practitioner, Dr. Clarence Bates, who practised in the building from 1935 until 1974.
In the oldest section of town, that bounded by York, Dundas, and King, handsome old homes line the shady streets. Number 32 Cross Street is one of the more interesting. Built by lawyer William Notman, the house for many years contained the famous Notman cannon. This six-pounder, a gift from Lord Selkirk, was used during the 1837 rebellion. Notman faithfully fired the cannon each May 24, up until his death in 1865. Today the famous cannon has found a home in front of the town hall, and grand homes still dominate Cross and Victoria streets, marking an historic part of town that is now a designated heritage district.
The famous canal today is little more than a weedy ditch, its turning basin now filled in. Its route through the Burlington Heights beach ridge remains, though its entrance to Cootes Paradise is now barred to boats. A paved cycling and walking trail leads from beneath the bridges to the Pier 4 Park at Hamilton’s west end. Historic plaques recount the many historic chapters in the life of this early, yet often ignored, waterway. High overhead loom the bridges of CN Rail’s tracks, the McQuesten High Level Bridge, and the later Highway 403 bridge. Stairs lead from the ends of the McQuesten Bridge on busy York Street to the water, where, about halfway down, tucked into the overgrown hillside, lie the stone abutments that witnessed the horrific train wreck of 1857.
Marking the far west end of Lake Ontario is a wave-washed sandbar. This long spit of land separating the lake from Burlington Bay (Lake Geneva) evolved over thousands of years. As the creeks that flowed down the Niagara Escarpment emptied into the lake, they met with easterly currents that slowed the flow, depositing the silt and sand carried by the waters.
The sandbar was long an aboriginal trail that Simcoe incorporated into his network of military roads. To establish his presence, he ordered the construction of the King’s Head Inn, the first permanent building on the strip. In 1813 the invading Americans burned the building (although its sign survived and is displayed in the Brant Museum in Burlington). At this time, the Beach Strip was a wilderness, its dunes covered with beach grasses and shrubs. At the north end, waves would occasionally cut through the sand, enabling small vessels to pole their way through and proceed on to Cootes Paradise and the village of Dundas at its head.
In 1826, at the urging of a local industrialist, James Crooks, who operated mills at the now ghost town of Crooks Hollow, a more permanent canal was cut through the sandbar, a change that would alter the destinies of the new town of Hamilton and of the older Dundas. Up until then, any goods being exported from Dundas had to be lifted over the sandbar to ships waiting on the other side, or poled through whenever the gap opened. On July 1, 1826, Ontario’s lieutenant governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, presided over the opening of the new channel. But it proved to be an inauspicious start. No sooner had the first vessel, the General Brock, navigated the new waterway, than it ran aground.
Vicious winter storms in 1829 and 1830 wrecked the piers and the first lighthouse. Finally, in 1832, the finishing touches were added, and the new canal, now properly constructed, opened. Two mast lights replaced the older light, but these proved inadequate, and in 1837 an octagonal wooden light tower was built on a sturdy stone foundation. A wooden ferry ushered any road traffic across the narrow channel.
But more devastation was to come. In 1856, the sparks from a passing steamer set fire to the new pier and lighthouse. Both were destroyed, and a new light tower had to be built the following year. Designed in the circular “imperial” style common on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, the new tower could boast stone walls 2.2 metres thick. The keeper’s brick house was also rebuilt beside it. This time the lighthouse was constructed to withstand storms and ships, which it did, until a new light was placed in a more prominent position atop the canal lift bridge in 1961. Though now abandoned, the stone tower and keeper’s house still stand.
This historic lighthouse tower and keeper’s house still survive beside the Burlington Canal. The light was replaced by a new structure in 1969.
A few hotels were built to cater to residents of the increasingly industrialized Hamilton, including the Dynes Hotel in 1846, and the Baldry House soon after. Then, in 1875, the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway laid its tracks along the lake side of the beach, ending forever the natural oasis. Almost immediately more hotels began to appear. First the Ocean House, then the Brant House — located in the former home of Joseph Brant — and a few years later, the similarly named Brant Hotel opened nearby. One of the grandest buildings on the spit was that of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club. Opened in 1891, the two-storey wooden structure boasted wraparound balconies elaborately decorated with fretwork. The club was located next to the lighthouse, but sadly was lost to fire in 1915.
The first bridge constructed over the canal was a swing bridge, the site of a rail accident in 1891 that was all too reminiscent of the Desjardins tragedy thirty-four years earlier. When a fierce gale reduced visibility along the beach, the engineer failed to see the red light signalling that the bridge was open. As the Hamilton Spectator of August 31, 1891, recounted:
An early view from the Illustrated Historical Atlas of Wentworth County shows the appearance of Hamilton’s beach strip in 1875.
[T]he night was dark and a gale was blowing from the east … with a tremendous plunge the engine shot over the brink and disappeared beneath the black water. The cars went tumbling in after it, crash after crash, the lights were extinguished and a terrible silence followed … the engine went down completely out of sight, and then cars popped over on top of it, one after the other until the wreck was piled as high as the top of the water.
Unlike the Desjardins disaster, no lives were lost — the train was a freight, and the engineer and fireman were able to jump to safety before the frightening and near-fatal plunge.
In 1896, a new swing bridge was constructed, this one on the west side of the strip that accommodated road and streetcar traffic. But by the 1950s the streetcars were gone, and a new lift bridge opened, merging rail and car traffic together. By then, traffic on the QEW was on the increase, resulting in major bottlenecks at the bridge. With thirty thousand cars using the highway daily, traffic jams several kilometres long were not uncommon. Clearly, another new bridge was needed. And it came. On October 30, 1958, Ontario premier Leslie Frost officially opened the Burlington Bay Skyway. At nearly seven kilometres long and forty metres high, it was the most ambitious bridge project ever undertaken by the province.
Prompted by the opening of the Beach Road from the east end of Hamilton, and the arrival of the streetcars, Hamiltonians began building summer homes, both simple and grand. Despite a recent intrusion of year-round homes and condos, many early beach homes still stand today. Among the more noteworthy and photogenic are: the 1898 “Sweetheart House” at 935 Beach Boulevard; “Cahill’s Castle,” built in 1891, at 957 Beach Boulevard; and one-time Hamilton mayor George Tuckett’s gothic revival villa at 1008 Beach Boulevard. However, the most acclaimed is the “Moorings.” Located at 913 Beach Boulevard, it was built by another Hamilton mayor, Francis Kilvert, in 1891. A designated heritage property, it is noted for its ornate veranda, fish-scale wood shingle siding, and variety of gables. Amongst these grand and glorious summer palaces run small lanes lined with the simpler summer homes of less affluent Hamiltonians.
The Canada Amusement Company opened The Canal Amusement Park in 1903, with a carousel, Ferris wheel, and a funhouse called the Crazy House. After the First World War, the Pier Ballroom opened, and throughout the 1930s and 40s featured the music of Duke
