Shades of Reynoldsville and Decew Town: a History of Power Glen and Vicinity

Looking back... with Alun Hughes SHADES OF REYNOLDSVILLE AND DECEW TOWN: A HISTORY OF POWER GLEN AND VICINITY Vansickle Road Generating ve Site of Turney ri Station D First Street Louth Homestead Tailrace t k r a e h t THE k n e oc e r L r p m C a Turney Burial E s c POWER GLEN d r a a Ground e a g a Power Glen o l N i R i Village M AREA Brock DeCew Falls University e m v Generating Station ha l Pel e No. 2 w T DeCew Site of Falls Jacksons Saw Mill Generating Flats Remains of N Grist Mill Station Former ST. CATHARINES No. 1 Road Remains of (FORMERLYTHOROLD GRANTHAM) B Mill Dam Merrittville Highway e a 406 v e r DeCews d a Field m Lake s DeCew Mountain DeCeDeCeww Falls Mills Moodie C GorGorgege r DeCew Original e e Water Plant Power Plant k Feeder Remains of D DeC Canal e ew R DeCew House C oad e w DeCew Ro LOT 22 ad CONCESSION 10 Re ser Water Plant voirs Lake Gibson LOT 23 Spillway CONCESSION 10 Cataract Road Site of Aqueduct 0 500 yards 0 500 metres Water Plant Feeder Canal Map by Loris Gasparotto The year 2008 marks the 110th anniversary of During this period the Power Glen area was very the DeCew Falls Generating Station at Power Glen, different from the present day, especially above the the cradle of hydro-electric power in Ontario. Escarpment. There were no reservoirs, just the broad This article traces the history of the Power Glen area shallow valley of Beaverdams Creek (which still from pre-European times. As the map above shows, flows over DeCew Falls into Twelve Mile Creek), the area includes not only Power Glen proper below with two major tributaries extending to the east and the Niagara Escarpment but also a significant southeast. And, of course, there was no power station amount of land above, for their histories are below the Escarpment, which meant that the Twelve inextricably linked. For convenience I shall refer to remained a relatively narrow, meandering stream all Power Glen throughout my article, even though the the way to Lake Ontario. name itself only dates from 1904. Early Loyalist Settlement The Pre-European Period The American Revolutionary War ended in The Niagara Peninsula has a long history of defeat for the British, and there arose an urgent need aboriginal occupation, as attested by archaeological to provide food and shelter for the many refugees remains dating back thousands of years. At the time (Loyalists, soldiers, Butlers Rangers and natives) of first European contact in the late 16th and early congregating about Fort Niagara. The obvious 17th centuries it was inhabited by the Neutral solution was to open up the Niagara Peninsula for Indians, but in about 1650 they were attacked and settlement, and to engage surveyors to subdivide the destroyed by Iroquois from the Finger Lakes land in a regular fashion. But surveys were delayed, region. The Iroquois did not occupy the Peninsula, and the result was what might be called controlled however, and it remained largely uninhabited until squatter settlement, with refugees selecting sites the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783. for themselves while the authorities did their best to At this time the main European presence lay across manage the situation. One such area of settlement, the Niagara River at Fort Niagara, built by the known as Murrays District, extended along the French in 1726 and captured by the British in 1759. Twelve Mile Creek between Power Glen and Lake 6 Ontario and included much of what is now St. along Lake Ontario and the Niagara River, and four Catharines. The Murray in question was Lieutenant others inland. Squatters like the Turneys were Duncan Murray of the 84th Regiment, who had allocated the lots on which they had already settled. some kind of jurisdiction over the settlers there, possibly in his capacity as a magistrate. Power Glen was in Township No. 3 (later Grantham), which was surveyed by Daniel Hazen The first settler in the Power Glen area was during the first three months of 1788. In most probably John Turney or his son George, both townships the survey lines ran north-south and east- former Butlers Rangers. The Turney homestead west, making for rectangular lots. But in Grantham stood by the old Indian trail that became Pelham the east-west lines ran at an angle parallel to the Stone Road, and the family burial ground still exists lakeshore, and the lots were parallelograms. Many near the road leading from Power Glen village to the main streets in St. Catharines follow these survey valley bottom. Another early settler, who had land lines, and the awkward intersections cause navigation above the Escarpment, was John DeCew (to whom problems to this day, problems that are compounded we will return later). But the most significant by winding streets following former Indian trails, individual in the early history of Power Glen like St. Paul, Ontario and Niagara Streets. probably never lived there. This was Duncan Murray himself, who built the first mills in 1786. The southern limit of Grantham Township lay just above the Escarpment crest. Beyond this was Murrays and Hamiltons Mills Township No. 9 (later Thorold), which was partly laid out by surveyor Augustus Jones in 1788 and Grist mills and saw mills played key roles in completed by Thomas Welch in 1794. Here the pioneer society as sources of flour and lumber. At survey lines meet at 90° and the lots are rectangles. first all mills were Kings mills, financed and owned by the Crown private ownership was not allowed. The Thomases and John DeCew This restriction was lifted in 1786, and the authorities identified 15 potential mill sites in what Hazens survey gave Robert Hamilton formal was to become Upper Canada, one of them in the title to lots 22 and 23 in the 10th and southernmost DeCew Falls area. concession of Grantham (concessions being rows of lots, numbered 1 to 10 from the lake). In 1800 he As a military officer, Murray was entitled to a sold his mills and most of his land to Jesse Thomas, substantial grant of free land. Though there were who passed them on to his son Peter. It was Peter still no surveys, he selected land in the Power Glen who, in 1811, built a substantial new grist mill at area and in 1786 began building a saw mill and grist Power Glen from the pink Grimsby Sandstone later mill on the Twelve, but died before they were used for many major buildings in Niagara. completed. The property was acquired by prominent Queenston merchant Robert Hamilton, who finished Very little of the grist mill remains, for it burned the work in 1787, and, it is believed, engaged John in the mid-1890s and stone was taken for use in Hainer as the first miller. That same year Hamilton other buildings. More recently it has been seriously was contracted to supply the garrison along the vandalised. About 300 yards upstream of the grist Niagara River with flour, and around the same time mill are the remains of a mill dam, which created a he built a trading establishment or store on pond that extended into Jacksons Flats. A raceway Twelve Mile Creek, just upstream from where the conveyed water from the pond to the saw mill, which Burgoyne Bridge is today. was located near the dam, and then to the grist mill. The main east-west route below the Escarpment (the former Iroquois Trail) crossed the Twelve at this point, and it may also have been the head of creek navigation for all but very small vessels. One can picture flour being carried by land from the mills at Power Glen to the store, transferred to boats, and then taken by water to the Niagara River. It should be noted that Hamiltons store was the very first building known to have been erected in what became the village of St. Catharines. Township Surveys The DeCew House in the 19th century The long-delayed surveys commenced in June Above the Escarpment, meanwhile, John DeCew 1787, serving to divide the Peninsula into townships, had acquired 200 acres of land in Thorold, and by and the townships into 100-acre lots. By early 1789, 1792 had built a log cabin and a saw mill on ten townships had been laid out in whole or in part Beaverdams Creek about two-thirds of a mile above 7 DeCew Falls. An oil mill followed, and DeCew Cou, where she encountered natives who took her evidently prospered, for in about 1808 he built a to the DeCew House. The field in question was fine Georgian-style stone house across the road probably the open area that still exists between from his cabin. (Sadly, the house suffered two major DeCew Falls and the Escarpment, for this was the fires, in 1938 and 1950, and only the reconstructed land in Grantham that DeCew bought in 1812. lower walls remain.) With the return of peace, John DeCew rebuilt his In 1812 he bought land extending from the saw mill and constructed a stone grist mill with a DeCew House to the mouth of the DeCew Gorge. large overshot wheel at DeCew Falls. Other pioneer Most of this was in Thorold, but it also included land services followed, and a small community called atop the Escarpment in Grantham. The purchase DeCew Town developed between DeCews house gave him control of a lengthy stretch of Beaverdams and the falls.

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