by Dianalyn Kennedy
West Rouge resident and former Features Editor, West Rouge Review.
Reprinted from the winter 1998 and spring 1999 editions of the West Rouge Review magazine.

Twelve thousand years ago, the glaciers retreated from southern Ontario and nomadic peoples came in search of food and more hospitable living conditions. Although there has been minimal archaeological evidence of early inhabitants, it is widely believed that there was early human habitation in this area and that more discoveries are going to be made in the Rouge watershed.

Fluctuating water levels throughout history made identification of landmarks more complicated as the powerful forces of nature changed the landscape, and submerged areas that likely hold a treasure of artefacts from the past. Ice deposits in the St. Lawrence Valley melted, Lake Iroquois receded and the present Lake Ontario was formed.

In what is termed the Initial Woodland period which covers the time from 1,000 BC to 700 AD, we know that native peoples seasonally visited the Rouge Watershed area. The eight identified sites appear to have been short-term campgrounds. In the Late Woodland period, however, it would seem there were more specialised activities in this area. There have been a number of excavated sites which appear to have been built for specific purposes such as fishing, planting crops, and hunting deer. After several centuries of small-scale warfare and depletion of resources, these groups began to move northward.

In the mid 1600s the Iroquois began to establish villages along the north shore of Lake Ontario in an attempt to expand the fur hunting grounds. The Seneca chose the mouth of the Rouge River to build Gandatsekiagon.
Rivers throughout time have provided man with the most fundamental resources such as food, water, and transportation. The Rouge is no exception. Although sources differ, the most common native names for the Rouge seem to be the Keitchee or Katabokokonk. Champlain shows a river which may be the Rouge on a map he made in 1632. The famous Toronto Carrying-Place Trail had two arms or routes northward of Lake Ontario. The Humber River arm was better known and more widely used, but the Rouge River route was at times preferred depending on the circumstances and the political situation. The Rouge arm seems to have been favoured in earlier times, especially by the French. The first recorded history of Europeans in Toronto is the mission that Fathers Fenelon and d'Urfe built at the foot of the Rouge trail in 1669. The following years passed with native and French fur traders sharing the waterway.

When the French were defeated at Quebec in 1759, power passed to the English. French fur traders remained active in the area, but in general things were relatively quiet. This was the lull before the storm. The flood of United Empire Loyalists from the new United States sent British administration scurrying to find compensation for them. After being secured by treaty, the land was surveyed and granted to settlers with legitimate claims.

One of the earliest European settlers in the area was a German-speaking business man from upper New York State, William von Moll Berczy. With the blessing of John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Berczy led his group up the Rouge River and along the Rouge arm to their designated lots in Markham Township. Berczy also cleared and improved the ancient Rouge arm of the Toronto Carrying-Place Trail. At a sharp bend in the river, a natural landing place existed for unloading goods for the Trail. This eventually became the nineteenth century location for Kirkham's Mill.

Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe, in an effort to remould his surroundings in as English a fashion as possible, renamed the Riviere Rouge the Nen. However, the more familiar name of Rouge remains in local common usage.

In 1791, by order-in-council, the division was made between Upper and Lower Canada. Each was to have its own legislative council and assembly. Simcoe, in his efforts to organise the province along British lines, established English civil law, trial by jury and a full judicial system. His goal was to create a contrast to the republican experiment to the south and honour the glory
of England in this new land. By the time Simcoe had completed his term of office in 1796, he had placed one seventh of the surveyed townships in the hands of the Church of England and had provided very well for his council and civil servants.

The construction of roads to allow the settlers to enter the townships and farmers to obtain supplies, proved to be a difficult task at times. One of the obstacles was caused by the steep hill on the east side of the Rouge River. The final solution was the Toll Gate at the Rouge. By the turn of the century most of the land around West Rouge was still in the hands of "non-residents", the military men and clergy who had been given the land grants but lived elsewhere. The only villages of any significance to emerge in the early 1800s were Rouge Hill, Rosebank, a campground on the east side of the Rouge, and Port Union.

Port Union had only a population of about one hundred: however, it was a bustling centre and important due to its location. In 1824 there were eight sawmills, four grist mills, three carding mills, and two fulling mills on the big and little Rouge. Some of these old mills or remnants remain today.

The forests surrounding the upper Rouge were a source of oak and white pine which was highly prized for square timber, an essential in the building of great wooden sailing ships. A "mast road" ran down the ridge between the Little Rouge Creek and the Rouge proper, where huge square timbers were dragged down by horses and floated down the river to Lake Ontario. By the 1850s the forests were used primarily as a source of cord wood and sawlogs for the various mills operating on the rivers. Records show by this time our neighbourhood was primarily cleared land.

Port Union was started by Thomas Adams, an immigrant from Vermont. He arrived in 1808 and built a log cabin overlooking the lake on what is now the Johns Manville property. Adams captained a ship during the war of 1812, and it is said that he was forced to sail into the mouth of Highland Creek and there he threw overboard his entire cargo of guns, ammunition, and brass kettles. Along with reports of a British pay ship losing ?38,000 and the wreckage of a ship being visible in the ever shifting sands, the legends of sunken treasure came to be.

Trade flourished along both sides of Lake Ontario. Port Union became known as shipbuilding centre and produced many fine vessels of note such as the Duke of York and the Charlotte of Pickering. Thomas Adam built a small sailing ship in 1834 to secure his share in the profitable shipping business and during the next fifteen years many others followed suit on the beaches of Port Union. These modest vessels were known on the great lakes as the Highland Rangers. The Scarborough, Markham and Pickering Wharf Company was built in 1848 at the foot of Port Union Road. The wharf itself extended approximately two hundred and fifty feet southeast into the lake.

Port Union was a booming centre in the 1850s. Will Hetherington opened the Union Hotel in 1850 to accommodate visiting farmers and travellers, and the Grand Trunk Railroad opened in 1856. Toronto was experiencing a building boom about this time, and rock for foundations was in short supply. "Stone-hookers", the very men who loaded rock by day, would return at night to steal the rock for sale to Toronto, resulting in the passing of a legislation to curtail stone-hooking.

Stoners Hotel was erected in 1869 and owned by Thomas Laskey. Will Hetherington
immediately rebuilt his premises to stay competitive. The Port Union Post Office opened across the track from the station, and the postmaster's wife sold groceries. The village also boasted a blacksmith, a cooper, a railroad contractor, and various railway employees. Children received their education from a Mrs. Chapman in the very early days. Eventually the Port Union school was built on land on the Ellesmere extension, south of Kingston Road near Port Union purchased from Adams. The Bible Christian Congregation built a little stone church in 1863 and in 1891 Centennial Church was built. Eventually the Wharf company began to loose business to the railway and a severe storm in 1895 wrecked the dock, putting the company out of business for good. The population dwindled, the hotels closed, and that was the end of an era.

> Continue to Part 2
> Back to top