On Common Ground. Richard D. Merritt
politicians and a few bureaucrats with various projects and schemes. For me, the recurring image of the migrating pigeons, now extinct, darkening the skies over the common lands became a metaphor for the ever-present threat of further encroachment of the Commons. The important ongoing story of the Military Reserve/Commons of Niagara deserves to be heard. No doubt I have committed some errors of misinterpretation, omission, and commission in writing this epic; I trust that future researchers will be able to correct some of the deficiencies.
An explanation concerning terminology used in this book is in order. The locals referred to the Fort George Military Reserve as the Common, the Fort George Common, the Niagara Common, the Commons, the Garrison Commons, the common lands, “the Opening,” or simply “the plain.” The term “the Commons”[1] is used throughout. As Paradise Grove was for most of its history common lands, it too is part of the Commons. Similarly, the cleared grounds around Navy Hall have been for the most part within the public domain and hence part of the story.
The term, “Niagara” refers to the Old Town of Niagara that is now part of the Regional Municipality of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Although “Newark” was Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe’s designated name for Niagara when it was the Capital of Upper Canada, it never became popular and reverted back to Niagara shortly after his return to England.[2]
“Camp Niagara” was also called “Niagara Camp” and at least one battalion referred to it as “Paradise Camp.”[3] (There was also an American military camp referred to as “New Fort Niagara” across the river at Youngstown, New York, during the Great War.) “Camp Niagara” is used in this book.
Location of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada.
Except where specific First Nations or “tribes” or “Indians” are referenced, the term “Natives” is used for North American indigenous peoples. The term “province” refers to the Province of Upper Canada (1791–1841) and the Province of Ontario after 1867. “The Great War” is used for the First World War and “The American Revolutionary War” is used instead of the American War of Independence or the American Revolution. Although there are several variations in spelling, “Mississauga” will be used.
For those of you fortunate enough to have an opportunity to explore some of the Commons, this book may help you to conjure up in your own minds the various natural and historic events that have transpired on these plains over the years. Hopefully generations to come will question future development proposals for this very special place.
The mouth of the Niagara River, 2011.
Chapter 1
Common Lands for Everyone
For most of its history the original 444 acres known today as the Commons in Niagara-on-the-Lake was officially designated the Fort George Military Reserve at Niagara. This implied that the military had exclusive rights on the property. Nevertheless, as early as 1797 a British officer of the Royal Engineers referred to these lands as “commons”[1] and in the same year local civilians petitioned the government to protect their “Common or Lands now used as such.”[2]
Last Day of Carnival on San Marco Square, Venice, artist Gabriel Bella (1730–1799). Public spaces such as historic and popular St. Mark’s Square in Venice have always been an important element of urban places. Courtesy of DeAgostini/Superstock Images.
Ever since early human civilizations began to create villages and eventually city-states, public spaces have played an important role in the social fabric of communities. In the cities, formal plazas, piazzas, squares, forums, agoras, campi, places, quadrangles, and esplanades became the multi-functional public gathering sites for markets, fairs, religious celebrations, political rallies, mustering of troops, public punishments including executions, sports events, or just relaxation. In the smaller communities of Britain “the village green” or “the common” usually referred to an unfenced area of grass for all to use, sometimes for grazing of animals but often serving functions similar to that of the city square. Usually the term “commons” implied a plot of public land either within the town or nearby on the edge of the community that was available to all citizens for communal use such as growing crops, pasturing animals, collecting firewood, etc., as well as all other potential uses for such an urban space. Later, public municipal parks and gardens, which first made their appearance in the early nineteenth century, were created to encompass “retreats, recreation and refreshment.”[3] Some social critics decried these urban parks as “the drawing rooms of the poor.”[4] Modern urban planners acknowledge the social importance of these public “people spaces.”
In North America indigenous peoples did not differentiate between individual property and communal territory. However, among Native tribes, spheres of influence were often aggressively maintained.
Swan Green, Hampshire, England, photo. The Open Spaces Society of England and Wales estimates that there are still three thousand village greens/commons in Britain. Quintessential Swan Green with its expansive open spaces and ancient trees is edged by thatched cottages. Courtesy of Travel Library Limited/SuperStock Images.
England and Wales had a long tradition of open common lands under the Saxons. Conquering Norman kings, however, parcelled up much of England to large landowners and set aside large tracts of ancient woodlands such as the “New Forest” for private deer-hunting grounds. Nevertheless, the ordinary people (commoners) retained certain common rights such as to pasture, to fish (piscary), to collect turf and peat (turbury), and to gather wood (estover). During the Tudor period, the process of “enclosure” was introduced whereby common land was taken into fully private ownership and use. This meant that open arable fields and meadows that had been farmed for generations by poor often landless tenants were transferred to the landed gentry or local lord of the manor who then proceeded to fence in the lands and farm the lands for their own profit. In some locales, common lands were retained, but often in the rough less arable regions. With the rise in food prices “enclosure” escalated such that by the early nineteenth century many former common lands in Britain were enclosed by Acts of Parliament, leaving fewer pasturelands and village greens intact.[5] Some argued that the old subsistence type of farming with its perpetual poverty was grossly inefficient while new agricultural techniques of large-scale private farms were far more productive.[6] Nevertheless, thousands who had lost their centuries-old right were reduced to abject poverty while many landowners became very rich. As witness, a period anonymous protest poem:
They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.[7]
John Graves Simcoe, the future Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, was the owner of Wolford Lodge in Devonshire. Although he considered himself somewhat of a social reformer, he enforced the enclosure act in his own neighbourhood, citing that improved agricultural practices would ultimately benefit the poor.[8] Later he nearly ended up in a duel over a controversy as to who had the right to collect the dung left by a large number of horses kept on nearby Woodbury Common.[9]
Certainly the other British government officials who accompanied Simcoe to Niagara in 1792 would have been aware of the controversial Enclosure Acts in Britain. Perhaps this explains why none of these officials apparently ever referred to the Military Reserve as common land. It was only after they left for York that the term quickly emerged. Interestingly, Mrs. Simcoe does refer to walking on the “garrison common” at Fort Niagara across the river.[10]
Most of the settlers who came to Upper Canada were from the former Thirteen Colonies where