The Bloody Assizes - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Paranoia in pioneer times
by Daniel Cumerlato

Featured on the Ghost Walk of the Hermitage Ruins

It was 1814, two years after the Americans walked into British Canada with the plan to take it over, track down Loyalists and push the Brits out of North America forever. This was the plan, but what really happened was a back-and-forth chess match between a historic democracy and the “new kid on the block”.

The Americans came in strong and took the capital of Newark (today’s Niagara-on-the-Lake), but the British showed true genius with what’s considered the turning point of the War of 1812, the battle at Stoney Creek. With only half the man power, the Brits put on a night attack after marching across current day Hamilton from Burlington Heights (location of Dundurn Castle and Hamilton Cemetery).

This battle pushed the Americans back to the Niagara region and eventually out of Upper Canada for good. This led to the end of the War of 1812, but like in today’s society, there is always much paranoia related to the enemy. Worries about what the Americans left behind in the form of spies and tricks. This is when the “renegade settler” was born, a caravan of settlers that would hide among the Loyalists waiting for their chance to strike.

What their plan was remains a mystery. Maybe they were stuck in a foreign land with hopes that the Americans would be victorious. Then, when all was lost, they had no choice but to continue the charade or face death. Maybe these renegades would have left if given the option. We’ll never know, but the Loyalists eventually found them out.

Nineteen men were charged with High Treason at the Ancaster courthouse. The court was held on the second floor of the Union Hotel that once stood on Wilson Street. This is not to be confused with the building that still stands across the street (location of the Coach & Lantern Restaurant). That was also called the Union Hotel, but was a different structure.

Judges Thomas Scott, William Powell and William Campbell together presided over the trial. In the end fifteen of the men received the most harsh punishment possible, that of being “Drawn & Quartered”. Seven of the fifteen were saved from death after all of the facts were weighed during a primitive version of an appeal. The saved seven were sent away to Kingston to wait for exile to Quebec, but complications arose.

In current day Port Hope, the group stopped for the night and the prisoners were locked in a cabin. In the morning, the militia guards found four of the seven had escaped. Three would be recaptured, but one man, Stephen Hartwell was never recovered, and never found.

A few months later, at the end of the Winter 1814, typhus fever spread through Kingston and hit the prison. Three more of the seven died, leaving only three men to receive pardons from the British on the stipulation that they must leave Upper Canada and leave all their “British possessions” behind.

The Bloody Assizes
__________________________________

It’s July 19th, 1814, and eight men wait in the basement of the Ancaster mill (it’s the same building that now houses the Ancaster Old Mill Restaurant). They have been caged rats for a month now, after learning they are set to die. This is the eve of their death and the men are quiet, none wanting to accept what was about to happen, the reality of the spectacle that would occur at Burlington Heights on Wednesday, July 20th, 1814.

The next morning they were transported from the mill to Burlington Heights, borrowed land from a mill owner named Richard Beasley. Beasley was an original pioneer of Ancaster with James Wilson. He owned the land at the heights that would be purchased by Sir Allan MacNab in 1826 for the building of Dundurn Castle.

We believe the location of the gallows to be across the street, between the Admiral Inn and Hamilton Cemetery. A long platform with a supported wooden beam was setup with eight nooses draped carefully over it.

This is where history fails us. Were the men hanged and drawn and quartered, or just hanged?

We don’t know for sure as the facts have been blurred over the years. Some of the confusion could come from the original namesake of the “Bloody Assizes”. This was a series of trials in England after the Battle of Sedgemoor. Some of the 300 men and woman sentenced to die were drawn and quartered.

If the men at Burlington Heights met this gruesome death, they would have been put through different and horrific steps, each representing one part of the crime.

For theft related to the trust of a monarchy, the condemned would be hanged, but not until dead. For coming between the King, Queen and their loyal subjects, the condemned would be disembowelled and his organs burnt.

And to ensure the condemned would be unrecognizable in this life and the next, the body was quartered, and the parts were left to decompose before the family was allowed to bury them. At this point the human would be a pile of mush, and the humiliation was complete.

One true depiction of the event escapes to the future. It happened during the hanging, as all eight men struggled for air while being held up by that wooden beam. The crowd noticed it first, seeing the structure start to sag.

Being that a public execution was great entertainment in the day, the crowd would not have been satisfied if the gallows collapsed, so the strongest of men stepped forward to support the sagging wood and ensure that the execution carried on.

We know that eight men died at Burlington Heights in 1814 for the charge of treason. How they died, and if they were even guilty to start with, will always remain a mystery. It’s stories like this that give us a portal to the past, and a mirror to look in when new wars are waged, and new enemies are found.

Daniel Cumerlato
Founder of Haunted Hamilton Ghost Walks & Events

** Photos courtesy of Guildwood Village Community Association

top