Early Queenston
The names of towns and villages in Ontario sometimes have a deceptive history. Towns that once had a German name because of a large German speaking population, found it necessary to change their name in times of hostilities with Germany. Sometimes a name was arbitrarily assigned by the railway company when a station was required, or by the post office when mail delivery was established, ignoring completely the name already familiar to the local inhabitants.
The name Queenston, however, grew naturally out of its history. The village very early became a regular part of the preaching circuit of Reverend Robert Addison, the first Rector of St. Mark’s Church and it is frequently mentioned by that name in his record of baptisms. Later, when he had acquired an assistant in the person of Thomas Creen, it was the assistant who more regularly took responsibility for this part of the parish.
Queenston had grown up following the Revolutionary War when access to the portage on the west bank of the Niagara River was no longer accessible to British carriers. Ships, laden with goods from Quebec and Kingston landed in what was the last navigable point of the Niagara River until the advent of the jet boats. From there everything had to be carried up the escarpment, first by porters and then by horse drawn carts. What is still known as “the halfway” was the place where they changed teams. The route then passed up what is still known as Portage Road in Niagara Falls, to Chippewa where the cargo was once again loaded into ships to proceed on to Fort Erie and Windsor.
Mary Friesen in her publication of The Datebook of Ransom Goring points out that, as early as 1778, Francis Goring had referred to the village as “West Landing”. In the end notes she tells how the name was then used variously as “The Landing” or “Ingersol Landing”. This last variant was because Thomas Ingersol, the father of Laura Secord, had operated an inn at this site, before moving on to found what has become the city of Ingersol, Ontario. Once barracks had been erected to house the Queen’s Rangers the place became known as Queenstown. Robert Hamilton, however, deleted the “w” in his business correspondence and soon this became the accepted form of the name of the town.
Queenston has been fortunate to keep a name that grew naturally out of its history. While sometimes legislation is required to avoid undue confusion over the names of towns and villages, generally it is preferable to accept the name that inhabitants have given to a place, and thus preserve this little bit of local history.