18 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
county of Lincoln, at the time the township was named [by Governor Simcoe 
in 1791], extended from the Niagara River to the Dundas Creek (Desjardins 
Canal), taking in Barton and all the west of the present south riding of 
Wentworth.” See pp. 266, 274 of the same work. 
Mr. E. B. Biggar, in an article on the battle field of Stoney Creek and its 
environments (Hamilton Spectator, June, 1873), gives the following descrip- 
tion of the site of the present city of Hamilton as far back as 1813:— 
“As near as I have been able to ascertain, the ground on which the city 
of Hamilton now stands was then owned as follows: George Hamilton, after 
whom the city was named, owned 200 acres south of the road—which is now 
King Street, and east of James Street. Bounding this on the north, and 
extending from James to Wellington Streets, was Hughson’s farm, whose 
name is still preserved in Hughson Street. These two farms were bounded 
on the west by the property of William Wedge ; and on the east by the farms 
of Ephraim and Colonel Robert Land. Though these were called farms, 
nothing grew on them but a low undergrowth, indicative of marshy ground, 
called ‘scrubby oak.’ A man named Barns kept a tavern in a small frame 
house on the present corner of King and James Streets, and was said to own 
100 acres of land somewhere in that part. This old signless frame tavern 
may be said to have been the germ and beginning of the city of Hamilton. 
These buildings enumerated, planted in the midst of an unknown forest, like 
so many islands in an ocean, were all that then was of Stoney Creek and 
Hamilton—a name then unknown as a locality. That part of Hamilton now 
known as ‘Dundurn Castle’ was termed the Heights as well as the high 
land on the other side of the canal. On the grounds around the site of the 
Castle, and in other places entrenchments were cut and trees felled for some 
distance around, with their branches pointing outward, as a sort of chevaux 
de frise, traces of which may yet be seen in the present cemetery. And 
behind these entrenchments was Vincent’s camp.” 
See also “History of the Barton Lodge” (Hamilton, 1895), which contains 
some interesting historical incidents of the district under consideration. 
BURLINGTON HEIGHTS. 
Note 7, page 6. 
Mr. Gardiner has written the following interesting letter in answer to 
some queries put to him by the author of the address: 
‘“ The name of Geneva Lake was changed to Burlington Bay by proclama- 
tion of Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe in 1792, while he was in the mood that 
caused him to call Niagara Newark and Toronto York. His idea probably 
was to complete the resemblance to the surroundings of Flamborough in York- 
shire, as described in the Edinburgh Gazetteer of 1822, page 688: ‘Burlington, 
or Bridlington, situated on a bay called Burlington Bay, formed by Flam- 
borough Head, which is about five miles distant, nearly N.E.’ The location 
of Flamborough Head in our township of East Flamborough, which in 
Governor Simcoe’s time belonged to the County of York, precisely corresponds 
with this description. I see also, in an old atlas of England, that outside of 
Burlington Bay was a beach, called Smithnick’s Sand, thus completing the 
resemblance. The heights here were named after the bay, and the village 
