The CHIPPEWA in Drydock at Kingston, Stern.
As the steamer lies at the Queenston Dock, the eye naturally sweeps upward over the cedar clad slopes of the Niagara escarpment toward the striking monument which crowns its heights. The reminiscences are those of martial strife, when on the 13th of October, 1812, contestants met in mortal conflict. In fancy we can see the foemen moving upon the slopes, the American forces gain the Heights, the heroic General Brock leads his men in bold attack to regain possession, and falls at their head mortally wounded. Reinforcements under General Sheaffe come from the west along the summit of the cliffs, the contest is renewed; Indians are seen gleaming among the trees, they drive the invaders over the brink to fall into the rapids below, and at length the American forces with two Generals and seven hundred men lay down their arms and are taken prisoners. But there are other phases much more ancient of this head of navigation and its portages.
Under the hill there can be discerned beneath the shadow of the Height the old road leading up from the lower level of the dock to the upper level upon which, what is left of the Town of Queenston stands. It is marked and scarred with the ruts of many decades and full of memories. Upon these slopes the Indian made his way to the waterside at the Chippewa creek. Here came the trappers with their bales of furs brought down from the far North-West. Here came the voyageur traders of France with beads and gew-gaws for barter with the Indians, and later the English with blankets and firearms.
In the earliest days two portages were available, one on each side of the river, but during the French period and for long, long after the one on the past side from Lewiston was mainly used, its terminus at Lake Erie being called Petite Niagara as distinctive from the great Fort Niagara at its lower end.
With the end of the war of the Revolution, Capt. Alexander Campbell of the 12th Regiment, was sent by Lord Dorchester to report on the portages. In reporting in 1794 he mentions that the American portage was at a steep bank just below the rapids, to the foot of which the batteaux were poled with difficulty and the contents raised by winch and hawser to the upper level some 60 feet above. On the Canadian side at Queenston the eddy was more favorable and there were, he said, four vessels waiting to be unloaded and sixty waggons working on the portage. In consideration of the expected transfer of Fort Niagara he thought it would be better to improve the mouth of the Chippewa Creek and adopt the all-Canadian side instead of sending up supplies on the Fort Niagara side to Schlosser to be boated across to Fort Erie.
Mr. Robert Hamilton, afterwards Hon. Robert, sized up the situation and built a new dock and storehouse on what afterwards turned out to be Government property at the Chippaway River. He had early appreciated the value of the portage and had established a large transfer business across it. Becoming the chief personage of the neighborhood he had in 1789 changed the name of its northern terminus to Queenston instead of the West Landing by which it had previously been known.
With these increased facilities and to his own great profit he in time secured the bulk of the portage trade.
In 1800 John Maude mentions that three schooners and 14 teams were lying at the dock at Queenston on one day, and that from 50 to 60 teams a day passed over the Portage, the rate for freight being 20 pence New York currency per hundred pounds between Queenston and Chippewa.
When the great trek from Maine and Massachusetts began to the Western States of Michigan and Illinois, this Queenston road was mostly taken by the wandering land seekers, it being adopted by them then as the short cut across the Peninsula to the Detroit River instead of the long detour along the south shores of Lake Erie, just as at present the Michigan Central, Wabash and Grand Trunk Railways cross from the Falls on this shortest route to the west.