Among the earliest settlers in East Flamborough Township were two brothers, William and John Applegarth from the village of Standrop, in the county of Durham, England.
William, born in 1764, arrived in 1791 and became the first schoolmaster at Head-of-the-Lake. John, born in 1784, emigrated to join his brother who was living in the present-day area of Aldershot in 1801. Prior to the outbreak of hostilities along the American border in 1809, the brothers erected the first mill in East Flamborough Township, a small gristmill on the lower banks of the Grindstone Creek – in an area that later became known as Hidden Valley.
Both brothers had distinguished military careers. William, listed as an ensign in the 2nd York Regiment of 1804, had risen to the rank of captain when war was declared in 1812. John, who had joined as a private, ended his career as a lieutenant. During the fall of 1812, the brothers saw action at the taking of Detroit under Captain Samuel Hatt and were at Queenston later in the year when the threatened invasion of the Niagara Peninsula was halted. William returned to East Flamborough after the Battle at Queenston Heights and saw no more military action.
John remained in the military and was in the Stoney Creek area on June 5, 1813, just before the Battle of Stoney Creek. In an account of the battle, narrated by J. H. Land that was reprinted in the Hamilton Evening Times on June 6, 1900, John recalled the sighting of a Yankee vessel landing reinforcements of men for the army as he and Captain Elijah Secord were assigned to duty on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment. “Stationed not far from where the extension of Barton Street joins the Stoney Creek road from the Beach, they spent hours on watching the enemy, until the sounds of the firing, telling of the attack begun, aroused them!”
After the war, the brothers returned to rebuild their gristmill which had been destroyed by fire in 1812. Soon after, William opened one of the earliest stores in the Town of Hamilton and John eventually came to own a bakery on John Street in Hamilton.
During the 1820s, William was appointed to a number of government positions, including commissioner on the Burlington Beach Canal project.
William Applegarth died in 1839 and was buried in St. Matthew’s Churchyard, Aldershot. John died in 1854 and was buried in the York Street Cemetery, Hamilton.
Philip von der Kall, Flamborough Archives Co-op student.
This article was originally published in the Flamborough Review, 20 September 2012.
