Continuing a Niagara Discoveries “mini series” exploring places in Niagara County with unusual names or stories behind them, today we move on to Lewiston.
We’ll start with an area on Ridge Road (Route 104) between Townline and Dickersonville roads. Since the War of 1812, this stretch of road has been known as “Hardscrabble,” named after a U.S. military camp that was located in the vicinity. The exact location of the camp is debatable, with different sources and historians offering opinions based on post-war maps, the written records of early settlers and interviews with long-time residents of the area. Some believe it was closer to what is now Dickersonville Road, while others contend it was nearer to present-day Ransomville Road.
The first known record of what was called “Hardscrabble” was written Jan. 23, 1814, more than a month after the British army and their Native allies had captured Fort Niagara and destroyed settlements all along the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. An order was issued by Major General Amos Hall from his headquarters at Batavia which read: “Lt. Col. Jno. (John) Harris will proceed to Hardscrabble to the cantonment now occupied by the troops under Col. Swift and take charge of the detachment of the command…the troops under the command of Lt. Col. Harris will be quartered in as compact a manner as the nature of the ground and present barracks will admit, and Lt. Col. Harris will make proper provision for quarters by building huts as soon as may be…” It was estimated the camp could accommodate 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers, but most of the records state it was closer to 500 to 600 men.
After the British capture of Fort Niagara, and the destruction of the Niagara Frontier in December 1813, Hardscrabble was one of the few places in the county still held by the Americans. One source recorded that troops stationed there had been dismissed three months earlier, in April 1814, leaving the area without defense. In early July 1814, the Hardscrabble camp was burned by the British. In response to this latest action, 700 American troops were sent from Buffalo to “the ground where Lewiston formerly stood” to protect residents who began to return there. It is unclear whether the Hardscrabble barracks were rebuilt since an encampment was established at Lewiston despite the fact that the British continued to hold Fort Niagara until May 1815.
With the end of the war, former residents and new settlers moved into the area again. A school was established as early as the 1840s. Officially known as Lewiston School No. 9, locally it was called the Hardscrabble School up until it closed in 1955 when the Lewiston-Porter Central School District was created.
• • •
Fort Gray Drive in Lewiston is named for another fortification associated with the War of 1812 that was once located atop the Niagara Escarpment in the vicinity of where Military Road ends at Lewiston Road today (but not actually on Fort Gray Drive). The site of Fort Gray had originally been used as a blockhouse by the French when they controlled the portage route from Fort Niagara to their Fort du Portage on the Niagara River above the Falls. Later, the British built a new blockhouse on the same site, and for the same purpose as the French, to protect the portage route from Fort Niagara to their Fort Schlosser on the upper Niagara River.
When the British finally relinquished Fort Niagara to the United States in 1796, they abandoned the blockhouse on the “mountain” above Lewiston. For the next 16 years, the British blockhouse was left to ruins.
In 1812, with tensions with the British increasing, the U.S. Army erected yet another blockhouse on the site. When Capt. Nicholas Gray arrived at the site he found the remains of the British fortifications and constructed a blockhouse that could hold a small garrison of 12 to 15 men. The outpost was named in his honor.
As referenced above, on the night of Dec. 19, 1813, the British attacked the village of Lewiston below the escarpment. The small U.S. Army detachment at Fort Gray, led by Maj. Benajah Mallory, a Canadian volunteer, was able to hold the British at bay for a short time when they were advancing toward Manchester (now Niagara Falls). This allowed residents in that village more time to flee. The small fort was then torched by the British.
The military history of Fort Gray may have ended in 1813, but its ruins were visible for many years. The exact location was known right up through the mid 20th century. Former Niagara County Historian Clarence Lewis wrote a few newspaper articles about the fortification there. He hoped the site would become part of a proposed Lewiston Historical Park that would include historic sites on Lewiston Heights and the Lower Landing. Unfortunately the park was never developed and the Fort Gray site was bulldozed to make way for the Robert Moses Parkway (now the Niagara Scenic Parkway) along the Niagara River.
• • •
Another area of Lewiston with a puzzling name (it can also be included in the town of Niagara) is Colonial Village. This area generally encompasses the stretch along Saunders Settlement Road (Route 31) between Tuscarora and Military roads, with the “village” being located on Garlow and Kline roads, running south of Route 31.
Despite efforts to discover a particular reason for it being called this, no exact explanation has been found. Colonial Village is not named as a hamlet on a 1938 atlas that highlights the small communities of Niagara County.
The earliest newspaper reference that could be found is from Oct. 7, 1939. There is an ad in the Niagara Falls Gazette for an open house at Colonial Village featuring Home No. 22. The ad was for the developer, Walter S. Johnson Building Co. at 2532 Hyde Park Blvd., Niagara Falls. It proclaims, “This suburban subdivision has kept us busy supplying the demand for homes built to order and it has been impossible to build enough homes to sell when completed. For those who desire an inexpensive suburban home or an attractive garden-plot site place your orders now before the prices go ‘sky high.’”
By the early 1940s, many of the houses were occupied and notices appeared in the papers for events in homes as well as the Colonial Village Park and the Presbyterian Church. One intriguing mention in the Buffalo Evening News on June 21, 1941, under “Many Parties Planned,” was about a resident having “a spinster dinner in her home, Colonial Village, Lewiston.”
The original schoolhouse in that area, Lewiston No. 9, opened since the 1840s, was at the southwest corner of Miller Road, in the same place as the current school. In 1955, when the towns of Niagara, Wheatfield and Lewiston were consolidating their schools into central districts, it was decided that even though it was located in Lewiston, the new Colonial Village Elementary School would be part of the Niagara-Wheatfield district. During the 1950s and 60s, the school age population in and around Colonial Village increased so much that new wings had to be added to accommodate all the students.
How the name of the development was chosen remains a mystery. During the 1920s and 1930s in the United States there was a resurgence of interest in Colonial and Early American history. Old Fort Niagara was being restored during those decades as well. Perhaps the name was a nod to Lewiston’s long history as a vital part of the strategic, economic and military heritage of this area. If the answer is found, it will be revealed in a future article.