St. Catharines, ON

It’s really too bad that the weather was terrible when I went to St. Catharines because it’s location on Lake Ontario allows for wonderful photo opportunities. Lakeside Park, which features a colourful carousel and a beach on one side and a lighthouse on the other, looked absolutely miserable in the rainy haze. The place used to be the Lake Ontario entrance for the first three Welland Canals.

Brock University, named after Major General Sir Isaac Brock, sits on the southern end of the city. I don’t know what the university is known for, but I have heard that it has an excellent rate of matching students with employers, and their Goodman School of Business looks well-branded. Brock is known for defeating American invasions during the War of 1812 and died at the Battle of Queenston Heights. His hat is on display in a museum in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Morningstar Mill is just a 10-minute drive from Brock University. It was built in 1792 by John DeCou, who served as a Lieutenant in the War of 1812. On 22 June 1813, Laura Secord overheard battle plans from defeated American troops at Queenston that they were planning an attack. She walked 32 kilometres to Niagara-on-the-Lake to warn the commanding officer, who was at the DeCou House of the impending attack. The attack took place on 14 June, but the Americans were defeated by a prepared British and Indigenous coalition.

After the war, the First Welland Canal was built in 1832, leaving the mill with inadequate water to operate. DeCou sold the property in 1837. In 1872, Robert Chappell built another mill on top of DeCou’s foundations, but the local waterworks commission bought it in 1875 when they started work on damming the waterway just above the mill. The Third Welland Canal raise the water levels enough to make it workable again and it was sold to Wilson Morningstar in 1883.

The mill fell into disrepair after Morningstar died. The current structure was rebuilt in the 1990s.