Seneca Village, Haldimand County, Caledonia, Ontario

https://ontario.heritagepin.com/seneca-township-in-haldimand/.

Heritage Property INdex » Seneca Township Pre-Confederation Maps and Ancestors Database in Ontario Canada

Caledonia - Along the Grand River - When it all began Caledonia’s story begins with the aftermath of the American Revolution. On October 25, 1784, the British Crown gave Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant and his Six Nations Confederacy six miles of land on either side of the Grand River beginning from its mouth at Lake Erie to its source in present-day Duffe...

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Caledonia,_Haldimand,_Ontario,_Canada.

Place:Caledonia, Haldimand, Ontario, Canada - Genealogy Caledonia is a small riverside community and former town located on the Grand River in Haldimand County, Ontario, Canada. As of September 2006, there were approximately 4,000 households in the community of Caledonia.

Caledonia was once a small strip of land between Seneca and Oneida villages. The Oneida village was started by the Grand River Navigation Company, who laid out the village of Oneida on the south side of the Grand River. The Oneida village plot originally contained 16 acres and was named after the township where it began. In 1835, the same company began the village of Seneca about a mile down the river from Oneida on the opposite side of the Grand River. It was named "Seneca Village" after the township in which it began. The Grand River passed through Caledonia dividing it into two sides, North and South. In 1834, Ranald McKinnon was hired by the Grand River Navigation company to build a dam in Seneca and a dam in Caledonia. Completed in 1835, the dams made water power available with the accompanying lock and excavation finishing early in the following year.[3] Mills sprung up all over Seneca village, and five mills were built in Caledonia by 1850. One renamed Caledonia Mill which has been rebuilt and is now used for office space.

In 1835, William Bryant was the first to own a tavern in town. Official deeds to the lands early settlers occupied were not provided until 1850, however they did have bills of sale. There was a high concentration of Scottish immigrants and as such many of Caledonia's streets are named in honour of this. Most notably, the main street being named "Argyle" after the example of Glasgow in Scotland.

The Hamilton to Port Dover plank road was brought through Caledonia in 1838. A bridge was built across the river in Caledonia and Seneca in 1842. When first built, a stagecoach traveled to both Hamilton and Port Dover daily. These wooden bridges lasted around 19 years before they were swept away by the ice on the river. The Seneca bridge was never rebuilt. As of 2011, the Grand River Bridge built in 1927 serves Caledonia's traffic.

In 1846, David Thompson of Ruthven became the first Member of Parliament for Haldimdand County and died in office 5 years later in 1851. In the succeeding by-election, Ranald McKinnon ran for office but was ultimately defeated by William Lyon MacKenzie.[3] In 1853, Caledonia was incorporated as a village, when the villages of Oneida and Seneca were amalgamated, and later as a town. Ranald McKinnon was the village's first Reeve.

By 1860, the Grand River Navigation company was bankrupt, and their land was sold to different organizations. Seneca village was failing; many people from Seneca moved to Caledonia. Navigation on the river ended by 1880. A whole new way of transportation arrived around 1883; the Grand Trunk Railway passed through Caledonia. Oneida had become part of Caledonia and the town limits were expanding.

In 1875 the Caledonia Dam was sold to milling companies in the area from the Haldimand Navigation company however several of those companies fell into hard times after a series of fires leveled many buildings in the area. McQuarry, Thorburn and Monroe went bankrupt by 1880 and the Caledonia Mill was taken over by Robert Shirra which remained active until 1960.[3]

A highschool was built in 1924, remaining in use as such until 1991 when McKinnon Park Secondary School was constructed and currently houses River Heights Public School. In 1927, the Grand River Bridge was built, unique as the only nine-span bridge of its kind in Canada and the first reinforced concrete bridge of its type ever built. During these years the town also saw the opening of an Opera House and the construction of St. Paul's Angelican Church.[3]

James Little, founder of the Haldimand House ensured that the ongoing railroad project was routed through Caledonia instead of Cayuga and heavily influenced the town into bankrupting itself to make sure that it happened. He became director of the line in 1873. The wooden railway bridge that spanned the Grand River, a local landmark, was opened on September 22, 1873, allowing railway travel from Hamilton to Jarvis and later to Port Dover. A 'Railway Hotel' was built where the current train station sits and, after a series of detrimental fires, the current train station was opened September 30, 1908. As new technology made the train station rather obsolete, the train station fell into a sad state of disrepair and was only restored in November 1997 after a businessman, Ron Clark, saved the property.[3]

In 2006, the Grand River land dispute involving First Nation land claims brought Caledonia to national attention. The land at the centre of the dispute in Caledonia covers 40 hectares, which Henco Industries Ltd. planned to develop as a residential subdivision to be known as the Douglas Creek Estates. It is part of the 385,000-hectare plot of land originally known as the "Haldimand Tract",[4] which was granted, in 1784, by the Crown to the Six Nations of the Grand River, for their use in settlement. Henco argues that the Six Nations surrendered their rights to the land in 1841, and Henco later purchased it from the Crown. The Six Nations, however, maintain that their title to the land was never relinquished. The Grand River land dispute continued with 1492 Land Back Lane, protests occurring during 2020 and 2021.

Caledonia - Along the Grand River - The Incurable Optimist Ranald died on October 18, 1879 in his seventy-ninth year. His wife, Euphemia, was to live for another sixteen years. She died April 30, 1895 in her eighty-third year.