From Boom to Bust, 1856-1877: by Andrew Armitage

With wheat prices soaring, Halton County in Canada West becomes a bread basket for the Crimean War. The Bronte Road is crowded with wagons bringing grain from the northern farmlands to Bronte's harbour on Twelve Mile Creek. The prosperous village of Bronte is alive with industry and swelling with new arrivals. By the mid-1850s, there are 550 people in Bronte. ¹

At the mid-point of the 19th Century, Bronte was on the brink of an economic boom. Once the Bronte Harbour Company had dredged and deepened Twelve Mile Creek, built piers and docks, the village could now take its place among the important ports on Lake Ontario. As Bronte grew in population, the village attracted merchants, new industries, and workmen. Jim White's sawmill on the east bank of the Twelve was thriving as was Harrison's grist and sawmill at the end of Mill Street, just north of the village. In 1858, the firm of Jones, Williams and Cummer opened one of the first and largest steam grist mills in Ontario. ²

With sawmills and a plentiful supply of lumber cut from the surrounding forests, Bronte attracted both skilled carpenters and shipwrights. Although neighbouring Oakville was by then a major shipbuilding centre, Bronte harbour was also the scene of considerable activity. The ship-building brothers, Melancthon and John Simpson, busy at their boat yard at the top of Navy Street in Oakville, soon began building schooners at Bronte. Not only were the Simpson's schooners such as the Flying Cloud (1852), Peerless (1853), Olivia (1853) and Lily (1854) among "the prettiest ships on the Lakes," they were also employed in transporting the golden grain of Halton County. ³

Once the heavy forests of Halton County had been cleared, the Halton Plain proved to be fertile wheatland. Between 1841 and 1867, agriculture was booming. With the abolishment of the Corn Laws, which protected British trade through tariffs, in 1846, a free market economy was established creating a soaring world demand for wheat. As the demand for grain and flour grew in the rapidly-growing industrial centres of Britain and western New York State, Halton farmers, concentrating on growing wheat, found a ready market for the products of their fields.

The available strains of wheat grown in Upper Canada, which had largely been imported from Europe, had been limited in yield due to the severity of Canadian frosts and the prevalence of wheat rusts. Fortunately for the farmers of Halton County and eventually all of Canada, a Scottish immigrant named David Fife, living near Otonabee, Ontario, developed a new, extremely hardy strain of wheat which would become known, world-wide, as Red Fife. By 1851, this sturdy and productive grain had become the leading variety of wheat grown in Ontario. ⁴

The effect of Red Fife on the harbours of Lake Ontario was immediate. The traffic in fall wheat was so great that the harbour at Port Credit, by the late 1850s, was more active than the harbour at Toronto. ⁵ The boom in wheat production and export did not pass by Bronte. As early as 1850, wheat had become a major export commodity. In that year alone, a total of 74,840 bushels of wheat were exported from the docks along Twelve Mile Creek. ⁶

As early as 1838, Bronte was home to grain handling facilities. In 1838, the Oakville merchant, James Gage, a loyalist who had emigrated from New York State, had built a grain warehouse on the Bronte waterfront. Additional storage capacity was added as grain made Bronte merchants wealthy. By the end of the 1850s, over 300,000 bushels of grain were exported from the harbour, destined mainly for Britain and New York State. ⁷

During the Crimean War (1853-1856), wheat prices soared. British grain crops had failed in the previous years and with the necessity of feeding troops in the field, other sources of the essential grain were needed. As the demand for wheat and flour increased, area farmers put every resource available into to growing wheat. By the late 1850s, Halton County had become the major wheat-producing area in Ontario. However, an end to the wheat boom was just around the corner. ⁸

The first blow was delivered by the arrival of the railroad in Halton County. First on the scene was the Great Western Railway which commenced carrying passengers in 1855. The immediate effect on Bronte was the cancellation of regular stage-coach service along the Lake Shore Road between Toronto and Hamilton. Even more serious was the arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1856, the GTR completed its track between Sarnia and Montreal. Since the new railway passed north of Bronte, through Georgetown and Acton, Halton County farmers no longer had to make the long wagon trips south to the lake port of Bronte. ⁹

Coupled with this was the end of the Crimean War and a subsequent financial crisis, both for Britain and Canada. With the development of new grain growing areas in recently opened counties of Upper Canada, the export price of grain collapsed. With depressed grain prices and new railroad transportation routes in Halton County, gradually Bronte's several warehouses were abandoned and removed. One was dismantled and shipped to Burlington where it became a canning factory. A second was loaded on a scow for Toronto while a third warehouse eventually was converted to a general store. . ¹⁰

The effect of the wheat boom and bust on Bronte was readily evident. Between 1856 and 1877, the number of residents of the village of Bronte dropped dramatically from 550 to just over 200, a population that would remain steady until the turn of the century.

Footnotes

1. Philip Brimacombe, The Story of Bronte Harbour, p. 17.
2. Ibid., p. 15.
3. Dorothy Turcotte, Places and People on Bronte Creek, p. 88.
4. Martin K. McNicholl, "Fife, David," The Canadian Encyclopedia, p. 763.
5. G. Elmore Reaman, A History of Agriculture in Ontario, p. 84.
6. Brimacombe, Ibid., p. 17.
7. Clare McKeon and Joseph P. McKeon, Oakville: A Place of Some Importance, p. 44.
8. Brimacombe, Ibid. p. 17.
9. Ibid., p. 22-23.
10. Ibid.