116 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Mr. Green, like Daniel Springer, had been a resident of New 

 Jersey in the Revolutionary days, but had come to Forty Mile Creek 

 not later than 1788, and had built a saw mill and a grist mill there. 

 According to the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, who visited this region 

 in the summer of 1795, Green's mills ground corn for all the military 

 posts of Upper Canada. The Duke also tells that newly cleared land 

 at Forty Mile Creek yielded 20 bushels to the acre the first year; 

 that the farmers plowed their land after it had produced three or four 

 crops; that laborers were scarce and were paid at the rate of six 

 shillings a day; and that wheat brought from seven to eight shillings a 

 bushel, while flour sold at twenty- two shillings per hundredweight. 

 West of Stony Creek at the foot of the mountain was another mill, 

 which belonged to Adam Green^ 



It was not until 18 years after the visit of the Duke de la Roche- 

 foucauld to this region (that is, in 1813) that Springer's farm of 100 

 acres at the Head of the Lake became the first town plot of Hamilton. 

 This was effected by Mr. George Hamilton, who moved in from the 

 Niagara District and bought the place, which he promptly laid out 

 in town lots. Meeting with success in his enterprise, Mr. Hamilton 

 gave the town a block to be used as a court house square, another 

 on John Street to serve as a market place, and a strip through the center 

 of King Street, called the Gore. The citizens were not slow in showing 

 their appreciation of these gifts, for they at once discarded the awkward 

 and indefinite designation. Head of the Lake, in exchange for the family 

 name of their benefactor. Originating thus as a small loyalist settle- 

 ment, Hamilton has developed into a prosperous city now nuipbering 

 more than 90,000 inhabitants.^ 



The neighboring townships on both sides of Burlington Bay 

 gained refugee pioneers along with Barton, the township in which 

 Hamilton is situated. The village of Ancaster sprang up in such 

 a community as this, and by 1793 had a grist mill. In 1798, Mr. 

 Asa Danforth, an American, came to Upper Canada, and entered into 

 a contract with the government to open a road from Kingston through 

 to Ancaster. This contract was completed in three years, and for 

 a considerable time thereafter the new thoroughfare was known as 

 the Danforth Road. When in January, 1799, Richard Beasley 

 received orders to enrol the militia of West York, he was able to 

 muster 100 men, most of whom were Loyalists or their sons, partly 

 from the Fifth Lincoln and partly from the Second York Battalion. 

 These militiamen were inhabitants of Saltfleet, Binbrook, Barton, 



^ Canniff, Settlement of Upper Canada, 205; Robertson, éd., Diary of Mrs. 

 Simcoe; The Hamilton Spectator, Aug. 12, 1913, 2. 

 2 The Hamilton Spectator, Aug. 12, 1913, 2. 



