|
The Extraordinary History of Flamborough
|
Videos exploring Flamborough/Waterdown History:
Created for students during the COVID-19 Pandemic (online learning), these videos explore some of the important places and stories from our community.
|
Page 2
|
|
|
Page 16 (change made in v1.3)
|
New section title: Sacred Caves, Mamagwasewug, and Ancient Trees
Kahkewāquonāby wrote that the caves along the escarpment were inhabited by spirits, and that the sounds coming from the depths of these caves were said to be their breathing.
Other creatures inhabit the area called “Mamagwasewug”. These mischievous creatures are two or three feet tall, and love playing all sorts of tricks on their human neighbours. Kahkewāquonāby reported that he often saw a party of Mamagwasewug paddling a stone canoe in Coote’s Paradise, but whenever anyone tried to approach them, they would easily outpace their pursuers before disappearing into secret caves dug along the banks. Standing out in the Beverly Swamp, a 200-year-old sugar maple has a trunk that is distinctly kinked as if pointing in one direction. |
|
Page 26 (correction made in v1.3)
|
The territory covered in the 1784 Between the Lakes Purchase covered more than a million hectares. In return for this land, the Anishinaabe were given 1,180 pounds. A violation of the Silver Covenant Chain of Friendship, the Between the Lakes Purchase was later made official within the colonial system by Lieutenant Governor Simcoe as Treaty No. 3 (1792).
|
|
Page 38 (correction made in v1.3 thanks to Wendy Hils)
|
Anne’s husband, Ralph Morden, had been a Quaker who immigrated to Pennsylvania from Cambridgeshire (some say Yorkshire) in 1762.
|
|
Page 39 (correction made in v1.3 thanks to Wendy Hils)
|
Some members of Anne Morden’s extended family held enslaved people and also emigrated to the area. The fates, and names, of the Black People enslaved by the Morden Family are unknown, but local stories speak of them being buried in Christ Church Anglican Cemetery at Bullock's Corners (see section “Christ Church and the Black Morden Plot”).
|
|
Page 62-63 (added to v1.4)
|
(addition to) Ebenezer Griffin: The Founder of Waterdown
Ebenezer C. Griffin died at the age of 47 years on October 17th, 1847, and is buried in Waterdown’s Union Cemetery (near the graves of Alexander Brown and Merren Grierson). Buried with Griffin are his wife, Elizabeth Kent (1806-1848) and their children Caroline Augusta (1837-1841) and Charles Wesley (1839-1841). |
|
Page 71
|
Addition:
Waterdown and East Flamborough, 1867-1967 records: Another exciting "sport" enjoyed by earlier generations was the cockfights in Gilmer's Carriage Shop (6 Mill Street N). Inside the shop was an area where the planks could be set up as benches around the cockpit dug in the middle of the floor. This was during the 1880s. Peope would arrive at the Grand Trunk Railway Station in Aldershot from as far away as Detroit just to see the coackfights in Waterdown even though they were illegal. The cock pit remained there until the present Bell Telephone Building was erected in 1955." |
|
Page 90
|
Addition to Figure 54:
Waterdown and East Flamborough, 1867-1967 records: "The [old Drill Shed] was built just like a barn with vertical board and batten siding. There were wooden shutters on the windows that could be lowered by rope to from the inside to protect the glass. When the old high school was still in use, the boys played basketball in the Drill Shed on the original floor board. Then a few years before World War I (about 1911-1913) Tim and Jim Burns made a skating rink in there, and they built a lean-to at one end to make it 10-12 feet longer. Then the 129th Batallion trained there, and the lean-to was removed. Still later the old floor board was removed. The building was used fro concerts . . . And it was used for two or three weeks every spring for training before the soldiers went to summer camp at Niagara." |
|
Page 94
|
Addition:
Meetings of the Orange Lodge were held in Waterdown from 1921-1937, first in the school at Sealey Park before moving to the second floor of the Township Hall on Mill Street. The Waterdown Lodge joined with the Carlisle Lodge in 1937, moving their meetings outside of the village. |
|
Page 112
|
Addition:
The Flamborough and Waterdown Agricultural Society held fairs on the site of Mary Hopkins Public School from 1882 until 1918. |
|
Page 118
|
Correction:
Technically true but the farm that was sold to become the Galactic subdivision (lot 13) was not owned by Ken Harper, but by Russell Harper, Ken’s younger brother. Ken Harper owned 75 acres on part of lot 12, Concession 8 and sold the property to John McNally in 1973, keeping a small ‘retirement’ plot of about 3 acres for himself. Information provided by Sue McNally. |
|
Page 121
|
Addition:
Waterdown and East Flamborough, 1867-1967 records: "William Smith either built new buildings or renovated old ones for the roller rink. William and Dick Smith, sons of the owner, operated the rink and gave skating instruction . . . There were always crowds at the roller rink, and it was dusty and noisy. It was up on cedar posts to level it off because it was built on sloping ground; it was hollow underneath. It really was just an old wood shell, and when about 150 people were skating on there, the roar could be heard nearly a mile away. It was like that of an airplane going overhead. The roller rink burned in the fire of 1922." |
|
Page 128
|
Map of the Notre Dame Convent
This 2022 screen capture from Google Maps shows the location of the 300 gravesites of the Sisters of Notre Dame that were relocated to the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in 2020. 
|
|
Page 128
|
The interior of the chapel at the Notre Dame Convent, constructed in 1956. Photograph taken in 2017 (Source: School Sisters of Notre Dame)
|
|
Page 136
|
On March 18th, 2022, City of Hamilton staff reported that the Queen's Bench had been damaged.
|
|
Page 141-142
|
Cindy Mayor captured this image of workers re-roofing the iconic building at the corner of Dundas Street and Mill Street in 2018. Removing the old roof revealed older shingles with the name "Weeks of Waterdown" painted on them (this was the location of the hardware store). "Weeks of Waterdown" was the name of a hardware store owned and operated at that location by Ernie and Irving Weeks. A pilot himself, Erie Weeks had painted the name of the business so the village could be identified by airplanes.
|
|
Page 146
|
No Maple Leaf Flag for Waterdown District High School
In February 1965 the following letter appeared in the Waterdown District High School newspaper: The Flag Noon on the fifteenth day of February, nineteen hundred sixty-five, was a very important date day in Canadian history—— Canada raised her first Canadian flag. The official flag—raising ceremony was given national television and radio coverage. Everywhere in Canada the event was marked by some sort of ceremony, everywhere in Canada except of course for Mr. J. Diefenbaker's private residence, Maple Leaf Gardens and of course Waterdown District High School. Why? Schools in Burlington and Hamilton raised the Maple Leaf, why not us? Because dear readers through no fault of the office we had no flag! The school board had neglected to see to it that all schools had a flag in time for the raising! It seems to me someone should raise some of the dust and cloud a few of the bifocals at the next board meeting. —member of the School Bored [sic] |
|
Page 169
|
Derecho Hits Waterdown
May 21st, 2022, saw the region hit by an intense derecho which swept across Southern Ontario leaving ten people dead and a swath of destruction. Extensive damage was reported across Flamborough, with many trees uprooted and power cables destroyed. Winds hit 120 km/h and included an EF-2 tornado in Uxbridge. 
A great maple tree at the entrance to Waterdown's Memorial Park following the derecho of May 21st, 2022. Scenes like this one could be found across the community.
|
|
Page 169
|
One of three Canadian Platinum Jubilee Beacons (joining Toronto and Ottawa) are lit on June 2nd, 2022.
Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
Thanks to Andrew May and Connor Skingley at Tea at the White House, Waterdown joined the rest of the Commonwealth — one of three Canadian centres to do so — in lighting an official Platinum Jubilee beacon as part of international celebrations to mark the seven-decade reign of Queen Elizabeth. Around 200 community members gathered on June 2, 2022, at 35 Main St. N. for a day of celebration that included Town Crier Allan Freeman issuing a specially created proclamation, music by Sax ’n Sync saxophone quartet and an appearance by Hamilton Police Service Mounted Unit. People of all ages took turns taking pictures with the horses while enjoying a variety of tea and scones provided by Tea at the White House. |
|
Page 169
|
Ed Mizzi sits in his astronomical observatory in Waterdown.
The Mizzi Asteroid
Designated by NASA as 10492 Mizzi (1986 QZ1), the 9.7 kilometre diameter celestial body was named after Waterdown’s Ed Mizzi in 2023 to honour his lifetime of work in the field of astronomy. A former high school teacher and president of the Hamilton chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), Mizzi has dedicated his life to educating people about the stars. Some of his initiatives include setting up telescopes in Burlington’s Spencer Smith Park. With his own backyard astronomical observatory at his home on Laurendale Avenue in Waterdown, Mizzi continues to explore the university. At the 2019 General Assembly of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada awarded Mizzi the RASC National Service Award. The Mizzi Asteroid has a 36-hour day and can be found in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, 600 million kilometres from Earth. |
|
Page 185
|
Margaret Cooper and Bletchley Park
Sworn to secrecy by the British Government, Carlisle’s Margaret Cooper spent the Second World War at the ultra-secretive Bletchley Park, the centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. Born Margaret Elizabeth Douglas in Punta del Este, Uruguay, to Argentinian parents, she moved to London and lived through "The Blitz” and was called up in 1941 and enrolled in the Women's Royal Naval Service. (nicknamed “The Wrens”). Transferring to Bletchley Park, Cooper was assigned to one of its huts to work with a Bombe, an electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted messages. In 1942 she followed the Allies' destruction of supply ships to the Afrika Korps in Libya, becoming an assistant to Frank Birch, head of the naval section in Hut 4. In 1944 Cooper was transferred to Plymouth to serve as a liaison with Bletchley on U-boat activity during the D-Day landings. In 1942 Margaret briefly met Craig Cooper, who was serving with the Royal Canadian Airforce, at the Bletchley Railway Station. While they did not exchange names at the time, Craig established contact with Margaret after sending a letter addressed to "the blonde Wren from Argentina on the platform at Bletchley station". Following the war, the two were married and moved to Canada. Settling in Carlisle in 1947, the couple purchased the 65-acre Cherry Hill Farm on the 8th Concession (Craig had lived in Waterdown for a time while his father was principal at Waterdown High School). Margaret lived at Cherry Hill Farm until 2001 when she moved to Waterdown following her husband’s death (she lived in McGregor Village at 47 Main St North). Interestingly, Cooper did not tell her family and friends (including her brother who served as an intelligence officer) about her wartime service until Britain's Official Secrets Act was lifted in the 1970s. The British Government did not formally recognize the work done at Bletchley Park until 2009 – that year Cooper received a letter from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recognizing her war service. Margaret Cooper died in 2016 at the age of 98. |
|
Page 202 (correction made in v1.3 thanks to Wendy Hils)
|
The first mill built along Spencer’s Creek (then called Flamboro Stream) was constructed by Jonathan Morden (nephew to Anne Morden, see section “Anne Morden”) in 1798 on land he purchased from Peter Russell. There is evidence in the West Flamboro Township Centennial book that Jonathan Morden enslaved at least one person.
|
|
Page 213 (correction made in v1.3 thanks to Wendy Hils)
|
James Webster was one of the first Europeans to settle in the area, arriving between 1819-22.
|
|
Page 218 (correction made in v1.3 thanks to Wendy Hils)
|
The map depicted here was drawn by Wendy Hils, Christ Church Flamborough Cemetery Board.
|
|
Page 220 (added as a footnote to v1.4)
|
Efcom Ltd. closed its doors on September 23rd, 2022.
|
|
Page 249
|
The final act of Mark Shurvin, as Mayor of Flamborough, was to sign the authorization to transfer the Municipal Cemetery at Bullocks Corners to Christ Church Flamborough. (source: Wendy Hils)
|
|
Page 259 (added to v1.4)
|
Added to "Viceregal Visits to Waterdown":
June 18th, 2022 – The Hon. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, 29th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, was meant to travel to Waterdown to dedicate, along with Giima Stacey Laforme, the Waterdown Platinum Jubilee Treaty Forest. Forced to cancel due to illness, Dowdeswell had a message read at Joe Sams Park by Fabiha Ruthmila and Evan Lepp. Ruthmila and Lepp joined Giima Laforme and Sharon Broughton (CEO of Prince’s Trust Canada) to plant a White Pine in honour of King Charles III’s (then Prince of Wales) Treaty relationship with Indigenous Peoples in the centre of the Treaty Forest. Lieutenant Governor Dowdeswell visited the Treaty Forest (stopping for High Tea at Waterdown’s Tea at the White House) on August 5th, 2022. 
Figure. 177 Elizabeth Dowdeswell and Giima Stacey Laforme stand with the White Pine formally planted on June 18th, 2022.
|