CHAPTER VIII. VISIT TO DETROIT AND THE MOHAWKS. N sooner had the Legislature been prorogued the development of the province. There is among the Smith manuscripts an autograph letter of the Governor, written from Navy Hall to D. W. Smith, Acting Surveyor-General, Upper Canada, drawing his attention to the care which should be observed in guarding the interests of the Crown in regard to mill sites. 'Navy Hall," at the top of this letter, reminds us that Navy Hall was the name of the residence of the Governor in Newark. It was a plain frame building, and until taken possession of by the Governor, on his arrival in Newark, had been used for the housing of navy stores that is, stores of the Government for use in the lake navy, which consisted of vessels of war adapted to the navigation of Lake Ontario, and manned by men from the Royal Navy. Speculation has been indulged in as to where Navy Hall really was located. I have procured from the archives at Ottawa information which establishes without doubt that the site of the Hall was on the bank of the Niagara River, just under where Fort George stands. The Fort, which is a wreck of what it was, was constructed nearly a century ago, and was one of the forts in the system of fortifications intended to counteract the designs of an enemy on the old Fort Niagara on the opposite side of the river. In a report by Gother Mann, commanding the Royal Engineers, dated the 22nd September, 1789, on the state of the fortifications, etc., Niagara and Navy Hall are reported upon together. After referring to Fort Niagara and the re-establishing of the north demibastion, which had been greatly damaged and partly washed away by the fury of the lake, the report goes on to state: "A survey of the heights also, on the opposite side of the river about Navy Hall, has been made with a view to ascertain the best system for fortifying the same so as to establish a permanent post there, and which might also counteract the designs of an enemy in his attack on the Fort of Niagara." Again, on the 1st March, 1790, Mann reports "that the space on which Fort Niagara stands is diminishing from the depredations of the lake"; and as to Navy Hall, "that the ground above Navy Hall, if chosen for a principal post, will admit a wall of good capacity, but, as it will be retired from the river, there must be subordinate batteries on the banks thereof to command the passage; it will be about sixteen hundred yards distant from the Fort at Niagara, which, though within the distance of annoying an enemy, could not prevent his carrying on operations against the Fort." It was on the report of Gother Mann that the ground above Navy Hall was chosen as the site of Fort George. Navy Hall itself was not so much a building as a cluster or group of buildings. The map of Newark, in the Smith collection of papers, Public Library, Toronto, proves this to have been the case. This map, prepared by Mr. Chewett in 1804, shows four buildings as comprising Navy Hall. One of these buildings was a long structure, standing at right-angles to the river, and there were three others just beside this main building to the north-west, and built parallel with the river. It was not to be supposed that the Governor, on taking up his residence in the Capital, would find either a castle or palace to receive him. Nor did he. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who visited Governor Simcoe in 1795, referring to the house occupied by the Governor, described it as a "small, miserable, wooden house, which was formerly occupied by the commissaries." There is every reason to believe that a torch was applied to the main building by the Americans in 1813. The frame building still to be seen near the ruins of Fort George formed a portion of the original Navy Hall. Mrs. Simcoe's sketch of Navy Hall, made in 1794 from the deck of the government sloop Missisagua, then lying at the mouth of the Niagara River, shows two buildings forming Navy Hall, one a long building at right-angles to the river, the other parallel to the river. The long building at right-angles to the river is not there now. It was the main building, the one occupied by the Governor as his residence, and preponderance of tradition says was burnt by the Americans in 1813, though I have not been able to find any historical record of the fact. Governor Simcoe, while he occupied Navy Hall, generally had on duty four men from Fort Niagara, opposite, which we must remember was still in possession of the British. The Queen's Rangers were quartered in Fort Niagara, but a guard from the regiment was regularly posted at Navy Hall. Mr. Brymner, the archivist at Ottawa, says that it appears from the records there that on the 7th September, 1796, David Shank, Major-Captain Queen's Rangers commanding, forwarded to Captain Greene, Military Secretary, two estimates of the expense of removing the surplus ordnance stores to Quebec, one |