Map 1. As he takes office, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe is understandably worried that Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake), the capital of the new Province of Upper Canada, is within range of American cannons across the Niagara River. So he plans to move the capital inland to the fork in the Thames River where London, Ontario now stands. It seems a sensible plan, given the continuing American threat to absorb British North America. As the map above shows, London is roughly halfway between Newark and the British-held frontier fort of Detroit, and it lies well away from the US border.
19. In early 1793 Simcoe checks out the lay of the land by travelling from Newark to Detroit. On his return he orders surveyor Augustus Jones* to blaze a new road due westward from the head of Lake Ontario towards the Thames River. Specifically, Jones should “run a line south 77° west from the head of bateaux navigation in Cootes’ Paradise to Le Tranche (the River Thames)” (Robertson 11).
Cootes Paradise – no apostrophe nowadays – is the body of water in blue at right centre above. The red square (“Landing Place” on the map) is the proposed site of a fort and settlement at the head of navigation. From it the line of proposed Dundas Street runs due west. The legend under that straight line on the map reads: “The road from Oxford to the head of Burlington Bay, 42 miles 66 chains, as marked and about to be opened.” The steep Niagara Escarpment, which travellers west must scale shortly after leaving Cootes Paradise, is depicted as a truncated “S”.
*For more on Jones, see Grand River 4 #117.
20. So, Dundas Street began at the landing place at the western end of Cootes Paradise. This is Cootes Paradise today, looking west from the high-level bridge on Burlington Heights. The view has not greatly changed from when Elizabeth Simcoe depicted it (see #7 above).
What exactly is Cootes Paradise? Often described as a marsh, it’s actually a shallow body of water forming the extreme western tip of Lake Ontario. Marshland fringes it on three sides, and aside from a narrow outlet, it’s cut off from Hamilton Harbour by Burlington Heights, a high bank of sand and gravel. (Hamilton Harbour is similarly isolated from the main Lake by the Beach Strip.) The Niagara Escarpment, seen on the horizon above, makes a U-turn around the western end of Cootes Paradise, and small creeks flow down from the Escarpment into it.
Cootes Paradise is named for Capt. Thomas Coote, an Irish-born officer of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot who had served in the British army during the American Revolution. He had discovered that this body of water was a duck-hunter’s heaven. Perhaps because his surname was so ironically suited to someone who liked to massacre waterfowl, his name became attached to the location.
Nowadays, Cootes Paradise is definitely off limits for hunters, and is navigable by nothing larger than a canoe. But in the days when flat-bottomed bateaux (scows) were the standard means of navigating inland waters, Cootes Paradise was the head of navigation of Lake Ontario.
Map 2. These days, the city of Hamilton stands at the head of navigation, as it lies on the larger, deeper body of water now known as Hamilton Harbour (It was first called Lake Geneva, then Simcoe renamed it Burlington Bay.) The Burlington Canal (1826),* a short cutting through the long sandbar familiarly known as the Beach Strip, allowed large vessels to enter from the main Lake. This canal was the making of Hamilton, which these days is part of Canada’s busiest port authority on the Great Lakes. But in 1793 neither Hamilton nor the Burlington Canal existed.
*For more on this canal, see Around the Head of Lake Ontario #32.
Map 3. Cootes Paradise today. A 300 metre cut through central Burlington Heights made in 1853 connects Cootes Paradise and Hamilton Harbour. (Formerly there was a natural outflow around the north end of Burlington Heights, depicted on the map at #19 above, but now filled in.) Governors Road (at bottom left) follows the line of the original Dundas Street.
21. Simcoe’s Dundas Street began at a quay on the north bank of Spencer Creek. This creek, which had various other names in the early days, flows into the western point of Cootes Paradise, as the note and arrow in the right margin of the plan above indicates.
The fort at the east end of Dundas Street was never built, as Simcoe conceded that York (Toronto), with its defensible harbour on the main Lake, had a better claim than the London site to become the capital of Upper Canada. The civilian settlement, also called Cootes Paradise, at the eastern terminus of Dundas Street, was projected as above in 1801. But it would never develop as planned, for an obvious reason: “The plan betrayed a remarkable ignorance of local topography, for it sat upon a steep slope which to this day remains undeveloped” (Norris 10).
22. This is the “steep slope” mentioned above, viewed from East Street North, i.e., from the top righthand corner of the plan above looking south to the curve to the right that marks the beginning of Dundas Street. This slope may be only half the height of the Niagara Escarpment, but it’s so steep that it’d be impossible to extend East Street or its three parallel roads directly up it. You can only infer that the surveyor John Stegmann in 1801 had never actually visited the site he was mapping! Incidentally, this slope is not part of the Niagara Escarpment, merely the side of one of the larger piles of glacial debris that make the floor of the Dundas Valley so topographically varied.
Map 4. Dundas today. The original village plot remains undeveloped thanks to that steep slope along the south bank of Spencer Creek. Osler Drive, the road into west Hamilton, mounts this slope at a gradual diagonal. Still, traces of the old circumferential streets remain: North Street is now King Street East; East Street North ends where Dundas Street begins; there are stubs of West Street in the valley and East Street South above the slope; and South Street on the rise of land remains unattached to the other three original sides of the rectangle.
The town of Dundas grew up to the west of the village plot. It’s now centred on King Street West, so that Simcoe’s Dundas Street bypasses the modern business district. Today, only the stretch between Cootes Drive and Main Street is actually called Dundas Street. The remainder as it heads west is called Governors Road (usually without the apostrophe). This anomaly is almost certainly because the easternmost section of Dundas Street traversed the former village of Cootes Paradise. When it got into Dundas proper, it changed its name because “Dundas Street, Dundas” sounded … repetitive.
23. This 1827 map shows major proposed changes. Dundas Street runs into the former North Quay on Spencer Creek. The landing place on the Creek is to be replaced by the turning basin of the Desjardins Canal (see #27 below). The configuration above is still recognizable, though Spencer Creek has been straightened and Cootes Drive, now the main highway to Hamilton, continues east. At its west end, Dundas Street meets Bridge Street, now Main Street. The “Coots Paradise” [sic] in the map’s title refers to the village laid out in a rectangle, not to the body of water. The map does show that steep slope running through the village plot.
24. Back in the day, Spencer Creek was the main waterway inland from Cootes Paradise. These days, without a canoe you can’t get much farther eastward along the Creek than this spot. The Spencer Creek Trail (see #32 below) peters out in the marshland that intervenes before Spencer Creek debouches into Cootes Paradise.
Richard Hatt (1768-1819), the chief founder of the mill settlement (see next episode) that would be come to be officially named Dundas in 1814, had taken steps to widen and deepen Spencer Creek, and to dredge a channel through Cootes Paradise. That’s because Hatt wanted to give the produce of his mills access to Lake Ontario by means of shallow-draught bateaux.
25. Peter (né Pierre) Desjardins (1775-1827), a French-born resident of Dundas and former clerk to Richard Hatt, had a more ambitious vision. He envisaged a ship canal through Cootes Paradise that would replace Spencer Creek and turn Dundas into a major Lake Ontario port. After all, the village, thanks to Dundas Street, offered good access to the newly settled hinterland beyond the barrier of the Niagara Escarpment.
On 1 November 1820, Desjardins requested to be granted land on North Quay and along Spencer Creek farther east. His stated purpose was to allow cargo ships access to Dundas from Burlington Bay. His properties are marked on the 1827 map at #23 above. On 30 January 1826 the Desjardins Canal Company was incorporated. After numerous delays, the Canal itself was opened on 16 August 1837.
Though the Canal did provide an upsurge in the shipping trade through Dundas, it lasted all too briefly. Chronic undercapitalization of the Canal; Desjardins’s sudden death “by the visitation of God” in a Grimsby field in 1827; Hamilton’s better trading position thanks to its deepwater harbour; the shallowness of Cootes Paradise that restricted the draught of cargo ships; and the coming of the railway in 1853 all conspired to thwart Desjardins’s vision of Dundas as a major port at the head of Lake Ontario navigation. The plaque in Centennial Park summarizes the history.
26. The end of the Desjardins Canal from Olympic Drive, looking west toward Dundas. This final stretch of the waterway is now effectively a small lake that provides a habitat for turtles, geese, ducks, herons, and a variety of animals and songbirds that like the proximity of water. A narrow culvert under Olympic Drive connects this body of water with the remains of the canal farther east. So, sadly, the full length of what’s left of the Desjardins Canal is no longer continuously navigable.
27. The former turning basin at the west end of the Desjardins Canal in 1896, looking east. Once lined with warehouses, this turning basin from 1837 was effectively the eastern terminus of Dundas Street.
28. (Top) The turning basin today, filled in in 1967 to become Centennial Park. “No other major feat of early nineteenth century Canadian engineering can have been so totally obscured by misguided improvement. Its turning basin … could have become the nucleus of an inn, a marina, or an imaginative residential enclave … Through neglect, the town has squandered a unique heritage asset” (Norris 111).
(Bottom) Centennial Park isn’t entirely bleak. There’s a spectacular display of cherry blossom for a week in spring …
29. … and right at the end of the canal, there’s a small, lush butterfly garden.
30. Centennial Park is also the location for the plaque that marks the foundation of the town of Dundas. It’s somewhat misleading to have it here, as the heart of the town always lay about 1 km to the west. But this spot marks the approximate end of the original Dundas Street … which subsequently lent its name to Richard Hatt’s mill village west of here … which would later absorb the thinly populated settlement in that poorly surveyed village plot to the east known as Cootes Paradise. Complicated, no? Still, whatever you think of Henry Dundas, he played no direct part whatsoever in how the present town got its name.
31. One legacy of the town’s sometimes misguided relation to its heritage: Desjardins Centennial Park in winter from East Street North. Even the name arching over the gateposts is misleading. It was the centennial of Canadian Confederation (1867), not of the Desjardins Canal (1837), that the town “celebrated” in 1967 by filling in the turning basin.
32. A pedestrian pathway starts at the former North Quay and goes east in the opposite direction from Dundas Street. It’s the Spencer Creek Trail, which closely follows the north bank of the creek for 1.7 km to the point depicted in #24 above. The section depicted here was the railbed of the Hamilton and Dundas Street Railway (H&DSR) from 1879-1923. This was an interurban railway from downtown Hamilton that was electrified in 1898. The line continued down Dundas Street and terminated on Hatt Street in central Dundas. In 1930, when motorized buses had supposedly obviated the need for suburban electric light rail, it became a freight line for the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo (TH&B) Railway. The line was abandoned in 1987 and the rails removed.
The walk along Spencer Creek is very pleasant, and there’s a good chance you’ll see deer, waterfowl, kingfishers, and marsh birds, not to mention salmon in spawning season. But given that public transit in Dundas today is rudimentary, you may be surprised to learn that well over a century ago there was an frequent electric LRT service between Dundas and Hamilton.
33. Dundas Street today begins south of the intersection between East Street North and Cootes Drive. The flag just visible above the red car is the one in Centennial Park (#31 above). A precipitous stretch of the Niagara Escarpment looms on the horizon to the north.
34. The section of Dundas Street through the former village of Cootes Paradise looking west. The curve in the foreground recalls the former North Quay. That’s Spencer Creek at left. The large vacant lot on the right is the site of a former Canadian Tire store. It’s hardly a welcoming sight to those entering Dundas from the east, nor is it a respectful complement to this historic spot. Its emptiness for more than five years is the result of a restrictive covenant on the site which businesses use to restrict local competition.
35. Dundas Street, Dundas, looking east; the reverse angle of #34 above.
36. (Top) Spencer Creek in early spring from the Thorpe Street Bridge (first built 1823). The Creek here, which has been much straightened over the years, runs roughly parallel to Dundas Street.
(Middle) Even in the depths of an unusually cold winter, Spencer Creek still has patches of open water, thanks to its rapid descent over the Escarpment …
(Bottom) … and there’s a surprising amount of bird life around the bridge, including cardinals, a gang of robins, and this huddle of hooded mergansers.
37. The junction of Sydenham Creek (foreground) and Spencer Creek. There’s a secluded path along the north bank of the Creek here that ends at stairs up to Main Street.
38. The view west along Dundas Street. The stoplight is where Main Street crosses, and that’s where Dundas Street, Dundas changes its name to Governors Road.
39. Dundas Street, Dundas (officially the east end of Hamilton Road 99) is a busy road these days and is lined with mostly undistinguished residential properties. An exception is the Stonewall House at 25 Dundas Street, built ca. 1848 and enlarged 1865. It stands on a low mound on the north side of the street. Its first occupant was John Patterson, owner of the Dundas Woollen Factory and president of the Desjardins Canal Company.
From 1869 the house was owned by Robert McKechnie (1835-1909), who with fellow Scotsman John Bertram ran the Canada Tool Works from 1863 at Hatt and Ogilvie Street, a short walk away (marked on the map at #43 below). Both McKechnie and Bertram had been apprenticed at Dundas’s noted Gartshore Iron and Brass Foundry (in operation from 1838). The Canada Tool Works would eventually develop into John Bertram and Sons, a huge machine tool operation that would employ 1,000 people and become Dundas’s largest industrial complex.
McKechnie served several terms as Mayor of Dundas and there were at least nine McKechnie children living in this house at one time. The house has been divided into apartments for many years. Its eminence is obscured these days by a row of cottages owned by a housing cooperative between it and the street. Access to the house is from around the back …
40. … near where you’ll find No. 34 Baldwin Street. The booklet William Lyon Mackenzie Slept Here claims that the famous leader of the Upper Canada Rebellion (and later first Mayor of Toronto) lived here “and carried on a business as a druggist and lending librarian … This house was mobbed while Mackenzie was visiting here in 1849” (Dundas Heritage v). In fact this 1820s cottage was owned by the druggist Edward Lesslie, with whom Mackenzie partnered for the years 1820-23 when he lived in Dundas. So the Great Rebel may have slept here as a boarder, but it wasn’t his house.
41. Thanks to the hydraulic energy acquired by Spencer Creek in its plunge over the Escarpment above the town, Dundas was throughout the nineteenth century an industrial powerhouse out of all proportion to its size. From 1860, the bulk of Dundas Cotton Mills increasingly filled the corner lot bounded by Dundas Street, Main Street, and Spencer Creek.
(Top) The view of the complex from the Hamilton Road, now Osler Drive, as it begins its descent into the town. Spencer Creek, the Cotton Mills’ original power source, runs across the centre of the photo. Dundas Street, hidden by the Mill, runs parallel to the Creek.
(Bottom) The plan of the complex in 1882. The Cotton Mills had its own spur from the H&DSR rail line along Dundas Street.
In 1860 Joseph Wright bought the ruins of the Globe Foundry (burned down 1859) and established a cotton factory, installing batting and carding machines to process raw wool. “Soon, three tons of cotton yarn, the first to be produced in Canada, and two tons of batts were being produced per week. Power for the machines was provided by a huge 30 horsepower water wheel fed from Robert Holt’s earthen dam just upstream of the Main Street bridge and the mill race and square wooden flume running under Main Street … In 1864, Joseph Wright wrote a monograph, ‘Self Reliance, or a Plea for the Protection of Canadian Industry,’ which was published by the Dundas True Banner. Perhaps optimistically, that same year he built a large addition to the front of his factory building, making it the largest for miles around. It was 240 ft. in length, built of light grey brick, 2½ to 4½ stories high with a slate roof … To end the reliance on the flow of Spencer Creek for power, two one-hundred horsepower condensing steam engines were purchased from the Gartshore Foundry down the street.”
But Wright overextended his credit and in 1867 he sold out to the Dundas Cotton Manufacturing Co. Ltd. “Under the leadership of John Young, by 1878 over 400 workers were employed, with a payroll of $3,000 every two weeks. Girls from the age of 12 and women were employed, the first company in Dundas to do so. The working day was from 6 AM to 6 PM, with a 1 PM closing on Saturdays, an innovation for that time.” “Dundas Cotton Mills.” The young girls’ wages, incidentally, were a pitiful $2 per week.
But by the 1880s larger mills had been built in Hamilton, Montreal, and Toronto, and the Dundas operation, failing to keep up with the big city competition, shut down in 1894. The main building stood empty for many years, then was used for storage during WWII. In the late 1940s a fire left the building a shell, and in 1974 the abandoned, vandalized remains were demolished …
42. … and were replaced with this condominium block on the same site. Only the name has been preserved.
43. This detail of an 1875 map shows Dundas Street, North Quay, and the west end of the Desjardins Canal, which by that year was used almost exclusively for recreational purposes. McKechnie and Bertram’s works are left centre, and the Dundas Cotton Mills (#41) are marked east of Main Street. The course of Spencer Creek was then much wigglier than it is today. The steep slope though the Cootes Paradise village plot is marked, though Court, Church, and East Streets never ran through to South Street as the map claims. Church Street is now Thorpe Street, though its old bridge over Spencer Creek doesn’t seem to be marked. Meadow Lane and a stub of South Quay still exist on the south bank of the creek.
44. The end of Dundas Street, Dundas, at the light on Main Street. The sharp dip thereafter is where its continuation, Governors Road, crosses Spencer Creek, before it starts its westward ascent of another of those glacial mounds. That’s where we’re headed in the next episode.
Part 2 coming soon
Holmström Ruddick 