The Lake Erie Shore. Ron Brown
1792, when Colonel John Graves Simcoe arrived in Upper Canada to assume his new duties as governor at Newark (today’s Niagara-on-the-Lake, a capital which he soon moved to York), he had with him his private secretary, Lieutenant Thomas Talbot. In 1803, Talbot was granted the authority to issue land grants to prospective settlers in the area east of today’s Port Rowan. To help them settle, Talbot ordered the laying out of a road that would extend from Talbotville Royal (today’s St. Thomas) to near Point aux Pins (Rondeau), near the lake. Much of that route to this day is known as the “Talbot Road.”
Dressed in period uniforms, the troop at Fort Malden fires off a round, as they might have during the War of 1812.
Talbot was known for being particular as to whom he granted the land. While he rejected many on a whim, he was also considered generous in other ways. He spent his own money to assist many to begin their new lives, would marry them, christen their babies, and conclude his transactions with the passing of a whisky bottle. Still, a parliamentary report in 1834 would raise questions about what happened to the moneys he received for settling the vast tract.
But it was the amount of land that he received that would guarantee his wealth, namely sixty hectares for every twenty hectares he succeeded in granting. By 1820 it was estimated he had acquired fourteen thousand hectares for himself. 1 Of course, not everyone waited for Talbot to show up for their appointment. United Empire Loyalists had begun showing up as early as the 1780s.
They moved along the shoreline and up the small rivers and streams to begin their life in the new land. When water power permitted they threw together first sawmills, and then gristmills. Schooners and skiffs crowded into the little coves and inlets. At first industry was very local, supplying the basic needs of the pioneering communities before they expanded enough to consider exporting.
As the settlements grew, the first exports were raw materials such as gypsum, which were barged from mines on the lower Grand River and transshipped to markets by way of Dunnville and Port Maitland. From the naval reserves, pines tall and straight were sent off to England and the burgeoning Great Lakes shipyards for use as ships’ masts. The main lumber export from the shores of Lake Erie, however, consisted of oak, harvested from the lush Carolinian forests and the open oak savannahs, while red cedar from Pelee Island and Point Pelee was popular with the military and used at Fort Malden.
Fishing, which today has become one of the lake’s most famous industries, began with local fishermen who simply used small rowboats, known as “punters,” from which they would attach pound nets to stakes driven into the shallow waters, and sold their product locally only. Following the arrival of the railways, commercial fishing became centralized in larger ports, while the variety and quantity of fish species turned this freshwater fishing fleet into the world’s largest.
Although the lake and the Grand River remained the main thoroughfares for travellers, crude roads also began to appear. Toll roads were extended from London to Port Stanley and from Chatham to Shrewsbury, while the legendary plank road was opened between Hamilton and Port Dover. Thomas Talbot’s early Talbot Road already linked St. Thomas with Rondeau.
The war of 1812 halted economic growth in the little lake settlements. Despite early victories at Fort Detroit, the British began to suffer a series of setbacks. At Put-in Bay, near Sandusky, Ohio, despite superior odds, they lost a strategic naval battle. Then, in May 1814, in response to the sacking and burning of Buffalo and Lewiston, American Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell landed with a force of eight hundred men near Port Dover. After allowing the women to carry off their movable items, his soldiers put the torch to the houses, mills, and barns. The hogs were butchered and the meat carried off. The next morning the fleet appeared off Port Ryerse, where the invaders destroyed the mills there and at Finch’s Mills (now Fishers Glen).
Later that year, General Duncan McArthur led a force of mounted American riflemen from Detroit along the shore of the lake, burning nearly everything in his path. Strangely, the only mills to escape his wrath were the Backhouse mill north of Port Rowan, and Tisdale’s mill at Vittoria — the latter, because, it is suggested that McArthur, a Mason, wished to spare the community of Masons in the area the hardship of losing their vital mill. While the Vittoria mill is now gone, the Backus mill (as it is now called) still rests on its original site and continues to produce flour using the power from its water wheel.
As part of the Backus Heritage Village, the mill also shares the grounds with other heritage structures, as well as summertime campers and picnickers. Run by the Long Point Conservation Authority, the Backus Heritage Village contains more than thirty heritage features that hearken back to pioneer times, including a home built by the Backus family in 1850, as well as a log cabin, bake oven, stump puller, sawmill, and ice house, most brought in from other locations. An ancient cottonwood tree, a Carolinian species, measures thirty metres tall and more than six metres in circumference.
McArthur’s devastation of 1814 was complete. From the Detroit River to the Grand, villages, mills, and farms lay in ruin. But the resurrection of the Lake Erie shore would soon begin.
An Industrial Evolution
Following the war, growth began to recur. Homes and mills were rebuilt from scratch. Fields were enlarged and new industries began to appear. Shipping from the little ports increased significantly when in 1825 the Erie Canal was blasted through the rocks of North Tonawanda and into the Niagara River north of Buffalo. This provided not only a direct link between Lake Erie and the Atlantic, but through the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario, as well.2 Still, the small size of the canal’s locks limited the potential for more shipping. But, in 1833, the Welland Canal opened between Port Dalhousie and Port Colborne with much larger locks.
In 1835, the Grand River Canal facilitated the movement of gypsum, lumber, and barley from the Grand River watershed through Dunnville and Port Maitland, and gave rise to the dozen towns and villages that clustered around the lock stations and shipping docks along the river.3
Along the lakeshore, to help encourage exports, the government gave financial encouragement for local landowners to build private wharfs. Often lacking a protective harbour, the wharfs gave rise to a string of now-forgotten little ports with names like Union, Clearville, Port Glasgow, and many that bore only the names of their operators.
South of the border, in the United States, a major population move was under way. Having long suffered under the burden of slavery, American abolitionists, aided by many in Canada, launched the “Underground Railroad.” By following a designated route, and resting in safe houses, many fugitive slaves made their way into Canada, with the shore of Lake Erie offering close haven.
The docks at Dunnville shown here when ships still called, now lie beneath concrete and asphalt.
Built in 1846, Lock Number 27 marks the entrance of the feeder canal from Stromness into Lake Erie. It made shipment up the Grand River easier.
Gathering in safe communities on the south shore of the lake, they crossed and settled, usually only temporarily, at Point Pelee, Long Point, Fort Erie, and ports like Shrewsbury, Colchester, Port Burwell, Port Rowan, and Port Stanley. Few, however, remained in these places. After the Civil War in the United States ended in 1865, many returned to family, friends, and a more familiar climate. Others made their way to larger towns and cities where they established themselves, many taking jobs on the growing network of rail lines.
Lake Erie’s first major railway line was hammered into the ground in 1854. An American enterprise intended to supply Buffalo with shipments from Lake Huron, the Buffalo and Lake Huron Railway (B&LH) extended from Fort Erie, through Dunnville, Brantford, and Stratford, and on to the shores of Lake Huron at Goderich. It would mark the beginning of a railway era that would dramatically alter the face of the Lake Erie shore.