Following an era of great prosperity there came to the town of Hamilton in the year 1859 a temporary financial disaster which caused wise-heads of the time to write gloomily, as though it were a sort of judgment: “The young city has become too ambitious.” And for long that disqualifying adjective held—“the ambitious city.”
But who can approach, by whatever road and at whatever season, without re-naming it….For this countryside is gateway to the garden of Ontario. In Spring one drives through miles of apple and peach orchards, magical with pink and ivory bloom—an extended Japanese fairy tale. In summer there is a great colour-massing of produce. Deep tones of vegetables, scent of fruit and wildflowers, baskets of eggs, mounds of butter, crates of berries, peas, beets, cabbages, pungent odour of mint— [page 125] a vast bouquet. For blocks the streets around it take on the market environment and trucks are converted into stalls. In hot weather night-markets are in full swing and silver of electricity pours down upon the fruits and vegetables. It is Hamilton’s most distinct and picturesque commerce. [page 126]
But there are other centres. The doors and archways of hundreds of factories along the bay front in the eastern district open to crowds of workmen at five in the evening. It would take a Brangwyn, or some king of industry, to relate this epic of manufacture. One can only state the fact that here it exists, making the town a great industrial centre.
Again the garden note. It is in this eastern section that Hamilton has lately acquired sixty-five acres and laid out Gage Park. On flat land, but against a hilly wooded background enormous parterres of flowers and dwarf shrubs, rose gardens and playgrounds are set, and a beautiful fountain, designed by John Lyle, with a frieze of Dancing Children by Florence Wyle, presented to the city by the Gage family, is approached by a miniature canal in which water-sprays are set, somewhat after the manner of the garden at Versailles. Against their green background the fountains are most effective.
To find the private gardens one must drive towards the mountain—a ridge of the Niagara escarpment—which rises gently above the city. The mountain is not alarming. It is indeed quite moderate in aspect and distinctly friendly. From its height one naturally obtains a fine view of the city which lies below it; steeples, towers, roof tops, the surrounding country and the bay [page 127] beyond. But as you drive down through leafy roads and avenues, the hidden beauty of this residential section is unfolded. For a century people have been living here, so that houses and gardens, old and new, are blended delightfully.
At the corner of John Street and Arkledun Avenue [page 128] stands Bellevue, a stone mansion whose orchards run up the mountainside behind the house, and whose front garden used to command a wonderful view of the bay. The view is blocked now by city buildings. It is probably the oldest considerable residence in Hamilton, built by one of the earliest settlers, and sold by him in 1812 or thereabouts to George Hamilton for whom the city was named. Since then it has changed hands several times and there seems to be doubt as to its exact age.
Its present owner, Mr. C. G. Barker, came down the grass-grown drive to meet me. He had been working in the garden. The house is now unoccupied. Our footsteps made no sound on the hushed sward that carpeted the once crisp gravel where carriages used to roll up in former days. There is stone dyking along the drive, and stone steps lead up to the quaint low verandah and the impressive front door. On the great sweep of lawn there was once an artificial pond. The grapery, now exhausted, has been replanted as a delphinium garden. A rose hedge runs near it, and a splendid hedge of box encloses it all. Two enormous acacias stand near the house. The windows, hung with tattered lace, the inlaid floors that were designed for centuries of wear, the stained-glass windows with their deep walnut frames, the spacious rooms, kitchens [page 129] and servants-quarters, all represent an era of form and dignity.
“I have heard my father speak of an old man of ninety who appeared one day and asked to see the house,” said Mr. Barker. “He seemed to be annoyed that the staircase had been changed. He was born here and his father had built the house. This was Charles Durand, a barrister and well-known historian, living, then, in Toronto. I believe he has some record of the house in one of his books, but we have never collected the data.”
Yet it is from such houses, and from the older inhabitants of these young Canadian cities, that the most vivid stories of the past obtain. Patchwork of history may be gathered from documents pertaining to early Canada, from stray articles garnered by search through old journals, and the more or less authentic papers gathered by Historical Societies. Even a century ago our pioneers were too busy, or too exhausted by the labours of settlement, to write many adequate journals. Days that followed were more than legendary, however, to the next generation and those succeeding, who inherited a less savage if by no means easy era. And what they relate adds warmth and vitality to the thin pamphlets that have, so far, held the history of the making of Canadian cities. [page 130]
But sometimes youth unlocks an ancient tale. It happens that the fame of Charles Lindbergh, hero of American aviation, freed one of these strange stories of the past. His mother, while in Toronto in 1928 was a guest of Mrs. J. A. Harvey at Harcroft, where she met other relatives all direct descendents, as are she and her son, of the first settler in Hamilton—Robert Land. Therefore a hidden and romantic story came to light. It emerged suddenly from historic pamphlets. It lived again.
It is not only the story of a certain man and of an early city but of a way of faith and adventure typical of many another loyalist pioneer of upper Canada.
Let us peer farther back into old maps and documents.
It would seem that the quest of a fabled river which might possibly flow West to the gulf of California was the reason that Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, ascended the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and explored its shores. He came with twenty-two Frenchmen and some Seneca Indians in a sailing ship with attendant canoes. The party stopped at a native village on a quiet bay. The Indians had named their bay Macassa, or Marcassah—which means Beautiful Water. It was a peaceful haven and they stayed ostensibly to explore, but probably to hunt. Afterwards they found the spot [page 131] at once agreeable and dangerous. They climbed the mountain and found the view all that it should be. But they also heard the continual snarl of wild cats crying through the jungle. Descending the slope they saw red deer browsing in the forest and white swans gliding on little willow-shaded inlets of the bay. Water fowl and game were ready for their rifles, but there were also rattle snakes, and while hunting Robert Cavalier fell ill of a poisonous fever. When he recovered they decided to push on. This was in 1669, and nothing but what is known as “a remarkably inaccurate map” remains to mark his sojourn.
For nearly a hundred years no white man returned to this Beautiful Water.
But when the American colonies rebelled against British rule and declared their independence, those who adhered to Britain through the struggle found themselves in an unfortunate position. They were ostracized by their neighbours and were at a disadvantage everywhere they looked. Many of them turned their eyes toward Canada.
At this time there lived in Pennsylvania, on the shores of the Delaware river, one Robert Land. He was a fearless loyalist and his physical endurance and knowledge of woodcraft gave him employment as a special scout. One night, as he was conveying an important [page 132] message to the royalist camp, he stumbled upon a picket of the enemy. He was discovered, fired upon and wounded. But he succeeded in getting away and concealed himself in a thicket, where he dressed his wound and remained until daybreak. He delivered his message and returned to his home. It was a heap of smouldering ashes deserted by his family whom he supposed had been seized and murdered by the Indians. After a hopeless search he left the war and found his way to Niagara where he made a short stay. Then on through the dense woods until he arrived at the shore of Macassa Bay, where he took up land in the territory now occupied by the eastern portion of the city of Hamilton. Here he built a primitive log cabin and became the first settler. His nearest neighbours were at Ancaster which was already a village. His roads were deer trails and a wolfskin was his windowpane. But he experimented with wheat growing, and the passing of time made him well to do. One day, after many years had passed, a woman and two young men appeared to his threshold. They were his wife and children.
After their escape from the Indians, Mrs. Land had returned to their house and traced her husband to his place of concealment. Finding it bloodstained she came to the conclusion that he had been murdered. [page 133] She took her children to New Brunswick and at last came westward to her father’s home at Niagara. There rumours of her husband’s survival met her. It is hard to realize that a hundred and fifty years ago the distance of fifty miles through trackless forest was an adventure which took this woman weeks to accomplish. But she set out on foot with her children and braved the forest. The reunited family lived and died in their little house in the woods.
It was just after the war of 1812 that the most enterprising of pioneers arrived at the settlement on the bay. This was George Hamilton, Esq., the son of the Honourable Robert H. Hamilton who had married a daughter of Captain William Jarvis, Secretary to Governor Simcoe. He bought extensive farm lands, laid them out in village lots, sold them advantageously, named streets for his family whenever possible, and the village for himself.
Thus is early history written in family chronicles.
The coming of these United Empire Loyalists of which the Beasley, Land and Hamilton families are among many, is commemorated by a fine memorial group—a settler, his wife and two children—designed and carried out by the Marsh family, sculptors, of London England, to be placed in Prince’s Square.
In 1813 the district about Hamilton became of military [page 134] importance. General Vincent retired from the north frontier to Burlington Heights, on the north-west boundaries of the settlement, and from that base achieved his brilliant victory over the American army at Stoney Creek. The Gage homestead is now a museum of history and a monument marks the spot of the victory.
Another decade saw the construction of the Burlington Canal to connect the bay with Lake Ontario, and with its opening, in 1837, the little city began a prosperous career upon which the coming of the Great Western Railway in the 50’s set the final seal of success.
Hamilton is the pioneer of electrical long distance transmission in Canada. It came through the vision of an imaginative Irishman, John Patterson, who came here as a youth. He solved the problem that even Lord Kelvin declared impossible. In the ten years that followed this evolution in power and light Hamilton had doubled its population.
To its credit must be placed the origin of at least four nationwide movements. The founding of the Canadian Club by Colonel C. R. McCulloch in 1892; the Farmers’ Institute, begun by the late J. H. Smith, Inspector of Schools; the Women’s Institute, by Mrs. [page 135] C. Hoodless; and Empire Day, by Mrs. Clementina Fessenden.
It was in the 30’s that a young Colonel of Militia in Upper Canada, a Member and sometime Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, was knighted for his efforts to put an end to the Mackenzie Rebellion, and so became Sir Allan Napier MacNab. He was descended from an old family who owned a place called Dundurn in Perthshire, Scotland; hence the name of the ambitious structure which he erected upon the banks of the bay at Hamilton.
It was always a self-complacent house with a bit of swagger about it but set apart from other Tory houses of its day because it was, at the time, extravagantly picturesque. It was intended to be impressive, and strangely maintains its atmosphere today although its owners have departed and it is now a public museum. Its columned porte-cochère leads into a wide marble hall, paved in mosaic of blue and white tile. The rooms, filled now with trophies of the past, are spacious and delightful. The billiard room and bowling alley form a wing enclosing a courtyard with terraces beyond. The front of the house faces the bay and on its verandah, the MacNab, glorious in his swaying kilts received a young Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, and many a grandee. Here his eldest daughter [page 136] was married in 1855 to Viscount Bury, afterwards the Earl of Albermarle, whose daughter, Lady Susan Townley, proved a small storm centre to the British Foreign Office because of her alleged notorious indiscretions during and after the great war.
Perhaps it was easy to impress a struggling community with a sense of influence and grandeur. Certainly Allan MacNab made the most of everything; of his ancestry, his house, and above all his kindling loyalty. But a story of his retort of Vice-royalty is still to be heard when old stories go the rounds. It proved also the mettle of the time when confronted with what was called “old world exotics”.
Sir Edmund Head, then Governor-General of Canada, attempted a rigid system of etiquette and sent forth a table of precedence. His first order was that when Ministers left the Capital they should inform him of the fact through the clerk of the council. Hence the historic message of Sir Allan:
“The MacNab begs leave to inform His Excellency that he has gone down the river as far as Grosse Isle to a cock fight, and if the MacNab does not return to town tomorrow or the next day His Excellency will be justified in concluding that he has fallen into the hands of the police. In which case His Excellency will no doubt be good enough to intercede for the release of the MacNab.”
This letter got into print, and amid the uproarious laughter of his liege subjects, Sir Edmund cancelled [page 137] his order and abandoned the idea or trying to govern Canadians with sealing wax and red tape.
There are lost memories even in new cities. In a modern club house in Los Angeles I heard an echo of forgotten days from a descendent of both of the Hamilton McNab families, early residents but not of the same clan. She told of lovely places that have disappeared. One, where freight sheds stand now, possessed a terraced garden, where white peacocks used to strut.
“But”, she added “the coming of the first University, McMaster, is one of many evidences that the future will far outrun the past. It is the beginning of a new intellectual life.”
So, out of scraps of history, thin pamphlets and first settler’s tales, robust Victorian stories, and out of the voice of youth comes the annal of a city great in industrial and manufacturing interests, vast in its potential resources and blest in what came before and may, who knows, last longer—rich garden-lands. [page 138] |
