From town founders to politicians, from community to carpentry, and from brewers to Burgoynes, this classically designed brick home near the Twelve Mile Creek could be the history of St. Catharines in microcosm!  Sean visits 15 Trafalgar Street – sometimes referred to as Burgoyne House – a property whose history goes even beyond its famous namesake family and touches on the foundations of the City of St. Catharines. This is History from Here: a video series presented by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre. 

The house that stands here today was built in 1870 and was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2001. The property’s impressive story, however, goes back to the earliest days of European settlement. The first European owner of this lot, which at the time included much of what we now consider downtown St. Catharines, was Scottish merchant and land speculator Robert Hamilton. Hamilton was based in Queenston and owned approximately 130,000 acres of land, or approximately one third of the Niagara Peninsula. In St. Catharines, he is known to have operated some of the earliest mills and possibly the first store in what would become downtown. What makes his St. Catharines connection so notable, however, is that Robert’s wife Catherine is the most likely candidate for being the namesake of the city. 

The lot’s next owner was none other than canal-builder-extraordinaire William Hamilton Merritt. Merritt used parts of this large property to build a home, a salt works, two mills, and a store, but he also started selling and renting sections of it. One of these renters, local carpenter Rufus Wright, began living on this portion around 1816. 

Rufus Wright was one of the town’s earliest Methodists, and the local congregation’s first service was held at a house he built, possibly right here, in 1816. Wright also built the house that still stands around the corner at 34 Yates as a dowry for his daughter. Wright died in 1870 and the land at 15 Trafalgar was sold to Calvin Brown, who likely had the original house torn down and a new one constructed; the one that stands today. 

Brown was a prominent lawyer who, in 1876, became the first mayor of the newly incorporated City of St. Catharines. He was one of the earliest notable citizens to be born, raised, educated, and to have made a successful career all in St. Catharines. Brown attended Grantham Academy – the precursor to the St. Catharines Collegiate – and, early in his career, also managed a local bank, a loans and savings company, and even a gas lighting company. Starting in 1867 he switched to politics and served several terms as a town councillor and school board trustee before becoming mayor. 

Brown lived in this house for four years before selling it to another local mover and shaker in 1874. James Taylor, founder of Taylor and Bate Brewery, lived here for 16 years. Taylor was already in his 60s by this point and likely mostly retired, but the house was situated just steps from the brewery in case any business should arise. 

After James Taylor, we finally arrive at the family with whom this house is most associated. In 1890, 15 Trafalgar Street was purchased by Mary Lavinia Burgoyne, wife of soon-to-be St. Catharines Standard Newspaper founder William Bartlett Burgoyne. It remained in the Burgoyne family for the next 106 years. But the Burgoyne connection to this property goes even deeper. Rufus Wright, the Methodist carpenter who lived on this plot for some 50 years, happens to have been W.B. Burgoyne’s maternal grandfather.   

Beyond its impressive name associations, this house has several notable architectural features. It was extensively remodeled and expanded in the 1920s and showcases the Classical Revival style. It includes elaborate brickwork, an oriel window, decorative limestone lugsills, and exceptionally tall windows and doors. The house’s original, much lower roofline can still be made out, and is typical of more compact designs before modern heating. The house is also notable for facing away from Trafalgar Street, which is evidence of the fact that Ontario Lane was once a through street. Today it only increases the house’s privacy and exclusiveness. 15 Trafalgar is located just outside the Yates Street Heritage District, contributing to the area’s exciting sampling of architectural styles and time periods.  

The house was at one time willed to the city by Stanley Van Every with the stipulation that it be used as an art gallery dedicated to his deceased wife Claire Burgoyne. But when Van Every died in 1973, council had a look at repair and maintenance costs and decided to decline the gift. It was to remain in family hands for another 23 years.  

With such an abundantly rich history of industry, canals, agriculture, sports, and the arts, it can be easy to forget that at its foundation, St. Catharines has been a place where real people come to live and raise families. 15 Trafalgar Street has been a place that carpenters, brewers, mayors, and news moguls could call home. And so too has St. Catharines.