216. The Dundas Street that we’ll be following eastward from here has a complicated history. As it exists today, the section from Clappison’s Corners, through the City of Hamilton (Waterdown), Halton, and Peel Regions, as far as Islington Avenue in Toronto, is a creation of June-July 1920. That’s when Dundas Street, already well over a century old, was adopted by the Province as the eastern section of Ontario Highway 5.* More recently, the highway was “downloaded” by the Province and became the responsibility of the municipalities it runs through, though all have kept the “Dundas Street” name. That they have done so is probably a recognition of its historical prestige.
*In 1925, Highway 5 ended at Jarvis, but in 1927 the section from Clappison’s Corners to Jarvis was renumbered Highway 6, and remains so. The only surviving section of Ontario Highway 5 today is the short 12.5 km stretch from Clappison’s Corners west to the roundabout at Peter’s Corners. This section was never part of old Dundas Street.
217. But who and when constructed the easterly extension of Dundas Street to York more than a century before 1920? Authorities don’t agree. This detail of the 1800 Smyth Map of Upper Canada above shows Dundas Street marked clearly between London, York, and Kingston. London, the western terminus, is the only placename capitalized, as though it was a place of special importance fulfilling Simcoe’s designation as provincial capital. However, the actual settlement of London didn’t begin until 1826! The map, in other words, cannot be taken at face value.
Hayes states that Dundas Street was extended to York in 1795, so that “By 1796 York lay – in theory at least – at the intersection of two main provincial roads” (25), the other being Yonge Street. But I find that the only evidence to support this claim is the Smyth map. Hayes’s “in theory” is probably a concession to his suspicion that the 1800 map depicts projected, rather than actual, developments on the ground.
Wray and Green state that Dundas Street’s easterly extension to York was not begun until 1806. The reason they give is that the Crown’s purchase, from the Mississauga First Nation, of land between Burlington Bay and the Humber River wasn’t concluded until 1805. From then legitimate settlers began to arrive and Dundas Street was opened up, chiefly by “an American road builder called Asa Danforth at a cost of $90 per mile” (4).
Edwin C. Guillet also claims that Asa Danforth opened Dundas Street west of York, but disagrees about when. Guillet states that Dundas Street was open from York to Ancaster by 1800 (Pioneer Travel 135) . He points out that Danforth – whose name is memorialized today in the eastward extension of Bloor Street in Toronto – was contracted to extend Dundas Street from Burlington Bay to the mouth of the Trent River (now Quinte West) in 1799, and completed the work in 1800.
Danforth’s entry in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Gates) confirms that he opened a road from York to the mouth of the Trent by 1800, but says nothing about his roadbuilding west of York. An American, Danforth (1768-c.1821) complained that he’d not been properly paid for his work, and that the majority of Upper Canada’s population would be pleased to be annexed to the United States. He left Upper Canada for the US for good in 1802. So the 1806 date for Dundas Street can only be correct if someone other than Danforth opened the road. But no other candidate has been proposed.
218. The map above is a detail from “Plan of the Tract of Land to Be Purchased from the Mississaugue [sic] Indians.” It’s a copy, not the original document. But the phrase “To Be Purchased” would suggest that it was made from an original drawn before 1805. Dundas Street is clearly marked on it, running all the way from just north of “Capt. [Joseph] Brant’s Land” at Burlington Bay to Etobicoke Creek (now the western boundary of the City of Toronto). Also marked is a winding dotted line marked “old road from the head of the lake to York.” It runs mainly south of Dundas Street, but joins the latter east of the Credit River.
What can we conclude from all this? I’ll venture that the ancestor of today’s Dundas Street from Clappison’s Corners east was probably first opened by Asa Danforth around 1800. That’s why it appears so prominently on the Smyth 1800 map. Dundas Street parallels the Lakeshore, coming no closer than about 4.5 km from it.
Dundas Street’s distance from the Lake seems to reflect Simcoe’s concern to construct military roads inland away from American incursions by water. The Lake itself was by far the most dependable highway from the Head of the Lake to York in the early days. Meanwhile, as Guillet says, “the state of the highways of Upper Canada remained a public disgrace” (Pioneer Travel 145) through to at least the mid-nineteenth century. Indeed, by 1806, only six years after it had been opened, Dundas Street west of York was already “in such a state of disrepair” that tenders were invited for it to be “opened” again through the Indian Reserve on the Credit River. Moreover, “Dundas Street and the Lake Shore Road were considerably confused, and it is often impossible to tell which is meant” (140). That’s probably because either or both were frequently in a state of what we might call virtual existence due to unfavourable conditions on the ground. Like the first Dundas Street, this stretch would quickly have reverted to impassibility unless there were settlers with land adjacent to it who were required to keep their section open.
Map 20. This episode takes us from Clappison’s Corners (A) to the border between the Cities of Hamilton and Burlington (B), the latter here shown as “Halton Region.” 5 indicates Dundas Street. We pass through the centre of the former village of Waterdown, at the intersection of Dundas and Mill Streets. V marks Vinegar Hill. This stretch of our road is called Dundas Street East, probably to distinguish it from the original highway west of here.
219. Back in the day, Clappison’s Corners was a crossroads hamlet where Dundas Street ended at the border between East and West Flamborough townships. After the Clappison Cut (see #211-212 above) was made and Highway 5 was extended west, it gradually became a major intersection.
(Top) Clappison’s Corners in 1952, looking east. The old Clappison’s Hotel is at left, and at centre, on the north side of Dundas Street, is the Chatterbox restaurant. This peaceful scene contrasts sharply with the junction today.
(Bottom) The junction today has very little roadside development. It’s simply a sea of traffic (we’re on Dundas Street East looking west) whichever way you’re going. A flyover and partial cloverleaf taking Hwy 5 over Hwy 6 is to be constructed, eliminating the need for the traffic lights that cause traffic to be backed up for a kilometre at busy times.
220. What’s branded “Clappison’s Corners” today, 500 m east of the junction itself, is a mixture of big-box stores and strip malls catering to the newly expanded population of Waterdown. As such, this area is a template for much of Dundas Street between here and Mississauga. At present, more than half the population of Waterdown lives on the east side of the bottleneck at the centre of the old village. So a trip from there to Canadian Tire, Walmart, or Rona Hardware here at Clappison’s Corners adds mightily to local congestion.
Waterdown is technically in the City of Hamilton, but its Hamilton connections are weak. For example, the only Hamilton (HSR) bus service connects it to Aldershot GO station in Burlington, not to downtown. The rest of Waterdown is in a “myRide on-demand zone,” in which residents of the newer surveys, in the unlikely event they have no car available, can book a ride on a bus around town.
Of course, today’s Waterdown was not planned with public transit in mind. It’s a car-dependent commuter exurb in which each household needs as many vehicles as there are adults living in it. Typically, commuters drive down the Escarpment, park at Aldershot GO Station (see Map 20 above), and take the trains running every thirty minutes to Burlington, Oakville, and points east. Toronto’s Union Station is 70 minutes by train from Aldershot, a long commute but normally shorter and less stressful than doing the same journey by car. GO Trains do run west from Aldershot to much closer Hamilton, but only once an hour. In other words, Waterdown may be “in” the City of Hamilton, but in reality it’s a far-flung part of the Greater Toronto Area.
221. As you head towards Waterdown village, you pass this building at 163 Dundas St. East. You’ll either admire it for its refreshingly clean lines or despise it for its resemblance to a mini-AI data centre. It’s the 23,500 sq. ft. Waterdown branch of the Hamilton Public Library, opened in 2015. The building also houses Flamborough Seniors’ Recreation Centre, Flamborough Archives, Flamborough Information and Community Service, and Flamborough Municipal Service Centre. “Flamborough, eh? So what’s that about?” (see #225 below).
222. (Top) Descending from the crest of a hill, traffic on Dundas Street East now approaches the centre of Waterdown village.
(Bottom) The village centre at present is unusually quiet as construction to the east (see #223 below) forces most traffic to find another route to the east. Five lanes have shrunk to three, a bottleneck that cannot be fixed by widening the road, as that would require the demolition of several heritage buildings. A bypass has long been mooted, but seems unlikely to transpire in the immediate future.
223. Maple Lawn House, 292 Dundas Street East, a brick house painted white. Elaborate decorative bargeboard lines the gable ends. The house may have been built by George Allison, a local magistrate and collector of Aboriginal relics eventually donated to the Royal Ontario Museum. Until recently a spa, the building now houses a dentistry.
224. Waterdown’s Memorial Hall at 317 Dundas Street East was built to commemorate the nineteen village soldiers killed in WWI, as well as the 108 who served in that war. The hall was dedicated at a service on 14 January 1923. In May the previous year, a fire had destroyed many of the buildings that lined Dundas Street between Main and Franklin, but the new Hall was untouched.
The building originally had a bell tower, but a severe winter made it unstable and it was removed in 1949. The bell now sits at left, over a cobblestone memorial cairn with the plaques listing the names of those commemorated.
The hall has had many uses: a council chamber, a courthouse, a dormitory for transitory farm workers, a shooting gallery for the local gun club, the village library (1948-56), a cinema, an election centre, and a jail. Since the 1960s, it’s been the home of the Waterdown Lions Club. Since 1973 it has also housed Village Theatre Waterdown, the local community theatre. The glass box at right was constructed at great expense in 2019 to contain an elevator to improve accessibility.
225. It was Lt.-Gov. Simcoe who named Flamborough in 1792, as the Escarpment in the area reminded him of Flamborough Head, a promontory in Yorkshire. Flamborough Township was subdivided into East and West in 1800. East Flamborough covered a large, chiefly rural area. Waterdown, though only a village, was its largest settlement and served as the seat of the Township. Both Flamboroughs were merged in 1974 then absorbed by the City of Hamilton in 2001.
Waterdown brands itself a “Victorian Village,” and it has managed to preserve and repurpose a wealth of nineteenth century buildings in its centre. But there is nothing cosy about the level of traffic forced to use Dundas Street East as a through route. Only the long deferred bypass will preserve the dwindling integrity of the village centre.
Two simple but elegant adjacent buildings in Escarpment limestone on Mill Street half a block north of Dundas exemplify Victorian Waterdown.
(Top) The former East Flamborough Township Hall (1857) at 25 Mill Street North. The Township Hall was where the representatives of the five wards of East Flamborough township met. It’s built of coursed limestone with sandstone trim. More recently it served as Waterdown Library until the new one was built to the west (see #221 above). It’s now a law office.
(Bottom) The former Wesleyan Methodist Church (1838) at 21 Mill Street North. It was reclad in stone 1865 to match the Township Hall next door. It’s presently occupied by several small businesses.
226. This fine stone building at 40 Mill Street just north of Dundas is still known as the Nicholson and Stetler Jam Factory. It was originally built as a store in 1865, and “The building was at one time a feed mill, apparently run by gas engine, and at another time a wooden toy factory” (Woods 85).
The jam factory was established in 1929. “Apples were processed all year round. Most of the apple crop was supplied by local growers from the Waterdown and East Flamborough area … The fruit was kept in cold storage in Waterdown, the Niagara Peninsula, and as far away as Collingwood. Used mainly for applesauce and frozen sliced apples for pie filling, apples ensured steady year round work. During the year rhubarb, strawberries, cherries, red currants, raspberries, blueberries, apricots, peaches, plums, and grapes for jams, jellies, pie fillings and frozen fruits were all produced by Nicholson and Stetler for their large market” (Wray). The jam factory ceased operations in the 1980s, and the building now contains a number of small businesses.
227. Waterdown village boasts two historic hostelries on either side of Dundas Street East within a block of one another.
(Top) The Royal Coachman (1868) is on the north side of Dundas at Main Street. Known as the Right House from 1875, it became the Kirk Hotel in 1888. It was an actual hotel in those days, when a room cost $1.50 per night and whisky was three cents a glass. Since 1995, it’s been an English-style pub with a large and popular patio just west of the building.
(Bottom) The Mill St. & 5 American House (ca. 1824) is on the south side of Dundas at Mill Street South. This was once the prime location for an inn in Waterdown, catering to traffic east-west along Dundas Street and north-south along Mill Street. In about 1828, “Plumer Burley of Ancaster had started running a stage-coach line between Ancaster and York that left Ancaster at 4 a.m. each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, arriving at York an exhausting eleven hours later” (American Hotel).
The stone-built American House is one of the oldest inns in Ontario, celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2024. It has operated continuously except for the Prohibition years of 1926-33. Around the third lower window from the left, the trace of an arch forming the entrance to a passage into the inn yard is still visible. Ladies dressed for a banquet “could alight from their carriages inside the building and make their way to the banquet room while the horses were driven through to the stables in the hotel yard” (Woods 56).
228. This was the former J.T. Stock’s general store, on the northwest corner of Dundas and Mill, where Waterdown’s first telephone line was installed in May 1882. At that time it cost 15 cents to call Dundas or Hamilton, and it was the only phone in the village for the next 23 years. Later Reid’s Harness Shop occupied this building, and later still, it became a branch of the Royal Bank. Today it’s Pickwick Books, one of the best used bookstores in the area.
229. Back in the day, Mill Street was a main route down the Escarpment to Brown’s Wharf, a shipping port on Burlington Bay* (see Map 20). So Waterdown village was a convenient stopping place for merchants from the Guelph area on their way to and from the Wharf. The stone Eager-Weeks block on Mill Street south of Dundas, probably built 1824-30, was the commercial heart of the village. It gets its name for having housed, first, the Eager Brothers, who ran a general store in the tallest building from 1873, and second, George Weeks, who bought the property in 1924 and developed it into a well-loved hardware store, “Weeks of Waterdown.” These days, the commercial centre of Waterdown has moved to the west, and these old buildings are occupied by niche small businesses.
*Brown’s Wharf was established by Col. Alexander Brown, the first settler in the area, after the opening of the Burlington Bay Canal in 1823. “It was located at the foot of the Indian trail that became the Waterdown Road. The wharf, which is now LaSalle Park in Aldershot, became its own settlement with at least a post office, a hotel and a bakery. The produce shipped from the wharf included twenty thousand barrels of apples per year, potash from Waterdown for manufacture of explosives in Europe and stone from a Waterdown quarry used in the construction of King’s College, Toronto. Ship masts from the massive trees of the area and thousands of 300 pound barrels of flour were also exported from Flamborough through Brown’s Wharf. Materials also entered the township through the wharf and were hauled up the escarpment at Waterdown Road by convoys of wagons. Overtime hauling work was paid by one bottle of whiskey per man” (Col. Alexander Brown).
230. Ebenezer Culver Griffin (1800-47) is considered the founder of Waterdown. In 1823 he bought what would become the site of the village from Col. Alexander Brown (see #229 above). It included the area around the Great Falls of the Grindstone Creek (see #231 below), which Griffin immediately recognized for its industrial potential. He constructed a sawmill and a flour mill in 1827, and later a carding mill. In 1831 he employed a surveyor to mark out a village plot near his mills, and within the next decade had sold most of his land to new settlers. Waterdown was born, and by 1867 it had a population of 600. A Methodist and abstainer, Griffin and his wife Eliza had eleven children. In 1853, their son James Kent Griffin built a toll road from Hamilton to Carlisle via Waterdown. Today’s Snake Road (see Map 20) south of Waterdown and Centre Road to the north follow its course. This picturesque Stone Cottage (ca. 1840) at 24 Griffin Street is believed by some to have been built for one of the Griffin sons, but there’s no evidence the Griffin family built or lived in it. it’s more likely it gets its name from the street that E.C. Griffin built in front of his property. It’s the oldest unaltered building in the village.
231. Smokey Hollow today is about 500 m south of Dundas along Mill Street South, the road that connects Waterdown to Aldershot GO Station and Highway 403. There is a P, too small to accommodate the number of visitors, by the viewing platform at the lip of the Great Falls of Grindstone Creek.
(Top) Smokey Hollow about 1905. By the late 1890s there were seventeen mill and associated buildings in this location, powered by the Great Falls. All have now disappeared.
(Middle) The Great Falls today, viewing platform above right. (Bottom) Beneath the Falls.
It’s long been assumed that E.C. Griffin named his settlement for this falls, where water plunges down the Escarpment. Humourists have added that as a teetotaller, Griffin always preferred to pour water down his throat rather than whiskey. However, it’s recently been proposed that Griffin chose the name in honour of his father-in-law William Smithers, whose former home was in Waterdown Forest, near the village of Frant, East Sussex, UK (Ebenezer Culver Griffin).
232. West of the P, the Bruce Trail descends steeply into the Grindstone Valley. It’s a beautiful section of the Trail, though challenging in inclement weather or when there’s mud afoot. Above is an outcrop of the Niagara Escarpment’s whirlpool sandstone.
233. (Top) Back to the village, looking east. Vinegar Hill (see Map 20) is the section of Dundas Street East that descends to the bridge over Grindstone Creek and then rises again. It’s the oldest residential part of Waterdown. The bridge over the creek has had to be strengthened repeatedly over the years to support the increased amount of traffic. It was being rebuilt as I visited, causing long tailbacks of traffic in both directions.
(Bottom) The name supposedly comes from the acidic smell of fermenting apples that grew plentifully in the orchards of the surrunding properties. These days, the road name has been preserved in a short street running north from Dundas Street …
234. … to Waterdown Union Cemetery, founded 1830. The cemetery, still active, contains 800 gravestones, including those of many of the local pioneers, such as Ebenezer Culvin Griffin. The oldest gravestone is for a child who died on 16 May 1830. The sign at centre indicates that an Empire Loyalist is buried here. That’s probably Capt. David Bastedo (1764-1854, according to his gravestone), son of Jacob Bastedo. The latter had abandoned his home in Schenectady, NY, for Canada in 1784. The cemetery still identifies itself as belonging to the Town of Flamborough. Few inhabitants of Waterdown were pleased to be absorbed by Hamilton a generation ago.
235. Dundas Street bridge viewed from beside the CPR rail line, near where Waterdown Station once stood. The single-track railway, which runs steeply up Grindstone Ravine on its way between Hamilton and Campbellville, came to Waterdown in 1910, and a station was built in that year. Passenger service was discontinued in 1955, though the line is still used by freight trains. The abandoned station building was burnt down by vandals in 1965. Grindstone Creek, the key to Waterdown’s early development, runs parallel to the line on the right at this point, but is completely obscured by foliage in summer.
236. The reverse angle of #233 (top) above, looking westward from Vinegar Hill towards the village centre. Dundas Street East was a dirt road until the 1920s, dusty in summer and full of potholes after spring thaw. Sidewalks, where they existed, were of boards, and the road was maintained by horse teams. Wagonloads of small stones were dumped on the road, then crushed flat by steamrollers. It wasn’t until the early 1920s that Dundas Street East through Waterdown was paved and concrete sidewalks installed in the commercial centre of the village.
237. At the top of Vinegar Hill, the view changes dramatically. Both sides of Dundas Street East, now back to being a wide five-lane highway, are in process of being developed with townhouses, medium rise apartment blocks, and detached houses. The current population of Waterdown and its growth rate is difficult to determine, as the former village is now considered merely a “community” of the City of Hamilton. But the City itself has estimated that Waterdown will have 39,000 people by 2031 (“Trouble with Waterdown“). The. Its pre-amalgamation population in 2000 was 14,000.
238. The new low-rise high-density developments south of Dundas Street East. There is as yet no supermarket nearer than Hamilton Street on the west side of the village. The big-box stores at Clappison’s Corners are 5 km to the west.
(Top) Burke Street (see Map 20 above) is the central north-south road in the new development in this area.
(Bottom) The Waterdown water tower looms over new housing and an as yet unlandscaped area just south of Dundas Street East.
239. Though you wouldn’t guess it from its present state, this area was recently forest and farmland near the top edge of the Niagara Escarpment. The Bruce Trail runs along that edge, parallel to Dundas Street, now separated by a thin wooded strip from the enormous new development. Nearer to Dundas Street East, there has been an attempt to conserve another, even thinner, strip of forest as an acknowledgement of the Aboriginal history of this area.
(Top) Entry to the Souharissen Natural Area is marked by this stone on Burke Street just after it crosses the east branch of Grindstone Creek. The map on it indicates that more than a dozen Aboriginal archaeological sites have been discovered in this area.
(Middle) From the stone, there’s a trail that runs for about 1.5 km parallel to Dundas Street East. On one side are the fenced-in back yards of new houses, and on the other a dense strip of forest and marsh surrounding the east branch of Grindstone Creek.
(Bottom) Some home owners evidently resent having a public trail running so close to their back yards.
240. Along this trail you’ll find the Souharissen Canoe Garden (Wiigwaasi-Jiimaan). Filled with traditional plants, it symbolically links the Mississauga New Credit Reserve to its traditional territory here. The engraved stone clarifies the canoe’s meaning.
241. After its junction with Kerns Road, Dundas Street East leaves Hamilton and, as plain Dundas Street, enters the City of Burlington. We’ll be following it from here in the next episode.
Part 9 coming soon.
