The railway carried Hamilton’s workers to enjoy the amusement park, and made stops at the Beach Road Station, Dynes Hotel, a private mansion known as the “Elsinore,” and the Ocean House, as well as at the Brant House near Burlington. But in 1975 the City of Hamilton refused to renew the park’s licence. It closed in 1978, and all of its rides were auctioned off.
In 2007, amidst considerable controversy, the ancient Dynes Tavern was taken down, without a demolition permit, to make way for a condominium project. Until then, this beach hangout had been considered by many to be Ontario’s oldest surviving operating tavern.
Today, driving isn’t the only way to view this historic and much altered Beach Strip. The Hamilton Beach Recreation Trail now follows the route of the old railway right-of-way along the sandy beach. Information plaques recount the days of the amusement park as well as current projects to stabilize the dune formations with such vegetation as Indian grass, rye grass, beach grass, and burr oak. And while it may be a little ambitious to dream of the strip being restored to the condition in which Simcoe found it, at least the endless waves crashing against the grass-covered sand may enhance the illusion.
It’s hard these days to figure out just where Aldershot begins and ends. As part of the urban megalopolis known as the Golden Horseshoe, it is indistinguishable from Burlington to the east and Hamilton to the west. Still, it would be reasonable to demark its boundaries as the Queen Elizabeth Way to the east, the CN rail line to the north, Burlington Heights to the west, and Burlington Bay to the south.
The first settlers to arrive in the area, in 1791, were the Applegarth family, whose farmland lay on the north shore of the lake, west of what is today the La Salle Park. The Chisholm family arrived two years later and added gristmills on Grindstone Creek, which tumbles south from Waterdown and then follows an almost hidden valley westerly to Rock Bay. Today that wooded valley forms part of the Royal Botanical Gardens.
In 1806, Colonel Brown, an agent for the North West Company, arrived and established a wharf on Lake Geneva, giving the community its first name: Brown’s Wharf. When more settlers arrived, a resident by the name of Ebenezer Griffin built a series of mills around the tumbling water-power sites at Waterdown, a short distance north, and used the wharf to ship flour and wool. By 1823, Aldershot could claim nearly a dozen log homes, and two dozen more substantial dwellings of frame or brick. When the Burlington Canal was completed, larger ships were able to enter the protected waters of the bay more easily. During the 1840s the wharf was enlarged to accommodate steamers and the port was able to provide the ships with a supply of cordwood, used as fuel. By this time the little port was going by the name Port Flamborough.
In 1854, Brown’s grandson, Alexander, chose to honour his grandfather’s military service by naming the post office Aldershot, after a military base near London, England, where his grandfather had served. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a large brickyard operation took over Grindstone Valley, located west of the village and along the railway track. The large red kilns remained at the site for years, serving as a visual reminder of the location’s history, until they were removed in the 1990s.
But even after the arrival of the railway, and the erection of the Aldershot station, the community remained small, with only a few shops and taverns along Plains Road. The light and sandy soils in the area that had discouraged early wheat farming proved ideal for apples and melons, and Aldershot soon became famous for shipping these products. Hotels were built both by the wharf and along the new road, and included Fenton’s Valley Inn, Shorty Biggs’s hotel on the lake, and the popular Bayview Hotel.
Now an event venue, the historic La Salle Pavilion, situated in a park of the same name, is the only surviving building from the park’s days as an Aldershot pleasure ground.
The Bayview was set on a piece of land known as Carroll’s Point, overlooking Rock Bay, the point at which Morden Creek flows into the bay from Cootes Paradise. It was here, in 1836, that Peter Carroll built his baronial “Rock Bay Mansion,” and became one of the first farmers in Ontario to cultivate peaches out-of-doors. After his death, the mansion burned, and on this high point of land a man by the name of George Midwinter opened Bayview Park. Vacationers travelled by steamer from Hamilton to stay in the Bayview Hotel, or to ride the new merry-go-round at the park. Disembarking from steamers like the Lillie, the Shamrock, or the Maggie Mason, they could either climb the steep stairs or ride on a two-car incline railway to the summit.
However, by the 1920s, Bayview Park was silent, replaced by a larger park to the east, Wabasso Park. Established by the Hamilton Parks Board in 1912, Wabasso included a dance pavilion, a bathing house, a roller coaster, and a Ferris wheel. In 1923, the name was changed to La Salle Park, and not long after, the rides were removed. But the La Salle Park Pavilion continued to operate, featuring such local bandleaders as Pete Malloy and Eddie Mack.
Today La Salle Park is still a busy green space, now enjoyed largely by local residents. The 1917 pavilion remains, despite being gutted by fire in May 1995. It was rebuilt to its original condition the following year and is now a banquet and event facility called Geraldo’s. The site of the dock has been incorporated into a marina and a new park that extends into the bay, while scant ruins of the bathing pavilion lie beneath the underbrush.
Bayview Park and the site of Carroll’s mansion are now part of the Woodland Cemetery, although the view from Carroll’s Point remains the same as Carroll and the guests at the Bayview Hotel might remember. The site of the Valley Inn is remembered only in the name of the road leading to the location, Valley Inn Drive, which now dead-ends at the location of the former bridge that once spanned across Rock Bay.
Chapter 3Lake Ontario’s “West Coast”
Starting in the west end of Toronto, the Lake Ontario shoreline bends noticeably. From its east–west orientation east of the city, it angles markedly to the southwest, making that section of the shoreline in effect the lake’s west coast. The shore is low-lying and flat. During the last ice age, as the ice lifted from the east end of the developing water body, the bedrock there rebounded, causing the water level at the west end of the lake to rise. As it did, it began to flood the river valleys that had formed as the ice retreated. Such flooding formed several shallow lagoons at the river mouths.
These provided shelter for early vessels, and small commercial harbours developed. West of Toronto these lagoons formed at Sixteen Mile Creek, Bronte Creek, and the Credit River. While all three have their sources above the Niagara Escarpment, only the Credit attains any significant size.
According to Chapman and Putnam,1 the shoreline between Hamilton and Toronto was the result of the earlier and higher Lake Iroquois. The old lake deposited beaches of sand and gravel above the current lakeshore (later used by settlers as building materials). The soil, while light, does not enjoy as long a frost-free growing season as do the lands along the Niagara Peninsula, and therefore tender fruits could not be grown here successfully, though many did try. Apple orchards and strawberry fields, however, were very successful, but in the end could not survive another peril — urban sprawl.
Even as the ports at Dundas and Hamilton were growing and shipping out lumber and wheat, the area between York and the head of the lake remained less developed. Until 1820, the mouths of Sixteen Mile Creek and Twelve Mile Creek remained in the hands of the Mississauga. Only after the Mississauga granted them to the Crown were the vital river mouths opened for settlement.
Although a rough aboriginal trail followed the lakeshore, no route
