Several important early roads crossed West Flamborough Township, and as a result, the area abounded with small hotels, inns and taverns, constructed to serve not only the local inhabitants, but the numerous immigrants and travellers passing through the township. Three such early roads, Dundas Street, Brock Road and the Old Stone Road (now Highway #8), all passed through the township, and all were dotted with small hostelries, most of which appear to have operated for only a short period and all of which had disappeared by the first decade of the twentieth century.
References to many of these hotels even appear in early West Flamborough Township records. Following the formation and inauguration of the first West Flamborough Township Council on 21 January 1850, Council meetings for the next twenty five years were held in various hotels in the township. Among the hotels hosting such meetings were: Wm. Bullock’s Inn, Geo. Chisholm’s Inn, F. Freel’s Inn, Jacob Marklle’s Inn and John Anderson’s Inn, all on the Brock Road, Chapman’s Inn, Simpson’s Hotel, Greensville Hotel run by Manuel Markle, David Armstrong’s Hotel, and Clappison’s Inn.
One of the oldest in the township was the patriotically named ‘The British House’, built by William Bullock Sr. about 1837. Located near the intersection of the Brock Road and the Old Stone Road, it became the nucleus of the small community now known as Bullock’s Corners. At the height of stage coach travel, there were five hotels here to serve passengers and, according to one longtime resident writing about the village, “… as many as 40 horse-drawn vehicles at the old Bullock’s hotel was not uncommon.” Between 1852 and 1855, Bullock served as a member and Deputy Reeve of West Flamborough Township Council. During these years he allowed the meetings to be held in his hotel at Bullock’s Corners, so twice a month he was paid “£1 2s for the use of a room, fuel and candles.”
The Brock Road running north from Greensville, although frequently in poor condition was heavily travelled. The earliest hotel appears to date from c.1841, and was built on or very near the corner of the Brock, and the 4th Concession Road, and again by William Bullock Sr. The 1861 Assessment Roll for the township records the name as the Albert Hotel, probably after the consort of Queen Victoria. It was still owned by the same William Bullock, but appears to have been operated under lease to several tenants, including his son-in-law, Frances Cochenour and his daughter, Mary Ann.
Records show that during the 1850s, another hotel, located on the Brock Road and the 5th Concession Road was operating, but without a license, and was causing considerable concern to township officials as it was believed to be a bootlegging operation. Within a decade it had disappeared and not until 1900 was the intersection again the location of a tavern. Operated by Paddy Green, a hotel keeper whose name is long remembered in Hamilton history, the building also served as the Post Office, with mail for several area hamlets dispatched from here. Paddy Green was known for his jovial humour and wonderful refreshments, and many of the area mail and horse drawn express coaches stopped at his hotel, not only for lunch, but to meet this renowned character. Paddy’s son, John Green moved to West Hamilton, where he too operated a hotel, named after his famous father.
On the corner of the 6th Concession and the Brock Road there were two hotels, one operated by Mrs. Doyle who was assessed as the innkeeper, and a second one built during the early 1840s by William Bullock Sr. and his younger brother, Ralph. Ralph Bullock operated the horel for a number of years, before selling to William McMann who leased it to Fred Leach and then to Thomas Hunter. This appears to have been a busy intersection, as there was a toll gate for many years, established probably to bring trade to the hotels, but by 1875, a gradual decline in traffic along the road also saw a decline in business and need for hotels.
In Strabane there appears to have been a brick hotel, located across from the blacksmith’s shop at the intersection with the 8th Concession Road. There was also considerable stabling on the property, as this was a point of change for the horses which pulled the stage and mail coaches between Guelph and Dundas and Hamilton. Little is known of the hotel’s history, but among the listed operators in the Wentworth County Directories were James Young and John Mooney. The building was demolished during the early years of the twentieth century – the bricks transported to Millgrove, where they were used to build a house for William Carey and the stable timbers became a barn on the farm of Charles Stewart on Lot 9, Concession 7.
Freelton boasted two hotels during the days of stage coach travel. Near the centre of the village, Thomas Campbell, brother-in-law of Patrick Freel, built a hotel that was known locally as ‘The Old Hotel’. Campbell appears to have sold it very soon after its construction, as his name never appears again in connection with the building. The hotel seems to have had a continuous change of ownership during its years in existence. Between 1864 and 1900, it was owned by various members of the Duffy family, Christopher, John, Thomas and William Duffy all appear as hotel keepers during the period, as well as Thomas Smith, Henry Foley, Samuel Cook, Andrew Mahoney, Alfred Powell and lastly, Patrick Kehoe.
The second hotel that existed in the village, may well have been the oldest one in the township. Reputedly built in 1822 by James Morden, presumably a member of the famous Morden family of West Flamborough, it existed until destroyed by fire in 1899. Known as ‘The Upper Hotel’, one of the rooms on the second floor was used by a small congregation attached to the Waterdown Anglican Church, but due to a lack of sufficient adherents, services were eventually discontinued. Following the fire, the site was sold for $201 to Miles Binkley, acting as agent for a number of supporters wishing to establish a Methodist Church in Freelton.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 2008, 2024.
