How did people see the township of East Flamborough and the village of Waterdown in the past? Were they impressed? Was there much to see? Just what was there to see? Through the accounts and records of a few travellers and early settlers, a fascinating picture of the changes that occurred is presented.
John Glasgow, an early township settler, tells us of the recollections of an even older settler:
“an old pioneer named Birtch, who had long lived in the neighbourhood, …. informed me that he carried the mails once a month, on horseback, from Toronto to the Talbot settlement on Lake Erie …. he was an old man when I first saw him …. he said that for a long time Brown and Grierson were the only settlers on the Flamboro Mountain, and there were very few between that locality and Toronto …. this must have been about 1812, or shortly after that time …. He said the greatest difficulty that he had to overcome was in getting over the streams on that wild and weary trail, there being scarcely a bridge over which he could safely pass.”“Mr. Alexander Brown …. was the first settler on the Mountain and lived on his farm of 400 acres close by the village. He settled there before any white man had ever beheld the Waterdown stream flowing through its rocky channel. Mr. Grierson, brother-in-law to Mr. Brown, settled there at a later period on the west side of the village.”
George Douglas Griffin, son of Ebenezer Griffin, recalled further details about these two early settlers and what East Flamborough was like, when he prepared an article for the Wentworth Historical Society in 1898.
“The land, now the site of the village of Waterdown, was originally purchased from the government by the late Col. Alexander Brown …. Col. Brown was the first white settler in that part and was called by the Indians, the “white man of the mountain”. He purchased eight hundred acres, the four hundred on which he lived and the four hundred west of it, the site of the village, the stream dividing it into two parts, and on the falls of the stream he built a saw mill …. It is supposed he came to Canada in connection with the Northeast Fur Company …. Mr. James Grierson …. came out in the service of that company, and when it was dissolved, settled at Waterdown.”
In his article, George Griffin suggests an even earlier date for the first settlement:
“Col. Brown was living in Waterdown in 1806, and probably settled there shortly before. His first house was of logs, and built beside one of the loveliest of springs, whose pure, limpid waters flowed out between two boulders so perfectly situated it would seem as if they were placed there by human hands.”
During the next ten to fifteen years after the arrival of the Brown and Grierson families, other settlers began to locate, and the need for a school house was recognized. The author notes:
“In 1815 there was a log school house on the south west corner of Dundas and Mill Street. The teacher was Miss Mary Hopkins …… A new school house was built, if my memory is correct, in 1827, on the corner of Mr. Grierson’s farm. The writer was at this school the first day it was in use.”
So by the beginning of the third decade of the nineteenth century, a small milling settlement existed on the Flamborough Mountain, but once travellers tried to move northwards, conditions were extremely difficult as the next Heritage Paper will recount.
© The Waterdown-East Flamborough Heritage Society 1992, 2022.
