From Queenston to Kingston. Ron Brown
from the Illustrated Historical Atlas of Wentworth County shows the appearance of Hamilton’s beach strip in 1875.
[T]he night was dark and a gale was blowing from the east … with a tremendous plunge the engine shot over the brink and disappeared beneath the black water. The cars went tumbling in after it, crash after crash, the lights were extinguished and a terrible silence followed … the engine went down completely out of sight, and then cars popped over on top of it, one after the other until the wreck was piled as high as the top of the water.
Unlike the Desjardins disaster, no lives were lost — the train was a freight, and the engineer and fireman were able to jump to safety before the frightening and near-fatal plunge.
In 1896, a new swing bridge was constructed, this one on the west side of the strip that accommodated road and streetcar traffic. But by the 1950s the streetcars were gone, and a new lift bridge opened, merging rail and car traffic together. By then, traffic on the QEW was on the increase, resulting in major bottlenecks at the bridge. With thirty thousand cars using the highway daily, traffic jams several kilometres long were not uncommon. Clearly, another new bridge was needed. And it came. On October 30, 1958, Ontario premier Leslie Frost officially opened the Burlington Bay Skyway. At nearly seven kilometres long and forty metres high, it was the most ambitious bridge project ever undertaken by the province.
Prompted by the opening of the Beach Road from the east end of Hamilton, and the arrival of the streetcars, Hamiltonians began building summer homes, both simple and grand. Despite a recent intrusion of year-round homes and condos, many early beach homes still stand today. Among the more noteworthy and photogenic are: the 1898 “Sweetheart House” at 935 Beach Boulevard; “Cahill’s Castle,” built in 1891, at 957 Beach Boulevard; and one-time Hamilton mayor George Tuckett’s gothic revival villa at 1008 Beach Boulevard. However, the most acclaimed is the “Moorings.” Located at 913 Beach Boulevard, it was built by another Hamilton mayor, Francis Kilvert, in 1891. A designated heritage property, it is noted for its ornate veranda, fish-scale wood shingle siding, and variety of gables. Amongst these grand and glorious summer palaces run small lanes lined with the simpler summer homes of less affluent Hamiltonians.
The Canada Amusement Company opened The Canal Amusement Park in 1903, with a carousel, Ferris wheel, and a funhouse called the Crazy House. After the First World War, the Pier Ballroom opened, and throughout the 1930s and 40s featured the music of Duke Ellington, the Clooney Sisters, and Ozzie Nelson. The railway carried Hamilton’s workers to enjoy the amusement park, and made stops at the Beach Road Station, Dynes Hotel, a private mansion known as the “Elsinore,” and the Ocean House, as well as at the Brant House near Burlington. But in 1975 the City of Hamilton refused to renew the park’s licence. It closed in 1978, and all of its rides were auctioned off.
In 2007, amidst considerable controversy, the ancient Dynes Tavern was taken down, without a demolition permit, to make way for a condominium project. Until then, this beach hangout had been considered by many to be Ontario’s oldest surviving operating tavern.
Today, driving isn’t the only way to view this historic and much altered Beach Strip. The Hamilton Beach Recreation Trail now follows the route of the old railway right-of-way along the sandy beach. Information plaques recount the days of the amusement park as well as current projects to stabilize the dune formations with such vegetation as Indian grass, rye grass, beach grass, and burr oak. And while it may be a little ambitious to dream of the strip being restored to the condition in which Simcoe found it, at least the endless waves crashing against the grass-covered sand may enhance the illusion.
It’s hard these days to figure out just where Aldershot begins and ends. As part of the urban megalopolis known as the Golden Horseshoe, it is indistinguishable from Burlington to the east and Hamilton to the west. Still, it would be reasonable to demark its boundaries as the Queen Elizabeth Way to the east, the CN rail line to the north, Burlington Heights to the west, and Burlington Bay to the south.
The first settlers to arrive in the area, in 1791, were the Applegarth family, whose farmland lay on the north shore of the lake, west of what is today the La Salle Park. The Chisholm family arrived two years later and added gristmills on Grindstone Creek, which tumbles south from Waterdown and then follows an almost hidden valley westerly to Rock Bay. Today that wooded valley forms part of the Royal Botanical Gardens.
In 1806, Colonel Brown, an agent for the North West Company, arrived and established a wharf on Lake Geneva, giving the community its first name: Brown’s Wharf. When more settlers arrived, a resident by the name of Ebenezer Griffin built a series of mills around the tumbling water-power sites at Waterdown, a short distance north, and used the wharf to ship flour and wool. By 1823, Aldershot could claim nearly a dozen log homes, and two dozen more substantial dwellings of frame or brick. When the Burlington Canal was completed, larger ships were able to enter the protected waters of the bay more easily. During the 1840s the wharf was enlarged to accommodate steamers and the port was able to provide the ships with a supply of cordwood, used as fuel. By this time the little port was going by the name Port Flamborough.
In 1854, Brown’s grandson, Alexander, chose to honour his grandfather’s military service by naming the post office Aldershot, after a military base near London, England, where his grandfather had served. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a large brickyard operation took over Grindstone Valley, located west of the village and along the railway track. The large red kilns remained at the site for years, serving as a visual reminder of the location’s history, until they were removed in the 1990s.
But even after the arrival of the railway, and the erection of the Aldershot station, the community remained small, with only a few shops and taverns along Plains Road. The light and sandy soils in the area that had discouraged early wheat farming proved ideal for apples and melons, and Aldershot soon became famous for shipping these products. Hotels were built both by the wharf and along the new road, and included Fenton’s Valley Inn, Shorty Biggs’s hotel on the lake, and the popular Bayview Hotel.
Now an event venue, the historic La Salle Pavilion, situated in a park of the same name, is the only surviving building from the park’s days as an Aldershot pleasure ground.
The Bayview was set on a piece of land known as Carroll’s Point, overlooking Rock Bay, the point at which Morden Creek flows into the bay from Cootes Paradise. It was here, in 1836, that Peter Carroll built his baronial “Rock Bay Mansion,” and became one of the first farmers in Ontario to cultivate peaches out-of-doors. After his death, the mansion burned, and on this high point of land a man by the name of George Midwinter opened Bayview Park. Vacationers travelled by steamer from Hamilton to stay in the Bayview Hotel, or to ride the new merry-go-round at the park. Disembarking from steamers like the Lillie, the Shamrock, or the Maggie Mason, they could either climb the steep stairs or ride on a two-car incline railway to the summit.
However, by the 1920s, Bayview Park was silent, replaced by a larger park to the east, Wabasso Park. Established by the Hamilton Parks Board in 1912, Wabasso included a dance pavilion, a bathing house, a roller coaster, and a Ferris wheel. In 1923, the name was changed to La Salle Park, and not long after, the rides were removed. But the La Salle Park Pavilion continued to operate, featuring such local bandleaders as Pete Malloy and Eddie Mack.
Today La Salle Park is still a busy green space, now enjoyed largely by local residents. The 1917 pavilion remains, despite being gutted by fire in May 1995. It was rebuilt to its original condition the following year and is now a banquet and event facility called Geraldo’s. The site of the dock has been incorporated into a marina and a new park that extends into the bay, while scant ruins of the bathing pavilion lie beneath the underbrush.
Bayview Park and the site of Carroll’s mansion are now part of the Woodland Cemetery, although the view from Carroll’s Point remains the same as Carroll and the guests at the Bayview Hotel might remember. The site of the Valley Inn is remembered