“The Worst in the World!”
The Troubled History of
Niagara’s Roadways
This is the first in a series of three essays relating to local trade and communications, the relationships between the Loyalist refugees who came to Niagara in the 1780s and their new environment.
Part 2 - Producing Potash at Rockway: A Fifteen Mile Falls Community explores the industrial history of Fifteen Mile Falls, now the site of the Rockway Conservation Area.
Part 3 - An Inclement Journey Across Niagara, 1803 relates the experiences of Francis Goring, who traveled through the entire Niagara peninsula on foot every winter from 1803-1808, delivering letters for his employer, Robert Hamilton.
“Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.”
When was the last time you took a drive along the Niagara escarpment? Those winding roads, the towering trees, and the occasional glimpse of Lake Ontario in the distance makes this one of the most scenic drives in the region. Here at The Brown Homestead we’re lucky - we get to do it every day!
We often find ourselves imagining what it was like to travel these same routes 100 years ago… 200 years ago… 500 years ago… What might it have looked like for families in Niagara long before there was any pavement, yellow lines or automobiles, back when the John Brown House was first constructed?
Niagara’s roadways may seem like a very niche topic, but transportation was a critical component of socio-economic development in the region during this era of settlement following the American Revolution. Poor roads meant poor communication, delayed movement of goods and services and infrequent exchanges of labour and resources. This in turn impacted social connections, one’s ability to acquire wealth locally, and the region’s ability as a whole to develop an impact beyond rural markets.
Information management is key to creating successful societies, so the poorer the road conditions, the longer it took to establish reliable communication routes, and the less efficient the economy remained. Niagara’s rural economy was centered on this ability to move and communicate. The only problem was, like in many pioneer societies, Niagara’s early 19th century road system remained severely underdeveloped.
Indigenous Trails
Prior to Loyalist settlement, the Niagara peninsula was inhabited for around three hundred years by Iroquoian-speaking people known by Jesuit priests as the Neutral Confederacy. In addition to hunting and trading, they engaged in agriculture in parts of Niagara township and disappeared in the mid-17th century (1). They formed three main east-west trails across the region, choosing to travel along the escarpment because it provided a flat, linear path and was a clear indicator of direction, connecting those living north of Lake Ontario to the Haudenosaunee in western New York (2). The Haudenosaunee regularly crossed the Niagara River to hunt for furs that they would then trade with Dutch and English merchants. These well-worn paths were later augmented by the Mississauga Nation who inhabited the lands between York and the Head of the Lake, or modern day Burlington, travelling through on their way to the Niagara River. The most prominent Indigenous route through Niagara was the Iroquois trail that ran from Queenston to Ancaster along the bottom of the escarpment, but the Mohawk trail along the top of the escarpment and the Lakeshore trail along Lake Ontario were also essential (3).
Source: Nancy Butler, Richard D. Merritt & Michael Power eds., The Capital Years: Niagara-On-The-Lake, 1792-1796, (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1996), 188.
The Brown Homestead sits on the Mohawk Trail, marked with the red dot on the illustration above. Its strategic location provided the family farm with more opportunities for success; something that became evident throughout the 19th century. From 1809 until the late 1830s the John Brown House was used as a tavern and inn, run by John & Magdalena Brown’s eldest son Adam after he inherited the Homestead. This place would have been bustling with people travelling on the Dundas-Niagara Stagecoach Line stopping in for a drink and a place to stay. Our front parlour still has a restored birdcage bar in the corner, and we often wonder what exciting stories it could tell.
Shortly after the tavern closed, another entrepreneur named Henry Smith (aka Henry of Pelham) began his own tavern in 1842, less than a mile up the road where the Speck Brothers, Smith family descendants, now run the Henry of Pelham Family Estate Winery.
What was the Law?
At this time, there were rules in place regarding the clearing of roads, and the responsibility ultimately fell to the landowner. In order to receive the deed to the land, the landowner had to clear five acres, put a fence around the farm, build a house and a road connecting to his neighbour within the first two years of settlement (4). In addition to working around your own property, land-owners were also required by British law to work for three to twelve unpaid days per year on the roads in their district (5).
What were the Roads Like?
We can learn about the state of Niagara’s roads at this time by reading from a variety of primary sources that mention it either directly or in passing. These narratives offer an interesting peek into what life was like for families like Browns.
1790-1799
By 1792, there were approximately 800 Loyalist families living in the entire Niagara region (6). One of the most heavily settled areas was Niagara township, or modern day Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the southeastern portion of the township quickly became a hub of commercial activity. “The Landing” in Queenston was a central shipping and receiving location for British military officers as well as local farmers and merchants, and thus the small stretch of road along the escarpment between the Niagara River and the Four Mile Creek was a key access point in and out of the area. This path would have been an especially valuable transportation route for many of the township’s top wheat producers who lived nearby.
The Road along the Iroquois Trail from the Niagara River to the Four Mile Creek. Blue dots signify the land owned by some of Niagara’s top wheat producers at this time.
However, this vital pathway was full of issues for the locals, as we see in the 1792 petition from a group of thirty Niagara farmers wherein they asked for a proper road to be built. The petition reads as follows:
“The Memorial of the Inhabitants living near the foot of the Mountain Humbly Sheweth That your Memorialists for several years solicited to have a Road laid out from the Landing to the four Mile Creek but have not yet been able to procure any that is passable without endangering the lives of our Cattle or going over the Mountain which is twice the distance. Now your Memorialists humbly beg that your Excellency will please to order a Road to be laid out from the Landing to the four mile Creek the most convenient for the back Settlers—And Your Memorialists as in Duty bound will Ever Pray. [Signed] Fras Goring, Cornls Lambert, Elijah Collard, William Havens Senior, William Havens junior, John Havens, George Havens, Stephen Commett, Elias Sloot, Joseph Page, John Collard, Christn Warner, John Stacey, Daniel Cornell, Wm Vanery, Edmond Mortan, [Lem Certtelor], John Stevens Senior, William Stevens, John Stevens Junior, John Muckel, Andre Muir, Andrew Ostrander, Adam Hutt, Samson Lutts, Stephen Secord, Abraham Defreese, David Secord, Elias Smith, James Midaugh” Ordered by the Executive Council referred to the Road Bill passed last Sessions [Upper Canada Land Petitions LAC “G” Bundle 1, Petition Number 44] (7)
The state of the land in this part of Niagara is corroborated by an account we read from Upper Canada Secretary William Jarvis. While travelling across Niagara in 1793, he said that the land in Queenston was so soft it could “receive a wheel of a chair halfway to the axletree”(8) …
… in fact, we got to experience a little bit of that ourselves just last week!
Local farmers were not the only ones to complain about the state of transportation in this part of Niagara. In 1792, Upper Canada’s Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe believed that it would be more suitable to open a road above the escarpment along the Mohawk trail, as opposed to below. His wife Elizabeth Simcoe provides evidence of this in her diary where she writes: “The Governor thinks the country will derive great benefit by opening a road on the top of the mountain (where it is quite dry) from Niagara to the "Head of the Lake," [Burlington] instead of going a most terrible road below, full of swamps, fallen trees, etc.”(9).
As we mentioned earlier, the John Brown House was built on the escarpment along the Mohawk trail, although not until a few years later. This quote from Governor Simcoe confirms our belief that The Brown Homestead was a desired area in which to live. It is believed that John Brown and his small family were already living here in the late 1780s which shows us they were astute in their settlement choice, but also fortunate to have been here early enough to choose such a location (10).
Niagara township was not the only area where established roads were required. Other parts of the region were equally difficult to navigate. In her diary, Lady Simcoe referred to the Welland River (then called the Chippewa Creek) as “a dull, muddy river running through a flat, swampy country"(11). In 1796 a man from Grimsby township sent a letter to the editor of the Upper Canada Gazette wherein he mentioned: “People have long complained of the roads in this province; strangers, in particular, who come from places in the world where roads are considered as convenient to interest and pleasure, have not hesitated to declare them the worst in the world”(12).
1800-1809
By the 19th century, not much had changed. In 1805, a few residents of Niagara petitioned the provincial government to improve legislation regarding roads and highways. According to the petitioners, those who had been appointed to oversee the building of roads were “frequently divided in opinion with respect to the construction” and there was “nothing mandatory or compulsory on them to act when required” (13).
In one final example, we see how all types of people were slowed down by these transportation issues, regardless of wealth or status. Francis Goring, the clerk of wealthy merchant Robert Hamilton, used rural roads when collecting debts from Hamilton’s customers between 1803-1808. Goring wrote: “The first six years I traveled on foot and it being always in Winter made it very tedious, the Inclemency of the weather never stoped [sic] me, except Rain during the whole time, tho I must own I frequently suffered much”(14). It took Goring six weeks to deliver 500-600 letters in this manner, saying “I have in one Winter traversed over Twenty-two Townships, and have traversed to Ancaster twice in one Winter (15).
Goring traveled to farmhouses in the most rural parts of Niagara, taking him off the beaten path for most of his journey. The fact that the employee of the wealthiest man in Niagara was made to travel over one hundred miles on foot each winter to deliver these messages suggests that the state of the roads remained poor in the early 1800s.
Why the Delay?
It’s not a new concept to see pioneering communities form around central geographical features, isolated at first from the world around them. The unusual part worth noting here is that these issues were still present, decades later. So why did it take so long to build decent roads in Niagara?
As mentioned earlier, the disorganization of appointed road commissioners and the lack of accountability was part of the issue. Land-owners were actually required by British law to work for three to twelve unpaid days per year on the roads in their district, but this government statute of labour was not well-enforced (16). Joseph Willcocks, the elected Member of Parliament for the 1st Lincoln & Haldimand Riding, raised this issue in his 1808 campaign for office. He attributed the underdevelopment in the area to the “incompetence and self-interest” of local office-holders including magistrates, sheriffs, coroners, and even militia officers, saying they were eager to accept payment for such titles, but were not quick to actually oversee their completion (17).
Offering a counter perspective on this, local elites appointed as surveyors and keepers of roadways were sometimes not even aware that they were appointed as such. In 1811, elected Member of Parliament Lt. Col. Robert Nelles of Grimsby wrote in a letter to John McGill, Inspector General of Public Provincial Accounts, that he had been asked to “make a full Statement of the Several Sums of Money received by me, subsequent to the year 1809, which have been appropriated by the Legislature for amending and repairing the public Highways and Roads, and laying out and opening new Roads and building of bridges in the Several Districts of this Province: and the manner in which such Monies received by me have been applied” (18). However, Nelles followed this by saying: “I must state, that I have not received any part of that money: neither did I understand that His Excellency hath been pleased to appoint me one of the Commissioners for the aforesaid purposes.”
Another reason for delay was due to the lack of paid labourers in the area. The individuals and families living in Niagara in these first few decades of Loyalist settlement dedicated the first years to clearing land and growing crops as the basic elements necessary for survival. Road clearing, while important, was a secondary concern for locals, and the government did not supply enough resources to supplement the lack of local labour.
Political reformer Robert Gourlay wrote all about this in his Statistical Account of Upper Canada, published in 1822. Initially, much of the land in these districts was owned in bulk by retired officers of the British military, some of them owning 1000-2000 acres.
Private, Butler’s Rangers, 1777 by Charles Lefferts c.1910, New York Historical Society Museum and Library
Even John Brown, a private in Butler's Rangers, eventually owned 1206 acres by the time of his death in 1804. Gourlay argues that land speculators bought thousands of acres in Niagara, much of it from these former Butler’s Rangers, and had let them lay bare. This was in spite of the law requiring land owners to work on the roads and the provision that they build a road connecting to their neighbour in order to receive the deed to their land. With so much of Niagara surveyed & assigned but not necessarily inhabited, there was not enough dedicated labour to complete the task. For Niagara to develop proper infrastructure and prosper agriculturally required a larger unskilled labour force, but the way in which land was initially distributed and the land speculation that followed ended up slowing the potential for success.
Some historians argue that this was intentional. They say colonial leaders deliberately gave large tracts of land to certain Loyalists and left empty lots for the Crown and clergy to establish control over the labouring classes, keeping large groups of landless labourers from gathering too closely to one another. If you think about it from an imperial perspective it makes sense. Governor Simcoe and other provincial leaders encouraged settlement in Niagara as their connection to the interior of British North America, but saw the danger of having so many families in the peninsula having originated from the American colonies, despite their oaths of loyalty to King George III. And don’t forget, as we discussed in a recent podcast episode, loyalty in the American Revolution wasn't as black and white as it might seem! All of these were factors that led to class tension and a reform movement that would profoundly shape what would become Canada. Yet, these politically-driven decisions ultimately deterred socio-economic development in Niagara.
Long-term Impacts
Ultimately, Niagara’s communication networks were so underdeveloped at first that it ended up deterring settlement in certain areas, forcing relocation for some families, and affecting the region’s potential for growth. It took at least fifteen years after the arrival of the first Loyalist settlers to even achieve a steady communication route along the Niagara Portage which ran north-south along the west side of the Niagara River, a trail that had been created by Indigenous peoples centuries earlier. In 1801, the first official mail route was created along the Niagara River as post offices were established in Queenston, Chippawa, and Fort Erie (19). This route could be travelled in one day and was primarily used by British army officers stationed at Forts George, Chippawa, and Erie, as well as local merchants. It took even longer for internal lines to develop throughout the peninsula. The first mail stage and post offices in other Niagara townships were not established until after the War of 1812 (20).
Communities ended up forming in pockets where the north-south waterways met the escarpment. Villages like the ones in Queenston, the Twelve (St. Catharines), the Twenty (Jordan), the Thirty (Beamsville), and the Forty (Grimsby) are all examples of this. Near The Brown Homestead at the Fifteen Mile Falls (Rockway Glen), a micro economy formed at the turn of the century, centred on the production of salt and potash. In next month’s journal article, we’ll dive deeper into this topic and explain more about the potash production that took place just down the road from us.
Impediments to travel throughout Niagara as a shared obstacle in many ways leveled people’s access to the domestic economy. They did not have the ability to move freely through the region year-round because some sections were at times impassable by wagon, forcing them to build capital assets (mills, barns, etc) early on within their own communities and centred around their local creek. These early patterns have continued into the present, as these small villages turned into the bustling communities we call home today.
So next time you find yourself driving, biking, running or walking down a notoriously bumpy, pothole-filled road in Niagara just think ... “It could be worse!”
Footnotes
(1) Mary Jackes, “The mid-seventeenth century collapse of Iroquoian Ontario: examining the last burial place of the Neutral Nation” in Vers une anthrolologie des catastrophes: 9e Journées anthropologiques de Valbonne, Séguy et al. eds., (Antibes: APDCA, 2008), 367. Accessed from: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~mkjackes/Valbonne.pdf. The 1976 excavation of a Neutral Nation cemetery in Grimsby, Ontario points to a smallpox epidemic, Iroquoian warfare, and famine as the reasons for their decline.
(2) Andrew F. Burghardt, “The Origin and Development of the Road Network of the Niagara Peninsula, Ontario, 1770-1851.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59, no. 3 (1969): 422. Accessed from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1969.tb00683.x Burghardt’s article is one of the most comprehensive sources of scholarship examining the evolution of Niagara’s 18th & 19th century road networks.
(3) Burghardt, 424.
(4) Steve Pitt, To Stand and Fight Together: Richard Pierpoint and the Coloured Corps of Upper Canada, (Toronto: Dundurn, 2008), 52.
(5) C. W. Gilchrist, “Roads and Highways” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed October 12, 2021 from: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/roads-and-highways
(6) E. A. Cruikshank, “The Register of Saint Paul’s Church at Fort Erie, 1836-1844. The Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 27, (1931), https://my.tbaytel.net/bmartin/forterie.htm.
(7) A list of Upper Canada Land Petitions can be found online, transcribed by Robert R. Mutrie at: https://sites.google.com/site/niagarasettlers/upper-canada-land-petitions/petitions-s/petitions-seager-to-secord
(8)M. A. FitzGibbon, “The Jarvis Letters”, in The Niagara Historical Society no. 8. Family History, (W.H.S. Toronto, 1901), 24, accessed from https://www.notlmuseum.ca/research/society-publications
(9) J. Ross Robertson ed., The diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe, wife of the first lieutenant-governor of the province of Upper Canada, 1792-6, (Toronto: W. Briggs, 1911), 319, accessed from the Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/diaryofmrsjohngr00simcuoft
(10) John H. Thompson, Jubilee History of Thorold Township and Town, (Thorold: The Thorold Post Printing and Publishing Company, 1898), 13.
(11) J. Ross Robertson ed., “The diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe,” 128.
(12) Brian Tobin and Elizabeth Hulse, The Upper Canada Gazette and Its Printers, 1793-1849 (Toronto: The Legislative Library, 1993), 8.
(13) E. A. Cruikshank, Records of Niagara, 1805-1811, (Niagara Historical Society, 1930), 5, accessed from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/recordsofniagara00crui/page/6/mode/2up.
(14) The Ontario Genealogical Society, Niagara Peninsula Branch, The Francis Goring Journals. (St. Catharines, ON: OGS, 1975), 4.
(15) OGS, The Francis Goring Journals, 4.
(16) Robert Gourlay, Statistical account of Upper Canada: compiled with a view to a grand system of emigration, (London, Simpkin & Marshall, 1822), 419, accessed from: https://archive.org/details/cihm_35937/page/n497/mode/2up.
(17) Wilson, Bruce. The Enterprises of Robert Hamilton: a study of wealth and influence in early Upper Canada, 1776-1812. (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1983), 161.
(18) “Letter from Robert Nelles in Grimsby to John McGill, January 5, 1811” Item 2 Folder 6, transcript from the Robert Nelles fonds, Nelles Manor Museum, Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.
(19) The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society of Ontario, Tales of the Twenty, vol. 7 (Campbellcroft, ON:Homeward Bound Books, 1979), 127.
(20) Pennsylvania German Folklore Society, 127. In 1816, the first mail stage traveled from Niagara to York (Toronto) along the Iroquois Trail and in 1817, post offices opened in St Catharines and Grimsby.
Bibliography
Burghardt, Andrew F. “THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROAD NETWORK OF THE NIAGARA PENINSULA, ONTARIO, 1770-1851.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 59, no. 3 (1969): 417-440. Accessed from: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1969.tb00683.x
Cruikshank, Ernest. Records of Niagara, 1805-1811. Niagara Historical Society, 1930. Accessed from the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/recordsofniagara00crui/page/6/mode/2up
Cruikshank, Ernest. “The Register of Saint Paul’s Church at Fort Erie, 1836-1844. The Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records 27, (1931): 77-192.
FitzGibbon, M. A. “The Jarvis Letters” in The Niagara Historical Society no. 8. Family History. W.H.S: Toronto, 1901. Accessed from: https://www.notlmuseum.ca/research/society-publications
Gilchrist, C. W. “Roads and Highways” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed October 12, 2021 from: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/roads-and-highways
Jackes, Mary. “The mid-seventeenth century collapse of Iroquoian Ontario: examining the last burial place of the Neutral Nation” in Vers une anthrolologie des catastrophes: 9e Journées anthropologiques de Valbonne, edited by Séguy, Buchet, Rigeade et al., 347-373. Antibes: APDCA, 2008. Accessed from: http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~mkjackes/Valbonne.pdf
Pitt, Steve. To Stand and Fight Together: Richard Pierpoint and the Coloured Corps of Upper Canada, Toronto: Dundurn, 2008.
Mutrie, Robert R. “The Niagara Settlers.” Last modified October 2021. https://sites.google.com/site/niagarasettlers/home
Gourlay, Robert. A Statistical Account of Upper Canada: Compiled with a View to a Grand System of Emigration. 2 Vols. London: Simpkin & Marshall, Stationers Court, 1822. Accessed from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/cihm_35937/page/n497/mode/2up
Robert Nelles fonds. Nelles Manor Museum. Grimsby, Ontario, Canada.
Robertson, J. Ross, ed. The diary of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe, wife of the first lieutenant governor of the province of Upper Canada, 1792-6. Toronto: W. Briggs, 1911. Accessed from the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/diaryofmrsjohngr00simcuoft
Tobin, Brian and Elizabeth Hulse. The Upper Canada Gazette and Its Printers, 1793-1849. Toronto: The Legislative Library, 1993.
The Ontario Genealogical Society, Niagara Peninsula Branch, The Francis Goring Journals. St. Catharines, ON: OGS, 1975.
The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society of Ontario, Tales of the Twenty, Vol. 7. Campbellcroft, ON: Homeward Bound Books, 1979.
Thompson, John H. Jubilee History of Thorold Township and Town. Thorold: The Thorold Post Printing and Publishing Company, 1898.
Wilson, Bruce. The Enterprises of Robert Hamilton: a study of wealth and influence in early Upper Canada, 1776-1812. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1983.
Author Bio
Jessica Linzel [M.A. History, Brock University], is the Community Engagement Manager at The Brown Homestead. Jess has studied the history of Niagara since 2016, and her M.A. thesis (2020) focused on economic development in Niagara during the early Loyalist period.