From Queenston to Kingston. Ron Brown
Roger Sheaffe arrived from Fort George with reinforcements. Fearing the chilling battle cries of the Iroquois, the remaining American forces refused to cross the river, and the invaders were put to flight.
As commander of the British forces in Upper Canada, and being provisional lieutenant governor, as well, Brock in death warranted a special monument. After having been completed to a height of 14.5 metres, construction on the first Brock Monument was halted in 1824 when a cornerstone was found to contain a rendering of William Lyon Mackenzie’s rebellious Colonial Advocate newspaper. A second monument on the same site was completed in 1828, but was destroyed in 1838 by a suspicious explosion attributed to rebels sympathetic to Mackenzie. Finally, the monument that stands on the site today was completed in 1853. It soars fifty-six metres into the sky, and the cut-stone structure is inlaid with carvings of lions and the four figures of Victory. From its apex, Brock’s sword points north down the Niagara River, and can be seen on those rare clear days from the shore of the lake.
The little-known building to which Brock’s body supposedly was carried still stands in Queenston as the Stone Barn at the rear of 17 Queenston Road. So does the only Anglican church in the world dedicated to a layman, the Brock Memorial of St. Saviour, located at 12 Princess Street. It was completed in 1879.
Another hero was Queenston resident Laura Secord, who, after overhearing American soldiers billeted in her home talking of a pending assault on the British, undertook a gruelling hike, guided in part by aboriginal allies, to the headquarters of Lieutenant Fitzgibbon where she delivered her warning. Her actions on that muggy night in 1813 helped the British to repel the American assault. While her home has been restored, the headquarters used by Fitzgibbon is but a ruin.
Over the years, there has been remarkably little change to the built heritage of the main street of Queenston.
William Lyon Mackenzie, too, has a link with Queenston, for it was here that he initially published his anti-establishment Colonial Advocate newspaper. After moving to York (now Toronto) in 1824, he went on to become the very first mayor of that city in 1834. Mackenzie pushed for a more representative form of government, the upshot of his actions culminating in the ill-fated rebellion of 1837 for which he was exiled. But villains can just as easily become heroes and, following his return to Canada, Mackenzie once more became involved in politics.
His Queenston printing office deteriorated until, by 1935, only the walls remained. Although restored between 1936 and 1938, it served as little more than a municipal office until 1958. Finally, in 1991, shortly after the 200th anniversary of the Niagara Portage Road, thanks to the Niagara Parks Commission and the Mackenzie Printery Committee, old-style printing presses were installed, and today the building houses the hands-on Mackenzie Newspaper and Printery Museum and the lithography studio of Canadian artist Frederick Hagan. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Mackenzie’s Bond Street home (once thought to be haunted) contains his original presses and is also open as a museum of his exploits.
Following the war, Queenston resumed its importance as a transportation route around the Niagara Falls. An important road followed an early glacial beach ridge at the base of the escarpment, west to the village of Ancaster — another key pioneer settlement at the head of the lake. In 1839, Queenston became the terminus of Ontario’s first railway operation. Known as the Erie and Ontario Railway, it was a simple horse-drawn tram that rocked along on wooden rails covered with only a strip of iron. This new mode of travel linking Queenston with Chippewa effectively eliminated the old portage trail. From Queenston, passengers would be shuttled from the rail station to the wharf, where they could board a steamer to Toronto, while from Chippewa, travellers could sail to Buffalo.
Soon after the line was opened, William H. Smith, compiler of the Canada West Gazetteer, visited Queenston. “Before the opening of the Welland Canal,” he wrote in 1846, “Queenston was a place of considerable business, being one of the principal depots for merchandise intended for the west … which now finds its way by the Welland Canal.”7 The railway, he noted, was “commenced in 1835 and completed in 1841 … which passes close to and above the falls of Niagara, and during the summer the cars run daily and steamboats from Buffalo meet the cars at Chippewa.”8 At Queenston “during the season, boats ply here regularly from Toronto, and stages run from Hamilton to meet the boats.9” In 1846, he also noted that “a horse ferry-boat plies across the river from Queenston to Lewiston.”10
Six years later he would add in Canada: Past Present and Future that “a suspension bridge is now nearly completed across the river…. It is supported by wire cables, ten in number carried over stone towers … the total length is twelve hundred and forty five feet (and) is supposed to carry a weight of eight hundred and thirty-five tons without breaking.”11
By 1886 the Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Counties of Lincoln and Welland was noting that “the bridge which gave way to the more convenient one at Clifton (now Niagara Falls) had its cable wire stays broken by the ice gorges in the river it spanned and today all that is left of the bridge, which excited the wonder of all when finished, are several large twisted wire cables that span the river, still securely fastened to massive stone towers on either side.”12 In 1854, the Erie and Ontario railway line changed its name to the Erie and Niagara Railway, and was extended to Niagara (the name changed from Newark to Niagara in 1798) and then on to Fort Erie. Steam locomotives had by then replaced the horses. Today, those Queenston wharves are the site of a busy jet-boat tour of the rapids, while the rail line is now a walking and cycling trail.
In 1893 another railway arrived in Queenston, the Niagara Park and River Railway. The eighteen-kilometre route began at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and followed the brink of the Niagara River Gorge, providing tourists with vertigo-inducing views deep into the tumultuous abyss. In 1899 a new suspension bridge was built across the river, linking Queenston with Lewiston, New York, and the tourist line was then able to cross to the American side and follow a circle route. After seeing the river from above on the Canadian side, travellers would cross at Queenston and follow the bottom of the gorge to Niagara Falls, New York. However, following a series of rock falls, the route was abandoned, and the bridge removed. Today, the stone-block abutments, now overgrown, and the weed-filled pavement of the road that once led to it are the only “ghosts” of this once vital link across the border. The high level Queenston–Lewiston Bridge now connects the Queen Elizabeth Way with Interstate 190 in the United States, completely bypassing Queenston.
Although its transportation role is now history and its traditional businesses replaced by B & Bs, Queenston offers many vestiges of those grander days. Several of Ontario’s earliest and grandest homes can be found on the quiet backstreets of this riverside village. One of the more prominent landmarks of the former main street is the South Landing Inn (21 Front Street). Built in 1827, it retains its two-storey porch, while modern additions provide accommodation for today’s travellers. It was here that one-time owner James Wadsworth earned a Prohibition-era reputation as a rum-runner to the United States shore, at the same time allegedly returning with illegal immigrants.
Two homes that date from the 1820s sit at 48 Queenston Street and 25 Princess Street, and a red-brick house at 93 Queenston may well be the oldest in Queenston and one of the oldest in Ontario. It was built in 1807 by Robert Hamilton, who had earlier helped launch Queenston into its role as a transportation node.
Unfortunately, the elegant mansion, known as “Glencairn Manor,” is not visible from the road, but its southern pillars and twenty rooms overlook the riverside site where John Hamilton, Robert’s son, built steamers for the Queenston to Toronto run.
One of Ontario’s most scenic drives, although short, is along the Niagara Parkway. Administered by the Niagara Parks Commission, it links Queenston with its sister riverside town, Niagara-on-the-Lake. The route itself is not new. An earlier and more twisting dirt version was the one that met George Heriot, who followed it in 1807. He recounted