The Capital Years: Niagara-on-the-Lake 1792-1796 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550021494 ISBN 13: 9781550021493

Verlag: Dundurn Group, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

The Capital Years is being published to celebrate the bicentennial anniversary of the opening of the first parliament of Upper Canada.

Nine scholars have contributed to this book, which explores the daily life of the inhabitants during the time period 1792-1796 when the area served as the capital of Upper Canada. Their knowledge and expertise give the book depth and breadth of scholarship.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Merritt is the current president of the Niagara Historical Society; Nancy Butler is the past president of the Niagara Historical Society; Michael Power is a researcher for the Ontario Historical Foundation.

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CHAPTER ONE
BUILDING A TOWN
Plans, Surveys, and the Early Years of Niagara-on-the-Lake
Joy Ormsby

As the principal inhabitants of Niagara waited, on 26 July 1792, for the Onondaga carrying John Graves Simcoe, first lieutenant governor of the new province of Upper Canada, to dock near Navy Hall, the group of four buildings erected in 1765 for the use of the Provincial Marine, many of them were no doubt pleased that, no longer part of Quebec, they would henceforth use English customs and law. At the same time, however, they were likely apprehensive about the effects the new administration might have on their possessions and their status in the community.

Chief among these early inhabitants were Lieutenant-Colonel John Butler, deputy agent of Indian affairs and former commander of Butler's Rangers, the loyalist corps whose disbanded members formed the nucleus of the Niagara farming community, and Robert Hamilton, a prominent merchant. Butler, who had begun the settlement in 1780 under the aegis of Governor Frederick Haldimand and had shaped its development, retained at age sixty-seven the role of elder statesman. Hamilton, a newcomer by comparison but a rising star in Niagara, was Butler's colleague in the Court of Common Pleas, Court of Quarter Sessions, and land board, a local body responsible for issuing certificates for land. Both men were uneasy about whether they would retain these appointments — made by the governor general in Quebec before the establishment of Upper Canada in November 1791 — under the new administration. Surveyor Augustus Jones, who had completed a survey of the town plot only a month earlier, and Walter Butler Sheehan, John Butler's nephew, who had been appointed sheriff in August 1791, also had concerns about retaining their positions. Other members of the community included farmers such as Adam and Isaac Vrooman, Peter and David Secord, John P. and Joseph Clement, Jacob Servos, and Jacob, George, and Joseph Ball. Merchants George Forsyth, Archibald Cunningham, William Dickson (cousin of Robert Hamilton), Joseph Edwards, John McEwen, and Daniel Servos also waited, as did Robert Kerr, surgeon to the Indian Department in Niagara, and James Muirhead, former surgeon's mate.

These men with thirty others from the Niagara district, had, the previous February, signed a statement prepared by Butler and Hamilton which under the guise of a welcome address to Simcoe set forth the major concerns of the entire community. Their settlement, they noted, had made rapid progress and had emerged from indigence and obscurity; their possessions had at last become valuable; and their latest crops were abundant. Yet they lacked deeds to confirm ownership of their land. Reasons for the long delay in issuing these vital proofs of ownership are made clear by plans, surveys, and associated documents which illustrate the state of flux in the early years of the settlement on the west bank of the Niagara River from its beginning in 1779 as a government-sponsored farming community to its capital period from the autumn of 1792 to 1796.

In its first stage from 1779 to 1783, the settlement was officially a temporary arrangement, designed to provide food for Fort Niagara, which during the War of Independence had become a staging ground for Butler's Rangers. From this base the Rangers and their Indian allies made raids against American posts in the border area, ravaging the country in order to destroy their enemy's food supply and eating most of the captured cattle. Some refugees had followed the Rangers to Fort Niagara. More came as a result of the Rangers' scorched-earth policy, and finally, as American troops advanced north, dispossessed loyalists and Indians made for the fort seeking refuge. They put such an enormous strain on the resources of the fort, whose provisions had to be shipped from England via Montreal "at great expense and difficulty," that Lieutenant-Colonel Mason Bolton, commanding officer at Niagara, wondered at one point whether maintaining the post was not costing "old England" more than it was worth. In order to reduce the expense, Governor Frederick Haldimand suggested to Bolton in October 1778 that he encourage and assist some capable people to cultivate the land "about the fort in order to supply entirely the post with bread."1 After consulting "several gentlemen" Bolton advised Haldimand in March 1779 that "both from the soil and situation, the West side of the river" was "by far preferable to the East/72 At that time, the gentleman most familiar with soil conditions on the west bank was Major John Butler, who, in order to alleviate overcrowding at Fort Niagara, had moved his Rangers' headquarters across the river and had built barracks in the fall and winter of 1778 and additional log houses and a hospital in the spring of 1779 at the considerable cost of more than £2,500. Butler's input no doubt influenced Bolton's recommendation, a recommendation that resulted in Haldimand's approving, without waiting for authorization from Britain, the sending of three or four refugee families to farm the west bank.3

This very small-scale initiative was expanded after Haldimand had received approval from Britain in March 1780 and had consulted, in June, with John Butler, by then promoted to lieutenant-colonel, about the mechanics of establishing and operating a settlement. Haldimand's plan, outlined in a letter to Colonel Bolton in July 1780, called for the reclamation of a strip of land formerly "granted by the Mississaugas to Sir William Johnson ... opposite the Fort"4 and the distribution of that land to loyalist refugees willing to farm it until they could be restored to their former homes in the American states. The land (some of which had already been cleared by Butler's Rangers by the summer of 1780) remained the property of the crown and crops could be sold only to the garrison, whose commanding officer set their prices. In essence, then, the first loyalist settlers were squatters occupying land under military direction.

The Haldimand project was put in charge of Lieutenant-Colonel Butler. Before the end of 1780, Butler reported that he had established four or five families who had built themselves houses. The head of one of these, Peter Secord, a former Ranger, was later allowed an extra grant of 100 acres for having been the first to have settled his family on the west bank in 1779.5 Another, John Secord, in 1780 was host to Elizabeth Gilbert, one of a family of fifteen captured by Indians who brought her with them to Butlersburg to get provisions. Other heads of families who claimed to have reached Butler's barracks by 1780 included Mary De Peu (petition of 21 April 1797), Catherine Clement (petition of 27 July 1797), and James Secord (petition of his sons of 3 August 1795). In May 1781 the purchase of the strip of land from the Mississaugas was completed at a cost of "300 suits of cloathing."6 By mid-summer 1782, sixteen farmers, whose names were recorded by Butler in the settlement's first census, had settled their families and cleared 236 acres. All were producing food. Peter Secord, for example, produced 200 bushels of corn, 15 of wheat, 70 of potatoes, and 4 of oats on 24 acres of land cleared at the foot of the escarpment near the present St Davids. John Depue grew 200 bushels of corn and 50 of potatoes on 16 acres cleared near Queenston, and Michael Showers produced 40 bushels of corn, 6 of oats, and 15 of potatoes on 12 acres cleared along the river a few miles south of Navy Hall. In addition, the Rangers had prepared a block of land known as the Government's Farm in order to plant Indian corn7 and several of them had "got their families from the frontiers'7 and had shown interest in settling after discharge.8

During 1783 the temporary status of the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dundurn Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1550021494
• ISBN 13: 9781550021493
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 264
• Herausgeber: Butler Nancy, Merritt Richard D., Power Michael
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland