June, 2019:

Dunnville, Ontario Book 1

Dunnville is a community near the mouth of Grand River in Haldimand County, and is only a few kilometers from Lake Erie. Dunnville was one of the early thriving centers of Upper Canada and Ontario. Following the American Revolution, a six-mile strip of land on both sides of the Grand River from its mouth to its sources was opened up to settlement by displaced members of the Six Nations Confederacy. The land was granted to the Iroquois tribes by the British to compensate the Confederacy for land lost in the United States during the revolution.

The British originally intended the land to remain in the hands of the Indians, but Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant wanted to open it up to settlement in order to create a source of revenue. Brant persuaded the Six Nations to surrender large blocks of land. Many of the early European arrivals were United Empire Loyalists.

By 1825, twenty-five people lived around Dunnville with a grist mill, a saw mill, and a distillery owned by Squire Anthony who was perhaps the first settler in the area. William Hamilton Merritt is called the Father of Canadian Transportation. With his vision and energy, the Feeder Canal connected Dunnville to the rest of the Welland Canal which flowed from Port Dalhousie on Lake Ontario to Welland. Large amounts of timber were shipped by scows from the Grand River to Buffalo and other markets for use as fuel for the new and growing railroads. The initial Dunnville Dam was finished in 1829, in time for the opening of the Welland Canal in November of that year. The project brought laborers to the area, creating a need for farm produce and housing. The damming of the river provided a reliable source of power which supported mills and businesses including a tannery and a cloth factory. Dunnville was also served by the Buffalo, Brantford and Goderich Railway and was an important port which warranted its own government customs office.

By 1907, Dunnville had four large textile mills. Textiles continued to fuel the town’s development for many years.

Cayuga and York, Ontario

Early patterns of settlement in Haldimand County are still visible in the landscape and architecture, spanning from the pre-Contact era to the proclamation of the Haldimand Land Grant for the Six Nations and the subsequent migration of Loyalist settlers – Americans, largely of German descent and Mennonite tradition. Throughout the 1800s, immigration from the British Isles contributed significantly to the area’s development, as did the small but industrious Black community of the late nineteenth century – many descended from ex-slaves of the American South. Since the post-war years of the twentieth century, a significant stream of immigration from the Netherlands has also added to our ever-expanding mosaic of cultural identity, as have the age-old traditions of our Indigenous neighbors – the Six Nations and New Credit communities.

Following the American Revolution, Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor-in-Chief of Canada, granted in 1784 to the Six Nations of the Iroquois a tract of land extending for six miles on both sides of the Grand River from its source to Lake Erie. This grant was made in recognition of their services as allies of the British Crown during the war, and to recompense them for the loss of their former lands in northern New York State. In later years, large areas of this tract, including portions of the present counties of Haldimand, Brant, Waterloo and Wellington, were sold to white settlers.

By 1853, Cayuga had lumber yards, a foundry, and a glass factory.

At its height, York had twenty businesses that included mills, inns, shoemakers, general stores, blacksmiths, and a lumber yard. It had a two-room school house and two churches.

Fisherville, Nanticoke, Selkirk, Ontario

Haldimand County is a municipality on the Niagara Peninsula in Southern Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie, and on the Grand River. Haldimand was first created as a county in 1800, from a portion of Norfolk. It was named after the governor of the Province of Quebec Sir Frederick Haldimand. From 1974 to 2000, Haldimand County and Norfolk County were merged to form the Regional Municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk.

The population centers in Haldimand are Caledonia, Dunnville, Hagersville, Jarvis and Cayuga. Most of Haldimand is agricultural land, although some heavy industry, including the Nanticoke Generating Station, is located here. Some of the smaller communities within the municipality are Byng, Canborough, Canfield, Cheapside, Fisherville, Kohler, Lowbanks, Nanticoke, Rainham Centre, Selkirk, South Cayuga, Sweets Corners, and York.

The first white inhabitants of Rainham were Jacob Hoover with his sons Abraham, David, Benjamin and Daniel who came from Pennsylvania in 1791, traveling in wagons in which they carried all their moveable possessions.

They purchased about 2,500 acres of land from the government. The Hoovers were Mennonites of Swiss descent. The Hoovers were a thrifty and industrious family and soon had large clearings. They became wealthy as they were the first settlers who had any surplus produce to sell to others who came a few years later.

Manufactured items were very expensive so the settlers made as many items as they could. Many of them made their own harness of basswood bark boiled in lye which was a fair substitute for leather.

The township covers about 25,000 acres with stiff clay soil that is very productive and well cultivated. Fisherville and Rainham Centre are the only villages wholly in the township. Fisherville is the center of the German settlement and has a population of about one hundred and fifty people.

Nanticoke is located on the western border of Haldimand County. Nanticoke is located directly across Lake Erie from the United States city of Erie, Pennsylvania. Unlike the majority of Haldimand or Norfolk County, Nanticoke is a highly industrialized community. This community is southeast of Simcoe in neighboring Norfolk County and south of Brantford. Nanticoke’s residential area is bordered on the west by the Nanticoke Industrial Park, home to the U.S. Steel Canada Lake Erie Works and a number of smaller businesses.

The Esso Refinery Nanticoke is on the northeast, and the Nanticoke Generating Station is on the southeast. Nanticoke used to be a bustling farming and fishing community inhabited since the late eighteenth century. Nanticoke adapted to the Industrial Revolution and became a desired spot for heavy industry.

In 1974, Nanticoke was incorporated as a city within the Regional Municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk through the amalgamation of the towns of Port Dover and Waterford, the village of Jarvis, and parts of the townships of Rainham, Townsend, Walpole and Woodhouse. In 2001, the town and all other municipalities within the region were dissolved and the region was divided into two single tier municipalities with city-status but called counties. What was the city of Nanticoke is now split between Haldimand County and Norfolk County. Wind Turbines were installed in November 2013.

Cheapside is located in the Regional Municipality of Haldimand-Norfolk and is part of the City of Nanticoke. I n 1854 David Silverthom settled here and opened the first store. He was bought out in 1860 by William Pugsley who called the place Cheap Corner. When the post office opened around 1865 the postal department proposed the present name which was accepted by residents.

Lake Erie shoreline, quiet roads and countryside make Selkirk a haven for travelers. Selkirk is located forty-five kilometers southwest of Hamilton and a short drive from Dunnville, Cayuga, Port Dover and Simcoe. Selkirk is the oldest village in Walpole Township. Settled by the Hoover family around 1800, the village was the site of a mill and an important center for the local farming community. When the post office opened in 1831 the village was called Walpole. In 1855, the village was renamed Selkirk, in honor of Thomas Douglas, Lord Selkirk, who once owned land in the area.