Dofasco 2000 TapleyTown Rd to 87 Acres #070930

See also: Devils Punch Bowl D2k #070912

For the first part of the trail (Devil’s Punch Bowl to Tapleytown Rd)

Saltfleet Northeast Woods

The woods provide a home to 50 species of breeding birds, nine of which are uncommon in the Hamilton area, including a breeding ground for the Sedge Wren, a highly significant species of wren. Approximately 55 hectares, the Saltfleet Woods are made up of marshy fields and woodlots.

87-Acres Park

The park’s large quarry pond is habitat to several species of migratory waterfowl as well as home to mammals such as muskrats. The wetlands were re cently expanded to provide more waterfowl habitat. 87-Acres Park is popular for viewing hawks such as the Red-tailed Hawk .

Ridge Road and the Niagara Escarpment, giving users a stunning view of the city below. To the south of the Ridge Road section you can see the Vinemount South Swamp, an environmentally - significant swamp forest through which a board walk section of the trail will eventually run. Also along the trail you will observe the Sinclair Sugar Bush, and 87-Acres Park ’s quarry pond, home to a wide variety of wildlife and a habitat for several species of migratory waterfowl.

The Dofasco 2000 Trail can be accessed anywhere along its length. However parking is available at Tenth Road East and the Devil’s Punchbowl Conservation Area.

Tapleytown

Tapleytown was one of the first areas of Upper Stoney Creek to be settled and still retains a great deal of its Loyalist beginnings.

The roads, farms, and fields of this hamlet, centred around the crossroad churches and school, still evoke a country flavour.

Thankfully development of the area has been through large lots and single family dwellings, so a great deal of the sense of the history of Tapleytown remains.

Tapleytown Road marks the 4th line east of Centennial Parkway, and is considered Tapleytown's "other main street".

A former school (now a church) and the area's best sugar bush are just two of the road's features.

The Thomas family is one of Tapleytown's oldest families, and produced an important political figure, Reeve Leslie Thomas, in the middle of the 20th century.

Where Stoney Creek crosses Tapleytown Road, the area's most well known sugar bush still runs every spring.

The Erland Lee farm sat at the north end of Tapleytown Road. Dating back to the 1790s, the Lees became one of the prominent Saltfleet families in the mid 19th century, before declining in the mid 20th.

The most famous personages from the family were Erland and Janet Lee, who helped found the world's first rural women's organization, the Women's Institutes (est. 1897).

Erland and Janet Lee's daughter, Alice (Lee) Freel, became the first woman on Saltfleet Township Council (1926).

During her adult life, Alice (Lee) Freel lived slightly farther west on Ridge Road at the Devil's Punch Bowl, at local landmark, Jubilee Hall.

Jubilee Hall was originally built by J.B. Walker, a prominent farmer in Saltfleet who owned land both above and below the Devil's Punch Bowl.

Walker's property was sold upon his death to Emmerson Freel. The Freel family farmed the property for the next two generations.

Emerson's sons, Charles and Clifford, inherited the house.

Clifford and his wife Alice (Lee) ran a successful red cherry farm until the 1970s.

The Loyalist footprint, left behind when Tapleytown was first settled, may be fading, but the heritage of this area, the geographical centre of Stoney Creek Mountain, is retained through the continuation of several heritage buildings and the relatively low-density development that has occurred in the 20th century.

Though the rise of the automobile may have whittled away at Tapleytown's economic strength (its shops and farms), its relative isolation from the busy urban centres to the north makes the former hamlet an ideal place to live.

This on-line exhibit is only a portion of the Erland Lee Museum's photographic archives.

Stoney Creek

The community of Stoney Creek is located on the south shore of western Lake Ontario, just east of Hamilton (pre-amalgamation) into which feed the watercourse of Stoney Creek as well as several other minor streams. The historic area, known as the "Old Town", exists below the Niagara Escarpment. In 1974 the old town of Stoney Creek merged with Saltfleet Township. In 1984 Stoney Creek became a city.

Though residential growth exploded, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s in the lower city and in the west mountain in the 1990s and 2000s, most of the land mass of Stoney Creek remains agricultural. The communities of Elfrida, Fruitland, Tapleytown, Tweedside, Vinemount, and Winona serve as distinct reminders of the agricultural legacy of Stoney Creek and Saltfleet township.

It lost its independent status in 2001 as the Provincial Government formally merged Stoney Creek, Ancaster, Glanbrook, Dundas, Flamborough and Hamilton into the new city of Hamilton, turning the new multi-million dollar Stoney Creek City Hall into a Hamilton Public Library.

According to the 2001 census the population of Stoney Creek was 57,327 up 5.5 per cent from the 1996 census[1]. Children under 14 years of age totaled 19.4% while those in retirement age constituted 12.6% of the total population. Some 25.94% or a quarter of the population was foreign born. The census showed that Stoney Creek was 92.72% white (European), (of which 55% had British Isles origin, 16% Italian[2], 21% Croatian, Polish, Serbian, Ukrainian etc.), 3.0% South Asian, 1.0% Black, 1.0% mixed race, 0.6% Chinese. As of the 2006 census, the population of Stoney Creek had risen to 62,292.

Religious affiliation

The 2001 Census reports the following religious composition of the people of Stoney Creek

* 48.3% Roman Catholic

* 28.5% Protestant

* 4.7% Christian Orthodox

* 1.2% Other Christian

* 1.6% Muslim

* 1.0% Hindu

* 1.1% Sikh

* 0.6% Other

· 13.0% No religious affiliation

History and attractions

Historic Stoney Creek was settled by Loyalists after the American Revolution and was nondescript until it was put on the map as it were by the Battle of Stoney Creek during the War of 1812. Although only several dozen soldiers were killed in the battle, it was an important one since outnumbered British regulars and Canadian militia defeated invading Americans. The site of the Battle of Stoney Creek near Centennial Parkway and King Street has been preserved as Battlefield House with its associated museum, monument and park.

Branches of the Bruce Trail provide access to Battlefield Park as well as the Devil's Punch Bowl. The latter is marked by a large illuminated cross and offers an excellent lookout for both Stoney Creek and Hamilton. Other green spaces of note include Fifty Point Conservation Area, which includes camping and a small craft harbour.

Both the Devil's Punch Bowl and the large cross mentioned above were featured in the 2006 horror film Silent Hill. It can be seen during the first few scenes. Another movie filmed in the area include the 1998 film The Big Hit starring Mark Wahlberg.

On a more commercial note, the Winona Peach Festival serves up homegrown fruit, crafts and music. Like the peach festival, the Stoney Creek Flag Festival is also held every summer. The Stoney Creek Dairy on King Street — with a stylized Battlefield Monument in its logo — has offered frozen treats to people in the region for decades under a variety of ownership, the current one being Ben & Jerry's. Eastgate Square Mall straddles the former border between Hamilton and Stoney Creek.

Economy and transportation

Due to the temperate environment on the western end of the Niagara Peninsula, the Stoney Creek area in eastern Wentworth County was and still is known for fruit growing. In recent decades, as the quality and reputation of Ontario wines grew, Stoney Creek became part of the fringes of the Niagara winery region.

Agriculture continued to be the major employer for decades, only supplanted by others as community growth brought it into closer contact with Hamilton and the great conurbation of the Golden Horseshoe. Stoney Creek became a centre for light industry, road transportation and commuting residences, since its land costs were much lower than in neighbouring Hamilton.

Stoney Creek is served by the Queen Elizabeth Way, various current or former Ontario provincial highways and a largely irregular network of residential streets. Portions of Upper Stoney Creek are on a great grid pattern. It is poorly served by public transit in the form of the Hamilton Street Railway or HSR, which was operated in Stoney Creek by the regional government since 1974 and the megacity government since 2001.

Stoney Creek, along with Ancaster and Waterdown are among the fastest-growing parts of Hamilton. In recent years, new condominiums have being built along the lakefront beyond the reach of the industrial Hamilton Harbour. Many of the builder's sales efforts have been directed at residents of the Greater Toronto Area in large part because of the affordability factor and quick access to the western GTA via the Burlington Skyway. Detached housing growth remains strong in developments above the mountain.

Politics and government

Local jam merchant E.D. Smith promoted the area and served as a Wentworth MP around the turn of the 20th century. Otherwise, the most recent political tremor occurred when Tony Valeri, the federal minister of transport who supported Paul Martin as Liberal leader, defeated Sheila Copps, a former Canadian heritage minister who supported Jean Chrétien, in a bitter constituency nomination election after redistricting forced the two sitting MPs head-to-head in the formerly divided Hamilton East-Stoney Creek.

Like its bigger neighbour, Stoney Creek expanded over the 20th century to encompass more and more of its smaller neighbours like Fruitland, Winona, Vinemount, Tapleytown, Tweedside and Elfrida in Saltfleet Township. The Town of Stoney Creek, along with five other second-tier municipalities, became part of the two-tier municipal federation called the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth in 1974. Areas it annexed on top of the Niagara Escarpment became known as Upper Stoney Creek or Satellite City.

In 1984, it was granted city status, and was looking to challenge its more populous neighbour. However, over its residents' strenuous objections, the City of Stoney Creek was amalgamated with the other municipalities of Hamilton-Wentworth Region to form the new City of Hamilton. However, its suburban voters helped ensure the first mayor of an amalgamated Hamilton came from the former suburbs. The new city's second mayor, Larry DiIanni, had served as a Stoney Creek Councillor for 20 years.