1897 - The Beach in Winter
In the depths of winter, the Hamilton Times carried a lengthy account of what conditions were like along the Hamilton Beach Strip, the sandstrip between Lake Ontario and Burlington Bay (now Hamilton Harbor)
Accompanied by noted Times artist, J. Thompson, the Times reporter's observations, which appeared in the February 19 1897 edition follow in full:
“Few people have any idea of the beauties of winter on the Beach when to its natural loveliness is added the handiwork of that cunning little fellow Jack Frost, A ride out on the electric car on a bright afternoon when there is a good coating of new snow on mother earth and a keen frost, will richly pay a lover of majestic beauty for his trouble. Just now the Beach is lined with fine big hummocks of ice that change the aspect of the whole scenery and in places shut out from view Ontario’s blue water and fringe of ice. Some of the ice mounds are of great size, rising 30 or 35 feet and extending for hundreds of feet. You can go out on the ice quite a long distance on the lake and get a fine view of the mounds towering above the cottages in the back ground. Our illustrations show a very interesting formation of ice with Elsinore on the left hand and Elsinore station on the right.
The wind and water have played queer pranks with the ice. The constant shoving has forced it down on the sandy lake bottom and then heaved it up in grotesque shapes, carrying with it deposits of sand that look very odd on top of the mounds. Then the alternate thaw and frost have consolidated and beautified the big deposits.
“No more beautiful winter scene can be found anywhere in this part of the country than that shown in the illustration of the lake shore.
The gradual curve of the lake from the piers to Burlington village, with the Beach cottages, the Radial railway power house, the village and the long wharves in the distance; a railway train, puffing on its way and the ice formations on the shore make up a picture for an artist. The third scene presented in our illustration today is of more usual interest just now.
It shows the canal reserve on the south side of the canal, where Captain Campbell has long held sway with a more or less vigorous hand. The reserve extends 660 feet on each side of the canal. A few years ago the city got control of all parts of it not actually in use for Government purposes, and proceeded to have a lot of old tumble-down shanties removed and the place beautified. Now the Department of Public Works finds it necessary to take part of the land that the city has had control of for use in connection with the new swing bridge. The cut shows Captain Campbell’s house and the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club beyond; the Radial Electric Railway track and the bridge tender’s house, also the new Swing Bridge and a portion of the canal piers.
“Life on the Beach is slow enough in winter time, but seems to have fascinations, for there are living on the sandy strip men who have spent scores of years there; younger men who were born, raised and married there; young men and fair maidens who through summers’ heat and winters’ frost love their quiet home. Old John Dynes is perhaps the best known man on the Beach.
He has recently pulled through what his friends feared would be his last illness. He carries the weight of years – almost four score and ten – remarkably well. For more than half a century, he has catered to the public on the Beach. Back in the 30’s and early 40’s, he was famous as a sailor and had the finest vessel on Lake Ontario. He has, too, been a good sportsman and a thoroughly honest, warm-hearted man.
“Old Mr. VanWagner, of VanWagner’s Beach, the south end of the bar, is another of the veterans.
He is not far from the age of Mr. Dynes and has quite a history. What he knows about the early history of this part of the Province would make a big book and he has the ability to write one, too, as everybody who remembers the sketches by ‘Hans’ will admit.
“Mr. John Hughes is another of the most familiar residents.
Sometimes he is called the Poo-Bah of the Beach, but the name is a misnomer, for Mr. Hughes is a worker, early, late, and between times. True, he has held several offices, such as Beach postmaster and a sort of general commissioner for the city, but he has always done his work faithfully and with no princely remuneration. He is one of the sort of men who thinks nothing of a trouble if it will oblige a pleasure-seeker or neighbor, and his pretty and well-kept cottage has always a welcome for a visitor.
Captain Campbell and his brother are also familiar figures.
They, of course, are always to be found around the canal, where the captain’s duties as lighthouse and lifeboat keeper require his attention.
“Then there are the Corey’s, the McGwynns, the Williamses, and other well-known families, to say nothing of that most capable of city servants, Engineer McFarlane, of the Beach pumping works. By the way, the last mentioned is not a lover of ice mounds or ice shoves. They interfere with his official duties by jamming in front of the filtering basins and preventing the water from filtering as fast as the citizens demand it. The water has to be let in direct from the lake via the conduit, and the result is that tap filters are in demand up town. And so it is. What one man would travel miles to see and admire another wishes would never be seen – what is one man’s joy is another’s annoyance.”
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