The community of Beamsville (2011 Urban area estimated population 10,679) is part of the town of Lincoln in the province of Ontario in Canada. It is located along the southern shore of Lake Ontario and lies within the fruit belt of the Niagara Peninsula. It contains century-old brick buildings, an old-fashioned downtown area with barbershops, women’s dress shops, a bakery, a print shop, restaurants, banks, and other businesses, and plenty of orchards and vineyards.
The Queen Elizabeth Way – the main road that connects Toronto and Buffalo, New York has an interchange at Beamsville. Many tourists stop off at the highway exit for something to eat at the many fast food restaurants located nearby.
Beamsville is in the heart of Ontario’s wine country and contributes greatly to the wine industry in the Niagara Peninsula. Many wineries from the area have taken home top awards, including Grape King at the Niagara Grape & Wine Festival, as well as international awards. A short list of Beamsville wineries include; Malivoire, Fielding Estate Winery, Hidden Bench Estate Winery, Organized Crime Winery, Thirty Bench, Angel’s Gate, Peninsula Ridge, Cave Spring Cellars, Daniel Lenko Estate Winery, Magnotta, Mountain Road Winery, Legends Estates, Megalomaniac winery, and Crown Bench.
Beamsville, Ontario was named after Jacob Beam (1728-1812), a United Empire Loyalist. Both of his homes — the original one located on the Thirty Mile Creek, as well as the one near downtown Beamsville — are still intact today.
Jacob and Catharine Beam (1737-1820), along with their daughter Catharine (Beam) Merrell (1766-1842), and son-in-law Samuel Merrell (1758-1833), emigrated to Canada from New Jersey in 1788, and founded Beamsville.
By 1869, Beamsville was a village with a population of 550 in the Township of Clinton, Lincoln County. It was on the Great Western Railway. The average price of land in vicinity was $45.
In 1898, hockey players in the town of Beamsville were the first to make use of a hockey net.
In 1917 the Royal Flying Corps established a School of Aerial Fighting on the farmland immediately east of Beamsville. The school consisted of a camp, an airfield, and a gunnery range over Lake Ontario. Today an historical plaque at 4222 Sann Road marks the geographical centre of the 300 acre school property. The building adjacent to the plaque is an original hangar.
In 1970, the Town of Beamsville was amalgamated with Clinton Township and (half of) Louth Township to form the larger Town of Lincoln.
Grimsby is a town on Lake Ontario in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. Grimsby is a part of the Hamilton Census Metropolitan Area.[2] It is named after the English fishing town of Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire. The majority of residents reside in the area bounded by Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment. The escarpment (colloquially known as ‘the mountain’) is home to a section of the Bruce Trail.[3]
Grimsby has experienced significant growth over the past decade as the midpoint between Hamilton and St. Catharines. Growth is limited by the natural boundaries of Lake Ontario and the Niagara Escarpment. Some residents feel that development is detrimental to the town as orchards close to the town centre are used for residential development; however, most of the orchards in Grimsby were replaced by houses between the 1950s and 1980s and very few orchards remain.
Some notable attractions in Grimsby are the local skatepark, the Grimsby Museum, the Grimsby Public Library, the Grimsby Public Art Gallery, the West Niagara YMCA, the Danish Church and the hockey arena (Peach King Centre), home of the Grimsby Peach Kings.
The town of Grimsby was founded in 1790 (originally named Township Number 6 and then ‘The Forty’), after a group of United Empire Loyalists settled at the mouth of 40 Mile Creek in 1787. Robert Nelles, a politician and later lieutenant-colonel in the War of 1812, was one of the main founders of the town. His home, located on Main Street West, was used for many planning sessions during the war. In 1816 the village became known as Grimsby, the name of the surrounding township. Canada’s first Chautauqua was established in 1859 in Grimsby Park and Beach but by 1900 interest had declined and by 1909 it had ceased. The Village of Grimsby was officially incorporated in 1876 and became a town in 1922. The town has gone through numerous changes, being first a small rural village; then a centre for the manufacture of farm machinery, hospital furniture, furnaces and other metal products; and later the hub of the Niagara Peninsula’s fruit-growing industry. For many years, Grimsby also had a successful fishing industry which lasted until the 1960s. The Town of Grimsby and the Township of North Grimsby were amalgamated in 1970 with the formation of the Regional Municipality of Niagara. With a number of wineries and distilleries, Grimsby now serves as the starting point for touring the Niagara wine region.
Grimsby is also the birthplace of a now forgotten Hollywood director, Del Lord. He rose to acclaim as the director of most of the Three Stooges short vaudeville comedies. Later, under Columbia Pictures, he also directed nearly 200 feature films.
Grimsby Beach was once a major holiday resort. Grimsby Park started in 1846 as a park for the Hamilton district of the Methodist Church. In 1910, the park’s new owner, Harry Wylie, modernized the park with carousels, a motion picture theater, and a “Figure 8” roller coaster. Canada Steamship Lines bought out the park in 1916, but the park declined through the 1920s, mainly due to multiple fires that consumed many of the wooden buildings. Operations continued until 1949, with attractions gradually closing and developers buying land to build houses.