In Past, Welland River Vital Commerce Route

[Donald Guest, Welland Tribune April 29, 1961]

In this age of of instant coffee, instant puddings, and add-water mixes, it is difficult to become enthusiastic over some project which may not start until years from now.

However, such a project is now getting the support of several organizations, in the peninsula and the following three articles will describe the previous history and future potential of the project to give the general public a groundwork on which to build their support for this work known as the revitalization of the Welland River.

The early history of the Welland River or Chippewa Creek as it was then known, is the history of rugged Peninsular enterprise and the bases for export to Europe of many of our products. Chippawa, means “men without moccasins”, and the basis of the name is unknown to the writer.

For many years, the Chippawa River was the only means of getting to and from the interior of Lincoln County. First the Indian, and then the white man, with progressively better boats made use of the river. In 1856, the Peninsula was divided and the southern part was called Welland County, through which the river ran.

DOCKS AND VILLAGES

As, thanks to the river, the surrounding area became more settled, docks and small villages came to life along the route of commerce. To name some—Beckett’s Bridge, O’Reilly’s Bridge, Canadasville,Port Fanny. Brown’s Point, Henlins Dock, Wellandport and Oswego, which was at the limit of navigation because of shallow water.

Cordwood and grain were the principal items of export which were loaded at the various docks and taken to Black Rock, now a part of Buffalo. Owing to the irregular nature of the river bank, horses could not be used to tow the scows ad originally the scows were poled—many men with wooden poles pushed these great weights by hand for the entire journey. However, as the demand for speedier transportation was required, because of the increase in river traffic, powerful steam tugs were introduced. The first one was the “Notless”, owned by George Sutherland of Wellandport. This was the forerunner of many more tugs, built at Abbey Shipyards at Port Robinson and the Beatty Shipyards at Welland.

Tug names such as the Peter Bennett, Maggie R King, Maggie Bennett, and Five Brothers were prominent in the area of 1863. Names of operators of this area included Joseph Blackwell, Able Bradley and George Sutherland, each specializing in one type of trade. Blackwell hauled cordwood, Bradley handled grain,and Sutherland handled walnut and oak lumber, cut in squares to prevent rolling while aboard scows.

WALNUT IN DEMAND

Walnut from this vicinity was highly favored for furniture and a sizeable export market existed to England and Germany. This wood was shipped on the Welland River to Chippawa on the Niagara River to the Erie Canal, then to Albany, where it was loaded on ocean-going vessels.

The Welland River was also the route of many large picnic parties. Scows with benches would leave various points on the river for Grand Island and return. One such party left port Robinson for Grand Island. Chairs, benches were on deck and all available space was occupied with the majority of passengers being children. No railing or other protection was afforded the passengers and during the trip a little girl fell overboard and was drowned. This catastrophe put an end to picnic excursions on the river.

THE NELLIE BLY

During the year 1908, the last raft of white oak timber was assembled one half mile north of O’Reilly’s Bridge. A tug, Nellie Bly, commanded by Captain Hand of Port Robinson towed this raft down the river to a lock which was located near the present Valencourt Iron Works. The raft was locked into the Welland Canal by the lockmaster, James Kilty, and from there it was towed to Port Robinson and locked back into the river by William Grisdale, lockmaster of that area. The raft continued on the river to Chippawa, where it was re-chained and made safe for the strong currents of the Niagara River by Edwin Hern, who was a veteran river man, having made many trips up the Niagara to Buffalo. The tug, Pilot, towed the raft up the river to Black Rock and thus ended an era for the Welland River

FINAL PASSAGE

The final curtain to through navigation was rung down in 1925 when a raft of piling was brought down from Wellandport to Welland to be used in the inverted syphon, which formed part of the aqueduct under the Welland Canal. The raft was towed by a gasoline-powered boat owned by W. Rounds of Welland and captained by Archie F.. Hern, who was at that time a contractor for Atlas Construction Company. After the raft was locked through, the lock was torn out. As the canal progressed, the Port Robinson locks were also closed, and thus came the end of through navigation on the Welland River.

Readers’ comments on this article and further information on the history of navigation on the Welland River will be welcomed and all will be dealt with in the third of this series.

The writed wishes to acknowledge the help of Archie Hern, who had the foresight to write out and deposit in the Welland Public Library, a resume of the highlights of the Welland River in the early days.

Mr Guest is group leader in the Strip and Tube department of Atlas Steels Ltd. He has lived in this area since 1940.he has represented Crowland Township on the Welland Area Planning Board for the past foutr years and served on the Crowland Township Recreation Commission. Recently he was appointed chairman of a committee set up to corelate the activities of various bodies interested in the industrial and recreational development of the Welland River.

PAST BUSTLED WITH TRADE

To anyone driving along the winding banks of the Welland River today it might seem impossible to imagine it as once the scene of activity which, for the age would closely parallel the present situation on the Welland Canal, But this in fact was the case.

The slow deep waters of the Welland River, originally and still often known as the Chippewa Creek, echoed to the shouts of bargemen and churned under the keels of hard-working tugs pulling heavily- laden rafts of lumber and other commodities between the two great lakes, Ontario and Erie, often stopping off at the thriving little ports and settlements growing along the river.

It was not however only during the few years in which the river was an important part of the canal that the chug and whistle of boats was to be heard. All through the last century, up to the end of the first decade of this present century it remained in use as a commercial waterway, of real vitality in sharp contrast to its tranquility of today, when the surface is broken occasionally by the odd small pleasure craft.

60-MILE STREAM

Taking its source in the Blackheath Swamp in Haldimand County, the Chippawa Creek winds its way for about 60 miles to its mouth by the village of Chippawa on the Niagara River, cutting the Niagara Peninsula roughly in half. Its importance for transportation was recognized very shortly after the arrival of the first settlers in the area following the American Revolution. To these United Empire Loyalists and the government which had to protect Canada from an invasion by the U.S., the strategic possibilities of the river in the development of a waterway to connect the two great lakes was the most immediate concern. If such a link were developed there would no longer be any necessity to keep a fleet on each lake in time of war. The insuperable barrier of Niagara Falls had to be by-passed. Here, it seemed was the means at hand.

In addition the canal would greatly facilitate the movement of merchandise from Montreal and other points to the southern south-eastern portion of the province.

Thus for both economic and military reasons interest focused on the Chippawa Creek. The depth of the river further enhanced its importance, as it was navigable for some 30 miles from its mouth by boats drawing up to 12 feet of water. In these earliest days it was the only method of travel to the interior of the Niagara Peninsula.

As early as 1799 petitions were being filed with the legislature for permission to build a canal; but t was not until 1829 that the first canal was finally completed.

William Hamilton Merritt, a Shipton’s Corners merchant in whose honor the name of Merrittsville was given to this community before it took the name of Welland in 1858, was the man responsible for the first Welland Canal. The owner of a mill at the mouth of the 12-mile Creek near the site of the present Port Dalhousie, Merritt wanted to join the creek with the Chippawa Creek near Allanburg to ensure a constant supply of water for this mill.

The original plan, formulated in 1814, had four years later expanded from the idea of a mere ditch to one of a full-scale canal to enable boats to cross the 25 miles separating the two lakes without having to make the exhausting portage from the foot of the Niagara Falls to the mouth of the Chippawa Creek.

OPPOSED PLAN

Although the planwas bitterly fought by the merchants of Niagara and Queenston, whose business largely

depended on the portage from the mouth of the Chippawa down to the point where the Niagara River was navigable to Lake Ontario, it was completed in 1824. From Port Dalhousie, the ships were to go up 12-mile creek, ascending the escarpment through a ravine, and finally enter the Welland river through a deep cut, almost two miles long, through the ridge which separated (and still does) the origin of the creek at Allanburg from the Welland river.

To provide more direct access to Lake Erie a second canal was to be built from Port Maitland to the Welland River at a point near Pelham. Thus a boat proceeding from Lake Ontario, on reaching the river at a point eight miles from Chippawa would be able to turn east to Chippawa or Buffalo or west through to Port Maitland the Grand River and Lake Erie. A total of 35 locks were to enable boats to negotiate the difference in heighth on the journey

This plan had to be abandoned and the whole history of the waterways in this area was altered by one simple and disastrous discovery-shifting sand bottom in the deep cut which was being dug between Allanburg and the river. With the banks falling in with each bite into the ridge there was no choice but to abandon the idea of having the Welland river as a feeder and summit level of the canal, as the cutting could not be lowered. To river level. Instead a feeder cana had to be built from the Grand River, which was dammed at Dunnville, to the cutting near Allanburg where boats would have to be locked into the Welland River to proceed to Buffalo.

HISTORIC TRIP

The first trip between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was made by two small schooners on Nov. 30, 1829. They had to cut their way through the ice to carry the venture to a successful conclusion, but they did it arriving at Buffalo about 12 hours after they had left Lake Ontario.

However this was still too circuitous and the feeder canal to the Grand river was too narrow for all but the smallest boats. So another route had to be found.

It was in 1831 that Gravelly Bay, now known as Port Colborne was chosen as terminus for the canal in Lake Erie. And in 1833 the aqueduct was completed carrying the river under the canal.

From this time on the river was no longer an integral part of the canal, insofar as traffic between two lakes was concerned, although intercommunication between the two waterways continued for almost another 80 years. At Welland the canal was connected with the upper river by the lock, while other locks at Port Robinson provided access from the canal to the river and vice versa.

This however did not mean that Chippawa Creek, as it was still often called, dried up in economic importance. In fact the boom years were still before it. Huge rafts of logs were regularly to be seen on its waters for the next three-quarters of a century plying back and forth between Wellandport, Port Robinson and Chippawa. Cordwood, walnut timber and wheat were the principal products moved in this fashion, with the walnut being sent as far as Europe to make furniture in Germany.

RUGGED GOING

At first the means of locomotion was by long poles, dug into the river at the front of the raft, and ten followed back as the bulky “ship” moved forward. Horses could not be used, as the river was considered too winding for toll paths. This method was, to say the least, exciting as the men wielding poles could never know when their next cold dip might come. Every once in a while a pole would stick in the mud at the bottom at the rear of the raft, pulling the reluctant polesman into the water on top of it.

It was not too long before human strength made way for steam and in the 1850’s the first tug the “Defiance”. Under the command of Capt James Bampton made its appearance pulling the huge 110 foot-long rafts of logs down the river to buffalo.

This tug was soon followed by others, and in 1863 they were actually being built by local shipyards at Welland and Port Robinson.

On reaching Chippawa however. The smaller tugs were discarded. As only one tug in the area known as the “Pilot” was powerful enough to pull the required load upstream to Buffalo against the raging current of the Niagara River. A monster of its kind the 300 foot-long Pilot pulled 12 cribs tied together in two lots of six to withstand the current and attached to the tug by two-inch ropes which were never used more than once.

The cost for use of the tug in 1890’s was $125 er hour. A good deal of money but there was no alternative for merchants who wished to send goods to Buffalo. On one occasion, another tug tried to compete with the “Pilot”, but succeeded only in standing still against the current; and until rescued by its old rival, seemed in imminent danger of going to a violent end over the Falls.

These were the days when the economic future not only of the river but also of the towns and villages on her banks seemed assured, Wharves and docks sprang up the whole lengths of the river, and around many of them settlements mushroomed. Port Robinson and Wellandport were the two largest, the latter a lumbering and grain distribution centre.

Of the other ports some are still settlements and others are only names. O’Reilly’s Bridge, Canadasville. Where the tug “Whip” blew up while docked at McDonald’s saw mill wharf in 1863, Brown’s Point, Port Fanny, Henderson’s Dock and Beckett’s Bridge—all were once thriving centres of trade and industry.

Welland of course did not exist then. But a settlement known as “The Aqueduct” sprang up around the juncture of the canal and the river where that first wooden structure was built between 1830 and 1833. This was a tiny start of what was to grow into the city of Welland.