The Saga of Naming our Town
The word ‘Niagara’ may have derived from the Neutral Nation’s “Onguiaahra”, which first appeared in writing in the Jesuit Relations of 1641.
But what was the name of the settlement established on the river’s west bank in 1778 by Colonel John Butler? There are several answers. During the years 1781-91, it was sometimes designated the Settlement at Niagara, and it may also have been called Loyal Town, Butler’s Town or Butlersburg. In 1787 and 1788, men petitioned for land grants at Niagara. An example is a memorial dated October 22, 1788, from Lieutenant Colonel John Butler and “officers of the late Corps of Rangers and Indian Department at Niagara”. In February of 1791 the name Lenox appears for a possible survey of the town along the Niagara River. It may have been to honour Charles Lennox, an important member of the British government, but that name soon disappeared and the town was laid out at the mouth of the river.
The next change came from the fertile imagination of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe who actively promoted the use of names from England for Upper Canada’s pioneer settlements. From 1792, our town was called Newark, after its namesake in Nottinghamshire.
Four years later, Simcoe moved the capital to York with the first mention of the council meeting there on April 6, 1796. It is claimed that when Simcoe moved the capital to York, “the loss of its prestige and official importance so incensed the inhabitants that they refused to continue the new name imposed upon them by Governor Simcoe and reverted at once to the name of West Niagara.”
On January 1,1800, the name Newark was changed to Niagara for both the town and township by authority of a 1798 Act of the legislature of Upper Canada. In 1801, S.Tiffany began publishing the Niagara Herald showing the acceptance of this name. Nevertheless, the name of Newark lingered on maps and sometimes in travellers’ accounts. Niagara was incorporated as town in 1850.
The name Niagara-on-the-Lake (sometimes unhyphenated) may have come into use among its residents late in the nineteenth century. It was finally made official in 1902 by the Canadian Post Office, probably to distinguish it from Niagara Falls.
Written by Wes Turner