of British North America.

Plan of Niagara. This map illustrates the mouth of the Niagara River shortly after the British siege of Fort Niagara in July 1759. It shows on the west bank of the Niagara River “ploughed land” on the high land and a “garden over the river” on the marshland. Both had apparently been established by the French before the arrival of the British. Map published in 1762 and reproduced in the Sir William Johnson Papers, vol. 3 (Albany: University of the State of New York, 1921), photo insert.

In 1764 Sir William Johnson negotiated with the Senecas an oral treaty sealed by a wampum belt whereby a four-mile strip of land along the east side of the Niagara River from its mouth to the escarpment including the strategic portage and a two-mile strip on the corresponding west bank were ceded to the British. The land was to be used for military and trade purposes only. Within a year, the British started construction of the Navy Hall complex at its present site[8] chosen because its wharf provided easier docking for tall-ships[9] and because of its proximity to huge oak trees on the plain above Navy Hall. Oak had long been regarded by the British Navy as the ideal building material for sailing ships.[10]

With the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Fort Niagara became headquarters for Colonel John Butler’s Rangers, a corps of provincials who waged guerilla-like warfare against the rebels of upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Fort Niagara was overcrowded with Native, white, and black refugees from war and devastation in the Mohawk Valley; hence, Butler received permission in late 1778[11] to start construction of two log barracks and a few small “huts” for his men on the west side (approximately at the site of Chateau Gardens today).[12] The next year more log houses and a hospital were added.[13] With the Rangers now occupying the west bank, they were encouraged, when not out on raiding parties, to till the land — some twenty five acres known as the “King’s Field” — now part of the Commons. Such efforts would provide agricultural provisions for the men but even more importantly, for the garrison across the river. Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Quebec (which included present-day Ontario) and an avid gardener himself, had devised an agricultural policy that provided a system of gardens and farms around each of the British garrisons to produce enough food to enable the garrison to be self-sufficient. However, under the terms of the 1764 treaty, large-scale farming was not permitted by the Senecas on the east side. Moreover, “both from the Soil and Situation, the West side of the river (is) by far preferable to the East.”[14]

With the American General Sullivan’s destructive swath through the Mohawk Valley in 1779, there was an even greater influx of refugees into Fort Niagara, further taxing the food supply. As a result, Guy Johnson, superintendent general of Indian Affairs, was directed to negotiate a treaty, signed in May 1781, with the Chippewas and Mississaugas who had sovereignty in the Niagara Peninsula. In return for “about the value of three Hundred Suits of Cloathing [sic]” a strip of land four miles wide westward from the Niagara River, stretching from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, was granted to the British.[15] Even before the treaty had been signed, Haldimand granted permission for “amongst the distressed families three or four”[16] to farm full time on the west bank with the understanding that they were tenants only and that they were to sell all their produce to the garrison at prices set by the commanding officer. Within one year the “three or four” farmers had become sixteen households according to Butler’s first census of August 1782.[17]

Sir Frederick Haldimand (1718–1791), artist Lemuel Francis Abbott, oil on canvas. As governor, Haldimand ordered the land above Navy Hall be reserved for a garrison. With permission of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM, #953.215.1.

With the Treaty of Paris in 1783, those Loyalists already at Niagara could not return home. Moreover, the influx of new Loyalist families into western Quebec steadily increased. The government would have to establish guidelines for orderly civil settlement in the colony. The result was the “Cataraqui Plan,”[18] a four-point plan to establish townships for the settlement of the Loyalists:

1 Each township was to have a military reserve.

2 Provision was to be made for an Indian settlement “where some of the most noted [Indians] might be allowed to build.”

3 A “common” of four hundred acres was to be preserved “for the use of the town” but it could be leased back to settlers “for a term not exceeding 30 years” or until the town needed the land.

4 Each township was to be a six-square mile grid … similar to what the settlers were used to in their former colonies. There would be approximately seven rows of twenty-five rectangular lots with a road allowance along each row.

The plan also provided for the establishment of churches, grist mills, and saw mills in each township.

The prime prerequisite for such a plan of settlement, of course, would be an accurate official survey. Butler, perhaps to give some legitimacy to the settlers’ concerns regarding land tenure of their already settled lands, hired Ranger Allen Macdonell[19] to survey the settlement that was completed before May, 1783.[20] In the Haldimand papers there is an undated and unsigned survey, “The New Settlement Niagara.” Although not to scale, it does show the extent of the new settlement, concentrated primarily along the riverbank, and a second block of lots north of the “Due West Line” — now called the East-to-West Line — approximately between the Two and Four Mile Creeks. The large area west of Navy Hall to Two Mile Creek is simply marked “Rangers’ Barracks” and probably constituted the tiny settlement of “Butlersburg” and the surrounding military reserve.[21]

Plan of Niagara, circa 1784, paper document hand-copied by J. Simpson, 1909, from the original in the Shubbal-Walton Papers, Library and Archives Canada. This portion of an early official survey of Niagara shows Navy Hall and Rangers Barracks but most of the land from the Niagara River to Four Mile Creek, north of the “Due-West Line” is reserved by the Crown.

Courtesy of the Niagara Historical Society and Museum, #986.003.

Haldimand dismissed the Butler-Macdonell survey and hired a government surveyor, Lieutenant Tinling. One of his prime duties was to set aside “[g]round necessary to be reserved for a Post,”[22] which was to include all the “[h]igh ground above Navy Hall” to the Four Mile Creek north of the Due-West line.[23] Upon Tinling’s arrival he was quickly confronted by the reality that several Rangers officers “have cultivated and built good farm houses” on land between Navy Hall and Four Mile Creek and had no intention to leave.[24] Eventually, Tinling produced a survey of Niagara Township that confirmed the general principles of the Catarqui Plan, including the military reserve as specified by Haldimand.[25] But thanks to heavy Rangers lobbying, several blocks within the reserve were nominated for specific settlers.[26] There was, however, no provision for a commons or Indian reserve.

Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester (1724–1808), artist unknown, miniature oil on ivory. Carleton introduced a system of land tenure and encouraged the creation of town sites.

Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM, #935.23.1.

By 1788 Lord Dorchester, who had succeeded Haldimand as governor, proclaimed that settlers could in fact hold their land as English freehold and also directed officials to begin to lay out a town site within the township. The newly constituted Land Board, comprised of several local prominent citizens, took up the task. Initially they concluded that the most appropriate location for a proper town site would be in the centre of the township, facing the Niagara River halfway between Navy Hall and Queenston. The owners of the lots refused to give up their lands. A year later the colonial government chose the Crown lands on the River just north of the Due-West line, to be named Lenox. The survey was commenced by Augustus Jones,[27] who soon realized that there was insufficient land between the Due-West line and the land already reserved on the high ground above Navy Hall for military purposes. Therefore, the site for the town was shifted to the northwest of Navy Hall — the present King Street, which runs south thirty degrees southwest from the river, would be the boundary between the new town and the military reserve. With the settlement of Butlersburg/Lenox being designated the capital of Upper Canada in 1792 and renamed Newark by Simcoe, a survey of the new capital was produced.[28] This called for lots reserved for churches, schools, and market places, but still no commons or public square. However, provision was made for the speedy erection of a public house (corner of King and Front streets) and a Mason’s Lodge next to it[29] — reflecting the social priorities of the male citizens of the town.

During the capital years, with the impending loss of Fort Niagara to the Americans, the strategic importance of the military installations on the Military Reserve increased dramatically. There was great activity in the Navy Hall complex by the river; the Rangers’ barracks, vacated by the Rangers who had been disbanded, was used by the militia and the Indian Department and the site was fortified; and the new Fort George garrison site was staked out. Despite this activity there were still some civilian encroachments on the reserve. Widow Murray maintained a farm in the middle of the reserve. Several merchants had shops and wharves along the marshy riverfront.[30] William Dickson, in one of his petitions for land,[31] claimed title for a “small House and Lott” on the reserve (approximate site of present St. Mark’s Rectory). He stated that since 1783, the property had been occupied successively by Surgeon Guthrie, silversmith John Bachus,[32] merchant Crooks, and then himself. The claim was disallowed because “it was land reserved for the purpose of fortification.”

By 1796 the extent of the Fort George Military Reserve was greatly reduced. The southern and western boundaries of the reserve ran parallel but slightly south of present-day John Street East to the river. Simcoe granted the land now excluded from the reserve south to Due-West Line primarily to “potential Canadian aristocrats.”[33] The large acreage between the western border and Four Mile Creek was granted to several Loyalist settlers in addition to those settlers who had been exempted previously.[34] The King Street boundary between the town site and the reserve remained unchanged.

Without any official provision in the town’s plan for a commons, green, public square, or park, it is understandable why the local townspeople and visitors alike began to consider the Military Reserves, primarily the large section to the south of King Street and to a lesser extent the smaller Reserve at Mississauga Point, as their commons. Such common lands had been enjoyed and indeed taken for granted back in the former American Thirteen Colonies as well as Great Britain. The commons was a place to graze your cows and sheep, to tether your horses and perhaps till a little garden, to gather firewood or mushrooms, or to provide a venue for various sports and other recreational activities, including a rendezvous for lovers. In the case of Niagara, venturing onto the Commons was always done with a watchful eye on the military installations and personnel, keeping in mind that it was officially a military reserve. It was often an uneasy truce: military officials complained of encroachment on their land and the locals objected to unnecessary high-handed military regulations. But as we will see later, in practice there was also an ongoing symbiotic relationship between the military and the townspeople.

The year 1796 was an important milestone for Newark (Niagara), and the Commons in particular. Construction of Fort George, although laid out as early as 1790, finally began on the high ground above Navy Hall chosen because it was approximately fourteen feet higher than the opposing Fort Niagara — an important consideration when lobbing artillery shells onto one’s enemy. The mere presence of this military garrison would have a lasting influence on the town’s history and that of the Commons.[35]

With the last session of the First Parliament of Upper Canada prorogued in June 1796, the capital of the infant colony officially moved to York (Toronto). Government officials and many military officers reluctantly left Niagara. The mercantile, social, and cultural epicentre of the colony gradually shifted across the lake as well. If the capital had remained at Niagara, the Commons as we know it today would certainly not have survived into the twenty-first century. Moreover, as previously mentioned, with the Crown grants along John Street officially approved in 1796, the boundaries of the Military Reserve were now finalized … or were they? Within one year, two local citizens had requested a grant of a portion of the “Commons or Lands now used as such.”[36] This was the first of what was to become a seemingly never-ending succession of proposals (many successful) to nibble away at the edges of the Commons.

Fort George Military Reserve, 1800. This map illustrates the full extent of the Fort George Military Reserve with its Navy Hall Complex, probable site of the Rangers’ Barracks, the newly completed Fort George, and the buildings of the British Indian Department. Note the original contour of the Queenston Road is closely followed by today’s Queen’s Parade and Picton Street. Although this map is based on diligent research, the various trails, creeks, and other landmarks should not be interpreted as their exact original location.

If you couldn’t purchase a piece of the Commons, at least you could buy a view of the Commons. By 1796 the two most substantial homes in Niagara — D.W. Smith’s elegant home and formal gardens on town lots 65, 66, 103, and 104, and William Dickson’s Georgian mansion on Lot 64 — both looked out onto the Commons. Moreover, Administrator Russell’s home, known as Springfield, was beautifully situated in the midst of the Commons.

The relative tranquility and picturesque green expanse of the Fort George Military Reserve/Commons at the end of the eighteenth century would soon be violently disrupted.