I.-Some Memories of Dundurn and Burlington Heights. By SIR JOHN G. BOURINOT, K.C.M.G., LL.D., Lit.D. (Laval). PREFATORY NOTE. The following paper is substantially an address delivered at the opening of Dundurn Park, in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, on the Queen's Birthday, 1900, and is now printed by permission of the Printing Committee in the present volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society, with the additions of several portraits, illustrations, and notes, which give greater value and interest to this brief review of the history of a district replete with many memories of the Past of Canada. MEMORIES OF DUNDURN AND BURLINGTON HEIGHTS. As I stand on this historic ground, so deeply interesting to the student for its many memories, and so pleasing to the eye for its varied scene of mountain, grove and bay, I recall a phrase long famous in the annals of this district, and address you once more as "Men and Women of Gore." It is a phrase associated for many decades with evidences of unswerving devotion to the Crown, and never more so than at this memorable time when the sons of Gore are contending on the battlefields of South Africa for the security and unity of that mighty Empire to which the people of Canada have ever been true. It was a happy thought on the part of the energetic mayor and civic authorities of Hamilton to defer the opening of this park until the Queen's birthday, the true Empire day, the great holiday of all Canadians, irrespective of race and creed. This is the day, above all others, when we can best recall the memories of the loyal men who have made the old district of Gore famous in the annals of the Dominion. This, too, is the place where, above all others, I can most fittingly call upon you, men and women of Gore, to forget for a few moments the Present, with its absorbing interests and pleasures, and look with me down the "corridors of time” "As I summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been." The various human forces that have exercised such potent influence on the development of Canada have at one time and another met on this historic height, or by the side of the beauteous bay below. plorer, the missionary, the trader, the coureur-de-bois, the settler, the The ex surveyor, the soldier, the statesman, has each in his turn made his impress on the beautiful district which is inclosed between Niagara, Lake Ontario and Grand River. In 1669 that famous gentleman-adventurer of the French regime, Réné Robert Cavelier de La Salle, first saw the shimmer of the waters of the bay, then surrounded by virgin forest, just touched by the finger of autumn. Among his companions were Dollier de Casson, a soldier-priest, who wrote the first history of Montreal, and Galinée, another Sulpician priest, who was something of a surveyor, and gave to the world a journal of his western trip as well as a rude delineation of the Upper Lakes. Galinée no doubt owed much to the map3 which was shown him by the famous Canadian trader, Louis Joliet, whom La Salle and his companions met at the Indian town of Tinatona, which local antiquarians place about a mile east of Westover, near the eastern boundary of Beverley, a township still rich in relics of the days of Indian occupation. In this interesting map we see clearly outlined for the first time the beautiful bay, so intimately associated with the prosperity, pleasure and pride of Hamilton. The history of Joliet and La Salle has no further connection with the history of the Heights and Bay; they separated soon after this memorable meeting at Tinatona to prosecute the dreams which they had of adventures and discoveries in the West. On a June day, 1673, Joliet and Marquette, trader and missionary, glided down the tranquil waters of the Wisconsin into the eddies of the Mississippi, which they followed as far as the villages of the Arkansas. Nine years later, La Salle also steered his canoe "Past the Ohio shore, and past the mouth of the Wabash, and found his way to the Gulf of Mexico and gave to France the great region of Louisiana which owes its historic name to this intrepid explorer. For more than a century after this memorable meeting of adventurous Frenchmen, in the forests of Ontario, this beautiful district disappears from history. Indians alone fished in the prolific waters of the bay and lake, or brought down the wild fowl in the luxuriant marshes. of the valley or strath of Dundas-known to sportsmen in later times as Coote's Paradise.' Before the end of the eighteenth century the pioneer came to the noble country which lies between the turbulent Niagara and the more peaceful Bay, now a land of rich fruitage and lovely vistas of lake through forest groves and luxuriant orchards. The close of the successful revolution of the old Thirteen Colonies brought to the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Niagara Rivers a large body of devoted men and women, who remained faithful to Great Britain 1 during the Civil War in America and la the foundations of the province of Ontario on the basis of staunch devotion to the Crown and Empire. The Niagara peninsula is full of the memories of these loyal people to whom Canada owes a debt of gratitude which she can never repay. Among them was one Robert Land, a fugitive from the banks of the Delaware River near Coshecton, New York, who was the first proprietor of the farm, afterwards known as Lundy's, where a great battle was fought on a midsummer's night in 1814. Subsequently he left the banks of the Niagara and built a rough cabin or "shack," in 1781, at the head of the lake," or Burlington Bay-called Lake Geneva until 1792. His wife, a relative of General Wingfield Scott, thought he was dead, and sought refuge with her children at the close of the war in the new province of New Brunswick. Several years later they wandered to the banks of the Niagara, where they had tidings of the husband and father, long believed to have fallen a victim to the revolution, and were soon able to join him in his solitary home at the head of the bay. Another contestant for the honour of first settlement in the same district was Mr. Richard Beasley, an Indian trader, whose name is especially interesting to the historian of Dundurn, since he was the first claimant of the land on which it stands, and must be certainly admitted to have been one of the earliest pioneers of Wentworth. More fortunate, however, than either of these two pioneers from the point of view of fame were George Hamilton and James Hughson, who owned two farms below the Mountain, and have had their names perpetuated in the city and in one of its streets." 5 But I shall not venture into the domain where the local historian and antiquarian can more profitably and intelligently delve. Mine the easier task to touch lightly on the most conspicuous events in the history of these historic grounds. It was during the war of 1812-15 that Burlington Heights became first famous in Canadian annals. From the beginning to the end of this conflict Upper Canada was the principal battle ground for the armies of the hostile nations. Here the United States believed that they could successfully occupy a province with a relatively insignificant population, and an ill-defended frontier, easily crossed by an invading army. This war brought out in bold relief the devotion and courage of the Loyalists and their descendants, who composed the greater proportion of the militia who fought by the side of the regular troops and saved Canada to England. It is a war full of illustrations of the heroism of Canadian men and women, and even of boys who, we are told, fled from their parents that they might fight in the ranks. In this memorable struggle the Heights became most important as a base of military operations. In 1713, towards the end of this very |