THE BITTER WAR OF 1812 LEFT PATH OF DESTRUCTION BEHIND – PIONEER DAYS

BY Robert J. Foley

[Welland Tribune, 11 January 1992]

Nowhere in the country had the effects of the War of 1812 been more evident than in the Niagara Peninsula. Besides the destruction of Newark and St. David’s, the town of Queenston was heavily damaged. The mills of Bridgewater as well as others had been burned by the retreating Americans or their raiding parties.

The farmers probably lost more than any others in this conflict. Many fought in the militia regiments neglecting the work necessary to grow their crops and feed their families. Fences were pulled down for firewood by both sides and many barns and houses were burned by American raiders. Refuse pits dug in the fields made some acreage untillable for some time.

The primitive transportation system was also in tatters. Roads were rendered impassable due to the heavy transports that weaved their way back and forth across the area. Bridges were burned or torn up. In present day. Welland Misener’s Bridge was burned by the British to impede the advance of the enemy. Brown’s Bridge, which was built about 1795 to cross the Welland River at the foot of Pelham Road, was also destroyed, but somehow it escaped the fate of its eastern neighbor.

The task of rebuilding was a daunting one and to many, who had started from scratch just 20 odd years before, the thought of beginning again must have been discouraging indeed.

Major David Secord stood before the ruins of his home in St. David’s. Only the chimney was left standing and a few bits of charred furniture were recognizable in the rubble. He had also lost a store and a large barn to the marauding American militia.

There was no question but that he would rebuild, beginning again. It seemed to him that his whole life had been spent starting over. One bright spot, however, was the promise of compensation for losses immediately suffered due to enemy action. The funds were to be raised by selling properties forfeited to the crown by those who had gone over to the invaders during the conflict. Still Secord was worried about the length of time it would take to pay the claims.

David Secord’s family was fortunate to have relatives in the Queenston area to stay with until a new house could be built, but many of his neighbors were under canvas with prospect of spending the winter in deplorable conditions. Major Secord knew that once the patriotic fervor over the war declined that the government might be reluctant to hand out money to those who had lately risked life and limb to save the country.

Worse yet were the families of men killed or crippled in the fighting. What was to become of them? He mounted his horse and rode back toward Queenston pondering the future of his devastated community.

While the peninsula was struggling to regain its feet with the end of the war, William Hamilton Merritt had not been idle while a prisoner of war. He took the opportunity to rekindle his friendship with the family of Dr. Prandergast of Mayville, New York, and in particular the good doctor’s daughter Catherine Hamilton, as he was usually called. Had met them when they lived near DeCew Falls and a budding romance had sprung up between the two. The romance had resulted in an engagement just prior to the move of the Prendergasts to Mayville just before the war.

With Merritt’s capture and confinement in Massachusetts for eight months he was able to communicate more frequently and on his release he headed to Mayville where he was married to Catherine on the 13^th of March 1815. Merritt arrived in Buffalo with his new bride on a cool spring evening. They had come from Mayville on roads of upstate New York. Buffalo was in the process of being rebuilt and the sounds of hammers and saws filled the air with their symphony. The destruction caused in December of 1813 was disappearing under an onslaught of new lumber.

They moved on to Black Rock to await the ferry to take them across to Fort Erie the following morning as Hamilton was anxious to get home after so long an absence. The Merritts rode into Shipman’s Corners in the middle of the afternoon. The settlement along the Twelve had escaped the fate of St. David’s and had come through the war relatively unscathed. Its strategic location on the main Niagara-Burlington Road should have made it a prime target, but although some of its inhabitants were taken prisoner, including Hamilton’s father, Thomas, the buildings were spared. Merritt felt the warmth of home as he passed the church and approached Paul Shipman’s Tavern to the greeting so many of his acquaintances. They remembered Catherine from her previous stay and made her welcome. After they have been coaxed into the Tavern for a toast they headed out to the old family homestead on the Twelve Mile Creek.

William Hamilton Merritt spent a few months trying to decide what lay in the future for him. The one thing he knew for certain was that his military experience left him ill-suited for the quiet life of a farmer. The thought slowly formed.

In his mind that perhaps business was his calling. Goods of every kind were in short supply and if he could make use of the connections he had made during the war, perhaps he could become a merchant in the district. With the destruction of so many mills in the Peninsula there was money to be made there as well. He soon fixed his sights on such ventures and began to lay his plans to see them through. That decision changed the history of the Niagara peninsula forever.

Historical Notes: (1) The Bridgewater Mills were located on the Niagara River near Dufferin Islands. (2) Misener’s Bridge carried present day Quakers across the Welland River.  The crossing disappeared with the building of the canal. If you go down to the foot of the Pelham Road when the waters of the Welland River are low, you will see five of the original pilings of Brown’s Bridge. They have been services of our past for 196 years.