[jAMEs] SECOND LEGISLATURE OF UPPER CANADA 187 



loo township. ]\Ir. J. H. Smith writes that about the year 17S5 or 

 1786 j\Ir. Eiehard Beasley, who carried on quite an extensive trade 

 with tlie Indians, hiid claim to the land where Dundurn Park is now 

 situaited. He also pre-einpted the adjoining property known as Beas- 

 ley' s PIoUow, and afterwards erected a mill on the stream flowing 

 into Co'Ote's Paradise. On his monument in the churchyard at 

 Christ's Church Cafchedrail, HJamilton^ the following inscripition is 

 found: 



" ' In memory of Eiehard Beasley, Esquire, wdio departed this life 

 on the 16th day of February, 1842, aged 80 years and seven months. 

 The first settler at the Head of the Lake.' 



" Mr. Beasley became a member of Barton lodge of freemasons in 

 1T95, and in 1803 the lodge held its meetings in his house, which 

 occupied part of the ground now included in Dundurn Park. J. Ross 

 Robertson's " History of Freemasonry in Canaida " says that " an early 

 resident of Barton township, if not the first, was brother Richard 

 Beasley, who was an Englishman by birth. Mrs. John Graves Simcoe 

 knew Mr. Beasley, and made a number of sketches of Burlington Bay 

 and Coote's Paradise. He wa.s not only a mill owner, but storekeeper, 

 and located in Barton townshiip about 1794 or 1795. He ti^aded with 

 the Indians and kept a general store on what is now King street, 

 Hamilton. Brother Richard Beasley wias the W. M. of Barton lodge 

 prior to 1810, and wrote a letter to R. W. Bro. Jarvis, dated March 

 22nd, 1802, concerning masonic and personal matters from which the 

 following extract is taken: 



With reg'ard to your negro woman, she is certainly not worth as much 

 as when you first purchased her; in the first place, she is older and will 

 never miake as good servant as What she had been, as she has adopted 

 different ideas from what she formerly possessed. The female child you 

 mentioned worth £30, New York currency, I do not want. I will give you 

 for the negro woman £50, New York currency, if you owe that much to 

 Barry estate shall settle it with your executors. I remain, dear s'lr, your 

 very humWe servant, Richard Beasley. 



" Mr. Beasley's house and store were on the north side of King 

 street, west of Ferguson avenue. The building was standing in 1860. 

 It was built of hewn timbers covered with clap-boards. It stood about 

 eight feet back from the present street line. He owned at the same 

 time a house in Dundurn, and his descendants state that Richard 

 Beasley moved to his house at Dundurn immodiately after his arrival 

 in Barton, and that his sons, Richard, George, David C, and Henry 

 Beasley, were born in the house and that Henry (the father of Thomas 

 Beasley, city clerk of Hamilton) was born in 1793. Without docu- 

 mentary evidence, it is believed that the first house of Richard Beasley, 



