Excerpt from Richardson's War of 1812: With Notes and a Life of the Author On the Canadian Side of the Niagara river, just where its foaming and turbulent waters issue from the narrow, rocky gorge, stands the straggling village of Queenston. The place at the present time is of very little importance except as a terminal port for a magnificent fleet of pleasure vessels that carry tourists and excursion parties to visit the Falls, five or six miles farther up the river. But as the scene of one of the proudest victories of Canadian and British arms during the War of 1812 Queenston has won a fame that is world-wide. The settlement proper of the country dates from the close of the Revolutionary war, when the disbanded soldiers of Butler's Rangers and other United Empire Loyalists took up grants of land on the banks of the river. At the mouth of the river there soon grew up the town of Niagara (newark), opposite Fort Niagara, at that time and until 1796 in the hands Of the British. The great highway of the trade with Detroit and other western settlements was the Niagara, and as this trade increased the laden vessels from the lakes were taken as far up the river as possible, to shorten the portage around the Falls. This head of navigation was called at first the New Landing, and later Queenstown. Thus favorably Situated for trade, the new town prospered and soon became the home of several pioneer merchants, who never dreamed that the stream of commerce could possibly find any other course. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.