Located on the southern outskirts of Millgrove and perched high on the hillside that overlooks busy Highway #6, the Robert Ironside or Ironsides family farm house on Lot 23, Concession 4, dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. It is another example of a Millgrove residence that was built from bricks made on the nearby Elijah Binkley farm. Constructed between 1861 and 1870, it is an example of what has become recognized as the traditional Ontario house, with all the recognizable features of a centre front entrance, flanked by symmetrical windows and above the entrance, a centre gable with decorative bargeboard.
In 1837, Robert Ironside, born in Brownhill, Monquhitter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1812, came to Upper Canada, together with his parents, Alexander Ironside and Mary Clyne, two brothers and five sisters, all unmarried. It appears that the family probably came to this West Flamborough location on their arrival at the Head-of-the-Lake and for the first few years they either rented or squatted on the property. This also helps to explain why a number of Alexander’s children married into other Millgrove pioneer families, such as the Ryckmans, Rymals, Palmers and Millards.
On 12 May 1841, just a few weeks before he died, Alexander Ironside purchased both Lots 22 and 23 in Concession 4 from Moses Morden Jr. for £100, suggesting that he wanted to have his affairs in order before his approaching death. The two small lots, totalling just “52 acres, 1 rod and 21 perches”, occupied a valuable location, bordering both the Fourth Concession Road and the Townline. Robert, the eldest son, married Ellen Gilchrist from Norham, Northumberland, England at Knox Presbyterian Church in Hamilton on 16 April 1846, and they returned to make the property their home. Less than two years later, on 8 January 1848, Robert purchased the property from his mother, Mary Ironside, for exactly the same price of £100 that his father had paid.
Three daughters were born to Robert and Ellen Ironside, Mary Jane, Eliza and Minerva. At the time of the 1861 West Flamborough Township Census, the family were still living in the one storey log house that had been erected when the family came to the property. With no sons to help him on the farm, life must have been quite hard for Robert, which may explain why this, their second house, was not built until almost twenty years later. When Mary Jane Ryckman, Robert’s eldest daughter, sold the farm on behalf of the family in 1882, forty years after her grandfather had purchased it, the house and property fetched the grand sum of $2,600.
Although the corner property overlooked the Townline Road, which was used by local traffic, it was a quiet location that was rarely in the news. However, this all changed on Sunday, 23 September 1900, when a fatal shooting took place just south of the Fourth Concession Road.
Earlier in the day, George Pearson, a young man employed by a Hamilton grocer, hired a horse and rig to take his 18 year old girl friend, Annie Griffin to visit her parents in Dundas and on to supper with friends in Carlisle. Later in the evening as they drove home along the Townline, Pearson stopped the rig just beyond the corner of the intersection with the Fourth Concession. Just after 9 o’clock Robert Sheppard who lived on the opposite corner of the road and was returning from an evening church service came upon Pearson kneeling over the lifeless body of Annie Griffin.
Pearson immediately claimed that two unknown men had shot Annie and then left. When the police arrived they found his account of the incident so incredible that he was charged with murder before the day was over. On Monday morning all three Hamilton daily newspapers had front page articles with sensational headlines about the murder. Less than a month later, Pearson stood trial. An unsuccessful attempt to plead insanity held up the proceedings briefly at the Wentworth County Court House, but the jury took less than an hour to find him guilty and he was sentenced to be hanged on 7 December 1900.
Leading up to the day of execution, the Hamilton newspapers used Pearson’s crime as a lesson in morality, which were echoed by the words of Pearson himself as he stood on the scaffold: “I desire to make this statement to the general public, but mostly to young people as a warning against three things namely cigarette smoking, strong drink and bad company”.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2004, 2024.
