Pioneer Stories of Haldimand

By

META SCHOOLEY LAWS

              It seems difficult to realize that the development of Haldimand county has been the work of but three generations.

             That the grandparents of those of us who speed over our highways were the men and women who hewed for themselves and us homes out of the solid forest; whose journey here was one of untold difficulty and hardship, and whose lives of never-ending sacrifice, toil and privation laid the foundation of this, one of Ontario’s most prosperous agricultural counties.

             Before me as I write lies an historical atlas of the county published in 1879. Copies of it are in many homes. The data it furnishes is accurate so far as it goes, but, like others of its kind published about the same time, only the families who subscribed for the volume are mentioned in its records. The poverty or parsimony of many of the early settlers furnished an excuse for the incompleteness of the volume as a full record of county pioneer history.

             The stories which will comprise this series are not found in the volume, but gathered from the few-ah-so few- who are really interested in collecting and preserving the records of “days that are no more.”

             A few weeks ago we visited the Fradenburgh homestead on the bank of the Grand river, about five miles below Cayuga. For a number of years it was out of the family’s possession, but a great-granddaughter of “Grandma Fradenburgh” who in 1799 crossed Lake Erie in a log canoe with her parents, is now the mistress of the beautiful and historic site.

             The river bank here is very high here and is reached by a rustic staircase, but the old trees festooned with wild grapevines by means of which the top of the bank was reached in the early days, still flourish. From the river one looks up a wall of locust, pine and maple trees, matted together by the climbers-wild cucumber vine and Virginia creeper, as well as the grapevines. Wild roses and other flowers crowd themselves into every nook. The rambling old house with its big living rooms, its tiny bedrooms, its wide porches, is surrounded by beautiful trees of the forest primeval, a group of them form a natural arbor where a rustic table and chairs are placed, and where our meals are served. A broad avenue bordered by giant maples skirt the edge of the bank which is protected by a wire fence hidden by the wild climbing vines.

             Beautiful old-fashioned flowers grow near the house.

             A tennis court occupies a part of the front lawn, and reminds one that the present occupants of Riverside are of today. But sitting in the arbor it is easy to let one’s thoughts roam back to the 1820s, when Dan, one of “Grandma Fradenburgh’s” sons operated a saw mill at the mouth of the creek a little above the site of the old house. He employed three men in the mill, and one man with a team of horses done the farm work. This was about 1870.

             The Fradenburghs were the first settlers along the river; the Wardells the first along the river shore five miles south. Dan’s wife was a Wardell.

             One day the man plowing just west of the house turned up a skull. He told Dan, and the mill was stopped and all started to explore. They found five large graves, re-interred the bones, and ceased to cultivate that field.

             An official from the provincial museum at Toronto, whose summer home is at Crystal Beach, met “Uncle John Link,” whose wife was a Wilson, another of the pioneer families of that section. He told the story and the official came post haste to the Dan Fradenburgh home, while the Armstrong family were in possession of it. He used an augur with a wide bit in his exploration and found a bit of a vase of French workmanship. He persevered until he got all the pieces and cemented them together. That vase is in the Toronto museum and valued at $10,000 by the authorities there.

             Up on a shelf at the writer’s home lies a tomahawk of French workmanship which her husband plowed out of one of the fields. There are many emblems rudely carved on the blade. The piece is in perfect condition. In his childhood Indians built their wigwams in the swale just north of the Laws homestead. Three or four families lived there and made willow baskets which they sold to the settlers.

             Many a winter evening he remembers three or four Indians silently stealing into the house, squatting in front of the huge fireplace and departing as silently as they came.

             From the doorway of their home they watched an Indian wedding ceremony and feast on a hill on the opposite side of the river.

             On that site a man of “John’s” own age has his beautiful modern farm home.

             Soon after Lorne Wardell, a cousin of Dan’s wife, whose home was in Toronto, came out for a visit. He gathered beads and other little relics, went back and published a story of the “Find,” describing the 7 ft. skeletons etc., in the Toronto World.

             The story attracted considerable attention and a doctor, whose name my informant could not remember, came out and uncovered some of the bones, laid two or three skeletons together and pronounced this one the remains of an Indian, this of a half-breed. The place was an old battlefield without doubt.

             In the meantime two of the little Fradenburgh girls, Sarah and Emma, playing beneath a big Walnut tree, found a gold ring in the sand. On cleaning the ring it was found to have a French inscription. Dan showed this to the doctor, and it is supposed gave it to him. The ring is likely now in the provincial museum.

             While the two of them were chatting the man was plowing near and suddenly one of his horses dropped into a hole. Here more skeletons were found and some hammers and rude tools, as well, showing that white men had been there.

             The doctor told them that the ring and these tools tended to prove the truth of a story that a French boat had in those early days plied a trade with the Indians in furs, but it disappeared.

Now, said Dr._, this looks as if the boat had been driven up the river in a storm, attacked by Indians, and the crew massacred, as the old story conjectured.

The spring freshets of a few years ago washed part of the bank away and more graves were uncovered, apparently those of white men.

             Richard Saunders, a son-in-law of Charles Fradenburg, recently found an old coin near this spot.

             There were three Fradenburg boys, Dan, Charles, and John. Charlie was a farmer. His beautiful home is now unoccupied though still in the possession of his family, a widowed daughter who makes her home at “Riverside.” John’s home was a little farther down the river.  A creek winds behind his building and at its mouth lie the remains of “The Enterprise,” one of the boats which sixty years ago plied up the river as far as Brantford, using the “canal,” now but a weedy depression in the river flats.

             With him was associated Edward and Ben Baxter of Fort Erie. Their boats, the Sowerby and the Enterprise, freighted grain and wood to Buffalo.

             An old sidewheeler, the Dover, owned by Lachlin MacCallum, used to come up the river for gypsum. The old senator’s tug, the Robb, did the towing.

             Here and there a vestige of the old tow-path can be traced.

             Adjacent to the Fradenburg tract is the Jones tract. Here Hiram Macdonald, a cousin of Sir John A., brought his wife and her children. The Laws, the Hanslers, Guinthers and Bradshaws of Welland county are connected with this family, and one daughter, Rebecca, married Abraham Sherk of Bertie township.

             This family landed from old Scotland at Nova Scotia, where some of the brothers remained. Bonar Law was a cousin.

             The Windeckers were the earliest settlers on the opposite side of the river, the Murphy’s following close.

             They operated a rude ferry at Windecker, before Dunnville or Cayuga existed. Indiana, now non-existent, and York, where offices of the Grand River Navigation company were, were the cities-to-be of those days.

             But past is all their fame: the very spot,

             Where for a time they flourished-“bids fair to be forgot.”

The Welland Tribune and Telegraph

12 July 1927