Text
Beverly Branton interviewing Mr. Ray Miller on May 6, 1985. The
interview is being held at the Fort Erie Public Library on Central
Avenue.
B.B.:
Could you give me your date of birth, Mr. Miller, please?
R.M.:
September the 27th, 1930.
B.B.:
And your place of birth?
R.M.:
Niagara Falls, Ontario.
B.B.:
And where abouts are you living now?
R.M.:
We're living on a, it's a lot, it's part of the original farm. Which is
about one-half mile· north of Niagara Christian College.
B.B.:
Is that in the Fort Erie area?
R.M.:
Oh, yes, that's in, that's in the Fort Erie. It was Bertie Township of
course but now it's Fort Erie.
B.B.:
Now, your family goes back in this area for quite a few generations,
is that correct?
R.M.:
The Miller family, our family, John Miller, would go back to about
1800, maybe just slightly before that.
B.B.:
And his reason for coming to this area?
R.U.:
I believe they came here, they were not United Empire Loyalists
themselves, but they came here with the same feelings that..
They wanted to leave, they were loyal to the crown and they wanted
to leave the United States. They came from Maneron township, Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania, about 1800. The first two or three of the family
were born there, near the Susquehannc:River near Conestoga country.
B.B.:
Would you just reflect back a bit on what, in the changes you yourself
have seen in the Niagara Boulevard area?
R.M.:
Well, there's a great many more homes are along the river then there
use to be. There's not too many lots that are not built upon. Some
areas is not built up quite as much as others. Between our place and
Black Creek where it was the Dr. Cobb's estate, there's not too many
homes built along there. But most areas are pretty well built up and
at what time there was about..between Black Creek and Fort Erie..
probably, let's see, five or six farms and now
I
don't think there's any.
We had a farm, and there was a farm, Hardy Miller at Miller's Creek
and there was a farm what we called the Briggs
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Williams farm,
it was down at Baker's Creek and then there was the old Dr. Cobb
farm where Sumbler Beam lived and that was about, oh, approximately
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two miles from where we lived but the buildings are pretty well
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all gone. dur barn was burned down in '57. It was beginning to
get well, a little bit shoddy, and so we decided, my father died in
'54 so the barn was tore down a few years later. Most of the equipment
was sold, dispensed with.
When we use to go for any farm machinery repairs we would
go to Stevensville. There was Jim Baker was Massey Huris dealer
and Milton Plyley was Internation\ Harvester and we went quite
often to Stevensville because we'd go over there and my dad had
a '29 Model A Ford coupe. That was the only car he ever owned.
He bought it before he and ma were married and he still had it when
he died in '54, May 17 . of '54. We use to put bags of grain in the
back of the car and go over to Daddy Beam's Mill. We called him
Daddy Beam, I just can't recall his first name now but he ran a chopping
mill there where we got grain ground · for the pigs or whatever, pigs
or cows or whatever you were feeding the grain to. And he ran
the mill there in Stevensville. It was run by electric power
and
I believe they said that the line was rather inadequate that the hydro
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had in that time, back in the '40's and '50's and Ted Bissel who ran
a barber shop for years in Stevensville and he's dead now but he
had a barber shop right next to Daddy Beam's Mill and everytime
Beam started up the big motor, the big pulley-horsepower electr�c
motor and everytime he started up why•if he was cutting hair, why
the clippers would literally stop right in the guys hair and there'd
be some pretty strong language because if you went to pull out the
clippers�wh)'lf}'OU might be pulling hair out. So, that's just a few
of the little things I remember over there.
I also remember Lloyd Wale's cider mill and he ran that with
a big, old gas engine and that could be heard, the noise from that
engine could be heard for probabliy. two or three miles or more, well
outside of Stevensville. So we use to go over there and get some
apples, take ap)J!les over to make cider and that's a few of the things
I can remember.
There was..l guess Fred Staples had an insurance business there
and I remember dad going there for insurance for the car and we
didn't have him for insurance for the farm because we were always
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with the Bertie and Willoughby Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Co..
They: seemed to cover a great many of the farmers in the area.
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B.B.:
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Where were they located?
R.M.:
I was trying to think who was the agent. They were not located
in this area, their head office, it was, well I'm sure if it was up in
Clinton, further up in Ontario or just where it was but they were,
at one time Carmen Sauer back in thecountry, just shortly after
my dad died, he was the agent and right now apparently the agent
for them is Ted Jewson but
I
think that...oh, and in about 1846 we
located an old tax receipt at home, in the township of Bertie and
the farm was about
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acres and it had on the house and the barn
and a long shed where we had the car in and some equipment in
there and the taxes was a glorious sum of $46.00. It was just coi.ncidential
that it was about the year '46. But it was classed as agricultural
but even then you consider what agricultural la.nd is now and of
course everything, inflation has gone into it and of course it's gone
right up you know, as far as everything else is that way.
As far as phones were concerned we had a phone at one time
in the house but it was not in my memory because the leads were
in the wall, that is where they had been put in and we use to go
to the neighbours and use their phones and of course it was the old
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hand crank phones.
I
don't know why the phone was taken out, whether
my dad, they thought it was too expensive or whether others were
doing what we done later, coming to the house and bug you for the
phone, to use it or whatever but the phones were the old hand cranked
phones. And that's when it was the Welland County Phone System
which was the predeccesor of I believe to Bell in this area.
B.B.:
What year would that have been around?
R.M.:
Oh, I can remember their phones in a few of the homes right up
'til Bell took over which would have been, I think maybe in the mid
'50's, someplace in there if I'm not mistaken, when Bell took over.
I'm not just sure when they took over but they took over the old
Welland County phone system.
And we had a gas well on the corner of the farm and in my time
I never remember, now this is down close· to the town line road,
I never remember the well being functional from the stand point
of providing gas. I remember that the casing, which is the inner
part, pipe, which goes well nearly to the bottom. This well had
been down to the red medina which is around 725 feet in our area
there. They generally didn't drill much below that because if they
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didn't get gas in the red medina which is a porous rock, to go into
the white medina below that generally didn't prove to give them
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a much stronger well. But anyway, the dried pipe is put down, the
outer case, the outer pipe is put down to the rock and the inner casing
is put inside of that and the inner casing was rusted off down about
oh, twelve feet or so which would have been the river level. The
water was up in the well to the river level and it was always bubbling
and we use to drop a match down in there and get back because
it would...and it would just blow itself out. Well, this young friend
of mine who lived down, incidentally on the Briggs
there at Black Creek, his name is Jimmy Smith,
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Williams farm
think he still lives
in this area..anyway, Jimmy he didn't, he didn't believe me or ·wouldn't
get back soon enough so it just, he wasn't old enough to shave, it
just singed all, all the fuzz on his face, his eyebrows and the front
of his hair, you know just sindged everything off onto him,
�ecause
he didn't get back soon enough. But this well was drilled by drillers
from Pennsylvania. They came up and drilled for the Gas Co.. Now
I don't know what the gas company would have been called at that
time. Years ago it was Provincial Gas before it was Consumer's
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Gas but anyway at that tif!1e it was not deemed to be a strong enough
well to warrant keeping it. And my grandmother bought the well
and dad and her use gas in the house and they also supplied gas up
as far as where the Redemp foristine
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Nuns, I believe it's called
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The Monostary of the Most Holy Redeemer which is right next to
the Niagara Christian College. That house was built in about 1826
and would have been my grandfather, and I just forget if he, I think
he was about the first one to be born in that house of the family.
There were others were born in the little log house that was back
close to the barn, the farm house, back behind the do11ms at the
Niagara Christian College, the boy's dormitory and the duplex for
the teachers and the log house was originally back there. Well
anyway the well, the gas was supplied that far where the nuns now
are. This is a great uncle of mine, Uncle Charlie and this is where
this Aunt Gus who we'll refer to later, she was the one who had the
diary, they lived in there. They were the children of the second
marriage of my great grandfather. First wife was Sephira Riselay
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and when she passed on he married Sarah Haun and they had at least
three children by the second marriage. And the first marriage was
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..
a large family and I'll try to get into that a little later. This gas well
it supplied all the gas they needed down there at the old home.
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There w.as no storm windows on the house and there was no insulation.
The old house where my dad and grandmother lived along with ·
the other children who were raise:lin there but who married and moved,
well were given lots off the farm, my dad was given the farm because
he looked after my grandmother until she, until just about she died,
which was about February of 1930..anyway, the gas from the gas
wells provided all the heat they needed for there, : no insulation,
no storm windows,. The front part of the house was moved back in
1909 hwhen the Park Commission come through. It was built �pproximately
1825-1835 and it was beams, bark still on some of the beams, this
would be the joints under the floor and some _of the wall members
and rafters with smaller poles with the bark still on and that was
moved back in about 1909 when the Park Commission come through.
And then the back part w·as built on in about 1910 by I believe carpenters
by the name of Johnson from Ridgeway and anyway...
B.B.:
Excuse me, in 1909 the Niagara Parks Commission .. that's when
they took over the Parkway.?
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R.M.:
Yes, that's right, that's right. I'll alleviate here with this gas heating
bit. There was quite a battle royal between my grandmother and
the Parks Commission and there was two or three others. I believe
they might have been people by the·name of McCrady's down towards
Chippawa and possibly the others would have been up at Scottdales.
And they did not
e��ept what the Parks
Commission was willing
to offer and it went before arbitration, court hearings, lawyers
and we still have a number of the documents there that Gram Miller,
as we called her, entered into a quite a lengthy, drawn out legal
maneuvers to try and.. well, they didn't want to give up the property
is what it amounted to. They owned the property right down to
the waters edge and they didn't want to give it up and the Parks
Commission was called the Queen
Victoria Parks at that time.
They were intent and bound and bent at that time of course to obtain
the full, right through from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake. .. And
they moved the house back, put in a basement under the back part
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when that part was built on about the time tha1: the front part was
moved back. And they put in a water line, and they put in a basement
drain down to the river. They moved the back part of the barn back,
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the front part of the barn and the middle section of the barn was
torn down, they moved the back part of the barn back and..one of
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their lawyers told, so it goes, he said, ' Mrs. Miller, he said, you've
got, despite what they've done, you've got done out of about $200.'
This is what I was always told and that would have been considered
a good sum at that time. You know, because now it doesn't sound
like anything but then you know, a dollar was a dollar.
And the middle part of the barn was where my grandfather,
Grampa Miller, and he died considerably before 1900, perhaps, I
have the dates at home, but perhaps oh, fifteen years or more, he
wasn't that old of a man when he died. And he was a cabinet maker
by trade and that's where he made, done his work, and we have a
number of items, they're solid walnut tables, a cherry wood, glass
front china cupboard. There is what we just called the cupboard
because it's, you can put china and stuff in and that's all solid walnut,
that's there and numerous other things that he made and all his
tools where there until after my dad died, and unfortunately my
mother was in need of some money and one of these antique dealers,
I think by the name of Button, she always said his name was, he
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come down from around Fonthill and he give her peanuts and he
took all.. there was some 46-48 of these hand planes, the kind where
he used for making mouldings. Each plane were for a different
shape, you know of moulding. It was all done by hand. And there
was agreat big chest and that was out in the barn and there was
a few other things he took, corn sheller, different other things that
would have been of interest to potential customers of his.
And the front part of the barn was right on the bank where there's
a large walnut tree there now and I don't know how old that tree
is but it's still thereA-nd that front part had a laid stone foundation
wall and in the time of, I wouldn't say it was the liquor prohibition,
possibly it was even some stuff that was storErl
in their by a
bootlegger. But certainly at the time when the kerosene, they were
smuggling kerosene across the border and we know that someone
was storing kerosene in there. Now we weren't involved in that
but it's just that they would probably store stuff in there.
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B.B.:
What time about was this?
R.M.:
When would that be? That would be, of course before it was moved
back so that would be around the turn of the century, maybe give
or take a decade either way.
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B.B.:
R.M.:
What was the roadway along that...?
The roadway was just a mud road and it went very close to the bank
and where the old walnut tree is, they went on the outside of that
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with the horses and the buggies and it got so bad that �ll the roots
were exposed from that tree and when the Parks Commission come
along they dumped load after load. They hired local people with
horses and, we called them dump wagons, they could· be filled up
with ground or stone or whatever and they had a rachet on them
and a release. We had one there at one time and the whole bottom
would open up like the bottom of a hopper car on the railroad and
they would dump them. I don't know how many loads of ground
on the outside of that and this tree is pretty well back although
it is suffering from age and time but a lot of it was dead, and we
cut it out, and it's pretty well grown back..this large black walnut,
t he biggest one that I know of around here. I would say tha� the
diameter of the trunk probably is in the neighbourhood of five feet
anyway, but it's probably hollow because squirrels get into it. And
in the winter when the roads were
very bad they use to drive on
the ice. They would go down on the ice, that is with the horses
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and cart.
B.B.:
Right on the river?
R.M.:
Ya, right on the river, ya, go down on the river.
We kinda got away from this, I said that the gas in the house,
they heated with the gas and when I, in my time,
I
remember being
up in the attic being a lot of old stoves in there, the ones with fire
brick in them and little plexiglass windows in them. I shouldn't
call them plexi.glass, it's called mica, and you could see through
it, little sqaure, about two inches square, and those were all up
in the attic and we scrapped them but there was all kinds of stoves
up there. And there was no controls on them. All there would be,
would be valves to turn them on, no pilots or anything and they
had so much gas..and this really shakes them for energy now a days..
there was so much gas that they had the winters opened in the winter
time. And also, as I say they supplied gas up to would have been
my dad's Uncle Charlie and Aunt Gus and those up there where the
nuns are. And I can remember that one inch pipe being up there
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and it was all rusty and at different times we would dig up, tear
up different pieces of it, it was just down underneath the ground.
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I don't know if it supplied more than those two homes or not but it
finally give out because the water got the better of the well and
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one time Charlie Wale, who was the same man that run the cider
mill in Stevensville, he use to bale gas wells and his rope broke and
his baler and all the rope are down in the bottom of that well. And
the baler is similar to the type that they use when their drilling
gas wells now a days. It's a long, about twenty-five to thirty feet
long piece of pipe maybe about an inside diameter of maybe three
or four inches. And at the bottome there is a special valve and
when it is let right down to the very bottom of the well the weight
of this pipe would push this valve up in and then the whole thing
would fill up with water and as soon as it was lifted up the weight
fo the water above it this valve would drop in the bottom and you
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would take all the water out or when they were drilling it would
be a fine, ground up stone on the bottom of the well. It would all
be lifted up and they would take it out and drop it in a wood trough
and then as soon as it hit in there then all of the stuff would run
out of it and run out whether they were drilling the well or if they
were bedding it to take the water out. But it was a wet well. By
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that it was fairly wet and so it was abandoned so...
B.B.:
I wanted to ask you too..you had mentioned that your farm went
over as far as the N.C.C. property..
R.M.:
Yes that's right.
B.B.:
Do you remember what was there...?
R.M.:
That was originally now. That was in the original crown grant.
We did not own that in my dad's lifetime but you see where my Uncle
Charlie, they owned that. That was there, Lot 15, Concession 5,
Niagara River and also farms went back into Concession 6, part
of Concession 6. So you see, the original John Miller who would
be my great, great grandfather, they had the property all the way
down to as I said where Dr. Chathman lived and that would be at
least a mile and a half or a mile and three quarters below our place.
And in the original
Miller family there was all girls except
the one boy, my great grandfather Jacob Miller and there was Elizabeth
Miller and she married John Birch Miller, the eldest son on the Andrew
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Miller family who were the ones who took up the property from
Millers Creek up, including where the Marina is, where the old
shipyard was. And she married and they removed, so the word is,
you would say in other words they moved, but they called it removed
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then, to up around Talbotville, up around St. Thomas. She married the
eldest, Elizabeth was the eldest, and in the John Miller family she
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married the eldest boy in Andrew Miller family, John Birch Miller..they
lived up there. And the next one was Mary and she married John
Simons Atwood, I believe his name was. The first Atwood in this
area and he was sort of an itinerant or lay, one of these riding preachers.
And so we were related to all the Atwoods. And then the next one,
I believe was Catharine, ..! could be wrong now in my genealogy,
but I'll try to be right here..Catharine and she married John Riselay.
And then I believe the next one was Jacob and he married Sephira
Riselay who was a sister to John Riselay.. so this is where we come·
in to two brothers marrying two sisters, in two families, the Riselays
and the Millers. Then we had Veronica and she married Daniel MacAfee
and t·hey had no children. She died in about 1850 but we believe,
the records seem to indicate that Daniel was a brother to Captain
SamuelMacAfee, who was well catalogued to the one who helped
MacKenzie to get across the Niagara River at MacKenzies Crossing.
And they were not very well liked after that and the,
I
believe, ilrh.ough
of course this Veronica had died, and Daniel married a Hewi;on. Now
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possibly, I'm not sure whether Hewsons, there's some in Ridgeway,
but anyway.. But anyway Captain Samuel MacAfee and his family
and I would presume Daniel and his second wife they were not liked
around here after that bout of 1837 Rebellion and they moved to
Stevenson County, Illinois. I think I've got in wrong order here,
there's a Anna and I'm not certciin but she might have been a little
older than my great grandfather Jacob. And Anna married Alfred
McCarty who on the deeds is listed as a wagon maker from Pennsylvania.
Incidentally, this is being recorded I know and I presume it could
stand for a lot of people wanting to get in touch with us, but we
have literally bushels of documents, all the Crown deeds, or all
the deeds rightback to the Crown, all the deeds of the property.
I've got the original will of my great, great grandfather John Miller,
who's dated in 1828 and he died in about 1841 or '42, that's there
and he mentions in there about giving this Elizabeth, the one that
went with her husband to Talbotville, near St. Thomas, he was given,
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or she was given his riding horse because she was a great horsewoman.
In fact, all the Miller girls were known as being expert horsewomen
and they all rode side saddle. I don't know if the skirts were too
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long, you know, but they rode side saddle.
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B.B.:
You had also mentioned that you had a diary of a great aunt...
R.M.:
That's right, we have her diary and in this diary she has in there when my
dad was born tn'..I have written it down here someplace.. my dad
was born in March 9, 1883 and this is how wide a span of years it
covers. It's about twenty to twenty-three little booklets written
primarily in pencil. Some of them are getting very faint. She has
when I was born in September 27th, of 1930. In fact, the diary goes
from about 1870 until about shortly before she died in 1832[1932].
B.B.:
Can you think of anything...
R.M.:
Anything in there? I wasn't able to find, in looking last night, I
wasn't able to find the exact date; she has it in there when the first
car came down the Boulevard. She has in this dia·ry when different
members of the family died. Also, that there was people, friends,
and relatives were visiting in their place, in other words they had
visitors almost daily, quite often people stayed overnight. They,
if there was nothing of interest on a particular day, she just wrote
down 'nothing' by the date, but there had to be an entry for everyday
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of every year, right through the full time span she kept the diary.
She has in there when there was a man come to their place, what
we would call a tramp now. They use to come to my mother and
dads place and they'd want to chop wood in the Depression; chop
_
up wood for something to eat. And you's see they'd stuff a strawberry
jam sandwich in their pocket or anything you know, stuff to eat.
And we'd swear to it that they had some way of marking the house�
where another one coming along would know it was a place they could
get a hand out. I've heard of this before being the case. Anyway
one tramp come to their place and he got sick. And he stayed there
and they fed him. He was there for a few days and he got sick and
the man died and they obviously didn't know his name but they paid
for his burial because she makes this and I quote: "And we buried
that man." And they didn't know who he was or anything about
him but they looked back to see that he had a reasonable burial.
And they went very often, ah, when I say very often, perhaps
once or twice a week, when weather permitting,
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I
presume, not
when the river was full of ice .. they would go over to what was called
the Rock. And for quite awhile we couldn't quite figure out what
that meant but then it become apparant that it was Black Rock
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in Buffalo which is the oldest, the oldest part of the city. And they'd
go by boat, they'd row over there.
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B.B.:
How about the shipyards...?
R.M.:
The shipyards..o.k. the shipyards, um, I don't remember anything
about them other than I remember there was a couple of rooming
houses that were still up in my time and the one of them I remember
burning, in a fire. The one was called 'The Red Pig' and the other
was 'The Green Goose'. Now I can't rememb.er which one of those
is, it was that burnt. But the one is still up, that is it's still there
and it's being used, and it's on Miller Ave. just a little bit west of
Cairns cresent when you cross the little bridge there at Miller's
Creek and then Miller's Ave. goes back there. And it's
a
long driveway,
it's back in on the right when you're going off of Cair ns Cresent
and the man who lived in it for a long, long while Lloyd Willick and
he sold it and a man by the name of Al Eve presently lives in that.
And that is about the only remaining building of the rooming houses
that the men stayed in that worked at the shipyard. It was, Canadian
Shipbuilding was in there, Canadian, I believe Alice Chalmers and
Canadian General Electric were the last ones to own the land. My
Uncle Carl worked in the powere house there. They generated all
their own power. My Uncle Bill, who had Miller's Cabins he, that
and cresent is where now, is Idle View Restaurant and he worked
naturally on the contru.ction of the boats. I don't know if he was
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a rivetter or just what. But my dad didn't work there because he
was at home farming and he told one account..he worked there
when they dismantled, when they tore all the stuff down; worked there
with the horses and things, but not during the time when they were
building boats..he told of one experience where at noon he was back
at the field and they had a great big crane there, it was on, elevated
off the ground and it was on set or rails and that went right on out
to what was called the 'slips'. There was two sl!.ps there. That's
where the Parks Commission has the boats in. And he noticed it
starting to roll. It was around noon time and he was coming in for
lunch and he thought, 'my gosh they better stop that pretty soon',
and it kept right on rolling. And it come up a gust of wind and she
went to the end andtipped over and right, dumped right over in the
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out the end, in the deep water. And they went and got a horse or
whatever and went up there to see if anyone was killed or drowned
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and there was nobody injured because the guy was out for lunch
and he had forgot to chain the thing to keep from rolling and it
just took right off from the wind and went to the end and dumped
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over.
Boats that were built there and we've got pictures of them.
It' s recently been scrapped up at Port Colborne but it was christened
under another name. I think all of our family would have been up
for a chunk of an iron from it, for a piece of memoriabJe.
It was
the E.B. Osler, was christened there. That was one of the boats.
And another boat,
I
think about the last one that was built there
was the tugboat that was used for many years in the forebay of
the Canadian Niagara Power Company, including Niagara Park down
in Niagara Falls. And I was told this, I work for Canadian Niagara
Power and I was told this by our, oh, he would be ·our, not our auditor
but company secretary, financial secretary here in Fort Erie, and
he use to be in the Falls. And that old steel tugboat, they use to
use for breaking up ice is one of the last or possible last boat built
down her at the old shipyards. They had contracted with the shipyard
company to build this tugboat, to break up the ice in the forebay;
.
B.B.:
Was there a grist mill that was located in.. ?
R.M.:
Yes, that was down there and that mill..this is the bill of sale for
that mill from my great grandfather. That mill, I'll get here and
get some of that information...ah, you asked the mill, there, we
refer to the area where the mill was built as being Decew's Reef
because it was Decew who built the mill there. He come there
in well, probably be safe to say..the information is here but it would
take a bit of time to dig out..he came and he bought the land from
Jacob Miller and the stipulation was that within a short period of
time, that he had to build a mill for the people of the area to grind
their grain and to make flour for bread and so forth. And the mill
was built and it was very successful except every winter when the
ice came down in the spring, the late winter and spring, it tore out
the water wheel which was apparently some distance out of the
river, the water wheel and the supports, the bearings and the shaftings.
And so eventually he abandoned the sight, he give it up so to speak,
and went up somewheres near Port Colborne and built a mill there.
(
And, but the mill itself, the late Bert Miller, he told me, he remembers
before the algae and that in the river, he could see where the irons
12
were attached on the rock bed, it's quite shallow, where they were
attached, thtf'irons which were used
t:>
support, hold this here shafting:
So, it was about an acre, it was about an acre and a half, and it
(
was sold with the express purpose of building a mill, and it was a
building there into the bank and that's about where Bob Climenhage
lives. He is the next house, the second house down from the nuns,
the Redemptoristine Nuns are. And the house right next to him,
between the two is a part of the old summer kitchen, from off the
back of the old home where the nuns lived, and it was a summer
home for many, many years. And now it's not being used, it's owned
but it's not inhabited. And it's a very old building too. And the
one where Climenhages, where Bob lives, is an old home, they use
to call the Love home. People, I believe, by the name of Love was
in there , Clines were in there··and then I think, for a short while,
Lloyd Wale from Stevensville owned it and then Bob Climenhage.
bought it from him. But that's where, we have some photographs
of some buildings that were up in that area and they are really old
log houses and some old, old men out in front of them but I wouldn't
want to say for certain that it was a picture of the building, of the
mill. But there was an old building up there because out in the Parks
Commission, in the ground there, if it's ever dug up for any reason
or another and there seems to be lots of old bits and pieces of brick
and mortar and so forth and so, that is in the area where this mill
was.
B.B.:
What about the Black Creek area?
R.M.:
Ah, Black Creek.. the Black Creekstore is an old, old building. At
one time, I'm told in the basement, it was used for a jaiL It was,
ah, Jenks were down there, ah, in my time and I don't know who
the owners were, there were several prior to that time and I think
there were different ones in there, the Storms, that lived near there
people by the name of Storms owned it for awhile, this is back around
the late fifties; and then I believe Lloyd Wale, he's quite a man
for obtaining property and holding morgages and so forth, he owned
it for a bit; andwe have Sid Payne in there now which, he's operating
the Black Creek store.
They use to float booms and logs down Black Creek from back
in the country. They would be hardwood and the logs were taken
up the riv .er by oxen and mule team and they use to stop along
13
different places along, the drivers. They were , I suppose they were
taking them over to Buffalo and they would take and stop for lunch
(
and play dominoes. And we have a few of the dominoes there yet,
and
I
think around somewhere. They were like black wood, I don't
know, maybe walnut or some quite dark wood, maybe it was stained.
And you know what dominoes are, they've got the, o.k., they, pardon
me, were set in with, the white was like an ivory was set into it.
Another thing here that would be of interest.. ah, in the house
that my dad had there, there was wood stoveswe used 'til my dad
died, there was several of them which we always went back to the
woods and brought in. Summer it was by wagon and winter it was
by sleigh,and team, in both cases. My dad was great with horses,
he never cared much for tractors and cars. And the wood, lots of
times the wood was wet and you made, you got more out of making
the wood than burning it. The two wood stoves that were there
until dad died, we only heated the back part of the house, the front
part and the upstairs was closed off upstairs all winter. There was
no insulation, no storm windows, as I said, it was clapboard, it was
split lath and horsehair plastered. We use to put hay around the
(
bottom of the house because when the Parks Commission moved
it back it was just on a few concrete abutments here and there and
it was all open underneath and we put some plank around it and
put some hay and straw to keep the wind out from blowing so badly
underneath the bottom and there was only a basement under the
back as I mentioned. And the heating with wood, it produced a lot
of dampness and the no storm windows on the window, you couldn't
see out the windows when it was real cold weather because you
had a about a quarter of an inch of hoarfrost, over the inside of
the window.
I
can remember, very well my nails, finger nails, going
in there and just scratch down through the frost, it was just like
a shower of snow on the floor. And that would melt off on the south
side anyway when the sun would come out on a bright day and there
would be water running down the windows and around the window
sill. There was certainly no reason for a humidifier in the place.
And the wood was often times, bed wood or wood made that was
starting to rot a bit. You would have bad places in it like you get
in a rotter, in the centre of a potato or anything like that, and you'd
get big wood ants coming out. They'd feel the warmth and you'd
14
either have to kill them on the floor or they'd get burnt in the stove.
The front part of the house was, where the split lath was, this was
(
as
I
say not heated in the winter and my aunt, my mothers sister,
she lived in Buffalo, she use to come over for Christmas, every Christmas,
we always decorated the tree and she'd always help me and my mother,
my dad ..she'd come over in the summer as well..but it was unheated,
she was in the spare bedroom upstairs; one Christmas when she
got up her false teeth was froze right in the glass of water and she
had to, where she put them the night before and she had to bring
the glass downstairs and thaw them out, her teeth were froze right
in. And
I
remember dad use to speak of a white, bit of snow, sprinkled
of snow, being on the bed covers on the foot of the bed, just a light
sprinkle, coming around the windows and through the walls. And
it was an old house but it was bui>lt in those times when they didn't
consider too much insulation. The rooms in the front where it wasn't
heated, we had walnuts up in there and that had a tendency unfortunately
attract mice and rats. And one night, I remember we were all woke
up by a rat running across the piano keys and playing the piano,
so.. Dad al ways slept in the cot in the dining room so he could keep
the fires going.
That '29 Model A Ford he bought and he had until he died and
that was the one I believe he bought from W.G. Wilson. I'm not
sure if he was here in Fort Erie or possibly in Ridgeway. He was
a Ford dealer.
He had a horse, he liked horses, that he called H�ro and even
after he died , the little two wheel sulky, like you'd have for harness
racing was up on the overlayers in the barn, which would be some
beams and stuff we use to put up there and have planks on that and
we would pile a surplus of, oh sheaves of oaks and wheat on that
before it was thrashed and the front overlayers of the front of the
barn, dad's sulky was up there and this horse he called Hero, he use
to wing races, quite often, quite regularly at the old Bertie Fair
which was held where the Fort Erie Race Track is now and he, we,
during his, well when he got older, or before he died we did get a
�ix.horse power, Gmald-, Shapley and Muir gas engine and later a .
'
--
-
..
Fordson tractor and we use to saw the
wood then and instead of by hand we could saw with a Massey-Harris
cord wood saw. And that's where I guess I developed our interest
in collecting old gas engines and we have over two hundred of those,
the boys and I and we've got quite a few tractors, quitt.a few items
15
of early farm equipment and...let see what else we can get into here.�.
(
oh, here's something here that would be of interest. This was recounted
by the late Bert Miller, approximately about a quarter of a mile below
from Frenchman's Creek is a little area where you can park your car; it's
a little parking area .. now this is not the one above Frenchmans Creek
Bridge, right at the bridge but it's the first one below about a quarter
of a mile, it's kind of a high spot and the Parks Commission has
constructed a spot in there where people can park of�he road ... and
that is as I understand it, is what is known or was the sight of the
home of Peter Nettle and his mother. We have a picture at home,
an old photograph and it shows the home pretty badly deteriated,
it must of been some time after anyone had lived into it. It's all,
you know, it's all kind of starting to fall down. But the story of
Peter Nettle is kind of interesting. I guess he was kind of a hot
head. I don't know if his father was alive at this time or not. His
mother obviously was and there was fellas that use to come over
from Buffalo and they would fish along the shore and I suppose the
odd time they would land. And Peter Nettle must of been quite
(
a one to go over to Buffalo, to Black Rock, to frequent, should we
say bars, or whatever over there and he must have known these
fellows. There was three or four of them in a boat and I guess maybe
he possibly had been drinking and he come down there and they got
into quite a heated argument and I don't know if he told them not
to come ashore or if he told them to leave or whatever. And he
went back to the house and he come back with a gun and they were
still there and he shot one of the fellows. Now it was according
to Bert recounting of the incident, it was perhaps some six months
or so before the authorities came down from Welland and arrested
him. And he was taken over there and had a trial and he was in
jail for awhile. I presume, perhaps before the trial. And his mother,
the account goes, his mother use to take over baking, pies and cakes
and whatever for him..he was in jail. And then when his hearing
come up, the court action, he was aquited on grounds of self-defense
and he was out. And for a long while he never went over to Buffalo,
I suppose he was afraid of what may happen. And there was a sister
of one of these brothers who was killed..andthey were gunning for
him, so to speak..and one morning Peter Nettle was found in his
boat over in the barge canal, the Erie Barge Canal on Black Rock.
16
He was dead, his body was over the side and his head was in the water:
And afterwards it seem that the sister, I presume was a younger
(
sister, anyway she said that Peter Nettle got his due. In other words
they settled accounts with him. And that's kind of, I don't know
if you want to call it frontier justice or not, but that's the way it
was. And that was certainly in our Fort Erle area. It was Bertie
Township at that time.
And my dad, and my Uncle Bill that was Millers Cabins and my
Uncle Carl, they use to fish along the river using the sein.�. Now
I guess it was illegal at those times but anyway they had a sei nft
there and there was a hole right in front of our place or slightly
above the old homestead and it usually would yield, pretty near
a boat full of bull heads or cat fish of perch or even rock sturgeon
and things of this nature. And that is just below Decew's Reef where
this hole is and there's a 'A' there formed by the strong current going
across the reef and when it comes to the, where the reef breaks
off and it becomes deeper, the current goes out in the river. In
the winter time you can watch and there's a certain area in there
where the ice is going upstream very, very slowly due to what's
{
called the eddy. In other words it's kind of like an eddy of a current.
And I suppose the fish would come back into this area and in this
deep place and the swift current and the end of the rock, it's always
rough there even if the river is very, very smooth and we call it
the Devil's Half Acre, where the reef ends. And this saying came
from Tom Briggs who was a game warden on Lake Erie and Tom
was a brother to my Uncle George Briggs here in Fort Erie, who .
people will recall the Briggs Paint
&
Wallpaper.
And they had an Imperial ESSO gas pump, one of the old visible
kind, where you pumped it up and you could see how many gallons
was in there and went by gravity into the car. And they had one
of those pumps right on the curb, right on the sidewalk on the curb
of Jarvis Street, right in front of the Briggs building. That I remember
very well, that pump. And that building was built in about '28 and
that pump would have been in there into, well almost to World War
11. And that of course is the building that's recently suffered two
fires there.
...we talked here about the shipyard...
And our people had come here in about 1800. And the other
17
side of the family was the Riselays. And they were in the Niagara area
as early as 1777. Christian Riselay, who is the same relation to
(
me as John Miller, in other words a great, great grandfather, he
has fought with Butlers Rangers at Niagara in December of
1 777.
And the source of that statement is the log book of Colonel John
Butler. And the Riselays were U. E. Loyalist and I'm a U.E. Loyalist
in virtue of being a direct descendant of Christian Riselay and so
of course with all the other members of the Miller family and their
descendants and the Riselays as well. I mentioned that my grandfather
and grandmother on my dads side were double first cousins to one
another, in other words two children of the Riselay family, a brother
and a s ister married two children, a brother and a sister in another
family and the two youngest children of those two respective marriages
were my grandfather and grandmother on my fathers side. In other
words they were double first cousins to one another.
And my Uncle Bill at Millers Cabins also had an ESSO visible
gas pump. And Joe Morningstar..now this is down within about
three quarters of a mile south of Black Creek.. Joe Morningstar had
an ESSO there and Charlie Wale, just they were relatives and they
(
were only about athousand feet apart, they had (I've got down here
three hundred feet apart but I think I'm a little bit close on that)
they had a gas station as well and they had Sunoco and while they
were relatives they didn't get along that well together because
they were in competitive business,gasoline wise.
My Uncle Bill and Joe Morningstar both had a stand where you
could get ice cream and pop and hot dogs. I don't think Wales had
anything like that down there at their place. This Charlie Wale
was an Uncle of Lloyd Wale of Stevensville and he also operated
Wales Cider Mill in Stevensville. In addition to the stand Uncle
Bill sold, he sold in the stand, what was called 4.4 beer. That was
very weak.
I
guess it was the only thing they could sell at that time,
I don't know if they could have got a license for anything stronger
than that.
Uncle Bill and Aunt Irene at Millers Cabins was always filled
up with tourists during the summer, especially when the Fort Erie
Race Track was in operation. Uncle Bill was what you call a 'good
(
mixer', he could make himself at home with tourists no matter where
they come from, what state they were from.
18
And down just on the Willoughby side of the Town Line road,
that was Wilbughby at that time, it's now part of Fort Erie, people
(
by the name of Burkes built a home there and I suppose that would
be back possibly sixty, sixty-five years ago because it's been there
as long as I can remember. And they were summer people, lawyers
at Buffalo and very well known in the Irish community over there.
They had a picture in their home, one of the original pictures bf
that was made or drawn up of the Battle of Ridgeway, where the
Fenians who were Irish people came over and they engaged the Queens
own there at the Battle of Ridgeway. And these people, Burkes
use to put in the dock every year and take it out in the fall. And
Uncle Bill would help them a lot put out the dock every year and
they use to, when the dock was in, as soon as they were done, they
use to grab Uncle Bill andthe boys, they had five boys, and they'd
grab him, fully clothed and everything and throw him off into the
end of the river. That was kind of a standing joke and they always
use to call him 'Poop deck Pappy'.
...ah, there was something else I was just thinking in regards with..
Oh, also Uncle Bill he, in my lifetime
(
I
remember, I was very
small at the time but there was quite an ice jam in the river and
he, it was foggy and I can remember a time seeing him disappear
in the fog, he walked across the river on the ice. Now these were
cakes of ice, small not large, it would be very dangerous thing and
he done it I'm sure just for the glory or the name of it. It would
be a very dangerous thing to do but he walked across and he walked
back again after talking to some people on the Grand Island shore.
Now that's the first time that anybody had walked across and been
able to come back. About a hundred years before that a man had
walked across on
a
large cake of ice which it use to freeze out a
long ways in front of our place and the g:..an::ler Fla.ts just below the
town line road, just below where Burkes use to have their dock,
there's a marsh there and they call it the Ganderf; Flats , and the
ice would go, would sort of swing out because of the current and
the wind, west wind, it would swing out the upper end of the great
big piece and it would swung around and over and jam on the shore
of Grand Island and on the Gander Flats, it's a bit of a point..and
this man walked across but before he was able to come back it
let go and he couldn't, he had to get back by boat or other wise.
19
And I believe at the same time, a cousin of mine from Stevensville
said, at the same time that U ncle Bill walked across, he and another
(
fellow walked across but I don't remember seeing that unless they
went just a little bit later. But I can remember it was foggy and
I can remember kind of seeing disappear out and walking across
the river on the ice.
..and these are probably some of the interesting things that people
are interested in..
They use to always, there's a place on the bank there, it's just
below the Redemptoristine Nuns, and they use to always call that
Uncle Charlies watering hole. They use to drive the sheep and the
cattle and stuff down the river and my dad use to drive his horses
with the harness on it and everything, right across the road and
down the bank and got them a drink in the river. Well I suppose
that was because they were use to doing that because his great Uncle
or his uncle rather, Uncle Charlie and them who use to help a lot 1
they use to do that at this place there and tbey use to also dip1 they
use to take the sheep down there and they'd have to dip them or
whatever you say, put something on them to kill, I don't know to
kill ticks or whatever, sheep dip and I don't know what it's constituted
of, some kind of chemical I suppose or something you know tmat
they put in the water. I guess maybe they get the water o�t of the
river and perhaps and have it in some kind of a big container because
you couldn't put stuff in the water, it would just float away.
In my time I remember the Brethren in Christ people had their baptism
at the very same spot.
And another incident that was in this diary and also Bert Miller
recounted it, up here in the country, back up on the Bowen Road,
up near the Queen E., you've got Ralph Curtis and then you've got
Laurs, there's the Laur farm, the Cutis's were related to the Laurs.
Years and years ago, in that family was a young fellow by the name
of Jimmy Laur. And he was suppose to have driven his horses down
and out on the flat rock bed of the river there at Decew's Reef.
And as you go out there in some places it drops down very abruptly
and it's very deep and that won't be too wide and then it would become
shallow again. Well he drove the horses out there a ways and the
horses dropped into one of these spots and they started to flounder
20
and he was afraid they would drown and he took and he walked out
(
on the tongue to try and get the .. you know, try and release the horses
so they could swim and get away and he got tangled up in the harness
there. Me was drowned out there in this, this is at Decew's Reef.
And also; these same deep spots in that reef, they can, you can
come down from up above, closer to the Nuns where the reef starts
and there'll be a deep spot down through the rock and all of a sudden
it will abruptly stop and it will be shallow, as
I
say inside, shallow
outside, and this here deep spot will stop and be shallow below that.
And sail boats, I have seen them come down and as you know they
have a centre board and they would come down and get in one of
those deep spots, not realizing it. People may be not, maybe from
Buffalo or wherever, and they would come down on that and the
centre board would jam against the end of this rock and they would
drop their sails, they would be just about tipped over, the mast would
be forty-five or even sixty degree angle, getting down closer and
closer to parallel to the water, just about tipped over. And they'd
take their sail down and they'd try and pick up the centre board
(
and they couldn't because the current pushing hard against the boat
and it would jam right into the box, the centre board box in the
sailboat and it was against the rock. And they'd try, boats would
come along, and they'd try and blow them out. Well they couldn't
because this wouldn't be very wide and they'd try and pull them
in and they'd try and pull them down. So they finally find out that
the only way to get him off of that would be to come down and get
a rope on them and tow them straight up because that's the way
they came down:in.
And then I remember some fellow, he must have been drunk
it happened a tug boat and he was in the river there and he was
kind of oh, aimlessly going around, here and 'yon and he got out
and got jammed on the reef waith this tug boat and I can remember
Burkes, they had a Chriscraft and they went up there and tried to
pull him off and different ones tried to pull him off.
the Chriscraft, Burkes, with them.
I
I
was out on
was just a young kid at· the
time. Finally, the coast guard or someone had to pull him off. and
then this guy, and he started fooling around again and he hit the
reef on the other side and he put her in and sunk her. And
I
don't
know if they ever raised the boat or not.
21
But dad, we use to always saw wood by hand, for the fire wood and
I got some pictures of dad sawing wood by hand there but, ah...
(
B.B.: Well, Mr. Miller you've given some very interesting information.
Possibly we ·�ill be able ta' sipen1k again and you can fill us in on
some more things.
R.M.:
Ya, yes. There's lots of more stuff.
B.B.: Well thank you very much.
R.M.:
Okay.
{
(
22
interview is being held at the Fort Erie Public Library on Central
Avenue.
B.B.:
Could you give me your date of birth, Mr. Miller, please?
R.M.:
September the 27th, 1930.
B.B.:
And your place of birth?
R.M.:
Niagara Falls, Ontario.
B.B.:
And where abouts are you living now?
R.M.:
We're living on a, it's a lot, it's part of the original farm. Which is
about one-half mile· north of Niagara Christian College.
B.B.:
Is that in the Fort Erie area?
R.M.:
Oh, yes, that's in, that's in the Fort Erie. It was Bertie Township of
course but now it's Fort Erie.
B.B.:
Now, your family goes back in this area for quite a few generations,
is that correct?
R.M.:
The Miller family, our family, John Miller, would go back to about
1800, maybe just slightly before that.
B.B.:
And his reason for coming to this area?
R.U.:
I believe they came here, they were not United Empire Loyalists
themselves, but they came here with the same feelings that..
They wanted to leave, they were loyal to the crown and they wanted
to leave the United States. They came from Maneron township, Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania, about 1800. The first two or three of the family
were born there, near the Susquehannc:River near Conestoga country.
B.B.:
Would you just reflect back a bit on what, in the changes you yourself
have seen in the Niagara Boulevard area?
R.M.:
Well, there's a great many more homes are along the river then there
use to be. There's not too many lots that are not built upon. Some
areas is not built up quite as much as others. Between our place and
Black Creek where it was the Dr. Cobb's estate, there's not too many
homes built along there. But most areas are pretty well built up and
at what time there was about..between Black Creek and Fort Erie..
probably, let's see, five or six farms and now
I
don't think there's any.
We had a farm, and there was a farm, Hardy Miller at Miller's Creek
and there was a farm what we called the Briggs
{
&
Williams farm,
it was down at Baker's Creek and then there was the old Dr. Cobb
farm where Sumbler Beam lived and that was about, oh, approximately
1
two miles from where we lived but the buildings are pretty well
(
all gone. dur barn was burned down in '57. It was beginning to
get well, a little bit shoddy, and so we decided, my father died in
'54 so the barn was tore down a few years later. Most of the equipment
was sold, dispensed with.
When we use to go for any farm machinery repairs we would
go to Stevensville. There was Jim Baker was Massey Huris dealer
and Milton Plyley was Internation\ Harvester and we went quite
often to Stevensville because we'd go over there and my dad had
a '29 Model A Ford coupe. That was the only car he ever owned.
He bought it before he and ma were married and he still had it when
he died in '54, May 17 . of '54. We use to put bags of grain in the
back of the car and go over to Daddy Beam's Mill. We called him
Daddy Beam, I just can't recall his first name now but he ran a chopping
mill there where we got grain ground · for the pigs or whatever, pigs
or cows or whatever you were feeding the grain to. And he ran
the mill there in Stevensville. It was run by electric power
and
I believe they said that the line was rather inadequate that the hydro
(
had in that time, back in the '40's and '50's and Ted Bissel who ran
a barber shop for years in Stevensville and he's dead now but he
had a barber shop right next to Daddy Beam's Mill and everytime
Beam started up the big motor, the big pulley-horsepower electr�c
motor and everytime he started up why•if he was cutting hair, why
the clippers would literally stop right in the guys hair and there'd
be some pretty strong language because if you went to pull out the
clippers�wh)'lf}'OU might be pulling hair out. So, that's just a few
of the little things I remember over there.
I also remember Lloyd Wale's cider mill and he ran that with
a big, old gas engine and that could be heard, the noise from that
engine could be heard for probabliy. two or three miles or more, well
outside of Stevensville. So we use to go over there and get some
apples, take ap)J!les over to make cider and that's a few of the things
I can remember.
There was..l guess Fred Staples had an insurance business there
and I remember dad going there for insurance for the car and we
didn't have him for insurance for the farm because we were always
(
with the Bertie and Willoughby Farmers Mutual Fire Insurance Co..
They: seemed to cover a great many of the farmers in the area.
2
B.B.:
(
Where were they located?
R.M.:
I was trying to think who was the agent. They were not located
in this area, their head office, it was, well I'm sure if it was up in
Clinton, further up in Ontario or just where it was but they were,
at one time Carmen Sauer back in thecountry, just shortly after
my dad died, he was the agent and right now apparently the agent
for them is Ted Jewson but
I
think that...oh, and in about 1846 we
located an old tax receipt at home, in the township of Bertie and
the farm was about
73
acres and it had on the house and the barn
and a long shed where we had the car in and some equipment in
there and the taxes was a glorious sum of $46.00. It was just coi.ncidential
that it was about the year '46. But it was classed as agricultural
but even then you consider what agricultural la.nd is now and of
course everything, inflation has gone into it and of course it's gone
right up you know, as far as everything else is that way.
As far as phones were concerned we had a phone at one time
in the house but it was not in my memory because the leads were
in the wall, that is where they had been put in and we use to go
to the neighbours and use their phones and of course it was the old
(
hand crank phones.
I
don't know why the phone was taken out, whether
my dad, they thought it was too expensive or whether others were
doing what we done later, coming to the house and bug you for the
phone, to use it or whatever but the phones were the old hand cranked
phones. And that's when it was the Welland County Phone System
which was the predeccesor of I believe to Bell in this area.
B.B.:
What year would that have been around?
R.M.:
Oh, I can remember their phones in a few of the homes right up
'til Bell took over which would have been, I think maybe in the mid
'50's, someplace in there if I'm not mistaken, when Bell took over.
I'm not just sure when they took over but they took over the old
Welland County phone system.
And we had a gas well on the corner of the farm and in my time
I never remember, now this is down close· to the town line road,
I never remember the well being functional from the stand point
of providing gas. I remember that the casing, which is the inner
part, pipe, which goes well nearly to the bottom. This well had
been down to the red medina which is around 725 feet in our area
there. They generally didn't drill much below that because if they
3
didn't get gas in the red medina which is a porous rock, to go into
the white medina below that generally didn't prove to give them
(
a much stronger well. But anyway, the dried pipe is put down, the
outer case, the outer pipe is put down to the rock and the inner casing
is put inside of that and the inner casing was rusted off down about
oh, twelve feet or so which would have been the river level. The
water was up in the well to the river level and it was always bubbling
and we use to drop a match down in there and get back because
it would...and it would just blow itself out. Well, this young friend
of mine who lived down, incidentally on the Briggs
there at Black Creek, his name is Jimmy Smith,
I
&
Williams farm
think he still lives
in this area..anyway, Jimmy he didn't, he didn't believe me or ·wouldn't
get back soon enough so it just, he wasn't old enough to shave, it
just singed all, all the fuzz on his face, his eyebrows and the front
of his hair, you know just sindged everything off onto him,
�ecause
he didn't get back soon enough. But this well was drilled by drillers
from Pennsylvania. They came up and drilled for the Gas Co.. Now
I don't know what the gas company would have been called at that
time. Years ago it was Provincial Gas before it was Consumer's
(
Gas but anyway at that tif!1e it was not deemed to be a strong enough
well to warrant keeping it. And my grandmother bought the well
and dad and her use gas in the house and they also supplied gas up
as far as where the Redemp foristine
,•
Nuns, I believe it's called
I
The Monostary of the Most Holy Redeemer which is right next to
the Niagara Christian College. That house was built in about 1826
and would have been my grandfather, and I just forget if he, I think
he was about the first one to be born in that house of the family.
There were others were born in the little log house that was back
close to the barn, the farm house, back behind the do11ms at the
Niagara Christian College, the boy's dormitory and the duplex for
the teachers and the log house was originally back there. Well
anyway the well, the gas was supplied that far where the nuns now
are. This is a great uncle of mine, Uncle Charlie and this is where
this Aunt Gus who we'll refer to later, she was the one who had the
diary, they lived in there. They were the children of the second
marriage of my great grandfather. First wife was Sephira Riselay
(
and when she passed on he married Sarah Haun and they had at least
three children by the second marriage. And the first marriage was
4
..
a large family and I'll try to get into that a little later. This gas well
it supplied all the gas they needed down there at the old home.
(
There w.as no storm windows on the house and there was no insulation.
The old house where my dad and grandmother lived along with ·
the other children who were raise:lin there but who married and moved,
well were given lots off the farm, my dad was given the farm because
he looked after my grandmother until she, until just about she died,
which was about February of 1930..anyway, the gas from the gas
wells provided all the heat they needed for there, : no insulation,
no storm windows,. The front part of the house was moved back in
1909 hwhen the Park Commission come through. It was built �pproximately
1825-1835 and it was beams, bark still on some of the beams, this
would be the joints under the floor and some _of the wall members
and rafters with smaller poles with the bark still on and that was
moved back in about 1909 when the Park Commission come through.
And then the back part w·as built on in about 1910 by I believe carpenters
by the name of Johnson from Ridgeway and anyway...
B.B.:
Excuse me, in 1909 the Niagara Parks Commission .. that's when
they took over the Parkway.?
(
R.M.:
Yes, that's right, that's right. I'll alleviate here with this gas heating
bit. There was quite a battle royal between my grandmother and
the Parks Commission and there was two or three others. I believe
they might have been people by the·name of McCrady's down towards
Chippawa and possibly the others would have been up at Scottdales.
And they did not
e��ept what the Parks
Commission was willing
to offer and it went before arbitration, court hearings, lawyers
and we still have a number of the documents there that Gram Miller,
as we called her, entered into a quite a lengthy, drawn out legal
maneuvers to try and.. well, they didn't want to give up the property
is what it amounted to. They owned the property right down to
the waters edge and they didn't want to give it up and the Parks
Commission was called the Queen
Victoria Parks at that time.
They were intent and bound and bent at that time of course to obtain
the full, right through from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake. .. And
they moved the house back, put in a basement under the back part
(
when that part was built on about the time tha1: the front part was
moved back. And they put in a water line, and they put in a basement
drain down to the river. They moved the back part of the barn back,
5
the front part of the barn and the middle section of the barn was
torn down, they moved the back part of the barn back and..one of
(
their lawyers told, so it goes, he said, ' Mrs. Miller, he said, you've
got, despite what they've done, you've got done out of about $200.'
This is what I was always told and that would have been considered
a good sum at that time. You know, because now it doesn't sound
like anything but then you know, a dollar was a dollar.
And the middle part of the barn was where my grandfather,
Grampa Miller, and he died considerably before 1900, perhaps, I
have the dates at home, but perhaps oh, fifteen years or more, he
wasn't that old of a man when he died. And he was a cabinet maker
by trade and that's where he made, done his work, and we have a
number of items, they're solid walnut tables, a cherry wood, glass
front china cupboard. There is what we just called the cupboard
because it's, you can put china and stuff in and that's all solid walnut,
that's there and numerous other things that he made and all his
tools where there until after my dad died, and unfortunately my
mother was in need of some money and one of these antique dealers,
I think by the name of Button, she always said his name was, he
l
come down from around Fonthill and he give her peanuts and he
took all.. there was some 46-48 of these hand planes, the kind where
he used for making mouldings. Each plane were for a different
shape, you know of moulding. It was all done by hand. And there
was agreat big chest and that was out in the barn and there was
a few other things he took, corn sheller, different other things that
would have been of interest to potential customers of his.
And the front part of the barn was right on the bank where there's
a large walnut tree there now and I don't know how old that tree
is but it's still thereA-nd that front part had a laid stone foundation
wall and in the time of, I wouldn't say it was the liquor prohibition,
possibly it was even some stuff that was storErl
in their by a
bootlegger. But certainly at the time when the kerosene, they were
smuggling kerosene across the border and we know that someone
was storing kerosene in there. Now we weren't involved in that
but it's just that they would probably store stuff in there.
(
B.B.:
What time about was this?
R.M.:
When would that be? That would be, of course before it was moved
back so that would be around the turn of the century, maybe give
or take a decade either way.
6
B.B.:
R.M.:
What was the roadway along that...?
The roadway was just a mud road and it went very close to the bank
and where the old walnut tree is, they went on the outside of that
(
with the horses and the buggies and it got so bad that �ll the roots
were exposed from that tree and when the Parks Commission come
along they dumped load after load. They hired local people with
horses and, we called them dump wagons, they could· be filled up
with ground or stone or whatever and they had a rachet on them
and a release. We had one there at one time and the whole bottom
would open up like the bottom of a hopper car on the railroad and
they would dump them. I don't know how many loads of ground
on the outside of that and this tree is pretty well back although
it is suffering from age and time but a lot of it was dead, and we
cut it out, and it's pretty well grown back..this large black walnut,
t he biggest one that I know of around here. I would say tha� the
diameter of the trunk probably is in the neighbourhood of five feet
anyway, but it's probably hollow because squirrels get into it. And
in the winter when the roads were
very bad they use to drive on
the ice. They would go down on the ice, that is with the horses
(
and cart.
B.B.:
Right on the river?
R.M.:
Ya, right on the river, ya, go down on the river.
We kinda got away from this, I said that the gas in the house,
they heated with the gas and when I, in my time,
I
remember being
up in the attic being a lot of old stoves in there, the ones with fire
brick in them and little plexiglass windows in them. I shouldn't
call them plexi.glass, it's called mica, and you could see through
it, little sqaure, about two inches square, and those were all up
in the attic and we scrapped them but there was all kinds of stoves
up there. And there was no controls on them. All there would be,
would be valves to turn them on, no pilots or anything and they
had so much gas..and this really shakes them for energy now a days..
there was so much gas that they had the winters opened in the winter
time. And also, as I say they supplied gas up to would have been
my dad's Uncle Charlie and Aunt Gus and those up there where the
nuns are. And I can remember that one inch pipe being up there
(
and it was all rusty and at different times we would dig up, tear
up different pieces of it, it was just down underneath the ground.
7
I don't know if it supplied more than those two homes or not but it
finally give out because the water got the better of the well and
(
one time Charlie Wale, who was the same man that run the cider
mill in Stevensville, he use to bale gas wells and his rope broke and
his baler and all the rope are down in the bottom of that well. And
the baler is similar to the type that they use when their drilling
gas wells now a days. It's a long, about twenty-five to thirty feet
long piece of pipe maybe about an inside diameter of maybe three
or four inches. And at the bottome there is a special valve and
when it is let right down to the very bottom of the well the weight
of this pipe would push this valve up in and then the whole thing
would fill up with water and as soon as it was lifted up the weight
fo the water above it this valve would drop in the bottom and you
.
would take all the water out or when they were drilling it would
be a fine, ground up stone on the bottom of the well. It would all
be lifted up and they would take it out and drop it in a wood trough
and then as soon as it hit in there then all of the stuff would run
out of it and run out whether they were drilling the well or if they
were bedding it to take the water out. But it was a wet well. By
(
that it was fairly wet and so it was abandoned so...
B.B.:
I wanted to ask you too..you had mentioned that your farm went
over as far as the N.C.C. property..
R.M.:
Yes that's right.
B.B.:
Do you remember what was there...?
R.M.:
That was originally now. That was in the original crown grant.
We did not own that in my dad's lifetime but you see where my Uncle
Charlie, they owned that. That was there, Lot 15, Concession 5,
Niagara River and also farms went back into Concession 6, part
of Concession 6. So you see, the original John Miller who would
be my great, great grandfather, they had the property all the way
down to as I said where Dr. Chathman lived and that would be at
least a mile and a half or a mile and three quarters below our place.
And in the original
Miller family there was all girls except
the one boy, my great grandfather Jacob Miller and there was Elizabeth
Miller and she married John Birch Miller, the eldest son on the Andrew
(
Miller family who were the ones who took up the property from
Millers Creek up, including where the Marina is, where the old
shipyard was. And she married and they removed, so the word is,
you would say in other words they moved, but they called it removed
8
then, to up around Talbotville, up around St. Thomas. She married the
eldest, Elizabeth was the eldest, and in the John Miller family she
(
married the eldest boy in Andrew Miller family, John Birch Miller..they
lived up there. And the next one was Mary and she married John
Simons Atwood, I believe his name was. The first Atwood in this
area and he was sort of an itinerant or lay, one of these riding preachers.
And so we were related to all the Atwoods. And then the next one,
I believe was Catharine, ..! could be wrong now in my genealogy,
but I'll try to be right here..Catharine and she married John Riselay.
And then I believe the next one was Jacob and he married Sephira
Riselay who was a sister to John Riselay.. so this is where we come·
in to two brothers marrying two sisters, in two families, the Riselays
and the Millers. Then we had Veronica and she married Daniel MacAfee
and t·hey had no children. She died in about 1850 but we believe,
the records seem to indicate that Daniel was a brother to Captain
SamuelMacAfee, who was well catalogued to the one who helped
MacKenzie to get across the Niagara River at MacKenzies Crossing.
And they were not very well liked after that and the,
I
believe, ilrh.ough
of course this Veronica had died, and Daniel married a Hewi;on. Now
(
possibly, I'm not sure whether Hewsons, there's some in Ridgeway,
but anyway.. But anyway Captain Samuel MacAfee and his family
and I would presume Daniel and his second wife they were not liked
around here after that bout of 1837 Rebellion and they moved to
Stevenson County, Illinois. I think I've got in wrong order here,
there's a Anna and I'm not certciin but she might have been a little
older than my great grandfather Jacob. And Anna married Alfred
McCarty who on the deeds is listed as a wagon maker from Pennsylvania.
Incidentally, this is being recorded I know and I presume it could
stand for a lot of people wanting to get in touch with us, but we
have literally bushels of documents, all the Crown deeds, or all
the deeds rightback to the Crown, all the deeds of the property.
I've got the original will of my great, great grandfather John Miller,
who's dated in 1828 and he died in about 1841 or '42, that's there
and he mentions in there about giving this Elizabeth, the one that
went with her husband to Talbotville, near St. Thomas, he was given,
(
or she was given his riding horse because she was a great horsewoman.
In fact, all the Miller girls were known as being expert horsewomen
and they all rode side saddle. I don't know if the skirts were too
9
long, you know, but they rode side saddle.
(
B.B.:
You had also mentioned that you had a diary of a great aunt...
R.M.:
That's right, we have her diary and in this diary she has in there when my
dad was born tn'..I have written it down here someplace.. my dad
was born in March 9, 1883 and this is how wide a span of years it
covers. It's about twenty to twenty-three little booklets written
primarily in pencil. Some of them are getting very faint. She has
when I was born in September 27th, of 1930. In fact, the diary goes
from about 1870 until about shortly before she died in 1832[1932].
B.B.:
Can you think of anything...
R.M.:
Anything in there? I wasn't able to find, in looking last night, I
wasn't able to find the exact date; she has it in there when the first
car came down the Boulevard. She has in this dia·ry when different
members of the family died. Also, that there was people, friends,
and relatives were visiting in their place, in other words they had
visitors almost daily, quite often people stayed overnight. They,
if there was nothing of interest on a particular day, she just wrote
down 'nothing' by the date, but there had to be an entry for everyday
(
of every year, right through the full time span she kept the diary.
She has in there when there was a man come to their place, what
we would call a tramp now. They use to come to my mother and
dads place and they'd want to chop wood in the Depression; chop
_
up wood for something to eat. And you's see they'd stuff a strawberry
jam sandwich in their pocket or anything you know, stuff to eat.
And we'd swear to it that they had some way of marking the house�
where another one coming along would know it was a place they could
get a hand out. I've heard of this before being the case. Anyway
one tramp come to their place and he got sick. And he stayed there
and they fed him. He was there for a few days and he got sick and
the man died and they obviously didn't know his name but they paid
for his burial because she makes this and I quote: "And we buried
that man." And they didn't know who he was or anything about
him but they looked back to see that he had a reasonable burial.
And they went very often, ah, when I say very often, perhaps
once or twice a week, when weather permitting,
(
I
presume, not
when the river was full of ice .. they would go over to what was called
the Rock. And for quite awhile we couldn't quite figure out what
that meant but then it become apparant that it was Black Rock
10
in Buffalo which is the oldest, the oldest part of the city. And they'd
go by boat, they'd row over there.
\
\
B.B.:
How about the shipyards...?
R.M.:
The shipyards..o.k. the shipyards, um, I don't remember anything
about them other than I remember there was a couple of rooming
houses that were still up in my time and the one of them I remember
burning, in a fire. The one was called 'The Red Pig' and the other
was 'The Green Goose'. Now I can't rememb.er which one of those
is, it was that burnt. But the one is still up, that is it's still there
and it's being used, and it's on Miller Ave. just a little bit west of
Cairns cresent when you cross the little bridge there at Miller's
Creek and then Miller's Ave. goes back there. And it's
a
long driveway,
it's back in on the right when you're going off of Cair ns Cresent
and the man who lived in it for a long, long while Lloyd Willick and
he sold it and a man by the name of Al Eve presently lives in that.
And that is about the only remaining building of the rooming houses
that the men stayed in that worked at the shipyard. It was, Canadian
Shipbuilding was in there, Canadian, I believe Alice Chalmers and
Canadian General Electric were the last ones to own the land. My
Uncle Carl worked in the powere house there. They generated all
their own power. My Uncle Bill, who had Miller's Cabins he, that
and cresent is where now, is Idle View Restaurant and he worked
naturally on the contru.ction of the boats. I don't know if he was
1
a rivetter or just what. But my dad didn't work there because he
was at home farming and he told one account..he worked there
when they dismantled, when they tore all the stuff down; worked there
with the horses and things, but not during the time when they were
building boats..he told of one experience where at noon he was back
at the field and they had a great big crane there, it was on, elevated
off the ground and it was on set or rails and that went right on out
to what was called the 'slips'. There was two sl!.ps there. That's
where the Parks Commission has the boats in. And he noticed it
starting to roll. It was around noon time and he was coming in for
lunch and he thought, 'my gosh they better stop that pretty soon',
and it kept right on rolling. And it come up a gust of wind and she
went to the end andtipped over and right, dumped right over in the
(
out the end, in the deep water. And they went and got a horse or
whatever and went up there to see if anyone was killed or drowned
11
and there was nobody injured because the guy was out for lunch
and he had forgot to chain the thing to keep from rolling and it
just took right off from the wind and went to the end and dumped
(
over.
Boats that were built there and we've got pictures of them.
It' s recently been scrapped up at Port Colborne but it was christened
under another name. I think all of our family would have been up
for a chunk of an iron from it, for a piece of memoriabJe.
It was
the E.B. Osler, was christened there. That was one of the boats.
And another boat,
I
think about the last one that was built there
was the tugboat that was used for many years in the forebay of
the Canadian Niagara Power Company, including Niagara Park down
in Niagara Falls. And I was told this, I work for Canadian Niagara
Power and I was told this by our, oh, he would be ·our, not our auditor
but company secretary, financial secretary here in Fort Erie, and
he use to be in the Falls. And that old steel tugboat, they use to
use for breaking up ice is one of the last or possible last boat built
down her at the old shipyards. They had contracted with the shipyard
company to build this tugboat, to break up the ice in the forebay;
.
B.B.:
Was there a grist mill that was located in.. ?
R.M.:
Yes, that was down there and that mill..this is the bill of sale for
that mill from my great grandfather. That mill, I'll get here and
get some of that information...ah, you asked the mill, there, we
refer to the area where the mill was built as being Decew's Reef
because it was Decew who built the mill there. He come there
in well, probably be safe to say..the information is here but it would
take a bit of time to dig out..he came and he bought the land from
Jacob Miller and the stipulation was that within a short period of
time, that he had to build a mill for the people of the area to grind
their grain and to make flour for bread and so forth. And the mill
was built and it was very successful except every winter when the
ice came down in the spring, the late winter and spring, it tore out
the water wheel which was apparently some distance out of the
river, the water wheel and the supports, the bearings and the shaftings.
And so eventually he abandoned the sight, he give it up so to speak,
and went up somewheres near Port Colborne and built a mill there.
(
And, but the mill itself, the late Bert Miller, he told me, he remembers
before the algae and that in the river, he could see where the irons
12
were attached on the rock bed, it's quite shallow, where they were
attached, thtf'irons which were used
t:>
support, hold this here shafting:
So, it was about an acre, it was about an acre and a half, and it
(
was sold with the express purpose of building a mill, and it was a
building there into the bank and that's about where Bob Climenhage
lives. He is the next house, the second house down from the nuns,
the Redemptoristine Nuns are. And the house right next to him,
between the two is a part of the old summer kitchen, from off the
back of the old home where the nuns lived, and it was a summer
home for many, many years. And now it's not being used, it's owned
but it's not inhabited. And it's a very old building too. And the
one where Climenhages, where Bob lives, is an old home, they use
to call the Love home. People, I believe, by the name of Love was
in there , Clines were in there··and then I think, for a short while,
Lloyd Wale from Stevensville owned it and then Bob Climenhage.
bought it from him. But that's where, we have some photographs
of some buildings that were up in that area and they are really old
log houses and some old, old men out in front of them but I wouldn't
want to say for certain that it was a picture of the building, of the
mill. But there was an old building up there because out in the Parks
Commission, in the ground there, if it's ever dug up for any reason
or another and there seems to be lots of old bits and pieces of brick
and mortar and so forth and so, that is in the area where this mill
was.
B.B.:
What about the Black Creek area?
R.M.:
Ah, Black Creek.. the Black Creekstore is an old, old building. At
one time, I'm told in the basement, it was used for a jaiL It was,
ah, Jenks were down there, ah, in my time and I don't know who
the owners were, there were several prior to that time and I think
there were different ones in there, the Storms, that lived near there
people by the name of Storms owned it for awhile, this is back around
the late fifties; and then I believe Lloyd Wale, he's quite a man
for obtaining property and holding morgages and so forth, he owned
it for a bit; andwe have Sid Payne in there now which, he's operating
the Black Creek store.
They use to float booms and logs down Black Creek from back
in the country. They would be hardwood and the logs were taken
up the riv .er by oxen and mule team and they use to stop along
13
different places along, the drivers. They were , I suppose they were
taking them over to Buffalo and they would take and stop for lunch
(
and play dominoes. And we have a few of the dominoes there yet,
and
I
think around somewhere. They were like black wood, I don't
know, maybe walnut or some quite dark wood, maybe it was stained.
And you know what dominoes are, they've got the, o.k., they, pardon
me, were set in with, the white was like an ivory was set into it.
Another thing here that would be of interest.. ah, in the house
that my dad had there, there was wood stoveswe used 'til my dad
died, there was several of them which we always went back to the
woods and brought in. Summer it was by wagon and winter it was
by sleigh,and team, in both cases. My dad was great with horses,
he never cared much for tractors and cars. And the wood, lots of
times the wood was wet and you made, you got more out of making
the wood than burning it. The two wood stoves that were there
until dad died, we only heated the back part of the house, the front
part and the upstairs was closed off upstairs all winter. There was
no insulation, no storm windows, as I said, it was clapboard, it was
split lath and horsehair plastered. We use to put hay around the
(
bottom of the house because when the Parks Commission moved
it back it was just on a few concrete abutments here and there and
it was all open underneath and we put some plank around it and
put some hay and straw to keep the wind out from blowing so badly
underneath the bottom and there was only a basement under the
back as I mentioned. And the heating with wood, it produced a lot
of dampness and the no storm windows on the window, you couldn't
see out the windows when it was real cold weather because you
had a about a quarter of an inch of hoarfrost, over the inside of
the window.
I
can remember, very well my nails, finger nails, going
in there and just scratch down through the frost, it was just like
a shower of snow on the floor. And that would melt off on the south
side anyway when the sun would come out on a bright day and there
would be water running down the windows and around the window
sill. There was certainly no reason for a humidifier in the place.
And the wood was often times, bed wood or wood made that was
starting to rot a bit. You would have bad places in it like you get
in a rotter, in the centre of a potato or anything like that, and you'd
get big wood ants coming out. They'd feel the warmth and you'd
14
either have to kill them on the floor or they'd get burnt in the stove.
The front part of the house was, where the split lath was, this was
(
as
I
say not heated in the winter and my aunt, my mothers sister,
she lived in Buffalo, she use to come over for Christmas, every Christmas,
we always decorated the tree and she'd always help me and my mother,
my dad ..she'd come over in the summer as well..but it was unheated,
she was in the spare bedroom upstairs; one Christmas when she
got up her false teeth was froze right in the glass of water and she
had to, where she put them the night before and she had to bring
the glass downstairs and thaw them out, her teeth were froze right
in. And
I
remember dad use to speak of a white, bit of snow, sprinkled
of snow, being on the bed covers on the foot of the bed, just a light
sprinkle, coming around the windows and through the walls. And
it was an old house but it was bui>lt in those times when they didn't
consider too much insulation. The rooms in the front where it wasn't
heated, we had walnuts up in there and that had a tendency unfortunately
attract mice and rats. And one night, I remember we were all woke
up by a rat running across the piano keys and playing the piano,
so.. Dad al ways slept in the cot in the dining room so he could keep
the fires going.
That '29 Model A Ford he bought and he had until he died and
that was the one I believe he bought from W.G. Wilson. I'm not
sure if he was here in Fort Erie or possibly in Ridgeway. He was
a Ford dealer.
He had a horse, he liked horses, that he called H�ro and even
after he died , the little two wheel sulky, like you'd have for harness
racing was up on the overlayers in the barn, which would be some
beams and stuff we use to put up there and have planks on that and
we would pile a surplus of, oh sheaves of oaks and wheat on that
before it was thrashed and the front overlayers of the front of the
barn, dad's sulky was up there and this horse he called Hero, he use
to wing races, quite often, quite regularly at the old Bertie Fair
which was held where the Fort Erie Race Track is now and he, we,
during his, well when he got older, or before he died we did get a
�ix.horse power, Gmald-, Shapley and Muir gas engine and later a .
'
--
-
..
Fordson tractor and we use to saw the
wood then and instead of by hand we could saw with a Massey-Harris
cord wood saw. And that's where I guess I developed our interest
in collecting old gas engines and we have over two hundred of those,
the boys and I and we've got quite a few tractors, quitt.a few items
15
of early farm equipment and...let see what else we can get into here.�.
(
oh, here's something here that would be of interest. This was recounted
by the late Bert Miller, approximately about a quarter of a mile below
from Frenchman's Creek is a little area where you can park your car; it's
a little parking area .. now this is not the one above Frenchmans Creek
Bridge, right at the bridge but it's the first one below about a quarter
of a mile, it's kind of a high spot and the Parks Commission has
constructed a spot in there where people can park of�he road ... and
that is as I understand it, is what is known or was the sight of the
home of Peter Nettle and his mother. We have a picture at home,
an old photograph and it shows the home pretty badly deteriated,
it must of been some time after anyone had lived into it. It's all,
you know, it's all kind of starting to fall down. But the story of
Peter Nettle is kind of interesting. I guess he was kind of a hot
head. I don't know if his father was alive at this time or not. His
mother obviously was and there was fellas that use to come over
from Buffalo and they would fish along the shore and I suppose the
odd time they would land. And Peter Nettle must of been quite
(
a one to go over to Buffalo, to Black Rock, to frequent, should we
say bars, or whatever over there and he must have known these
fellows. There was three or four of them in a boat and I guess maybe
he possibly had been drinking and he come down there and they got
into quite a heated argument and I don't know if he told them not
to come ashore or if he told them to leave or whatever. And he
went back to the house and he come back with a gun and they were
still there and he shot one of the fellows. Now it was according
to Bert recounting of the incident, it was perhaps some six months
or so before the authorities came down from Welland and arrested
him. And he was taken over there and had a trial and he was in
jail for awhile. I presume, perhaps before the trial. And his mother,
the account goes, his mother use to take over baking, pies and cakes
and whatever for him..he was in jail. And then when his hearing
come up, the court action, he was aquited on grounds of self-defense
and he was out. And for a long while he never went over to Buffalo,
I suppose he was afraid of what may happen. And there was a sister
of one of these brothers who was killed..andthey were gunning for
him, so to speak..and one morning Peter Nettle was found in his
boat over in the barge canal, the Erie Barge Canal on Black Rock.
16
He was dead, his body was over the side and his head was in the water:
And afterwards it seem that the sister, I presume was a younger
(
sister, anyway she said that Peter Nettle got his due. In other words
they settled accounts with him. And that's kind of, I don't know
if you want to call it frontier justice or not, but that's the way it
was. And that was certainly in our Fort Erle area. It was Bertie
Township at that time.
And my dad, and my Uncle Bill that was Millers Cabins and my
Uncle Carl, they use to fish along the river using the sein.�. Now
I guess it was illegal at those times but anyway they had a sei nft
there and there was a hole right in front of our place or slightly
above the old homestead and it usually would yield, pretty near
a boat full of bull heads or cat fish of perch or even rock sturgeon
and things of this nature. And that is just below Decew's Reef where
this hole is and there's a 'A' there formed by the strong current going
across the reef and when it comes to the, where the reef breaks
off and it becomes deeper, the current goes out in the river. In
the winter time you can watch and there's a certain area in there
where the ice is going upstream very, very slowly due to what's
{
called the eddy. In other words it's kind of like an eddy of a current.
And I suppose the fish would come back into this area and in this
deep place and the swift current and the end of the rock, it's always
rough there even if the river is very, very smooth and we call it
the Devil's Half Acre, where the reef ends. And this saying came
from Tom Briggs who was a game warden on Lake Erie and Tom
was a brother to my Uncle George Briggs here in Fort Erie, who .
people will recall the Briggs Paint
&
Wallpaper.
And they had an Imperial ESSO gas pump, one of the old visible
kind, where you pumped it up and you could see how many gallons
was in there and went by gravity into the car. And they had one
of those pumps right on the curb, right on the sidewalk on the curb
of Jarvis Street, right in front of the Briggs building. That I remember
very well, that pump. And that building was built in about '28 and
that pump would have been in there into, well almost to World War
11. And that of course is the building that's recently suffered two
fires there.
...we talked here about the shipyard...
And our people had come here in about 1800. And the other
17
side of the family was the Riselays. And they were in the Niagara area
as early as 1777. Christian Riselay, who is the same relation to
(
me as John Miller, in other words a great, great grandfather, he
has fought with Butlers Rangers at Niagara in December of
1 777.
And the source of that statement is the log book of Colonel John
Butler. And the Riselays were U. E. Loyalist and I'm a U.E. Loyalist
in virtue of being a direct descendant of Christian Riselay and so
of course with all the other members of the Miller family and their
descendants and the Riselays as well. I mentioned that my grandfather
and grandmother on my dads side were double first cousins to one
another, in other words two children of the Riselay family, a brother
and a s ister married two children, a brother and a sister in another
family and the two youngest children of those two respective marriages
were my grandfather and grandmother on my fathers side. In other
words they were double first cousins to one another.
And my Uncle Bill at Millers Cabins also had an ESSO visible
gas pump. And Joe Morningstar..now this is down within about
three quarters of a mile south of Black Creek.. Joe Morningstar had
an ESSO there and Charlie Wale, just they were relatives and they
(
were only about athousand feet apart, they had (I've got down here
three hundred feet apart but I think I'm a little bit close on that)
they had a gas station as well and they had Sunoco and while they
were relatives they didn't get along that well together because
they were in competitive business,gasoline wise.
My Uncle Bill and Joe Morningstar both had a stand where you
could get ice cream and pop and hot dogs. I don't think Wales had
anything like that down there at their place. This Charlie Wale
was an Uncle of Lloyd Wale of Stevensville and he also operated
Wales Cider Mill in Stevensville. In addition to the stand Uncle
Bill sold, he sold in the stand, what was called 4.4 beer. That was
very weak.
I
guess it was the only thing they could sell at that time,
I don't know if they could have got a license for anything stronger
than that.
Uncle Bill and Aunt Irene at Millers Cabins was always filled
up with tourists during the summer, especially when the Fort Erie
Race Track was in operation. Uncle Bill was what you call a 'good
(
mixer', he could make himself at home with tourists no matter where
they come from, what state they were from.
18
And down just on the Willoughby side of the Town Line road,
that was Wilbughby at that time, it's now part of Fort Erie, people
(
by the name of Burkes built a home there and I suppose that would
be back possibly sixty, sixty-five years ago because it's been there
as long as I can remember. And they were summer people, lawyers
at Buffalo and very well known in the Irish community over there.
They had a picture in their home, one of the original pictures bf
that was made or drawn up of the Battle of Ridgeway, where the
Fenians who were Irish people came over and they engaged the Queens
own there at the Battle of Ridgeway. And these people, Burkes
use to put in the dock every year and take it out in the fall. And
Uncle Bill would help them a lot put out the dock every year and
they use to, when the dock was in, as soon as they were done, they
use to grab Uncle Bill andthe boys, they had five boys, and they'd
grab him, fully clothed and everything and throw him off into the
end of the river. That was kind of a standing joke and they always
use to call him 'Poop deck Pappy'.
...ah, there was something else I was just thinking in regards with..
Oh, also Uncle Bill he, in my lifetime
(
I
remember, I was very
small at the time but there was quite an ice jam in the river and
he, it was foggy and I can remember a time seeing him disappear
in the fog, he walked across the river on the ice. Now these were
cakes of ice, small not large, it would be very dangerous thing and
he done it I'm sure just for the glory or the name of it. It would
be a very dangerous thing to do but he walked across and he walked
back again after talking to some people on the Grand Island shore.
Now that's the first time that anybody had walked across and been
able to come back. About a hundred years before that a man had
walked across on
a
large cake of ice which it use to freeze out a
long ways in front of our place and the g:..an::ler Fla.ts just below the
town line road, just below where Burkes use to have their dock,
there's a marsh there and they call it the Ganderf; Flats , and the
ice would go, would sort of swing out because of the current and
the wind, west wind, it would swing out the upper end of the great
big piece and it would swung around and over and jam on the shore
of Grand Island and on the Gander Flats, it's a bit of a point..and
this man walked across but before he was able to come back it
let go and he couldn't, he had to get back by boat or other wise.
19
And I believe at the same time, a cousin of mine from Stevensville
said, at the same time that U ncle Bill walked across, he and another
(
fellow walked across but I don't remember seeing that unless they
went just a little bit later. But I can remember it was foggy and
I can remember kind of seeing disappear out and walking across
the river on the ice.
..and these are probably some of the interesting things that people
are interested in..
They use to always, there's a place on the bank there, it's just
below the Redemptoristine Nuns, and they use to always call that
Uncle Charlies watering hole. They use to drive the sheep and the
cattle and stuff down the river and my dad use to drive his horses
with the harness on it and everything, right across the road and
down the bank and got them a drink in the river. Well I suppose
that was because they were use to doing that because his great Uncle
or his uncle rather, Uncle Charlie and them who use to help a lot 1
they use to do that at this place there and tbey use to also dip1 they
use to take the sheep down there and they'd have to dip them or
whatever you say, put something on them to kill, I don't know to
kill ticks or whatever, sheep dip and I don't know what it's constituted
of, some kind of chemical I suppose or something you know tmat
they put in the water. I guess maybe they get the water o�t of the
river and perhaps and have it in some kind of a big container because
you couldn't put stuff in the water, it would just float away.
In my time I remember the Brethren in Christ people had their baptism
at the very same spot.
And another incident that was in this diary and also Bert Miller
recounted it, up here in the country, back up on the Bowen Road,
up near the Queen E., you've got Ralph Curtis and then you've got
Laurs, there's the Laur farm, the Cutis's were related to the Laurs.
Years and years ago, in that family was a young fellow by the name
of Jimmy Laur. And he was suppose to have driven his horses down
and out on the flat rock bed of the river there at Decew's Reef.
And as you go out there in some places it drops down very abruptly
and it's very deep and that won't be too wide and then it would become
shallow again. Well he drove the horses out there a ways and the
horses dropped into one of these spots and they started to flounder
20
and he was afraid they would drown and he took and he walked out
(
on the tongue to try and get the .. you know, try and release the horses
so they could swim and get away and he got tangled up in the harness
there. Me was drowned out there in this, this is at Decew's Reef.
And also; these same deep spots in that reef, they can, you can
come down from up above, closer to the Nuns where the reef starts
and there'll be a deep spot down through the rock and all of a sudden
it will abruptly stop and it will be shallow, as
I
say inside, shallow
outside, and this here deep spot will stop and be shallow below that.
And sail boats, I have seen them come down and as you know they
have a centre board and they would come down and get in one of
those deep spots, not realizing it. People may be not, maybe from
Buffalo or wherever, and they would come down on that and the
centre board would jam against the end of this rock and they would
drop their sails, they would be just about tipped over, the mast would
be forty-five or even sixty degree angle, getting down closer and
closer to parallel to the water, just about tipped over. And they'd
take their sail down and they'd try and pick up the centre board
(
and they couldn't because the current pushing hard against the boat
and it would jam right into the box, the centre board box in the
sailboat and it was against the rock. And they'd try, boats would
come along, and they'd try and blow them out. Well they couldn't
because this wouldn't be very wide and they'd try and pull them
in and they'd try and pull them down. So they finally find out that
the only way to get him off of that would be to come down and get
a rope on them and tow them straight up because that's the way
they came down:in.
And then I remember some fellow, he must have been drunk
it happened a tug boat and he was in the river there and he was
kind of oh, aimlessly going around, here and 'yon and he got out
and got jammed on the reef waith this tug boat and I can remember
Burkes, they had a Chriscraft and they went up there and tried to
pull him off and different ones tried to pull him off.
the Chriscraft, Burkes, with them.
I
I
was out on
was just a young kid at· the
time. Finally, the coast guard or someone had to pull him off. and
then this guy, and he started fooling around again and he hit the
reef on the other side and he put her in and sunk her. And
I
don't
know if they ever raised the boat or not.
21
But dad, we use to always saw wood by hand, for the fire wood and
I got some pictures of dad sawing wood by hand there but, ah...
(
B.B.: Well, Mr. Miller you've given some very interesting information.
Possibly we ·�ill be able ta' sipen1k again and you can fill us in on
some more things.
R.M.:
Ya, yes. There's lots of more stuff.
B.B.: Well thank you very much.
R.M.:
Okay.
{
(
22